I’d always heard that SRW 3 was a significantly harder game than its relatively easier predecessor, but after how relatively and surprisingly challenging the Complete Box edition of 2 turned out to be, I was hopeful that SRW 3 wouldn’t be that bad, especially once I learned that it had a true ending and true final mission locked behind beating the game under a certain total turn limit. I knew I was in for a bumpy ride, but after having so much fun with SRW3, I just had to give this one a genuine try. It took me about twice as many days, so I reckon about twice as many total hours, to beat SRW 3 as it did for me to beat 2, so probably like 60 or 70 hours in total for me to beat the Japanese version of the game on real hardware with the true ending.

SRW 3 picks up a few months after where SRW 2 leaves off, with our heroes’ battle against the Divine Crusaders not only resuming, but the impending alien threat that the DC were ostencibly accumulating totalitarian power to combat also finally arriving at Earth’s doorstep. In what the series would come to call The Inspector Incident, a powerful alien armada of enigmatic but bumbling galactic watchmen have come to destroy humanity. In gameplay terms, this means both more One Year War UC Gundam stuff (which is neat to see as it was in the last game) as well as fighting against this new threat. Though you aren’t alone in your battle, as this is when non-Gundam/-Getter Robo/-Mazinger franchises start gracing SRW, as Combattler V, Daitarn 3, and Raideen grace the series with the first of what would be many appearances (particularly for the former 2). As with the other Winky Soft SRW games, the writing here is hardly high art or going for any particular kind of pathos outside of the once in a while cinematic recreations of iconic moments from the represented shows (many of which are over comically fast), but it’s silly and quick-paced crossover fun that gets the job done to facilitate the action and never outstays its welcome. It continues to do a lot with just a little text, in that manner, which is something I’ll always appreciate Winky Soft’s approach for doing in such an entertaining way.

As for gameplay, this is effectively identical to how the Complete Box edition of SRW2 had changed the overall mechanics of the original Super Famicom game. There have been some changes in regards to balancing in regards to how good certain units are, with Gundams overall getting a bit of a boost and the Daitarn being better balanced than he usually is before this point, but the Getter Robo in particular still being strong yet nowhere near as dominant, but the bigger changes are in campaign and map design. As for maps, we’re getting closer towards what things would come to be like in F/F Final, where you have quite strong bosses, generally quite strong normal enemies, and reinforcements being much more common sights than they were in SRW 2. We thankfully don’t have reinforcements quite as numerous or mean as they were in the F series of games quite yet, but we’re definitely taking baby steps in that general direction. We also start getting a lot more units, more like basically every other game from this point on, so while it’s understandable in is execution, we’ve decidedly moved away from the whole “fielding your entire small army every map” design that SRW 2 uses so well.

It’s really the campaign design that’s one of the most interesting things about this one, however. As previously stated, this game has a true final mission locked behind beating it’s normal final mission in under 350 turns (lowered from the 420 turns of the SFC original). Now I managed to do that in about 310 turns as I played about as quickly and conservatively as I could (probably only could’ve gotten here 3 or 4 turns faster, realistically), so the turn timer isn’t exactly as strict as something like Alpha 3’s would turn out to be. However, what makes that total turn limit counter interesting is that this game doesn’t just have route splits (and is the first game in the series to do so), but this game also has outright shortcuts in most of them. It’s often stated to you in in-game dialogue (though I used a flowchart guide to help plot the most efficient route to the end), but many of the choices you get to pick your route split will give you an option between a longer route and a shorter route. These longer routes really add up as well, as the smallest amount of missions you can beat the game with is something like 34, while the highest amount is more like 51. You could always take the longer route and grind for more money and experience points, sure, and that’s particularly valuable in the first half or so of the game where you feel really remarkably outgunned by your opposition, but take 3 or 4 extra missions and you very might well push yourself out of the threshold necessary to get that true ending.

It’s gonna be really tempting to just take your time and do the extra missions too. That first third or half of the game, heck even the very first few missions, are damn hard and far too reliant on RNG to actually survive, let alone do well on them. By the end of the game, you’ll likely be hitting the soft level cap anyhow with a lot of your best troops (as once you hit level 60 you can still level up, but it takes twice as much experience now), so it ultimately doesn’t matter that much in the end game, but that true final battle is really brutal regardless. If you haven’t done your due diligence leveling up your super robots, you’ll very likely simply lack the firepower necessary to beat it, even with unlimited turns to do it (as was very nearly the case for me). This difficulty cliff you’ve gotta overcome right at the start is easily SRW 3’s biggest weakness, as even in this remake, it’s a significant problem whether you’re going for the true ending or not. This whole system of differently long routes and weird difficulty curves isn’t executed the best, even in this remake, and I’m kinda happy that it’s not an idea that they ever really revisit in this way, but it’s a neat idea that gives SRW 3 a certain special kind of charm, even if that charm is often more negative than it is positive.

If you’ve read my review of the Complete Box edition of SRW 2, there really isn’t any more to say here than there is there. The robots are still cool but very stiff in that old Winky Soft way, and the Inspector leader craft in particular have a neat and distinctive look to them. The music tracks of the new series are cool to see though, and I quite like this version of the Daitarn 3 theme in particular. However it is sad that one of my favorite tracks, the Great Mazinger theme (which is actually in this game after not being in 2 despite the Great actually being in that game), seems to not quite have been encoded correctly, as the first few notes are very clearly flat and the whole song sounds really off as a result. That’s hardly a truly deal-breaking error, sure, but it’s still such a weird and unmissable thing that I couldn’t not mention it here.

Verdict: Recommended. I certainly didn’t enjoy this as much as the CB remake of SRW 2, but this is still a fine SRW game, warts and all. It’s hardly my favorite, but particularly once you get past the start, the balancing is good enough that this game is plenty good fun to puzzle your way through ,especially if you’re not like me and don’t mind only getting a normal ending instead of the true one XP

Game Review - originally written by Spinner 8

This is a review that, honestly, does not need to be written. Basically, everyone who could ever hope to love a series like Super Robot Wars already knows about it. It’s a mecha fanboy’s wetdream; it brings together mecha from all these different anime into one universe, and has them fight each other in pretty wicked little fight animations. What’s the official SRW3 count? Gundam 0079, Char’s Counterattack, Gundam 0080, Gundam 0083, Z Gundam, ZZ Gundam, Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, UFO Robo Grendizer, Yuusha Raideen, Getta Robo, Daitarn 3, Choudenji Robo ComBattler V, and the Masoukishin originals. Whatever those are.

I’ll be blunt here. This is a nice, decent strategy RPG, but if you’re like most non-Japanese who have never even heard of most of those series, then you simply won’t enjoy the game. Which is also why you will never, ever, see these games outside of Japan. This is a game made by fanboys for fanboys, and anyone who falls into that category will absolutely adore it. Have fun, you crazy guys you!