I’ve recently had the pleasure of revisiting the first SRW game that I ever played, which was Impact on the PS2. Originally released in 2001, I first finished this game back around 2005 on an actual PS2 system. Now in 2021, I finally managed to beat the game again.
Being my first one, I have pretty fond memories of it, and after completing my recent playthrough, it’s actually not that bad. Surprisingly I was able to finish the game over a 5 week period, playing about 2-3 stages a night. Sure the game was hella frustrating at times with it’s rather tanky enemies with high accuracy, but no other SRW game since has put the “S” in SRPG quite like this game. The game’s main appeal actually comes from the reward system for clearing stages, which is based on the number of turns you take to clear it. Faster clears yield better rewards, with the best one being “Mental Concentration” which reduces SP costs for the pilot by 20%. Trying to finish stages to get the skill was one of the highlights for me, sometimes it required picture-perfect planning which was a great source of frustration but also satisfaction.
The game is extremely rough around the edges and it really feels like the dev team rushed it out. Since then Impact has also developed a bit of a bad rep for being overly long. Weighing at 99 stages with 2 bonus ones if requirements are met, it’s the longest Super Robot Wars ever made. I remember it being a very frustrating game, but after my recent run I can honestly say It’s not the 101 stages that’s the reason, but rather because he game is so slooooooooow. Playing it at 4x speed made it feel like a modern SRW game, on default settings everything takes so long to do. An exchange between units without the animations on can take up to 10 seconds, even casting a simple seishin feels like a chore, and this is why the game feels so long. If you’re going to play this game, definitely crank up the turbo to make it bearable.
Some of the more interesting cast like Machine Robo and the Nadesico team keep coming and going until late game (66+ stages in). Even then they still have a tendency to leave making them a poor investment for your hard earned credits, especially in a tough game like this. Speaking of which, the Nadesico and Aura Battler units have it tough in the game due to the aforementioned enemy accuracy and tankiness, with the Aura Battler suffering the most due to their extremely low range.
Newer players may struggle with the game due to the lack of many quality of life features in later games. Being unable to shuffle unit placements in deployments was a huge hassle, given how important positioning your heavy hitters is for the fast clears. There are also many gripes regarding seishins, such as not being able to cast spells in the enemy turn. There’s also no quick shortcut bar for support seishins, so you need to manually scroll to each unit and select them.
Like every SRW game, this one does have broken elements in it but you need to work for it and it requires a very specific set up. Impact has some pretty non-conventional spells such as “Self-Destruct”, which destroys the unit and causes AoE damage around it, and “Revival” , which essentially resurrects destroyed allies. Utilizing these in conjunction with “Move Again” you can set up an loop that effectively grants infinite moves and SP. I managed to make the final few stages of the game an absolute breeze having struggled through the earlier parts, and the whole process was pretty amazing and crazy.
Overall I enjoyed my most recent playthrough and I’m pretty sad that it’s over. You can rewatch the entire series on YouTube.
