SUPER ROBOT
TAISEN 4 SCRAMBLE
Sony Playstation
SLPS-00196
Banpresto
96.1.26
In it, you take the role of the commander
of a team of mecha pilots from over a dozen anime series. Units from
MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM, AURA BATTLER DUNBINE and other Nippon
Sunrise series stand shoulder to shoulder (or would that be knee-joint)
with the huge robots from the '70s like MAZINGER
Z, GETTA ROBO and GRANDIZER. The threat comes from what looks like a
coalition of all the disposessed villains from the shows called the
'Divine Crusaders'.SUPER ROBOT TAISEN 4 SCRAMBLE is a fairly straightforward strategic game,
reminiscent of the classic hex wargames. Each turn you move your mecha
across the square-grid map and attack one at a time. With the exception
of a few very short-range weapons like the mine attacks of the L.GAIM mecha and MAZINGER Z and
GREAT MAZINGER'S rocket
punches, units can only attack adjacent opponents if you moved that
turn. The attack sequence switches to an animated sequence of the mecha
trying to bash each other and some (but sadly, not all) of the mecha
feature vocal tracks as well (this is new to the Playstation port). In
addition, each character has up to 6 special commands, from a complement
of about 30, which do things such as give the unit extra movement points
for the turn or ensure the next attack hits. The upper end of these
special commands extends to letting an adjacent unit have an extra turn
or "resurrecting" a destroyed unit. The application of these commands
at the appropriate time is one of the great strategic dilemmas of the
game.In between scenarios you have the option of
spending money on upgrading your mecha and switching pilots between
units of the same type. Ever wondered how Amuro Rei would have done at
the controls of the RX78GP-02 (with the nuke)? Here's your chance to
find out.This is not a game that you'll finish all
in one day, the shortest path through the game requires the completion
of a minimum of 45 scenarios (there are 70 total in the game), each
taking from a half hour to two hours depending on difficulty. Potential
players should strongly consider having a separate memory card just for
saves. There are two main paths to take through the game, Real Robot,
where your character pilots a Gundamesque mecha with long range
weaponry, and Super Robot, where you pilot a large heavily armored unit
with powerful up-close attacks. Replay value is fairly good, because
even after you've made it through the game you can try it again in the
other mode, seeing different characters, mecha and scenarios along the
way.The options menu offers a number of
omake (extra) selections. Karaoke mode gives you the chance to
sing along to PSX-synthesized versions of such tunes as the OP songs to
DUNBINE, L.GAIM and MAZINGER Z while watching simulated game- battles with
the related mecha. A character list will let you check the stats on all
the characters in the game, but strangely you can only examine the stats
of the mecha which you've encountered thus far in the game. Similarly,
you can replay only the cut animations you have achieved in your game
progress.For a game with so much japanese text,
actually very little is required to play the game itself. With a
cheat-sheet of all the character powers and about a half-hour's
practice, even the most japanese-impaired should have no trouble
comprehending things.Overall, SUPER ROBOT TAISEN 4 SCRAMBLE is a faithful port of an excellent Super
Famicom strategy title. Potential players expecting whiz-bang graphics
and sound would probably be best advised to look elsewhere however. It
is an admirable first Playstation effort for Banpresto, and I look
forward to seeing their upcoming 3-D robot fighter Megatudo, given that
they'll have 9 additional months experience with the hardware.--Dave Van Cleef
