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The first thing that came to people's minds when this game came out was, "wonderful, another PSX game from Bandai (Banpresto's parent company)" and expectations were low for this VirtualOn-style game. I have to admit I had similar thoughts but until I actually played it, I wouldn't make the judgement. Much to my surprise and pleasure, Real Robots Final Attack is a very fun and well paced game to play, and despite being a Virtual On clone, it has a few features in control that contribute to the overall game play. Plus it's a real trip for all fans of those 1980's Nippon Sunrise robot shows. That's not to say that this game doesn't have any faults, and to quote a friend of mine "It's Bandai, they have to screw something up." But we'll get to those faults later.
For those not in the know, Real Robots Final Attack is a one-on-one action game in the style of Sega's Cybertroopers Virtual On. The real hook to this game however is that it borrows many famous anime mechs from many popular and classic giant robot shows of the 80s and 90s including, Aura Battler Dunbine, Walker Machine Xabungle, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, Heavy Metal L-Gaim, Meral Armor Dragonar, Mobile Fighter G Gundam, and Gundam X. Added to the lineup are three original mech designs from the Super Robot War series also done by Banpresto, eponomously named R-1 through R-3. Designs were done by Hajime Katoki of Gundam fame and it shows. R-1 is a standard Gundam clone, R-2 is a clone of Raiden from Virtual On, and R-3 is a Fei-Yen clone from the same game. Interestingly enough, in the Super Robot Taisen game, these three can combine to form one super robot, but I don't think they can do that here.
GAMEPLAY
This is what I would label as one of the game's major strengths. The controls for movement are similar to Virtual On, including dashing in all directions, turning, jumping, and jump cancelling. A new feature is that once you jump in the air, you can again dash in any direction on a horizontal plane, allowing the player to hop up a short height, and suddenly dart off to the side, which makes for new strategies. Weapon controls is very different from V On and it takes a little getting used to. You have a close range attack button and a long range attack button, and you can select a different weapon for each range by pressing the D-pad in a certain direction. You can press the attack button and leave the D-pad in neutral, press either up/down or left/right, and get up to three different weapons for each attack button giving potentially 6 regular attacks. Super weapons charge up in a bar much like the new Capcom Super meter, but there is no apparent limit to the number of supers you can build up in a round, as I've seen it go up to 7. Performing a super attack is also complicated. You do one of the moves as I've said before for either short or long range attacks, and press L2+R2 together at the same time, giving potentially 6 super attacks for a total of 12 weapon attacks per character. There is some redundancy in each robot's button pushes, giving them only 7 or 8 attacks each. Overall the game moves very fluidly and response time to the controls is quite good, with delays in reaction after dashing much like Virtual On. Options include 1 player, 2 player split screen, and 2 player via the link cable.
GRAPHICS
The robot models are made of flat shaded polygons without much texture mapping, and they fighting in 3-D arenas, some with obstacles and some without. At first glance, they appear a little on the small side, but I find that to be a plus given the immense size of some of the fighting arenas and the need to see as much open ground as possible. Depending on which weapons you use, some of the obstacles (buildings) can be destroyed with super attacks, changing the "duck and cover" strategy a little. The mech models are fairly well done if plain, but I find that okay given the speed and pace of the game since I don't have time to mull over the detail of the mechs. Yopu do see polygon glitches, especially during the win pose, but again I find that acceptable given the pace of the gameplay. There are some nice lighting effects with the weapon attacks, but sometimes when youare caught in an explosion, it is impossible too see anything for several seconds while you are trying to regain your bearings and figure where your enemy's position is. And unlike Project Gaiaray (another V-On clone for the PSX) this game moves and a very nice 30 fps with realistic movements by the mechs and very little slowdown if any.
SOUND
Sound effects are nice and pretty standard effects for a robot righting game. The music is mostly PCM-style, with a cheesy title them and very cheesy end credits theme. The in-game music is also PCM, but when you fight against an opponent, you get an instrumental arranged version of the theme music of each mech's respective TV show. This mean when you fight against Gundam X, the 1st OP 'Dreams' plays in the background as well as other themes familiar to many mecha buffs.
COMPLAINTS
Going back to the idea that if Bandai made a decent game, they would still have to screw something up, here it is: THERE IS NO MEMORY CARD SAVE FEATURE!! This is a fairly substantial gripe considering there are at least four hidden mechs to obtain including the boss. Each time you win the game, you get an information screen than gives you the code to access the hidden mechs, and then you key in the code. The problem is to get all four codes, you have to win the game four times without turning off the machine, because if you reset the game, when you beat it next time, you end up getting the code for the first hidden mech game. The inability to save your obtained mechs is as irritating as the inability to save your game configuration.
Another gripe is the AI difficulty. The game ranges from Super Easy to Super Hard give you 7 levels of difficulty. The default is normal and challenging, but I decided to set the game to Super Easy to see the end, and while the main characters ranged from easy to challenging in this mode, the boss takes a quantum leap in difficulty and is quite hard to defeat, especially if you are stuck in a gameplaying rut. The AI just feels a little unbalanced when one reaches this stage.
OVERALL
Despite some of the glaring faults of this game, it is quite enjoyable and one of the best Virtual On style games for the home console in terms of gameplay and overall effect (I like Armored Core as well, but it is not a pure V-On type game), as well as the link feature that Sega's Virtual On and Project Gaiaray do not possess. There is very little Japanese in this game except towards the end with the secret code screens and all it says is to press the triangle button on a specific sequence of icons at the character selection screen. BTW, if someone gets the code for the end boss, please let me know what it is, thanks. I would highly recommend getting this as it is a total fluke for Bandai and a good game in its own right.
Gameplay 9
Graphics 8
Sound 7
Fun Factor 9
Overall 8.5