The first Super Robot Wars to include backgrounds during battles, discrete stats for pilots and units, and upgrades for units. When these concepts are combined, players can create a team that has no chance of existing within the original series.

Additionally, some enemies can be convinced (usually those who are not completely villainous, or who have good intentions) to abandon the antagonists and join the player, whether they do so in their respective series or not. Players will often have the chance to prevent the death of an ally, as depicted in his or her animated series, while some games take this a step further and prevent heroic deaths freely, without extra effort on the player's part. One noteworthy aspect of the Super Robot Wars games is that character death happens rarely. Some featured anime also has their plots intertwined: in Super Robot Wars Alpha, the White Fang from New Mobile Report Gundam Wing allies with Paptimus Scirocco's rebellion from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, resulting in the two enemy forces working together. In most games, the player selects or is given a Banpresto original character and machine, who is connected to the overarching storyline which ties together the events of the constituent anime for the game. The franchise will be celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2011. Due to the nature of crossover games and licensing involved, only three games have been released outside of Japan, these games only feature Banpresto's own original characters and mecha. Later spawning numerous games that were released on various consoles and handhelds.

The first game in the franchise was released for the Nintendo Game Boy on the 20th April, 1991. The main feature of the franchise is having a story that crosses over several popular mecha anime, manga and video games, allowing characters and mecha from different titles to team up or battle one another. Super Robot Wars is a series of tactical role-playing video games produced by Banpresto, which is now a Japanese division of Namco Bandai.

Super Robot Wars NEO iso