0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Armored Trooper Votoms Lightning Slash

       

Armored Trooper Votoms Lightning Slash is an action mecha battle shooter developed and Published by Takara, the game is a spin off of the long running Armored Trooper VOTOMS anime tv series from the early 80s, a series that has spawned many spin offs as well as video game with Lightning Slash the 8^th entry in the series. The game was never released outside of its native Japan, with it releasing on the 18^th of March 1999

Compared to being a mix of Armored Core and Virtual On, Lightning Slash providing a variety of choices for fans of the VOTOMS series, and for fans of mecha action games. The player faces off in an arena against another AT (Armored Tooper) using a verity of weapons, at the top of the screen is both AT’s health bar (see gameplay footage below).

In addition to the usual armaments each AT has a boost gauge, which works like Armored Core’s with it recovering when not in use, firing your AT’s weapons is done manually, with the AT firing in the direction it is facing, a dash action will centre the target reticule on the opposing AT so works as a semi lock on.

Information on this game is very hard to come by so I will cover the overall story of Armored Trooper VOTOMS. The series is a military based science fiction mecha anime series that has undergone several incarnations over the years from the original tv series created by Ryosuke Takahashi and Sunrise animation studio.

The VOTOMS series is part of the mecha anime subgenre and focuses heavily to the hard science of the genre. The main plot of the tv series is based around the long running war between The Gilgamesh and Balarant Nations, this was had been raging for a century with neither side really knowing why they are fighting, finally however an uneasy truce has been settled.

Throughout the many years of the conflict the main weapon of both sides is the VOTOMS or ((Vertical One-man Tank for Offense & Manoeuvres),  also know as Armored Troopers while being the mainstay of both military forces they were highly expendable with Armored Suits very fragile with the artificial muscles the suit uses filled with a highly combustible liquid.

As a result the pilots of these Armored Troopers had very low life expectancies and were referred to as Votoms and Bottoms with both written and pronounced the same way in the Japanese language. The anime series main protaganist is Chirico Cuvie (voiced by Hozumi Goda) a special forces Armored Trooper and a former member of the elite Red Shoulder Battalion of the Gilgamesh Confederation.

Chirico is suddenly transferred the new unit is assigned to a mission which seems suspicious, unaware that he is actually stealing secrets from his own people, betrayed he is left to die, somehow he survives but is arrested by the Gilgamesh military, imprisoned and tortured.

Chirico is able to escape, however he is pursued not only by his own people but countless criminals and criminal organisation with both seeking to find out what he knows. Driven to find out what the hell is going on and discover more about one of the objects he was ordered to steal, a mysterious and beautiful woman, who is his only clue to what is going on in what appears to be a galactic conspiracy.

Since the original anime TV series in 1983 there have been several side stories featuring Chirico, as well as several spin offs. Also in 1994 there was a 5 episode sequel to the original anime series, titled Shining Heresy and in 2009 we saw Pailsen Files a prequel to the main series.

Video game wise the Armored Trooper Votoms series has seen many video game adaptations since the original TV series was aired, dating back to the X68000 home computer to the more recent PS3/Vita release in the 24 years since the original anime not a single video game adaption has been released outside of Japan.

With the Armored Trooper series being a Japanese exclusive titles, reviews for the games from western publications is none existent, even GameFAQs user data is very limited with just the one user rating this game at a 3.5/5. This is the only viable data I have on this title.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude who no surprise do not stock this Japanese only release, same goes for Retrogames.co.uk and eStarland.com, the latter however does sell Armored Trooper Votoms action figures which do not come cheap, the only one currently in stock is priced at $44.95, the remaining three that are not in stock start at the $100 mark.

Moving on to Amazon.com we that this game is not listed not even for an import same for the co.uk version of the site, so we head over to Ebay.com where we find three copies of the imported version available, the cheapest is a used copy in like new condition, which is priced up at $18.00 with an additional $6.00 for shipping this will vary based on your location.

Next up is another used copy which says it is in good condition however the image used is just a stock game cover image rather than an image of the product, this is priced up at $18.50 with a $6.50 shipping fee again this will likely fluctuate depending on your location.

The final copy on sale is a brand new copy still in its original shrink wrap, this particular copy is currently on sale with 25% off the usual price which is usually $150.97 and is down to £113.23, shipping costs are however quite steep at $16.12 which is to the UK so this will likely be less in the US where this copy ships from.

For anyone that is looking to buy a copy of Armored Troopers VOTOMS Lightning Slash please be aware that this game is a Japanese release only, so will be region locked to Japanese Playstation consoles and will not work on PAL or NTSC-U/C systems.

Written by

P J Gibbon