The 9/5 2019 issue of Famitsu included an interview with the two producers of Super Robot Wars DD, the new Super Robot Wars game for iOS and Android released in Japan on 21 August 2019.
The two producers are former publicity manager Akai Masatoshi (“Red”) of Bandai Namco Entertainmment, known for appearing on Super Robot Wars-related streams in a costume of SRW character Kyousuke Nanbu, and Terada Takanobu of B.B. Studio, the Super Robot Wars series producer.
Akai talks about how he originally started off as the person in charge of the Super Robot Wars series Twitter account before first appearing on the “Nama Suparobo Channel” stream in 2016, and says that development of DD considered a lot of the feedback he received from fans during his time as the series publicity manager.
DD was developed with the theme of “how do we make a console SRPG like SRW enjoyable and accessible on smartphones?”, and Akai, Terada, and the development team spent a lot of time discussing how to make this happen. The maps and battle animations were left as they are traditionally, but things like the auto-play function, stage length, and turn orders were changed to fit the platform, with the aim of making a game easier to play for people who are too busy to play the console versions of Super Robot Wars.
Terada says that SRW DD was born from how many fans of the series made requests saying that they wanted to play SRW on smartphones, which led to him discussing it with Bandai Namco Entertainment, and the development of DD. They prioritised making the game more accessible and possible to play in less time, and made changes to the traditional Super Robot Wars game systems accordingly, such as making it so that turns are based on units instead of factions, adding an auto play made, and changing how robots’ special moves are used. Terada notes that some of these were in fact changes that they previously considered doing in the SRW console releases. Terada says that they had trouble with optimising the series’ signature battle animations and crossover stories for the platform, as SRW games are traditionally time-consuming, and they spent a lot of time trying to get the balance right. He says that they made the game so that players of the console releases can also enjoy it, while also making it an entry title for new players.
Terada also says that DD allows players to easily experience the Super Robot Wars series’ traditional flavour. Additionally, the early parts of the game are split into four worlds based on players’ ages, which he says is something that he has wanted to do in the console releases for some time. This results in World 1 consisting only of Showa era series, which is rare in recent SRW games.
In addition to artists who have previously worked on the series, such as Oobari Masami, Akitaka Mika, Yamane Masahiro, Kouno Sachiko, Watanabe Wataru, Fujii Daisei and M Ganzy, new people such as Yasuda Suzuhito, Teraoka Kenji and Suzuki Kanta are also contributing to DD, which Terada says is rare for a non-OG game.
The interview concludes with Terada saying that DD includes elements that fans of older games in the series should enjoy, and that he hopes that people who used to play the games but no longer have the time to do so will pick up the game, also saying that people who have never played the games before but are interested in robot anime should be able to enjoy it as well.
