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One of the lesser-known but equally fantastic FromSoftware mecha games that started out on the PlayStation 2 is the Another Century’s Episode series.
Effectively meant as an action version of Super Robot Wars, which featured disparate mecha from various anime all fighting together, it mostly focused on real robot-type mecha and worked more like an aerial combat game than the ground-pounder-focused Armored Core.
However, Another Century’s Episode didn’t just appear out of nowhere. There had been various earlier attempts to make mecha anime crossover action games.
The most notable of these was Real Robots Final Attack for the original PlayStation. A rather poor clone of Virtual On, it was essentially an arena fighting game built around dash attacks. The Virtual On connection is notable here, as this, too, would also influence the Another Century’s Episode games, but I will get to that later.
In any case, while the classic Armored Core games had a very manual targeting system, the various mecha action games of this period used a tethered lock-on, and it’s here we get to the first Another Century’s Episode.
Another Century's Episode (PS2)
With an amazing line-up of different mecha series, the first big aspect of this first game in the series was that the mecha were portrayed at their original sizes, with tiny aura battlers from Aura Battler Dunbine alongside the huge Nu Gundam from Gundam: Char’s Counterattack. The main gameplay was far more open-ended in terms of the environment’s size and how you could actually fly through it.
The game is often incorrectly compared to the Zone of the Enders series in terms of how it works functionally. Both Another Century’s Episode and Zone of the Enders take inspiration from Virtual On, but Another Century’s Episode takes a decidedly different approach to its boosting, among many other things.
In that, instead of having a fixed vectored dash similar to Virtual On, you had a more ballistic style boost. This ballistic boost allowed you to move much faster, but it limited your turning angle, and you had to get a good line of attack on your target even with the fixed orbit lock-on system.
The missions were also quite varied and had multiple objectives within each of them, such as the Metal Armor Dragonar stage, where you had to fly across a big area to protect a shuttle launch.
Each series also had memorable missions, with the Aura Battler Dunbine mission versus the Will Wipps battleship in the clouds being great fun. If memory serves, the mecha from Brain Powerd were particularly powerful and nimble with it.
Another Century's Episode 2 (PS2)
Released only a year later, Another Century's Episode 2 had a really big overhaul, both graphically and functionally. The big new graphical addition was cel-shaded anime characters that would talk mid-mission. These were all done really well and made the game feel even closer to each of its host mecha anime.
The other functional changes were made to the boosting and close combat. With the latter, you would now home in more aggressively on a target, which made the melee attacks much more potent.
The other change was a more open and less restrictive approach to boost, with far quicker animations for attacks, making everything feel more responsive. It also introduced units from Macross, and these all played surprisingly well, although I still feel SEGA’s Macross game on the PlayStation 2 is still the best, at least in how it handled the flight mechanics.
The second game definitely played a lot better than the first game, but it felt that the boss balancing was a bit too overt; they tended to have abnormally high health. There is also a Special Vocal Version of the game, which featured all the original songs, but that was released after the third game.
Another Century's Episode 3: The Final (PS2)
Another Century's Episode 3: The Final optimized how the game played even further, but broadly followed on from the mechanics and boost setup in the second game. The flight mechanics were also improved, as we now had both the YF-19 and YF-21 from Macross Plus.
One of the big changes in the third game was how it used the original music and songs from the respective host mecha anime, which again made the various anime references even more potent.
While this entry dropped my beloved Blue Comet SPT Layzner, it did add series like Eureka Seven and Overman King Gainer, with the latter being insanely powerful once fully upgraded.
The upgrades and general balancing were also kinder than the second game, and environments were broken down into more succinct areas, where you normally had to deal with specific targets in a Dynasty Warriors-like manner.
The third game is the best of the first three in the series, but I know people who love the second game a great deal. For me, the absence of Layzner definitely makes me look fondly on the first two games.
Another Century's Episode R (PS3)
We had to wait three long years for a new game in the series, and this time it was on the PlayStation 3. However, this game sadly wasn’t worth the wait.
The main change over the first three games was how the boosting worked, and it was mostly replaced by a very fast, direct overboost-type setup. Gone was the nuanced ballistic boosting from the three games, and instead, you had a boosting setup that zoomed you to new combat areas and then no real movement finesse once you got there.
You also had a new system for refilling attacks by doing regular attacks first. This was a bit of a weird setup and meant you spent more time using weaker attacks to be able to access the stronger ones.
The controls also received some major changes, and I think this was partly instigated by the inclusion of Orguss, with this mecha having four modes of transformation and those modes being assigned to the D-pad, and that in turn knocked all the other controls around to different inputs.
It also had lots of unskippable cutscenes with the text “Not Skip Movie” if you tried to jump ahead.
It’s not clear why this game changed so much functionally when it had no need to do so, as the third game had really honed everything so beautifully. There are rumours that Banpresto was more involved in the game’s design in this instance, but the reality of what happened here is still unclear.
It’s also a shame, because graphically it was great, and I love Orguss. Not to mention that it included Nineball Seraph from Armored Core: Master of Arena as a playable unit.
Another Century's Episode Portable (PSP)
As FromSoftware knew that the previous game didn’t work very well functionally, most of the old boost mechanics from the PlayStation 2 games were reintroduced in this portable version.
It also retained the overboost setup from the PlayStation 3 game, but it made more sense in the context of the original ballistic boost system, so it was less jarring.
That said, the technical specifications of the PlayStation Portable did hinder this game a bit. Mainly because each of the various areas in the game tended to be quite barren, and did feel like a downgrade even from what the PlayStation 2 games accomplished.
It was definitely much more fun to play than the PlayStation 3 game, but it still didn’t quite recapture the magic of the PlayStation 2 trilogy of games.
Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn (PS3)
While this wasn’t technically part of the Another Century’s Episode series, a lot of the boost mechanics and general gameplay were carried over in this rather interesting Gundam game.
It was a definite improvement over Another Century’s Episode R, but had lots of enemies with high health again, which tended to make most engagements artificially extended and a bit tedious.
The extra mission mode, where you protected your battleships while trying to sink your opponents, was one of the best parts of the game. Whereas the story mode, while interesting and accurate enough to the anime, was a bit too rigid in its mission layout.
It would be great if the original trilogy of Another Century’s Episode games were given HD remasters and released globally. These were and are genuinely great mecha games, and would act in a similar way to Super Robot Wars by introducing gamers to various new mecha anime.