Metal Monsters: Mechs From Gundam to Pacific Rim

[SAMAS]

Ooooh yeah, we're ripping you some new ones for this article. My particular contribution will be over this sentence:

When it comes to mechs in videogames, no developer has greater love affair with the metal monsters than Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima.

The developers with the biggest love for Mecha is this little bunch right here:

Banpresto, formerly the videogame-making portion of Bandai (who makes toys and all those Gundam models), who merged with Namco a while back. The guys who make this little series right here:

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Yes, that is Gundams fighting alongside Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, Evangelion, Macross, Virtual On, GaoGaiGar, and about a couple dozen giant robot series' you probably never heard of.


<youtube=aIWJEfm63M0>

Yes, that's more Gundam fighting alongside Mazinger Z, Macross, The Big O, Code Geass, Eureka Seven, Gurren Lagann, and about a dozen more giant robot series' you probably never heard of.

<youtube=_1bk8cZPaT8>

Yes, that's even more Gundam and Mazinger with GaoGaiGar, Nadesico, Tekkaman Blade (see also Tatsunoko vs Capcom), and motherfraggin' VOLTRON (actually Hundred Beast King Golion, the show made into Voltron, but still!), with about a half dozen series you actually might have known about, because every single one of the ones in this particular game actually was brought over to the West.

That's how much Banpresto loves Giant Robots. They make a game, and can put other people's Mechs in them. In fact, when they were first asking to put Evangelion into their series, Hideki Anno himself told Gainax to say yes.

The series in question is of course the Super Robot Wars series. Think a cross between Final Fantasy Tactics and Super Smash Bros, with Giant Mechs as the theme instead of Nintendo.

How big are they? Well, in most games of the series, they usually add a couple of new heroes and villains that aren't part of an anime series, to provide a viewpoint character and a Big Bad to cap the whole thing off. Well, they made so many games that they found out that they could make a Super Robot Wars series using only their original characters.


And that got an anime.

<youtube=CcxXfWHL4qc>
Two of them, in fact (and an OAV).

 

[SAMAS]

I don't know how popular Mazinger Z was in the US but I can assure you it's still fondly remembered by even non-geeks as one of the most classic cartoons of our youth in south america, right there with he-man, robotech, and the ninja turtles

Yeah, Mazinger Z was a huge hit in Europe and South America, and Grendizer was similarly big in the Arab speaking world.

Grendizer was pretty big in Italy too, as far as I've heard.

In fact, when they later brought Mazinger Z over, it's hero Kouji was dismissed as a copy of Duke's partner in Grendizer, named Alcor in the Italian dub (For those of you not in the know, "Alcor" is Kouji. Mazinger Z was made first).

 

[Nouw]

I hate to nit-pick because I appreciate what you've written but I can't help but be a bit disappointed when an article goes back to the origin of Mechs without mentioning one of the quintessential forefathers and that is: Starship Troopers.

I'm pretty sure giant robots were the last thing Heinlein wanted to make an impact on with this book but he did; where do you think the 'Mobile' part of 'Mobile Suit Gundam' comes from? It's referenced when Space Marines are brought up but not enough recognition is given IMO when it comes to mechs.

 

[Steven Bogos]

Snip

Hi there!

Thanks for your feedback. Unfortunately, when writing my article there was a lot of stuff I had to cut. I ended up going with what I deemed was the most popular, highest quality, and/or most influential series and games. I'm sorry Banpresto didn't make it in, it does look like they really do have a big love affair with mechs! I chose the Metal Gear series because of Kojima's prominence in the gaming industry.

Snip

Thanks for your feedback! I won't argue with you on this one, I loved the hell out of Starship Troopers (the books and the movies), but I decided to only go into detail on the anime side of things, since mechs and anime have a very longstanding relationship. I very briefly mentioned some western mech movies, but again, it's hard to cover EVERYTHING when you have limited words to work with!

Thanks!

 

[Nouw]

Snip

Thanks for your feedback! I won't argue with you on this one, I loved the hell out of Starship Troopers (the books and the movies), but I decided to only go into detail on the anime side of things, since mechs and anime have a very longstanding relationship. I very briefly mentioned some western mech movies, but again, it's hard to cover EVERYTHING when you have limited words to work with!

Thanks!

I completely understand and to be honest this is more of a misinformation thing rather than a genuine slip-up; it'd be a never-ending article if you mentioned all mechs xD. I'm also very impressed with your willingness to take criticism and respond to people in this thread, good on 'ya.

 

[Saulkar]

Very nice article but I just have to be a jackass because that is what a person does when they do not see their favourite X series mentioned in a list right, right?!

HEAVY GEAR! Unlike Battletech which suffered from legal battles with outright ripping off Japanese mech designs, DP9 managed to do it with a world and mech designs iconically unique enough to never have to fear legal repercussions from whomever it was that held the legal rights to Votom.

Unfortunately it looks like the new Heavy Gear game may never see the light of day, cannot blame anyone for not investing as we essentially wanted a single player game and not a dime-a-dozen F2P game that pops up every other day.

 

[cainx10a]

Good read, thanks. I've never really been into the western mechs (never played Steel Batallion, hardly touched Mechwarrior. Hell, I never really liked Transformers (for shame, I know)), but it's nice to read how they came about. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go watch Gundam Unicorn and play Armored Core.

Great article.
If it's a game with Mechs, I will most certainly play the hell out of it, and even enjoy it! Be it Western or Japanese, but the best imho, has elements of both, like Armored Core or Hawken.

There are some amazing games out there. There's a few that come to mind:

PC:
Mechwarrior Series
Hawken
Strike Suit Zero (mecha in spaaaaaceeeee) (Mech is designed by some Japanese chap who had his hands in Macross suit designs as well. East meet West is great ).

PS3/XBOX360:
Armored Core Series

PS3 exclusives:
Gundam Extreme VS(import)
Macross 30 (import, a bit impossible to play without a guide)

PSP (my favorites):
Any game made by Artdink (Gundam, Macross)

Currently playing a rather shoddy Warriors style of game on the PS3 (Gundam Breaker), which is fun but lacking in terms of Gundam variety (man, they need to release Gundam Extreme VS: Full Boost already).

Can't wait for Armored Core V: Verdict Day, which looks amazing!!!

 

[GundamSentinel]

Good read, thanks. I've never really been into the western mechs (never played Steel Batallion, hardly touched Mechwarrior. Hell, I never really liked Transformers (for shame, I know)), but it's nice to read how they came about. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go watch Gundam Unicorn and play Armored Core.

Great article.
If it's a game with Mechs, I will most certainly play the hell out of it, and even enjoy it! Be it Western or Japanese, but the best imho, has elements of both, like Armored Core or Hawken.

There are some amazing games out there. There's a few that come to mind:

PC:
Mechwarrior Series
Hawken
Strike Suit Zero (mecha in spaaaaaceeeee) (Mech is designed by some Japanese chap who had his hands in Macross suit designs as well. East meet West is great ).

PS3/XBOX360:
Armored Core Series

PS3 exclusives:
Gundam Extreme VS(import)
Macross 30 (import, a bit impossible to play without a guide)

PSP (my favorites):
Any game made by Artdink (Gundam, Macross)

Currently playing a rather shoddy Warriors style of game on the PS3 (Gundam Breaker), which is fun but lacking in terms of Gundam variety (man, they need to release Gundam Extreme VS: Full Boost already).

Can't wait for Armored Core V: Verdict Day, which looks amazing!!!

I still curse the Japanese for keeping all the best games to themselves. Why won't they let me play Another Century's Episode? Instead I'll have to do with crap like Dynasty Warriors Gundam and Gundam Crossfire (even those, I might add, can be hard to come by here, and even then very expensive).

Didn't get Armored Core V, didn't like the changes they made from For Answer.

*Sees that Armored Core V is now ridiculously cheap and immediately orders it*

Looks I might try it after all.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned this yet: Activision did nothing to "invent" Mechwarrior, FASA did that with their tabletop games. The Mechwarrior videogames were licensed from the tabletop games, they were not an original property.

 

[bjj hero]

I really enjoyed this but no mention for front mission or virtua on? Really?

Virtua on was ahead of its time for pvp and had a great selection of mechs. Frontmission was x com with mechs and was amazing.

On TV Star fleet (think it was x bomber in Japan)


and Voltron were the first mech shows that got me excited. I think there will be lots of people in there 30s who cannot watch that vid without nostalgia...

At-Ats are a given so excluded naturally.

 

[SemiHumanTarget]

You went with the Land Walker and not the obviously superior KURATAS?

http://tokyodesu.com/2012/12/08/100-real-attack-robot-will-kill-us-all/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iZ0WuNvHr8

 

[Steven Bogos]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned this yet: Activision did nothing to "invent" Mechwarrior, FASA did that with their tabletop games. The Mechwarrior videogames were licensed from the tabletop games, they were not an original property.

Hey there! Thanks for the feedback. I do actually say this in the article:

"But MechWarrior is actually based on the BattleTech series of tabletop games, launched in 1984"

Sorry if you missed that when you first read the article!

 

[cainx10a]

Good read, thanks. I've never really been into the western mechs (never played Steel Batallion, hardly touched Mechwarrior. Hell, I never really liked Transformers (for shame, I know)), but it's nice to read how they came about. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go watch Gundam Unicorn and play Armored Core.

Great article.
If it's a game with Mechs, I will most certainly play the hell out of it, and even enjoy it! Be it Western or Japanese, but the best imho, has elements of both, like Armored Core or Hawken.

There are some amazing games out there. There's a few that come to mind:

PC:
Mechwarrior Series
Hawken
Strike Suit Zero (mecha in spaaaaaceeeee) (Mech is designed by some Japanese chap who had his hands in Macross suit designs as well. East meet West is great ).

PS3/XBOX360:
Armored Core Series

PS3 exclusives:
Gundam Extreme VS(import)
Macross 30 (import, a bit impossible to play without a guide)

PSP (my favorites):
Any game made by Artdink (Gundam, Macross)

Currently playing a rather shoddy Warriors style of game on the PS3 (Gundam Breaker), which is fun but lacking in terms of Gundam variety (man, they need to release Gundam Extreme VS: Full Boost already).

Can't wait for Armored Core V: Verdict Day, which looks amazing!!!

I still curse the Japanese for keeping all the best games to themselves. Why won't they let me play Another Century's Episode? Instead I'll have to do with crap like Dynasty Warriors Gundam and Gundam Crossfire (even those, I might add, can be hard to come by here, and even then very expensive).

Didn't get Armored Core V, didn't like the changes they made from For Answer.

*Sees that Armored Core V is now ridiculously cheap and immediately orders it*

Looks I might try it after all.

That's why I love my PS3 at the moment, thanks to its lack of region lock.
Just import the games bro.

Gundam extreme Vs itself is $40, and you don't need any knowledge in Japanese to enjoy it.

For ACE: R, there is an excellent translation guide (by Mwulf, this guy is awesome) out there. But the game itself is not all that great, it uses a very silly mechanism where you have to build up tension, by attacking your enemies with your range (your primary weapon, example: Zeta would use it's beam rifle) and melee attacks (sword). Tension builds up at a very sluggish rate, then you can say fire your Arm grenades for a little amount of Tension. It's very annoying to say the least.

Crossfire was a rushed game. The developers released a new game call Gundam Senki. Used the same engine (minus the bugs), a better storyline and it's a very high on replay value action game. Probably the Gundam action game for the PS3(if you ignore Artdink's PSP games).

So yeah, if you need to import a Gundam game, go for Gundam Extreme Vs. (It's only $40 ) (of course, I'm ignoring shipping).

 

[cainx10a]

Crossfire was a rushed game. The developers released a new game call Gundam Senki. Used the same engine (minus the bugs), a better storyline and it's a very high on replay value action game. Probably the Gundam action game for the PS3(if you ignore Artdink's PSP games).

I actually really liked crossfire! How did I not know this game existed before?

Need this now.

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-bp-49-en-70-3wd2.html

I forgot to mention it's an import (and a pretty cheap too $45). But like Gundam extreme vs, the menus can be navigated easily since they are in English.

You might miss some story elements but you get the gist of it even without understanding too much Japanese. Also, there's a MWULF translation guide for this game, so expect a high quality translation guide that even covers the story elements in each mission.

 

[SAMAS]

I still curse the Japanese for keeping all the best games to themselves. Why won't they let me play Another Century's Episode? Instead I'll have to do with crap like Dynasty Warriors Gundam and Gundam Crossfire (even those, I might add, can be hard to come by here, and even then very expensive).

Licensing. Case in point: When Project X Zone was brought over, they had to re-get the rights to every single character in the series. And I'm betting the only reason they did it was because they only had about three companies to work from.

With anime, on the other hand, the rights are often already held by multiple companies outside of Japan. The closest we could have gotten so far for the Super Robot Wars series outside of the Original Generation games was Super Robot Wars W, and that would've had like five or six companies to deal with (it would've been about three or four had ADV still been around).

 

[romxxii]

Mazinger Z only attracted modest popularity? Who the hell wrote this stupid article?! Mazinger Z is popular enough in Japan to warrant spin-off OVAs (Mazinkaiser), a reboot (Shin Mazinger Z), and regular inclusion in the Super Robot Wars game franchise. Mazinger Z and all the other super robot shows were highly popular in Asia, Europe and Latin America. Ask any Filipino right now, and he can sing the theme to Voltes V on command.

Anyway, the fact that this article glosses over the rather prolific Super Robot subgenre is astounding, considering that Pacific Rim is itself a Super Robot film, with the flimsiest trappings of the Real Robot genre.
Then there's the fact that the other Real Robot franchise, Macross (aka Robotech), gets a one-time name drop, and only as a reference to BattleTech.


This article is basically "Gundams, now vidjagames, now Pacific Rim!" which is just as worse as the idiots who think that Pacific Rim's only influence was Evangelion.

 

[Steven Bogos]

Mazinger Z only attracted modest popularity? Who the hell wrote this stupid article?! Mazinger Z is popular enough in Japan to warrant spin-off OVAs (Mazinkaiser), a reboot (Shin Mazinger Z), and regular inclusion in the Super Robot Wars game franchise. Mazinger Z and all the other super robot shows were highly popular in Asia, Europe and Latin America. Ask any Filipino right now, and he can sing the theme to Voltes V on command.

Anyway, the fact that this article glosses over the rather prolific Super Robot subgenre is astounding, considering that Pacific Rim is itself a Super Robot film, with the flimsiest trappings of the Real Robot genre.
Then there's the fact that the other Real Robot franchise, Macross (aka Robotech), gets a one-time name drop, and only as a reference to BattleTech.


This article is basically "Gundams, now vidjagames, now Pacific Rim!" which is just as worse as the idiots who think that Pacific Rim's only influence was Evangelion.

Thanks for your feedback! I'm sorry that I glossed over a lot of the Super Robot stuff, but this article's focus was meant to be on mechs in Videogames, and the games which i specifically talk about are usually based on the Real Robot genre!

 

[GundamSentinel]

I still curse the Japanese for keeping all the best games to themselves. Why won't they let me play Another Century's Episode? Instead I'll have to do with crap like Dynasty Warriors Gundam and Gundam Crossfire (even those, I might add, can be hard to come by here, and even then very expensive).

Licensing. Case in point: When Project X Zone was brought over, they had to re-get the rights to every single character in the series. And I'm betting the only reason they did it was because they only had about three companies to work from.

With anime, on the other hand, the rights are often already held by multiple companies outside of Japan. The closest we could have gotten so far for the Super Robot Wars series outside of the Original Generation games was Super Robot Wars W, and that would've had like five or six companies to deal with (it would've been about three or four had ADV still been around).

Yep, which is also the reason why even if a game gets ported outside Japan, it often doesn't have the original music. The market is just too niche for people to really care, more's the pity for us.