SRW Gaiden is the last SRW title to be released for the Super Famicom and was recently ported to the DS in 2010. It's developed by WinkySoft, not Banpresto, which explains why it's very different from the rest of the series. It's more like an entirely different game that just happens to use SRW characters. The DS version has some interface improvements, skippable animations, plot alterations, and a new game+ feature, but the game play itself is nearly identical to the SFC original.
SRW Gaiden ditches the 2D overhead view for a 3D isometric view which happened to be all the rage in 1996.
As in most 3D isometric tactics games, height difference and unit facing plays a role in accuracy and damage. Zone of Control was added to make it more difficult to maneuver behind an opponent. Terrain bonuses, penalties, and movement rates are entirely removed.
In addition to EN and Ammo, a third weapon resource has been added called Prana Points, which are used in MAP and ultimate attacks. Prana Points work like EN except your robot loses stats such as HP, EN, and mobility when the points are used. When put into practice, though, Prana Points aren't much different from EN and they add little to the games depth. MAP attacks are still around but they are far less useful than previous SRWs. There aren't big groups of enemies to MAP anymore, MAP damage is fairly low, and MAP attacks share Prana Points and EN with ultimate attacks which need to be conserved for high HP bosses.
Weapons can be upgraded into new forms with improved properties aside from more damage. A rock paper scissors style elemental system and "caste" system was introduced so that certain unit types deal more or less to others. Pilot skills including double act are learnt at a range of possible levels instead of at a fixed level. Other minor changes from previous SRWs include EXP gain for healing, unused SP at the end of a scenario granting EXP, enemies capable of using seishins, and enemy stats no longer being hidden.
SRW Gaiden is one of the most shallow games in the series in terms of depth and customization. You can't switch pilots between units and there are no items to equip, unlike previous SRWs. The only thing you can do is upgrade your robots stats and weapons. You don't get to choose deployment spots until mid-late in the game and even then you can only choose 4-6 units. Similarly, SRW Gaiden only has about 40 combined allied pilots and robots compared to 4th SRW's count of almost 200. Enemy and ally counts during scenarios are significantly reduced, further lowering the games complexity.
Costs for seishins are so expensive that even near the end of the game you can only expect to use 3-4 seishins before running out, further removing strategic options from the player. Formerly cheap seishins like Flash now consume 30-50% of a pilots SP pool early in the game. The only strategy the player has control over is unit positioning, taking advantage of elemental weaknesses, conserving ultimate attacks for bosses, and using a tiny pool of seishins. The added directional facing, ZOC, and a simple rock paper scissors damage system doesn't make up for all of the other things removed or reduced. It's a shallow game compared to 4th SRW. There are still some scenarios in the game that push the available depth to its limit in terms of difficulty, but such scenarios exist in 3rd and 4th SRW as well.
SRW Gaiden adds a significant amount of randomness in the form of new or changed pilot skills. Branching (bunshin) is now always active instead of only active at 130+ morale. Double attack is easily the worst skill added to Gaiden, allowing any unit to attack twice for full damage. Bosses that can double attack will usually kill any of your units in two hits. If you unintentionally double attack, you might waste ammo/EN you were trying to conserve, or kill an enemy you were just trying to weaken for a lower level pilot. This is exacerbated by the low dodge rates of your pilots, the high cost of seishins, and the lack of a Focus (30% hit/dodge) seishin.
Bosses appear early in the game with many pilot skills before your pilots have any, leading to highly random and uncontrollable situations. Mid-late in the game every enemy pilot including the low level grunts have branching, block, double attack, and double act. The combination of simplified customization, low unit counts, and highly random pilot skills makes this the most dumbed down, RNG heavy SRW yet. The developers could have made changes like making double attack only deal 25% of normal damage, branching only at 130 morale, and make it so you can't block attacks from behind. Then the game would only be simple, instead of simple and uncontrollably random.
The scenario flowchart is complex with 3 ending routes and dozens of variables to keep track of. There are about 100 total scenarios, but quite a bit of that is filler. Much like SRW EX, there are a lot of heavily scripted "event scenarios" that are merely formalities. A good number of scenarios are simply mirrors of other scenarios with minor changes due to plot branching or feature reused maps. Even though the scenario count and branching looks intimidating, there aren't any more unique missions than you'd find in 3rd or 4th SRW. However, it is impressive how they managed to cram so much content and plot branches into an SNES game while avoiding game breaking bugs.
As usual the interface continues to improve. You can now check a list of enemies as well as allies. There's a new list of seishins which you can select to see which pilots currently have that seishin. By holding down select then pressing L or R, you can switch between enemies on the map instead of allies. This turns out to be very useful because you can't zoom out to a minimap view, likely a limitation of the isometric map. As usual animations cannot be skipped in the SFC version, so I suggest the DS version.
Reviewer's experience: Completed with no upgrades, no allied units destroyed, low turncounts, and no save/load spamming for very low chances to hit or dodge. Wendy Route: 221 turns, 45 scenarios. Baravia Route: 218 turns, 45 scenarios. Shuu Route: 232 turns, 43 scenarios.
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