| SUPER ROBOT WARS Y | |||
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| Gameplay & Story | Release Date | DLC & Pre-Order | Review |
SUPER ROBOT WARS is the Smash Bros. of mecha tactical RPGs! Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
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SUPER ROBOT WARS Y Review Overview
What is SUPER ROBOT WARS Y?
Super Robot Wars Y is the latest entry in the long-running Super Robot Wars series. Developed by Bandai Namco Forge Digitals (formerly B.B. Studio) and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment, the game released on August 28, 2025 for PC, PS5, and the Nintendo Switch. It continues the franchise’s tradition of crossing over multiple mecha anime series, following on the heels of Super Robot Wars 30 back in 2021.
The game is a tactical SRPG where famed mecha units and their pilots from a wide range of anime intersect on the battlefield. Players command these units in grid-based combat, forming diverse squads to battle common threats. As part of the new storyline, Super Robot Wars Y introduces original characters, such as siblings Cross and Forte Tsukinowa and Echika Y. Franburnett, who inherits a colossal mobile fort named A. Advent.
A notable new system added to the game’s turn-based combat is the Assist Link. Here, non-pilot characters, like support or sidekick figures, can now join missions as Assist Crew to perform Assist Commands such as restoring HP or boosting combat stats. These Assist Crew members gain experience and rank up, which unlock more abilities; at the highest rank, they even trigger special Assist Talk conversation sequences.
SUPER ROBOT WARS Y features:
⚫︎ Expanded and Notable Crossover Roster
⚫︎ Assist Link System
⚫︎ Player Choice-Driven Mission Structure
⚫︎ Reworked User Interface (UI)
⚫︎ Original Story and Characters
⚫︎ Unit and Pilot Upgrades
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about SUPER ROBOT WARS Y’s gameplay and story.
| Digital Storefronts | ||||||||
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 Steam |
 PlayStation |
 Switch |
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| Price: | $59.99 | |||||||
SUPER ROBOT WARS Y Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Huge Crossover Roster The! Battle! Animations! Crossover Characters Feel Like They're Part of the World |
Visual Novel Segments Feel Bland Not too Deep of a Tactical RPG Can Feel Intimidating or Overly Niche for Newcomers |
SUPER ROBOT WARS Y Overall Score - 78/100
Super Robot Wars Y is not the best tactical RPG around, but watching large robots tear across the screen in bombastic animated attacks more than makes up for the light strategy mechanics. The story doesn’t break new ground, and its presentation can feel flat, yet it weaves decades of mecha history into something cohesive. There were almost always moments that had me grinning like a kid again, pointing at the screen when a favorite character showed up.
SUPER ROBOT WARS Y Story - 8/10
The original cast, especially Forte and Echika, carry the narrative well enough to keep the whole crossover framework from toppling over its ambitious head. Seeing familiar faces like Lelouch and Char Aznable woven into the plot is half the fun, and the smaller character interactions give the world a lived-in feel even when some heroes fade into the background. By mecha anime standards, the story is decent, but the flat presentation of the visual novel segments makes long stretches of dialogue feel like a slog to go through.
SUPER ROBOT WARS Y Gameplay - 7/10
The tactics gameplay here is as straightforward as they come. You move your units, line up attacks, and manage resources. Again, simple. The maps rarely push you to think beyond the basics, which leaves the strategy side feeling more like a routine. Upgrades and pilot customization add some spice, though even those can feel like they don’t matter at all in the grand scheme of the combat. By SRPG standards, it’s decent, but not something I’ll go back to replay for the thrill of it all. Hey, at least the battle animations look good.
SUPER ROBOT WARS Y Visuals - 9/10
What sticks with you most isn’t the menus or map screens, but the sheer spectacle of watching giant robots tear across the screen like you’ve stumbled into a lost episode of your favorite mecha anime. Attacks are staged with reverence for the source material, every beam saber attack and combining sequence rendered with care. They can drag on a little if you’ve seen them for the hundredth time, but even then, you can speed them up or skip them entirely if you want to. But, really, why would you want to?
SUPER ROBOT WARS Y Audio - 8/10
As this series is built on nostalgia, this game nails the details. You can expect explosions and beam rifles to have the exact crunch and zap you remember from their original shows, and it’s hard not to smile when familiar voice actors slip back into their roles after so many years. Plus, every time a unit jumps into a fight, their original theme song kicks on. It’s a small touch that makes up for the lackluster audiovisual design during the visual novel segments.
SUPER ROBOT WARS Y Value for Money - 7/10
As generous as the game can be with its roster and missions, it’s still a tough sell when stacked against the tidal wave of other releases hitting around the same time, especially when it’s a niche title priced at $60. There’s plenty of content here for longtime fans to chew on, but the pacing can feel padded, and not every encounter justifies the hours you’ll need to sink in. It’s a package that rewards patience and love for the genre, even if it occasionally asks for more of both than it probably should.
SUPER ROBOT WARS Y Review: Smash Bros. but for Giant Robots
I don’t even know where to begin with Super Robot Wars Y. It’s not necessarily messy or confusing, but it feels like it’s trying to untangle decades’ worth of wires all knotted together—every tug pulls at some other memory, some other piece of anime history. The thing about this series is that, like Smash Bros., it’s always been a celebration of multiple series; in this case, it pulls from multiple mecha series and places them in a tactical RPG. Sitting down to play, I found myself not knowing if I should focus on the fact that I was moving digital versions of robots I grew up with, or if I should be trying to judge it like any other strategy game. Perhaps it’s best to start by contextualizing where Super Robot Wars comes from.
The said franchise has been around since 1991, building itself up as a crossover event for mecha anime, long before the Smash Bros. and the idea of cinematic universes was even a thing. It’s not as popular as these, but it spanned handhelds, and even mobile devices, with a fanbase that sticks with it because of how it weaves together disparate anime worlds into a single, surprisingly cohesive whole. Super Robot Wars Y carries on that legacy while also giving newcomers an approachable entry point, even if they haven’t played the dozen-plus games before it.
Admittedly, I haven’t played those dozen-plus games. I walked into the game with only fragments of knowledge, mostly from the mecha anime I’ve watched over the years. Some of these are ones I know well: Code Geass, the Gundam ones, SSSS.Dynazenon; those that many have at least heard of. Others, like Combattler V and Getter Robo, I actually grew up with, watching reruns on Saturday mornings while hunched over the kitchen counter with a bowl of cereal. The rest, I’m sad to say, I’ve only heard in passing or not at all. But playing Super Robot Wars Y felt like being pulled back into those mornings, while at the same time pushing me ever forward, making me want to rewatch Gundam SEED and Godzilla Singular Point, and convincing me to finally add even more mecha anime to my ever-growing watchlist.
A Mecha Anime Through and Through
While avoiding spoilers to the multiple franchises involved, I’ll try, to the best of my abilities, to explain in brief the game’s original premise. In broad strokes, Super Robot Wars Y opens in the aftermath of Lelouch's Zero Requiem, his death and its ripple effects across Earth and space. This sets the tone for the world's fragile state. Shortly thereafter, we meet Echika Franburnett, who, on her 14rh birthday, inherits the leadership over A. Advent, a city that also functions as a massive mobile battleship. Alongside her are her tutor, the siblings Cross and Forte (who the player plays as), and the many crossover characters.
These characters start off with their own agendas, doubts, and baggage, but rapidly find that camaraderie and shared purpose may be the only way to stand a chance. Echilka steers A. Advent on a mission to use its near-limitless energy-generating capability to provide power across the planet and bolster post-war reconstruction efforts. But, of course, things get worse. As in many mecha plots, the government wades in, and you discover that the small problems are just the beginning of something far more political, far messier.
The story progresses through a sequence of missions, each advancing either the original plot or spotlighting a particular crossover series. Mainline chapters handle the larger narrative beats, while optional side missions allow players to expand their roster and unlock more character interactions, all of which players can manage through a flowchart. This shows branching paths that point to other optional missions.
The mission-based structure felt like watching Saturday-morning mecha anime play out in interactive form. Better yet, after exiting to the main menu, the game will drop you into these short intermission-like screens where the characters from one of the featured series start yakking, like it’s the first ad break in an old cartoon, complete with fourth-wall breaking banter that makes you crack a grin at how self-aware it all is.
The story is solid enough. It follows a fairly predictable path; it’s not revolutionary, but I appreciate how Echika and Forte/Cross grow through their trials. Forte’s upbeat chatter is endearing, and Cross’s emo-ness is cool. I liked where their arcs headed, however formulaic the path.
However, the presentation undercuts many of the game’s emotional beats. That isn’t necessarily the story’s fault; I haven’t played earlier entries, so I don’t know if this is a step up or down. But in Y, a lot of the narrative unfolds in visual-novel-style segments: static, non-voiced text boxes. The character portraits are great, but the static format can make the sci-fi jargon yawn-inducingly monotonous. Lines of technobabble about the science of things start to blur together, and I’d catch myself zoning out mid-paragraph. As much as I appreciate Echika and Mina, there were moments when I just wanted to skip past the dialogue to get to the actual gameplay.
None of this ruins the story, though, which, even though predictable, I enjoyed quite a bit. The game delivers more wins than misses in that department.
A Roster of “Who’s Who” And “Who?”
The appeal of Super Robot Wars, though, has always been the crossovers, in seeing decades of anime history bump elbows in a way that somehow doesn’t collapse under its own weight. Of course, part of how much you enjoy this depends on whether you can tell your Zeta Gundam from your G Gundam, or if you recognize the difference between the Getter Robo Arcs by silhouette alone. If you’re even slightly obsessed with mecha anime, you’re going to find yourself pointing at the screen like Leonardo DiCaprio in that one meme more often than you’d like to admit.
In my case, as someone who grew up watching some of these series on TV and on streaming services, I definitely had that moment when Takuma and Baku from Getter Robo showed up, even before they boarded their units. At the same time, I’d be lying if I said there weren’t plenty of instances when I just blinked and muttered "who?" to no one in particular, like when Show from Aura Battler Dunbine and Daba from Heavy Metal L-Gaim arrived with all the gravitas in the world, only for me to sit there scrambling to remember if I’d ever even heard of them before.
Super Robot Wars, though, is a celebration of mecha anime across eras. It would be strange not to include the less-mainstream series alongside the household names. What surprised me most, though, is how the game actually makes their inclusion work within the frame of its original story.
Some characters, like Lelouch from Code Geass and Char Aznable from Mobile Suit Gundam, are already embedded in the world from the start. Others, like Show and Daba, or Chitose and Soji from Super Robot Wars V, get pulled into the A. Advent via wormhole shenanigans. You’d expect this mash-up of setups to feel disjointed, but it doesn’t. Credit goes to the writers, who had the unenviable task of balancing an original cast, an overarching plot, and dozens of side characters parachuting in from all over anime history. Against all odds, they manage to keep it cohesive.
Of course, not every crossover character gets equal spotlight. Some show up to lend their firepower and a handful of scenes, then disappear entirely. Yet the game sprinkles in small interactions that remind you they’re still there. Kamui and Takuma from Getter Robo never miss a chance to argue. Akira from Reideen the Brave bonds with Echika and the Getter crew over the common ground of doting mothers. Forte, meanwhile, has a shared history with Gundam pilots like Domon, Heero, and Wufei. The game never spells out what exactly went down between them, but the tension in their dialogue makes it feel like their last encounter wasn’t exactly a happy one. It’s those little touches that help sell the illusion that these characters all belong here.
Going Through the Motions of Combat
But before we forget, this is still a tactical RPG. And in that regard, it’s… somewhat okay? It’s not quite Fire Emblem levels of nuance, but it has enough moving parts to make you feel like you’re at least strategizing your runs. Combat plays out on grid-based maps, with each unit taking turns to either attack, reposition, or sit there looking menacing until it’s their enemy’s turn. During your turn, you can unleash attacks on your opponents based on your Morale, which sort of acts like a mana system that increases each time you do damage.
When the enemy does strike back, you’re given three options: Defend, Evade, and Counter. Defend is as obvious as it sounds: reduce the incoming damage, hope you live to see the next turn. Evade lowers the accuracy of the opponent’s attack. Counter is the spiciest of the three; you eat or dodge the attack and immediately strike back, provided you’re still standing. It’s a neat system, but by the fifth or sixth mission, I was mostly on autopilot. I would pick Counter if I trusted my unit’s health bar, Evade if the hit rate becomes 30% or lower, and Defend if neither seemed promising. The game never really punished me for this routine, at least not until much later, and even then it was more so because enemies became damage sponges.
However, the tactics part of Super Robot Wars Y isn’t as demanding as you might expect. Granted, I played on normal difficulty, but most missions still had me moving about the battlefield with little to no strategy at all. Unless you charge into fights you know (as the game tells you) you won’t win, there’s rarely a need to agonize over every move. Later chapters crank up the difficulty, and it’s here where you’d have to take into consideration Spirit Commands and Assist Links. Spirit Commands are abilities that give your units temporary accuracy boosts or guaranteed dodges or instant heals at the cost of Spirit Points (SP). Assist Links, meanwhile, allow allied units to provide you with certain buffs.
There are even energy and terrain mechanics baked into the system .Weapons burn through energy reserves, meaning you can’t just spam your most powerful attacks indefinitely, and different terrain types (air, land, sea, etc.) slightly alter unit performance. In practice, though, I rarely bothered to min-max around these quirks. Terrain feels more cosmetic than anything. Most maps are flat, featureless fields where elevation or facing direction doesn’t matter at all. Whether you’re flying, swimming, or walking, you’re usually fine just blasting away until the screen clears.
The real "strategy" of Super Robot Wars Y, if you can call it that, happens between battles. During intermissions, you can pour resources into upgrading your mechs, tweaking stats, and customizing passive skills. It’s here where you decide whether to spread your upgrades across the roster or funnel everything into a select few favorite units. I, predictably, dumped everything into Forte early on. She’s the protagonist; she deserves it. She became very overpowered early on, dodging enemy volleys while also hitting like a truck. The downside of this, though, is that my other units weren’t hitting consistently or couldn’t tank attacks without burning through their SP or leaning on Assists. It’s nice to think of these once in a while, but to be honest, at normal difficulty at least, you’ll be fine by just doing whatever you think looks cool.
I LOVE THE BATTLE ANIMATIONS!
But the best part of the gameplay—the one thing you’ll probably spend the most time gawking at—are the battle animations. They are, quite simply, spectacular. Every unit, whether it’s an original design or an anime icon, moves across the screen like they’ve been plucked right out of their source material. Watching Forte’s ninja-like Lunedrache dart across the screen, blade flashing as though you’re watching a lost episode of some long-running OVA, never gets old. The same goes for the way Combattler V pulls out its classic finishing moves straight from the anime, complete with that slightly over-the-top staging that makes you grin like a kid again.
It’s almost unfair how good they look. On the PS5, the animations are crisp, vibrant, and full of tiny details that keep you leaning forward. Sparks, laser flares, trails of light—they all explode across the screen like fireworks. And yet, despite how modern the rendering feels, there’s a deliberate respect for the source material. Every attack sequence, from the grandiose finishing moves to the simplest beam rifle shot, has the pacing and rhythm of an anime scene. They carry weight, not just in the numbers they chip off the enemy’s health bar, but in how they visually communicate the identity of each mech and pilot.
It’s a shame, then, that licensing restrictions prevent me from capturing screenshots beyond the opening chapter. If I could, my hard drive would be overflowing with clips of finishing moves and dramatic cut-ins.
If I had one complaint—and it’s a minor one—it’s that the animations do run long. You’ll see the same moves play out again and again across dozens of missions, and the sheer repetition can dull their impact. But the game seems to know this. You can fast-forward them, you can skip them entirely, or you can just let them play out and enjoy the ride.
Is SUPER ROBOT WARS Y Worth It?
Fight! Fight! Fight! Go! Go! Go! Totsugeki!
Super Robot Wars Y is a niche game, no two ways about it. It’s a tactical RPG, already a corner of gaming with its own dedicated but relatively small audience. Layer on top of that the fact that it celebrates a genre of anime that, while beloved, has never been mainstream outside of a handful of Gundam and Evangelion-level touchstones. And then, just for good measure, it sprinkles in deep cuts—series like Aura Battler Dunbine and Heavy Metal L-Gaim—that even longtime anime fans might need to Google. This is niche stacked on niche stacked on niche. It is not the kind of game you stumble into unless you’ve got a soft spot for giant robots or a curiosity about a crossover experiment that has somehow endured for decades.
I’ll admit, it’s not something I would have picked up on a whim if I hadn’t been tasked to cover it, especially not with a release date dropping right into the same window as Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Lost Soul Aside, and Gears of War Reloaded. Add to that Silksong’s release next week, that sixty bucks could have easily gone elsewhere.
Yet I’m glad it didn’t. Playing Super Robot Wars Y scratched an itch I didn’t even realize I still had. It rekindled that uncomplicated thrill of watching cool robots clash, but with the added bonus of me being able to push the buttons this time. For all the complaints I can lob at its overly wordy story sections or its lackluster mechanics, I can’t deny that it gave me a really good time. It reminded me why mecha anime exists in the first place; why these stories of steel and fire, of pilots shouting attack names into the void, continue to resonate decades on. And if a game can pull you back to your childhood while pushing you toward the future, that’s not a bad legacy to leave behind.
| Digital Storefronts | |||||
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| Steam |
PlayStation |
Switch |
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| Price: | $59.99 | ||||
SUPER ROBOT WARS Y FAQ
When is SUPER ROBOT WARS Y DLC Release Date?
Although there isn't a specific release date yet for the two DLCs for Super Robot Wars Y, the content for both packs has been revealed. The two downloadable content (DLC) packs are titled Contract from the Darkness and Awakening of a Soul.
DLC 1 Contract from the Darkness featured series:
● GALAXY CYCLONE BRAIGER
● THE BIG O
● FUUTO PI: The Portrait of Kamen Rider Skull
DLC 2 Awakening of a Soul featured series:
● Kotetsu Jeeg
● Dynamic Planning Original (Getter robot - The Jet-Black Drifters)
● BRAVE OF THE LEGEND DA-GARN
SUPER ROBOT WARS Y Similar Games
SUPER ROBOT WARS Y Product Information
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| Title | SUPER ROBOT WARS Y |
|---|---|
| Release Date | August 28, 2025 |
| Developer | Bandai Namco Forge Digitals Inc. |
| Publisher | Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. |
| Supported Platforms | PC (via Steam) PlayStation 5 Nintendo Switch |
| Genre | Anime, RPG, Strategy |
| Number of Players | Single-Player (1) |
| ESRB Rating | ESRB Teen PEGI 12 |
| Official Website | Official Website for SUPER ROBOT WARS Y |
