Well, I have to give it Capcom this time; they really pulled a rabit out of their hats with Tech Romancer. I am used to Capcom rehashing titles and the new ones that they do come up with sporting the Street Fighter engine. They must of went back to the drawing board with Tech Romancer. The two are nothing alike with the exception of the power meter used for finishing moves in the game, but well get to that later.

The gameplay is fun and easy to get into. Not too fast -(like Virtual On)- not too slow. Just right for huge Godzilla sized mechs. There are no complex directional pad movements to perform before pressing a button. Now it is mostly composed of one and two at a time button mashes to pull off moves. There are a couple of moves, like using an aquired item, that requires you to press three buttons simataniously. An finally, the finishing moves on most robots use all four facial buttons of the Dreamcast's controller. Other than this you have the occational "back, forward, back" or "forward, back, forward" d-pad movements, but that's about it.

Back by popular demand is USER DEFINED CONTROLS! Yes folks, this is not a misprint. You don't like the defaults? Fine. No pre-set controller configurations to choose from here. Just point and click to fit your fancy. Add this to the already easy controls and you have a game that is great for company and/or novices.

Where Tech Romancer really shines is the robot selection department. Here you'll find just about any robot hero from your past that Capcom shamelessly ripped-off so you can manipulate and enjoy in battle. The names have been changed, of course, to avoid lawsuits - I guss(?) The roster includes (but not limited to) Tranzor Z, Timberwolf from Mech Warrior, Varatech tri-formation fighters from Robotech fame and even Gundam series mechs. All of the robots signiture moves are intact along with a couple more added for good measure.

The stages a
re 3-D and unlimited in movement. In other words, there are no borders and you can move in all eight directions. Not to mention that all stages are fully interactive. If you can see it, it can be destroyed. Weather it's in the background or right in front of you. You can smash it for fun or smash it for power-ups. Either way there will always be more because the stages are unlimited in movement. Already thrashed everything in sight? Just scroll over to another part of the stage and more will be rendered.

The stages are nicely detailed and shaded. No off-the-wall colors like in Virtual On: Oratorio Tengram. In the city buildings topple, explode and crumble under your feet. On the canyon stage, waves or dirt blow past you and around your mech. Very nice. You fire a missle or bomb, it leaves scorch marks and crators in the stage itself. If you have been inflicted by an attack that forced you back while on the ground, trecnhes will be dug in you wake. Were talking about FULLY interactive stages here.

Game modes consist of verses, story mode and Hero Mode a.k.a. arcade. There is alot of hidden stuff to find along with a few characters. The replay value is here too. During the story mode there are several places for you to branch off [ala Choose Your Own Adventure style] and certain conditions that have to be met in a match to do so - i.e. no special items used during match X or armor remaining undamaged during match X which determines how the game branches with each character.

The only flaw I can find with this game is a small programming glitch which will cause one robot to sound lower in volume than oiginally initialized, thus causing one robot to sound louder than the other. Now this dosen't happen often, but the glitch is present. This problem is so minute, I wouldn't even feel right taking off for it. Trust me this dosen't take away from the gameplay what-so-ever and is hardly noticible.

All in all, I have to t
ake my hat off to Capcom with this title. They have earned back this gamers respect and hard earned dollars. Thought not too much originally with the robots themselves, it is great be be able to pit my childhood and current favorites up against each other in a fight to the finish. Pick this one up today!