R.A.D: Robot Alchemic Drive

R.A.D: Robot Alchemic Drive
"R.A.D" Indeed
Protagonist(s): Naoto Tsukioka Ryo Tsukioka Yui Tsukioka Genre(s): Mecha Action Platform(s): PlayStation 2 Release: JP: August 29, 2002 NA: November 5, 2002 Developer(s): Sandlot Publisher(s): Enix Country: Japan

Robot Alchemic Drive, also known as R.A.D., and known in Japan as Gigantic Drive (ギガンティックドライブ) is a PlayStation 2 video game developed by Sandlot and published by Enix. It was released in Japan and North America.

Synopsis

As the seventeen-year-old sole inheritor to the Tsukioka family and their bankrupt weapons company, the game introduces the player to a world where all crewed space exploration projects have been put on hold indefinitely due to a material called "Space Nectar" that poisons and kills any organic life in space. Earth is safe because of its atmosphere, but it seems that humanity is doomed to an isolated existence.

When machines known as Volgara begin destroying the Earth, the player must pilot the only weapon on Earth capable of standing against the invaders. Along the way, lives will be changed, history will be made, and the origins of the Volgara will be revealed.

Why it Rocks

1. The idea of making mecha game with on foot is really great and this is the gameplay is the same as the PS1 mecha game; Remote Control Dandy.
2. The story is really like anime, there has some heartwarming moments and some sad moments with each episode, there's over total of 50+ episode and each episode act as mission.
   • Each episode must be completed with the objective, like find the nanao or protect the certain building.
3. The gameplay is really interesting, too, you're beginning with on foot section first and find the first objective. When the Volgara comes out, you fight with 3 mecha with each different abilities.
4. There's 3 mecha in this game:
   • Vavel was a Mazinger-like mecha.
   • Laguioule was a Jet mecha
   • Gilang was a Tank mecha.
5. Each mecha has different abilities:
   • Vavel can ability to rocket punch like Mazinger and you can uses super mode, although you must defeat the Volgara as fast you can before explode.
   • Laguioule while it can's uses super mode, it uses rocket to beat the Volgara.
   • Gilang can ability to transform, like Laguioule did, and it did has some bomb things to exploding the Volgara.
6. The graphics is really great for 2002 standards with mecha and characters model is really detailed.
7. The control is really tight even the game can be awkward for the control in the mecha section.
   • You can better the control by find the better view on the higher building to look the mecha for fighting.
8. The Japanese dub is really great and you can patch undub from awful English dub.
9. There's the VS mode, but only restricted to 2 player multiplayer.

Bad Qualities

1. Some of the episode can be hard to complete due to the issue here.
2. The camera and controls can be clunky and awkward, and if you control the mecha, it's too slow to moving forward, you need press L1 and R1 repeatedly and turn around by pressing L2 and R2, in other words, it's really slow pace.
3. The frame rate can be drop when there's too many actions or even when building get destroyed, this is also happens for EDF games.
4. The English dub is awful and this voice actor sounds like that recording to the mic's too close.
   • Thankfully, there's the undub version to replace the awful English dub.
5. These of the three hero is play exact same animation and it has same abilities.

Reception

The game received "generally favorable reviews" for the critics, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of two eights and two sevens for a total of 30 out of 40.

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