Super Robot Wars 2 is the first
Super Robot Wars title released on the
Famicom and the first to have an actual plotline, with its larval form becoming the modern SRW battle engine, though it clearly borrows a
lot from the first game, in this regard.
2 began what most fans call the "
Classic Timeline", to wit, the "Divine Crusaders War" (DC War) as the primary focus of the game. Basically, some alien technology is discovered by a scientist named
Bian Zoldark, who studies it and informs the world the crap that will fly unless they're prepared for the alien threat. Since he isn't taken seriously, he starts a war to jolt the attention of
The Federation. Enter the good guys, who wind up becoming part of SRW's first
Xanatos Gambit. Oh, and the first of many
Original Generation characters and mecha are featured.
Tropes common to
Super Robot Wars 2 are:
- Captain Ersatz: Believe it or not, Masaki and his Cybuster were not planned to be in this game. The original idea was to include Aura Battler Dunbine, but that fell through for various reasons and Banpresto then came up with four Original Generation machines: Cybuster, Valsion, Granzon, and the
Shurouga Shurouya. Three of these made it into 2, but Shurouga Shurouya is still missing in action. - Cutscene Power to the Max: Subverted. At some point in the game, a mysterious robot appears and destroy a bunch of turrets in a single attack and leaves. Eventually, it joins your team. Not only can the player use that attack that hits all opponents in range without mooks performing a counterattack, but the pilot can counter any opponent with it, with the bonus addition of having a cool firebird animation, and the attack is post-movement, in both modes?! Game Breaker? No, not really...
- Difficulty Spike: One scenario forces you to protect your battleship while it's doing its preparation for going into space. Mooks are coming in; no problem, just send your units to them...until the mooks ignore them and go straight for the ship. In fact, they're slaughtering it. From this point on, it would be best to start using Spirit Commands.
- Negative Continuity: The defection of Reccoa Londe and the brainwashing of Four Murasame occur in this game. That's fine...until it happens AGAIN in the exact same manner for the sequel, and NO ONE mentions that it's happened before.
- Nintendo Hard: For starters, no game over trick *
This is a process of acquiring a game over in any scenario, which immediately restarts at the beginning rather than take you back to the intermission menu. Essentially, players will keep all money, experience, kills and pilot points earned before the game over; this is the SRW equivalent of
Level Grinding.
- Original Generation: Masaki, Bian and Shu Shirakawa; for the mecha, the Granzon, Valsion and Cybuster
- The Mole: Paptimus Scirroco attempts to betray Bian, but Shu informs him that Bian knows and has him kicked out of the Divine Crusaders. This is even retained in the sequel.
- Shout Out: Cybuster's debut in 2 (where its power is first displayed) is basically a cut-and-paste rendition of this game in Super Robot Wars Original Generation.
- Villain Team Up: Considering Bian Zoldark happens to somehow get every Gundam show villain (thus far) and a few super robot villains into one cluster of a group, this easily applies.
- Wasted Song: The theme of UFO Robo Grendizer is too long for its own good. Thankfully, you can fully listen to it when switching to Grendizer's battle mode.
- Xanatos Gambit: Bian states unless the heroes defeat him, they have no chance against the aliens. Sure enough, he's given a beating that ends with him getting Killed Off for Real, but he intended this was necessary in order for The Federation to better arm itself and for them to prepare for the impending invasion.
- Slightly subverted, however, in that the organization Bian founds with the same goal as the heroes endures severe Motive Decay immediately when the sequel starts. Of course, considering it was mostly made of the Big Bads from the Gundam, Mazinger Z and Getter Robo series...
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