Honestly, I think after putting in 100+ hours of this and still not finishing all the story content, I think this is a bad SRW. However, I also think it is a good game.

As someone with experience in basically every single era, from the winkysoft days up to OGMD and VXT, I think this is both one of the best and worst designed games in the series. It offers more content and a bigger series list than basically anything else out there, but the way it delivers it is honestly just a mess.

The appeal of an SRW for basically the entire lifetime of the PSX era onwards, is multiple playthroughs. There is always a reason to replay a SRW, because even if you only have a single protagonist/mecha like in Z2/3, you always have alternate routes. There is always something more there. This game, by virtue of effectively being open world, kills this part of the franchise. There is less than zero reason to EVER replay the game, because you can experience 100% of the game in one playthrough, sans the character interactions between the OG character you pick at the beginning. I just think this overall kind of sucks. Route splits sometimes aren't fun, or take your favourites away, but this progression is what I, as a long time player, expect. I see the good things that come from this and what feels like a much more boring, standard, ironically more linear game.

Modern SRW has also consistently had a problem with difficulty. From around Z2.1 onwards, every game has been getting easier and easier, topping off with the end of the VXT trilogy, where in T you could completely max out upgrades on all units by mission 40. Beyond a cakewalk. Theoretically, this game should be harder. You can choose your difficulty level and at least at the start, they feel impactful and while still not as challenging as the early 00s, they could get tough. But very quickly, because you have access to replay missions over and over, and the ability to do every single mission that would normally come through a route split, you're almost immediately overflowing with cash, and because you're never missing units due to story or route split, you always have your ringers. Hell, by third act, you have a single unit that can steamroll an entire map solo, and the further you get, you get more and more units like this. Gaogaigar, Mazinkaiser and the other supers become so overpowered that it feels pointless to even try to run most of the real robots. It leads to some of the worst balance in the series, in a game that is already too easy.

The EXC system from VXT is also here, a system that at a glance would make you want to manage your new points better, but once again, actually trivialises the game loop horribly. Suddenly you can have a unit that can act 5+ times per turn. Constantly recovering EXC or burning EXC to gain more and more damage and actions. For a series that recognised the power of Extra Action and made it unpurchaseable as a skill, it baffles me that they included ways to cheese it back in but considerably stronger. Seishin, in the same way, follow the trend set by the last several games of infinite respawning points. This means you never, ever have to play safe or smart with your seishin, because it will always recover. No more carefully taking hits and playing intelligently to clear a map before hitting the boss all at once and burning everything you have to survive. Simply use all the points you want and they'll recover by the time you reach the boss. It makes everything feel like a slog instead of a nail biting strategy battle of math and forethought.

The DLC, while genuinely great if played as it released with a completed game file, is a good experience. Regardless of what you feel about the individual series, their inclusions usually have alot of effort. The keyword being usually. While IBO clearly has a massive budget of beautifully traditionally handcrafted animations and effects, special conditions and activation types, the SRW OG units are meanwhile beyond budget. They're at the quality level of the mobile game, DD, where the "sprites" are just cut-up 3d models that look unbelievably bad compared even to Gridman or the Ultraman units, that are MEANT to be CG models cut up and worked into the SRW animation style. The quality gap between these instances is so stark within the game, let alone comparing it to decade old games that it just constantly teeters between being amazing and being horrible. The Hi-Nu from the Alpha series on PS2 should not look higher quality than the Hi-Nu in a game released in 2021. Same as the Combattler and Voltes stuff. It's all over the place.

But the annoying thing is that while I really don't think this is a good SRW for veterans, for someone getting into the series? It's an easy recommend. The game would probably be reasonably challenging to someone who doesn't know the systems and is playing on a higher difficulty. The series list is wide enough but not swimming in Gundams and recycled units like so many of the games on the Z engine tend to be. The lack of route splits and the way you can simply experience the full thing at once makes a playthrough (probably) more appealing than say, Alpha 2 and 3 where there are 4 entire games because there are 4 unique protagonist routes that you NEED to play NG+ over and over to experience. All in all it is just maddening. I want to reccomend this to anyone who enjoys SRPGs, but I also want to say to go emulate OGs in english. I want to say try the DS games or the Alpha and Z series. Like I enjoyed my time with this game but I was constantly wishing that it didn't try to break the mould so much and instead stick to what worked, because it simply doesn't work as well as the original formula.

It is a good game and it's worth the money and you SHOULD play it, but it diverges so far from the established series formula that I can't recommend it to vets, and ironically we've probably all already completed this years ago at this point.

Out of all current gen SRWs, this one is probably the second best. (Best being SRW V). Most due to plot/roster/music. Bandai / Banpresto, please release SRW V in the U.S.! Get that license man.

Despite my playtime, I cannot remember a single thing about the plot of this game. But I can tell you exactly what happened in SRW V which I played 5 years ago.

The roster here is very meh. But it's the anniversary title, and who knows if we'll ever get another. Mecha anime / content is just dying, and down goes with SRW :(.

What else to say... not much. I want to own SRW V on the U.S. Steam Store!!!!!!!

30 hours in, I think I have a fair opinion. First time playing any of the SRW, and I can say as a fan of similar games in the overall genre, this is a treat. My only complaint, is if you haven't played any previous games, a lot of the events and topics the characters cover seems a little confusing seeing as how most have appeared in prior games. Back to the good stuff, the fan service in this game is top tier. Being able to play as and see mecha from all time periods of Japanese mecha anime is so awesome, characters maintain their traditional appearances, and they're not re designed to look modern, it's really awesome to see. The battle scene's paired with the voice lines done by MOSTLY the original VA's from their respective work is cool as well. The HUB menu isn't overwhelming, the menu's are simple to navigate, and the bonus missions tied to objectives for specific character achievements is really worth striving for. Play this game.