Awesome, Dear Boy: A lot of voice actors toss in extra voice lines that aren't part of the original script, giving us some fun crossover interactions. Notable examples include Takahiro Sakurai, Ami Koshimizu and Kenichi Suzumura, but the most standout case is Hikaru Midorikawa, who holds the record for most recorded voice lines in the franchise thanks to all his characters.
Creator's Favorite: Given their many inclusions throughout the licensed installments in the franchise, as well as being the codifying examples of Mecha fiction, there will always be at least one Gundam, Mazinger or Getter Robo series in a licensed-Super Robot Wars title, even if their appearance is nothing more than Filler.
Aeon Genesis has also been working on Super Robot Wars Alpha for a long time, with delays largely caused by attempting to balance work on it around other projects and Real Life (combined with the fact that it isn't the easiest game to work with from a hacking perspective).
To date, the franchise has sixty-five plus distinct software products released under its banner. English-speaking players have received legal releases of seven of these: the Super Robot Wars: Original GenerationGame Boy Advance installments, the first Endless Frontier, The Moon Dwellers, Super Robot Wars V, Super Robot Wars X, Super Robot Wars T and Super Robot Wars 30. TMD, V, X and T were also released to retail in the Southeast Asia/Pacific region only (though a lack of region locking made them extremely import-friendly). English-speakers also got a release of Super Robot Wars Original Generation: Divine Wars, but undubbed. International copyright regulations make the export of virtually any game with a licensed property in it incredibly difficult, and the older, 2000s-era titles didn't manage to sell well enough to justify releasing the later Original Generation games worldwide.
In fact, you can blame Sony Interactive Entertainment for having Original Generations (The PS2 remake of both OG and OG2), OG Gaiden and 2nd OGs staying in Japan as their stance at the time required that they need an English voice track before they can be allowed to be localized, despite being easy to localize for international markets like the first two Original Generation games before it.
To be fair, Bandai Namco Entertainment and Toei Animation combined currently own the American distribution rights of virtually all new series. However, anything Macross-related is caught in the legal snarl preventing most of it from ever making it overseas (Thank you Harmony Gold, Big West, Studio Nue and Tatsunoko Production), and series picked up for distribution by third-parties always makes things a little harder. In fact, V, X and T are able to avoid getting blocked because they don't feature any Macross properties whatsoever. With 2021 bringing an settlement between all three parties to allow the release of more Macross properties overseas, this may likely change for future SRW titles post-30. (As of this writing, despite being Japan-only, DD has yet to bring in any Macross title in the game.)
Ironically, the series lineup in Super Robot Wars W consisted entirely of Bandai Namco and Toei Animation-held, American-released shows, which could have made it overseas before V. Unfortunately, the rights for Voltron in America are held by World Events Productions (who have reportedly been in off-again, on-again disputes over it with Toei for the rights to make a movie), GaoGaiGar and Tekkaman Blade are Media Blasters properties, while Mazinkaiser, Martian Successor Nadesico and Full Metal Panic! were part of ADV Films and may still belong to Sentai Filmworks or Aesir Holdings. W would have been one of the simplest titles to sort out, licensing-wise, but nothing came of it. In short, the hurdles facing any Super Robot Wars installment legally are formidable due to the way Anime sub-licensing has worked and continues to work.
A panel with Media Blasters claimed the license for Voltron was in order for this game... until Nickelodeon optioned Voltron Force. The optioning prevented games with the Voltron license from being released without Nick's approval, and the ensuing legal drama kept the game from being exported.
One of the most frustrating examples, however, would go to Alpha (Specifically the Dreamcast version): Banpresto was able to get the green light from almost of all the license-holders stateside to use their properties, and it would have been the ideal time to release it, as Mobile Suit Gundam Wing was at the height of its popularity. There was even a significant amount of work put into localizing it until the aforementioned Harmony Gold said no, not wanting Super Dimension Fortress Macross to be brought stateside and interfere with the sales of Robotech (a series which had ended over 10 years prior). As Macross was essential to the plot of Alpha, this pretty much killed any chance of the game being released.
Prop Recycling: Very common within the franchise, with multiple games sharing assets with one another, usually in the form of character portraits, unit sprites or attack animations.
Un-Canceled: The series could have ended at Super Robot Wars 2, Super Robot Wars 3, or Super Robot Wars F Final, but found a way to keep going after each game:
Super Robot Wars 2 sold badly, and Winkysoft had to convince Banpresto to make a third Super Robot Wars game.
Super Robot Wars 3 also started off with sluggish sales, but interest picked up some time after it had released and fan demand eventually convinced Banpresto to make a fourth Super Robot Wars game.
Super Robot Wars F and F Final were intended to be a Grand Finale, but moved so many copies that Banpresto had no choice but to keep the series going.
The defunct "Two Year Rule", a belief Banpresto won't include any series until two years after it ends its film/television broadcast in order to avoid Spoilers. In reality, a series can't be added because its rights hasn't yet come up for licensing. This rule can be disproven simply by looking at the original Super Robot Wars, which had Mobile Suit Gundam F91 barely over a month after it came out in theaters.
There was a rumor that Banpresto and fellow developer Winkysoft had some kind of falling-out post-Alpha Gaiden, which may have been why Masou Kishin elements (outside of three recurring characters) hadn't appeared in a mainstream game after Alpha Gaiden. This was also proven false when they reappeared in the Second Original Generation.
The idea of "hybrid" robots (neither a Real Robot or Super Robot) in the games, since some units don't behave the way they should (ie: a real dealing more damage than a super or a super more accurate and agile than a real). Through debugging the games, uncovering combat calculations and their formulas and admissions from Word of God, there's no such thing as "hybrids" - all units in all games are either real or super.
Rumors were once abound that certain creators were defensive about their properties entering Super Robot Wars. Ouji Hiroi of Sakura Wars and the Mashin Hero Wataru Series was suggested to have disliked the franchise and barred both series being included, until their respective debuts in Super Robot Wars X-Ω and X (Sakura Wars would eventually make its non-Spin-Off debut as Downloadable Content for 30), hinting that it was never truly the case. Likewise, CLAMP towards Magic Knight Rayearth: despite Code Geass being a CLAMP property (it was made in conjunction with Sunrise), the latter was fair game, but not Rayearth, yet it appears alongside other series for TExplanationBack in the day, Rayearth wouldn't have been considered Mecha, and not without reason, when it didn't take up a majority of the show's conflict. After B.B. Studio expanded/loosened criteria via X-Ω, V and X, the series was added in. The same explanation can also be used for Devilman and its debut in Super Robot Wars DD.
For the longest time, it was thought that the reason why the Cybuster and the Masou Kishin characters were made was because Banpresto failed to obtain the rights to Aura Battler Dunbine for Super Robot Wars 2. During the Super Robot Wars DD first anniversary live-stream, after the third Crossover pilot was revealed to be Masaki Andoh in the Billbine, series producer Takanobu Terada acknowledged that rumor and said it was false.
The lack of series that featured/starred Akira Kamiya (1970's Getter Robo, Raideen, Daimos, Dangaioh and Super Dimension Fortress Macross) after the Super Robot Wars Z saga, including Kamiya's old age and personal statements that he strained his voice after so many Hot-Blooded recordings in his prime, created rumors that those series won't ever be included in modern Super Robot Wars installments out of respect for his health or that it was because Kamiya signed a retirement contract that prevents him from getting paid for recycled voiceovers or that his reputable voice actor status means it would be expensive to even re-use his pre-recorded lines. This was also compounded with how the mobile game Iron Saga once collaborated with Dangaioh, yet featured no voiceovers. These rumors were quickly swept away in the franchise's 30th anniversary live-stream: when Kamiya guest-starred in the early talk show with Terada, both revealed that Kamiya's absence weren't because he requested not to appear or that he can't do normal voiceovers that aren't Hot-Blooded roles again (in fact, he reprised as Ryo Saeba recently), but rather that Terada felt it wasn't the right time to use those aforementioned shows yet - it's just mere coincidencenote Since Iron Saga isn't a Bandai Namco property, it's implied the retirement contract would prevent Kamiya from recording new dialogue for them or that negotiations with him failed. On the other hand, it didn't forbid the usage of pre-recorded lines that was made for Bandai Namco and B.B. Studio. This rumor is finally debunked for good with Raideen being featured in Super Robot Wars DD starting from August 2023.
What Could Have Been: Previous series producer Takanobu Terada had wanted to make a licensed installment called Shin Super Robot Warsnote Not the same as Shin Super Robot Wars - the kanji for this used "新" (new), whereas his proposed title would use "真" (true) featuring only Showa Era (that means shows released between 1963 and 1989 when Emperor Hirohito died - the Showa is the Japanese postmortem name)-Mecha properties to give it an "old-school" feel. This game would play more like the Alpha saga rather than modern entries with simpler mechanics such as the lack of SR Point objectives and the ability to play as the villains in New Game Plus. His idea never got past the planning phase because the younger staff at B.B. Studio had no interest in this scenario; instead, the incorporation of only Showa Era-series would form part of the Alternate Universe narrative for Super Robot Wars DD.
Miscellaneous Trivia
During the 30th anniversary live-stream on July 11, 2021, it was revealed that the franchise had obtained a Guinness World Record for having "the most intellectual property licenses used in a role-playing video game series" at a whopping 274. To put this into perspective, Super Smash Bros. is often seen as the most renowned Crossover for the medium, while Super Robot Wars tends to be overshadowed despite having existed longer, yet suffered from a combination of No Export for You and being parts of twogenres that became more niche as time passed on.
