Digital games
Even if you’re not a gamer, the playable elements in Votoms assert themselves almost immediately with mecha designed for street-level combat, not to mention the Battling arena. In fact, Battling was such a killer app that analog games based on the concept appeared while the anime series was still on the air in 1983. It would take another five years for the first digital game to show up, but the jump was inevitable.
As the quality and capability increased, so too did the authenticity. The original design staff picked up where they left off, adding new characters and mecha to the canon. Music kept pace as well, either recreating Hiroki Inui’s score or bringing him in to expand it. Thanks to these continuing efforts, the world of Votoms games is just as vibrant as the story that gave birth to them.
Presented here is the known catalog of Votoms digital games from PC to console, a range of playability that leaves no dimension unexplored.
Black Unicorn
装甲騎兵ボトムズ ブラック・ユニコーン
PC game
Family Soft, December 1988
The first game out of the gate was naturally the most primitive, a very limited strategy simulator with some action elements, low-rez graphics, and a storyline to stitch it together. The premise put the player into a unit called the Black Unicorn Corps and challenged you to be the last one standing at the end. It came on four disc cartridges that required a lot of swapping out and load time, which would have added another kind of endurance test to the experience.
Looking back, the most remarkable thing about Black Unicorn was the amazing box art created by legendary painter Yoshiyuki Takani, which gave a great first impression that the game graphics could never live up to.
Dead Ash
装甲騎兵ボトムズ デッド・アッシュ
PC game
Family Soft, June 1991
Three years made a big difference in computing power, resulting in a game that was much more action-heavy than Black Unicorn. Dead Ash was a first-person shooter in which the main character is a Battling pilot and a rival to Chirico Cuvie, even striving to become Wiseman’s successor. Votoms sound effects were used, but original voices and licensed music were still beyond reach.
The Battling Road
装甲騎兵ボトムズ ザ・バトリングロード
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Takara, October 1993
This is where the roller dash truly hit the road for the first time on a mainstream console platform. Graphics were still pretty raw and mobility was limited, but this was an authentic action game following a female pilot named Famin Elme on a revenge quest after her family is murdered by a gang of AT jockeys. She teams up with an enigmatic arms dealer and they plunge into the world of Battling to find them.
Battling Road was elevated substantially by the involvement of both Norio Shioyama (character design) and Kunio Okawara (mecha design), and offered the options of story mode, one-on-one duels, and a disco-like “panel match.” It also introduced a new AT design called the Gusty Dog (a modified Bloodsucker) that would later reappear in other games and a garage kit or two.
The Real Battle
装甲騎兵ボトムズ THE REAL BATTLE
PC game
Family Soft, November 1996
This was the last of the PC games and the most complex in terms of its interface. The player enters Woodo City and is recruited by Gotho to be a Battling fighter. The game was divided into training and fighting components with the ability to build and modify your own A.T. and take it into the streets or the arena. Chirico and many other anime characters appeared as either opponents or allies depending on the player’s interaction with them.
AT customizing and end credits • Character interaction • Music sample
Blue Knight Berserga Story
装甲騎兵ボトムズ外伝 青の騎士ベルゼルガ物語
Playstation
Takara, September 1997
Blue Knight was the first full-up, arcade-style Votoms action game. It took several cues from its predecessors in terms of premise and format, and was based on the first two Berserga novels. The player was essentially a stand-in for Kain McDougall, traveling between the Battling circuits of five different cities. Character interaction leads to arena matches, earning money for AT upgrades on the quest for vengeance against the “Black AT.” The engaging score was written and performed by Votoms composer Hiroki Inui.
The real breakthough here, in addition to new CG opening title and the game’s 32-bit graphics, was a huge catalog of 35 ATs from both the anime and the Blue Knight novels. Almost all were customizable with enhancements and original color schemes, which could turn into quite a rabbit hole. Every game that followed took this idea and ran with it.
The limited edition “Perfect Soldier Box” of Blue Knight included a 1/24 Dual Model Scopedog and exclusive game cards.
Opening title • 12-part playthrough • Soundtrack playlist • Opening and AT workshop
Color, 130 pages
Kodansha, October 1997
Color, 152 pages
V Jump Books Game Series, November 1997
Woodo Kummen Edition
装甲騎兵ボトムズ ウド・クメン編
Playstation
Takara, April 1998
If you were holding out for a game that actually put you in the role of Chirico Cuvie, here it is. Over ten levels, you could fight all the major battles from Asteroid Lido (1 mission) through Woodo City (7 missions) to the Kummen jungle (2 missions). The game ends prior to Chirico’s covert trek upriver with his mercenary group, and there was no followup. At least until the PS2 came along.
My experience with this game was a non-starter. The robust and energetic Blue Knight game was easy to get into. With this one, the Scopedog you start out with is so under-powered it was almost impossible to survive the first level. It took so long and was so frustrating I just couldn’t invest any more time on it. But the CG opening title is pretty cool.
The limited edition “Perfect Soldier Box” of Woodo Kummen came with a 1/24 Dual Model Red Shoulder Custom.
Gameplay sample (Red Shoulder mission)
Gameplay sample (Battling mission)
At right: Woodo Kummen Complete Strategy Guide
HAOH Game Special 121
Color, 114 pages
Kodansha, May 1998
Lightning Slash
装甲騎兵ボトムズ ライトニングスラッシュ
Playstation
Takara, March 1999
After the disappointment of Woodo Kummen, this game was a very welcome return to form, much more like Blue Knight with upgrades. It’s very similar in scope with the player taking the role of A.T. pilot Azlite Fix, charging through the Battling world in his red Slash Dog. There’s a nice variety of friends, foes, and events with a lineup of 25 ATs (including the Gusty Dog from Battling Road).
It starts out in Woodo City during the time of the TV series, and offers up some cameos by a few unexpected anime characters. Character design is by Norio Shioyama.
The limited edition “Perfect Soldier Box” of Lightning Slash came with a 1/24 Dual Model Slashdog.
Opening title • Multiple gameplay clips • A.T. catalog
Color and B&W, 112 pages
Keibunsha, 1999
HAOH Game Special 151
Color, 98 pages
Kodansha, March 1999
Steel Force
装甲騎兵ボトムズ 鋼鉄の軍勢
Playstation
Takara, September 1999
Whereas most previous games took an arcade-style approach, this one was a highly complex, turn-based tactical simulator in which you command a platoon of 13 AT pilots in dozens of field missions over multiple environments. It was also the first game to take place during the Hundred Years’ War rather than afterward, with battles against the Balarant side; very similar in concept to the Commando Vorct side story that debuted in 2006.
On the upside, it features more Shioyama character design and more Okawara mecha design with a catalog of 47 ATs, many never seen before. On the downside, its nature as a tactical game places it firmly behind the language barrier. Unless you can sight-read Japanese, you won’t get very far. (I dropped out after the opening title, myself.) That said, some generous soul recorded the entire thing and put it on Youtube in multiple parts here.
HAOH Game Special 167
Color, 114 pages
Kodansha, October 1999
Color and B&W, 144 pages
Keibunsha, November 1999
Armored Trooper Votoms
装甲騎兵ボトムズ
Playstation 2
Bandai, November 2007
The home console games culminated with the master of them all, a huge arcade-style recreation of the TV series and OVAs with 50 missions, 50 ATs to choose from, and the best in-game animation seen up to this point. Woodo, Kummen, Sunsa, and Quent form the main body of the experience in four separate “scenarios.” OVA missions are grouped into an “EX” collection which includes walk-ons from Blue Knight and Commando Vorct just to keep you on your toes. The music consists of TV series covers and new tracks, most likely by Hiroki Inui.
I played the hell out of this game, but couldn’t conquer enough of the language barrier to figure out the proper upgrades you need to unlock the last few levels. This was around the time I decided I had to either give up video games or give up drawing comics. It was not a difficult decision.
Woodo playthrough with commentary
Kummen playthrough with commentary
Only bundled with the game
Color, 64 pages
Bandai, 2007
Color, 112 pages
Mediaworks, January 2008
Battling Bastards
装甲騎兵ボトムズ バトリング野郎
VR simulator
Bandai Namco Entertainment, 2016
From July to October 2016, you could pilot your own Scopedog right here on Earth. For this limited time, Bandai Namco presented a 1/1 scale Votoms VR experience in an arcade venue called VR Zone. With Bandai attached, you might think they’d automatically put Gundam at the front of the line, but a 4-meter A.T. turned out to be a much more relatable and intuitive size for new users; yet another result of Kunio Okawara’s original design approach. When Okawara himself took it for a spin he said, “It’s exactly what I thought.”
Players would sit in a rig that stood in for an AT cockpit and wore VR goggles to fight against enemy ATs (computer-controlled NPCs) from a first person shooter perspective. Rather than designing it as a game, the VR engineers approached it as a simulator with open-ended play. Your AT could take damage, but could also pick up any weapon in the field after using up the previous one. If you took a direct hit, your cockpit would burst into flames.
Even the roller dash was carefully calibrated to take weight and inertia into account so that picking up speed would affect maneuverability. Plenty of physics were programmed into the simulator, allowing repeat users to discover new moves and tricks. As with any simulator, the more you used it, the more you learned.
Related Links
Votoms regularly shows up in the mega-crossover series Super Robot Wars, but since the mecha has to be squashed into SD form to squeeze through a licensing gauntlet, I haven’t pursued them. Nonetheless, there is no shortage of gameplay footage on Youtube. Some of these links will put you on the trail.
Votoms Online Breaking Battle game footage
Super Robot Wars 30 Scopedog attacks
CD-ROM world
Sitting adjacent to the world of digital games was the more insular world of CD-ROM. A few Votoms experiences can be found here as well, though at this point they are no longer compatible with a modern OS.
Scopedog Paper Figure
Mac & Windows CD-ROM
Inner Brain Inc., 1997
A pair of AT models was issued a year apart from a company called Inner Brain on “hybrid” CD-ROMs, meaning they could be read by both Windows and Mac. The CD content consisted of printable images with some animated graphics to sweeten the deal.
A pre-printed version came in the box, giving you the entire model on heavy paper to cut out and assemble.
Brutishdog Paper Figure
Mac & Windows CD-ROM
Inner Brain Inc., 1998
If you built these models, they would reach a very impressive 21″ tall, edging out even the 1/8 Scopedog garage kit from Volks. With some digital manipulation, a clever user could probably scale it up to any size paper could accommodate.
See more photos of the Brutishdog here and here.
Typing Trooper
装甲騎兵ボトムズ タイピングトルーパー
Windows & Mac
e frontier, February 2003
Typing software games were once a big deal in Japan, and many anime tie-ins were produced (see examples here). In addition to surprisingly well-made CG cutscenes, they always came up with creative ways for you to improve your typing skills through gameplay, though you’d need a Japanese OS and keyboard to make them work.
In the case of Typing Trooper, you’d also need a computer from about twenty years ago, since it was written for Windows XP and Mac Classic environments. The only element on the CD-ROM I can open is the PDF instruction manual.
The game had six stages set in Woodo and Kummen, and the original actors contributed their voices to cutscenes and dialogue. The manual indicates the use of a QWERTY keyboard, meaning that it was probably playable on a non-Japanese OS.
On the other hand, there is a sort of grandiose irony in the image at left, giving you a “PLACTICE” option. So even if you’re a native English typist, there might have been an occasional pitfall.
Below is a screenshot from the manual that gives us a glimmer of what the battle mode is like. In this case, you are Chirico facing off against Konin in the Woodo Battling, and you need to type a succession of words as fast as possible to keep him at bay.
The word given in this example is “Inousya,” which is the Romanization of a Japanese word we hear in the show. Chirico is an “Inosha,” which is a form of superhuman. This is what would make the game very challenging for a native English speaker; you would be given Japanese words spelled phonetically. Not an easy task even for a professional typist.
Armored Trooper Votoms Digital Memorials 1
装甲騎兵ボトムズ デジタルメ モリアルズ 1
Windows & Mac CD-ROM
Sunrise Inc., 1999
Of all the amazing and innovative products presented here, this last one is nearest and dearest to my heart, to such a degree that I keep an old laptop around for it. It’s a one-of-a-kind Votoms encyclopedia, formatted in its own browser with several different categories. It has long served as an indispensable reference, a time capsule from 1999 containing information that can be found nowhere else.
After it opens with a short but impressive Quicktime movie, it presents you with a menu of options and an 11-track jukebox with newly-created synth covers TV music.
The Categories:
The second disc contains support software along with PICT images of the Kunio Okawara art (for use as wallpaper) and a Gilgamesh font suitcase. Neither of these is usable any more, but I love the fact that they were provided just because someone thought it would be cool.
The only thing I dislike about this product is the title: Digital Memorials 1. Despite the fact that Digital Memorials 2 was promoted inside, it never arrived. I know you can’t miss what you never had, but seeing that “1” is a constant reminder of an unfulfilled promise.