Photos courtesy of GiantBomb.com
Find your way in the stars
ありがと ございました おなしと の おとこのしと!
And for the non-Nihongo speaking, thank you ladies and gentlemen! It’s great to be
William Harrison, GI contributing editor
back and for the Far Eastern (Nihon, Nihongo = Japanese language) issue. I understand that a lot of people may be wondering why it’s not called Robotech. Well, let’s just stick with the version that was released in Japan. The funny thing is, this game was actually scheduled for an American release but was later canceled because of the “creator” of the Robotech series. His demands were a bit on the ridiculous side and rather than bow to him, Big West/Bandai Visual (before it merged with Namco) made sure that the American release never saw the light of day.
But if you knew the right places to go and were willing to pay the price, you could have your very own copy like I do. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to play it, but this is still one of the best games I have played in a long time and the fan boy in me was all over this when I saw it in an import store in Greenville, S.C. I fell in love with Macross VF-X2.
VF-X2 is a flight-style combat shooter with a bit of an arcade feel to it, loads of fun and not too bad of a story to add to the Macross universe. You are Arges Focker, rookie pilot who joins the U.N. Spacy and is 
shortly recruited to the Raven Fighting Squadron. You battle through several missions, piloting several of the variable fighters from the original Valkyre to the VF-22 (Macross plus YF-21: The 21 was designated the 22 to honor Guld Goa Bowman after his death).
The game plays very well and the sounds and effects will put you in the right frame of mind of the Macross series, but, unfortunately, it does have a few bugs.
One of the main bugs occurs when you beat the game: The closing cinematic glitches and plays for two frames then either freezes or boots you to the credits screen. That’s heartbreaking because it kind of ruins that whole satisfaction of beating the game. The game is solid as a whole, but the glitches kind of cut into the fun. If you love Robotech/Macross, don’t let the glitches keep you from a solid representative in the series.