Vanguard Bandits

Vanguard Bandits is a tactical mecha RPG from 1998, released in Japan under the title Panzer Bandits and brought to North America by Atlus in 1999. The player commands a small squad of giant war machines through a long, unusually serious story for its time about a protracted civil war between two neighboring kingdoms, where dialogue choices determine which side of the conflict the main hero ultimately sides with and how the story's ending plays out — and the game offers several endings depending on the choices made.

Battles take place on grid-based battlefields typical of the genre, where terrain and the relative positioning of units affect the chances of a successful attack, but the game places greater emphasis on a small number of highly customizable units rather than mass armies of characters — each mech has its own set of abilities, weapons, and special attacks that improve as the game progresses, and can be paired with pilots who have their own stats affecting the machine's performance in battle. Visually, it combines anime opening sequences with 2D battle sprites and simply textured backgrounds, while the musical score effectively underscores the epic tone of a story about honor, loyalty, and the consequences of war — a tone more serious and mature than many other mecha titles of its time.

Vanguard Bandits never achieved mass popularity outside the circle of tactical RPG and mecha genre fans, but among genre connoisseurs it earned a reputation as an underrated gem with a well-thought-out combat system and non-trivial story branching. Today it's notable as one of the few mecha SRPGs to ever reach the West at all, and fans of the genre still appreciate its solid craftsmanship and elaborate machine customization system, even though players outside America and Japan mostly had to reach it through imports due to the lack of a European release.

Why play it: For mecha SRPG connoisseurs looking for an underrated gem with a well-thought-out combat system and non-trivial story branching, even though players outside America and Japan mostly reached it through imports.