YMMV / Super Robot Wars V

• Cargo Ship: Achieve a "Dynamic Kill" with the Grungust using its "G Combination" attack with Charlotte Hasting as the pilot and there might be a chance where she'll exclaim that she thinks she's in love with the machine.
• Complete Monster: Lord Embryo is as awful here as he was in his home series. Having manipulated the annihilation of the Ancient Humans, Embryo creates a new world with brutal systems against those born without Mana, or "Norma", using them as cannon fodder in a war against the DRAGON people to kill as many of the DRAGON as possible and harvest energy from their bodies. Embryo, desiring to purge his humanity of less desired elements, also manipulates the Innovators, Amalgam, Blue Cosmos and more to launch terrorist attacks or brutal, genocidal campaigns that leave countless innocents dead. Deciding to destroy the World of Mana and start over, Embryo plans to kill all the humans trapped in the world while kidnapping every heroine to Mind Rape them into his sex slaves to breed a new race of humanity, even trying to murder them and Ange, the object of his obsession, when they refuse to be his playthings.
• Game-Breaker: See this page for details.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, Lord Djibril was killed-in-action by Rey Za Burrel; in V, Djibril also dies, but from Embryo. Both characters are voiced by the same person.
  • Space Battleship Yamato 2199 is not designated as part of the Mecha genre when it made its Super Robot Wars debut here, but by the events of its Sequel Space Battleship Yamato 2202, it has established itself◊ as one.
  • In the second verse of "THE EXCEEDER" by JAM Project, the lyrics contain the words "super robot o kanaero", which translates to "grant us the super robots". A big criticism of V was its Real Robot to Super Robot series ratio being 2:1. It becomes ironic when Super Robot Wars X and Super Robot Wars T increased the number of super robot series (until it's more-or-less equal to real robot series in T), as if Bandai Namco was complying to JAM Project's subtle request.
  • Lacus kidnapped by a long-haired blonde man with a lot of influence and perverse nature, Embryo, happens again in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom. Furthermore, V's canon has the Strike Freedom be inspired by the design of the Villkiss whereas in SEED Freedom, the Mighty Strike Freedom's wings and the Proud Defender's cockpit are reminiscent of the Villkiss's.
• Ho Yay
  • With the debut of Cross Ange comes all of the Les Yay associated with it.
  • Ever since they first meet, Tetsuya becomes very interested in Ryouma Nagare: the actual reason for this is Tetsuya believes Getter Ray radiation is the solution to break Kouji Kabuto out from the control of the Mazinger ZERO, but the way Tetsuya obsesses over Ryouma made players assume that he had a crush on him.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: Modern installments have never been very taxing tactically, but V is one of the easiest Super Robot Wars titles. There are a bevy of useful pilots and units, with plenty of evasive Real Robots used by pilots with high stats that they can dodge anything enemies throw at them and deliver a near-guaranteed counterattack^note Simultaneously, the universal pilot skill "Prevail" received a buff in V, meaning real robot pilots will still have trouble dealing with enemy bosses as the game progress. Meanwhile, allied Super Robots are difficult to destroy due to a combination of having high armor and Hit Points or a multitude of pilots with good "Spirit Commands" at their disposal or, in some cases, both. That's not even getting into the titular Yamato, THE Game-Breaker in V, and universally agreed to be the best battleship ever seen in a Super Robot Wars installment since the Nadesico in Super Robot Wars Judgment. This is all compounded by a lack of difficult enemies to deal with throughout the game - players find themselves facing enemies with poor abilities and statistics, while allied units can take anything thrown at them. Furthermore, the ability for players to use Spirit Commands after attacking and during the enemy turn^note The latter was previously available in Super Robot Wars NEO and Super Robot Wars OE makes unintentionally losing units more of a challenge than the actual game itself. A lot of the returning series in V use the units that appear as the final unit in their home series^note 00 Qan[T], Strike Freedom, Nu Gundam, ZZ Gundam while the debuting series have extremely powerful units such as the Villkiss (after receiving all its upgrades), Great Mightgaine, Shin Getter Robo, Awakened EVA-01, Mazin Emperor G and especially Mazinger ZERO.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!
  • Despite the roster featuring many unexpected additions, fans had expressed their disappointment the majority being used in V are reused from the Third Super Robot Wars Z duology. This got worse when it was revealed the game also recycled music not only from the Third Z, but the Gundam Extreme VS series as well.
  • Most units in V reuse the attacks they had in the Third Z duology: although animation recycling isn't new in the franchise, it's usually reserved for when games are part of an on-going saga (for instance, Alpha), allowing the animators to focus on the newcomers, except Word of God admitted V was a standalone installment. This was exacerbated when players discovered the Gundam Meisters and their units' (the 00 Qan[T], Raphael and Harute) attack animations were barely touched upon, if not at all^note In fact, the only new attack the Qan[T] has in V exists simply to replace its "ALL Attack" from the Third Z duology. The Zabanya was the exception to this, but that's for a whole different reason.
    • As a corollary, while many units do gain a new attack or earn a re-animated one, some players were miffed by the new animations, even finding problems with them. For example, take the Shin Getter and its two new animated attacks, the "Getter Razor" and "Stoner Sunshine": both feature the typical robot cut-in where the machine's art style briefly resembles its counterpart from the Anime, but the style hearkens much closer to its depiction from the OVA than the similar Third Z cut-ins, which haven't changed at all, making the visual difference in style extremely obvious.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • The Eternal finds itself as one of the weaker battleships in a game where there is no shortage of battleships with up to eight available. Lacus does not have a "Commander" aura ^note Increases surrounding units accuracy and evasion that are within a range of the unit which are almost a staple for battleship pilots and while her spirit commands are quite good for support, they are all very costly. Waltfeld has all the commands the player would want to use instead but he cannot have pilot skills or parts to decrease SP usage as he is a sub-pilot. Unlike Super Robot Wars J, Waltfeld is unable to be swapped as the main pilot and the Eternal cannot be used to repair or resupply units. As a unit and not the pilots, the Eternal's only advantages are a weak post-movement attack^note a rarity among battleships, even in V to make Lacus an ace faster and giving the Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice access to their METEOR attacks. For players who do not use the Strike Freedom or Infinite Justice, the Eternal is largely a relatively weak and costly battleship where better options are available.
  • The Ptolemaios 2 Custom suffers this slightly. It can repair units and its barrier makes it a Stone Wall but its low movement, lack of damaging options and no unique niche compared to the other battleships makes this unit be used less.
• Memetic Badass: Ange has been turned into one because of her opening the Vilkiss' cockpit and firing at her enemies with a machine gun in space.
• Memetic Mutation: See its own page here.
• Nightmare Fuel
  • Embryo's sick fascination and lust for Ange: anyone who has watched Cross Ange already knew how disturbing it was, but that doesn't lessen the stalker feeling it gives off in this game. That's not even getting into how he plans to repopulate humanity, especially by using everyone's Love Interests and very young girls like Sylvia. Eek.
  • Before the party gains control of it, Mazinger ZERO is a monster who seeks to be the sole Super Robot in existence, and will do anything to achieve that ambition. To make matters worse, it's implied this incarnation of ZERO is barely using its full power.
• Older Than They Think: This is actually the second time that the 00 Qan[T] is seen connecting the Twin Drives, like it does when it enters Quantum Burst, to empower and finish its Raiser Sword attack. Its first actual use was in the Compati-Heroes series entry Lost Heroes 2.
• One-Scene Wonder: Instead of being a voice-only in the Anime, Char Aznable and Lalah Sune appear with character portraits after defeating Full Frontal.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Jill's portrayal in V has been better received than in her home series, primarily because she earns a chance to redeem herself for holding the Idiot Ball if players unlock her; contrast this in Cross Ange, where she dies before she gets that chance.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Given the Yamato's Wave-Motion Gun is its signature weapon, some players weren't happy the attack was locked out for use until the few final scenarios of the game, made available only if they triggered the "IF Route". Given its power and the morality of using it in the original series, there's a good In-Universe reason the attack is sealed for the most of V.
• Shocking Moments:
  • The initial teaser trailer had a couple of these: Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam returns after being absent since Super Robot Wars Alpha 2, GaoGaiGar isn't the Brave Series representative this time around, Mazinger ZERO appears as a playable unit and SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO 2199 appears as the "unorthodox" series! Needless to say, fans were thrown for a few loops.
  • The first promotional video revealed that Mazinger Edition Z: The Impact! incarnations of Tetsuya Tsurugi and the Great Mazinger will appear in V^note Contrary to popular belief, Tetsuya and the Great Mazinger did appear in the show, but in minor roles: Tetsuya was part of the Bardos expedition via Flashback as a guilt-fueled hallucination by Tsubasa; in the final battle, he was The Cameo under the pseudonym "Blade". Meanwhile, Great Mazinger got an implied cameo via a silhouette, with Tetsuya receiving a Mazinkaiser-esque Mid-Season Upgrade called "Mazin Emperor G". Furthermore, the Huckebein, which many fans thought would never appear again due to legal reasons in Super Robot Wars and looking like a Gundam, returns in this game as a playable unit.
• Special Effect Failure
  • If a unit is in the red sea of Universal Century Earth, the ocean background will be re-colored to match. The problem? The sky is colored red too, even though it's commonly shown to be blue in other shots with the red sea. This can get particularly jarring when some attack animations show a red sky in one shot, only to transition to a blue sky in the next.
  • As mentioned in Stock Footage on the main page, some of the animations during the Vilkiss' and Yamato's attack animations are explicitly recycled from their home series; the difference in animation quality between the footage and in-game animations were obvious.
• Squick: Embryo hitting on any female pilot who attacks him is creepy enough. It's extra creepy when he does it to Elpeo Ple.
• Stock Footage Failure: A reused battle animation background in a city environment from the Third Z still has the text "SRWZ3" written on a building.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: For fans that have played SRWZ3 Tengoku-hen, they consider this game to be a vast improvement over the previous one after Z3 left a bad taste in their mouths, and aside from the usual complaints of reused animations, the occassional "Blind Idiot" Translation moment and lack of difficulty, consensus is that this game’s story, attacks and return of the 3D map is what Z3 should have been.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Some are not happy that map attacks no longer have unique animations, whether it is an overworld animation or units receiving completely separate animations for map-only attacks like in MX such as the ZZ Gundam's High Mega Cannon or God Gundam's Choukyuu Haou Den'eidan. From V onwards, map attack animations are just recycled shorter versions of the animation from the standard version of the attacks with no map-only attacks existing.
  • Whereas the animations for the 00 Qan[T], Raphael and Harute largely remained the same, Zabanya was uncharacteristically sluggish compared to its Third Z counterpart, looking incredibly lacking and static.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Daitarn 3 was nothing more than a background element for the Super Robot Wars Z saga, with Banjo Haran saying he already took care of the Meganoids behind the scenes by the time he shows up in Tengoku-hen. Furthermore, Zambot 3 received a bigger focus in the trilogy than it had in any Super Robot Wars game prior. V would have been the perfect opportunity to feature both stories at once, possibly with Banjo and the Zambot 3 crew taking turns comforting the other during their trying battles. Both shows already had their plots resolved by the time they show up in the game proper; the closest thing Daitarn 3 has to enemy representation is the Nibergen tanks and changing Hokushin into a Meganoid.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Unit:
  • Players can recruit Jill as a Secret Character, who pilots the Raziya. Too bad she only has access to its beam and sword attacks, thus making her a watered-down version of Hilda (who uses the Cleopatra) and Salia (pilot of the Theodora). Admittedly, Jill does have access to decent Spirit Commands^note Notably "Foresee", where an allied unit can evade all attacks for one turn, and costs a measly 10 Spirit Points, as opposed to the usual 20-25, making her a good support unit. However, some players couldn't help but wonder why her Raziya doesn't have "True Ability Unlock" when all of the other Ragna-mails in V do and should have been a pilot of a Glaive, while Tusk or Rosalie could be relegated to the Raziya instead.
  • The Force Impulse Gundam does not use its Blast Impulse back except for combo attacks similar to its appearance in Z2. K and L did a much better showing of the Impulse by retaining the Force Impulse's flight, movement and mobility while retaining the Sword and Blast packs as individual attacks.
• Tough Act to Follow: V was lauded for its work in the narrative department, but the story-telling quality of its sucessor X is divided, mostly regarding whether one believes the Lighter and Softer elements in that game made it inferior to V or not.
• Unexpected Character
  • Shin Mazinger Zero vs The Great General of Darkness and, by extension, anything Shin Mazinger Zero related: not only is it a Manga, but it's largely forgotten by Mazinger fans and readers since it doesn't share the same Continuity as Edition Z. Considering Tetsuya and the Great Mazinger show up, it's likely that the reason it was featured was to use the Great Mazinger plotline, which Shin Mazinger Zero vs The Great General of Darkness does incorporate. Furthermore, like how Super Robot Wars BX had the Great General of Darkness as a boss, V does the same with The Emperor of Darkness.
  • In a similar vein to Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ and its absence in the Z saga, it seemed like Bandai Namco Entertainment and Sunrise had no plans regarding Crossbone Gundam, despite fans clamoring for something from it. Its return in V was surprising and untimely, given at the time its sole appearance was in one game released over a decade ago.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash is based on the novel adaptation of Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack called "Beltorchika's Children". Since the latter was displaced by the film in Universal Century Continuity, people were surprised B.B. Studio included a novel series that's non-Canon (although some fans tend to include Hathaway's Flash as part of Universal Century). Even more surprising was Lane Aim joining the group permanently as a secret character rather than being enemy only or only joining as a guest character.
  • If there's a Brave Series included in a Super Robot Wars installment, chances are it has to be GaoGaiGar, right? Not this time: Might Gaine isn't just the second Brave Series in Super Robot Wars after GaoGaiGar, it displaces the latter for the first time as the Brave Series representative for an installment since its debut in Alpha 2^note For that matter, any Brave Series other than GaoGaiGar to be featured in future games has a higher chance of representing it, given GaoGaiGar was the Grand Finale of that franchise.
  • After years of speculating Space Opera-centric titles were Exiled from Continuity because of their premise, B.B. Studio tore this notion apart by including Space Battleship Yamato 2199 as the "unorthodox" entry of V, effectively breaking down more barriers like they previously did with Tekkaman Blade and Powered Armor in Super Robot Wars Judgment.
  • As part of Super Robot Wars' 25th anniversary, the Grungust and Huckebein are available as playable units. Many players believed the latter would never be used by B.B. Studio again following its absence post-Second Original Generation.
  • Normally, Super Robot Wars removes Yurika Misumaru from the captain's saddle if The Prince of Darkness story is used, making Ruri Hoshino her replacement. It ends up being a little bit of both: Yurika returns in her Nergal captain's outfit as a sub-pilot for Ruri, the captain of the Nadesico-C battleship.
  • Besides the aforementioned example of the Yamato, many figured that with the events of Char's Counterattack resolved, all that we'd see of its representation would be the inclusion of Amuro and the Nu Gundam. Lo and behold though, Nanai, Char's second-in-command, shows up partway through the plot of Unicorn Gundam, and is revealed to be the leader of the Laplace organization.
  • Not the series but the characters, very few people expected Jerid Messa and Yazan Gable to be fully playable characters who join the group given how they have been represented in past Super Robot Wars games for many years.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The game, as a whole, looks amazing, but the Yamato stands out in particular - its attacks are depicted using a combination of the animation style used for other units and the 3D CGI that stands alongside the anime is a feast for the eyes. Mazinger ZERO makes it very obvious where most of the animation budget went into, given how all of Mazinger ZERO's attacks can easily count as a final attack or finisher in both design and damage.