Tech Romancer

"Tech Romancer - The Thoughts of a Player"

Tech Romancer was released for the Dreamcast in 1999. At the time it was a very good game and is now referred to as one of the Dreamcast's hidden classics. This 3-D beat-em up allows the player to fight as a robot against other powerful robots to try and save the world. Of course, if you do fail the game then the world doesn't come to an end in reality.

The rough story line is that an evil creature called Goldibus has gathered many robots from far and wide and all around the world. These robots are trained to fight for him and to allow him to take over the robot world. This private army of his is called “The Goldibus Corps”.

The menu screen starts off quite bad really because the arcade mode is called “Arrange”. Most people have puzzled over this, but I just think that it is a dodgy translation. Then you select your robot with some cheesy background music. When you have selected everything necessary then the battles will commence.

In story mode you play through a unique story relative to that robot and pilot. Each story has many branches making good fun if you play regularly. Because each story is unique, depending on which character you elect to play as, you get to fight only a handful of different robots. The big problem with the story cut scenes in between battles is that the subtitles are in English, but the voices aren't.

In Hero Challenge Mode you fight 12 battles, one for each character. In this mode there are no cut scenes or any kind of dodgy talking. This mode is just handy for those times when you've had a hard day and you need to let some of the stress out. Some of the characters you fight against will be annoying and with the progressive difficulty some can become annoying to the breaking point.

The graphical quality is high for both robots and scenery. This means very realistic robot butt-kicking action suitable for all ages. It is very rare that this game's frame-rate slows down at all. This could be something to do with the years of practice that Capcom have had.

This game also incorporates a versus mode which allows fun for 2 players. Again the graphics are superb and the gameplay is excellent. The versus mode is very similar to the arcade mode in many ways. You can choose from a large range of characters and also affect the game owners personal profile, so beware it could damage your 100% win record or something along those lines.

In the Tatsumi Techno Dome you can see what great prizes you have unlocked. Also a large collection of mini-games are available to use on a VMU. These mini-games help you to earn money for the robot workshop, something which is normally impossible to do. Some of the secrets include Story Box, Movie Box, Character Profiles etc. This is what you spend all of those hours of play. A little tip to unlock everything: you have to complete story mode and hero challenge mode with every single character and complete every single branch of each story. It is very hard, but possible.

Overall I would say that this game is well worth a try. If you do buy this, you will be guaranteed many hours of fun or light frustration.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/15/05