Technic Drillimation Battle!

Technic Drillimation Battle!, known in Japan as Drillimation X Technic Heroes: Battle of the Robo Lolis (ドリメーションＸテックニック英雄：ロボロリコンの戦う) is a 2008 tactical role-playing video game developed by Drillimation Studios and Seymour Games and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment and El TV Kadsre Games for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, as well as home computers. The game is a crossover between The Drillimation Series and Technic Heroes franchises, featuring robot versions of the Drillimation characters and all Technic Heroes characters. The game was released in North America on May 16, 2008, followed by a Japanese release two days later on May 18, 2008, then a PAL version on May 23, 2008.

As of today, the game is available for distribution on Steam and WildTangent.

Gameplay
Borrowing gameplay elements from Square Enix's Final Fantasy Tactics series and Konami's card game Yu-Gi-Oh!, the main objective of the game is the player must defeat all the enemies in card-based battles. Once all the enemies are defeated, the player moves on to the next scenario. Players have a deck of 40 cards broken into two tableaus: one for character cards, and other for special cards. Cards are automatically drawn when one of their hand foundations are empty. Players can hold up to three cards of each type and cannot draw any more if one of them is full. Each player's turn goes like this:
 * Item Phase 1: Players can use an item on one of their characters before moving.
 * Move Phase: Players move their characters via a dice block roll, similar to the move mechanic from the HotShots Party series.
 * Item Phase 2: Players can use an item specifically before attacking an enemy.
 * Attack Phase: Players have one of their characters declare an attack on an enemy character.
 * Special Phase: If the player has any remaining Technic Points, they can declare any other special attacks specifically on a group of enemies.
 * End Phase: The player's turn is over and it's now their opponent's turn.

Plot
The game opens with Susumu and Wataru busily walking down their neighborhood having a food discussion over chocolate cornets, and upon entering a park, they see a large crater with a purple gemstone with a ying-yang symbol on it. Upon picking it up, Wataru suggests going to the Takanomiya Shrine so they can talk to the Hiiragi sisters of what this stone could be. Upon entering the shrine, they encounter Tsukasa Hiiragi in a panic, telling Susumu that Kagami has been captured. Upon hearing this, Susumu suspects that Team Ankoku is behind this, but hears that a group called the Brotherhood was busy going around Japan and capturing girls to use as weapons to terrorize the world.

When Susumu and Wataru bring the issue to their girlfriends (Konata Izumi and Miyuki Takara), they immediately rush to the Drill Institute where Dr. Zett is reading a newspaper about the incident going on. When Dr. Zett learns that Kagami Hiiragi is missing, he issues and objective to other Drill Institutes across the globe to find and search for any of their daughters captured by Brotherhood. Konata then hears on her phone from Kagami that she is in El Kadsre. The group of four then fly to El Kadsre, where they encounter Akita Maximino, also known as Jaller.

Rating summary
From the ESRB:


 * This is a tactical role-playing game where players assume the role of heroes from the Drillimation and Technic Heroes universes on a quest to stop an evil corporation from taking over the world. Depicted in both a cartoony and realistic art style, players select attacks from a drop-down menu to use on enemies. Players use a series of physical, magical, and supernatural attacks to defeat their opponents, which are often accompanied by colorful light effects and screams of pain. Some attacks are sometimes bloody, with blood splashes occurring upon impact of these attacks. At the end of a battle, players have the ability to perform "humiliation" moves on their enemies and most bosses. Many of these finishing moves depict acts of violence: characters getting stabbed, shot, or assaulted altogether. Throughout the course of the game, some female characters have a "zero-suit" form, which expose small to moderate amounts of cleavage. Some cutscenes depict characters smoking tobacco and/or drinking alcohol, one character uses alcohol for his attacks. His finishing move also depicts him spitting acidic alcohol on the enemy as well. The words "a**", "sh*t", and "p*ss" are heard in the dialogue.

References to other games

 * Ultimate Super Smash Keyboards 2: Mecha Konata returns as a playable character.

Development
Development of the game began shortly after the release of Lana X3: The Secret of Darkness in 2006, after the completion of the film when an El TV Kadsre executive uttered "Susumu Hori would've been great, but we can't use him." Fred Abrams overheard this conversation and was interested in working on this mystery project. Development of Technic Drillimation Battle! did not really start until when Abrams stepped into an elevator with a Drillimation Studios employee. While there, he told the employee about a pitch for a potential crossover between Technic Heroes and The Drillimation Series.

Technic Drillimation Battle! was originally just going to be another Technic Heroes film, but Drillimation Studios wanted to make it a video game instead. Due to role-playing games being one of Susumu Takajima's favorite genres, his wife Kagami Ochiai and brother Hiroki Takajima asked him to make one. With Takajima also being a big fan of card games like Yu-Gi-Oh!, he decided to make it a tactical RPG instead. Drillimation ran into a problem as they had never developed a game like this before. To get assistance, they asked Seymour Games to develop part of the game using their newly developed Driller Engine Ultimate.

El TV Kadsre originally wanted Robotman to be the game's protagonist, but Drillimation wanted Susumu Hori instead. The game's plot was originally going to be in the style of Technic Heroes, but Takajima kept tweaking it in order to appeal to Drillimation fans. Tahu from the Bionicle franchise was originally going to play a large role in the game, but was ultimately dropped due to a game-breaking bug. The bug made characters glitch each other and since Drillimation could not fix the issue, he was removed altogether.

Reception
Technic Drillimation Battle! received generally favorable reviews from critics. The game currently holds a 73% on Metacritic based on 27 reviews. Critics praised the cutscenes with its superior tokusatsu and anime blending but criticized the game as "a rip-off of Final Fantasy Tactics". El Kadsre Gaming gave the game a positive review with a score of 37 out of 50. Famitsu gave the game a 31 out of 40 (8/8/7/8) based on four reviews.