Pretty much what Nekomajokko said. There ARE a few SRWs which are full on series - OGs, Z, Alpha, for instance - but all of the DS games are standalone.
Mind you, this game does have a few series being post-plot (like Voltes), so either knowledge about the show or having played an older game with them in it will give you some extra insight. The game usually does take the time to give you a basic rundown of stuff that’s already happened, though.
I have no idea what’s going on, but that was a good read.
Big colony ship out in space, thought-MIA heroes warp right in front without even realizing 60 years have passed. Weird alien bug things attack said ship, protagonist guy really wants a plane-bot of his own and gets one after the previous owner gets squished. He’s a merc now.
Oh, and there are pop singers around.
It might get a little… a LOT more complicated as the game goes on, but if an SRW plot doesn’t require an intricate chart the follow, it’s not a good SRW!
Off we go to another huge prologue.
Durandal’s still going at it, saying that, in the past, the space colonies were heavily oppressed by Earth. Indeed, the people are very doubtful about the current state of things: quite a few don’t believe that the current peace will last or that the UN is capable of protecting them.
Thus, Durandal saw the need to bolster the PLANTs’ strength as a way to give those people some peace of mind. Still, Alex argues that Blue Cosmos’ anti-PLANTs rhetoric is gaining more and more traction with each day and this isn’t the sort of stuff that’d help; Durandal chuckles at Athrun’s lecturing tone… but he’s just Alex Dino, of course.
Cagalli apologizes for her bodyguard but, regardless, Durandal is willing to make arrangements for the release of the new MS data. This’ll all have to wait, though, as the alarms start blaring – someone’s jacked the prototypes!
It’s the three kids and they begin blasting their way out the colony. Durandal orders a ZAFT soldier to take Cagalli into shelter, request help from the Minerva and recover the stolen units.
Stray fire starts hitting over by Athrun (let’s be serious here) and Cagalli’s escape route, though they do spot a lone MS docked nearby. He calls her aboard as he sure as hell won’t let her die here.
As Athrun steps onto the field in a piddly ZAKU, Auel has a laugh at the lone guy apparently coming to fight them all. Indeed, Sting starts sniping him down and Athrun can’t do jack against them (Cagalli gets a bit scratched up but says it’s nothing). Things are looking really bad.
: What?!
: You bastards… You trying to start another war?! (His name’s Shinn.)
Shinn charges after Stella!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlzE2HgqmXU
: Wh-What’s this thing?!
: The hell, another one?! Intel didn’t say anything about that…!
: Weren’t there supposed to be only three prototypes, Sting?!
: You’re asking me?!
: Haaaaaah!!
: Damn it…!
Beep, beep!
: Shinn, our orders are to recover them, understood?! They’re the army’s property! (Arthur)
: I know that! Whether we can actually pull it off is the question, though!
: And how the hell did this even happen?! How did they enemy jack the prototypes this easy?!
: We can wonder about that later! Focus on the problem at hand! (Talia)
: They can’t leave here or it’ll be all over! Do whatever it takes to capture them before that! (Rey)
: Think you three’re going to walk all over us, huh? Well, think again! You’re not going anywhere! (Lunamaria)
: What’s the status on the three units? Report!
: Chairman, wait! It’s too dangerous for you to stay here – we’re detecting poison gas being released! Please head to the shelter!
: I’ll do no such thing! We still don’t know what’s going on!
: But… Then, please, at least board the Minerva!
: Hrm!
: What the?!
: We’re being attacked from the outside! They’ve hit the port?!
: Sting, those explosions…
: Yeah. Our ride’s here, I think.
: We’re running late; gonna miss our bus if we don’t hurry.
: Stella, we’re pulling out. Don’t want our chauffer getting mad.
: OK…
: Ah!
: Get back here!
: After them!
Beep, beep!
: Hold, you needn’t follow.
: What?! Are we just gonna let them run off?!
: The thieves likely have a battleship waiting outside. We’ll launch the Minerva and then pursue them. Return at once, you three.
: And I’ll be accompanying you on this.
: Chairman! I’m sorry, sir, but it is too dangerous – please disembark.
: Talia, this is hardly a situation where I could sit back and await a report.
: But…
: My authority comes with responsibility. I’m coming with you – please.
: …Understood.
: Thank you, Talia.
: (Gil… thank goodness you’re safe.)
: Shinn, Lunamaria, back to the Minerva.
: Roger that!
: Wait up; please let us come with you!
: Huh, who are you two? And you’re not with the army, so why are you in that MS?!
: She is Cagalli Yula Athha, Representative of the United Emirates of Orb. I’m Alex Dino, her assistant…
: Rep. Athha, from Orb…?
: …?! Did you say Athha…?!
: We were in the middle of a meeting with Chairman Durandal when hell broke loose. We couldn’t make it to a shelter, so we borrowed this unit.
: Please help! The Representative is wounded!
: So, what… Orb’s Rep decided to just stick her nose in other people’s battle? What happened to the family’s trademark idealism?
: No, we just took shelter inside this unit! We’ve no intention of fighting…
: Always with an excuse at the ready…! This is why neither the Athhas nor Orb can be trusted!
: Wha…!
: Pipe down, Shinn
: Rrgh…!
: What’s the matter with him…?
: Shinn’s an Orb emigrant. He lost his family during the last war…
: Huh…
: We beg your pardon, Rep. Athha. We’ll see that he’s disciplined later… Come. I’ll escort you into the Minerva.
: …
With that in mind, Luca suggests Alto could give her a call or send her a message or something to cheer her up. This request is coming from Nanase, too, what with big impact Alto made on Ranka. “No, thanks. Why do I need to do any of that?” he sniffs. Regardless, Kenichi’s rather impressed with Ozma for giving Ranka the go-ahead to take part in a big contest like that, though Megumi figures he’d be glad to agree to his sister’s request.
Yeah, about that… Luca says that Ranka might not have told him about it. It’d be pretty bad for her if word of this reached Ozma’s ears, huh?
[b]Prologue 2 - Galaxy Chase[/b]
The Quarter detects a Fold signal up ahead, with a bevy of Vajra warping over. Two lone ships also come in, the Dulfim and Kaitos. They’re calling in mayday, saying they’re from the Macross Galaxy Fleet, which has come under attack and wrecked by the Vajra. They request our help in dealing with the pursuers.
There’s no time, though, as the Vajra home in on the Kaitos and destroy it. The Frontier Fleet’s at our rear, so Jeffrey puts in a call and tells that, after the Dulfim’s rescued, everyone needs to Fold straight out of here. Cathy is appalled, saying he needs presidential permission to Fold but Bobby tells her to shush. She may have been assigned here by the executive branch but that doesn’t meant she gets to drown us in red tape.
Jeffrey says that his top priority is the protection of the Frontier Fleet, so he tells Bobby to get to it. The Quarter flies close enough to the Dulfim and all ships Fold immediately.
Later, we De-Fold safely and Mina confirms that the Frontier Fleet has made it as well. As for the Dulfim, it’s safe and currently being dealt with by the Fleet. But, hey, what’s that over there?
An A-class habitable planet? No, Jeffrey quickly realizes something and asks Mina to confirm our position. They’ve just warped to Earth.
No time to gasp, though, as Monica immediately detects another Fold: the Vajra are coming after us. Jeffrey tells his crew to get ready for battle and sends the SMS Team out to fight.
As the units deploy, Cathy reminds Jeffrey that they’re under orders to gather as much data as possible on the Vajra – and he ought to consider this as an order from the president himself. The best he can tell her is that we’ll keep that in mind.
Ozma hails everyone and says that the NUNS troops will be hanging back to cover the Frontier Fleet, so it’s up to us to deal with these ones (collecting data, if possible). Furthermore, he wants Alto to hang back but, of course, the hotshot is certain he can handle jumping in the fray.
Fair enough, so Ozma tells him to get on his six and stay glued to him. Formation Planet Dance!
Kill everything, don’t lose the Quarter, Ozma, Alto or Luca. Still pretty easy, just keep your guys bunched up inside Ozma or Jeffrey’s command auras for some extra leeway.
And we’ve gotten some new unit, so let’s go over them quickly:
Big, bulky artillery unit with two forms: the shuttle, up above, and the actual artillery form with all the big guns. The König Monster’s a pretty dang good squaddie for a Super Robot – especially range-oriented ones. If you want to deploy it as the main unit, I’d say it’ll want to hang by long-range attackers provide support in artillery mode. Otherwise, you’ll likely want to keep it as the shuttle for the flight it provides.
Eeeh, she’s fine. Good range coverage and stats means you can definitely field her but she’ll likely only ever amount to a squaddie. And even then, she’ll have a lot of competition.
Macross ships are always great and the Quarter is no exception. Resilient, strong and with a lot range means you can easily have it lead the offensive with our units. It’s large size means its accuracy will take a hit against smaller units but that’s nothing that can’t be fixed with upgrades and Strike.
The Quarter also has another trick which we’ll see later but, really, you’ll want to take good care of it. The plot will often force you to.
With that finally done, we’re going in.
Ozma’ll lead the offensive to get that command aura set up.
Everyone else moves forward.
Enemy Phase!
And Ozma gets swarmed, eating a couple of hits but downing two small Vajras.
Michel’s also a priority target, it seems.
No kills for him, though.
Player Phase!
Now it’s cleanup time, as folks start tearing through all the weakened Vajra. Canaria spots this big one just within range.
: I’ve to help treat the survivors, so this needs to get wrapped up on the double!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJdARUjk778
And the RNG’s a bit sassy today, as she whiffs an 87% hit. At least Klan was there.
This one’s all on me, though… as I didn’t see that Jeffrey’s hit % was 51% there.
: Don’t let the Vajra head after the Fleet. Fire at will and keep them at bay!
: OK, boss!
Jeffrey: “We’ll show the Vajra the full might of the SMS.”
… Whoops.
Fine. Screw you, then.
: A Zentran can’t well let a bunch of brainless monsters get the better of us!
With some backup from Michel, it’s an easy kill.
Enemy Phase!
And the two surviving Vajras kill themselves against Voltes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acfvb1lj9ds
Bam.
No sooner do all enemies go down, Monica detects a much bigger De-Fold signal – it’s a huge Vajra and it starts spawning a bunch more of the little guys. Ozma realizes we’re dealing with something of a mothership type and Luca moves in to collect data on it.
Ozma yells that he’s going too far ahead but Luca’s appalled at the numbers he’s getting: it looks like the big Vajra’s being powered by Fold Reactors. But he doesn’t get to investigate further, as a little Vajra latches onto him.
His Valkyrie gets gobbled up by the big Vajra ship – at least it stands to reason that he’s alive in there. Kenichi and Hiyoshi want to go rescue him immediately, unwilling to lose another friend like Gilliam, but Alto tells them to wait: he’ll do it.
He argues that his VF-25 is a lot more nimble than the Voltes, so it’s better suited for this. Ozma and Kenichi tell him that’s too crazy a stunt for him to pull but Alto’s undaunted: “I can’t just sit back and watch as one of my friends gets kidnapped! And I’ve also had enough of seeing people die!”
Fine, fine, Ozma says that the Voltes will carve a path to the Vajra ship and Alto’ll use that opening to get in there and rescue Luca. Everyone else is to provide support.
These four marked spots are where we need to get Alto to and destroying the Knight-Class Vajra (the ship) is an instant game over.
The new Vajra move right in but failing to do much outside of getting zapped by Alto.
Player Phase!
Let’s go toy with them some and show off Klan’s strongest weapon: the Pixie Formation Attack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C22EJPWq68Y
After that, Alto, Ozma and Kenichi wreck a weakened bugger.
Take out enough enemies, though, and the ship spawns more. Kenichi isn’t intimidated, willing to take on as many as need be to win this. That said, Ozma tells Alto to hurry as the worse off we’ll be the longer we let this drag on.
Yeah, the Vajra will just keep coming. I don’t know if there’s a limit to the respawns, so you could farm them a bit for some extra cash (though they don’t yield much).
Enemy Phase!
Michel’s decided that he wants to be Top Ace, and goads a bevy of small Vajras to gun for him. That’s four kills.
Fast forward a turn of me getting Alto closer to the ship, with the Vajra failing to do any lasting damage.
I did show the König Monster’s strongest attack, though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK_vtRBZORE
Nice.
Player Phase!
Look at this guy, trying to block Alto’s passage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El5rl8jxFxA
Michel’s so dreamy, you guys.
And we’re in!
: Alright, I’m going in! Hold on, Luca!
: Huh…?
: Something happen?
: No. I thought I pinged something De-Folding but I guess it was nothing.
: OK, now we’ll start setting up for Alto’s escape. All units—
Beep!
: We’ve new heat sources on approach!
: Damn it, more?!
: Are those NUNS troops? Wait, no, I don’t think so…
: Who’re they working with? They don’t look like Galaxy troops… you don’t think they’re with the Anti-Unification League, do you?
: We’ll try getting in touch with them. Stay on your toes in the meantime, Ozma.
: Roger that, Captain.
: C-Captain, that’s not Bogey One!
: I can see that. Meyrin, have we any data on them?
: None. The ship, the units and their affiliations are unknown!
: And there are these weird bug-looking things, too!
: Could they be Mimetic Beasts?
: No, they are not.
: No data found between those and the Mimetic Beasts. And, just in case, I’ve also compared them to the Mechabeast database and got no results.
: One of their mobile weapons kind of looks like the Combattler…
: It can’t be. The Combattler V is taking part in operations in Japan!
: Despite the similar design, our database search came back negative. That’s not the Combattler.
: So it’s a totally unknown group, huh?
: Some of their units are transformable… and incredibly mobile, while at it.
: Whose country are they from…? Have you anything to say, Chairman?
: I am not all-knowing, Rep. Athha. And, of course, these do not belong to the PLANTs.
: What do we do, Captain? We’re short on time as is…
: Indeed, we are. Our priority is giving chase to Bogey One. Relay this intel to the PLANTs and—
: Captain! Unknown units approaching at high speed!
: What?!
: The Minerva!
: Luna, Rey, cover them!
: Hold on, we’ve another unit incoming!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq4p-OgJJnw
“No idea who these folks are but I can’t just let the Vajra take ‘em!”
: H-How the hell is he so fast…?!
: This is Cpt. Talia Gladys of the ZAFT battleship Minerva; our thanks for your help.
: LtCmdr. Ozma Lee, flight lead of SMS’ Skull Squadron. We were engaged by the Vajra immediately after we De-Folded.
: By Vajra, you mean those creatures you destroyed?
: Right. As far as we can tell, they’re living weapons.
: Captain, multiple unknown units on approach!
: Not good – they’ve got us surrounded!
: Talia, I don’t think we’ll be able to continue our pursuit for Bogey One.
: Hm. And while I’ve never heard of a group called SMS before, they at least don’t appear hostile. We don’t know how trustworthy they are but, looking at our situation, I believe we’ll need their help to get through this.
: Indeed, to say nothing of that fact that we’ve no idea the fire these embers could cause if ignored. We’ve to adjust our priorities.
: LtCmdr., could you get us in touch with your mothership?
: Alright. Hold on while I relay you.
: This is Jeffrey Wilder, captain of the SMS battleship Macross Quarter. We’re in the middle of a battle, so please make this quick.
: Cpt. Talia Gladys of the ZAFT battleship Minerva. We’ll provide support to your troops.
: Much appreciated, captain. One of our own is being kept inside the enemy ship and we’re executing a rescue operation right now. Be careful not to destroy that ship until they’re out, alright?
: Understood. Shinn, Rey, Lunamaria, did you get all that?
: Aye, aye! Let’s deal with these Mimetic Beast-looking things quick and get back to chasing Bogey One!
: Relay this to all SMS units: the new battleship’s called the Minerva and they’re friendlies! Work with them and repel the Vajra!
: Roger!
: Hurry up and get outta there, Alto. The role of a captured princess doesn’t really suit you…
: First things first: let’s go and get that Vajra ship disabled!
Now we need to get the Knight-Class Vajra under 30% HP. Before that, we’ve more new arrivals:
Shinn’s SEED Destiny’s protagonist (kinda) and is appropriately good all-around. The Impulse packs some nice firepower and is surprisingly resilient with all those defensive features. Unlike in Z1, you can’t switch frames outright but they’re still there in the form of attacks (the Cerberus blasters in particular cover the major weakness of the Force Impuse which was its range).
Shinn’s already good and he’ll only get better as we go along, so he gets an easy recommendation.
Can you say squaddies? The ZAKUs are decent enough at this point of the game but they’re already being outclassed by the Valkyries. If you want one of them to lead, Rey is objectively the better pilot as Luna’s a notoriously bad shot (and most of the ZAKU’s weapons are ranged).
Regardless, those squad bonuses are nice.
Another pretty good battleship, though, for whatever reason, it’s lacking its Laminated Armor; so it won’t be quite as bulky as the Quarter. Still, it’s got some good offense going on and its big Tannhäuser cannon comes in both single-target and MAPW flavors.
Availability made Talia one of Doc’s top killers in Z1, so we’ll see if she’ll fly just as nicely over here.
Let’s get to work, then.
: Not once did I expect the Minerva’s first battle to be against foes like these… Keep your heads on a swivel, crew!
Pew, pew.
Ozma’s getting back to the Knight Vajra, weakening whatever’s close.
Let’s have the ZAFT folks hang by their ship, just to be safe.
: This world really can’t free itself from chaos… And, in that case, there’s only one thing for me to do!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zu0nfcNwow
And here’s Rey’s best attack while we’re at it.
Luna and Shinn’ll handle this one together.
: These things sure don’t look like Mimetic Beasts… Urgh, and I really don’t think it’ll be easy to land a hit on them!
: The Second Stage units get jacked and, right after, these things start showing up… What the hell is going on with this world?!
Alright.
Enemy Phase!
The Voltes is getting a big dinged up but Klan’s nearby.
Klan, support defending: “It’s gunning for you, Voltes V!”
And that’s a cool 6.2k damage on the thing. The other nearby Vajra can’t do much more than explode, while the ones by ZAFT’s corner lose a chunk of their HP.
Player Phase!
Another V Slash comboed into Pixie Formation gets us where we need to be.
Outside, the red Valkyrie’s quickly left the area with Alto and Luca emerging from the Knight Vajra right after.
They’re still good to fight and with nothing else for us to worry about, Ozma gives the word to blow the enemy to kingdom come. Talia sees that our rescue operation was a success and gives the same order to Shinn and co.
Durandal’s especially supportive of Rey, who vows to fight to the fullest.
And now to wrap things up, let’s show off some other stuff.
: You goddamned bugs! This is payback for before!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gtRzRBeNRg
If you kill something on the first Vajra batch with this attack, you get a special convo:
: Skull 4, splash one!
: Wow… his kabuki moves are so ingrained in his head that they show even in his flying!
: Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee. He’s not bad at all, eh?
: Psh, that dumbass… I told him to look for another target as soon as he finished his attack run.
: He reminds me of a certain someone when he was young.
: Hrm…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwUZjLIQopI
Here’s the Minerva’s main gun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F6xj5eCG9I
Shinn’s Blast Silhouette in action.
And Luca getting revenge:
: I’ve gathered more than enough data – only thing left now is taking them down!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM-WC4stHak
: Did we get ‘im?!
: No, the enemy ship’s coming back online!
: Captain!
: …What are our odds?
: This thing’s as stupid as they come, right, Lam?
: Right. We’ve run a simulation based on the data compiled by Skull 3 and we’ve the advantage in terms of top speed.
: Mina?
: All sections are ready and good to go.
: Monica?
: Firing pattern and evasion programs are already in place. Leave the navigation to me, sir.
: C-Captain, wait just a minute! What are you up to…?
: Inform the deployed units that the Quarter will now engage the Vajra battleship at close range!
: Close range?!
: You’re actually going with “that”, eh?
: Sorry, but I’m afraid I’ll be bagging this largest of games! Transformation, engage!
: Macross Quarter engaging transformation! Main reactor output rising! Fractal Module System activating!
: Whoa…! The ship really did transform!
: So that’s the Storm Attacker Mode…!
: Bobby, show them how this 400-meter long vessel was still crowned with the Macross name!
: OK, Boss!
: HERE! WE! GOOO!! OOOORYAAAAAA!!
The Quarter blasts off towards the Knight-Class Vajra!
: Yaaah!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo5dOf1d2EE
: How d’ya like that? This is how the SMS does things!
: Regardless, I have some questions over the necessity of such extreme steering of the Quarter… urk…
: (That insane maneuver was just… Oh, god, I’m gonna be sick…!)
Cathy runs off to find a bag.
: Oho, guess I blew her away. Ahahahahaa!
That’s all enemies dealt with and Monica isn’t detecting any other De-Fold signals. Luca thanks everyone, especially Alto, for the rescue but he tells him not to worry – no big deal. More important is figuring out who those “ZAFT” guys are.
Jeffrey’s just received some intel over the survey of the area and asks everyone to calm down and listen: it’s looking like the we, and the Frontier Fleet, De-Folded in parallel world. Sounds crazy as all get-out but it’s true; Sakonji explains that despite L.A.I. and Kentarou’s joint research into the matter, whatever accident struck the Solar Falcon before has apparently happened again during our last Fold.
But how are we sure this really is a parallel world? First off, because we can see more stuff floating around space than just the Earth and Moon; moreover, after analysis, our folks have found several differences like, for instance, the fact that there’s no Macross City on this Earth.
So, Kenichi sees, we didn’t transcend time today but, rather, the dimensions themselves. Damn. Well, Jeffrey calls everyone back aboard to wait and see what the president decides to do now.
The Coordinators watch as everyone returns, Luna sighing that some words of gratitude would’ve been nice. Inwardly, Rey ponders that, if Durandal’s conjecture is correct, then those living weapons are… we don’t get to know.
Regardless, Talia calls everyone back. Durandal’ll be getting in touch with the newcomers’ leader and then, hopefully, they’ll know who we are.
Actually, no, he doesn’t particularly care that much for the residential ships. Why? “There’s no sky here,” he says. Sheryl’s not surprised by that answer but Alto says that he IS a pilot, after all. Isn’t he still in school? Yeah but he’s been officially recruited into the SMS, so he’s a fully-fledged pilot now.
“Ooh, look at you, the big bad ace,” Sheryl quips, “But if you’ve just been recruited into the team, wouldn’t that make you just a little nugget?”
After a quick round of introductions from everyone, Luna thanks Luca for playing tour guide to them – of course, no thanks are needed. Luca’s doing this both as an apology for not assisting them during the quarantine and because the SMS owner told him to.
Seems the Minerva crew had to undergo both blood tests and sterilization before coming aboard. Can they blame us, though? This is a different dimension, so we had no idea what kind of germs and viruses could exist here.
Meyrin’s fine with that but what annoyed her was getting a reminder of how lacking her figure is compared to her sister’s. Luca lets out an awkward laugh but apologizes for any inconvenience. With that said, they should hurry along as there’s still plenty more to see!
Moreover, he figures the reason Ranka doesn’t want to go home is that she knows she won’t be able to persuade him to change his mind. She won’t make it in the singing business with that kind of attitude, FYI. Hell, could she even handle singing in front of a bunch of people?
Ranka says she absolutely can, like how she sang for the audience at Miss Macross. That was then, though – could she do it right here, in front of all these mall-goers? Is she capable of placing herself in front of all these people who didn’t come here expressly to see her and sing for them?
The girl falls silent and Megumi chides Michel for his sharp tongue. Still, he figures Ranka needs to realize how childish she’s being; someone lacking commitment shouldn’t speak of being a singer. Ranka perks up right then.
: You’re wrong… I do want as many people as possible to listen to my song…!
: (You shouldn’t call it quits just because you failed once.)
: Alto… here goes…!
: Kimi wa dare to kisu o suru… ♪
: !!
: What a lovely song…
: Yow, who’d have thought the little girl had a voice like that…!
: Hey, do you hear that song? It’s coming from around here…
: Yeah, I think so… and it’s a good one, too. You can feel a whole lotta heart behind those lyrics.
: Huh…? Isn’t that Ranka singing? Michel and the others are there too…
: Whoever she is, her song’s got a lot more feeling than Lacus’ recent work.
: De-Deculture!!
:bravo: :bravo: :bravo:
: Wow… look at how quick she drew a crowd.
: OK, I know when to throw in the towel…
: That’s what’s called natural talent, I guess.
Later…
: Alright. I have to admit that you were pretty amazing there.
: Yes, it was beautiful.
: Aw, n-no, that…
: You managed to get us all hooked, too.
: Luca! What’re you doing here?
: I was showing the ZAFT pilots around the Frontier and we wound up hearing Ranka.
: H-Hey. Your singing wasn’t half bad… Actually, it was pretty good.
: Absolutely. It gave me a real nostalgia rush, even.
: Th-Thank you very much!
: Y-y-you there!
: Huh? Me?
: And who exactly are you?
: M-My name is Elmo Kridanik, I’m the head of a talent agency! Young lady, would you please sign up with me? You’re going to be a star!
: Aah?
Nagisa adds that she’s taking some time off from Nyan-Nyan and hasn’t even been answering their calls. Luca does relay a rumor that someone looking like her was spotted singing on the street. Should we go and cheer on the future superstar, Kenichi wonders, but Luca isn’t so sure it was Ranka. For one, the singer was supposedly dressed like a carrot…
Yeah, Ranka wanted to be a big time singer, so no way she’d dress up like that – must’ve been someone else. Either way, Nagisa’s heard that we’ve got a new transfer student coming and Michel’s always ready to give a warm welcome… provided it’s a girl.
You know, the thing that always got me about L is that it had an Evangelion (the first two Rebuild movies, they debuted here), and a central aspect of the plot was the Frontier, Voltes V, and a few Iczer 3 characters popping in from another universe… (well, them and the Linebarrel villains, but we’ll get to the shitheap that is the Linebarrel anime soon enough.)
…but it didn’t have Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventures.
I feel like this was either an oversight or a case of “couldn’t get the license” because that’s one of the easiest series inclusions in any SRW ever.
It is one century after mankind ventured into space. It has been no easy voyage, as nuclear warfare has redrawn the map of the world’s nations and conflict with Earth’s ancient nemesis the “Jama Kingdom” raised the specter of global famine. The colonies’ exploitation of their dominance over agricultural exports only served to heighten tensions between the two sides.
Conditions worsened greatly fifteen years ago, with the unprecedented calamity known as the “Second Impact”. The chaotic state of the world in its aftermath allowed such mysterious forces as the “Darius Army”, the “Katou Organization” and “Dancouga” to commence operations.
To counter this, the nations of the world embarked on a military buildup and changes in policies. However, this had the indirect effect of antagonizing the space colonists. Tensions between Earth and the Space Colonies rose greatly.
Five years ago marked the outbreak of the so-called “War of the Giants” with the massive life forms known as “Mimetic Beasts”. Sadly, mankind’s narrow victory did not result in a cessation of hostilities between fellow men, and, three years ago, terrorist acts by the colonies sparked an all-out war between the Space Colonies and Earth.
The war lasted a year and several months, Earth’s victory coming at the cost of depleting the defenses of all its nations. This presented an opening for the “Mechabeast Army” and the “Mycenae Empire”, and it would be another year before the ad-hoc establishment of the New UN, containing representatives of both Earth and the Colonies, managed to repulse them.
The resulting peace was short-lived, as the Darius Army started a full-blown invasion and the resurgent Jama Kingdom (free from its Seal) triggered a new round of militarization, precluding any chance of total peace for mankind.
And now, contact with visitors from parallel world has raised the curtain on a new era of warfare…
Kouichi and Ichitaka aren’t listening, cheering as the Arma Squadron in the video repels the Darius forces and scores a win for the government. Risako sighs, unable to understand why the boys like robots so much. “It’s a guy thing – you wouldn’t get it,” Kouichi proclaims and Ichitaka readily agrees, before realizing he’s late for meeting with “the professor”.
What, he’s gonna skip class? That’s not a very CHAMPION OF JUSTICE thing to do, Kouichi points out; Ichitaka concedes that but says keeping promises is even more important. The professor said he had something to show him, so it shouldn’t take too long to wrap it up and get back. Yajima will answer his name at rollcall, so he better return quick.
Still, he’s not gonna sit by as they harass the new junior classman and offers to go and buy the damn curry bread in his stead. That is, until Risako steps in and orders everyone to stop right there – she figured something was up with Kouichi and, what do you know, it’s Furuya harassing him again.
Furuya sniffs that he was just asking him a favor but that’s hardly an excuse for her: “there’s nothing worse than those who pick on the weak!” That seems to have an impact with Kouichi; he tells her to let it go and heads out to buy the thing (again, ten minutes!). As he leaves, with Risako in pursuit, Shinji wonders why Kouichi covered for him.
Risako objects that his daydreaming won’t amount to anything – and he wasn’t like this when they were kids. Well, he doesn’t care about how he was or wasn’t way back when. Yajima shows up and asks what’s up. Risako explains, making note of Kouichi’s inane ranting on justice and how he’s willingly signed up for this, and asks Yajima to talk some sense into him.
Yajima points out that he’s gotta stand up to Furuya and if he can’t do it alone, then they’ll tackle it together. What, so Yajima’s trying to be the mighty champion now? No, Kouichi insists he can do this alone and runs off. Risako doesn’t understand why he’s pushing them away, especially when the three of them used to be such good friends before.
More important than that, Ichitaka’s a bit miffed that the professor didn’t give him a call to tell that Yuu was back in town; problem is, while he’s been here a week, they’ve spent most of their time working in the underground.
From what Ichitaka remembers, said underground is where the professor dumps his failed knick-knacks but details will have to wait. First and foremost, Grife wants him to check something out at this pod.
Why? What’s the professor going to be fighting against? Grife chuckles and asks if Ichitaka remembers his dream. Indeed, he does: “‘Course, you wanted to build a giant robot… wait, Haruno isn’t gonna grow thirty meters tall or something, right?”
Hardly. Remember what Grife said about him and Yuu being working at the underground? Well, there just might be something there besides trash. Yuu beckons Ichitaka over to a wall and, upon command, Alice flicks a switch and causes it to open. This here’s Grife secret elevator to his underground lab!
The thing can’t handle a lot of folks inside, though, so Alice will stay up top while they descend.
[b]Mission 1 – The Youth Drawn To Iron[/b]
: WAAAH!!
: Hurry, all of you! Get in the elevator!
: We can’t! The safety lock isn’t working due to the tremors!
: Gwaargh!
: G-Gramps?!
: Target has been silenced. Moving to capture via pattern G.
: Initiating descent.
The three units land.
: Target secured. We’ve also found two units, about forty meters tall.
: Disregard those. The “new potential” is all that matters.
: Roger.
: The Linebarrel hasn’t come down yet… (Dmitri)
: Hey, boss! There’s something over there! (Sawatari)
: Hm? But the radar is clear…
: Are your eyes just a piece of décor? Use them. (Wufei)
: Hmph. I don’t recall asking your opinion, newbie.
: Analyzing visual data… no known matches.
: What’re those things, then?!
: Target recovery confirmed. Retreating.
: …
All three units leave.
: You ain’t going anywhere!
Ring, ring!
: Do you copy, Sawatari?
: Cmdr. Katou?!
: You can let those small units go.
: What the hell for, Hisataka?!
: Because they are not the enemy. Your imagination is a bit lacking, Sawatari.
: Oh, come on. You didn’t say anything about that before—
: …
: Hey, now, we got a newcomer coming in!
: All within the scope of my imagination. If he’ll be a nuisance, then feel free to play with him; if not…
: Then we let him go?
: Correct.
: Roger that. Our primary objective is still the Linebarrel, of course.
: Hold up, bro! Lemme come with!
: No, I’ll go and save gramps.
: I wanna help him too, you know!
: You’re an outsider and this is none of your business. Back off!
: “O-Outsider”…?
: …The link’s looking good. We’re leaving, Haruno!
: Ready when you are.
Gone.
: Bro! Yuu!
: And there it goes…
: Got a hit on radar! SDF Armas!
: That’s where we detected the explosions? (Igarashi)
: Yes, sir. But we’re receiving intel that it wasn’t the Katou Organization Armas who did it…
: We’ll handle the Irregulars later. First off, we’ll beat the snot outta these guys and drive them outta town!
: Roger!
Machine gun fire!
: Hah, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Let’s get to it, boss, newbie!
: I suppose we must. Imagine! O, powerless people!
: Yeah, imagine good! Imagine what’s gonna be left of your corpses after I’m done!
: …
: Hrrrm! Don’t give ‘em an inch! Keep firing!
: “None of my business”… What an awful thing to say, bro…
: Ichitaka…
: Hey, Alice. Think you can get this thing moving like Haruno did?
: I’m sorry, Ichitaka… I haven’t either combat-oriented thought patterns or the necessary functionalities to work as a copilot.
: Hey, that’s nothing to apologize for. Blah… That’s how it’s gonna be, huh? Screw it, then!
*Ichitaka jumps into the Rushbird.
: If you can’t get it moving, then I’ll do it! Hop aboard, Alice!
: Huuh?! You can actually operate it?!
: No idea but I figure it’s safer inside this cockpit than sitting here, waiting to be rescued! Come on!
: O-OK!
In she goes.
: H-Hey… this kinda looks like that simulator the professor made…! Alright, I think I can manage this!
Wiiiirrrrrr! Stomp!
: And we’re moving! So next would be…
: Alice, you see that panel over there? Press all buttons from left to right, would you? After that, pull the lever overhead and bring out that control panel under your seat – that’ll shift our mode!
: A-Alright!
: I think we’re good. Trust me on this one!
: Here goes!!
: WAAAAA!!
: Another one?!
: Ooow… The sim sure didn’t pull Gs like this thing…!
: Yo, who’re you?! You friends with that guy from before?!
: Alice, think you can get a bead on Yuu’s mech?
: Um… Maybe if I press a few buttons here and there we might get something?
: … Ah, no, never mind. We’re good.
: Who the hell are you? Civs?
: You’re with the SDF? The name’s Ichitaka Nagumo, 3rd year student of Misaki Middle School!
: And who’re those guys? They’re making a mess of our town!
: I can’t tell you that. If you’re a civ, then get outta here!
: Hey, I’ve got my own reasons for being here, alright? I can’t just go ‘Yeah, OK!’ and back off!
: …
: Are you done talking?
: Then, die!
: Urgh!
: Work that imagination and figure out if this’ll hit or not!
: Gyaaaaaaargh!!
: And you’re next in line, moron.
: Tch, no way we’re going down here! Back me up, Alice!
: I’ll do whatever I can!
And we finally have our originals, having to take on a bevy of Katou units. Gotta take them all down, so we’ll want to take it nice and easy.
The Rushbird may kinda look like a Real but it’s very much a Super Robot. It won’t be dodging anything but it can take a good hit – especially against stuff that’s got energy weapons. And while it also packs a hefty punch, you’ll find its current weapon selection to be lacking in range – the best he has for a post-movement attack is 1-2! The range in its other weapons make it a good Support Attacker, though, and Ichitaka’s a good enough pilot.
All in all, you can easily fit it in any group.
The Katou mooks can be decently dodgy (though Wufei is by far the dodgiest) and accurate, so setting Ichitaka on a positive terrain for some defense/evasion bonus will help.
: We’re gonna have to wreck these guys before we can go after the professor and my bro!
: I dunno how much that sim experience’ll help here but I’ll go with whatever works! Alice, you do as I tell you, alright?
: OK!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AC8y1CcbtY
Ichitaka: “While I’m off doing this, my bro and the professor are…!”
Alice: “Aah? We’re jumping right in there?!"
Ichitaka: “We gotta or we’re dead meat!”
Alice: “Oh, wow! You hit him!”
Ichitaka: “And here’s the follow-up!”
Enemy Phase!
Named folks are hanging back but not the mooks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHFw-bqw4yM
Ichitaka: “Alice, know that thing in the sim? We’re gonna try that!
Alice: “But I wasn’t allowed near any of that research!”
Ichitaka: “What’s the enemy up to, Alice?”
Alice: “He’s rushing us down!”
Ichitaka: “Ah, craaap!”
The one we weakened before gets wrecked.
Player Phase!
By the Shinto shrine to the NW
: Damn, a buncha Armas pop up outta nowhere, the place turns into a warzone… what’s going on here?! I-I gotta get back right the hell now!
: Huh? What’s that noise…? A-Ack! Something’s falling this way!!
: It’s here! Commander, we’ve confirmed of the Linebarrel’s landing!
: So did we. A shame that it didn’t crash right on top of JUDA but this will do. Execute the plan right away.
: Roger. Sawatari, keep the Irregular busy.
: You got it, boss!
As Sawatari starts heading for Ichitaka, we cut back to Kouichi.
: Hrm…? Why am I…? Aah, right… there was something falling and…
: Oh, crap, the bread! Aah! It’s all smooshed up! Noooo…
: What?! And my cell broke too?! This day just keeps getting worse… huh? What the…?
: …
: A girl? Why’s she right next to me?
Looks at the Linebarrel.
: A-Aah! An Arma?! Where’d that come from?!
: …Hm…
: Hey, come on, get up! We gotta book it – this is getting real dangerous!
: Huh…? What… Why am I here…?
: You’re awake, yeah? Good, good.
: Listen, can you run? We need to get out of here right now!
: Did you… help me? Thanks.
: I guess I did, huh? Heheheh… Wait, this ain’t the time for that! Come on – we gotta get going!
: What’s your name, even?
: …I don’t know.
: Huh?
: Kouichi!
: Yajima?!
: Thank god, you’re safe. Risako went, like, white as a sheet when she couldn’t call your cell.
: Yeah, the thing’s busted… But why’re you here?
: Well, she told me to come look for you, so I did. You really shouldn’t make her worry so much, you know.
: …And, also, who’s the girl? And what’s that Arma, even?
: Don’t ask me, ‘cause I’ve no clue.
: Alright, alright; you can save the story for later. Right now we need to get back to school and find shelter!
: Right…
: And you can relax, too – it’s all good now. Come on!
: Y-Yes…
They start going down the path into town.
: This way, Kouichi! Hurry!
: Go and surround the Linebarrel!
: Yes, sir!
: Aah! They’re coming this way!
: Those are…
: Hey, you! We gotta hide!
: Those are… my enemy…
: Huh?!
The Katou mooks start stomping over.
: Waaah!!
: Aaah!
: This ain’t looking good… Kouichi, I’ll draw their attention! Take the girl and run!
: But you’ll—
: It’s no biggie. Same ol’ song and dance between us, eh?
: But…
: Get outta here already!
: Why…
: Huh?!
: I… I don’t need your help anymore! I can take care of myself, damn it!
Kouichi punches a tree and it falls right over!
: !!
: Th-The hell?! I knocked this huge tree down… with my bare hands…?
: Ko-Kouichi… When did you get so strong…?
: I remembered… my name… It’s Kizaki… Emi Kizaki!
: Emi Kizaki…
: You… Will you fight with me?
: Huh?
: If you’ve the will to fight, the call out the Linebarrel…!
: Line… barrel?
: Put your hand on my chest.
: Wait, what?!
: Hurry up…!
: A-Alright, then. Come here, Linebarrel!!
: It’s… that Arma from before?! It flew here in the blink of an eye… What’s going on?!
: This is the Linebarrel…! I can fight with it?
: Yes.
: Alright, Yajima, find someplace to hide out!
: What?!
: I’ll handle this mess! Let’s do this, Emi!
: Do you know what to do?
: Hmhmm. Linebarrel… Yeah, I can handle this guy! Haaaaaaah!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEEIvUJzPlM
Katou mook: “The Linebarrel belongs to us!”
: Is that the Arma that fell back there? It can move?!
: Looks like it, yes!
: It can’t be… How is the Linebarrel active?!
: I thought it didn’t have a Factor?
: Are you seeing this, Commander? Looks like the thing’s already picked up a Factor.
: Hm. The Factor may be a newbie but you’re still up against an original Machina. Don’t let your guard down.
: Whoa… And this power’s mine now?
: Yes.
: Heheheh…! Well, things are looking up already!
Dmitri moves up to him.
: I am Dmitri Magarov, Captain of the Katou Organization’s 3rd Unit. Are you one of JUDA’s Factors?
: JUDA? Factors? Hell if I know, man! I’m Kouichi Hayase – a CHAMPION OF JUSTICE!
: D-Did he says Kouichi Hayase?! Why would he—?!
: And if you’re picking a fight with a champion of justice that makes you the bad guy! Meaning you’re all going down!
: Heh, we’ve got a real loudmouth crashing our party now! Come on, boss – get rid of him quick!
: I’m on it!
: Kouichi… It’s you…?
: Ichitaka, you must focus on the Armas!
: Y-Yeah, you’re right!
: Ah? The target Machina’s up and about. Things are a bit different from advertised – what do we do, Tanaka? (Aoi)
Bing!
: Sorry; give me a minute on this one. I didn’t think this would happen.
Looks at the Rushbird.
: And there’s that guy, too. He’s about as big as the Dancouga. (Sakuya)
: That’s not any mech I’ve seen in “Men’s Super Robots Monthly”. (Johnny)
: But how reliable is that magazine exactly? (Kurara)
: Yo… Isn’t that the Dancouga?!
: The D-Dancouga?! And what’re those things there?!
: Oh, thank goodness! The Linebarrel’s safe!
: I’d no idea what we were gonna do when the thing changed its drop point but we still managed to make it in time.
: It finding a Factor already wasn’t in the plans, though.
: Psh, now the Dancouga and JUDA’s Machinas decided to turn up.
: Can you hear us, Kouichi Hayase? We’re here to pick you up!
: Yeah, come with us to JUDA!
: The hell… how do you two know my name?!
: Weren’t you the one yelling your name just a minute ago? You were pretty dang loud, too.
: O-Oh, I was?
: Are you stupid or something?
: Don’t call me that! I’m a CHAMPION OF JUSTICE, OK?!
: Everyone here except me and the Dancouga is evil, so my justice’ll trash you all good!
: ?! You’re…!
: Huh… Is that really Kouichi in there?
: Oi, where’d he get the idea we’re his buddies…?
: What, then, Tanaka? Figured out how we’ll deal with this?
: I have: stick to the original plan and move to capture the Linebarrel. Way its pilot’s looking, we’d be risking even more unnecessary damage by letting him be.
: And the unknown unit?
: You should be alright to ignore it – it doesn’t seem hostile, I think.
: The Dancouga… didn’t think it’d intrude on this battle.
: Hrm…! It’s on the move!
: Sorry, “Champ”!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtVXd2s9vjE
Kurara: “Who goes and proclaims himself a Champion of Justice? What a sad kid…”
Johnny: “Middle schoolers, you know how they are.”
Sakuya: “What’d you mean…?”
Aoi: “Never mind that – let’s bring this guy in quick!”
: Whaa?! Why’d the Dancouga attack me?!
: I’m justice incarnate! A champion! A CHAMPION OF JUSTICE!
: Why… why doesn’t anyone get my justice?!
: Fine, then…
: You’re evil, too, Dancouga! You’re my enemy!!
: Oh, dear… We’ve gone and poked the bear.
: Tanaka?!
: Sorry, kids. I’ll go and write an apology to JUDA.
: Sawatari, Dmitri, Wufei. The mission may have failed but carry on fighting.
: Not to the death, of course – wait for an opportunity and pull back.
: Chill out, Hisataka. Barring the Dancouga, the others ain’t all that.
: That was an order.
: Psh, fine. We’ll get ready to back off.
: You there. Can you fight?
: Kinda, I think!
: The two of us and the Dancouga are on your side. First order of business is to deal with the enemy Armas, alright?
: I don’t really know what’s going on, but OK!
: Let’s get to it, then…!
Still can’t lose anyone but we’re not in a whole lot of danger: everyone we’ve got can take care of themselves.
The Dancouga’s often known as a glass cannon but maybe they decided, since it was its debut, to skip the glass part. In truth, the thing has a fine amount of defenses and packs a hefty punch – it’s by far our strongest unit on the field.
And, as you might expect, having four pilots’ worth of spirit commands will only make it better.
Yamashita knows what he wants to be and that’s an artillery wall. He’s pretty tough and has a lot of range in his attacks, his skills also making him a very nice support unit. He’ll very likely be relegated to being a squaddie but he’ll do the job well.
Oh and if you’re facing a particularly dodgy enemy, his Reflector Cores will apply the Mobility Down debuff to make things easier.
Even more of a squaddie than Yamashita, Miu would kinda make a good fit for a long-range robot like the Rushbird (especially with that extra Barrier). She only has two attacks, her better one being pre-movement, so she won’t be hitting too nicely for now.
But with that Repair module, she’s pretty much our main source of healing right now (without having to spend Alice’s SP) and Focus means she’s one of the more accurate folks here.
By the by, Kouichi’s a neutral unit. You could attack him but I’m all but sure he’d just heal up like he did with Aoi’s punch.
Off to work we go.
: Reiji’s not around today, so I better bring my A-game! Come on!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTR-y5FEroo
Not bad.
Small help from Ichitaka and Miu’s got a kill in sight.
: The town’ll end up in ruins if this doesn’t stop…! We have to give this one 110%!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yFUCuCod5Q
Attagirl.
And since attacking Kouichi isn’t on the menu today, Aoi’ll finish off some of Ichitaka’s previous buddies.
: Three commander-class mechs, huh? Today’s gonna be a good one, folks.
: Takurou Sawatari, Dmitri Magarov and Wufei Chang with his Altron Gundam… All of them are certified tough cookies.
: Well, aren’t we well-informed.
: “Men’s Underworld Monthly” had an article on the Katou Organization, you see.
: Whatever, we eat tough cookies for breakfast! Let’s go wild!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaIuMF_wR_c
Shame we can’t hear Sakuya yelling.
Enemy Phase!
Stuff is still coming in, with this Arma just barely surviving his bout with Yamashita.
Sawatari and Wufei are going after Kouichi.
Player Phase!
Now we’re off to get rid of the little guys. Miu takes one and Yamashita will slap this one into oblivion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h89nuGSGyMk
The last one’ll fall eventually – he’s still healthy.
Meanwhile, Aoi’s helping Kouichi with Dmitri. We won’t let the kid have this kill, of course.
Enemy Phase!
Along the way, Sawatari decides to take a swing at Yamashita.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH05NGWJozk
He’s a good candidate to having his mobility debuffed.
Over here, Dmitri’s gotten close enough for Kouichi to bust out his better attack.
: If you think an amateur can win against the captain of the Katou Organization’s 3rd Unit, think again!
: Justice always wins, even kids know that!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-zWSoSdd8E
Dmitri: “We, the Katou Organization, will be taking the Linebarrel!”
And taking damage:
Emi: “Our regeneration will take care of that very soon.”
Kouichi: “Yow, Linebarrel! You’re pretty awesome!”
Emi: “Go, counterattack…!”
Kouichi: “Yup, I was JUST thinking about that!”
And Miu almost oneshotted the last Arma.
Player Phase!
Alright, let’s take out Dmitri after Kouichi was kind enough to leave him in the red.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC6ofRi-HFs
Boom.
: And here’s the order to withdraw. Pulling back!
Over by Sawatari, Yamashita gets parried so only Miu gets any damage done. We’re not killing him this turn, so Ichitaka takes out the last Arma mook.
With that, it’s only a matter of taking one miniboss out per turn.
: I don’t pull my punches even against rookies! Why don’t ya go and imagine the miserable death you’re gonna get?!
: No way, no how! If I’m gonna be imagining anything, it’ll be my teary reunion with the professor and my bro!
Alice: “S-Something just lit up!”
Ichitaka: “That can be good or bad! What color is it?!”
Ichitaka: “Alright, the book says getting closer makes it easier to hit stuff!”
Alice: “U-Um, some gauge is rising!”
Ichitaka: “Let’s try out this ‘Lightning Fist’!”
Ichitaka: “Hey, it worked?! In that case!”
: I’m justice incarnate! Anyone who fights me is evil!
: Fine. If you’d paint justice as your own, then show me what you’ve got!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-YeTIHCN2U
: I reckon this is good enough. Next time, though, you’re dead!
: Katou Hisataka… You say all of this is in the name of true justice, hm?
: That’s right.
: Very well. I’ll trust your vision one more time.
: …
: (I have to figure out what, exactly, the world needs right now…)
Damn it!
: A righteous man needs to be strong. Do you understand what that means?
: I don’t and I’ve no time to think about it! I’ve already got my hands full here!
: Then it’s up to me to educate you. But this lesson’ll come at the tip of Nataku’s fangs!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkS4QdFxm3g
And here’s Ichitaka’s strongest attack.
: A Champion of Justice, huh…? Then, I’ll…!
That’s all of the Katou enemies down, so the battle might be over but there’s still the matter of Kouichi. He’s a bit woozy, so Ichitaka, Aoi, Yamashita and Miu move in to try and pin him down.
It doesn’t work and Kouichi starts flying away but not before busting out a speech: “I’ll give you folks some time to think things over! Power isn’t just, alright? Justice is power! And if you guys decide to accept my justice, then we’re good! But if you don’t… then, next time, I’ll be playing for keeps! (Nailed it…!)”
And off he goes, immediately vanishing from Miu’s sensors; seems to her the thing shifted inside a warp field. Ishigami phones in right then and tells them to come back – and to bring the mystery robot along for the ride.
Ichitaka’s a bit surprised but Yamashita asks that he follow them to JUDA as they’ve some questions to ask. Wait, isn’t JUDA supposed to be this company that makes medical equipment and the sort? Why do they have combat Armas?
Alice, ever informative, argues that even the civilian-owned Photon Lab has the Mazinger Z, so she sees no problems at all with JUDA having some Armas tucked away. Ichitaka sees plenty of problems but, regardless, Miu and Yamashita say their group’ll want to know about his bot and what happened here.
Ichitaka concedes and tells them to lead the way. He tells Alice that, with the Rushbird being unable to fly, they’re gonna have a real hard time catching up to the Straybird; and if they ran into Darius monsters or Haniwas along the way, that’d be it.
With that said, Ichitaka’s happy to be working with Alice and hopes she’s keep helping – he’s nowhere good enough to fly this thing without her as his subpilot. She’s rather startled by his suggestion: “No, no, no, no! I’m just a basic helper model! I haven’t any of the knowledge or thought processes required for combat!”
Sure but didn’t he show her to what to do to HELP him pilot? She just needs to keep that in mind. Alice isn’t sure she can pull that off but, if he insists, she’ll give it a try.
As for the Dancouga, they’ve another mission waiting so they gotta bolt. Aoi hopes the kids’ll have grown stronger the next time we meet. Ichitaka’s a bit sad that he couldn’t thank them or shake their hands but Yamashita’s sure they’ll run into each other again.
Before that, though, they’re off to JUDA.
And here are all the convos we didn’t get. Most are with Kouichi since I didn’t waste time and resources going after him:
: Stop, Kouichi! What’re you even doing inside that Arma?!
: I dunno who you think you are but you’re light years away from being able to tangle with this Super Robot of Justice!
: I’m a Champion of Justice and I’ll protect peace in this town!
: It’s me! Ichitaka!
: Yeah, right! You’re gonna have to think of a better lie than that, dude!
: Crap, he’s not leaving me any choice here!
–
: You’re going a bit too crazy here, pal!
: You wanna take me on? Then the Dancouga really isn’t a robot of JUSTICE!
: Welp, so much for that heroic streak we’ve been having…
: I’m kind of bummed out now…
: Save that for later, Kurara! We’re busy!
–
: That total rookie went and got a whole lot stronger like it ain’t no thing!
: I tell ya, Factors are a royal pain-in-the-ass!
: Damn straight, I got stronger – this here’s the power of justice! Take a look!
–
: I’m not that guy who could only cry! I’m not worthless anymore!
: From this glorious day onwards, I’m a CHAMPION OF JUSTICE! And I’m not letting anyone get the better of me – not today, not ever!
: …
–
: Kouichi Hayase! Quit wasting our time and do as we ask!
: Zip it! You think I’m gonna listen to anyone who calls people stupid?!
: I called you stupid because you’re being stupid as hell, stupid!
: Alright, that does it! You’re going down!
–
: Stop attacking, Kouichi, and come with us to JUDA!
: Don’t tell me what to do! I won’t go easy on you just ‘cause you’re a girl, you hear?!
As the finishes, Yui runs a check and comes up empty – whatever group those guys work for, JUDA has nothing on them. Ishigami ponders that they might be connected to the Katou Organization and Yui explains to Ichitaka that they’re one of the foes JUDA fights against.
In that case, Ichitaka asks if he and Alice could join JUDA. If they go on waltzing about in the Rushbird, folks might mistake them for criminals and try to arrest them; and he can’t ditch the bot as, then, he’d have no way of pursuing the professor and Yuu.
Ishigami’s very thankful that she’s lending one of their Gundam pilots but she doesn’t see why not, since they’ll all be working on the same team soon. She means LOTUS, yes, an elite squadron answering directly to the UN secretariat – the UN itself has just given the green light for its creation.
There are so many groups out there who were forced to act by their lonesome and, with LOTUS, they’ll now be capable of consolidating those into an united, independent fighting force. Ishigami promises that while JUDA’s forces aren’t too vast, they’ll all work their hardest to assist. And, with that, Une excuses herself.
Alice and Ichitaka find this a bit odd: we’ve always had folks around to fight those enemies and they’ve never shunned from cooperating with each other (like in the War of the Giants). Why’d they feel the need to bring them all into a single group now?
Blame politics for that as, from what Ishigami heard, some of those righteous bots ran the risk of falling into the hands of some rather evil politicians if left unchecked. So Une, from her position inside the UN, worked to create the new group as a way to keep those bots free and safe.
Ichitaka understands now and is happy to be aboard, working with Ishigami’s team to help the world. In return, he just asks for help in searching for Grife.
Kouichi strikes him as quite the commonplace teenager but, regardless, his orders are to look into him, check whether or not he’s the makings of a proper Factor and how he’s reacting after his run-in with the Linebarrel.
And if he needs help with anything, Sally wants him to call JUDA’s Ishigami right away. They’ll need the Linebarrel’s power in LOTUS, so this must succeed. Quatre’s hoping things with Kouichi can go without any unpleasantries… and why is there some smooshed curry break lying around here?
: You are already dead.
: What…?
: I’m sorry. The Linebarrel and I… we landed on you.
: Wait, hold on there! But I’m alive! I’m breathing just fine, my heart’s beating and—
: That’s because the Linebarrel’s D-S.O.I.L. restored you…
: The Linebarrel…? That Arma restored me?
: It’s not an Arma. The Linebarrel’s a Machina.
: A Machina? OK, so it’s different from an Arma. And you say it restored me?
: I asked the Linebarrel to save you… and, so, you were reborn – as Factor, sharing your life with it.
: …
: So, the reason why I could control it and those superpowers I got…
: Yes. While you stay with the Linebarrel, you’ll have inhuman strength and any wounds you take will heal pretty much instantly…
: You now function as the Factor, the element needed to engage the Linebarrel.
: “Inhuman strength”, eh…? Hey, that sounds good to me if it got me stronger!
: …
Right, so, the Linebarrels anime. It’s pretty central to L, and that kind of sucks, because the Linebarrels anime makes a lot of changes from the manga and very few of them are particularly good. Notable at this point: In the anime, Kouichi immediately goes from “normal kid” to “total asshole” right after he gets Linebarrel. In the manga, he had a period of three years, of which like half of one was spent unconscious for reasons of “I had a giant robot land on me”. The anime also extends his asshole period from about six chapters of the manga (a volume and a little bit into the next) into like six full episodes, which is way too dragged out. (For comparison’s sake, the manga had 21 volumes, and the anime had 26 episodes. Though the manga ended well after the anime did, assuming it was a viable adaptation, the anime would have spent at most two episodes with Kouichi being stupid.)
On the plus side here though, Wufei and Katou get on like a house on fire. So much so that there’s actually fanart of Wufei in the Linebarrel universe.
Pictured: The Machina known as Nataku. (Silly fanart of a Gundam getting drawn in another universe style is more UX’s thing thanks to Mark Destiny, but L at least had this.)
Also Kitei No Tsurugi is a dumb, dumb song. Though the rest of the soundtrack is pretty good and L’s version is ok.
Oh, wow, I had seen the Mark Destiny thing but never knew Wufei actually got the same kind of treatment. And that Nataku Machina looks great, too! 
And I haven’t seen either version of Linebarrels yet, so it’ll be amusing to read how different the manga is from the anime (and, hopefully, how L manages to fix it, then).
UX has loads of fanart. I have like eight pictures of random bits of crossover from UX. It’s part of being one of the best SRWs of all time, you get lots of cool things made about you. (Though unfortunately I can’t find a good pic of THE FOUR GODS…)
Unfortunately, L doesn’t really help the Linebarrels anime out any. It removes some of the timing issues - one of the big issues the anime had was it’d jump immediately from comedy chapters to serious ones and it was always jarring - but most of the anime’s issues are way too ingrained to be removed by SRW. For instance, the detailed, awesome mech designs of the original were totally destroyed, despite the anime using freaking CG and thus having no excuse - it’s mostly unnoticeable or hardly noticeable, on the plus side, but on the minus side it’s noticeable enough on Vardent (the second biggest design in the thing) and as for Linebarrel itself… well…
…manga design on right, anime design on left. Spot the differences. The many, many differences.
(The good news is, while L mostly failed to make Linebarrels of Iron better, UX got the lesson and made a significantly worse series look so much better!)
We’ll start with the Skill Parts. Like in W, this game doesn’t allow you to spend PP to buy skills – you simply spend Skill Parts to teach them to your guys.
With that done, let’s get to work.
That’s a scary thought to Ichitaka but Rachel says that, with Grife gone, the JUDA crew needs to know how Alice is built in order to pull any maintenance work that might be required. Alice, however, tells her not to worry as she’s equipped with self-maintenance features.
“Ah, really? Alrighty, then. (Tsk…),” Rachel quietly grunts. Too bad for her, Ichitaka has good ears: “Hey, I heard that! You wanted to tinker with her just for curiosity’s sake, didn’t you?!”
“Well… I’m not NOT curious,” Rachel quips.
Ichitaka’s worried that if we drag our feet on this then any potential clues’ll disappear. We could even use a secret route to get in there, so no one’ll notice. Alice also asks him to please let them go… and it works.
“Aah, I can’t say no when you ask me like that… Alright, I guess I’ll allow it,” he says, though insists that Miu and Yamashita also accompany them. They can quickly summon their Machinas in a bind and, on foot, can play bodyguards to Ichitaka.
He’s surprised these two are strong enough to pull that off but, you know, Factors get super-strength.
Ishigami laughs that both Ichitaka and Kouichi are just brimming with that typical teenager energy. His thoughts are interrupted when Yui walks over: Izuna and Shizuna have called in, having just wrapped up their business with the Katou Organization’s terrorist cell. They’ll be back in Japan soon.
Ishigami’s glad to hear that. LOTUS is gaining more and more elite fighters, so it won’t be long before we can take on even bigger threats to humanity. Of course, it’d be better if such threats never showed up but…
You see, there was a time when they were testing out this nano-printer and, thus, needed a whole lot of characters to write around. The easiest choice was to use all of his research notes and whatnot, so this painting is pretty much a backup of everything Grife had around a year ago. It’s lacking the stuff that happened since then, of course, but Alice figures it’ll still be useful.
Ichitaka’s blown away by the Professor’s foresight – a perfect example of the classic “I thought something like this could happen, so…” moment. Alice says that guy simply couldn’t be arsed to use anything else in that experiment, but whatever. They’ve stayed here long enough, though, so Ichitaka moves to lead everyone out via another path.
Ichitaka slowly says he’ll, um, keep that in mind. And on the subject of missing people, did he see Kouichi? Risako looked everywhere and couldn’t find him – he’s not home, either. Ichitaka nearly says too much but is stopped by Yamashita (confidential, remember?). Well, he agrees to keep an eye out for him, so Risako takes off with Yajima, wondering where Kouichi could’ve run off to. Yajima, having seen what happened, only nods along.
After they’re gone, Ichitaka apologizes for his loose tongue. Still, Yamashita and Miu find it odd that Kouichi hasn’t gone home. We can only hope that the Preventer pilot is doing a good job keeping an eye on him.
Still, Alice wants to get back to JUDA right away so we can get Grife’s painting analyzed. Moreover, she’ll likely need to engage in combat again soon, so she’s studying hard as a way to be useful there. As for Ichitaka, he’d like some pilot training and Yamashita and Miu are more than willing to spar with him.
So now JUDA needs to hurry to get our partnership with Build Base set up quick. Ishigami swears to Une that his company’s always ready to handle any unit and take care of anyone, from anywhere. And she’s more than welcome to join them, mind. She thanks him for his dutifulness, though says her answer will have to be “no” – regardless of how elegantly he makes the offer. Shot down.
Yui wishes he’d act more responsibly, and is not amused by his quip of the wrinkles she’ll get for her constant nagging.
Door opens!
: Heeey! TSUBAKIIIIII!!
: Kenji? Why’re you in that much of a hurry?
: Haah… Haah… T-Training! Combination training! C’mon!
: Huh? But I thought you hated—
: Never mind that and let’s get to it right now! I’m off to the training grounds!
Kenji runs off.
: Hah, didn’t I tell ya?
: Y-Yeah…
: Well, let’s get going! We’re also gonna be helping out with that!
Well, Ikima wants to try again and asks for a new Haniwa; he has a plan and vows to succeed in stealing the Bronze Bell. He swears he’s legit, so Himika decides to indulge him – he better come back with news of Jeeg’s complete and utter destruction, though!
Amaso doesn’t like the guy trying to take all the glory but Mimashi sighs that he IS the strongest of them. Amaso is still miffed, as failure would really tick Himika off.
Special Training: Mach Drills!
: Hey, Yagyuu! What you said before was legit, right?
: It was. I’ll stick to my word.
: Hell, yeah! Then I’m gonna ace this training session!
: Yo, Kenji, what kinda promise is that between you and the captain?
: Sorry, no time to talk! Let’s get this started lickety-split!
: He’s really fired up for this, huh?
: I wanna know what the promise was even more…
: Heheheh, now things are getting fun! We’ll toy with the idiot until he croaks!
: Sounds like fun, alright…!
: Are you ready, Kenji?
: Absolutely! I’m ready whenever!
: Tsubaki, Kyo, you heard him. Go and put him to work – and don’t hold back!
: OK!
: Then, Kenji, we’ll start your training by trying to shorten the time it takes for you to Build Up. While you’re very talented as a pilot, there’s still plenty of room to grow. Your reaction speed—
: Yo, no need to butter me up – let’s get going already, Kyo!
: A-Alright. He’s like a completely different person…
: Kenji, your parts are gonna be shot out at double the regular speed, so watch it!
: Heh! Easy-peasy!
: Oh, we’ll see about that…
: Begin!
: Roger! Jeeg Parts – shoot!
Bang, bang!
: BUILD! U—
: Suck on this!
: Rocket Puuuunch!!
: Wuh?!
: Whoa, whoa, whoa! The hell are ya attacking me for?!
: That’s also part of your training!
: There’d be no point to this if we didn’t make it resemble live combat as much as we could!
: Right, you’ll have to wade through the enemies’ attacks as you combine. I don’t need to tell you how important it is to hone that skill, right?
: Yeah, I know, I know!
: And, Kenji, make sure you don’t try combining with the Rocket Punch!
: Hah, like I’d ever screw up that bad!
: That’s a fine spirit – I’ll enjoy breaking it!
: Here goes! Jeeg Parts – shoot!
Bang, bang!
: Rocket! Puuuunch!
: Raaaaargh! BUILD UUUUUUP!!
: Uwaaah! That’s too damn fast…!
: Throwing in the towel already?
: N-No way in hell!
: Wow… I can’t remember ever seeing him this serious about training…
: Yeah, I’m gonna pull this off…! No retreat! No surrender! Not until Yagyuu lets me touch her boobies!
: Oh… So that’s how it is.
: That was what your promise was about? Kouji, what were you thinking?!
: Aahahah… Can’t argue with the results, though, right?
: Damn you, Kouji, that’s the kinda promise other men can only dream of!
: That little…! Aaargh, that’s IT! Jeeg Parts! Shoot! Shoot! SHOOT!
: Waah! Tsubaki, go easy with those!
: Shut it, pervert! Shoot! SHOOOT!!
: We’ve got your back, Tsubaki!
: This one’s broken beyond repair…
: So maybe we should just kill him and be done with it?
: Rocket Puuunch!
: Missiles – fire!
: Uwaawaaa! You guys are just toying with me, ain’t ya?!
: Damn it, but I ain’t losing this one! BOOOBIEEEEEES!!
: Haah, hooh…! There! I combined!
: The brat’s pervert drive pulled through!
: Yeah, how d’ya like them apples! And since I did my thing, now it’s time to pay up and lemme—
: No, your training isn’t over yet!
: Huuh?
: You’ll be training to combine with the Mach Drills next! Switch to them IF YOU CAN!
Beep, boop!
: Hold on! Something’s coming!
: What?!
: Wh-What is that thing…?
: It’s me!
: Pops?!
: What are you doing there, Professor?!
: Ohohoho… Because I heard what you were doing and it sounded fun. So why was only I left out of it? That’s just mean!
: “Left out”… what’re ya, twelve?!
: Professor, didn’t you have a visitor today?
: Never mind that right now. How could I even show my face to her if this training does not succeed?
: That’s fine and all but why are you in that Haniwa Phantom?
: This is a Haniwa I built especially to help you train! I call it Micchi mk. II!
: “Micchi”… as in Cmdr. Tamashiro’s old nickname?
: I don’t think grandma would be too happy with that…
: Hahah! Building this baby was easy as pie with my skills – shows how much I wanted to play… that is, wanted to help you train!
: So you’d best buckle up, Kenji, because the actual training starts right now! Defeat Micchi mk. II with the Mach Drills – you won’t be able to call this a success unless you do!
: Alrighty, then! I’ll take on any Micchies you’ve got – for boobies! Come on, Tsubaki!
: Kenji, you huge, stupid IDIOT! Take this, then! Mach Drills, set up! SHOOT!
Blam!
: Waaaaaaah!!
: W-Whoa, that’s fast!
: Tsubaki, don’t you think you should slow down for a first attempt?
: Quiet, you!
: Urgh, damn! And I was so close to touchdown…!
: BWAHAHAHA! You better wave goodbye to those boobies, kid! Sucks to be you!
: Again – I’mma get it right this time! Bring it!
Beep, beep!
: We’ve got a Haniwa Phantom on radar! It’s headed your way!
: Oops, sorry, Miwa! That’s my Haniwa, the Micchi mk. II! Isn’t it as pretty as you?
: No, it’s a much bigger group that’s incoming!
: Whaat?!
: All troops shift to high alert and get ready to engage. And, professor, please return to Build Base ASAP. Lady Une has been waiting for you all this time!
: Y-Yes, ma’am!
: Got blips on the radar! They’re here!
: Jeeg! Today’s the day I’ll claim your Bronze Bell as our own!
: Huh, Ikima’s showed up in person? They’re playing for keeps today, I guess.
: And you, Mazinger Z, will be accompanying Jeeg in its voyage to the underworld. However, before any of that…!
Looks at Micchi mk. II
: I will first reduce this disgusting sham of a Haniwa to dust!
: Wah?!
: Pops!
: I-I’m alright, but Micchi mk. II is…
: Ikima, you piece of crap! You’re wrecking my chances of getting some boobies! I’mma make you pay real good for this!!
: That’s the spirit, Kenji! And I’ll even throw you a little bone: if you manage to defeat him, I’ll consider your training a success!
: For real?! Alright! Keep watching, pops!
: We’ve already sent a request to JUDA for assistance. They’re on the way, so hold on until then.
: Roger that, grandma!
: That’s that, then. Sayaka, Boss, you guys handle repairing and resupplying, alright?
: We’re on it! And be careful, Kouji – it’s been a while since you piloted the Mazinger, so don’t do anything crazy!
: Build Angels, get in formation and follow my lead!
: Aye, aye!
Mido and Saotome tag in with Yagyuu.
: Get over there, Haniwas!
: Heheheh… We’ll see how long that confidence lasts…
Destroy everything, without losing Kenji or Kyo. The Haniwas are a bit beefier than the previous mooks we fought (some are twinned up, too) but keep your folks together and take things slow and you’ll be good.
And here are our new folks:
Kenji’s pretty amazing and that Bronze Bell is a big reason why – once it activates, he’ll turn into one of your strongest guys. Jeeg’s S size means enemies will have a harder time than most hitting him (though Kenji’s not the most evasive guy without the Bell running) and his best weapons all ignore size differences, so his damage won’t suffer much.
Mind you, his weaker stuff – the one’s you might use against mooks – don’t ignore size, so that’s something to keep in mind. Jeeg DOES like to chug through EN quickly, so he’s a prime candidate for an E-Save part.
Finally, a handful of his tricks require having the Big Shooter around, so you’ll likely want to have Kyo and Tsubaki joining him in a twin unit.
Squad Bonus: Armor +150, Mobility +5
The prototypical Super Robot pilot is pretty dang powerful. Notoriously bulky and hard-hitting, Kouji’s main weakness is that his range isn’t too great on his better attacks. Other than that he’s great and when Mazin Power activates, it takes a major screw-up to get him killled.
Like I said, the main point of the Big Shooter is to support Jeeg and it’s built pretty much to do that. The EN bonus and resupply module will help cover Kenji’s EN issues and its presence is needed for a lot of attacks.
Mind, Jeeg is stuck on the ground and the Big Shooter, obviously, isn’t a tank – you’ll want to either get Kenji airborne or get a land adaptor for this.
Standard issue, classic support girl. The Aphrodite A is weak and fragile as hell and there are a ton of units that can do its job better.
Bless is your main reason for deploying Sayaka right now but, once other folks with it show up, she’ll likely get benched.
Speaking of way better support units, Yagyuu is a great fit for a whole lot of people. Accelerate, repair, flying and the squad bonus (which’ll get even better at 50%) all in one package is a great deal.
Also a better support unit: Boss! While he won’t be kicking as much ass as he did in MX, Mucha’s accelerate and that, frankly, outrageous squad bonus means he can tag in with any melee-oriented unit.
He can’t hit or survive well, of course, but that’s what upgrades are for and, worst case scenario, the Borot always costs peanuts to repair.
One noteworthy bit, mind, is that all of its attacks carry the morale down debuff!
So we finally move everyone forward and stand by.
Enemy Phase!
They do the same.
Player Phase!
The bigger Haniwas aren’t moving, mind, so we’ll start with the Boya Kaengus up front; when you attack a twinned unit, you can order your team to focus fire on the main enemy unit, the sub or for each one to attack their respective target. Since we’re running solo, that last option isn’t available.
Oh, and don’t worry about Ikima.
: That’s enough playing around for today, girls. Now we get serious!
: Aye, aye! We’ve got your back, captain!
: Let’s get in there and knock them off our skies!
Yagyuu can’t do decent-ish damage post-movement until she gets some morale, mind.
We’ll have Kenji take care of that.
: Think you can come here and mess up my good times, eh?! Y’all better get ready for some payback!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR73F6IaxIY
The Mazinger Team is still trudging along.
Enemy Phase!
Blah.
: Today shall be the day where I present your Bronze Bell to Queen Himika, Jeeg!
: What’re you on all about with that “bell” business?! Start making sense, guy!
: All I’ll do is send you to your death, wallowing in ignorance!
Try to attack Ikima and it does absolutely no damage! He gloats about their evil power – nothing will work on him!
Well, Kyo suggests we leave him for later and focus on the other Haniwas for now. That said, Ikima doubts we’ll be able to disregard his mighty unit with it bearing down on us.
Kenji’s getting pestered, but that’s fine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTUoYzWv8hU
Little bit of damage won’t bug him.
Couple of Boya Kaengu do decide to go after Kyo.
: Ooh, Kenji, you little…! That was your motivation for training?! I swear, when I get my hands on you, I’ll…!
: I understand you’re angry, Tsubaki, but you have to calm down. There’s a battle to be fought.
: I know, I know! Damn it, this is all that pervert’s fault!
Kyo’s high Skill stat means he crits often, though the Big Shooter still isn’t meant for damage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sCMppmFlaM
Oh, and Yagyuu gets attack from far enough that she can fire a better weapon.
Player Phase!
The JUDA crew finally arrives, Une requesting that we help clear out the Jama Kingdom attackers.
When Miu asks, Ichitaka is feeling rather confident; not only did she and Yamashita help with his training, he’s also particularly pumped up to pull his weight with Jeeg and Mazinger right there. Alice herself has kind of rushed through her studies as a subpilot but she’s already learned somewhat, so “so there are mostly no problems!” Kenji’s not a whole lot impressed that our backup consists of only a handful of units but Kouji recognizes two of JUDA’s Machinas and knows they’re good for it.
Rather, there are THREE JUDA Machinas around as the twins Izuna (the one on the left) and Shizuna Endo. Izuna, ever polite, apologizes for the delay but Shizuna, the rough kansai type, scoffs that the star players are always the last ones to take to the field.
Kenji isn’t paying attention, wondering instead “The hell’s that flying hammer-looking thing?” Shizuna heard that and she is not amused by the comparison – she’ll find and box him some after this gets wrapped up!
Une reminds Kenji that they’re in the middle of a battle, so antagonizing their allies is a big no-no. What, when did he become the bad guy here? Yagyuu restores order, telling of the big Haniwa’s barrier and asking Ichitaka’s crew to assist with the nearby enemies.
As they move in, Izuna wants to provide support from the rear but Shizuna isn’t having any of that weak-ass crap – they’re getting in there and showing everyone how awesome they are!
Shizuna’s a bit of an odd support, seeing as how her main draw is that her Nerve Crack weapon reduces the target’s morale – give her some support attack parts and she could potentially hit an enemy with it five times in a single turn. Were this A Portable, that’d be huge. It’s not, though, so I’m not too sure how much use I could get out of the Deceive – time will tell.
At least the EN regen from the resupply module and her Nerve Crack Hand being post-movement could make her for a decent-ish squaddie to a short-range Super.
The JUDA team is too far away to attack, though, so our guys will need to hold on by themselves for another turn.
Eeeh, I think I prefer W’s version.
: My first actual battle with the Mazinger in who knows how long. You Haniwas’re gonna be helping me get back in the game!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTMt81M9UP0
A classic.
Kenji sticks by his crew, taking out a weakened Boya Kaengu. Yagyuu and Kyo each start working on others.
Enemy Phase!
Oh and Ikima can reduce your SP, FYI…
A couple of Haniwas decide to take a detour to gun for the Factors.
They certainly hit harder than the Katou Armas.
Sayaka is hanging out back but that doesn’t stop one enemy for trying his hand.
: Tetsuya and Jun aren’t here right now, so I’ll have to fight my best to pick up the slack!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dwh8EHmt-Fg
Kouji seems to be a primary target as a bevy of stuff rushes him down (taking some not insignificant damage). Kenji does nab a handful of kills, as well… surviving with only 1000 HP!
Player Phase!
Only difference is that Kouji and Kenji can be easily healed, while all the Haniwas lost a good chunk of health in their venture. Now it’s just a matter of picking a target and killing it, so here’s the cliffs notes:
: You ready, Izuna? Can’t let any of those folks one-up us, so we’re gonna go ballistic here!
: “One-up”… but this isn’t a competition.
: Ah, ya big dumdum! Battles ARE a competition and whoever’s the bigger ace has got it made! So put your back into this!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Rq8xiY88k
I’m rather disappointed that the hand didn’t follow up the throw with a big punch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl6kUDxB92g
And here’s the Build Angels’ strongest attack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmFriqcS6OU
The first of Kenji’s combined attacks with the Big Shooter. I question the efficiency of a bazooka that’s bigger than the user…
: You two ready to rock? We’re gonna put on a slick show for Tsubaki!
: What, did you give up on Sayaka, Boss?
: What’re you, stupid?! I’m gunning for them both now – one babe in each hand!
: Yeah, that’s why you’re the boss, Boss!
: Off we go, then! Ooryaaa!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0__FPYFNKM
I confess that I was surprised that he oneshotted the thing!
Oh, this’ll be good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4FBR5v7ngQ
There’s the Laplace Wall at work. Thanks for the free EN, Ikima!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUO8b7ApEDA
Finally, the last mook – right in range for Yamashita’s strongest weapon.
: There’s only that thing left now…!
: Oh, what’s the matter? You’d best not get your hopes up simply because you’ve destroyed the other Haniwa Phantoms.
: Damn it…! Look at how giddy that prick is!
: Heheheheh… Indeed, there is absolutely no hope for any of you!
: Rrgh, I could wreck that sort of barrier as easy as one-two-three if I had the Kaiser right now!
: What, the Build Base’s got no secret weapons or whatever?!
: …There IS something that’d work.
: Really?! Out with it, then!
: Kenji’ll need to combine with the Mach Drills. Charge those with the energy of Jeeg’s Bronze Bell and it might work…
: The Mach Drills… those things that almost went and crushed my dreams?!
: That’s too risky! He didn’t even pull it off during training!
: No, I know he can do it.
: Kouji…?
: Go for it, Kenji! If you’re a real man, that is!
: Hah, that goes without saying, Kouji!
: Here I go! Do it, Tsubaki!
: …Well, alright. Mach Drills, set up! Shoot!
Blam, Blam!
: Waaaah?!
: It’s not working. He can’t react fast enough…!
: What the crap’re you doing?! Did you lose your balls or something?!
: We know you’re better than that, Kenji! You’re a real man, so you CAN pull through, can’t you!
: Y-Yagyuu… OK. Tsubaki, again!
: This is crazy, Kenji! Mess it up again and Jeeg won’t…
: Nah, I just realized something after Yagyuu said her piece. Send the drills over, Tsubaki!
: The only way to beat Ikima’ll be with the Mach Drills, so we need to take a chance with him.
: Kyo… OK. Make it work this time, Kenji!
: (Looking at the drills from the front, they kinda look like…)
: (Yeah, mine and all men’s favorite thing in the world! I just gotta visualize and my hands’ll do their part!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvIjko68n34
“I’m pulling it off this time, Tsubaki!”
“Mach Drills, set up! Shoot!”
“C’mere, my booby drills!”
“ALRIGHT! Here we go!”
“Ooooryaaa! Booby Drill ATTAAAAAACK!”
: Gwaaargh! I-It can’t be… he tore through the evil energy?!
: Hell, yeah! His barrier’s toast now!
: So cool… Jeeg really is the best!
: Should be no problem to take that guy out after that. Psyche yourselves up and let’s get to it!
Indeed, with only 8400 HP left, we can easily wrap this up.
: Annoying little bug! You’ll soon be but a smear on the floor!
: Well, none of us are nice enough to let you drop us that easy!
: Tsubaki, scan his Dai Kaengu for a weakness! That’s step #1!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEffwTPVDTs
Off goes Ikima, promising to REMEMBER THIS. Of course, he’s already lost a couple of times, so Kenji suggests he start writing it all down.
Shizuna’s revised her opinion on Kenji slightly – he’s a complete idiot but decent enough in battle. Miwa calls in and summons everyone back to Build Base, including the JUDA crew. Lady Une’s waiting for them.
More important to Kenji, does all this mean his training was a success? Tsubaki slowly confirms, which means it’s time for Yagyuu to fulfill her end of the bargain!
Une knows that united strength is the way to stand up to any upcoming threats but every single member of our team is important individually – we couldn’t have prevailed today without Jeeg busting the enemy’s barrier.
Despite being the man of the hour, Kenji isn’t listening (daydreaming about boobies). Shizuna and Tsubaki aren’t amused by his grin. But, regardless, what Une expects from us is that we’ll be flexible enough to adapt to any and all situation, so she hopes we’ll keep up the good work.
Kenji doesn’t need rest, though, as it is now time to collect his reward! Yagyuu will stand by her word, so she asks him to come by the hangar. He does so immediately, leaving behind a fuming Tsubaki to wonder why Yagyuu made a promise like that in the first place.
Kouji invites her along to watch it all go down, eliciting an angry retort that this is, first and foremost, his fault for making this inane suggestion! Easy, now. Didn’t he say it’d be funny? She’ll see what he means.
“Oh? And when, exactly, did I say anything about it being my breasts?” Yagyuu chuckles. Kenji begs Tsubaki for help but, of course, he brought this on himself. Kouji wonders if Boss is still jealous – does he wanna take Kenji’s spot? Absolutely not.
Shizuna is feeling pretty good at the spectacle – it saved her the trouble of having to actually box him some – and Izuna has a laugh at how much livelier this group’s turning out to be.
Ichitaka’s rather star-struck with THE Kouji Kabuto and stammers a very proper thank you. But he needn’t get hung up on formalities, of course, what with them being teammates now. Ichitaka gets that but Kouji is still a big name for him to deal with.
“Ichitaka, your heart rate is rising. Hmm, this symptom indicates… is it love?” Alice ponders, eliciting an energetic “NO WAY!” That’s a better attitude, Kouji says, and tells Ichitaka to talk to him the same he would Alice. Ichitaka tones it down a bit – still a bit too proper for Kouji’s tastes but he’ll get used to it. And what was that about a healthcare plan?
We won’t be hanging around here, mind, as LOTUS’ next destination will be the Dannar Base to join up with the locals and Nanbara Connection team. Une does tell Ichitaka to focus on improving himself instead of stressing over working with his idols. He does promise to do so, but, inwardly, is already giddy over the thought of meeting the Godannar and Combattler crew… he’s gonna have to work on that.
But not right now, as Build Base’s crew detects something: Mimetic Beasts, headed towards the Naruto Straits! Well, that’s a job for us so Une tells everyone to gear up and get ready to move. Seems like Ichitaka’s training session got replaced with some live combat. Is Alice ready to go? Yup, no problems at all, as she’s already finished processing data from the previous battle.
Elsewhere…
: (…Where are you, my partner…?)
: (The one who’ll synchronize and fight beside me… I know she’s somewhere in the blue planet…)
: (Nagisa… Kanou. My partner… I need you…)
The villain mentioned in the beginning of this part is a Linebarrels villain as I recall, but he’ll be showing up later on so no spoilers about that.
Don’t diss Boss Borot, L is one of his best incarnations. Those crazy partner bonuses let you ignore the real trick about it - every one of Boss’s attacks LOWER WILL, something they did in K as well, but K Borot was a terrible unit to make up for it. (In a similar case, Mazinpower was broken in K, but was stuck on Mazinger Z, a not great unit - in L it’s on GREAT units and make them hilariously amazing.) He’s amazing no matter where you put them, but I know a common way of making it work is to pair him up with the Build Angel, who can also lower Will - the Build Angel is a great squad leader, as the only thing different between a leader and a follower is the leader’s movement and terrains matter and the follower’s do not (L/UX/BX Squads 101).
Deceive, as with every Factor who works for JUDA at the start, has a secret trick that makes it amazing in the endgame, so don’t give up on it. It’s a two pilot supporter too, and its massive HP pool makes enemies all want to aim for it because enemies in L all aim for the enemy with the highest HP in their range (L/UX/BX Enemy AI 101). As a fun aside, the “grab a guy and throw it with a fist” is anime-only - the use of the Nerve Crack Fist in the manga is purely a defensive move to keep things from hitting the cockpit area, as it’s a giant cord fist and shouldn’t be able to pick stuff up. (In UX it appears if Deceive takes a hit in its hit animation) It and the Bullet Arm also take animation from a fight the anime had and the manga didn’t, in a series of canyons. I think it’s where Hind’s cannon animation comes from too.
…also Sayaka never gets her Venus A in this game, the only game with Mazinkaiser to not have it. Man, why do they hate that thing so much? In GC it was secret and replaced Aphrodite (the remake removed that second bit) but that was still better than J, where it leaves you after a few stages, and in L it just isn’t there at all. Only in W is it endgame.
…oh yeah, final note. The Build Angel pilots are actually all taken from other Go Nagai works. Can’t remember which one unfortunately.
Yeah, I figured the Deceive would be picking up something since it doesn’t seem to have much going right now (same as Miu’s). And I did notice Boss’ morale down thing… but I forgot to mention it as I rushed to write this update. I’ll make a few edits.
What I did NOT know, however, is that the sub-unit didn’t need to worry about terrain ratings - I assumed L followed the same rules as the other squad games.
Nope. K’s Squad System was a giant mess, so I’ll not get into it, but there’s two main things you need to know about it to understand the modern squad system of L and the 3DS games - in K, it was more efficient to go without using any squads than actually using them, so solo units got hit hard with nerfs in L (and then buffed slightly in UX and BX to give battleships and force deploys a kick in the pants), and in K, the system worked where basically the second squad member was only there to provide the first one with Support on the map… so that’s why in L, UX, and BX, squads can’t use supports but solos can (that didn’t get changed), but it’s also why only the lead matters for movement.
Miu actually has two buffs coming - neither of them make Painkiller the unit it is in the manga, which is much cooler than the anime version. I’ll talk about the many, many changes Miu went through either when another Linebarrels character debuts who similarly got hit with a lot of issues, or when the first buff hits (probably the former as it happens first). Decieve has one, but it’s a big one, and it makes a whole load of units amazing.
But on that note, for secrets - L has three secrets semi-exclusive with each other, where you can only get two of them at a time. Do you intend on getting Michael and Soubi and having unplayable-but-still-very-alive Stella, thus saving everyone possible, or getting Stella and Soubi and letting Michael die to get the bonus kills Stella and Soubi get on run 1? Bonus kills are pretty unimportant but if Michael dies then you can move Klan into his VF, where she is arguably best, so it’s up for debate which is “better”.
Aye, I looked those up before starting and had decided on going for option #2 since I don’t care that much about Frontier stuff.
Obviously, you’ll want your dodgy reals to focus on mobility, accuracy and weapons (plus EN if they’re the chugging kind), whereas your Supers will want pretty much everything except mobility.
Jeeg is the odd one out, of course, as he might be a Super but he can’t take a hit too well. You’ll likely want to build him with Real priorities but do purchase a wee bit of HP and/or Armor in case Kenji gets a bad roll.
Ichitaka and Jeeg’s teams were pretty much a no-brainer as they complement each other so well. Yamashita’s range will help keep Boss out of trouble – pairing him with a melee-focused unit is best, but I wasn’t too sure it’d be safe until I can bolster his defenses a wee bit.
Finally, while I was tempted to have Yagyuu lead a group on her own, I felt that getting Kouji airborne and, more importantly, with an Accel cast was more important. Without, he takes forever to get in range of stuff. Thus, we’re left with Shizuna and Sayaka filling the last spot.
Off we go!
Now she is and Nagisa sighs at how distant she’s acting. Actually, Anna’s not looking too spritely, either – is she on a diet or something? No, she’s just depressed as it’s been a full two months since she ran away from home.
Nagisa’s surprised to hear that, though most Anna will give as justification is that there were “issues”. Did she fight with her parents? Not exactly, but Nagisa won’t press for answers. Still, where’s Anna living right now?
Only, no, Kiriko says that’s not exactly what happened. While Goh hasn’t managed to pilot since his defeat, Anna didn’t even notice his battered spirit. And seeing how even Tetsuya noticed it, Anna took it as a major failure of her as his wife; thus, she figured she hadn’t the right to stay with him anymore and took off. This was never about her falling out of love with him or anything.
Goh will be coming with as well, knowing he can’t well stay here by himself. He’s gotta be around to help Mira and, plus, he figures the best place to get back up to speed will be at the front lines.
No, he doesn’t mind risking Anna seeing him in this sorry state – only that she knows he’s still waiting for her. Inwardly, he wonders where she could be. The world around them is undergoing massive changes with each passing moment.
: …Hey, Nagisa.
: Hm?
: If… If you could get on a robot and fight, what would you do?
: Huh? Where’d that question come from?
: Do you think you’d want to fight and help protect others?
: Eeh, that’s only a question for wannabe pilots like you. Regular girls like me don’t really think about that.
: …
: Still… I think I’d pass on it. Battles are really scary business and might even get you killed.
: I see…
: (That’s likely what regular people would say, yeah. But I…)
: Are you Nagisa Kanou?
: I am… but who are you?
: My name is Cobalt and I’m here to take you hostage.
: H-Huh?! Who just comes out and says stuff like that? I’ll scream, I’m warning you!
: Be my guest, though it won’t help you…
Whoooooosh!
: Waaah!
: W-We’re falling!!
Crash!
: Urk! Oow…
: Where… where are we?
: It matters not. This isn’t a world the two of you could know of or understand.
: Y-You take us back! Get us back to our world!
: I will… after I’ve destroyed Iczer-1.
: What are you on about? Who’s Iczer-1?!
: Wait just a bit and you’ll see. Once she realizes your life is in danger, she’ll come running…!
: Hmhmhm… Show yourself, Iczer-1. If you don’t make haste, my flaming blade will sear your partner whole.
Fsssh!
: Aaah!
: Stop! What’re you gonna do to her?!
: Yes, cry and scream. Call out to Iczer-1 for help!
: Get away from Nagisa!
: And here you are. I’ve been expecting you.
: (I-It’s that blonde cosplayer I saw at the schoolyard… She’s Iczer-1?)
: Taking innocents hostage… is that how the Cthulhu do things now?!
: Silence, traitor! I’ll use whatever means I must to destroy you!
: If your wish is to fight me, then I agree to it. But, in exchange, let Nagisa and her friend go!
: You may take them, but only if you manage to best me! Taaah!
: Haah!
Swoosh! Slash! Blam!
: Wh-What are they…? I can’t even see what they’re doing!
: A-Anna, let’s get out of here… I… I’m scared!
: I know but where are we supposed to run to?
: Mommy, daddy… help me!
: I’ll help you in a moment, Nagisa! Haaaah!
Blast! Craaash!
: Uuoorgh! B-Blast you, Iczer-1 – how dare you wound me so…!
: Fine, I’ll end you with the Dilos Thetas!
Cobalt runs off.
: Nagisa, we must leave here as well! Hold onto me, you two!
: Huh?
Swoosh!
Mission 3 – The Woman Who Fights, The Woman Who Won’t Fight, The Woman Who Can’t Fight
: Those are…!
: Giant robots?!
: A-Aaah…!
: Not even you can prevail against this many Dilos Thetas! Your death is come, Iczer-1!
: Aaaah!
: You alright, Nagisa?!
: And so it comes to this… I’m summoning the Iczer Robo! We’ll fight together, Nagisa!
: F-fight?! No! Why do I have to fight these monsters?!
: Iczer Robo!!
: Th-That’s…!
: A robot?!
: It is my other half. Come, Nagisa!
: No!
: You are the only one in this world who can unite with the Iczer Robo! Do you not wish to defend your own planet?!
: Absolutely not!
: Then you leave me no choice. You will fight, even if I must force you to! Taaah!
Jump and grab!
: Huh?! Waaah!!
: I-It absorbed her!
: Wh-What’s going on?!
: You’re inside the Iczer Robo. Synchronize yourself with me, Nagisa.
: Y-You can’t do this to me! Lemme go!
: You, Nagisa’s friend… run as far away as you can. I must now face these!
: “Run”… what are you gonna do with Nagisa?!
: Help me, Anna!
: You’ve summoned the Iczer Robo, hm? But that will hardly shift the winds in your favor!
: …We’re going, Nagisa!
Take out everything, don’t lose Iczer-1. This isn’t too difficult but there are a lot of Dilos Thetas and the Iczer Robo isn’t the sturdiest or dodgiest bot around. Don’t go too far ahead, is what I’m saying and let the fight come to you.
Iczer-1 is a monster of a pilot – one of the absolute best in the game, as a matter of fact. All her stats have either the highest or second highest baseline across. Usually she’ll only get competition from Our Lord and Savior… and someone else (if you’ve watched Iczer, you know who).
The Iczer Robo’s already pretty good, though it’s missing many of its tricks now. It’s still pretty bulky and while Mobility is on the low-ish side, Iczer-1 is so good that she’ll make it dodge reliably enough. A high Prevail will further boost that, too, though she won’t be topping the damage charts against big cheaters like Kouji and Kenji.
Oh, and I would be remiss not to mention the following: apparently there’s a BIG bug related to the Iczer Robo in that if you get it killed, game over and restart from the intermission screen, Nagisa will DISAPPEAR as a subpilot. There’s only one point, in the latter half of the game, where you’ll recover her and if you lose her again past that, you’re screwed.
I haven’t seen it happen because, one, I’m too good to let her get killed (:smugdog:) and, two, I’m too proud to actually Continue on a game over’d mission. All in all, if you lose her and game over, just reload your save and try again fresh.
That being said, I just have her take a few steps forward and hold.
Enemy Phase!
: …?!
: Nagisa, what’s the matter? Synchronize with me, please! We won’t be able to bring out the true might of the Iczer Robo like this!
: Let me out! Lemme out of here!
: Ahahah! The Dilos Theta’s strength is on a wholly different level! You’re not match for us, Iczer-1!
: Nagisa…!
Here they come.
Do keep an eye against the Dilos as they’ve decent accuracy.
Most of them keep away for now, though.
Player Phase!
: Mimetic Beasts?! Why are they here?!
: Oh, Earthling monsters? How convenient.
: Gyaaaaaaaaah!
: Aaah!
: Urk!
: Nagisa!!
: Is this also your doing, Cobalt?!
: I’m sorry to disappoint you, but no, I have nothing to do with this. They do seem to be on our side, though.
: Hrm…!
: Please, stop! Put me down! Let me go!
: (My friend’s in danger… there are Mimetic Beasts all over… and I can’t do anything?!)
: (No… I can do something, but I ran from it. What am I doing?! I need to be out there, fighting those things!)
: Nagisa, hold on! I’ll get back to the Dannar Base and—
: Goh! He’s here…!
: And that’s… the Neo Okusaer? But who is… no, Mira?!
: Goh, are you sure you’re ready for this? The four of us could—
: I know. But if I don’t fight, Anna’ll never…!
: Yo, what’s going on here? The radars are completely blank… Think the Mimetic Beasts are behind this?
: I cannot determine the cause but I’m detecting some abnormal EM Waves throughout the area. Our sensors won’t work in this environment.
: Well, if the sensors aren’t flying, then we gotta go with good, ol’ eyesight. Mine’s 20/20!
: Watch where you’re walking, Hyouma. We don’t know if there are civs around here somewhere!
: I’m on it, Daisaku. I can manage that, no prob!
: And look over there, Hyouma! There are some different robots up there, not just the Mimetic Beasts!
: I’ve never seen anything like those before… and they’re not in our data banks, either.
Beep, beep!
: Hold up! We’re being hailed by that green robot!
: Do you hear me, Earthlings? Your planet has come under the attack of Big Gold! Those robots – the Dilos Thetas – are her minions!
: What, a new group of enemies?!
: You think those are the invaders from space that Dr. Nanbara warned us about?!
: Please, I request your assistance!
: We’re here to deal with those Mimetic Beast larvae anyway, so, yes, we might as well help you.
: You’ve my thanks!
: And your name is?
: Iczer-1!
: Pleased to meet you, Iczer-1! We’ll tackle this one together!
: Right!
: Heeeelp! Get me out of here! … They can’t hear me?!
: (Hrk… We’ve got new enemies cropping up and I still can’t fight properly…?!
Alright, now this is more manageable. Mind, losing either Goh or Mira will also be a gameover but they’re well equipped to take care of themselves:
Power! Armor! EN! Everything you could ever want!
Goh and his squad bonus make for a very fine unit, though he’s obviously not doing too hot right now. He’ll get better, though, and become a very reliable Super! His accuracy isn’t all that, though it’s nothing we can’t fix.
As for the Godannar, it’s clearly a punchy bot which comes with the usual issues of low range. Again, we can fix that – grab him a partner that knows Accel, too, while you’re at it.
Well, hey, I guess we’ve found his partner! Mira’s stats are pretty much like Goh’s, only slightly worse (except for Evasion). The Neo can handle itself well enough, though it lacks a bit of stopping power. That barrier makes it a prime defensive supporter, though, as 2300 damage on a Super isn’t too easy to do without a boss.
Oh, and as a fun note: 旦那/Danna® means, among other things, “husband”, while 奥さん/Okusan(saer) is “wife”. So, Anna just lost the wifebot to her husband’s ex… Actually, with that Neo there, wouldn’t it be the “New Wife”-bot? That probably bodes ill.
Both Shizuru and Tetsuya can work nicely as squaddies for ranged-oriented folks – especially Tetsuya, of course. Shizuru has a better range movement coverage as both her weakest and strongest weapons can be used after moving, while Tetsuya’s almost a pure sniper.
They’re decently strong, too, but will get left behind as the game progresses, of course.
Remember what I said about Voltes? Copy paste that and you’ve the Combattler. It’s good, it’s flexible with all its pilots, it’s hard to kill, hits nicely and will do even better later.
: With Anna gone, we all need to do our part supporting Goh…!
Of course, she could only use her weakest weapon… at least she dodges the counter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFP-8FbiEjE
“We’re going, Nagisa!”
“No! Do it yourself!”
Enemy Phase!
: I dunno what you guys are but you better get right off our planet!
: I really don’t think yelling at them is going to get you anywhere.
: Plus, we’ve to fight them under these unusual conditions. Do not let your guard down, Hyouma!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De6YUJGrNEs
That’s quite the elaborate attack for a standard crotch-missile.
: Noo! Why is this happening to me?!
: These are different from the Cthulhu’s monsters… However, I will not falter! I cannot!
At least her Prevail procs a bit and she dodges the next three attacks.
Player Phase!
: Those are…!
: Bam, enter the heroes! Y’all can relax now!
: Prof. Aoi already gave us the rundown: those blue bots are a new enemy and the green one’s on our side, right?
: And, also, that a blonde babe is piloting it! Whoohohohoo… time to put on a good show for her!
: Heey, Kouji, Boss! It’s been forever!
: Yo, Hyouma! We’re gonna be working on the same team again!
: While this is our first time meeting up with the Dannar Base people.
: Ichitaka, I’m not detecting any fluctuations in your heart rate whatsoever. Do you not feel any anxiety… or, rather, love for the Godannar or Combattler?
: No, no – the opposite! And I’m talking about anxiety, FYI!
: I mean, I am nervous but I also know that getting all tense would put our lives in danger, you know?
: Yes, life is meant to be valued. Treasure it and it’ll last… well, for your whole life, right?
: Hahah, thanks for that one. I’m a little less nervous now.
: The Earthlings have sent some extra help, I see.
: All the better for us.
: Right. Let’s go and wrap this up… hrrm…!
: Hey, Goh, take it easy there. We’ll take care of things.
: Sorry, folks…
: However many of you there are, this’ll all end the same. Behold the might of the Dilos Thetas!
Healing her up just in case.
While Goh takes out a weakened beastie, Mira and Shizuru work on its healthy partner.
: Neither Goh nor Mira are doing too well… Then the best I can do is down as many enemies as possible!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJd5hv7k4ro
CHOUDENJI!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlSIwplI7ok
YOYOS!
Chizuru: “A Mimetic Beast!”
Hyouma: “Nothing we can’t handle!”
Iczer-1, now packing Focus, picks something else to blast while the rest of us are closing the distance. At least thanks to their new tag partners, Kouji and Kenji have covered a LOT of ground in one move.
Enemy Phase!
Ickzer-1 and Hyouma (packing Iron Wall) tank pretty much whatever’s already on top of us, weakening them all in the process. The bad news is the Mimetic Beasts drink pretty much all of the Combattler’s EN, what with it dodging like a brick house.
Couple of Beasts do get clever with Kenji, though.
The thing barely hangs on, enough for Tsubaki to kill-steal.
Player Phase!
Now we go to town.
: Anna… I want to believe that, somewhere, you’re watching this… and that you’ll eventually come back to me!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zitc3aP7TC8
Husband punch!
Get rid of those Mimetic Beasts before they hit anyone else!
Ichitaka: “Don’t need to hold back against Mimetic Beasts!”
Alice: “Right! We should engage with all we have!”
Hyouma moves back a bit, but not before taking out another Dilos. Shooting enough enemies down triggers the plot.
: Hmph, so you Earthlings have a little fight in you. But you will not best me and my Dilos with that!
Cobalt charges towards the town center.
: Haaaaah!
: Damn, how is she so strong?!
: She… she’s destroying the entire town!
: Stop this, Cobalt!
Iczer-1 goes after.
: Silence, traitor!
Iczer-1 gets thrown right across town.
: Aah!
: This is bad! That robot’s power is several steps above hers!
: Nagisa, why won’t you synchronize with me?
: I told you again and again: I don’t want to fight!
: She’s destroying your hometown! Do you not care anything about that?!
: …
: It seems to me that your partner is no more than dead weight, Iczer-1!
Another blast, further knocking her back… right where Anna is!
: Waah!
: A-Aah…!
: A-Anna… you’re still there?! Run – it’s dangerous!
: I can’t, Nagisa. I have to fight… but, the Okusaer… the Okusaer is now…!
: What are you on about, Anna?! Get out of there NOW!
: Die!
: Aaaah!
: Anna! ANNAA!
: Nagisa, grant me strength – your strength…!
: Anna… get out… get out of there, please…
: Why won’t you fight, Nagisa? Why are you thinking of no one but yourself?!
: This is your town – your home – and you must defend it! You must defend your friend!
: U-Urgh…
: I… I have to defend… Anna…
: You… You’ll pay for this…! YOU’LL PAY!!
: I-It can’t be…! All this power… Is it fruit of their synchronization?!
: Are you now willing to fight, Nagisa? Thank you!
: No, I told you that I don’t want to! But Anna… Anna is…!
: Nagisa…I’m alright. All thanks to you.
: Anna…! Oh, thank god!
: Nagisa, your friend will likely be at risk again if we let this battle carry on…
: I know… Fine, I’ll help you!
: Many thanks, Nagisa. Let’s go, then!
And the Iczer Robo just got a stat boost from that for some extra HP, EN, etc. – good, because she’ll be dealing with Cobalt while we handle the rest.
Speaking of, Shizuru’s got enough morale for her best attack. Also, nearby, after Kouji and Kenji both turn a pair of Mimetic Beasts into mush, Tetsuya is just range to snipe another down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQzueYRYuMw
: Come one, come all! I’ll give you way more than you bargained for!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hnk9QblTraY
”OKAAAAAY!”
By the by, Cobalt’s range isn’t too good.
: Iczer Robo or not, you will fall against the Dilos Theta! Prepare to meet your end, Iczer-1!
: You and your ilk won’t have their way, Cobalt! So long as life burns within my breast, I’ll fight on!
Another 5k damage.
Enemy Phase!
Hrm, I was actually expecting her to go after Iczer.
That’s a combo attack hitting both girls but, unfortunately, the Deceive has ridiculous amounts of HP. It does not care.
And, with that, we’re in the clear. The remaining mooks either die against our wall of beefy units or get weakened greatly – they’ll die next turn.
Following a quick jab from Yamashita, Cobalt’s done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH2Y3pgcaw0
Iczer-1: “Not even a Cthulhu warrior shall prevail if I’ve Nagisa’s help!”
And Iczer-1 takes a couple of levels, learning Attack Combo. Nice.
: I… I cannot fall… SEPIAA!!
: Haah… Haah…
: I’m sorry, Cobalt…
And here go the last Mimetic Beasts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N9f10xo3BI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DST8usleD2M
I was looking to have Kouji grab the kill but at least it showed me that Yagyuu’s Trinity Attack actually has a dynamic finish.
: Seems that’s all of the Mimetic Beasts and those unknown bots.
: Yes, but what, exactly, were those?
: She said there were minions of one “Big Gold”…
: We’ve got plenty of questions for that pilot, I’d say.
: Then we need to try and get her to come to either JUDA or Dannar Base.
: Hey, you… do you mind coming over to our base and giving some details about that Big Gold?
: Certainly. But, first, give me a moment to let my partner off the Iczer Robo.
Iczer-1 moves to a nearby street.
: Do you hear me, Nagisa…?
: Urk…guh…
: (She’s looking quite weak. Not surprising, after such a rough battle… I beg your forgiveness, Nagisa…)
: Gugyaaa!
: Damn it – there were others around?!
The Mimetic Beast starts charging after the Iczer Robo
: Watch out!
: Gwargh!
: Aah—! Goh!
: Goh!
Mira gets between him and the monster.
: You won’t hurt him!
: !!
: (I was the one supposed to be out there, protecting him! Even Nagisa’s fighting and I’m…!)
: Careful! That Mimetic Beast’s a lot bigger than the last ones!
Beep!
: Dannar Base here! Exercise extreme caution: it’s very likely that Mimetic Beast is the source of the EM interference!
: What?!
: Since when can those things do that?!
: They couldn’t, at least not thus far… I’d wager it’s evolved.
: And it sent the Godannar flying like it was nothing! This one’s gonna be real tough!
: Goh, let’s unite! Our only way of fighting this Beast is with the Twin Drive!
: What?!
: You can’t, Mira! You’re still undergoing tests and the chance of a successful union is zero with Goh in his current state!
: No… we’re going for it. We’ll take the monster out with a Heart Breaker!
: You really sure about this, Goh?!
: (No more waffling about. I can’t, if I’m going to protect this town and Mira… and if I’m going to be around to wait for Anna!)
: I’m a pilot, so I’ll fight until the very bitter end! Let’s go, Mira! Drive Change – go!
: Dannar… on! Revolver… OPEN! Godannar Twin Drive!
: Let’s take him out in one shot, Goh!
: Aye, aye!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifOM1fHnrBk
: Woooow… The Godannar’s 100% back…!
: That… That’s the Godannar’s actual power…?!
: (I… I’m just no match for her…! I…!)
: EM waves confirmed gone and all sensors are back online. Is everyone better?
: Yes, everything’s good. That Mimetic Beast really was the source, I guess.
: We’re good too; got no more Mimetic Beast pings on the radar, either. Now we’re done here.
: Alright, then let’s call in people to help the survivors. I trust you’re also OK, Iczer-1?
: I am, though my partner has lost consciousness. She’s been through a lot today…
Beep, boop!
: I couldn’t help but overhear that. If you don’t mind, JUDA is ready to help her recover.
: Mr. Ishigami!
: And, at that, could everyone also come over with them? We’re already coordinating with Lady Une and readying everything to accommodate you folks.
: Us, too?
: Of course – you’re all official LOTUS members now. And the JUDA Corporation building will be serving as your new base!
: Glad you’re so hyped, boss, but we got a sick girl here? How about sending a transport to pick her up quick-like?
: Easy, Shizuna. He’s acting like that only to try and get us relaxed.
: Oh, it brings tears to my eyes knowing my employees understand me so well.
: And, by the by, the transport’s already on the way. Why don’t you folks help the rescue teams until it gets there?
: OKAY!
: (Did you see me, Anna? If you did, then please come home soon! I… I’ll be waiting for you, Anna!)
Maybe Grife wanted her to be more human-like, Daisaku wonders. If that’s the case, then, Alice figures she’s a failure: “I can’t learn or adapt as easily as everyone else – it’s caused me no shortage of problems!”
Maybe not, as Daisaku figures that’s a pretty natural reaction she’s showing – that’s something! But, regardless, the reason she came here is that she wanted a copy of their physical data to start planning her healthcare plans for them. Ropett has it all handy for her to download.
Kosuke’s very surprised at the thought of mechanical life-forms existing, but Juzo has a better question: if Iczer-1 is fighting against them, what exactly is she? In truth, she’s a Cthulhu android. So, she’s one of them.
Ishigami isn’t bothered, though, remembering what she said about the Cthulhu, originally, being against violent action. Thus, it could be said that Iczer-1 rebelled in the name of upholding the peaceful ideals that Big Gold took away.
And the many recent disappearances? It’s the Cthulhu’s doing, as they turn people into their agents. She’d been trying to stymie the Cthulhu’s invasion but, unfortunately, this is all too much for her alone. Ishigami can see that, what with all the robots that showed up today. So, hey, why doesn’t she join LOTUS as well?
Kyo also offers to tell Iczer-1 what he knows of Earth, as the information will surely help her. “You’re trying to get a leg up on the competition, too?!” Kenji cries, only to be punched down by Saotome. Not everyone here’s a perv like him.
Still, Iczer-1 is happy with this group of companions and she wants Nagisa to meet them soon.
With the situation throughout the world getting progressively direr (bolstered by the appearance of the Cthulhu), NEX’s big ties to major military suppliers makes them a company Ishigami would very much like to get on our side.
Ichitaka can’t help but remember him and Kouichi fanboying over the Daiku Maryu and Gaiking when they first saw them in the news. Where could the guy be now? Hopefully safe, at least…
That said, Iczer-1’ll be unable to bring out the Robo’s full abilities – that’s only possible when she, Nagisa and the bot are synchronized. And even if she does wake up from her coma, Iczer-1 wonders if she’ll be willing to fight again. With all that in mind, Maki figures it’s best to just keep the thing sealed away for now.
“But don’t you worry! We’ll all be right here to pick up the slack real good!” Boss proclaims heroically and Iczer-1 is very grateful to him (“Whooheehee!”). With that, Shibakusa rounds up all the mechanics and tells them to put their game faces on – they’ve never worked on many of these mechs before, so there’ll be plenty of work.
Oops, no more time to sit around as Yamashita says Yagyuu will be handling Ichitaka’s training session today. He better not run late or Saotome’ll give him hell. As he takes off in a hurry, Alice is a bit pensive: “There shouldn’t be anything wrong with my systems… But maybe I’ll go and talk with Mr. Maki or Ms. Rachel when I’ve the time.”
The fun thing about Combattler is Big Blast seems to have picked up a whole bunch of ammo in this game, to make it comparable to Voltes Bazooka. Another robot (well technically two other robots but they’re basically the same thing) also got an ammo upgrade on a typically low ammo attack to match up with a compatriot, and it’s even more cathartic to longtime SRW fans.
That’s technically the Heart Breaker Full Throttle at the end of the mission. It’s basically the same move, so it’s easy to see why you wouldn’t notice… Heart Breaker fires one cylinder, Heart Breaker Full Throttle fires all of them. Full Throttle also does that “show the punch three times” thing, and a few other minor differences.
Godannar is a good way to illustrate a point about something L does, by the way. In essence, every series that carried over from K that wasn’t SEED Destiny now happens much later into the anime. With Jeeg, it starts from Episode… 6, I think, with Godannar it starts on the last episode of Season 1 and the first of Season 2, and with Gaiking… well, it’s a bit later. SEED is the exception because SEED Destiny in K actually started much later into the show itself.
Also, remember - squad leader barely matters in L/UX/BX! The Build Angels are a better leader for their squad than Mazinger. Mazinger Z has 6 Movement and a max P range of 3 in this game, while Build Angel also has 3 P range but it has 8 Movement. Flight also does not avail Mazinger in this game, all it does is make Mazinger better as a Supporter and that only matters for Defense for the most part. In fact, if it couldn’t fly, it’d be ever so slightly better - because then it’d have its leader flying it around while it gets terrain bonuses. What is relevant is that Build Angel gives it A Space, and it starts with B Space, and while L isn’t “if you have B in a terrain and are in that terrain you just die” like K does, it’s still a hindrance. (That’s why Build Angel is good with Borot - Borot NEEDS Flight because some of his attacks aren’t able to hit Air and it NEEDS Space because of its B rank. Also Build Angel has Repair so that’s a 10% health recovery at the start of every turn, while Borot has Resupply so that’s a 10% EN recovery, and the partners both like that.)
EDIT: Also was looking through the SA thread, and while it’s spoilers, Iczer 1/3 are NOT the reason for the whole alternate universe shit. Neither are Combattler/Voltes. No, it’s another series… it’s the linebarrels villains because in the anime they come from another universe and the secret spoiler is they basically took over earth on that world and the frontier crew were unaware of this. That said I like how alternate universe juxtaposition happens between the first half of the Nagahamas and the Iczer partners and stuff. It’s neat.
Ichitaka/Miu
Jeeg/Kyo
Kouji/Yagyuu
Yamashita/Tetsuya
Iczer-1/Shizuru
Goh/Mira
Combattler/Deceive
The Godannar can Twin Drive at 130 morale, so having Mira nearby’ll spare the hassle of having to get her adjacent to Goh. Moreover, her Accelerate will help him tremendously.
Yamashita’s our only range-focused unit, so Tetsuya’ll give him a boost. I paired the Combattler and Deceive together just to make them both hardier – I’ll likely break this duo later. Iczer-1 got stuck with Shizuru for lack of option; could’ve been Boss but I’m still queasy over the thought of sending him into the front lines.
Off we go!
By the Darius world, deep underground…
: I must say, I am impressed. (Her name’s Proist.)
: Not only did you manage to steal the Tenku Maryu and Daichi Maryu from me, you’ve also mastered the Raiking and Vulking. Impressive, indeed.
: But you still have NO CHANCE IN HELL against my Chou Maryu Dvorak!
: The Chou Maryu… that thing’s a monster! (Puria)
: No, it’s not! The Dvorak’s beautiful and it’s what’ll let me get payback on Garis and destroy all you surface worms!
: And while it’s still not 100%, it’s still more than good enough to burn trash like you to cinders! Have a taste of the Dvorak’s power! DEATH FIRE!
Peew, woop! Flash!
: I-It can’t be… a Death Cross Point?! (Rosa)
: What the hell… how can its flames trigger a Death Cross by themselves…?! (Sakon)
: Damn, that’s a real major card she kept on her sleeve. (Lee)
: AHAHAHAHA! And I won’t stop with you! I’ll turn my sights on the surface itself and kill everyone that lives here!
: Psh. Now that ain’t something I’m gonna let happen, Chou Maryu or not! (Daiya)
: Excuse me…?
: However big the enemy we face, if all our hearts are united, then we will find a way to win! (Lulu)
: Daiya Tsuwabuki, I am no longer Proist’s puppet. If it takes my life to defeat her, then so be it! (Norza)
: I’m also ready to fight by your side. I’ve a debt to repay to Lee Jian-xing! (Vestanu)
: Norza, Vestanu, you blasted traitors!
: But alright – I might as well get rid of you worthless worms here and now! Disappear along with the surfacers!
: If anyone’s disappearing around here, it’s you, Proist! Lee, Norza, we’re hitting her together!
: Aye, aye! Vulking, go!
: Raiking, forward!
: Gwaaargh!
: How do ya like that, Proist?!
: Hrm! It might be far from complete but I’m still surprised you could damage the Dvorak!
: And there’s more where that came from!
: Haaaaah!!
: What’s the matter, Proist? Your unit isn’t living up to its name.
Quick tangent: Tenku Maryu and Daichi Maryu would be, literally, Sky Dragon and Earth Dragon, while the Chou Maryu would be something akin to Grand Dragon.
: Don’t get so full of yourselves, maggots…! And, actually, I just had a wonderful little idea! A way to both split your forces and carry on my plan to slaughter the surfacers!
: Not happening ‘cause you’re going down right now!
: Think again, Gaiking!
Proist charges after Daiya and grabs him.
: What?! Lemme go, Proist!
: Heeheehee… Let’s cut you down to size first!
Brrrrt!
: Crap, Parts #1 and #2 were broken off!
: Daiya Tsuwabuki… Your forces will be nothing with you gone! And I’ll take my sweet time dealing with them!
: The hell are you up to?!
Proist jumps off, the Dvorak pulling the Gaiking away.
: You and the Dvorak’s parts are going on a trip to the surface, Gaiking!
: Uwaaaaah!!
: Damn it, Daiya got dragged into the Death Cross Point!
: DAIYAA!!
Puria flies into the portal.
: Puria?!
: Sis! (Yanma)
: Hahaha, it’s done! Daiya Tsuwabuki is off on the surface now!
: Proist…!
: But I didn’t just get rid of that pest with this. The Dvorak’s parts went up with the Gaiking…
: And those’ll regenerate and multiply, spawning Demonic and Iron Beasts to destroy the surface! Aahahahahaa!
: Urk… How could this happen…!
: My lady Proist, we’ve come to rescue you.
: Thank you, Nikita. Let us return to Arkholand for a moment and reorganize. With the Gaiking gone, the other are but minnows… there’s no rush to dispose of them.
: Yes, ma’am!
: Curse you, Proist…!
: Captain, we need to get in touch with the surface ASAP!
: Right. Mr. Sakon, if you could see to it.
: Aye, aye, I’ll go tell NEX about this.
: (Daiya, Puria… please be safe.)
Besides, it’s not like he cares much about seeing her naked. “Hrm… You could care A LITTLE, damn it,” she quietly fumes. Furthermore, Daiya ponders aloud that Puria’s looking to have about half of what Shizuka’s got… half of what?! “Y-You really shouldn’t waste your energy on nonsense,” Daiya stammers. “And what, exactly, is nonsense?!”
Now, now, he asks her to calm down as she oughta be hungry, right? She actually is, so they’ll split up and start looking for food: Daiya’ll poke around the waters while Puria checks the trees. Sounds good but, first things first, go and grab her clothes as they should be dry enough!
Daiya does find it odd that while they’re come back to the surface, it now feels like they’re in a wholly alien world after the time they spent on the Darius world. He can’t stop himself from worrying about the folks still down there.
The two of them need to find their way back and the irony isn’t lost on Daiya of a surfacer like him, standing on the surface, acting like the underground is his home.
Why’s he speaking like he’s seen that happen? Because he did, Kyo says, though he understands why Kenji wouldn’t be in on the take. There aren’t many examples of such encounters happening but the most famous one would be of the Daiku Maryu’s former captain.
See, he was a Darian man but he fell in love with an earthling woman and, together, they had a daughter – said daughter has followed in her father’s footsteps and now captains the Daiku Maryu herself.
Still, Goh is determined to soldier on and overcome this – he better, lest he come to regret when an actual powerful enemy shows up. Ichitaka understands and thanks him for the lesson. Alice’s also paying attention and she’s eager to help Ichitaka figure out the best way to use that feint in battle. Yamashita’s going down next time!
That’s good to hear, because Yamashita wants to get Ichitaka way stronger before Reiji actually comes around – the JUDA squad leader is a very strict man.
OK, that calls for an analysis and Rachel is ready to help with that (she promises a worried Ichitaka that she’s not looking to pry her open, like before). Running a few scans, she sees the problem: since Alice was never built with the needed thought patterns for combat, her neural network is overloading under the strain of assessing the new input.
Additional synapses are being built to compensate for the calculation lag, but as she tries to optimize for combat the process constantly clashes with the maid AI’s own development.
While Goh is no tech expert, he sees that perhaps the only option here is simply to wait until Alice’s AI has fully adapted itself to her new work circumstances. Rachel agrees: we’ll have to help her AI slowly develop around combat and get those thought patterns to take root. Kinda like weight-lifting.
Alice apologizes and says she’ll try not to think too much about combat, though Tsubaki also warns against her worrying too much about that.
Mission 4 – Enter the Giant of Flames
Back at the island, Puria’s trying to generate enough flame in her unit to get it airborne but it’s not happening. There’s no land in sight and with the amount she’s got, she couldn’t even fly a few dozen kilometers. Still, Daiya takes solace of the fact that the flames haven’t gone out.
That’s true and Puria remembers Daimon saying that the flame is like the machine’s own life and it never really runs out completely. What they need right now is some Hydrute to really stoke the flames. Indeed, Daiya figures they can keep trying this by themselves all they want, they’re not getting anywhere without a decent amount of Hydrute Flares.
And their situation is getting worse as the flame inside Gaiking starts flickering – a sign of incoming enemies. What are they going to do, when they can’t even get their units running properly?
They better think fast because the enemies are here: a bunch of Darius Army monsters. Daiya figures this is it and tells Puria to run off but, of course, she’s not even willing to entertain that idea. Daiya apologizes, saying it’s his fault she’s in a situation like this but Puria doesn’t mind – she was ready to die fighting the second the came aboard the Daiku Maryu.
As the monsters start blasting them, Daiya’s irked by something: the aura he’s sensing from them is just like the Chou Maryu’s. As the attacks start piling on, Puria decides to go for broke and gets her unit flying: she tells Daiya to go hide while she buys as much time as can be.
Her flame’s not doing too good, yes, but if he’s right and they’re near Japan, then some help should be on the way. She oughta be able to keep these things busy until they get here.
Daiya decides to trust her with this – she IS the Daiku Maryu’s top ace – but she better not die. That’s her line, of course.
There are plenty of enemies and losing Puria’s a game over, so keep your distance. You just need to make it to turn 3.
Standard support unit, only decently survivable with Puria’s Flame giving it that bonus. It won’t be hitting too hard but it could make for a decent squaddie with that Accel and squad bonus.
But I’ll play it safe and move her far away.
Enemy Phase!
Only three mooks move, the others standing by.
Repeat this for the next turn, so let’s skip ahead.
Player Phase!
: Huh?! What’s the Dancouga doing here?!
: Heh, what’s going on here? A buncha baddies ganging up on someone?
: The Darius have sent quite the feast over today – we’ve got both Demonic and Iron Beasts to pick from.
: So, how do you guys want your BBQ today? Medium rare or well done?
: Eeh, I’m gonna have to pass on undercooked Demon Beast, thanks.
Beep, beep!
: Come on, now, kids. Go and do your part as good ol’ champions of justice!
: Yeah, yeah… Psh, but I really don’t like having to work with NEX.
: How come, Sakuya? You’ve a problem with them?
: Even a homeless like me does, yeah.
Aoi moves over to Puria.
: Richie, wasn’t it? Back off and let Team D handle this one.
: I owe you one – didn’t expect the Dancouga to show up, that’s for damn sure.
: Just doing our job and all that. Don’t worry about it.
: Alright, I won’t then. But just lemme get one thing clear: the name’s Puria Richardson. Not “Richie”.
: Ah, my apologies, Miss Richardson.
: …Hm? Already? Roger that.
: Um, Team D? You’ve been cleared to use the Dankuuken.
: The “Dankuuken”? I’m guessing that’s a new secret weapons or something?
: I’m sending the data over to you right now. The weapon should be unlocked.
: This data’s for… an ultrasonic sword?
: And why, exactly, did you just come out and give us a new weapon? Orders from the top?
: Eeh, something like that, yes.
: Are you ever going to give us a straight answer?
: Sorry, I’m just the middleman here. And, in any case, it’s just for a little bit longer, alright? Now if you would…
: OK! Then…
: Let’s go wild!
: Aw, I wanted to say that…
Alright, we can get on the offensive now.
: Ain’t no other way around it after Daiya said that – I have to make it through this!
Eeh, only 1.2k…
Get busy, Aoi.
And he lives with 93, son of a bitch.
Enemy Phase!
Aoi gets mobbed, killing her old target and doing a number of the remaining two – they don’t do much against L’s beefy Dancouga.
The other Demonic and Iron Beasts are moving in now.
Player Phase!
: Backup! Now that’s just what we needed!
: Those are… ah, I get it! That LOTUS group Lulu talked about is finally open for business!
: Here come the legit Champions of Justice.
: And the bot we helped in Miura’s also here.
: Ooh, it’s the Dancouga! … Ergh, no, I gotta stop fanboying so much! Breathe…!
: Huh, he’s joined LOTUS too?
Ping!
: I’ve detected the Gaiking – it’s inside those woods.
: Yeah, that’s the Gaiking right there! And the enemies are all closing in on him!
: More like some of the Gaiking, what with us having to bring over his legs and arms ‘n’ all.
: OK, then the Dancouga’ll run interference while we get those parts over to him!
: Can you hear us, Daiya Tsuwabuki?
: Y-Yeah, I do!
: We’ve brought some spare parts for you, so hurry up and combine into the Gaiking!
: These arms and legs got a whole lotta flame in them! You’ll be all set to go crazy after you’ve combined!
: Alright! Send ‘em over, please!
: Gaiking, parts #1 and #2 – launch!
: Haaaaah! Take a look, Puria! My flame’s burning hot again!
: Yeah, now you can take the fight to them!
: Are you watching, pops? Seems the new parts are working just fine.
: Yeah, I’m monitoring them. ‘Course, I wouldn’t expect anything else from our work!
: Hm? But the color’s a bit different from usual.
: It looks kinda ugly, really…
: Oh, I learned about that the other day! Those parts have lost their Phase Shift effect because the battery’s running empty!
: Nah, much as I’m sorry to say, we couldn’t slap some Phase Shift Armor into the Gaiking.
: Meaning it’s just an aesthetics issue, right?
: Aesthetics, schmestetics! All that matters is if it does the job!
: Here goes! Hydro! BLAZER!!
: What?! It didn’t do jack!
: The hell? Then the faux-Zolmanium we made really can’t generate flame on the same level as the original?
: You alright, Daiya?
: Yeah, it’ll be fine! I’ll just cover the difference with some of my own inner flame!
: That said, this one feels a lot weaker than the Gaiking… so let’s call it the Kaikink.
: “Kaikink”? Well, I guess that name does sound like it’s missing something.
: Still, a lot of folks from the surface poured their hopes into these arms and legs and this flame! So I’m gonna be fighting as hard as I can with ‘em! Good to be working with all you guys!
: Well, we better bolt outta here before we start getting in the way. Take care out there folks – wrecked mechs can be fixed but there ain’t anything we can do for the dead!
: Heh, guess Shibakusa’s given us the go-ahead. Time to get to work, people!
Now we just need to keep Daiya and Aoi in one piece and that’s not difficult, provided you don’t rush them up front.
If you’re coming here from K, you’ll find that the Gaiking-series bots are actually usable in that they massively reduced the EN costs of its weapons. Range is pretty piss and it’s got looooow armor (550 less than the Dancouga!) since surface construction is so much crap but at least that’s somewhat made up by Daiya’s Flame.
Still, do stick with Daiya because he’ll eventually become a powerhouse (though he doesn’t cheat like Kouji and Kenji) – the kid’s a good pilot, just stuck in a subpar bot right now. The Kaikink does fly and has decent movement right out the box, though, so he doesn’t even NEED Accel like Kouji does.
Just a few steps forward, lest he get mobbed next turn.
: The people of the surface made these parts… and my flame’ll make ‘em burn strong enough to rival the Gaiking!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFqi7gYLwL4
I do like how the hand crumples up after the hit.
Iczer-1 doesn’t need a mech to kick ass.
: Rest easy, Nagisa… I’ll bring a swift end to any who try to invade Earth!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4Yv4vD1640
Bam!
Nothing else in range now, so everyone moves forward.
Enemy Phase!
The main wave of mooks is right upon us, though only Ichitaka gets attacked.
: How’s your temperature going, Alice? You’re not overworking yourself back there, right?
: I-I’m managing to rearrange my thoughts and processes based around parallels with chores! No problems… mostly!
: Our movement is a bit more sluggish now… but we should still be fine. Here we go!
He and Miu block pretty much all damage before laying the hurt.
Player Phase!
Iczer-1 also has a lightsaber, in case you still weren’t sure if she kicked enough ass by herself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofzfv8ykEEo
The Darius beasts are beefy but not enough.
Ichitaka finishes his target and learns Strike after the level up.
Little help from Yamashita and this one’s primed up for Aoi’s new trick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56gymG7_3Eo
: Wow, it’s so pretty… This is the Dankuuken?
: Why exactly is the Dancouga so strong? What for…?
: Oho, so it had a big, bad sword tucked away, eh? You’re pretty good, Dancouga.
: Yup; that was a nice swing.
: Ahahah… Guess it was, for a first timer, huh?
: Hey, I love a pat on the back as much as the next guy…
: But how about we save that glee for when we get back to base?
And, for that matter, we’ll take the weakened Galgoras and use it to show off Jeeg Breaker’s cool dynamic finish:
: So this is the Darius Army, eh? Yow, they’re huuuge… Still, they’re gonna need more than size to take me out! How about a demonstration?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G48I8WKtbMc
“WHO’S UP NEXT?!”
Still a bunch to go, so Kouji and Yagyuu focus-fire this here Galgoras.
: I’ve never fought these things before… Still, you’re gonna find that I didn’t spend all that time handling Mechabeasts for nothing!
Good, good.
Hyouma’ll take this one, in hopes it’ll kamikaze against someone good.
: Hey, Darius! If you think your beasts are gonna drop Mr. Hyouma Aoi, wrecker of Mecha and Mimetic Beasts, then I’ve got an upcoming news flash for you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAZ0gspBzfw
And here’s the Deceive’s signature move. Now, if one would just explain to me how you make an AI hallucinate…
Enemy Phase!
I set Aoi with Iron Wall way up ahead and the enemies are very willing to play ball. One thing I noticed is that she’s quite parry-happy this mission (only two out of like 8 attacks have connected).
Attacking Ichitaka isn’t a much better idea.
Gone.
Nearby, Hyouma takes three kills from weakened enemies (and weakens another 4). Juzo learns Mercy.
Player Phase!
And now this is just a matter of cleaning stuff up. The three farthest monsters have somewhat midboss-y stats but they’re certainly not enough to give our folks pause – focus-fire will take them out easy.
Here’s the summary:
: Demonic Beasts, Iron Beasts – they’ll all end the same when facing the Godannar’s raw power!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoK6qUksS5A
: Shouldn’t be too long before Reiji comes back, so I better bring home the goods!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqKR7zaBGXc
Its best attack doesn’t even have a dynamic finish! Come on, the surface could do better than this!
Oh, and this Domega had the bad luck of being chosen as test dummy for Hyouma’s strongest weapon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgR2-5_SgM4
Classic.
Turns out Breast Fire doesn’t have a DK, either. That’s the last one, though!
And the radar’s clear, so Tanaka quickly asks the Dancouga to come home. Resident psychiatrist, Ru Riruri, is on hand to remind them that today’s counseling day so she’ll be waiting them all by her office.
Aoi sighs that they’re always forced to dance to Tanaka and co.’s tune and Kurara’s frustrated that they’ve yet to get any answers for their questions. Why were they chosen to pilot the Dancouga and why are they always fighting for the weaker side? Wondering here’ll only be a waste of time, though, so off they go.
Nearby, a mysterious unit is measuring the Dancouga’s strength. Something seems to bother the pilot. The unit vanishes, no one even noticing its presence, and Ichitaka figures the Dancouga must be real busy to always be leaving in a hurry like that. Yamashita says we’ll be plenty busy ourselves soon and Ichitaka’s ready to handle the rhythm in order to find the professor.
Goh asks Puria and Daiya to join us back at JUDA and Yamashita confirms that, indeed, they’ve been reassigned to LOTUS. Not too long ago, we’ve been told by NEX that Cpt. Lulu had given it her official sanction. If they heard from the Daiku Maryu, that means everyone in the underground is safe and that’s a weight off Daiya’s shoulders. It’ll be a bit before they can come up here themselves, mind.
But, regardless, Kenji wants to head back ASAP as he’s hungry as no one’s business. Daiya’s also willing to eat just about anything we’ve to offer, as he and Puria haven’t had a good meal since getting sent up here.
Good news, then: Ishigami will treat us to a bunch of his homemade sushi and that’s perfect to Daiya, having grown in a fishing village and all. Ishigami’ll have a banquet ready for his arrival.
As Daiya jumps for joy, Izuna and Shizuna flinch at the upcoming pile of the president’s sushi foisted upon us. Yui does point out that there’s someone here waiting to see Daiya, mind.
Naoto starts getting all choked up and Puria is quick to tell him to cut that crap out: “You just waltz in here like you own the place, yack our ears off and, to wrap things up, start crying up a storm? Come on, now – where’d they dig up this kid?”
Daiya calms her down and apologizes to Naoto for his partner’s sharp tongue. Who is this? Puria. And she’s a girl? Can’t he tell just by looking at her?! Alright, let’s ease up a bit. As for the kid, he’s Naoto Hayami, a classmate of Daiya.
Speaking of missing people, Alice’s just heard info that Kouichi has apparently come back to school! And how is he? Well… he’s a lot different, to say the least – violent. “A symptom of calcium deficiency?” she wonders. Then again, she’s combed through the data of the other Factors and none of them have displayed such symptoms.
Yamashita seems to have an idea of what’s actually going on…
Anything worse shows up, we’ll walk on over and give ‘em what for, Hyouma adds! Ishigami likes it and believes nothing could possibly give us pause with everyone working together. With that in mind, it’s sushi time!
Daiya doesn’t need to be told twice and Ishigami likes the gusto with which he eats – as children should be. Everyone else care to partake? “Yeaah, boy! I’m so hungry, I can’t even think straight,” Kenji cries out and starts stuffing himself.
On the flip side, Izuna and Miu aren’t fans of Ishigami’s sushi and, to make things worse, he’s made a LOT to account for everyone. Do they all need to eat? Maybe not as Daiya and Kenji are ALREADY demanding more. Shizuna hopes this won’t push Ishigami into making even more of the stuff…
Elsewhere…
: Hrm…? Where am I?
: Hands, legs, torso… all bound. Silver lining is they at least didn’t gag me…
Beep!
: Ah, I see you’ve awakened, Professor Grife.
: And you are? The boss of those fellows who kidnapped me, I’d wager?
: Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it? Maybe I am their boss, maybe I’m not…
: Why don’t you stop beating around the bush, you weasel?
: “Weasel”? I got that quite often, back in the day – about ten years ago, I think…
: … Oh, but now is hardly the time for a trip down memory lane. Apologies if this is rather abrupt, but I’ve a small request to make of you, Professor…
: What…?
Iczer 1 has 4 upgrades in everything for the exact same reason Vardent will soon have 4 upgrades in everything. She won’t be with you for good. There’s a section of the game with no access to Iczer 1, and when she comes back, 4 bars is the norm. That said, unlike Vardent, her stint of being not on your team is laughably minor, so…
Don’t worry about frontlining Boss. Because his HP is so low, and enemies only aim for the highest HP in range, people obsessively fail to target him. And despite Borot not looking like all that much, I’ve found it can usually take at least one hit with fairly minimal upgrading.
Decieve’s Nerve Crack actually works better against non-human opponents, because the Nerve Crack is designed to steal control of AI piloted robots. That it hits humans is because Armas and Machinas link to their pilot’s nervous system, so he gets an in.
Kaikink’s name is pretty silly. The joke isn’t one that translates so well though - G is a stronger version of K in their linguistics, so by calling it Kaikink he’s basically saying it’s a shitty Gaiking.
Yeah, the Kaikink thing really is something you either get or you don’t - I couldn’t think of a snazzier way to bring it over.
And I suppose, if the AI’s hardwired that way, I might stick him with the Combattler for now. I do like how much HP the Deceive has, though… I’ll think about it.
Oh yeah, and Gaiking is the third of the three “start later in their plot” shows. Except where Godannar starts at the start of S2, and Jeeg starts at the halfway point, Gaiking LoDM plot in this game literally starts on Episode 32… OUT OF 39. Yeesh!
But to be fair, without K’s randomly jerking the cast all across a bunch of worlds, there is absolutely no way to make Gaiking LoDM work without either doing all the plot in one go (from personal attempts at plotting this, handling it with any degree of kindness for the show takes way too long for that to be viable) or starting from that point. So whatever. It also allowed for the Kaikink, which was not in K, because K handled everything in the 30s in that show in like two stages. (To be fair, once L does go back to Darius, it also handles a lot of stuff in two stages… but that’s something like five episodes of plot. Very different.)
