Genre: Turn-Based Strategy
Publisher: Atlus Co.
Developer: Takara Tomy
Release Date: September 9, 2008

In the past few months, Microsoft's Xbox 360 system has gone from having only a handful of RPGs, and almost none by Japanese developers, to becoming the home of Star Ocean and Final Fantasy XIII. Yet with Square Enix giving such support to Xbox 360, gamers might forget that the first company to really give U.S. X360 owners a chance to play RPGs was Atlus. While their previous selection of titles wasn't exact stellar, including offerings such as Operation Darkness and Spectral Souls 3, the effort was appreciated. It's still a good long while before we'll get to play titles like Star Ocean and Final Fantasy XIII , and until then, Atlus continues to release titles to help X360 gamers weather the wait, including the anime-licensed Zoids Assault.

For those unfamiliar with the concept of Zoids, it's a franchise revolving around gigantic animal-shaped combat mecha who battle each other. While there are a number of Zoids titles, most of them take place in different universes. Zoids: Chaotic Century took place in a war-torn landscape where the Zoids were legendary machines improved by tiny mechanical beasts called Organoids. Zoids Zero, on the other hand, was similar to Pokémon, with Zoids being sentient animals who are "piloted" by their trainers and battle in teams with other Zoids pilots or against an evil organization that intends to use Zoids to control the world.

Zoids Assault, in following the franchise, is set in its own universe, which uses Zoids as super-realistic war machines who just happened to be shaped like animals. It tells the story of Mace Squad, an elite Zoids unit caught in the middle of a war between two countries. The country of Jamil had been ravaged by an earlier war and had seemingly been defeated, with other countries around the world giving it reparations and funding to prevent the populace from starving to death. However, Jamil's leaders actually used the reparation money to create a monstrous Deathsaurer machine, which is capable of launching a nuclear weapon at any target, thus turning Jamil into the world's only remaining nuclear power. It is up to Mace Squad and the rest of the world's military to destroy the Deathsaurer before things escalate into another all-out war.

Combat in Zoids is fairly simple. Each member of both sides takes turns with the action, with their turn order influenced by the speed of their particular Zoid. The battlefields are made up of squares, and each Zoid can move a certain number of squares. Before or after the move, a Zoid can choose to attack, or choose to use its special active ability. The goal in each stage is unique but usually requires you to blow up every opposing Zoid without having your own team eliminated beforehand. It's not particularly complex as far as strategy-RPGs go, and if you've ever played an SRPG before, you'll probably not have a particularly difficult time picking up the gameplay and hopping right in.

While the basics of combat are fairly simple, learning to take advantage of Zoids requires a bit more thought. Your team in Zoids Assault is made up of five different Zoids, shaped like wolves, tigers and in one unusual case, a bison. Each Zoid has its own unique abilities that make it stand out. Wolves are fast and agile, tigers are strong and well-rounded, and the bison is slow but super-defensive. Each Zoid can equip certain weapons and armor that other Zoids can't, which is pretty important since learning what equipment your Zoids can use is crucial to victory. Armor on your Zoids influences their stats; heavy armor slows you down and increases the amount of damage your Zoid can take, while light armor allows them to move faster but prevents them from surviving much damage. Customizing the armor for each stage is quite important: If you have to defend a certain area, it might be better to equip heavy armor so you can last longer, while an early stage where you have to eliminate three targets in 12 turns is best completed by giving everyone thin armor so they can quickly move across the battlefield.

It's important to note that every Zoid has only a single weapon equipped on its back. It can be anything from a close-range shotgun to a rocket launcher to a pile bunker, but you've only got one. Regular machine guns are the best-rounded weapons, capable of doing solid damage at close to medium range without requiring any special focus. Grenades are great at damaging a Zoid's armor but have very limited areas of attack and are ineffective as primary weapons. Rockets are powerful but useless at close range, and likewise, shotguns are great up close but can't do anything at range. Since each Zoid can only equip a single weapon, it's important to make sure that you have a good one, or else you're going to find yourself in deep trouble when trying to perform Support Attacks.

Support Attacks are the key to winning fights in Zoids Assault. When a Zoid is facing an enemy, its radar begins to automatically scan that particular enemy, depending on its scan ability. The more Zoids are scanning an enemy, the more that enemy's scan bar fills up, and when the bar is one-third full, the Support Attack ability is activated. If there are any friendly Zoid nearby that could also attack that enemy, they'll also attack. If the bar is one-third full, one Zoid can lends it support; if the bar is two-thirds full, two friendly Zoids can attack; and with a full bar, the enemy Zoid becomes the target of an all-out assault from up to four Zoids at once. You can imagine how deadly that is, and there is rarely a Zoid around that can stand up to an all-out assault from four others. Certain attacks also have the ability to break an enemy's armor, which causes any further Support Attacks to do drastically increased damage. Be warned that Support Attacks can also be used against your characters. Enemies also scan, and if you're near a group of enemies, they'll have little trouble unleashing a devastating Support Attack on your own Zoids.

Beyond your scan abilities, each Zoid also has a built-in Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) emitter. Each time you attack or are attacked, your EMP builds up, and once the EMP bar reaches maximum, you earn one EMP, up to a maximum of three. During a Zoid's turn, it can choose to use an EMP attack, during which enemies can't counterattack or use special passive abilities. In addition, any foe within scanning radius gets attacked. When used properly, EMP attacks can be absolutely devastating, but it takes a while to build up EMP, and using it fruitlessly will lead to ignoble defeat. Certain characters can obtain abilities that allow them to improve the effect or power of EMP attacks.

While your Zoids themselves are very important, the key to unleashing their full power is your pilot's abilities. Each member of your squad has his or her own unique set of abilities — passive and active — that is the key to winning fights. Passive abilities are powers that boost your character's stats or activate when they're attacking or defending. For example, the Commander ability improves the scanning ability of your Zoid while the First Aid passive ability heals any units within a radius. Active abilities, on the other hand, are abilities that you activate on your Zoid's turn and change stats or unleash new attacks. Using active abilities, you can turn a Zoid's regular attack into a multiple-square super attack that can hit multiple enemies, change the Zoid into a defensive stance that takes less damage in the next turn, or repair damaged allies. Each character has a limited amount of skill points available to equip these skills, and it's rarely going to be possible to equip every skill a character has. It's important to decide between each character's abilities and customize them according to the role that you want them to serve.

Zoids Assault is Atlus' latest attempt at bringing the SRPG market to the 360. The gameplay is part Front Mission and part Super Robot Taisen, and the plot is a rather interesting take on Cold War politics that is unexpected from a game about animal-shaped robots shooting each other. Zoids Assault could be just what the Xbox 360 faithful need.