I mostly stick to the portable games in the series. If I ever sit down playing a console game, I almost never choose to play SRW over other games, even as someone who knows about/has watched a good chunk of the series the game often hosts. The reason is because SRW is completely style over substance- it boasts amazing 2D graphics (Whenever they venture into 3D it's laughable) and gameplay that has barely changed for forever, with the exception of NEO, which generated no attention because of the aforementioned laughable 3D graphics. The storyline is a horribly written fan-fiction so the only thing that usually drives me forward is (supposedly) the game itself, and the promise of me seeing my favorite robot show joining my team so I can do the wave. I can only take the game in small chunks, which is why I stick to the portable ones since I can just pull it out on a long train ride or something and play it.
The last console game I bothered playing was @3. One thing I really don't like is that they decided to remove you choosing between multiple original mechs at the start and just forcing you to use whatever original they came up with for that particular game. What happened to that main character customization in 4, F/FF, and alpha? You'd think they would've expanded on that instead of taking steps back with each successive game.