Robotech: The Macross Saga

"Another Robotech Side-Scroller...but better!"

Robotech: The Macross Saga was the game I bought while I saved up enough money to buy a Playstation 2 and get the Robotech: Battlecry game. After having played many Robotech (Macross) side-scrollers on platforms like the SNES and Arcade machines, I was very satisfied with the feel of The Macross Saga game. Making good use of the fully transformable Veritech fighter, the player gets good playtime for each of the three transformation modes (more on this in the next section). Not only do you get to pilot the fighters from the television series, but you also get to experience a side-scrolled representation of several key battles from the series. For example, in the first episode of Robotech, the Zentraedi fighters begin to cause havoc around the SDF-1 before it takes off from Earth. You (and you alone) get to pilot your Veritech during this scene. Each mission on the game is a piece from the series.

A Little Robotech Background:
Those who have seen the television show Robotech will easily understand all the nuances of this game. Since you’ll be piloting the new Veritech fighter, you might as well know just what a Veritech fighter is. The name “veritech” is shorthand for “variable technology” and believe me these things are variable. Imagine an F-14 Tomcat jet fighter. Now imagine that the jet section splits apart into legs and the fan intakes deploy arms – rather like an ostrich with arms and instead of a beak, the nose and cockpit of an F-14. What we have here is what is known as a “Guardian” – one of three of the Veritech’s transformations (the first mode of transformation is just the plain F-14 fighter, which will be referred to as “Fighter” mode). Now, imagine that the ostrich legs straighten, the rest of the jet points upward (the nose is straight up), then the nose and cockpit section flip down onto what used to be the underside of the craft until the nose is parallel with the legs. Thus, the cockpit section becomes a chest. A head appears where the cockpit section broke away. You get a humanoid robot, known from now on as a “Battloid.” It’s pretty much a 40-foot-tall combat robot. This strange thing called a Veritech is what YOU’RE going to be piloting and so you’re going to have to figure out how to use all three modes of transformation to keep you alive (exception: special missions where you pilot a Destroid – more on this later).

NOTE: People familiar with the Japanese Macross series will know these three transformations as Fighter, Gerwalk, and Battroid, respectively.

This cool transformable fighter will be put to good use as the story unfolds, because aliens, known as Zentraedi, have come to destroy the SDF-1 (Super Dimensional Fortress One, the earth-defending mothership, so-to-speak) and Earth. Despite the fact that Zentraedi are bred for fighting, in the game they’re rather automatic and predictable and their prime advantage over you and your single fighter is their sheer numbers (what do you expect from a side-scrolling shooter).

An interesting twist to the game, unlike other Robotech/Macross shooters that I’ve played, is you can, at points, pilot what’s known as a Destroid. Destroids are just big, tank-like, two-legged mechs that you can use to shoot things (compare to Battlemech). They don’t transform or anything like that. When the time comes, you’ll be given three to choose from and each one has different strengths and weaknesses, so you’ll have to choose based on how you play. But it gives nice break from the fast-paced Veritech action. To learn anything more than this, you really should try to see the Robotech DVD series, as the story in the game doesn’t even go this far in depth, as I will explain in my review, which follows.

Story: 3
Having been a Robotech fan for the past ten years or so, I bought this game because I like Robotech. Therefore, I know the story behind the game. For those who bought the game and know nothing of Robotech, this game may leave you confused as to why you’re out blasting things and who these people are that show up during the cut-scenes. That’s why I must rate this section so poorly, because the game doesn’t provide much in the way of background or explanations about the setting you’re in. You don’t necessarily need this information to play the game, but it comes in handy to completely enjoy the game in all its aspects.

Again, what do you expect from a side-scroller. This game is really directed toward those who are already familiar with Robotech enough that they know the story.

The little story that is in the game briefly tells you before each mission what’s going on – but again, if you aren’t at all familiar with Robotech, you still might not know what the cut-scenes are talking about. Luckily for you, it doesn’t matter. All you really have to do is blast the bad guys and survive each level.

So What IS the Story? In a nutshell, aliens are attacking Earth. You are to help defend Earth from the enemy, using your Veritech fighter (see “Robotech” section above). Before each mission, you are briefed on what must be accomplished, but although the briefing says things like, “You need to rescue Lisa Hayse from the Zentraedi ship,” all you have to do is shoot through the level (and boss) to get to the end. Unless you want to learn more about Robotech, this is all the info you need to play the game.

Play Control/Scoring: 8
For a side-scroller, you can really do a lot. As I mentioned, your fighter can switch between three different modes, and the game reflects this. You can pilot a fighter, which pretty much resembles any other side-scrolling game - can’t touch objects, only shoots forwards. You also get use of missiles – homing missiles. Tapping the top Left and Right “bumper” keys on the Game Boy Advance will cycle you between modes. If you switch to Guardian mode, you can now glide along surfaces – a.k.a. touching the ground doesn’t hurt you. You also still shoot forward and have use of your missiles, but you can’t move around the screen as quickly as you could when you were in Fighter mode. So you sacrifice some speed for some safety (and actually, I find that the fighter can move so fast that it’s hard to be accurate about anything, so most of my time is spent in Guardian mode). If you switch to Battloid mode, some different things happen. First, you can’t use missiles. Also, once your Battloid lands on the ground, the forced scrolling in the game stops. Only by hovering or walking forwards enough does the game scroll – this is handy sometimes. Although you don’t get to use your nice missiles, your main gun, which used to shoot only forwards, now can shoot in all directions. Learning to control the gun movement is a little tricky at first, because if you hover, the game makes it seem like it has moved your gun back in front of you – the default position. Actually, though, when you land, the gun will be facing exactly the same position it was before. Therefore, you might have been firing behind you and started to hover. You see an enemy, stop hovering and start shooting, expecting that you’ll be firing straight. However, you actually fire behind you, meanwhile getting killed by enemy fire.
But again, it’ll make sense once you begin playing with it.

The only thing I had problems with is one of the bugs in the game (see Bugs section at end). Since your Battloid mode walks on the ground, it makes sense that if you switch back to Fighter, your fighter should be hovering on the ground just above the surface. Sometimes, but not all the time, you’ll do this transformation and you’ll see your fighter turn red and blow up. Occasionally, when your fighter transforms, the game will treat it as touching the ground. If you’re not prepared for this, you might die very quickly. Another problem with transforming from Battloid to Fighter is the side-scrolling automatically resumes. So let’s say that you’re in Battloid facing a ledge. If you try to walk through the ledge, your feet just move and you don’t go anywhere or suffer damage. But if you’re still facing this wall and switch to Fighter or Guardian, the side-scrolling resumes and you get forced into the wall until you maneuver out of the way. This makes you lose energy and can be very costly.

Another flaw with the control of the game is SLOW-DOWN. Once you get a bunch of enemies on the screen each firing at you and you firing at them with missiles and your gun, the game will slow down a LOT. This could be useful because it makes it easier to dodge through the shower of enemy fire, but it’s a bit annoying when you’re playing and you’re expecting the game to keep its fast pace. Oh yeah, it happens OFTEN.

The scoring in this game is very nice. Since you can choose from different pilots (and each pilot has his or her own fighter), the computer makes each character have their own cumulative score, such as a role playing game does with experience points. As you play a mission, the score will increase and will eventually reward you with extra lives. Unlike old side-scrollers, the rewards are often and will let you build up a supply of extra lives that’ll come in real handy in later levels. Also, once you complete a mission, you have the option of using your score to perform upgrades on your fighter. These upgrades include things like speed, strength (durability), amount of missles you can carry, etc. Since each different pilot has different strengths and weaknesses, this upgrade feature can be useful to try to balance the shortcomings in your different pilots.

Multiplayer: This game supports multiplayer through the game link and two Gameboys, but since no one here plays this game, I cannot review this section since I’ve never had the opportunity to play on the multiplayer part.

Graphics: 8
For a side-scroller, there’s not a whole lot you can do about graphics. Still, the backgrounds are detailed and the fighters and enemies are well animated, especially the fighter transformations. There are several points where you’ll see cells from the Robotech series which look real good on the Gameboy. Again, the slow-down problem addressed in Play Control overlaps here, because it is a graphics problem. I stress again, though, that for a side-scroller, graphics are fine, since there isn’t much room for flexibility, except in the background. Robotech fans will notice things in the background like the SDF-1, a crashed Zentraedi ship, the Cloning Chamber aboard a Zentraedi ship, etc.

Music: 6
For a game based on a series that relied heavily upon music as a story element, the music in The Macross Saga has much to be desired. While the songs in the game are songs from the TV show, it’s all computer-sounding and digital (like really crappy MIDI sounds on a computer). Plus, it gets real monotonous after a while, once you’ve heard the songs through a couple of times. In certain cases, like when you get to pilot a Destroid, the music doesn’t go at all with what you’re doing and severely detracts from your full enjoyment. My recommendations: go to the OPTIONS menu and disable Music, but keep the sound effects on. Then find yourself some good songs to play on your stereo.

Sound Effects: 9
Much better here – the sounds in the game are much more similar to the sound effects in the show, especially the transformations. One thing that was lacking is the “buzz-saw” sound of your main gun, but since the game fires off fewer rounds than you might see in the TV show, it only makes sense to change the sound, which they did well. Again, I have to say that the transformation sound is perfect, because it could almost be a direct sample of the sound from the show – it’s that good. An unfortunate side-effect from all the action in the game means you’re always firing your weapons, so that’s mainly what you hear most of. And since the weapon sound effects take priority over other sounds in the game, you’ll probably get sick of the weapon sound effects since you don’t hear much of anything else, like the cool transformations.

Replayability: 8
Doing certain things in the game will “unlock” extra features of the game (which I will not divulge here), and it MAY require replaying the game a few times to unlock everything. So if you want to unlock the secrets of Robotech, you will be replaying a bit. However, if all you wanted to do was beat the game, then you may get tired of doing the same things all the time. The different pilots and the different difficulty levels might make replaying the game more interesting.

Rent or Buy?
If you’re a die-hard Robotech fan (and have a GBA), you’ll probably want to buy this one, because it’s fun to play if you’re waiting for the bus or something, even if you’ve beaten it ten times already. For those who are not big fans, but have a week free to play, try renting it, because if you’re not real into Robotech, once you’ve bean the game and unlocked the surprises, it doesn’t get any better than that. So if you’ve got the time to spend playing and re-playing the game, go rent it. But if you’re that big Robotech fan that couldn’t afford a Playstation 2 to play the Robotech: Battlecry game on (like me), you’ll want to get this one.

Overall: 8
My final thought is “pretty good for a side-scroller.” You’re not going to get much story about Robotech, but it’s a good little shoot ‘em up game. If the sound had been a little better and the story outlined more in the cut-scenes, this might have been rated a little better. But of all the different Robotech/Macross side-scrolling shooters I’ve played, this one I like the best.

I stress again that anyone would enjoy this game more if they watched the Robotech series that’s on DVD now. You’ll feel much more a part of the story than if you just pick the game up without having experienced the true Robotech.

Bugs Section: Just so everyone knows, I'm including a list of small problems with the game. First, as discussed earlier, is the transformation problem that results in 'touching'' the ground, causing damage, when you should be above the ground. Second, again already discussed, is the slow down. Third, is occasionally seeing ''afterburner thrust'' when a Guardian lands on the ground - the ''thrust'' shows up as a white whisp somewhere in the air on-screen. It shouldn't be there. Also, my game has crashed twice since Christmas '02.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/19/03, Updated 05/19/03