Mecha Taisen on Planet Oldskool

As you can guess by the name, this is a derivate of Banpresto’s and Winky
Soft’s famous Super Robot Taisen series.

Since this is created for the MSX1, it is close in its presentation to the
original 8-bit Robot Taisen series, but cut down to 48 kilobytes. This means
that animations are removed from the battle scenes. As the game takes place on
Planet Oldskool, your units are all named after famous chips in computers such
as the Z80, the 6502 or the SID. Since it’s an MSX game, all the heroes are
chips found in that computer. “Grunts” are DRAM chips, such as the 4164 and
the bigger 41256. Even though the units are integrated circuits, they are
represented in the game by giant robots, whose graphics seem to be ripped
straight out of the original Super Robot Taisen.

In this turn-based strategy game, you move your units across the varying
terrain, and launch an attack if possible. All units have ballistic weapons
with a certain range, as well as close combat weapons which may only be used
against enemy units on directly adjacent squares. You must weigh in the power
of the weapon, its accuracy as well as remaining ammunition when launching an
attack. After all your units have moved, it’s the enemy movement phase. Since
different units have different weapons, speed and range, they must be arranged
in a formation that makes for effective tactics – artillery in the back and
speedy units close the front to draw enemy fire. Veteran units level up just
as in an RPG.

After completing each stage, you are given a cash bonus with which to upgrade
your units. At the beginning of each stage, another unit is added to your
army, reflecting the evolution of the MSX system. In the six levels, you must
face the chips of the C64, the Atari, the 80286 and the 80386.