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Send Three and Fourpence! We?re Going to a Dance! Let?s Play Super Robot Wars Judgement
Judgement Justice
What the hell is this?
Released in late 2005, Super Robot Wars Judgement is the final Super Robot Wars game to come out on the Gameboy Advance.
Isn?t Robot Wars that remote control pit fighting show?
Yes, but that?s not what this game is about. Super Robot Wars is a long running series of turn based strategy RPG games that take various giant robot anime series and throw them in a great big blender to see what happens. It is awesome. Unfortunately the vast majority of games haven?t been released anywhere outside Japan because of reasons but thankfully the Romhacking Aerie released a comprehensive translation patch for this game back in winter 2010 so we can get the full experience here.
There?ve been a couple of translation patches for other games as well as some of the Original Generation games getting official localisations. There?ve also been some Let?s Plays on SA but the only completed one to my knowledge is Tobias Grant?s Alpha Gaiden playthrough which is well worth a read. There?s also an inordinate amount of LPs currently going but I?m pretty sure nobody?s covered J yet so here we go.
So how?s this going to work?
Pretty standard, I play through the game and post screenshots and transcripts (and maybe some short videos if I can get FRAPs working) of what happens. You guys tell me what mechs and pilots you want to see more of and vote for things like route splits. And on that note, before we even get started there are already three votes I need from you guys.
Vote Number 1: Main Character
Since the second SRW game Banpresto have included original characters in almost every instalment they?ve released. They usually take the protagonist role to tie the different series together and J is no exception. We have two choices available.
A. Toya Shiun
A totally normal high school student until the day a battle between Jovian Lizards and Mazinger Z starts outside his school, a mysterious giant robot containing three girls gets dropped on him and despite having no experience with mechs he finds himself dragooned into piloting in combat. Toya?s story starts with him being extremely reluctant to fight, but the circumstances force him into battle.
B. Calvina Coulange
Unlike Toya, Calvina is already a fully trained ace pilot before the game even begins, in fact she?s good enough to have earned the sobriquet ?White Lynx?. Those days are behind her now as she took a contract in a corporation?s mobile weapon development division where she served as a piloting instructor. After the branch was destroyed in an attack by an unknown enemy she was left as the only survivor and, traumatised by the event, she chose not to pilot again. Two months later she accepts a job as an advisor on the Nadesico.
Vote Number 2: Main Mecha
It wouldn?t be Super Robot Wars without robots and Toya or Calvina is going to need a ride, we have three options available and both pilots can choose any of them.
This is a good point to quickly explain some SRW terminology; robots can usually be classified as Super or Real type. Real robot stories are your Gundam and Macross shows which have a more ?realistic? style (these being giant robot that is only for a given value of realistic) and mechs are often treated as fancier tanks that happen to be bipedal. Super robots are your Mazingers and Getters, one of a kind ultra-powerful robots fighting alone against armies of monsters of the week, attack names are yelled and blood is hot.
There can be a huge amount of debate about what shows are Real and what are Super but I don?t want to get into that and for the purposes of SRW, Real is dodgy and accurate, Super is big and strong but slow.
A. Bellzelute
Our evasive Real type option, the Bellzelute can?t take hits very well but it has excellent range on its attacks and good evasion so it probably won?t actually take that many. It might be slightly less exciting than getting up close and going all rip and tear, but having the highest base movement gives it an unparalleled ability to cover huge swathes of the map with missiles and beams.
B. Coustwell
Technically a Real type but really more of a hybrid option and my personal favourite, it doesn?t dodge as well as pure Reals and it can?t take hits like Supers (I like to think of it as this game?s Alt Eisen) and together with its lack of range it probably makes for the most risky option. Keep it alive though and it will punch the shit out of everything forever.
C. Granteed
It?s big, it punches, it has stupid good armour, a beam from the head and a chest blaster, what more do I need to say? It?s a classic super robot through and through and if you vote for it then it will tear our enemies apart.
D. Mystery option
Okay so spoiler alert there?s a fourth secret robot you can pick upon completing the game with each of the other three so if you guys really want I'll use the cheat code to unlock it.
Vote Number 3: Favourite Series
The final thing I need you guys to vote on is which three series are our favourites. This may sound like an entirely cosmetic choice and god knows getting a group of people to agree on anything related to giant robot shows is an exercise in absolute futility but it does actually have a few effects. Any mechs from the three chosen series have 15 available upgrade slots for each stat (by default each stat has up to 10 slots available depending on the mech) allowing you to make your units insanely strong if you have the funds. Of course having the funds to full upgrade the units is the one thing that prevents that kind of stat pumping because grinding for that kind of cash is pretty soul destroying. We do get a slight bit of help with that because any units from chosen series have an experience and money gained bonus which varies from 20% to 50% depending on how many units the series brings to the game, the less units the greater the bonus. On new game plus playthroughs you get to favourite another three series on top of your previous picks until everything gets the bonus.
This vote also provides a really convenient way for me to give a brief introduction to the shows that appear in this game so here we go:
A. Banpresto Originals
The game?s main character and the plot thread that will eventually bring everything else together. You?ve already met the pilots and mechs so there isn?t really that much more to say about them at the start, there?s only the one unit in Judgement so they get the full 1.5 exp and money bonus. I tend to select originals on the first time through a Super Robot Wars game as they tend to be relatively powerful and are almost never unavailable for deployment but that?s just my personal preference.
B. Mobile Fighter G Gundam
This hand of mine glows with an awesome power! Ridiculous martial artists in ridiculous giant robots fight each other using ridiculous special attacks. The story of a martial arts tournament in giant robots to decide which country gets to rule the world while an even bigger evil Gundam goes around trying to wreck shit for everyone. Seriously. This is easily the most unusual Gundam (and pretty unusual for mecha in general).
C. Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
Fairly standard Gundam fare, SEED is the story of a teenager who falls into the cockpit of a powerful prototype mobile suit and must pilot it to protect his friends and trying to end the war between Earth?s government and an alliance of space colonies stop me if you?ve heard this all before.
Judgement has Gundam SEED taking the role that UC Gundam usually takes in a Super Robot Wars game. SEED is basically a modernised version of the original Mobile Suit Gundam so it comes with the usual Gundam political backdrop of corrupt governments and the Earth Sphere at war, which can then be used as a backdrop for the more unusual series? plots.
D. Blue Comet SPT Layzner
I love Layzner so damn much and I haven?t even watched the show yet, the Layzner itself is so very pretty even though the sprite for this game does make it look a little dumpy. This is the story of the alien Grados Empire?s invasion of earth and the main character?s efforts to bring a peaceful resolution to the conflict
E. Brain Powerd
This is a really odd one. It?s made by happy Tomino so it doesn?t end up as one of his kill ?em all shows but it is damn strange. The mechs in this are actually living creatures and the pilots are more like baby sitters than anything else. The opening is 
and easily the best part of the show.
F. Martian Successor Nadesico
Pretty much the super robot parody series, Nadesico takes great pleasure in screwing around with the standard motifs of the giant robot genre. The story is about lizards from Jupiter (because in giant robot anime, everything is Jupiter?s fault) invading Earth and what romantic difficulties the main character can get into while on a ship crewed almost entirely by crazy people. Guess which ship we use as one of our main battleships in this game.
G. Space Knight Tekkaman Blade
In which we observe the tragic adventures of a man who actually has the worst life ever while weird plant aliens invade earth. Not strictly a giant robot show, instead being closer to powered armour, a Tekkaman is one of the smallest units in SRW ever at barely over 2 metres in height. It?s still totally awesome and I don?t care what anyone says, Blade is never warming the bench. 
H. Full Metal Panic!
An elite soldier from an anti-terrorist mercenary organisation is assigned to protect a high school student from people who want to kidnap her. He has never known any life outside the military and thus has exactly zero knowledge of socially acceptable behaviour, she has a short temper and no patience for the way he acts. Needless to say, teen romance and giant robot battles ensue.
I. Mazinkaiser
An early 21st century update to the father of all piloted giant robot anime, Mazinger Z with a ridiculously powerful upgrade for the main character and the characters and mechs from Great Mazinger included. A simple tale of Kouji Kabuto and Tetsuya Tsurugi and their battle to protect earth from the insane scientist Doctor Hell (Go Nagai was not trying to be subtle when he created this villain) who wants nothing more than to rule the world.
J. Combattler V
One of the classic Super Robot shows known collectively as the Robot Romance Trilogy (of which we get two in this game). Combattler V follows a fairly standard formula for giant robots, 5 vehicles combine to form a single giant robot which battles to protect the earth from and evil empire and its army monsters of the week. The unit itself is statistically not as powerful as other super robots in the game but it has five pilots each with their own set of spirit commands (more on those later) which you can use to compensate for that. The V in the title is pronounced as the letter V.
K. Voltes V
Our second of member of the Robot Romance Trilogy and the mech that brought down a real world dictator. Everything I said about Combattler V applies here as well; a classic combining super robot made from five smaller vehicles battles to protect earth from an evil empire and its army of monsters of the week, the mech has worse stats than single pilot mechs made up for by having five pilots. Honestly these two might as well be seasons of the same show and SRW really knows it. The V in the title is pronounced as ?5?.
L. Dancougar
Yet another multi pilot combining unit, Dancougar is obviously a Super itself but the show it hails has a much more militaristic Real Robot feel. This show is the tale of the elite Cyber Beast Force and their battle to protect earth from, you guessed it, an evil empire and the most metrosexual traitor in history. Dancougar itself was designed by Masami Obari and is thus completely fantastic.
M. Hades Project Zeorymer
This is another really odd show; it is basically the ultimate expression of the invincible hero. This is reflected pretty well in J as Zeorymer itself is easily the strongest unit we get with crazy good attacks, ridiculously strong armour and a special ability that makes it almost untouchable. We get the OVA adaptation instead of the original manga version and thank Christ for that; the manga is a pretty massive example of Japanese fiction being Creepy As Fuck. Getting the OVA means we only have the complete dickhead of a main character to put up with.
Seriously, fuck the Zeorymer manga.
So from reading this you?ve probably noticed that, as is entirely normal for Super Robot Wars games, the Earth is pretty much constantly screwed in a dozen different ways at once and it?s all on our small team of elite pilots and their support crew to clean up all of this shit, the military certainly isn?t going to manage it by itself.
So yes, three things to vote for, 1 pilot, 1 mech and 3 favourites. Go!