A to Z Challenge: Invasion & Battlecry (Robotech)

Because I have something else for R & had something else for B, I'm doing my Robotech PS2 games here even though Invasion was the second game made for the PS2--at least in America.

I've probably said it before, but the first Robotech PS2 game Battlecry was the main reason I bought a PS2 in the first place.  While they made Macross games in Japan, there was never really a Robotech game for older platforms or the PC.  Battlecry was really the first attempt on this side of the pond to create a game that would let you do some (but not all) of the stuff from the TV show.

Like most of these games, you don't play as Rick Hunter, Roy Fokker, or anyone like that.  Instead you're Jack Archer, a guy who's sort of like Rick or Roy but not.  The game starts when the Zentraedi invade Earth to steal the SDF-1.  The unfortunate thing then is you don't get to go with the SDF-1 to do some of the cool stuff from the TV show like battle in Saturn's rings or go to Mars or stuff.

You do get to be in the final battle to help the SDF-1 destroy Dolza's flagship.  Then a large chunk of the game is afterwards, trying to put down riots in the cities that remain after the "Rain of Death" and put down rogue Zentraedi in the wastelands.  The final battle takes you to deep space, where even if you win, you die alone in space.  Hooray?

The awesome thing about this game is instead of the side-scrolling type for older platforms, you can play from the cockpit or outside of it.  And best of all, you can change your Veritech between all three modes:  plane, robot, or the hybrid Guardian mode.  You have the Veritech's gun and also missiles to take down various bad guys.

Of course since this is mission-based, some of the missions can be a real pain in the ass.  For instance there's one where you have to escort famous singer/actress Lynn-Minmei and of course then there are Zentraedi who show up.  You could probably just scoop up her car and fly in Guardian mode to safety, but no, you have to painstakingly follow her car around while killing bad guys.  It can be very annoying.

Through most of the game, Archer has a female boss who's voiced by one of the women who worked on the original dubs.  If you're slacking off on a mission--or she thinks you are--she'll break in to berate you with something like, "Wolf 10, what are you doing?!"

While not a perfect game, it was really awesome for me to fly around in a Veritech and shoot Zentraedi pods and stuff like I was Rick Hunter.  

I was then excited for the next game a few years later.  They skipped over the "Second Generation" with its Hovertanks to go right to the "Third Generation" based on Genesis Climber Mospaeda.  The game is called Invasion because it's about the Invid, you guessed it, invading Earth and taking over.  You play as "Locke" a dude who can't remember who he is but gets a Cyclone and starts helping the resistance fight the Invid.  Like the other game you don't get to interact with Scott Bernard or other main characters a lot.

What was disappointing to me with this game is you only get the Cyclone (no Alpha or Beta Veritechs) and you're in its robot mode pretty much all the time.  You don't get to change to its motorcycle mode while fighting, which is kind of lame.  I guess they figured letting you do that would mess up the whole first-person shooter thing.

So most of it you're walking or running around while killing Invid mechs.  And then like "Ariel" in the TV show, your guy starts to realize that he's actually an Invid creation.  And then he helps to get the Invid Regis to leave Earth or whatever.

It was not nearly as much fun as Battlecry.  I don't know if there were development problems or what but it wound up being a cut-rate Robotech-themed HALO.

The problem with both games was since neither had an open-world aspect the replay value wasn't great as you could basically only do the missions over again.

On the RetroGame site there were a bunch of Japanese Macross games and two Robotech games.  One was just a prototype N64 game called Crystal Dreams that let you fly the Veritech from the cockpit or outside of it:

And another was a Gameboy Advanced game that was neat in that you could transform, though it was too slow.  That game let you fly as different characters like Rick Hunter, Roy Fokker, Max Sterling, Miriya, and Ben Dixon.

Most of both the Macross and Robotech ones on there are side-scrollers where you take on swarms of Zentraedi.  A strategy game would have been neat.  You could have played as Gloval in charge of the RDF or Breetai in charge of the Zentraedi and then reenacted some of the battles from the series.