Going to cover the SRW Z series.
@Jaimas, this series will both impress and disappoint you, because they do a lot of interesting things to UC Gundam, then piss all that potential away just as it gets really, really good.
SRW Z 1: The first Z game and also one of the last games released on the PS2. Known for the following:
1. A shitload of animations for ground and air based attacks that were actually unique. For instance, if Big O were to punch some prick in the air, instead of the game letting Big O defy physics and run across the air to punch it in the face, it would use it's anchor chain support attack to do a Scorpion "GET OVER HERE!" style grapple to pull the enemy towards it so it could get a steampunk knuckle sandwich. They had to scale this back somewhat in later games, this proved insanely expensive to animate.
2. Lost of old timey Super Robot shows that had never been adapted before like Baldios finally got their debut, and their animations even referenced the often spotty and scratchy anime style of the late seventies/early eighties frame by frame. Usually, the animation tries to maintain a cleaned up modern look, but they decided to hail back to nostalgia and managed to do so rather well. Later games managed to retain this practice to a considerable extent.
3. The game is basically a "deconstruction" of how most SRW games have the heroes band together as one big happy family. In fact, while other games had some small scale friction at times between characters, this game show what really happens when a mix of military and civilian pilots are forced by circumstance to get along in a more realistic manner, culminating in one level where half the team is trying to kill the other half thanks to the villains exploiting their mutual feelings of mistrust and using some cleverly shopped footage of each other to make it look like both sides committed war crimes.
4. While downplayed somewhat in other games, this one also shows just how hard it would be for over twenty something different anime series to deal with the plots and culture of each other. The dimensional fusing bomb from Super Dimensional Century Orguss is used as the plot hook to set this all up, and both heroes and villains wind up utterly confused as they run into each other and the plans they all have basically smashing head first into each other.
Essentially, shows just how much of a clusterfuck such a plot would be if all these different series of wildly varying tones and settings were abruptly smashed into one setting and forced to adapt.
For instance, the post apocalyptic series of Turn A Gundam and Xabungle have to exist side by side in a world with pre apocalyptic series, and the utter confusion this causes leads to a lot of interesting conflicts.
5. This is the game that made Gundam SEED Destiny actually worth giving a shit about. SRW has been known to write out the fail of various anime and make them better, but they went so far with this game GSD's director was asshurt people preferred SRWZ's version of the plot over the original. Even main character Shinn Asuka's VA prefers his role in this over the original show.
They even had an unlockable plot route where the dumbest heroes becoming the villains crap from GSD was averted and the plot ended on a far less moronic note.
6. The game had two routes, one was happy and upbeat in tone, one was depressing as shit. SRWZ2 breaks even and assumes both happened to some extent, but the tonal shift between the two is quite vast.
7.
@Jaimas, here's where they do awesome shit with UC Gundam.
Like in my Alpha Gaiden LS, the scene where Char and Amuro wind up in D.O.M.E.'s crib from Gundam X happens again, only this time Char and Amuro see the events of Char's Counterattack as their possible future, and Char is HORRIFIED when he sees the crap he'd do later in life and swears to Amuro to make sure he never becomes CCA-era Char.
They used the Zeta movie trilogy (Gundam ZZ was omitted) as a springboard for this, so Char ends up far less emo than he was in Alpha Gaiden, which followed Zeta TV.
They also milked Gilbert Durandal and Char talking to each other (they are voiced by the same guy) for a ton of crossover jokes.
Also, Paptimus Scirroco and his Eureka Seven counterpart Dewey Novak wind up working together to some extent, which led to some fun scenes where two mind rapists par excellence do their thing to heroes and villains alike.
Haman shows up in the route where you avert SEED Destiny's stupidest moments as a playable hero, and it's this scene that is canon to later games, as it provided the springboard for the modified CCA plot depicted in SRW Z3.
8. A modified and generally improved squad system from Alpha returns, but it's far more balanced. Later games either omitted this or cut the squad down to just two units a squad.
9. Had a bonus disc with some fun what if scenarios that required data from the base game.
SRW Z2.1: Due to the sheer size of the plot, Z2 had to be split into two games, but amazingly enough, despite the fact they were PSP games, the animation was IMPROVED on SRW Z in many areas.
SRW Z.1 also introduced the following:
1. While viewing the possible future via D.O.M.E in SRWZ1, classic Getter and Mazinger protagonists see their Shin Getter/Mazinger counterparts, foreshadowing how Z2 takes place in a parallel world to the one in Z1. It also establishes if there is one copy of someone in one world, they can't meet their parallel world twin.
This avoided how certain series would leave and return for no reason in Alpha, but they still screwed up because UFO Robo Grendizer was in Z1 and never made a reappearance in later games despite not having a parallel counterpart. To the credit of the developers, even they acknowledged they screwed this up.
3. While Z1 was a mix of SEED/UC, Z2 was a mix of 00/Gundam Wing, and while Gundams are pretty passe in Z1, they are more properly feared in Z2's world like they were in 00/Wing.
4. Code Geass and it's spiritual predecessor (in terms of story writing and mecha design) Armored Trooper VOTOMs appeared in Z2's world, and while VOTOMs took place in a different galaxy in the source, that is acknowledged in the backstory and is a plot point, as unlike Z1, where the dimensions were fused via the dimension bomb from Orguss, Z2 is used to crossover bullshit because their universe has had crossover events with other planes of reality for as long as anyone can remember.
Hence the Z2 world deals with all sorts of weirdos from different mecha anime a lot better.
5. This was the first game to introduce Gurren Lagann, and it is established to have a strong tie to the plot of Getter Robo Armageddon, which is quite logical given their highly similar plot points.
6. The storyline of this game is pretty damn dark and depressing overall, though early on it's lighter in tone if you stick mostly to the Super Robot plots. After Kamina dies like he did in Gurren Lagann though, and the plot will get a lot more serious.
7. The game difficulty is somewhat easier than Z1 by a long shot, which is both good in some areas and bad in others, though Z2.2 fixed this somewhat.
Z2.2 has the following:
1. Code Geass gets a rewrite like Gundam SEED Destiny, where the protagonist got backstabbed by his own team for the dumbest reasons ever being completely avertable if you fulfill certain conditions, and the revised plot is again one that, like GSD, ends on a way less stupid as hell note.
2. One of the very oldest mecha anime ever, Tetsujin-28 (albeit it's 2000 era remake), debuts in this game. As an interesting side note, it's main character, Shotaro, he's where the word "shota" comes from in it's anime usage sense.
3. While the previous game features Macross Frontier debuting, this game adds in the Macross 7 Movie, thus allowing Ozma Lee from Frontier (who is a massive sperg for the band Fire Bomber) to squeal like a fangirl when he meets Basara from 7, the lead of said band. On another Macross related note, they go with the movie version of the latter half of the TV series events.
4. Dancougar Nova and the original Dancougar (which debuted in the last game) get a shitload of crossover interaction, and they even get a lot of the implied crossover that was implied to exist between them in the original draft for Nova's anime revisited and expanded on, with some additional ties to Gravion (which debuted in Z1) included, since Masami Obari directed all three and Gravion character Klein Sandman not only got a cameo in Nova (implied to be the predecessor to Gravion in the source), the main good guy organization leader in Nova and the hero of Dancougar also had the same voice actor, which got milked for a lot of crossover jokes.
5. A fun bug existed in this game if you ported over data from the first game that could be exploited for infinite money by taking advantage of a event pointer bug that wouldn't undo the import if you decided to cancel it, meaning each import, back out of import, import again cycle would keep adding a ton of money to your pockets until you could max it out before finally confirming the import of previous game data.
6. This game was somewhat harder than in Z2.1 thanks to some clever rebalancing decisions.
7. Gurren Lagann got some partially original storytelling so they could save the remainder of it's plot for Z3, which also averted a canon character death.
8. Just in case Char's desire to avert the plot of Char's Counterattack was in doubt, he winds up working with Gundam Wing's Treize Khusrenada briefly, and said interactions further push Char away from wanting to pull the crap he did in CCA.
9. This game establishes another fact about the Z multiverse. Everyone who encounters someone else from another world is rendered immortal and forced to fight whether they like it or not, which explains why the Z1 cast winds up in the Z2 world since Z2.1. Death is cheap, as it just means they'll get revived in another world and forced to fight again.
10. Going along the parallel world theme, this game adapted Eureka Seven's movie since Z1 had the TV series, this is even a key plot point. Z3 broke with this trend and refused to adapt Eureka Seven AO, mainly because it was such a piece of shit even SRW couldn't fix it's fail.
SRW Z3.1: The first game for PS3, this is where it continues to do awesome Gundam shit while being a technological step down from Z2 in many ways, as it reused the top down look from the PSP games instead of returning to isometric 3D despite being on more powerful hardware. A lot of animations were shamelessly reused and upscaled from the same, meaning a lot looked like shit (Dancougar Nova being a major offender).
Both Z3.1/3.2 and Tengoku-hen (an interquel covering what the original Z2 characters were doing between Z3.1/Z3.2) would be the first console games to utilize DLC content, which mostly added extra levels and scenarios.
1. Adds Full Metal Panic and some more VOTOMs sidestories. We also got Gunbuster and the first half of Gurren Lagann's final arc. Gundam Unicorn debuted here as well.
2. The worlds of Z1 and Z2 and fuse together in this game, and while it's understandable classic Mazinger and Getter were pushed aside from their Z2 counterparts, all Eureka Seven influence as well as a few other series prominent since Z1 vanish from the canon with no good explanation, which is disappointing because they formed key parts of the plot structure of the first and second Z games.
3. Gundam Unicorn, aside from receiving rewrites to compensate for Gundam ZZ not being included since Z1 (Marida Cruz is a super prototype of the Puru project from Gundam ZZ, as that never got off the ground since that project only bore fruit in ZZ Gundam, just for one example), it also incorporated elements of Gundam Wing Endless Waltz, where the Mariemeia Army was used as a cover for the villains of Unicorn and CCA for their own plans.
Full Frontal is depicted as Char as seen through the Zeta TV/ZZ Gundam lens, while Char follows Zeta movie canon, leading to some fun interactions where Frontal mentions the speech at Dakar Char never gave in the movies and Char draws a blank.
They appear to be working together on the CCA "drop Axis" plot, but it's quickly revealed Char remembered his promise since Z1 and is really trying to sabotage it from within while Frontal actually is trying to drop Axis for real.
4. Evangelion Rebuld debuts here. This gets a lot more use in Z3.2 though.
5. The plot ends on several wham level notes:
A. It's implied Laplace's Box from Unicorn has significance to overarching villains dicking with the multiverse.
B. Grand Zamboa from Gurren Lagann is the final boss of Z3.1, a rare non-Original final boss after a long series of original final bosses since Shin SRW.
C. TWO Earths appear side by side in the finale of Z3.1.
SRW Z 3.2: And this is where the Z series peters out like a wet fart.
1. While including Full Metal Panic's novels and getting good mileage out of Shin Mazinger, Diebuster finally joins Gunbuster in SRW for the first time.
2. Rebuild Evangelion's premature Third Impact is used as a cheap excuse to force your characters to fuck around on the second Earth for awhile retreading the events of the Gargantua anime (which is kinda meh) while the villains basically set up the rest of their plan largely without interference while you are fucking around.
3. Unicorn's plot, despite teasing in Z3.1, plays out EXACTLY like the source instead of having broader implications for the multiverse, pissing away it's crossover potential.
4. Gurren Lagann's plot gets hijacked, the Anti Spiral King gets cucked out of his own role by the original villain.
5. More lazy assed reuse of old assets.
6. Despite a ton of interesting buildup to the overarching villains since Z1, it's apparently they had run out of good ideas by Z3.1, and by Z3.2 even the fumes they were trying to subsist on crapped out and the plot is a rushed mess that hurriedly tries to tie up all the dangling bits from the previous games, succeeding, but doing so very awkwardly in the process and still leaves a lot of unanswered questions.
By contrast, while Alpha 3 phoned in it's final arcs somewhat, at least they didn't too many dangling plot threads just hanging by the end credits.
Overall, a good series, but the last games were a massive disappointment.
You could stop at SRW Z2.2 and drop the series cold if you'd prefer not to have Z3's fail piss you off.
