Need to admit first and foremost that I have never played a single Super Robot Taisen game. The series has been around for several years, dating back to the original Game Boy. For me the desire to play the games was always based upon my infatuation with the giant robots created by Go Nagai. He created Mazinger Z and Getter Robo which had a short run in America years ago as Tranzor Z and Starvengers. Once I saw a game with those characters I knew one day I would need to set aside some time to actually play the games. Unfortunately the series has only had a limited run in the US with two GBA games being released a few years ago.

Now with the release of Endless Frontier I figured it was about time for me to get my feet wet with the Super Robot Taisen series. This time with Endless Frontier the game is more of a traditional Japanese Role Play Game (JRPG).  Previously most of the games in the series were strategy games that I got burned out on years ago. You get the typical anime-inspired graphic style with plenty of cut scenes to see the majority of the characters in the game. Yet the one area that I wanted to see the most of, the Super Robots, really takes a back seat the regular characters in the game.

The story is based upon the mysterious Cross Gates that connect several worlds together. As people started using the Cross Gates to see the other worlds it soon brought about fighting and ultimately war between the worlds that lasted for years. Now it has been a several years since the war and the connected worlds are still having problems adjusting to the peace. You play the role of Haken Browning, a bounty hunter from the world of Lost Herencia. During a mission Haken and his android robot Aschen uncover Kaguya, a princess from the world of Kagura Amahara, which soon puts Haken on a journey crossing over to the other worlds connected by the Cross Gates.    

The actual storyline and game progression isn’t a genre busting experience. Instead the game follows a very typical path that we’ve come to expect in JRPGs. You will run into random combat that will always pop up when don’t want it to. You will spend several minutes exploring a “dungeon” and solving simple puzzles as you finally make your way to the boss. You will have to level up frequently in order to take out the bosses you’ll encounter in the game. You will also have a storyline that almost tries to cross the boundary of the Teen ranking it was given with some suggested material that younger gamers probably shouldn’t be reading.

Even with the rather typical storyline and game progression the gameplay does try to keep the game lively with the combat. In this game, though, the combat is very heavy on you controlling the timing of the battles. You start combat by pressing the A button but once you start an attack you can keep pressing A to keep chaining your attacks together. You have a certain number of Acts that you can use during a characters combat phase which allows you to chain the attacks. If you forget to keep pressing A your character will stop attacking and wait for you to press A again or press another button for other options. You also have several different skills (type of attacks) that you will earn and can assign to your characters.  You can swap those skills out to try to find the best chain of attacks that works for your characters.

The battle system also includes Combo Attacks, Support Skills and an Overdrive attack. The Combo Attacks allow you to have another character jump in and continue a chain attack of the current character. Support Skills are similar to the combo attacks since it allows characters in the back row to jump in and assist with combat. All of the combat allows a special gauge, called the Frontier Gauge, to fill up. Once the Frontier Gauge is filled up you can perform an Overdrive attack that unleashes an extremely powerful chain of attacks.  The game will even reward you by giving you extra experience points if you take out the last enemy with an Overdrive attack.

If it wasn’t for the battle system Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier would be a hard sell except to the most hardcore of anime/JRPG gamers. The game itself plays similar to almost any other JRPG released over the last twenty years. You walk around a dungeon, solve some puzzles and then fight a boss. You then move to the next city to find out where you need to go next and then repeat. Not saying this formula is a bad thing since it still can provide an enjoyable experience, especially for gamers new to the genre. For gamers that love the gameplay of a JRPG and know what to expect from the genre then this is a worthy game to your collection. However, even with a fantastic battle system, the rest of game probably isn’t enough to win over an audience of gamers worn out by the genre.

Gameplay: 7.0
Think of it this way: No matter how good the battle system is, it can’t change the fact that the rest is a rather run-of-the-mill kind of game.

Graphics: 8.3
Great anime style graphics for the cut scenes between the characters. The battle graphics are top notch as well with tons of action once you start chaining attacks. However the top down view graphics barely look better than an very early 16-bit game.

Sound: 8.0
Typical anime style soundtrack we’ve heard before in other games. However the game does contain voice acting with the original Japanese voice actors which works great in keeping the tone of the game faithful to the original Japanese version.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
As long as you pace yourself in the game and make sure to level up as much as possible you shouldn’t have trouble. However if you try to rush through the game you probably will have challenges during the boss encounters.

Concept: 7.0
If it wasn’t for the battle system the game would have a hard time standing out from the rest of the crowded JRPG games on the DS. However one cool feature is the ability to unlock bonus items if you do have the GBA versions of Super Robot Taisen. Just make sure to put the cartridges in the DS GBA slot when you turn the game on.

Overall: 7.8
Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier is the game that tries to reinvent the wheel yet loses a wheel in the process. The battle system does make the combat more interesting than just pressing a button and watching the combat unfold for several minutes. It doesn’t give you full control like an action RPG but it comes close enough to offer an exciting alternative to the standard RPG combat. If the rest of the game offered the same type of excitement and innovation Endless Frontier could have been one of the best DS RPG games released recently.