While not amazing as some other entries in the series, this one was not only my first game into the super robot wars series but into mecha in general. Coming from somebody who enjoyed a ton of Fire Emblem in the past, the animations on this one were like night and day to any FE games. From removable arms and yo -yos to missile barrages and planet destroying giant freaking axes this game was a blast. And ofc the OST on these is always great. The series featured on this one were great as a starting point of how crazy and awesome this series can be and i will always be grateful for that.

In all honesty, this one was a bit of a step down from it's prequel. We go from one of the best plots in SRW to a pretty good one but it does start showing some bloat, something I feel some of these sequel games in SRW suffer from most of the time.

I didn't say it was bad tho, I had a lot of fun with this one and it had some phenomenal debuts like Dai-Guard, VOTOMS, Gundam 00, Code Geass and Gurren Lagann. The new sub-order mechanic is also a very fun feature to substitute the Squad System in Z1 and the animations, despite losing the smaller details in the enviroment like Z1 had, maintain a high grade of detail still with some fantastic new animations as well.

I hope Saisei-hen gives more hype moments too as I feel this game was a tad bit subdued in the bigger moments.

8.2/10

Hakai-hen was fucking magical. When it was first revealed in those Famitsu scans way back then that roster, those debuts just seemed way too fucking good to be true. They basically just dropped a huge bombshell with every single major show from the past decade AND a majority of the cast from the first game returning too. Funnily enough, it's only when said ZEUTH returners come back midway through the game does the game start wear out its luster, and Saisei-hen only makes the bloat more apparent.

That being said, the ZEXIS half of Hakai-hen is still just really fucking good - we are never going to experience the debuts of big names like 00, Geass, TTGL, VOTOMS and motherfucking DAI-GUARD (the greatest anime of all time) ever again. The animations are the best mainline SRW has ever had, too. The only bad things I can really say about it is the fact that we went from full busts and an isometric map we've come to expect from mainline entries to the boxed portraits and a 2d grid like the portables. Still fucking good though and it's a shame Saisei dropped the ball.