Let's Sperg Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden - The first game in the series to make mecha nerds cry from the difficulty

[GethN7]

Before I get onto the next stage, might as well get all the Braiger lore done so I can save myself time doing the next few stages sans tons of footnotes.

Cosmo Ranger J9 is something a half-serious/half-goofy show, basically Lupin III with robots, and it tends to be kinda bipolar, veering between goofiness and utter seriousness in tone.

The show villain, who I'll get to in a few stages from now, he's basically silly as hell in appearance and mannerisms, but deadly serious in intentions, thus going with the show's bipolar tendencies rather well.

Braiger has not been used often in Super Robot Wars, mostly because it's universe is set on an Earth greatly divorced from a SRW friendly setting, with the villains ruling one fourth of Earth outright. However, the characters, machines, and most events in general are easily adapted into an SRW game, so when SRW uses the series, they toss the world setting out and integrate the rest into the game world.

The explanation for how the Braiger can morph from a tiny car to 60 something tall mecha is essentially that some egghead managed to figure out how to compress huge shit into pocket dimensions and how to reverse the same, essentially physics runs on the clown car model.

The show takes it seriously enough, but trying to make it make any real world sense will just make your head hurt.

If anyone here wants to hunt the show down, the music is pretty good, with the theme ABAYO FLY BYE being very catchy, but the villain theme is one of the most fucking annoying things EVER, especially because it has an Egyptian choir in the background singing the guy's name in a mind numbing sing song that will drive you nuts.

SRW thankfully excises the voice overs most of the time.

Also, to prevent confusion with a character that is later introduced, I will refer to Jotaro Kid by his first name from this point on.

 

[GethN7]

Anyway, continuing where the last stage left off, Henken and the Daitarn show up, a bit surprised the Titans are already ass kicked.

Emma is happy to see Henken (Emma Sheen and Henken Bekenner had a thing for each other but a bit of a problem spitting it out in Zeta Gundam), and Isaac tells Banjou they kinda did more than they were paid to do, but Banjou is pretty pleased with the results.

The South Atalia crew shows up around this time as well, and both Kouji and Kou (now piloting a standard GM instead of blue Titans model) are 0_0 they weren't even need to kick Titan ass. Hikaru is bit disappointed, but Roy figures all's well that ends well.

We cut to where the remains of Aleg Base are being raided by your team for anything good to upgrade your arsenal, and Astonaige Mendoza (the ship mechanic of the good guys in Zeta Gundam) reports they cleaned house in that regard:

Puru notes they recovered a lot of former Londo Bell units, and Katz Kobayashi (one of the little kids who tagged along in the original Gundam, adopted son of Hayato Kobayashi and member of Karaba/AEUG, no relation to Aya) confirms the Titans were planning on using them for themselves but you screwed that plan up.

Judau wonders why Katz didn't help out with a mobile suit during the break-out, but Katz retorts he didn't have a suit not under lock and key by the Titans at the time. Meanwhile, Bright Noah has been caught up to speed:

As has Lt. South Burning from Gundam 0083

And Quattro wants to make sure most of their former crew are back together:

They then turn their attention to the Mariemeia Army and Titans at Dakar issues, and Roy has heard a rumor that the Titans have deployed a new weapons, which is basically a Valkyrie powered by a Mobile Doll AI. In the process, Isamu Dyson from Macross Plus (who we will meet later) is name dropped, and we hear he's still helping the Federation with final tests on the new generation of Valkyrie fighters per Macross Plus canon.

We then cut to the Argamma, where the J9 are introducing themselves. In order, they are Isaac Gudenov, AKA Isaac the Razor. Jotaro Kid, aka Blaster Kid. Omachi, full name Angel Omachi (an alias, not her real name, she has her reasons, we'll get to that later), and Steven Bowie.

Banjou and Isaac then discuss the Nubia Connection guys you tangled with a few stages back, and despite Isaac's intel contacts, all he knows is the name of their leader, Khamen Khamen.

That's when Pancho Poncho, the resident shady but on the good guy team business operative of the J9 shows up:

He's basically a grey market dude who serves as J9's business manager and he's namedrops how Duo Maxwell is a member of the Sweepers (a Gundam Wing reference). He's here to make sure the J9's next job is lined up, and he accidentally spills he's basically here to try and get a bonus for the last job, which Isaac is not pleased to hear.

We then cut to another part of the Argamma, where everyone else is getting caught up to speed on the Shu situation. We also get references to Euzeth Gozzo, leader of the Balmar invasion force, who was somewhat aware of Shu's true motives (and Shu allied with the good guys to silence him), and we get references to how Great Mazinger was kept a secret to avoid tipping of the Myceanan Empire (a reference to how Mazinger Z ended and Great Mazinger canon began, as Dr. Hell's death unleashed a worse threat on the world).

At any rate, Shu's enemies are gone, as is anything he built that could be used against him, so everyone expects Shirakawa to eventually reveal himself sooner or later.


And with that, next level we take down the Mariemeia Army. However, since we now have a shitload of nice new units to play with after the Aleg base raid, I'll do a sperg post prior to that explaining our new toys.

 

[GethN7]

Alright, we almost got all the units we're gonna get for most of the game for about half the current cast, so time to do some long term planning:

We got Bright captaining the Argamma now, but everyone else we can shuffle around.

We have the GP-01 and GP-03 Gundams from Gundam 0083 empty by default, and if you're a canon nerd, you can stick Kou Uraki into either, but some people think Kou sucks for the GP-03, so switch to whomever you feel is best.

The GP-01 is yet another flavor of Gundam, nothing special save the fact this is the GP-01Fv (Full Vernier) model Kou got midway through the 0083 series, meaning it works best in space, so-so on land and air, and crap on water.

The GP-03 Denodrium is a mobile armor, meaning it's loaded down with a ton of nice weapons, and this game doesn't bar you from using it on Earth, as canonically it's only supposed to be suitable for space use, but it's effectively useless if not in space or in the air. It's also an energy hog, so attaching parts to reduce energy usage and that restore some energy per turn will let you get some good mileage out of it.

We have Chuck Keith in a GM Cannon, he can keep it, and two GM Customs, enhanced versions of the GM Quels, and while Monsha and Kou pilot one by default, you can swap Burning into Kou's for canon consistency if you want.

GMs are essentially off-brand mass produced Gundams, so they aren't elite units by any means, but you will have to use them in some early stages, and the game will force certain characters to pilot certain units for plot reasons (it will crash in some odd places otherwise).

You have Four and Roux in the Super Gundam, which is basically a Gundam MK-II with an expansion pack that straps some extra weapons on it for sniping. You can swap them to whatever you feel is better later on, they can keep it for now.

Since we're going for the hard route in this game, Quattro/Char will be getting a lot of use out of that Hyaku Shiki, until we can hand down Amuro's Nu (italicized V) Gundam. In the easy route, we could give Char his canon Sazabi, which is the Nu Gundam's counterpart, but we're going for the hard route.

Emma Sheen has no unit by default, so you can either kick Burning out of the ReGZ (Refined Gundam Zeta) he starts in and let her use it while he takes a GM Custom and Kou takes the GP01 or 03, or you could swap her in whatever you like.

She canonically piloted the Gundam MK-II, but the game doesn't hand you more than one.

FYI, the ReGZ starts out in flying mode, and unless you're a dumbass, keep it this way, it's Mobile Suit form sucks ass.

Everyone else from a Gundam series can keep their respective ride.

Daitarn, Combattler, Getter Robo, Raideen, Braiger, Voltes, Dancougar, Mazinger, and especially Great Mazinger and any pilots from those series should keep whatever units they have, do not switch anyone out.

The Macross guys can switch out to any other units of the same type, but I'd leave them alone, they are basically interchangable, and the Macross guys are subject to some weird bugs later in the game where if you aren't in the unit they expect, it WILL crash the game. They are avoidable, and I will mention any stages where these bugs are in advance where possible, so even if you do decide to switch units later, switch back before these bugs or your game is screwed if you didn't save before.

Finally, while the Valsione R and Granveil will be getting a lot of mileage, Masaki will be ditching the Jaohm soon, so don't get too attached. Besides, it's successor is much better.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 7 - Endless Waltz


Next level has two different skill points, depending on whether you decide to ask the J9 to help out on this level or not.

If you don't, you must kill everyone in four turns, not as easy as it sounds even if you cheat, but doable.

If you do, you must kill the first two waves of enemies to prevent the launch of a nuclear missile (happens no matter what on the other route) and land someone on the objective after doing so.

Second one is somewhat easier to do.


Anyway, we resume after Jamaican hauls ass to Dakar, which is just slightly south of Morocco, and Daninghan is getting chewed by his boss Jamitov Hymem for his failure:

Jamitov is also not happy that means most of their bargaining chips against the former Londo Bell/Preventers are off the table now, and when Jamitov asks Bask and Jamaican what they plan to do to counter this, Bask say they plan to have an infiltrator board the Preventer flagship to do some damage from within, specifically Rosamia Badam, whom they tried to pull this stunt with in the original Zeta Gundam, and since they never did this in the original Alpha, they are doing so this game.

They then switch topics to how Dekim backstabbed them, and they have relocated to nearby Kaes base so as to better pull off their nuclear blackmail, and while Bask thought the Balmarians leveled it in the last war, it's intact enough Dekim's using it.

Jamitov isn't really worried since Dekim wouldn't dare destroy the Macross (even those engines Dekim stole aren't enough to cover his energy bill for Project Aegis), and when Jamitov is warned Dekim's bullshit might interrupt the planned ceremony for Jamitov to seize complete control of the Federation (to make it official, more or less), he brushes this off and asks about the deployment of the Ghost X-9's.

Jamaican assures him this went off well and, in reference to the plot of Macross Plus (I'll sperg about this later), it went better than Project Supernova from the same series, but they plan to keep the YF-21 from that project and its pilot for use by the Titans, but the YF-19 and its pilot they give no shits about.

With that, after Jamitov orders a constant vigil around Dakar, we cut to the Argamma, where Kosuke is asks the J9 guys how their machine defies physics with it's transformation sequence.

Usso is interested too, and after Kid and Bowie prove they don't really know, the smart little kid geniuses trope used by Braiger gets played as Shi Rin Ho and Mei Rin Ho (both Chinese) pop out of nowhere to explain how it works:

They explain its physics on the clown car model, and Usso can actually follow along somewhat while the pilots of the machine that depends on this just stand there like dumbasses. Kosuke can also follow along (being Combattler's resident kid genius), and we find out the same Dr. Edmond who came up with Aegis was the guy who worked this crap out awhile back.

We then cut over the bridge, where Bright is stunned to hear a new Federation president will be inaugurated soon, a tip courtesy of Alan Igor, and Amuro draws the obvious guess.

And the Titans wouldn't shut up about it, as Emma heard while being forced to be their stooge:

According to Noin, Jamitov plans to use Lynn Minmay from Macross (who in both the source and Alpha helped broker peace with the Zentradi) to front man his ascension (with a gun to her back the whole time).

Hikaru and Fokker are not pleased to hear that, and Fokker is even more pissed the rest of the Macross crew are under the same threats. Thankfully, the Titans can't simply shoot the Macross crew, since literally know one on Earth knows how to pilot the damn thing or even turn it on save them, but before talk goes further in that vein, Bright's first officer Torres has an important interruption to make:

The Mariemeia Army just put out a message worldwide, and it's basically Mariemeia giving Earth a message of colonial independence and a declaration of war to the Titans, and basically blows the whistle on the gravitational shockwave and the Titans plans to save Earth at the expense of the colonies.

Everyone noticed Relena standing in the background of the broadcast back on the Argamma, and everyone aboard just sees the Mariemeia Army as the Titans mirror image. Omachi pinpoints the broadcast as coming from Kaes Base, and when Kouji asks why they decided to park on an abandoned base on Earth, Isaac explains that their original plans of seizing the Moon Cradle and the lunar transmitter were dashed, so their original plans had to be modified to seize another trump, hence the relocation to where they could threaten the Titans with nukes to get the Macross.

A dumbass plan, given Dekim can't really go through with the threat without fucking himself over, but slapdash plans aren't well thought out.

Isaac further explains the Barton Foundation had helped supply the funds to buildKaes Base,so despite the fact it should be ruined, it must have more than meets the eye, and given the scale of the problem, Banjou says a detour there would be wise. Banjou asks Isaac if he's willing to help, and he is, but Omachi's a bit nervous having to deal with nukes, which, while she's into bombs, is a bit above her pay grade.

It's here we get our choice.

We'll pick the first.

The plan is that the J9 will be the infiltration team, while everyone else distracts the Mariemeia Army by blowing their shit up.


We cut to the battle map, where Dekim has a pretty hefty amount of firepower out front, including two Adrasteas, some Gedlavs, Contios, Leos, Taurus MAs, and Serpents deployed in an arrow formation in front of the base, and he's readying a nuke to fire at Dakar, and thanks to Dekim, it turns out the Barton Foundation is balls deep with the Nubia Connection and managed to set up a nuclear shelter underneath the ruins of Kaes Base.

Relena is aghast at how far Dekim is willing to go, and when Mariemeia tries to calm her down by saying the Macross could take a nuke if it deployed it's barriers at full strength, Relena tries to bring up the Antarctica Treaty, then Mariemeia counters with "then why did the Federation build the nuclear equipped GP-02 Physalis Gundam and why were Luna 2's nuclear warheads still operational?"

As Relena lacks a reply to this, Mariemeia adds that humanity will never let go of weapons capable of scarring the Earth, then segues into the GW movie tagline about war being an Endless Waltz of War, Peace, and Revolution, and as Mariemeia waxes rhapsodic about how seizing Project Aegis will change everything, Relena calls bullshit on using nukes to pull it off.

Then Mariemeia offers Relena a plan for peace: use her influence to convince everyone to throw down their arms, so no need for nukes. Relena's no fan of being used, and thankfully, she doesn't have to be, as the heroic anthem of the Preventers plays, the Argamma appears in the South, and you can pick thirteen units to assault Kaes Base.

Pro-tip: Pick fast movers with high range, ballistic weapons and at least one or two with the Mercy spirit skill, especially if you cheated to full strength upgrades with that last one and went with the "Don't have the J9 help route", you'll have to shoot a nuclear missile down, which means it must be knocked down to 10% of it's HP, and if you use the Mercy skill, it's prevents you from doing too much damage, blowing up the missile, and getting a game over.

Okay, tactical map time:

Have at least one unit with the Mercy skill hang out on the side of the map with the container on the southern side of the map, the victory condition hinges on it.

Otherwise, kill everything in four turns. Keep in mind the Andrasteas are HP sponges.

After a turn of getting into position, hopefully killing some advance units, and a turn of enemy counterattack, Dekim decides to make another broadcast, the battlefield at present, in the hopes their earlier message will sink in.

Once you get the Skill Point or achieve your goal, Banjou and the J9 take that as their cue to slip in, but Dekim's not ready to roll over and die, so he sends out Wufei, some more Serpents, and two more Adrasteas to play with you.

Note, if you have Heero battle Wufei once in this route and leave him alive (killing Wufei is not necessary) after getting the other conditions from the earlier Moon stages done, then Wufei will join you once the stage is over. If not, you'll get him later, but either way it's no real loss to you.

Go ahead and kill the rest of the goons, save Wufei if you want him early. However, be aware that reinforcements will be summoned, so you can use this to milk some EXP if you like, but don't piss all your ammo away, you'll need some.

And, after a few turns, Mariemeia is all smug over how the shelter can't be destroyed, and Relena decides she's HAD IT with just standing by like a coward while watching all the fighting.

And that's when she risks getting her ass shot off like in the movie by grabbing the nearest microphone and telling everyone both Mariemeia and the Titans suck, and she gets yanked away from the microphone as she tells everyone pacifism is great and all, but you need to make sure you can hold onto the peace you've won.

All the Preventers are a bit 0_0 over what they heard, and while Dekim tells Relena her impromptu performance didn't amuse him and Mariemeia asks Relena if she didn't just betray her pacifistic beliefs, Relena cuts through the ideological bullshit and points out it would be suicide for anyone to just lie down and die.

Zechs gets all emo like he's gonna do some heroic sacrifice shit while everyone else takes on the Titans, but everyone else tells him to quit being retarded, they got this, and Char tells his Gundam Wing equivalent that throwing his life away would be really dumb when they could just take all these assholes down together.

With that, just keep killing more Mariemeia goons while getting Banjou and the J9 guys on the base.

I don't plan to cover the don't have the J9 help route later, as the dialogue after Relena's message just changes to have all the more hotheaded guys on the team like Shinobu be impressed at the size of Relena's balls and they tell Zechs his sister isn't being a wuss despite being in the lair of the enemy, so neither will they be the same. The missile must be shot down if you went this route, but you can skip that on the "Hire the J9" path.


We cut to inside the base, where Kamille reports to Lt. Burning the Mariemeia forces have stood down, but Burning wants Dekim accounted for. Kamile reports no, but Isaac and the others have secured Relena's safety, and Kid and Bowie are hunting Dekim down.

Lady Une shows up at this point, having hitched a ride over here, and she gets brought up to speed,and upon hearing about Mariemeia, she immediately heads to have a few words with the daughter of her late boss.

Mariemeia isn't sure what Lady Une plans, but she has no intention of allowing Mariemeia to die (as she was a pawn of Dekim), and Une waxes a little rhapsodic about how she knew Mariemeia's late dad and basically tells her how retarded she was being.

Relena then shows up at this point to hammer home the message, and just as it sinks in, Dekim shows up and he's pissed his plans to rule the Earth Sphere are getting pissed away., confirming he went so far as to join hands with the Nubia Connection to get things done, and he levels a gun at Relena.

She just stands there and tells his sorry ass to shoot if he's determined to do that, but he drops on the spot. As he drops, obviously dead, Isaac isn't shedding tears for the bastard, saying it wasn't part of the job, but instead wants Dekim to face a court of law for his crimes, having only knocked him out.

Everyone hears a hissing noise and the theme of Khamen Khamen starts up (minus the voiceovers), and Banjou shoots the source with a pistol.

A king cobra lies dead where he shot, having bitten Dekim lethally, and Isaac believes Khamen snuck in an animal assassin to silence Dekim if shit went south.


We then cut to the hangar, where Wufei has surrendered but is still in emo jackass mode, but admits his siding with the Mariemeia guys was just him knowing the Titans sucked, but not sure if he really wanted to join up with the Londo Bell guys again (and also him still have colonial independence sympathizes).

Heero then tells Wufei it was a dumb idea and the Mariemeia guys were just the Titans in different uniforms, then gives that little speech he did in canon about he never forgot shooting a little girl and her dog here if you didn't recruit him early, otherwise we get a battle cutscene earlier where he does this.

Either way, Heero (who is voiced by the same guy who does Masaki Andoh) tells him that his Gundam isn't giving him answers about how to avoid killing innocent people, then demands Wufei give him a better answer.

If you recruited Wufei early, he will decide to join there, but if not, he says he still needs to think it over.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 8 - Nubia Laughs


This stage will be the one before Episode 9, where everything will be turned on it's head afterwards, but it's an important one, so after this episode I'll later publish a sperg post because a lot of what this stage portrays will be very important later on and this will save me time explaining stuff later if I do.


We resume with a cutaway to the underground hidey hole of the Mycanean Empire, where Archduke Gorgon is attempting to get his boss' (General Dark) attention, and said boss is a bit cranky:

Note: The actual name of General Dark is Ankoku Daishogun, which literally 'translates to "Great General of Darkness", but since that's a mouthful in English, the translators wisely condensed it.

For those who didn't play Alpha 1, it basically goes through all of the original Mazinger and proceeds slightly into Great Mazinger's plot, where Dark got his ass handed to him so badly by the Londo Bell forces that he decided to cut his losses and hibernate until he was ready for round two. Alpha Gaiden is basically a resumption of the Great Mazinger plot, which the first game abbreviated after introducing most of the core characters so they could use the plot for later games. He finally gets his ass beat permanently by Alpha 2 (though he cameos in a Boss Rush in Alpha 3 at one point), but since they were forced to abbreviate a lot of the character development they glossed over in Alpha 1, this game will handle that part.

Anyway, Dark is wondering why Gorgon decided to wake him up now, and Gorgon brings up how there is some unusual activity in the Central African crust layer of the Earth. Apparently, the Dinosaur Empire (whom the Myceanan allied with) had a machine plant that the Getter guys missed while destroying their crap in Alpha 1), and it's now started up and is producing cyborg dinosaurs (no, really, that's their forces).

Dark points out it's not that unusual, the (presumed) late Dr. Hell was so shorthanded after Kouji's Mazinger kept wrecking his shit he borrowed some Dinosaur Empire troops to supplement his source canon forces at one point. Gorgon, however, says that's not the case, the plant is producing shit on it's own. Dark then asks if the Dinosaur Empire is on the move (since they got their own asses so bloody thanks to Londo Bell they fled underground to hibernate like the Myceanan, their own plot got similarly abbreviated so Alpha 1 could introduce most of the characters), but Gorgon again reports negative, the Dinosaur Empire's main mobile base Machineland is still buried in the magma layer (aka, the Earth's mantle).

Dark now has no clue what's going on, and Gorgon reports an underground structure was built by humanity close to the area the machine plant is. Dark is kinda annoyed by the fact humanity won't even let the underground alone and sees it as invasion of the one sanctuary the Myceanan have, so he tells Gorgon to have a look-see.

We then cut to the Argamma, where Henken is telling Bright he and Giomez will take the Lean Horse and take Relena and Lady Une back to Preventer HQ. Bright is fine with that, as he's heading for Dakar.

We cut to the hangar, where most of the other Gundam Wing ladies (now rescued from the Mariemeia Army) are heading back with Relena, and as Relena is leaving, Tetsuya stops her so he can tell her he still thinks her pacifistic idealism is utterly idiotic, and considering how many enemies besides humans would love to take advantage of peace, it's doubly stupid, but in recognition of the fact Relena proved she's not totally blind to the idea of needing to defend oneself when she risked her ass telling everyone the Mariemeia Army needed to be stopped, his opinion of her has changed.

Hikaru is a bit annoyed at how blunt Tetsuya is being, but Relena doesn't mind, she appreciates how Tetsuya didn't spare his feelings, even taking his words as a backhanded compliment, and, after her and Heero have a brief exchange where he says he plans to end the next fight soon, she acknowledges this like he just announced the weather (their low key way of saying they care about each other), and then she takes her leave.

We cut back to the Argamma bridge, where helmsman Saegusa saying units are drawing near their ship.

Thankfully, it's the good guys, specifically Alan Igor and others with Preventer callsigns.

After a transition, Alan and the others report for duty:

The others include Viletta, Ryusei, Dr. Eri Anzai of the EOTI, and Taro Sarumaru, the resident smart guy of Reideen. As for the other two:

It's Shakti Kareen and Karl, a little kid Usso and Shakti adopted. For those who don't know your Victory Gundam, Shakti was the daughter of one of the people from the Jupiterians (albeit one of the few decent, if utterly impotent, people they had) who defected and Karl was a war orphan that her and Usso took in.

Of course, given they are flying into battle with the Titans, Usso thinks Shakti is nuts for showing up with Karl, but instead of staying at Preventer HQ and keeping her ass out of harm's way, she missed him so much, and Boss trying in vain to chill Usso out (the line is a emulation bug with rendering Boss' jaw)

In the process, Boss' failure to keep his voice down makes Karl cry and Kouji chews him out. And Boss tries, also in vain, to get Karl yo clam down, but look at the guy, anyone think a kid is gonna calm down when you have someone with that kind of mug looking at them?

......I thought not.

Of course, Kouji isn't much better, so Boss gets to yank his chain over this. Marbet then shows up to tell Usso she tried to talk Shakti out of it, but nothing doin on that front, and then Marbet brings up a valid reason to keep Shakti onboard.

Back when the Jupiterians allied with the Balmar, Shakti got fingered as an accomplice simply due to being related to one of their leaders, and the warrant the Titans have out on her isn't gone yet, so this might be the best place for her, ironically enough.

We cut over the Getter team, where Mushashi is letting Ryouma know the Shin Getter is being tuned up for use in Project Aegis now the Titans are out of Japan, and while Ryouma is fine with using Shin Getter in emergency cases, he's pleased to hear that it's getting put back in storage once Aegis is over.

As an aside, Getter Rays are what inspired Spiral Power in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (to the point SRWZ2 essentially explained one is simply a variation of the other) and since Getter Rays can force beings to evolve (and this was even more deadly to the Dinosaur Empire than cold temperatures), so Ryouma's apprehension of Shin Getter (which basically has no limit on the amount of Getter Rays it can tap into) should make some more sense for those who don't know the series.

Then Boss shows up to ask who Dr. Anzai is, and Sarumaru from Reideen explains:

Basically, if it was discovered the Romans had radio, and they obviously couldn't have made them, Dr. Anzai looks into it.

Akira shows up to confirm that, and the good doctor herself vouches for Akira's old man:

FYI, hilarious running gag involving her is that this woman, despite having the "hot scientist" thing going on, she is essentially blind to romance and only gives a shit about her work, and various series lotharios have tried and failed to get her to even notice she's getting hit on by them.

Anyway, turns out her and Sarumaru were doing a followup investigation on the underground empires like the Dinosaur Empire and the Myceanan, and they too noticed that DE plant Gorgon noticed was churning out mecha lizards, and since it's on the way to Dakar, they'd like to briefly check it out.

No one thinks the DE guys have surfaced again, so it's likely the plant got triggered by something nearby, and it appears to be a structure similar to the Moon Cradle built by the Divine Crusaders, and everyone decides to ask Banjou if he knows since he bankrolled a lot of DC projects.

Garrison thankfully remembers the Moon Cradle was supposed to have a counterpart called the Earth Cradle, and it, along with the Macross, were part of a plan to preserve humanity in case shit went utterly south for the human race in general.

However, due to unexplained issues, Bian Zoldark suspended the Earth Cradle project at some point, and no records of it's further construction have ever materialized, and since Shu Shirakawa can move between La Gias and Earth at will, no one thinks he had anything to do with working on it.

And that's when they detect several machines in combat with the mechazoids not too far off.


We cut to the battle map, where several other Elemental Lords are trapped near an abandoned Federation Base, surrounded by mechasaurs.

The pilot of the blue one, Tyutti, she's getting told by her wolven familiars Freki and Geri what we already know, and another name Precia asks what are the Demon Golem like machines (a Masoukishin enemy fielded by Shiva Volkruss' death cult).

Mio, another pilot in the machine next to Tyutti, she explains what mechasaurs are, and we find out they were planning on giving the Cybuster to Masaki and meeting up with the other Masoukishin people, and now they have to fight their way out of this trap and survive.

Meanwhile, a Lan Gran mechanic named Cenia is currently doing some final adjustments to Cybuster, but it still needs Masaki to pilot it, and another named Wendy (who is no fighter) needs protecting too.

Note: Wendy has a thing for Masaki like Lune, but Masaki's somewhat more open to her than Lune, but Wendy actually LIKES Lune and is okay with sharing him with Lune. Kinda helps polygamy is something Lan Gran is totes cool with too.

Anyway, battle map overview time:

The four blue dots are you, with the one at the top left being Cybuster, useless with no pilot, but good news is that there is little chance it'll die before reinforcements show up.

Also, the DE guys are all HP sponges, but thankfully, you just need to hold out till the other good guys show up, which won't take long, so park as many Elemental Lords over the base as possible and just turtle up until reinforcements show up.

The Skill Point will occur when Archduke Gorgon and some Myceanan goons (who are also bullet sponges) show up to investigate, and the Skill Point involves shooting down Gorgon's Myceros, which is hard but doable, as it runs at around 60-65% HP loss, so the killing blow needs to be a strong attack like Great Mazinger's Great Booster coupled with a strong support attack.

There is no time limit on this, so I'm not going to go into graphic detail how to do this, it's fairly simple to figure out. You can choose ten good guy units beforehand when the reinforcements arrive, so make your choices wisely.

In fact, aside from Tetsuya and Gorgon having some words if they fight about how they didn't expect to cross blades so soon, nothing really major occurs save Masaki showing up and getting Cybuster to replace Jaohm (I cover this in the next post in more detail). Also, before the good guys show up, Gorgon will join the mechasaurs in trying to go after the Cybuster, but the good guys show up right afterwards, so no worries on that front.

The really important part though, is when the leader of the Nubia Connection himself, Khamen Khamen, shows himself.

Small aside, Mio's High Familiar attack is FUCKING HILARIOUS. It basically involves two balls of light
smacking the shit out of the enemy, and the final hit has the third ball of light bitch slap the enemy with a giant paper fan.

I swear I'm not making that up.

Anyway, meet Khamen Khamen:

For those who don't want to hunt down the show or listen to this guy on Alpha Gaiden clips on Youtube or Nico Nico Douga, I did you a favor. His voice is ANNOYING.

Anyway, he's actually, while insanely smug, appropriately respectful of the good guys as people to not take lightly, and makes a vague statement about how Nubia will resurrect thousands of years from now, the state is already ruined.

Keep that in mind, it's very important later on in the plot, and it's also where Banpresto diverged from the source, as Khamen's endgame was a bit more immediate in the original show, but how they managed to massage Braiger into the game forced them to alter it, so they had Khamen's original voice actor record some new lines for this game.

Banjou immediately asks if he was the one who killed Dekim Barton, and he admits it was him, as Dekim's role had ended, and then he says the Titans are the same way.

Note, the way he says this is quite important, and while the game never confirms it outright, it implies Khamen was both manipulating the Titans through proxies for his own reasons and that he's familiar with what will happen post Stage 9 (if so, Khamen, who is a believer in the god Atum, may not be bullshitting about how Atum lets him see events to come like he claims at one point), and while he denies his goal is something as mild as world conquest (believe me, it's on a far grander scale than that), he makes an offer to join him that the good guys obviously turn down flat, then decides to play with you for a couple of turns.

His goons are those some weak bee like units from Stage 2, and they suck, but his battleship is actually pretty strong, though once bled dry of energy isn't all that badass.

You won't be able to finish him off, he'll run sooner or later, so just beat on him till he runs to finish the level. Either way, he'll drop some ominous comments about his time is up, it's time for the "ceremony", and when Isaac wonders why Khamen is revealing information so freely, he decides to give you a little hint:

Others have been involved in a similar line of pursuit as Nubia, and you guys are planning to throw a wrench in their plans, and Khamen showed up to both see exactly your angle was and to show his appreciation that you seem to be smarter than he appreciated, then leaves, saying perhaps Atum will reunite the two of you after eternity.

As the stage ends, Bright orders the Getter guys to destroy the mechasaur plant while they secure the Cybuster.

Next post will cover everything in the interim, any miscellaneous information I forgot prior to Stage 9, and then, due to the scale of Stage 9, it will be split into two parts, and for those who followed along to this point, shit will get flipped right upside and take a left turn into WTF land after Stage 9, but everything prior to it will have some bearing on later events.

 

[GethN7]

We resume with the Getter Team reported they finished destroying the plant, and Dr. Anzai and Sarumaru come up dry for any further information what caused the plant to start up.

Beauty speculates it was one of the underground empires that stirred it up, but Ryouma nixes that idea, as Archduke Gorgon was investigating the same thing they were. Isaac then figures it might have been Nubian made, which cannot be ruled out since Khamen was in the same area.

Dr. Anzai isn't so sure, as her best friend, Sophia Nate, was the project leader of Project Ark. She tendered her resignation from the DC after the Project was suspended, and she and all staff went missing afterwards, but where no one is sure.

Isaac then recalls how Nubia helped Dekim build his Kaes base hidey hole and speculates Nubia may have done the same for the Earth Cradle, and while Isaac has no specifics, he was rumored to have contact with the DC, at least it's less savory members.

Garrison then recalls Nubia's people may have had contact with Josesilva Valencia of the Federation's Space Development Bureau, which Omachi seems to be perturbed to hear for some reason. Garrison explains his job was to oversee development of the inner solar system planets following the destruction of the Balmar War, and Beauty points out the connection between that and what is happening on Earth itself makes little sense.

Garruison then turns to Omachi and says her name came up in connection with Mr. Valencia, but Omachi remains silent when he asks if they are related.

Bright cuts the conversation short and says Dakar is a more pressing issue.

Before I cut to the next part, check out this spoiler for a lot of supplementary information provided in a tie-in manga for the series that folds into the above that the game does not dwell on:

Spoiler

The Earth Cradle Project was really suspended due to an incident involving it's chief scientist, Dr. Egret Fehu (mistranslated as Feff in his Original Generation US script appearances for the GBA)

Sometime during the Balmar War, he tricked the Myceanan Empire into fighting Tetsuya Tsurugi not too far from the Cradle so he could gather combat data for his own projects. The chief of security for the Cradle caught him, and even though Tetsuya won the staged fight and Dr. Fehu got that data, Bian Zoldark got wind of this and sent orders through the DC to mothball the Earth Cradle project out of concerns it had gone rogue, based on the report of the incident he had gotten afterwards.

The Cradle was supposed to be abandoned and sealed despite being half finished since, but the chaos from the rest of the Balmar War distracted the DC and it finished in secret with the help of a benefactor I'll reveal later on.

Also, to avoid spoilers, there is a reason the Earth Cradle staff went missing, which will be covered later in the game itself.

We cut to the hangar of the Argamma, where Kouji is again curious about what Masaki is doing, and the choice is a harmless one, so we'll go see that.

We cut to where Cenia Grania Bilsea (one of the Lan Gran royal family and one of Lan Gran's chief engineers) is all hearts in her eyes over all the machines in the hangar:

While she spergs about all the cool mecha, Masaki pointedly accuses her of using her surface trip to test out her own Nors Rei machine, which she dismisses.

Hyouma notices Cenia's nerdgasm and Fa Yuiry comments on how Cenia is connected to royalty, but Cenia's not in line for the throne and tells everyone to just call her Cenia. Kamille is impressed with Cenia's mecha sperging and she's suitably impressed with Kamille's Zeta, which he designed. This gets her mecha loving ladyboner hard as a rock and asks if she can see the blueprints for Zeta, and Kamille is all "uh, sure".

(In the process, she references a machine from Super Robot Wars EX)

Masaki explains Cenia's not just a mecha sperg, she also heads the Lan Gran intelligence bureau, making her their equivalent to the Director of the NSA.

Meanwhile, Fa's getting all jealous at Cenia and Kamille hitting it off, but before she can drag him off, this woman claiming to be Kamille's sister shows up:

For those who aren't Zeta Gundam nerds, as I mentioned in Stage 3, she's Rosamia Badam, who the Titans planted as an infiltrator in the original show with the good guys also claiming to be Kamille's sister. Since Alpha 1 never had Kamille and Rosamia meet in person and they never used that angle in that game, Banpresto had the Titans do it in this one.

Kamille has no clue who she is, and even though "Rosamy" is making some of the other guys drool, Kamille is all "wat?" to her claims of being his little sister, and Fa sensibly asks for proof (she grew up with Kamille after all), Rosamy has a photo of her and Kamille as kids.

Cenia is of the opinion it looks shopped though, and while Kamille and Fa aren't really buying it and they whisper to each other about how they plan to observe "Rosamy" and see what the real deal is, Rosamy's ADD kicks in and she wanders off, and Fa decides to tail her.

Meanwhile, Cenia is all business with Masaki, asking about the feedback circuit of his machine, but all Masaki can think about is "Wendy's here too, isn't she?", to which Cenia is like "Uh, yeah."

Wendy was hospitalized not too long ago, and even though she's not 100% recovered yet, she's here because she's the chief engineer for the Cybuster specifically.

Meanwhile, Kouji and Juuzou are LOLing at Ryusei Date (who is abig mecha sperg for combining robots especially) being all "the Elemental Lords look cool but sucks they don't combine", and as even Lune rolls her eyes at this, Tyutti decides to meet and greet Lune:

Tyutti Norbuck here pilots the Elemental Lord of Water, Goddess. Ryusei shows up and wants a photo of himself standing next to it, and while Sakaya Yumi facepalms, Tyutti is quite amused and tells Ryusei Masaki told her about him, and the original script has Tyutti call Ryusei a robot otaku, which is like calling him some pathetic neckbeard who is basically like the average brony, just over robots, but the translated script calls him a robot nut instead.

Lune points out it's not exactly a compliment, but Ryusei is oblivious. Tyutti then thanks everyone for taking care of Masaki (she's kind of like Masaki's surrogate big sister figure), and as Kouji gets Sakaya jealous and he heads off to calm her down, Mio Sasuga hunts down Ryusei and introduces herself.

In the process, she references her brief cameo appearance in the first game where she almost fell out a window and Ryusei helped her avoid that, and she decides to troll by claiming it was a lovers spat, and as Sakaya is about to crawl Ryusei for being a cad, Mio admits the truth.

And that's when silly shit happens as Mio's three DUCK familiars for her Elemental Lord introduce themselves:

Lune wonders who they are, and the silliest of the three shows up to explain:

They then introduce themselves as "Jun!", "Chosaku!", and Juuzou finishes the joke with this:

Bit of an explanation here; The joke is a reference to Japanese enka singer Haruo Minami, who had three comedians who helped popularize his performances, and this sequence is in reference to that.

Juuzou impresses the ducks, but he chalks his comedic wit up to the fact he was born in the Kansai region of Japan, which would be crudely approximate to the "hillbilly" Appalachia region of North America.

Anyway, Ryusei thinks they are penguins, but Mio specifies they are platypi.

Meanwhile, Lune asks Tyutti about Wendy, and since she's kinda Lune's rival for Masaki, Lune wants to know how outclassed she'd be.

According to Tyutti. VERY.

We then cut over to Wendy, and Tyutti was not kidding:

Masaki is saying the Cybuster tuneup is awesome, but he's a shitty liar, as his adopted little sister pegs the real reason he's happy:

Masaki does the world's worst job of hiding that sort of thing, and that's when Mio and the others head over.

Lune meets Wendy, and to the shock of Lune (who finds it hard to believe Wendy is 27 years old with those looks), her and Wendy not only hit if off, but Wendy ENCOURAGES her to go after Masaki, and we also learn Wendy is on medication since her constitution is still a bit frail.

========


Now that we have the post stage stuff out of the way, let's cover the new mechs on the team:

First, the Cybuster, basically the Jaohm on crack (and if you upgraded any aspect of the Jaohm, those upgrades will carry over)

The Cybuster, the Elemental Lord of Wind, this is basically the Valsione with much more speed, just as powerful, and like the Valsione, has a MAP attack that is pricey but very powerful if fully upgraded.

The Elemental Lord of Water, Goddess, aside from being a tad frail, it has good range and can hit hard, but eats energy like no tomorrow.

Zamzeed, the Elemental Lord of Earth, it's an artillery unit and slow, but a great tank with an ability to recover 10% of its HP per turn.

Precia's Diablo is the jack of all trades of the Elemental Lords, so if you need a decent unit with no really bad points to round out the team, here you go.

And finally, we have Cenia's Nors Rei, which is basically a slightly tougher version of Jun Honou's Venus A with a healing capability.

======

Last, before we close this out,a bit of an introduction for Macross Plus, which shows up next level.

It stars two guys doing a test of new Valkyries for the Earth Federation in something called "Project Supernova", has the two guys engage in some Top Gun shit over a girl they both like, introduces the Ghost X-9 project meant to make human pilots obsolete, and includes some shit where some genius got the bright idea to hook some insane Skynet style AI to the Macross that fucks up everything and needs to be stopped.

Since it takes place 30 years after the original Macross, the SRW writers had to space out usage of the Macross Plus plot.

Since the backstory handled most of the original Macross, the main characters and machines of Project Supernova were introduced in Alpha 1, where they were given emergency deployment to fight the Balmar threat, covering the first third of the Macross Plus plot and during the course of the first Alpha, the two rival pilots would continue to get more jealous over the girl they both liked.

Alpha Gaiden will cover the second half, where they do some Top Gun shit on each other over said girl.

The final part was postponed for SRW Alpha 3.


======


And that covers everything.


Now stay tuned for the next stage of the game that will include the final showdown with the Titans, Shu Shirakawa will find a way to throw a wrench in that, shit gets epic, and then everything takes a left turn into WTF territory towards the end.


Well go into that next time as we cover Part 1 of Stage 9 next, in what promises to be, as the stage title proclaims:


A Festival of Fools...........

 

[GethN7]

Stage 9 - Festival of Fools (Part 1)


The Argamma is speeding towards Dakar, but we've got a problem, as dimensional stability is going batshit around there according to Viletta, but everyone else is like "the Balmarians used warping tech that did this and we stopped them", as summed up by Blugar pilot Shinjugi,

No one is sure why this is happening if the Balmar are gone, but since La Gias had similar stuff happen, Tyutti references Masoukishin events where their defense barrier got fucked up by a similar event, and while they can't pin this on Shirakawa, given how balls deep he is in tech like this and how he played a big role in doing similar stuff, he's suspect number one for the Masoukishin cast.


We then cut to the briefing room, where Quattro (who recalls the Zeta Gundam event where they took Dakar once so Quattro could make the speech denouncing the Titans like he did in Zeta/Alpha 1) is going over the plan.

Amuro explains they've fortified the coast with a lot of guns, Mobile Suits cover the place like ants on sugar, and the Macross sits in the center with a shitload of artillery of its own on hand. The Ghost X-9's are also referenced as new weapons.

Burning then explains the attack strategy. They will form 3 teams.

Team 1 is the fliers who will blitz the outer defense network.

Team 2 is the mobile suits and military bots who will flank from the west and cold cock the enemy MS forces.

Team 3 is everyone else supporting the Argamma, who will move to plug any holes needed by the other two teams, then they will focus on assaulting the core of the enemy force.

While the general parameters of the plan are accepted, the Macross crew is wondering what the Ghost X-9's will be like, particularly Max and his wife Milia.

Hikaru tries to advise caution, but Kazikaki thinks he's a worrywart.

With that, the meeting adjourns, and the J9 debates on whether to get involved, and while Isaac points out it isn't part of their contract, Kid does want to kick the Titans in the balls for reasons of sheer principle, and Isaac gets similar answers from Omachi and Bowie, so the J9 is in.

Mio almost makes a crack here that could get lawyers pissed, and her familiars stop her just in the nick of time.

We then cut to Kamille and Fa, who aren;t sure how to deal with the Rosamy situation, and Hyouma mentions how she sounds like the pilot of the Psyco Gundam from Stage 3, and thet's when the other Newtypes (Quattro, Puru, Four, etc) notice Rosamy, and it makes her freak out and run away.


We then cut to the Macross, where Misa Hayase is bringing Captain Gloval the latest status report.

That when bridge crew member (and Roy's girlfriend) Claudia brings up how it took awhile to get their reactor fixed.

They remark on how they really taxed the shit out of the ship during the Balmar War, and Captain Gloval makes clear the only reason he is doing anything the Titan's want is to make sure the Macross stays intact to keep its role in Project Aegis. Also, the main cannon is the only armament offline, but considering the Titans might want to use it, that's a good thing.

And that's when another bridge bunny patches in a message from Jamitov in to Gloval.

Gloval reports all but the main cannon is running, and Jamitov tells him to keep everything at Level 1 battlestations, and when Gloval subtly tries to press for more information by asking if the presidential inauguration plans have changed, Jamitov just repeats his orders and leaves it at that.

Another bridge bunny finds this a bit suspicious:

Shammy panics, but yet another crew member tells her to calm down, no, another war is not in the cards:

The lightbulb clicks on, and that's when they realize the Londo Bell guys are expected, and Gloval is not happy, as given their close proximity to the Titans, they can't turn on the Titans without the Titans noticing, and the fact they will be at ground zero means they have to cooperate.


Meanwhile we cut over to Titan HQ, where Jamaican is telling Lynn Minmay to stick to the script when the time comes, and Faye Myung (Minmay's Macross Plus counterpart) notices the city is gearing up for battle.

And Minmay's brother Kaifun is pissed at the Titans for making her their puppet:

It's worth mentioning that while he was a total jackass even in his own series, he makes a perfectly valid point here, and Jamaican essentially tells him to sit down and shut up. He also tells Myung Isamu Dyson is also a dead man if she tries anything stupid, and when she tries to play dumb, Jamaican pulls the "bullshit, we checked your backgrounds" card.

As Jamaican leaves, Kaifun engages in some more bitching that everyone in the military is Hitler, and that's when this guy walks in:

He's Guld Goa Bowman, pilot of the YF-21 and rival to Isamu for Myung's affections, and he makes it obvious he's working with the Titans only because he knows Isamu will join the other side and he's jealous as fuck.

He also has another reason, see spoiler for details.

Spoiler

In the original Macross Plus, Guld had a bit of an anger management problem in his teens, one that required medication. Around the same time, Isamu and he really were into Myung, and when he was off his meds one day and caught Isamu about to make out with her, he flipped the fuck out, nearly beat Isamu to death, and, to his later shame and horror, almost raped Myung.

He blacked out on the spot just before doing that last one, and later claimed to have not remembered a thing when he woke up later.

He lied, he remembered everything, and while he still has a torch for Myung, he secretly hates himself for what he almost did to her, though both Isamu and Myung were well aware of his hormonal condition and involuntary roid rage issues and forgave him anyway.

We then cut to where Bask is making final preparations with Jamitov for his boss to get his self promotion, and Bask tells Jamitov for insurance they have some Cyber Newtype pilots on hand they'll be using as extra security, namely Puru 2 and Katejina Loos.

See spoiler for details:

Spoiler

In Gundam ZZ, Puru 2 is the older sister of Puru and one of many in the same child soldier program that created them. Initially made to serve Neo-Zeon, Judau convinced her to defect in Alpha 1 and unlike canon, survived. The Titans captured her after the Balmar War when the Londo Bell got dissolved and basically planning to use her as a windup toy for their own military purposes.

As for Katejina, she used to be a member of the League Miltaire, but decided to try fake defecting to the Jupiterians to play double agent, wound up becoming a real member of them in the source, and eventually got fucked up to the point she survived the series as a cripple in constant agony due to all the horrible shit she did.

In Alpha 1, some of the more horrible shit she did got cut due to how the Victory Gundam stuff got folded into the plot, and while she survived the Balmar War, the Titans captured her and plan to use her like Puru 2.

We then cut to Dakar City, where Jamitov is slinging a line of shit about how the good guys proved utterly fucking incompetent and has the Titans made out to be the good guys, in blatant defiance of the facts.

The lemmings he's addressing eat this up, and the SDF guys are not happy at the role they are forced to play in this farce. Minmay then takes her cue, and then immediately proceeds to toss out the script and tell everyone the Titans are full of shit.

However, just as they are about to yank her off the stage, a machine is approaching.

It's Isamu Dyson in his YF-19, and the resultant dialogue is almost word for word from Macross Plus about how he's kicking ass, taking names, and how he's not going to let his YF-19 get scrapped for the Ghost.

Bask sends out Guld to deal with Isamu, and their little dogfight from Macross Plus plays out here.

However, you have two choices, one of which gets Guld to help you out early, which I recommend.

Stay alive three turns, cutscene happens, Guld appears to shoot Isamu down, turned out Isamu faked a crash landing like he did in the original show, Guld is dumbfounded, but has finally decided it would be better to save Myung together, and the two of them proceed to wreck Titans ass.

Either way, they'll spew word for word dialogue from Macross Plus at each other.


Anyway, the Ghosts get sent out since Guld isn't shooting at you anymore, and let me just stop right here to say this:

I FUCKING HATE THESE LITTLE BASTARDS!

They have to be some of the speediest assholes on the enemy side at any point in he Alpha series, and damn near impossible to hit unless you have the Strike skill spammed and worse, in Alpha 3, those ZAFT pricks from Gundam SEED could MASS PRODUCE these cocksuckers.

Anyway, enough rage from me.

At any rate, Guld will stick behind to fight the Ghost while Isamu seeds for the Macross like they did in canon, but you will want both to survive, so help Guld kill the damn things, the rest of the Titans are jokes compared to these things. In fact, the Skill Point involves killing everything on the map, which I'll show here:

The Ghosts are the little bastards just north of the blue dots, and the rest of the Titans are GM Quels, Asshimars, two Gathebleys, and two Destroid Monsters, Macross specific artillery units that have long range but crap accuracy.

After a turn, some Taurus MAs and two Bawoos (think Bylarants with orange markings and slightly less shit stats) will show up, and Guld will quote the part of Macross Plus where he planned to suicide attack the Ghosts (but he won't die this time), and once the Ghosts are all dead (spam Focus and cross your fingers in-between rounds when attacking them, more or less), kill everything before Isamu makes contact with the Macross for the skill point.

Note, if you shoot down the Ghosts, Bask freaks out and summons three more Tauruses to deal with you two instead, but just laugh as you and Guld kill them too before ending the stage.

Once you've killed everything, Isamu prepares to make landing on the Macross like he did in the show, and that's when Londo Bell launches their attack, as shown in this badass movie clip:

As you can see by the end, things haven't gone according to plan, and next time we'll cover not only the final battle with the Titans, but also Shu Shirakawa, who has finally decided to make his grand appearance.

And unless we stop him, the Earth Sphere is doomed........

 

[GethN7]

Before I do Part 2, just want to fill in some detail on what we'll have to face.

Shu Shirakawa has two forms for his machine, the DCAM-00 Granzon, and it's even more badass looking upgrade, the the DCSMH-03 Neo Granzon.

Here's some HD pics takes from the SRWOGs 2 Dark Prison DLC

The Granzon:

And the Neo Granzon

I'm going to have to tangle with the second model.

 

[GethN7]

I was going to do Part 2 of Stage 9m today, but had some computer issues come up, and by the time I got them fixed, it was a bit late for late, so I'll do it tomorrow.

In the meantime, much like in Namco x Capcom LS, this game has a secret twist, that, if you can figure it out, will let you figure out the entire reason the plot happened.

And since some of this information required playing either Alpha 1 or Masoukishin Part 1,I'll fill in the blanks.


First, Super Robot Wars has several characters who are aware of the other games, as they have some ability to discern their universe has been altered from their original portrayal.

For instance, Kaworu Nagisa from Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the few characters who can remember not only the events of his own series as originally depicted, he will reference other SRW games where he was in in each subsequent appearance.

In Alpha and Original Generation timelines, Ingram Prisken is another character with this ability, and in Alpha 1 he alludes to the classic timeline at one point, stating that the current timeline greatly changed from events that should have happened, hence the Alpha timeline happened instead of the original timeline.

Since this is a universe where Bian Zoldark was taken seriously as opposed to being ignored and forced to get Earth's attention the hard way, this implies something affected the cosmic flow of the Alpha verse beforehand, causing events to diverge greatly from the original timeline, though the cause remains unknown.


Also, remember how I mentioned Shu Shirakawa was a member of the cult of Shiva Volkruss?

Well, it's a death cult, as in, Volkruss' power is derived from death itself, and he has a bit of a jackass genie thing going where if you hand him your soul, he effectively makes you revive if you die, but until you die (and you cannot kill yourself, that doesn't count), your soul is his and he can make you do whatever he pleases.

In the Classic timeline, Shu was a member of the Divine Crusaders in SRW2 then disappeared until midway through SRW3, where he teams up with the good guys, and in the canon ending, he eventually turns on them, saying he allied with you to defeat the aliens since they were a threat to him as well, and now that they are gone, he planned to end your lives and then that of everyone on Earth, and canonically, he was rendered permadead until SRW EX, where he managed to revive minus Volkruss holding his soul by the balls and would later turn on Volkruss by Masoukishin Part 2

The Alpha timeline is about to replay those same events with some key differences, and if you guys can figure out what the difference is from the classic plotline that has altered Shu's endgame somewhat, the events of this game will make a lot more sense in retrospect post Stage 9.

P.S. - One last thing to keep in mind is that Masoukishin Part 1 starts before the backstory of both SRW2 and SRW Alpha 1, meaning the universes diverged AFTER Masoukishin Part 1 played out. Shu was friends with Bian prior to the beginning of Part 1, and had his Granzon built by the DC of BOTH timelines, and it wasn't until Part 1 did Shu join Volkruss and wound up having his soul shackled to Volkruss.

SRW 2 and Alpha 1 start after Masoukishin Part 1.

I won't say anymore to avoid giving away the twist.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 9 - Festival of Fools (Part 2)


We start Part 2 being able to choose up to fifteen units to sortie, and I recommend sending out your best guys, cause this stage is gonna be HARD. In fact considering this the first stage where the difficulty is gonna cockslap you hard if you want some secrets and a ton of EXP and money (you already should have the Skill Point)

However, we can set into motion some secrets if we're smart here, so sortie the following for sure:

Judau and Puru must sortie. Puru 2 is an enemy here, and to get her and a sweet unit, each must engage her once (if they speak, that counts, even if they don't land a hit).

If only one does, you'll get Puru 2 later and her Quebley Mk-II.

If both do, you get her and the Haman Khan model Quebley, which is even better stat wise.

If you don't bother, you'll just get Puru later and have to find a unit for her.

Doesn't matter who else you sortie, but almost anyone who fights the named Titans or Shu Shirakawa who is a major character will get some unique dialouge.

Realistically, don't be a series whore. I don't care if you're a Getterfag or a Gundam cuck, sortie the best guys on the battlefield you have, preferably anyone with the Strike and Valor spirit skills, can deal good damage and have high armor and/or evasion.

Anyway, after you sortie your guys, the Macross guys are happy to see you, but notice the Granzon is right in front of them, but it's got a refurbished look since the Balmar War days, and Gloval wisely tells the crew to hunker down inside the Macross.

Everyone else turns their attention to Shu Shirakawa, who is all "been awhile, hasn't it?"

Masaki is about to bitch the man out, but Banjou realizes Shu responds better to people who don't autistically screech at him and politely asks him what his deal is.


Shu explains he has two objectives: One, he needs to sacrifice a lot of lives to allow it (Shiva Volkruss) to be born (aka brought to full power, though given how Volkruss derives his power this is accurate way to put it), and when everyone calls him on genociding the planet, he says not EVERYONE needs to die, just several hundred million will do, and needless to say, that doesn't really make the Preventers any more comfortable with his plans.

Kouji retorts if Shu really needs someone to be sacrificed, he needs to be starting with himself, and Shu actually takes this under serious consideration.

THIS IS IMPORTANT TO THE END GAME, KEEP IT IN MIND.

He then specifes his other angle: As everyone guessed, he fought with you all during the Balmar War because the Balmarians were kinda on to his real goals and helping you all kill them was in his best interest, but that alliance is completely over.

His reasons for now being your enemy, his plans to kill a ton of people as a sacrifice to a death god aside, is that the world is not in it's rightful form.

This confuses everyone, and he clarifies the history of the universe is altered, specifically, this timestream should not exist.

(Remember my previous post, Shu is alluding to the fact the Alpha timeline happening instead of the classic timeline means time and space are fucked up)

He then tells Masaki he can date when history changed, which is when he and Masaki met back in Masoukishin Part 1 back on Earth, when Masaki briefly got transported back to Earth, ran into Shu testing out his newly built Granzon (before Shu fell in with Volkruss), and after that, the timeline that should have happened diverged.

BTW, this would be the exact fault line between the classic game timeline and the Alpha series timeline.

He then says time gave rise to an alternate series of events than what should have come to pass, and when pressed for details, Shu refuses to answer, but says this timestream is screwed if things continue as they are, so he's hoping to core detonate Earth itself, which is the center of the distorted timeline, and in effect wants to cancel out what caused history to change at its source and eliminate this altered timeline so normal history will happen again, and ealborates if he sits with his thumb up his ass, it will have an effect on other histories as well.

(And he's right, as in Original Generations 2, Euzeth Gozzo [originally from Shin SRW and later SRW Alpha 1], yet another person aware of his role in all games he debuts in, alludes to what Shu said here and references his defeat in the Alpha universe in the process)

He then points out during the Balmar War Euzeth Gozzo was after the same thing for his own goals, and now that you helped kill him in the last game, now it's Shu's turn.

Masaki then says Shu finally admitted he's a evil SOB, but Shu says Masaki doesn't really know enough about him to be able to claim knowledge of his true motives, and Cenia realizes at least part of what Shu is saying sounds like he's reading a script written by someone else. (Volkruss, to be exact)

(Again, he's right)

Banjou then points out, correctly, if the good guys are anomalies of a history that shouldn't have happened, then Shu's own existence is also aggravating the paradox, and Shu pointedly ignores this (while not denying it), instead saying that anyone who knew enough about his goals to stop him is now gone, so now he's gonna kick your ass.

Masaki repeats what Banjou said and says if Shu knows all this and had his thumb up his ass until now, he shares guilt in screwing up the timeline.

Shu concedes Masaki has a point, which is why he's gonna atone by taking you all down.

Meanwhile, the Titans, who have been off to the sides listening in, they decide to ignore the Granzon and go after you for now, hoping to off Shu after you're all dead.

And thus begins the final battle with the Titans and Shu Shirakawa.

Tactical map time:

Shu Shirakawa and the Neo Granzon are at the top end of the map, waiting in front of the Macross, while the Titans are all the red dots on the left side, and they have deployed the finest troops, including SIX Ghost X-9s.

Your other foes include Yazan and his buddies Ramsus and Dunkel in their Hambrabi, Lyla in a Pallas Athene, Buran in his Asshimar, Mauer and Jerid in two Baund Doc, Kackrinon in a Bylarant, Bask in a Sudori, Jamaican in an Alexandria, and Jamitov is in a Dogosse Giar. All the other grunts are piloting a mix of stuff you've seen before.


Shu is nice enough to sit on his ass filing his nails for about half a dozen turns, and believe it or not, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO KILL A SINGLE TITAN TO WIN.

All you have to do is kill Shu Shirakawa.


However, the Titans aren't just going to ignore you, so you'll have to fend them off even if you just plan to ignore them and pour all your fire into Shu's Neo Granzon. Also, have Judau and Puru stay on the right side of the map, you'll want them to speak to Puru 2 when she deploys in a Psyco Gundam, and Katejina has some special dialogue with Usso, but it's not necessary for any secrets later.

Keep in mind all Judau and Puru have to do is SPEAK to Puru 2 each once, killing her unit is not required.

Aside from the Ghost X-9's, you guys can figure out how the Titans need their asses beat, so not going to go into that. However, I will devote some time to Shu.


First off, regardless whether you attack first or Shu does, he is DEADLY.

He has a MAP attack that can do severe damage to anyone caught in the blast radius, and he is smart enough to use it if several good guys are around, and undodged direct hits will cripple or kill you. Your super robots can tank one blast possibly, but two direct shots will kill them.


Second, he has a ranged attack that has excellent range and damage, but fortunately, the accuracy is a bit low, so speedy units can dodge it nicely, but don;t get complacent, it WILL hurt like hell if it connects.

He also has a melee attack he'll use if you're right next to him, dodgable, but does hit hard and can get an easy critical hit.

The HP total of the Neo Granzon is pretty high, to the point if you don't feel like murdering everything on the map and just want to win, I suggest at least killing the Ghost X-9's while conserving as much ammo and energy as possible, then having all your best units dogpile the shit out of the Neo Granzon.

Bear in mind Shu has a chance to regen 10% of his HP a turn and has at least a Lvl2 Psychic ability, so his dodge rate is quite good even though the Granzon moves like molasses. His Level is also higher than anyone else on the map, and the higher levels are, the higher stats are, so DO NOT take the Neo Granzon lightly.

Unfortunately, Shu will not fight any Titans, nor they him, unless they get caught in the blast radius of his map attack, which he thankfully only has two shots of, but given it's power and quite wide range, that's more than enough.


Anyway, once you win, the Neo Granzon goes nova, but no one has a chance to celebrate as that dimensional distortion you guys noticed earlier starts ratcheting up in power all around you, and everyone shits HUGE bricks as time and space go bugfuck crazy:

And then this happens as the stage ends:

 

[GethN7]

I've had a lot of crap on my plate, so I've been putting this off, but I plan to resume soon, but before I do, just want to go over a series that will debut in the next Stage.


The next stage will debut Combat Mecha Xabungle, a post apocalyptic series made by Yoshiyiku Tomino, but unlike what you'd expect, it leans more on the side of optimism than cynicism, mostly because it was made as a lighter hearted work after some of his more depressing stuff.

In fact, he tended to follow up emo stuff with comedic fare, and while this game uses the TV series instead of the movie version Xabungle, which is still somewhat darker as the movie was even more optimistic, it's still a series with some funny scenes.

Most to all of it's plot and practically every character will debut in this game, and even though Gundam X will debut later, most of it's Earth based characters save the main heroes and villains are absent, their roles filled in by most of the Xabungle characters, though this doesn't really hurt the plot of the former series at all.

However, it bears mentioning that even though this game makes a noble attempt at suturing the plots of Gundam X (and Turn A Gundam) together to Xabungle, there is still something of a disconnect between the Gundam stuff and Xabungle that becomes more apparent as the game goes on, but in fairness to the writers, they do their best to disguise it, and amidst all the other plot that happens, you'd only really notice the issue if you were a hardcore Gundam nerd too autistic to accept a crossover had to make some sacrifices to work.

It also bears mentioning the Xabungle mechs are very goofy looking, and they run off gasoline.

No kidding. These things run off plain gas, and are still somehow able to maintain parity with stuff with nuclear engines and stuff that runs on various fantastic applications of particle physics, but I suggest you not think too hard about it and just roll with it, the animations and attacks they do are hysterically funny.

Also, if anyone here has seen the series Overman King Gainer, then the plot will strike you as familiar, as OKG is basically Xabungle, just moved from a Mad Max like setting to Siberia. Tomino also produced both.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 10 - Off In A Distant Time


We begin Stage 10 with a scene that is shot by shot remake of Xabungle's first episode, right down to the opening narration title card:

"It was a planet once called Zora, But people have long since forgotten that name.


We then cut to Tetsuyu Tsurugi and Jun Honou from Great Mazinger, both of which are very confused, as this obviously isn't Dakar.

All this do know is that they won, it was nighttime in Dakar, and wherever they are now, it's daytime and their communicators aren't working worth beans.

In the middle of all this Tetusya is a bit of a dick and says if everyone else but them died, fuck'em, to which Jun is understandably a bit upset by, as Tetsuya isn't usually this cranky.

And that's when they hear a loud crash in the distance.

Both decide to check it out, and that's when we cut to a wild west style town surrounded by various mecha, currently being raided by some other robots led by some tomboyish chick named Rag.

They see the Boss Borot and notice it doesn't look like Innocent tech, but Rag and her friends Burume and Dike decide it's not important as from what they heard, it has similar controls to a Walker Machine (standard unit in the Xabungle verse).

BTW, this is a playful poke at the fact Boss' robot is literally a shoddy looking POS slapped together with vaguely humanoid parts that has a slapped together cockpit with very rudimentary controls. Xabungle's units have an eerily similar look on the inside, hence the comment.

They mention someone named Jiron whom Rag trusts implicitly but the others aren't so sure, and we learn they are called the Sand Rats, and they are trying to swipe some shit from another group named the Callingers, and Dike is worried they won;t be able to evade revenge for three days.

FYI, in this Mad Max like setting, the law is that if someone commits a crime and evades justice for three days, you have to let them off. Sounds jacked up, I know, but it's a Xabungle plot point.

Meanwhile, two guys named Geraba and his brother Hola have noticed the Sand Rats, and says they'll guard the Iron Gear (the big ship behind the Borot), while he sends the machines called Duggers to deal with the Sand Rats. Elche, captain of the Iron Gear, she's not happy Hola's giving orders without clearing it by her, and as Hola tries to calm her down (he has a thing for her), she's still pissed, by her helmsman Cotset advises her to sit there and assess the situation while Hola and his troops do their thing. He gets a little shit for calling her "Miss" instead of "Captain" in the process.

Anyway, fight begins, but let me go over your units, good and bad.

First, the Sand Rats (your team) pilot Gallops, as do some of the enemies:

Gallops are basically bottom rung units in Xabungle and while speedy and decent a long range, they are pretty frail. Upgrade away from these (more on how later) ASAP.

Some of the enemy Breakers (common Xabungle term for pilots) are pilots of Duggers:

While having higher HP, these things are otherwise frailer than Gallops.

And the boss here (who must be killed in four turns for the Skill Point) is Hola in his Promeus:

First, yes, Hola does have a chin that looks fake, I know.

As for his unit, it's a definite jump in stats from the first two, and it can do some nasty damage as well.

Now for the battle map.

First off, you get reinforcements very close to Hola to kill his ass before four turns are over, so the Skill is very easy to get, so don't worry about the Sand Rats being so far away, just collect the containers along the way and have them play defensive this battle, their units are pretty crap.

Great Mazinger and Venus A will show up near the Iron Gear just south of the northernmost container to help out as well.

Anyway before I continue, notice the UI has changed somewhat:

The "BS" stands for Blue stones, which can be found in containers, and smaller amounts drop from killed enemies. This is alternate form of currency you be able to spend at shop that will unlock after this level, more on that later.

The "Moon" part refers to if the Moon is out. If you know anything about Gundam X, this is self explanatory, but if not, I'll get to that later.



Around turn two or so of the fight, a guy named Jiron will try to carjack a blue mecha with his buddy Chiru on the Iron Gear not too far from Hola's position. At the same time, Elche realize the Sand Rats are luring Hola's troops into a trap, but they are too late as Jiron and Chiru bust into the Iron Gear and jack the Xabungle.

Or they try, but first they try Boss' Borot and discover it won't move. Meanwhile, Hola seems to letting this drama continue until he can swoop in and play hero at the right moment.

Around turn three, Jiron and Chiru will instead jack the two pieces of Xabungle, and then one drives into the back end of the other, combining into the Xabungle proper.

Elche wants Hola to get the Xabungle back without damaging it (while being impressed Jiron figured out how to combine the parts so quickly), but Jiron has other things on his mind, like using the machine to avenge his parents and commenting on how it looks even more humanoid than most other Walker Machines, apparently the latest Innocent derived machine.

Jiron still doesn't have the controls down yet, but Hola doesn't give him a chance to react before getting a glancing blow off on the Xabungle. And, contrary to Elche's wishes, this breaks the wings off the machine in the process, and that's when Hola, who has temporarily immobilized Xabungle, decides to quit being nice, and reveals despite his hard on for Elche, he's a two bit thug who threatens to core detonate the bridge of the Iron Gear if Elche doesn't acknowledge he's the new owner of the ship (which was passed to Elche from her father).

Hola decides to double his winnings and also tell Elche he wants her as his wife, but she's not thrilled about either handing over the ship or becoming Hola's spouse.

And that's when Jiron and the Xabungle recover, and Jiron gives Hola a piece of his mind:

Before we get on to punching Hola's shit in, let's cover the Xabungle:

First off, it's a pretty decent mecha, about as good as a mid-high tier UC Gundam unit, has two pilots, and Jiron Amos has the Guts ability, which is like the Prevail skill that increases stats the lower HP gets on crack.

In short, while the machine is good at short and long range, Jiron can Fist of the North Star assholes left and right once Guts kicks in with melee attacks. Works with ranged attacks too, but melee is best use of the machine.

By the start of turn four, Hola calls reinforcements and reveals he sabotaged the Iron Gear's engines as a just in case., and repeats his demands to Elche. Elche's response is to tell a crewman named Fatman (who is really a wall of muscle) they are kicking some ass instead.

Cue another Xabungle (with unbroken ornamental wings on the shoulders popping out of the Iron Gear, this time piloted by Elche Cargo (that's her family name), and Rag (who has thing for Jiron) is a bit jealous of how friendly her and Jiron are getting. Hola assumes Elche still is saying no, and Elche makes it clear he's right. Geraba snarks his brother Hola is poor with dealing with rejection in response to Hola's insistence they capture Elche instead.

By this point, Jiron should be able to just punch Hola in the face for the skill point, and then Elche should team up with Jiron and the Sand Rats to wreck the other goons.

Also, here's Elche's Xabungle.

It's functionally identical to the other Xabungle, it just has some ornamental wings attached.

Also, Elche has her own subpilot, Fatman, who, like Jiron's subpilot Chiru, compliments Elche's skillset nicely.

And while it can't move right now, let's cover the Iron Gear battleship:

It's actually slightly worse than the Argamma at present, but it gets a lot better as the game wears on. It also has a secondary mode I'll cover later. For now, it's a decent gun battery if nothing else.

Anyway, after another turn of easily laying waste to Hola's goons, he'll summon even more, to Jiron's exasperation, though Geraba, to Hola's annoyance, lets slip that's all they got.

And that's when Great Mazinger and Venus A appear to the north, and Elche speculates (correctly) they know the pilot of the Boss Borot (currently in the Iron Gear's brig because he wouldn't calm down), and Elche gets Tetsuya on the horn and offers to turn over Boss and his machine in return for some assistance.

Tetsuya's a bit skeptical, but they are seeing the Boss Borot, so he and Jun shrug and decide to pitch in for now.

With them helping out, killing the rest of the goons should be retarded easy. You'll also get some dialogue where Tetsuya still isn't sure what Walker Machines are in the process.

I'll cover what happens after in another post.

 

[GethN7]

Before I continue on with the post Stage 10 stuff, bit of an explanation concerning a joke around Elche.

Her father was named Calling Cargo, but it can also be transliterated Caring Cargo due to how Japanese has that weird issues with L's and R's being interchangable in translations.

The joke is that her dad's name sounds like "Carrying Cargo".


Anyway, back to the post Stage 10 stuff.


Jiron is about to split now that Hola got his ass beat, but Elche offers to let him KEEP the Xabungle in exchange for working for her to replace Hola's goons as security guards, and Rag takes her up on the offer, figuring teaming up with a boss willing to give them room and board is a good deal.

As the stage ends, she asks Tetsuya and Jun to come aboard the Iron Gear too.

Aboard the Iron Gear, Cotset is a bit concerned about Elche's on the spot decision to hire the same guys who tried to steal their shit, and one of the Sand Rats takes offense:

And Chiru is also insulted, considering Cotset's concern to be a blow to his pride:

Elche, however, sees the whole fracas that went before what amounted to the Sand Rats submitting their job applications, much like how a hacker might get hired by the government as an alternative to prison for proving the government's security was shit.

Rag, however, correctly believes Elche has a....nonprofessional reason for wanting to hire Jiron in particular:

This almost starts a catfight, but Tetsuya heads that off and says he'd like to ask a few questions.

She introduces herself, says they are at Elche's trade bazaar, and then she turns the questions on him, wondering if he's affiliated with the Innocent.

Both Tetsuya and Jun are confused and say no, and Dike of the Sand Rats points out the obvious:

Tetsuya then wants to know what year it is by SE dating (the measurement used in the Alpha verse), and when the Xabungle guys are confused, Tetsuya gets a hint what time period he's in,and it's definitely not his own.

Jiron pops in at this point, still in shock he got to keep what he tried to jack:

She confirms that's in exchange for working for her, and he's cool with that, and we find out he wants to eventually find the bastard who killed his parents and kill the son of a bitch. Cotset then brings up the 3 day limit, and Jiron evades the question, not really caring, he just wants the asshole dead for his crimes.

And the stage has ended now, but take a look at the Intermission screen:

That Bazaar setting means you can spend your blue stones for parts for your machines, and even buy new machines in exchange for blue stones.

In Xabungle, the baazar was a in-universe barter economy for mechs and parts, and in SRW games featuring Xabungle, this means you can buy all sort of cool shit, including units from other series (non specific to certain pilots only)

However, before anyone gets all thrilled, this system has some limitations and bugs.

1. You can have only 9999 blue stones max. Do NOT try to hack in more or shit will crash.

2. Don't compulsively splurge via hacking and buy everything every stage the Bazaar is around, as bringing any amount of any part over 9 will cause the game to fuck up and can corrupt your save file. Thankfully, you can avoid this by checking your supply of parts beforehand.

3. Only certain units are available in the Bazaar per stage, and causing any of the bugs mentioned above will cause an overflow error that lets you buy weird stuff like spare Argammas and other dummied out stuff, but doing so will fuck up the game hard.

tl;dr: Even if you want to hack the game, keep this in mind, this part of the game had some shoddy coding.

However, there is a cool bonus you can get if you sell any spare unit you upgraded to max stats: You'll get a small thank you message and some bonus high grade parts back in exchange as well as some blue stones.

Anyway, protip, here's what's available in the Bazaar for now:

Units:

Dugger x 1 (Xabungle unit)

Parts:

Booster x 3
Propellant Tank x 3
Repair Kit x 3


I'd at least purchase a Dugger and give it to Fatman, he's got stats to make it work for him and cancel out any downsides it has.


I cover all succeeding stages and what their Bazaars have, and bear in mind there is a cutoff point where the Bazaar is no longer available, I'll warn about that later.

 

[Kiwi Jeff]

Now I'm really starting to miss Xabungle. I need to watch it again someday.

Spoiler: Unrelated: best Xabungle song

 

[GethN7]

Now I'm really starting to miss Xabungle. I need to watch it again someday.

Spoiler: Unrelated: best Xabungle song

You'll be pleased to know this game covers every major plot point worth mentioning from that series.

 

[GethN7]

Before I resume, going to mention some miscellaneous trivia you guys might find funny, informative, or cool, take your pick.

Remember the GM Quel, the dark blue Titans model GMs? Well, the name is an acronym for "Qualified to Use Earthly Law".

That's right, the Titans are so freaking Nazi their damned robot names spell out their Earth supremacist views.

Another bit of interesting trivia is that a side story, semi-official manga was once made about Jiron Amos piloting the Boss Borot (following up on how it got mistaken for a Walker Machine in Alpha Gaiden), and while that thing is usually considered such a joke mech it can die and merely cost 10 credits to restore to full health for the next stage, Jiron turns the Borot into a badass motherfucker that is doing crazy shit that would make Getter Robo fans have an orgasm from the sheer manliness.

If I can ever hunt it down I'll post a link to it here, it's pretty damn awesome.

Another bit of interesting trivia is that despite how dogshit the code of Alpha Gaiden is (being a hack of Alpha's source code and assets, essentially being what Fallout New Vegas was to Fallout 3), it was the engine that would be the foundation of all succeeding SRW games, which would further clean up the code and make further improvements on what Alpha Gaiden did.

In fact, the first PS2 SRW game, SRW IMPACT, it's engine is basically a direct port of Alpha Gaiden's with some code cleanup.

Also, if you're a Gundam Sentinel fan (the interquel between Zeta and Double Zeta Gundam), the original plan for it was to be portrayed after Alpha Gaiden, since the fall of the Titans in Alpha Gaiden would have been a great jumpoff point for it, but Alpha 2 had so much leftover Gundam crap to resolve that got bundled into their retelling of Char's Counterattack it was delayed until Alpha 3, though they still left some assets in the game files, and parts of Alpha 2's early story were meant to tie into it and were hastily retooled at the last minute, so for Alpha 2 players, if you noticed any weird discrepancies in the followup to the Titans plot in that game, now you know why.

And then the asshole who directed Alpha 3 got a big boner for Gundam SEED and basically shoved the Gundam Sentinel plans into the garbage in favor of shoehorning SEED into a plot where it made no damn sense, with the justification for it amounting to the characters and plot of SEED being there since the first game, just none of them started shit till the final game, which makes no fucking sense whatsoever, since SEED is essentially a semi-retool of the premise of the original Gundam and it makes little sense to pretend it's world setting existed since the first game and we never noticed until the fourth game.

The Gundam Sentinel assets from Alpha 2 are still in Alpha 3's files, and it has never seen the light of day in a SRW game since.


Also, remember how I said SRW Alpha is an alternate timeline from the classic series? Well, in the classic series, Char Aznable stayed good and never decided humanity was too fucked to give a shit about, and in this alternate timeline, he follows canon and will turn asshole again by Alpha 2, this game will just give him a slightly different reason he decides Earth can go fuck itself.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 11 - Why'd Ya Break the Law?


Stage 11 has a really easy skill point, so I'm gonna get it out of the way now. Just kill the first group of enemies in three turns. Your biggest issue will be that they will try to use distance in their favor, but stick boosters and anything that boosts attack range on your best units and kick ass, skill point is yours.


We resume this level with Boss finally being released from the Iron Gear brig, where he's still wondering WTF is going on., and a medic helpfully explains how Boss got there:

The medic then asks if you're with the Innocent, and when it's clear you're not, he explains the Innocent are essentially the government, and they live in domed cities where they provide the walker machines and supplies.

However, when Jun assumes this means they are benevolent, the medic's answer is less than reassuring, implying the Innocent's benevolence has some strings attached. We finally get the walker machines explained, they are basically robots in Xabungle terms, and we also learn there is no TV news in this time and place.

As the medic leaves you guys alone, Tetsuya comes to the conclusion they are on another world.

We then cut to the ship hangar where Jiron is all 0_0 over how Great Mazinger is HUGE,and Cotset smirks as he says Jiron has seen nothing yet, and we find out Rag agreed to work for Elche to eventually gank the Iron Gear sooner or latter, she had no plans of long term employment.

We also find out what the blue stones are for. Basically, the Innocent have the Breakers collect them, drop them off at their supply depots at the domed cities, and in exchange the Innocent give the Breakers supplies.

Why, we'll get to later.

Meanwhile, Tetsuya works out a deal to work for Elche until he and his friends get the info they need and find their friends. We also find out this is indeed Earth and the Innocent are the remaining guardians of high culture on this planet.

And that's when the Iron Gear is attacked.

As we cut to the battle map, we find out the Breakers who are attacking are doign so on the behalf of some prick named Timp.

The goons are a bunch of Gallops and Duggers, and killing them all in three turns shouldn't be too hard if you want the Skill Point.

After a turn, we find Timp is watching from a vantage point to see how his little ambush works out.

As he does so, he notices Jiron and realizes he's seen him somewhere.

Once they're all dead, Elche realized it wasn't much of an ambush, and Timp not only realizes the Iron Gear troops aren't too shabby, he also notes the Great Mazinger, saying to himself it must be one of the Irregulars the Innocent were talking about.

And that's when Timp is spotted by Fatman, and Timp in his Government (his Walker Machine) is revealed.

Jiron sees it, and he knows who the SOB piloting it is, and he gets ripshit PISSED.

Timp is the motherfucker who murdered his family, and when Timp points out the three day limit is over, Jiron doesn't give a fuck as he attacks Timp.

The attack is little more than a glancing blow, but Jiron is raring to make this a fight to the death. Timp tries to get him to back off by saying it's been a week, get over it, but Jiron doesn't give a damn.

The Xabungle guys want to get Jiron to calm down but realize it's pointless, and Boss is planning to break out the popcorn while Timp gets his ass fucked up.

Tetsuya gets a choice to stop Jiron or not, and all it does is change some dialogue, and I'm going with the latter.

If you try to stop him, Jiron isn't listening, and if you go for the latter, Tetsuya's all for watching a murderer get his comeuppance.

Either way, Timp calls in some reinforcements. Timp then runs like a bitch after some shit talk, leaving you guys to deal with the remaining Breakers, and some are trying to fuck up the Iron Gear, which is still undergoing repairs.

And that's when Elche decides to play her trump card and orders Cotset to make the Iron Gear transform.

Despite Cotset's concerns it will break the ship further, he does so, and the ship turns into a big as hell robot that's about Daitarn 3 sized now.

Here's the Iron Gear in mech form:

Note it moves slower in this form, but gains a powerful melee attack.

Anyway, the remaining enemies are some more Duggers, so just kill them all. There are aslo two new machines, called Capricos:

These things are decent artillery, but are weak close up.

Once you kill all the goons, Timp was watching from far off and says he'd better pass off future attempts to Vickman.

After the battle, we cut to the Iron Gear, where Elche wants to know why Jiron went full retard. We get a recap of how Jiron is past the limit for payback, and everyone is both amused Jiron doesn't seem to care and concern his disregard for the law could invite reprisal by the Innocent.

Tetsuya thinks the 3 day limit is utter bullshit, and Jiron still doesn't give a damn, Timp is gonna die sooner or later, to hell with the Innocent or anyone else who wants to stop him.

We finally get to see the world map after the cutaway, and while before it looked like our Earth, this is quite different:

In this version of Earth, the world is lot closer to Pangaea, or when the Earth was supposed to be one big landmass.

We then cut to the Innocent P-Point, where Timp is reporting to Innocent leader Dowas.

As you can see, Timp looks like every cliche black hatted villain in a cowboy movie.

We find out Timp wants better compensation for risking his ass, and Dowas tell Timp to watch his mouth, he's under Innocent employ, but Timp reasonably points out the threats he's up against require higher firepower than he's got.

Dowas says he's got a plan for that, and even though Timp points Dowas' boss Biel is planning to let the Iron Gear crew off with a slap on the wrist, Dowas has other ideas, and Timp works as someone to keep the Breakers fighting amongst themselves at Innocent behest.

We also find out they have a Mad Max like rule of law, but only so long as the Innocent don't feel threatened, the Breakers can otherwise do what they want. We also find out Vickman will be the one to give the Iron Gear its punishment, though he was originally supposed to be an Innocent countermeasure against the people from the Moon.

Timp is given his orders to get Vickman to do his job, but Timp wants some info on these moon people, which he doesn't really believe in, but more info is always good. Dowas tells him not to concern himself with that, but anything he can find out about the Irregulars (the Preventers), Dowas wants to know about ASAP.

As the stage ends, here's what's in the Bazaar.

Units
-------

Dugger x 1

Parts
------
Chobham Armor x 3
Dust Filter x 1
Propellant Tank x 3
Repair Kit x 3

Purchase a Dugger if you like, but better stuff will be available in a few stages.

 

[GethN7]

A few notes before I resume.

The "Moon People" refer to the guys from Turn A Gundam. They don't interact with the Innocent half as much as they do everyone else, but this is because there really wasn't a lot of material to work with here, so the Moon Race villains tend to leave the area the Xabungle plot is concentrated in mostly alone, though if you see the map above, part of the reason is due to the fact the Innocent live in the shittiest parts of the planet, and the Moon Race wants to take over, according to Turn A plot, the parts of Earth that are halfway decent in terms of supporting more than tumbleweeds, so they have a good reason to stay away from the more Xabungle centric areas.

Also, if anyone listens to Timp's voiced lines, he'll refer to Jiron as "nii-chan", which means "little brother, but since Japanese is a contextual language and Timp obviously has little respect for Jiron, he's essentially denigrating the guy like a bratty little brother.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 12 - The Mysterious, Unknown Innocent


We start this level with Vickman getting filled in by Timp about the Iron Gear crew:

Timp is selling Vickman a load of goods about how the Iron Gear guys are gonna horn in on Vickman's turf if he doesn't stop them, but Timp almost overplays his hand by trying to kiss Vickman's ass and Vickamn calls him on it, having gotten the hint on his own.

Vickman is bit concerned that Timp wants him to cap ther Iron Gear so close the domes, but Timp brings up how Jiron ignores the 3 day limit on crime vengeance, and that gooses Vickman into being willing to do it.

Timp then advises Vickman to be careful, and Vickman gets smug,pointing out not only does have his Delavasglan (his landship), he's got a few trump cards to deal with any special Walker Machines the Iron Gear might have, but plays coy on what they are. Vickman then comes close to realizing who Timp is working for, but Timp dflects this supicion by saying he has a score to settle with the Iron Gear crew, and he's dropping a tip on Vickman since they share enemies.

Vickamn accepts this, then mentions the machines different from Walker Machines, and Tim realizes Vickman is aware of the Irregulars, and Timp realizes Vickman is not stupid and that attempts to bullshit the guy should be made carefully. Meanwhile, Vickamn realizes Timp has told him merely an abbreviated version of the truth, but let's it go for now, noting to himself he needs to double check his trump cards, and the scene ends as Vickman orders a crewman to bring the five pilots of his trump cards to the bridge.

We then cut to another part of the ship, where we discover Vickman's trump cards are the Voltes pilots, whom Vickman has pressed into service. Megumi used her 133t kunoichi skillz to do some recon, and reports their machines are under tight surveillance, so escape with them will be hard. She also confirms the ship is a clusterfuck of new and old technology, and while Kenichi is for voluntarily sticking around a little longer to see what they can learn, team member Ippei Mine thinks they should cut and run first chance they get and gets into some words with Kenichi, prompting the other team members to try and stop the fight.

Megumi then settles them down by saying the ship crew have been talking about unknown machines nearby, which must be Preventers, so sticking around will lead them to their friends.

Vickman calls them to the bridge at this point, and Vickman says they are going into battle and says he wants their help. Ippei points out they have no obligation to fight battles against people they don't know,and Vickman alternates between good cop and bad cop, first going good cop and admitting that's true, but he's fighting against those who would disrupt order and would like them to help himenforce the law.

When asked what happens if they refuse by Kenichi, he goes bad cop, and Megumi has agun pointed at her by Timp, who tells her not to move., and then Vickman goes good cop and says he regrets this, but the law of the fittest is how things work in this world, and Timp is quietly impressed Vickman got some Irregulars to help him out.

We then cut over to the Iron Gear enroute to where Vickman lies in ambush before the Innocent dome P-point, and Elche points out the Innocent really don't like fighting near their domes because it's barbaric.

And that's when they notice Vickman's forces gearing up for battle, in defiance of Elche's earlier comments.

We cut to the battle map, where Elche is shocked Vickman is attacking, he's basically a high class escort for important Innocent VIPs, and while Elche is reluctant to fight back, Vickman sorties his forces, figuring he can explain the circumstances to the Innocent later, and since he's eliminating a troublemaker who breaks the law, he figures they'll consider it a public service.

Meanwhile, the Iron Gear forces sortie, and Elche is told Vickman gonna kill them if they don;t fight back, so her objections are noted, but survival trumps her concerns. Elche settles for telling them to stay away from the domes at least, and the fight begins.

First, the Skill Point for this stage is simple: Vickman's ship must be shot down. It will retreat around 60% HP down, so have Tetsuya team up with someone else while using Tetsuya's best attack in tandem to kill Vickman's ship, which is this thing:

The battle map:

Vickman's ship is the northernmost red dot, and he's got a bunch of Duggers, Promeus, and Capricos as guards. Ignore the dome like Elche said, there is no reason to go near it in this level anyway.

After you kill a few of Vickman's goons, he decides to call out the Voltes team.

However, like in Stage 3 with the Combattler team, only some sortie, and Vickman is keeping the rest as hostages to make sure they comply. However, Kenichi didn't launch and instead is planning to buskwhack Vickman and rescue Megumi. Ippei faceplams, but he tells the other Voltes guys to buy time and put up a show of trying to kill you, meaning DO NOT SHOOT DOWN ANY VOLTES MACHINE.

Meanwhile as Tetsuya recognizes the Volt Machines, Megumi tries to use her kunoichi talents to sneak out of their, but Timp, like any good cowboy, is too quick on the draw and warns her she eats a bullet if she tries. The free Voltes team members relay the situation to Tetsuya, who tells the others to not aim at the Voltes machines until their friends escape Vickman's ship.

FYI, until the other Voltes team members escape, that means Vickman's ship cannot be shot down,but don't worry, once they do, it's fair game.

Just use this as a chance to build up the Will of the units you'll use to murder Vickman's ship in the meantime.

A few more turns,Elche asks if they still need to buy time, and that's when Timpnotices Kenichi about get the drop on him on the bridge of Vickman's ship.

Kenichi realizes Timp has the whole cowboy thing going, so he decides to challenge Timp to a quick draw duel, and they even got Timp's voice actor do some custom lines for this scene.

One gunshot later, it appears Kenichi lost the duel, but it wasn't a fatal hit, and Jiron realizes Timp is on the bridge, prompting Jiron to go batshit on Vickman's ship.

Timp calls Jiron a melonheaded punk (Jiron gets called a melonhead a LOT, carried over from the source), but this works in Kenichi's and Megumi's favor, as the distraction gives them a chance to haul ass and deploy their machines.

Timpand a few more Capricos deploy in response, but in response to Vickman's bullshit about being in the right, Kenichi tells him that if he's thinks he's on the right side taking hostages, he's full of shit, and that's when the Volt Machines combine in Voltes to give a Vickman a piece of their mind.

Timp doesn't get it until their machines combine, and Timp's eyes go all 0_0 as he realizes the tables have turned afterwards. Vickman calls Timp on trying to flee, but he just leaves Vickman a warning the Innocent are watching as he flees, in the direction of the dome.

This means if you want, you can kill the Capricos, Timp if you can, and now Vickman.

FYI, killing Timp will get you a Hybrid Armor part, so no reason not to ice the bastard.

Once you kill them all (and even if you destroy Vickman's ship), it will still be able to get a second wind, but before you can finish them off, the dome shakes, and it appears to fire something that looks a missile out of it:

Vickman uses this as a chance to flee as the Iron Gear crew calls what they see 'The Ascencion of Light".

As he does, he makes a blatant mockery of the fourth wall:

As the stage ends, Tetsuya remarks "The Ascension of Light" looks more like a rocket or shuttle launch.

After the battle, we cut to the dome, where Dowas is pissed got his ass beat and forced them to do the ascension.

That's when his boss, Director Biel, shows up:

I'll just spoil it now, Biel isn't an asshole like Dowas. In fact, you can tell which Innocent are utter pricks by which ones are good looking and which ones are butt ugly.

The more they lean towards fugly, the bigger dicks they are.

After getting Dowas' report, he makes this comment that will mean a LOT to Xabungle fans, and if you aren't one, I'll explain it later.

We'll meet this Arthur Rank later, and he's another one of the Innocent who isn't a POS.

Dowas then gets reprimanded for being careless, saying Dowas' connection with Timp will get out if he keeps it up, and Biel says to just continue to observe the Iron Gear crew for now. Dowas objects, but Biel cuts him off with this remark:

As I said before, the Innocent take the place of the earth based human forces from Gundam X and some extent Turn A Gundam, and they altered the plot like you see here to suture the series together, as the Innocent take the place of the enemies of the Moon Race in the backstory, more on that later.

As the stage ends, Dowas yes sir's this and leaves, and Biel leaves us with this final, Xabungle centric remark:

"Jiron Amos....the Humanity Restoration Project has entered it's final phase....."

------

And now that the stage is over, Bazaar time:

Units:

Caprico x 1

Parts: (only new stuff noted)

HP Gas Engine x 1


The Caprico is a nice upgrade, Gallops suck ass, so you might want to get that.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 13: Sanctum of the Innocent


We start this level with Jiron yelling about how Timp ran for cover in the Innocent dome and how that's no coincidence, but everyone else points out the Innocent generally don't let people waltz in without a pass and blue stones.

Jiron counters, correctly, that Timp is under Innocent aegis, but Cotset thinks that's retarded. The other Sand Rats think Jiron need to guzzle some "Lol, calm down", and point out even if Jiron is right, the domes are neutral ground, so no matter how pissed Jiron is, neither he nor Timp can start shit in one.

We then cut inside the dome, where Biel is hearing Elche out. He lets her off on the fight nearby, saying it was self defense and the Innocent do not find her at fault. He then subtly needles Dowas by stating it was obvious Elche didn't intend to start said fight, and not only does he let their blue stone delivery happen like usual, he asks her to do him a favor, and he'll give the Iron Gear a new weapon.

Said favor is letting him meet the Irregulars and Jiron Amos personally, which Elche is happy to comply with.

After she leaves, Dowas is not sure this is a good idea, but Biel nearly makes Dowas shit himself by pointing out it's not bad the arbitrary rules got broken every once in awhile, and when Dowas objects, Biel points out that not only are there people similar in culture living on the other side of the world (referring to the Turn A Earth cast), but also that Innocent don't need to hold the hand of the people under their demense forever, and also points out the Moon Race is planning to invade and they can't afford the trouble.

Dowas makes reference to a guy named Kashim, who claims the Irregulars could be a Moon Race vanguard, which Biel rejects out of hand, pointing out the tech differences are too great for that to be plausible, even referencing legends of mechanical giants (Alpha-verse era). Dowas thinks the White Devil is likely more real than that, and then they discuss about how they could have come from the past, and while both are unaware of any time travel tech at present, doesn;t mean it's outside possibility.

See spoiler for stuff that will be important to keep in mind later:

Spoiler

In the first Alpha, a few forces, like the Balmar, had access to various weaponry with dimension warping powers, and Shu Shirakawa's Granzon, as you may have already guessed, had a time-space dilation engine, and it going nova was what flung everyone into a time warp.

Dowas then reasonably points out blindly trusting the Irregulars given the lack of solid data is risky, but Biel points out the imminent Moon Race threat leaves them little choice but to take that risk.

Dowas outwardly agrees, but remarks to himself he worried the Iron Gear crew could be a threat to the Innocent and plans to have Timp go after them again.


We cut back to the Iron Gear, where Elche relays the news, and when they find out Elche got a new piece of weaponry for the Iron Gear, Kenichi brings up the very valid point that if they got all their kit from the Innocent, they could be acting as weaponry testers for Innocent engineers, and they also point out Xabungle and the Iron Gear are more similar to mobile suits and super robots than other Xabungle stuff like walker machines (a reference to the fact some rejected sketches for stuff from other Tomino works were dusted off and recycled for Xabungle), and points out that could mean they are mean to handlemore than just walker machines, like foes from space.

Chiru doesn't believe that, but Rag thinks Tetsuya's onto something, as have the Innocent send Breakers to attack them to get weapon data makes sense.

Rag and Elche nearly start another catfight, and that's when an attack occurs, right on the Innocent's front doorstep.

We cut to the battle map, where Timp is a bit annoyed he couldn't have shot Jiron in the dome where he least expected it, but it's not all bad, he has more maneuver room outside anyway.

Jiron pops out to shoot his ass, and Timp accidentally lets slip he's working for the Innocent, which only makes Jiron go "I KNEW IT!", then as Dowas is about to have a heart attack, Jiron then asks if the Innocent ordered Timp to murder his parents, and Timp gets offended Jiron even thinks he'd do shit like that as a job.

Meanwhile, Biel is really annoyed at Dowas and suspects Dowas has been plotting behind his back, and as he facepalms at how that might have revealed Timps connection to them, Elche comes to the horrified conclusion Jiron wasn't being retarded.

Meanwhile, Jiron is about to beat Timp crosseyed, and while Timp tries to repair the damage he did letting his Innocent connections slip, Jiron doesn't give a shit, all he wants to see is Timp's bloody corpse.

With that, the fight formally begins, tactical map time:

The Skill Point for this level is really easy, just kill Timp's Government is two turns, not very hard to do at all.

Note, it will appear Timp died if Jiron kills hims, but he'll be back.

Anyway, once you get the Skill Point or not, Vickman and some of his goons will show up to compound things,meaning you'll have to fight them too. The Voltes team are sure Vickman is being used by the Innocent too, and in any event, you'll have to fight them for the next few turns.

After a few turns pass, Vickman decides to play his trump card, but Elche decides to beat him to the punch and uses the new Potan Cannon the Innocent gave her.

It works, wiping out all the Duggers guarding Vickman's ship, but then Elche goes all 0_0 in shock as Vickman plays his own trump.

He has one of his own.

Elche is shocked, she was told it was a one of a kind weapon for the Iron Gear only, and Vickman comes to the realization he's been used, but he doesn't give a shit, so long as he takes down the Iron Gear.

As the fight resumes, take down Vickman's remaining troops and beat his landship into scrap. He'll either run or die, either one works.

And that when things get weird as a jamming field fires up, tech that shouldn't be around here in this day and age.

And that's when we see a bunch of Turn A Mahiroos, led by the Frost Brothers, Shagia and Olba, who were doing recon and stumbled across your team. Olba wonders if they should fight your team, but Shagia says they need to make sure neither the Turn A or GX fall into Innocent hands.

With that, they leave the Mahiroos to annoy you, while Olba leaves us with this comment:

These are the Mahiroos:

They aren't too hard, but are decent ranged units, so be wary as you kill them.

As you finish, Biel radios you all to congratulate on your hard work, and while everyone is suspicious, they do want answers.

Upon entering the Innocent Dome, everyone goes through a sterilization procedure (keep this in mind for later), then they enter a place that looks, compared to the Mad Max outside, civilized.

Elche is all agog at how nice it looks, but Tetsuya and Megumi notice it's totally sterile, like the controlled atmosphere of a space colony, and based on what happened earlier, the Ascencion of Light was space tech the Innocent were deploying against the latest threat.

When everyone meets Biel, he first thanks them for defending P-Point from the Moon Race. He also confirms the Moon Race are enemies to everyone on the planet, and his description of them sounds like a rehash of the Universal Century Gundam space colonies versus Earth bullshit.

Biel then asks where the Preventers came from, and Kenichi replies honestly, and while Biel is somewhat confused, he admits that while he'd like to clear up any confusion they have, most of records of the past are sealed as the 'Black History", and only Director class Innocent have access to all the archives.

This however tells the Voltes team something, that the time they are in is basically a future where they failed to prevent the gravitational shockwave.

Biel then changes the subject and says he will provides supplies and information insofar as it's available to him at no charge, save them doing him a favor in return. Jiron calls bullshit on this and points out they now know Vickman and Timp are Innocent puppets and that they'd be fools to trust Biel without an explanation bare minimum.

Biel concedes that have a point, and explains he can clear that up, as his request dovetails into the explanation for that crap.

First, he'd like them to join the fight against the Moon Race, and confirms yes, Vickman was used to test the new weapons developed for fighting the Moon Race, and his fighting you was no accident. He however denies Timp's association with the Innocent, claiming he's a liaison for Vickman.

Tetsuya then snarks that since they won the shell game the Innocent played with them, that makes them the Innocent's chosen warriors, and Biel tells him if he wants to see that way, fair enough. He then admits he has no ability to compel them to fight the Moon Race, but the threat isn't going away even if they don't.

Elche wisely asks for time to think it over, and Biel concedes that's reasonable.

We cut to the Iron Gear where Elche says they'll need to cross the ocean to do what Biel wants, and when everyone expresses shock (this deviates from canon, where they didn't do this), she adds she found out they weren't the only ones asked by the Innocent to head over there, so to some extent they did not lie.

Jiron, oddly, wants to do it, figuring they'll find out the Innocent's angle if they do, and if they do this, the location will be a place called Fort Severn (Gundam X location).

The Voltes team presents a counterargument, saying trusting the Innocent completely would be dumb, and sticking behind to gather intel would also be prudent.

It's at this point I'm gonna stop, as we get a route split either way:

If we go to Fort Severn, we get to follow Gundam X canon.

If we don't, we'll follow Turn A Gundam canon.

Both routes will end at the same place, but I'll let you guys decide which one gets covered first, and I'd particularly like @Jaimas to weigh in before I pick a route to do first before I cover the other.