Let's Sperg Namco x Capcom - Turn-based SRPG autism where Dig Dug is a total badass

[GethN7]

Chapter 8 - Vampire

As the next level starts, we get a choice:

All the choice really does is change up events slightly, and I'd go for the second one.

We then cut to inside the castle, where Chun-li is confused.

And that's when Morrigan shows up, complaining the owner of the castle never locks the door, and upon noticing Chun-li, acts like Chun-li is a servant girl.

Yeah, this is Demitri's castle.

Chun-li takes offense, and Morrigan drops a not so subtle hint to Demetri's sexual preferences (definitely not strong-willed women) and the two of them exchange intros. Chun-li goes all interrogator, which annoys Morrigan, but before she can get any answers, Druaga goons show up.

Morrigan finally quits the trolling and tells Chun-li they need to fight or die, and the latter is cool with that. Then, after a slight attempt at hitting on Chun-li (well, Morrigan is a sex demon, so anyone really surprised?), the fight begins.

Chun-li needs to avoid dying, which is easy to make not happen given how weak the enemies are.

After a few goons die, some of the good guy forces show up, with Felicia intending to say hi to Demetri, who isn't present, but Morrigan is, to Felicia's chagrin. Bruce and Morrigan flirt a bit, and Regina and Fong Ling facepalm. Chun-li and Fong Ling then recognize each other, and after Kurino gets confirmation from Morrigan Valkyrie did show up here, the fight resumes.

A few more dead goons later, and that's when Chun-li realizes someone has been watching them. Morrigan asks if Chun-li's into that, Felicia facepalms, and that's when more Druaga goons show up, as does Lord Raptor.

Everyone is annoyed to see Raptor, who immediately hits on Hsien-ko, who would like to upchuck at the thought, and Raptor calls Morrigan a hag, which makes her bluntly state she'll kill him, and after Raptor is like "Go ahead and try", the fight resumes as Chun-li realizes he isn't the only observer.

Kill several more goons, and Raptor starts to complain about how tough you guys are, then calls up some help, namely the grasshopper cosplayers and Amazona. He also confirms he knows Joka (and doesn't like him), and they are allies of convenience at most.

He also reveals the point of kidnapping people is to gather their "souls". The crew calls BS on this, but then they put the pieces together and realize that's what the sleeping sickness was all about, and after an offhand comment about the souls there are "different", he clamps his rotting jaw shut.

And that's when Demitri pops out of hiding, having pieced together who Raptor works for (Astaroth) and his overall strategy. Demitri introduces himself, and compliments the good guys on their combat prowess, then tells Raptor his ass is going down.

We then get this badass art of Demitri as the fight resumes, with him joining the cast in kicking undead ass:

Raptor and Amazona can hit kinda hard, but your numbers and new reinforcements can easily even out any disadvantages.

Once you take down Raptor, he rages a bit about his shit luck, then runs, ordering Amazona to retreat as well, and vice versa.

Once the battle ends, Demitri is a bit annoyed at the intruders, and when Morrigan asks if he didn't have some fun, he snorts he wasn't so weak the enemies were a real challenge, and Chun-li plays mediator before more arguing and bitching occurs.

Morrigan resumes trolling Chun-li by calling her a servant in response, and the latter then demands some answers from Demitri, who is not pleased to be given orders, and then Regina drops her no nonsense attitude with this hilarious speculation on the upcoming fight:

As an aside here, just want to point out this scene is funny as hell if you keep in mind Regina has been pretty serious up until this very point. It's like when in the original English dub of the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime where Travis Willingham played Colonel Roy Mustang as a humorless hardass right up until that infamous "I LOVE DOGS!" moment about ten episodes in.

Anyway, Kurino now has to play the sane guy to calm this down, and Demitri recognizes him as a Sandra, and Bravoman desperately tries to get this conversation on track by asking about Emperor Enma's whereabouts, prompting Demitri to get all defensive over whose gonna kick his ass for the Makai throne.

Sabine then clarifies all they want to do is ask him how to get to the Material World, which has Demitri all bored again. Morrigan flip-flops on whether helping you guys would be a good idea, and Wonder Momo is bent on staying to find Amazona, and then Morrigan at least offers to tell you guys where Enma is if you're willing to play bodyguard for her as the stage ends.

 

[StoneKnightMan]

Why couldn't they release this game to the west instead of keeping it in Japan? It looks really fun to play

 

[GethN7]

Why couldn't they release this game to the west instead of keeping it in Japan? It looks really fun to play

While there is little issue with licensing per se, as damned near all of these games got a Western release or the licensing would have been peanuts to acquire, the problem is that some of the games were super obscure and they didn't think anyone would be interested in characters that fell so far off the radar it's not funny.

The fact that it also focused on some side characters instead of main characters might have been an additional factor, like Bruce and Fong Ling from RE Dead Aim instead of the main series RE characters.

However, there is a logical reason for using them, as Namco did make accessories for use by players of the game in Japan, so it was technically a Capcom/Namco collaboration in that sense.

The translation is another factor. While the fan translation and the GameFAQs guide it was based off of don't have any content too Japan specific that couldn't be worked around, the game is LOADED with all sorts of obscure references and game specific humor, and the Namco/Capcom guys likely took one look at the script and thought bringing all that over intact would be too tall an order.

There is no reason they couldn't do an updated re-release now for like the 3DS or something, though, since Project X Zone proved this stuff could still make money.

P.S. - They would likely need to rework the combat system to be a bit less tedious if they did this, because the battle pace is a lot slower than Project X Zone, and some maps can take quite awhile because of this.

 

[GethN7]

Gonna post more updates tomorrow, but for now, here's the anime OP for this game:

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 9 - I Am The Master Of Fists

We cut back to the Infernal Realm, right to the battle map, where Ryu and Ken seem to be a bit lost while some of the most goofy, peppy music in the entire game plays.

Ken asks Ryu if they shouldn't have stopped by the castle they saw, as they might have found the others, but Ryu points out it had a very bad aura, and Ken has to concur.

They then have a brief reminiscing session, which is cut short as Akuma shows up. He informs them they are near the Golden Pond near the wall between the world men and demons and points out that is less important than how it was breached, and Ken realizes Akuma knew them going to Roppongi would end up in their present circumstances.

And that's when Akuma decides the time for talk is over and attacks.

Note, Akuma is VERY strong, and has a skill that let's him act twice as fast as you, so your main goal should be survival and defense.

He will prioritize attacking Ryu, so do everything to keep Ryu alive, including using skills and any items you have.

After Ken and Ryu do some damage, he will congratulate Ryu, calling him Gouken's (their master) child, and Ryu is pissed to hear Akuma utter the name of the man he killed.

Then some skeleton soldiers of the Genji show up and Akuma falls back somewhat to let them have some fun with you. Ken is like "we fought, now talk", and Akuma trolls him by saying "we did a little, didn't we?"

Ryu then asks why Sakura got dragged into mess, and Akuma tells him he'll find out soon enough, then tells him to worry more about their current opponents, and then decides to be nice enough to elaborate that he involved Sakura to unlock Ryu's full potential.

With that, the fight starts.

The skeletons are pretty weak, so don't worry about much from them, just kick their ass.

After one or two die, half of the rest of the team shows up. Akuma is amused and confirms he's aware of the existence of multiple worlds, a fact Xiaomu is suitably impressed by, and Reiji uses the word felicitous to describe it (he has a mild fetish for that word). We also get some teasing that Sakura has a bit of a crush on Ryu (which isn't really all that inaccurate), prompting Karin to snark how the hell is romantic banter in Hell really setting the mood. Ken then notices Klonoa and Gantz and thinks they are in cosplay, which Gantz lols at a little.

And then the fight resumes.

After a couple of goons die, some monsters show up behind Akuma, including giant bullfrogs (those brainwashed friends of Boss Bull), and Shion oddly had an aversion to them but not the undead, to Xiaomu's confusion.

And that's when another undead warrior and some groupies show up as well, and his armor is that of the Heian period, according to Hideo.

Akuma is now bored and leaves, and we discover the new guy is another of the Genji clan:

He is based off this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamoto_no_Yoshinaka

Hideo immediately makes the connection, and the next screenshot requires a little explanation of the Japanese calendar:

Hideo is referring to the Japanese calendar as was determined by the nengō system that had been in place since the early 7th century. These days, the Japanese now use a calendar system almost identical to the Gregorian model with some minor alterations to accommodate Japanese specific holidays. The Japanese model used then was based off the reign of the Emperor, whomever they were, so their calendar was based more on reigning eras than the origin of Christianity like in the AD (Anno Domini) system used in the West.

Jin then explains he would've been from over 900 years ago, which if we assume the 20th century of their calendar is around the latter 1100 AD period as Hideo pointed out, would mean the present day of the game takes place anywhere from 2000-2050, which gives the game developers generous wiggle room in case they needed to make sequels, as they did with Project X Zone.

Anyway, once they figure all this out, the fight resumes.

None of the new foes are really all that special, so just use this as a chance to level up the lower level members of the team. Also, there are a few bags you can walk over to get money, but the amounts are nothing too special. Yoshinaka has a bit of range to him, but he's nowhere near as tough as Akuma.

Once you've owned Yoshinaka, he runs off to report how badass you are to Lord Kamakura, and Xiamou makes a joke about it's hard to make a living in Hell.

This then prompts a contemplative moment from KOS-MOS about her own soul and where it will wind up after she dies and then Gantz decides to interrupt because this getting depressing.

Once all the foes are gone, we cut to Hideo saying they might as well leave, having found Ryu and Ken, and that's when Boss Bull shows up and tells them it's the Path To Penance (Shadowland players will get this immediately). Shion freaks out, but Boss Bull makes it clear he's friendly. Sakura wonders how he can talk, but Gantz is like "well, we can talk, so..."

After filling Boss Bull in, he's nice enough to point the way to Aensland Castle, then says go past there to Judgment Valley, then they need to go to the Ghost Ocean after that to reach Enma. They tank him for the info, and he's glad to see for outsiders the team are NICE outsiders, then asks them to tell Tarosuke to stop by his dice pit soon.

This gets Xiaomu's gambling ladyboner up, to Reiji's annoyance, and Xiaomu throws another tantrum when Reiji is like "nope, we're leaving NOW.", but Boss Bull convinces them to stick around long enough to explain the rules as the stage ends.

Next post I'm going to explain the dice game and how to wind up with infinite money via the game legitimately, how to cheese it with an emulator, and how to just outright cheat if you are REALLY lazy.

 

[GethN7]

Alright, time for info on how make tons of money by casting lots!

As Boss Bull explains here, it's not rocket science.

Odd-Even Rules:

Contest Rules:

Basically, you can play for Odd or Even numbers and if you keep getting lucky your money keeping doubling until you lose or break the bank. Or you can try for a Snake Eyes and win 10X whatever you bet if you roll snake eyes.


1. Legit method - Do either until you walk away with a ton of cash.

2. Semi-Cheat method: Save/Reload the game save or, if you have an emulator, save states, until you've walked away with a ton of money.

3; Blatant Cheating Method: Don't even bother with this, open up the Cheat Engine program, load emulator in it, type the amount of money you have in the search bar, then edit that amount to like 9999999 in the bottom variable string on the left side menu.

Instant max money.

 

[GethN7]

We resume past the point you decided (or not) to waste your time playing dice.

We cut to the other half of the team at Aensland castle. Bruce and Kurino comment on how late they are and Morrigan wonders if some new visitors to the Infernal World intercepted them and is planning to depart soon.

Thankfully, before Morrigan can nope on of there, the other half of the team returns. Jin senses Morrigan is like Kazuya and she tells him to calm down, and that his hairstyle reminds her of Demitri's.

And with that, she really nopes on out of there.


Chapter 10 - Money Also Does Hell's Affair

We cut all the way to the throne room of Emperor Enma, who isn't in. Instead, you have to pick and choose your teams because it's time for a battle.

Red Arremar and some gargoyles come to interrupt the party. Jin takes the time to ask him if he knows about Kazuya, and Red Arremar confirms he has no connection to his own forces and that he personally holds Kazuya in little regard.

He then notices Kurino and salutes him, considering their meeting an honor. He then confirms Valkyrie paid him a visit and left, then adds since they fended off Joka, Janga, and Raptor, he can't simply let them go, especially since it will be a warmup for when he has to fight the Silver Knight.

Kurino is about to drop his actual name, but Red Arremar cuts him off with a repeated desire to start the asskicking.

His forces will generally get the first move, and they are decent but not outstanding. Red Arremar, though, he's pretty tough, so deal with him after taking down the goons.

Red Arremar will comment if Sakura and Karin battle, commenting on their age, and they on his strength.

After taking down a few of his troops, he will commend your combat skill, and after a little bit of banter where neither side wants to back down, some reinforcements show up behind you, some Gilly Octys and some Genji forces.

Both Red Arremar and your team are confused, but he figures out they must be after you and thus on his side by proxy, and the fight resumes, but not before some added confusion about why the Octys from Baraduke are under Genji command.

None of the reinforcements are particularly hard, so just go nuts on them.

As you whittle Arremar's forces down to almost nothing, he's even more impressed and concerned by your power. As he says this, some more reinforcements, the Scythe Weasels, appear to your north.

Reiji clutches his skull in pain again, and everyone quickly figures out what that means.

Sure enough, Saya, and her horse and cow man groupies appear.

Arremar is impressed by her apparent power and she even hits on him a little in response (he's a demon, she's a fox woman, but apparently she's into that kind of interspecies tango), and assures him she's no threat to him.

Reiji then calls her out, and she's surprised to see him. She also reveals the Ouma don't have as much control over the dimensional quakes as they'd like to have and that they need another catalyst (keep this in mind, it's a clue to the end game goal of the Ouma), and Reiji is immediately in "I WILL KILL YOU' mode.

This immediately triggers another round of speculation over Reiji's love life, and Red Arremar gets bored, but not before noting he should report this party who can affect dimensions to his superiors before he leaves.

As the fight resumes, none of the new reinforcements are too threatening so long as they don't gang up on anyone, so pare down the enemy forces so you can hone in on Saya and her goons.

After a couple of goons die, Saya tells Reiji she thought she had sent him to the Abyss of Time, and Reiji and the others tell her they got sent to various locations, none of them the Abyss, and she confirms what she planned didn't work right.

And that's when Demitri shows up with Morrigan. Reiji assumes the worst, Morrigan tells him to "lol, calm down.", and even Saya and Xiaomu join in with the same.

Both Reiji and Gantz are not amused, and that's when Morrigan is like "maybe we should help out Reiji and crew?" to Demitri. The latter just wants to put his foot in Enma's ass, but relents under the provision they share a common enemy at the moment.

Saya's a bit disappointed to hear this, and the fight resumes.

That said, Saya is very tough, so be careful. Even heavy hitters like KOS-MOS can take a beating from her.

Once you wear down most of Saya's HP, she's about to cut and run, but everyone else wants more information on the Abyss of Time, especially Kurino, Morrigan, and Demitri. She nopes out of there anyway.

Once all the foes are down, Demitri again insists he's only there to deal with Enma, not help you, and then they backtrack to the Octys and KOS-MOS confirms they were from the planet Packet (setting of Burning Force) where they were thought extinct.

And that's when Granny Andaba shows up.

And after a moment, so does a huge red dude who Morrigan confirms is Enma.

(If you watched DBZ, remember the guy who ran the underworld in that show? Basically looks like that)

Demitri also confirms Andaba is the ferrywoman for the River Styx, then asks Enma if he had foreseen this in advance as the stage ends.

 

[GethN7]

We resume with Reiji freaking out a little when Enma informs him travel from the Spirit Realm isn't possible, and both Xiaomu and Morrigan tell him to "lol, calm down". Demitri scolds Reiji for his lack of decorum, and Enma pays them his respects since their last visit, unmoved by Demitri's promise to kill him sooner or later.

Andaba then trolls Demitri by murdering his last name on purpose (a bit of a running gag is how his name gets screwed up by damn near everyone in this game at some point), to which he facepalms.

Andaba then clears up the situation with the Genji and Heike clans, saying they have returned from the dead. King is weirded out by this, but Bruce and Hsien-ko point out there are various methods of making zombies, so it's not that crazy.

(Small bonus nod to King's religious views, as according to them, resurrection is the exception, not the rule)

Enma then pieces together Reiji's importance as Andaba realizes Xiaomu is a fox-deity. Chun-li finds tht hard to believe, and even Momo thought she was cosplaying, but Xiaomu is a no-shit fox-deity.

Brief pause before we continue. Both Saya and Xiaomu are different takes on various fox deities from Asia, but they are mix and match versions of the various tales rather than direct analogues.

The more benevolent takes are usually specific to Japan, known as the nine-tailed fox, said to be bearers of good fortune to those who see them. The less benevolent versions known in other parts of Asia are known to be tricksters and have a sick fetish for cucking wives out of their husbands because they get a kick out of breaking hearts, then they leave the men they seduced high and dry and move on to another victim.

Saya is modeled after the less benevolent take, yet oddly is confirmably Japanese in origin (modeled more after the tricksterish Ghost Fox tales), while Xiaomu is modeled after the nine-tailed fox version yet is Chinese in origin, which is a rather interesting twist on the usual portrayals.

Anyway, once the rest of the cast does a "we'll we've all got some weird as hell people here, who are we to doubt Xiaomu's claims?", they all get back on track as Andaba offers to explain about the Ingernal Realm in a bit more detail.

We then cut to Saya speaking with some shadowy figure who obviously knows what type of fox deity she based on and whom she's clearly working with, and the appearance of Yoshitsune after she leaves confirms she was speaking to "Lord Kamakura" of the Genji.

Yosh is getting his nose thumped over his failure to retrieve the Soul Edge, and then they turn to the ruins that appeared near their base of operations, the same ones Toby and Hiromi were in back in their prologue stage, and we find out the Genji were able to ensorcle some of monsters within to join their ranks. He then asks "Lord Kamakura" (his elder brother) about Saya, but is told not to worry about her, mentioning the "Tsukumo Project" is not ready. Yoshitsune is again confused, but is told again not to concern himself with it, just to worry about helping him regain full power.

We then cut back to Reiji and the others, where he finds out from Andaba that the dimensional fabric has been turning into silly putty all over the Infernal Realm, and these anomalies have created dimensional spaces that can't be penetrated (like the gateway to the Infernal Village).

Enma then mentions two possibilities of escaping their current situation. The first is to recover the "Golden Seed", formerly possessed by the demon Kamuze slain by Kurino and Valkyrie, and it's mentioned to be in the Dragon Pavilion Castle (from Japanese legend), Sakura thinks it's a fairy tale, but Ryu reminds her she's talking to the guy who runs Hell, so it's not that crazy.

Then Andaba adds it should be in the Ghost Ocean not too far away, but it doesn't seem to be there now, and the fact it and the surrounding area around it were vanished to another realm entirely worries Reiji, who fears the very laws of reality will come unglued if this continues.

(He's not far off, keep this in mind, it's another aspect of the overall plot)

Andaba confirms his fears by saying if this results in all the worlds merging without the barriers that separate them, the resulting clusterfuck is unknown but doesn't bode well for anyone in any of the worlds.

Enma then says they need to head to the Spirit Realm to seek out the Dragon Castle, and given it's connection to the Genji clan, everyone makes the logical connection they and Saya might be working together.

At this point, given the gravity of situation, Demitri and Morrigan officially join the team, and Andaba offers to sell your team some added gear and goods before you go, but she's not gonna do it for peanuts.

Two notes here: If you did the money trick, go ahead and clean her out, she's got some good stuff, but if not or you don;t care, save your money. Also, you get to hear her voice actor in the shop menu, who did a great job making her sound like a decrepit old lady.



Chapter 11 - Genpei Toumaden


We then resume with the team about to head off to look for the Dragon Castle, and before they leave, Nakamura asks Enma about the other way they could leave, since he mentioned two. Enma is hesitant
to talk about it, which Morrigan confirms is the Soul Edge, who should have been sealed in the Abyss of Time.

We then get a mini-explanation of the Abyss of Time, where all sorts of reality threatening crap, dangerous artifacts, and other stuff is kept under usually high security, with the Soul Edge being one of them. The fact crap seems to be escaping from it is a BAD thing, since the seal wasn't supposed to be broken on it.

KOS-MOS then asks if there is anyone they can ask for assistance, and Andaba mentions they should seek the assistance of Tarosuke and Kagekiyo.

Hideo definitely knows who Kagekiyo is, being from the Heian period as well (Hideo is a professor of Japanese history and language).

With that, they all leave, and when it's just Enma and Andaba, they both are quite concerned about all the unfolding events, and Andaba mentions the bloodline of Reiji's family is supposed to be haunted by a fox (and she'd know, being the ferrier of the dead, so Reiji's dad was conveyed to the other side by her at one point).

We then cut back to that Bamboo Forest where the Soul Calibur cast originally was introduced, and after a bit of walking, they notice the same castle the Genji and Heike were introduced at. Karin identifies it as the Upper Gate of Sakura Castle, which should be abandoned and in ruins in their world, and MOMO notes there is a signature of dimensional energy near it.

As they prepare to investigate, KOS-MOS notes the energy signature of a 'Deflector", which immediately worries Shion, as it's a condensed energy source that can be used as a battery from their world (specifically, native to the Megaman Legends canon)

At this point, you get a choice:

1. Head to the castle
2. Check out the deflector signature

The fan translation has a garbled set of lines for the choices, but this is what they amount to, and we'll go with option one. Regardless what you pick, the other half of the team goes to check out the other option.

We then cut to the battle map of the castle, and not long after arrival, Dimensional Transfer occurs near the front gate, and Keystones and Torii appear all around them.

Note: Keystones are Japanese markers that ward off earthquakes, while Torii are supposed to be gates separating other realms.

And that's when bullfrog enemies suddenly show up as well. Jin figures they are foes that need to die, and Demitri agrees, but before they can work on that, more foes appear to the south, clearly from the future, to Shion's shock, specifically space troopers with combat gear, humanoid variants on the Gilly Octys (these are from the Baraduke series).

With that the fight begins.

I recommend just trying to pare down their numbers as much as possible, they aren't too bad so long as you don't let them gang up on you.

After a couple of turns, Yoshitsune, Benkei, and some of their skeleton goons will show up, with Yoshi pleased his plan worked. The good guys immediately figure out they are buddies with Yoshinaka who they fought a stage ago, and they also find out neither the Golden Seed or Soul Edge are present.

Reiji then asks Yoshitsune about his "plan", but has no time reply as Kagekiyo and Tarosuke show up.

Tarosuke confirms Andaba filled them in and offers to help. Benkei tells Kagekiyo that they've achieved great powers and have new allies, and Kagekiyo is like "bitch please, just more of you I have to cut down" in reply.

Tarosuke tries to remind Kagekiyo to not go batshit and go after the friendlies, but after his first attempt to be a prick about it just gets a death glare from Kagekiyo, he decides to ask more nicely the second time round, and Kagekiyo is more agreeable.

We then get this scary looking rendition of Kagekiyo as the fight begins:

After a little banter where Kagekiyo is still going on about he's gonna kill shit and Demitri preens a bit after Tarosuke appreciates how strong the good guy team is, Reiji clutches his skull in pain as another Dimensional Transfer occurs.

Some Crow Tengu (bird demons) appear on the field, and Karin notes that they were associated with Yoshitsune in stories (nice myth shoutout here), and Reiji sense one foe is still hiding.

Sure enough, Saya and her cow and horse goons appear.

Hilariously, this triggers Tarosuke perverted little kid antics as he gets a good look at Saya while Demitri asks Saya if she ready to get beaten. Saya responds with a line about endurance just dripping with innuendo, then confirms she's allied with the Genji (albeit with reservations from Yoshitsune)

The fight begins anew, but keep this in mind

As the fight resumes, remember the following:

1. Don't let Tarosuke and Kagekiyo die or it's game over.
2. Benkei is still a damn tank, and Yoshitsune somewhat stronger too.
3. Saya and her goons can all poison you, and Saya is still tough as hell.

After you kill some goons, several heat sources are detected by MOMO and Shion. They turn out to be MML Rebirds who will show up as enemy reinforcements, but they aren't that much of a threat.

After mostly grinding down Yoshitsune, he'll curse his bad luck and run.

After grinding Saya's HP down to half, she comment Reiji's gaining allies, and when Reiji and Xiaomu demand info on her experiment, she just says it was a success before leaving.

After defeating Benkei, he'll admit you guys have also obtained new powers before leaving.

Once you've cleared the field, no more enemies are confirmed and you've come up empty-handed. Demitri is like 'well, might as well leave, nothing here', and Kagekiyo, ordinarily the laconic, agrees with him. Tarosuke mentions Mitsurugi, wondering where he went, then everyone goes to rendezvous with the other team.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 12 - Gesellschaft, RESPOND!

We cut to something completely different, back with Masuyo, Hiromi, and Tron, who are at a battle map with the crashed Gesellschaft from Megaman Legends, which is Tron's flagship from the same series.

Masuyo is glad they ditched the samurai, but they are still stuck. However, the signature of Deflector crystals give them hope of getting out of there.

That's when they notice Tron's ship:

Hiromi then very stupidly is happy how they got to capture the entire Tron Bonne crew (forgetting they NEED her to escape), to which Tron is "Screw that" and hauls ass for her ship. She then stops when attempts to patch through to comms on the bridge die out, and her and Masuyo realize there is a lot of magnetic interference, which Masuyo astutuely notes means that not just they and the ship transferred to another world, since the world they are in does not have the means to make radio signals nor mess with them.

Masuyo turns out to be correct, as some MML mecha and Octys show up, and Tron, Masuyo, and Hiromi have to fight them off.

Just survive for a turn or two, reinforcements will show up soon, and note all the treasure and try to get it if you can. Be careful though, some of the chests are traps that will put a character in the Stun state.

Once they show up (it's the other half of the team that didn't go with Reiji), KOS-MOS notes Masuyo and Hiromi, and they recognize KOS-MOS. Just as both sides recognize they are friendly, some Genji goons show up. Morrigan also recognizes the location your in as the "Lake of Blood".

(Gantz also calls Hiromi a hot biker chick, which makes sense, being a biker himself)

A hilarious bit of comedy starts as Wonder Momo calls the Tron's ship a blowfish, prompting a mini-rant about how badass it actually is, and for Masuyo to follow up the rant by saying it's currently busted and it looks ugly.

Tron is PISSED over that one, and Kyoko goes all stern teacher to get the kids to quit fighting, and Bravoman brokers a "we'll help you out now for some info later" deal.

As the fight resumes focus most of your attention on taking the heat off Tron and Masuyo's teams and getting as much treasure as you can, some more foes will show up shortly.

Once you've taken down most of the goons, Yoshinaka and some more Baraduke/Genji goons show up,, as well as a few Ouma goons as well.

He's impressed you lasted this long, and everyone just decides to kick his ass.

After whittling down most of the enemies, some Pookas (round red puffball things from Dig Dug) show up as enemy reinforcements. Hiromi and Masuyo realize they must have been from the monsters that were hiding in Tron's ship, and both Tron and Masuyo freak out when they realize they must been around as early as when they first met at the underground fortress Baraduke (where the prologue they debuted in was set pre-time warp). Yoshinaka is interested, but the good guys decide the time to talk is not now as the fight resumes.

The rest of the battle is mostly just killing the remaining goons, and the Pookas are pretty unimpressive (they were the lowest level mooks from the Dig Dug games after all). Yoshinaka can hit kinda hard, but he's not too much trouble by himself.

Once you've beaten Yoshinaka, he decides you're a bigger threat than before, but that all you were doing was helping him with yet another experiment. The good guys call bullshit on his sour grapes excuse and demand answers, but he's pieced together some valuable information from everything that was said about Baraduke and decides to head back to tell his boss.

Everyone wants to pursue, but Masuyo makes a reference to her ex as the only one reckless enough to do that sort of thing.

As the stage ends, Toby and Masuyo give their formal intros, and then Hiromi looks around at everyone from different times and dimensions, annoying them (and Gantz, snarky bastard, quips that at least her bike is hot, seems his compliments about her were retracted), and then she asks them the running gag of the day.

Seriously, you get no prizes for guessing what she's thinking.

Spoiler

"Are you guys cosplayers?"

One mass facepalm later, everyone is like "uh, NO", then they turn their attention to Tron, who finally managed to open the ship's main hatch manually with Servbot help, and then she ushers you all aboard.

Once inside, everyone is suitably impressed, and Nakamura confirms he's married with kids as he wishes they could see what he's seeing. Tron, Bruce, and Gantz are noted to be missing (as is Kanda Momo), and that's when we cut to the engine room.

Tron is annoyed at all the people in the engine room initially, but when KOS-MOS proves helpful in fixing the engines, as does Gantz, she softens up a tad, and that's when Reiji's team arrives. Tron figures this means Kagekiyo, Tarosuke, and Mitsurugi will be back around as well, then has one of her Servbot's take everyone to the conference room so they can all swap notes and get introduced.

We then cut to the Tower of Druaga.

Druaga gets word from Joka he found what Druaga sent him after, while Janga plays skeptic. Joka confirms Kazuya's presence, then notes the Phantom World is connected via all the dimension walls breaking down.

Druaga is pleased to hear this and sends them after the Golden Knight. Janga leaves, and as Joka is about to follow, he asks what to do with Kazuya, and Druaga tells him his armies will handle that situation.

We then cut back to the Gesellschaft conference room, where Tron is putting the pieces of the plot together, as is everyone else, and they all come to conclusion all the disparate events in their worlds are connected to the Ouma, who seem to have empowered the Genji , Shadowloo, and most of the other enemy forces.

The talk turns to grilling Saya for info, and Reiji's love life becomes another running joke as Morrigan suggests getting the info out of Saya with some make-up sex, prompting this reaction from Xiaomu:

Reiji doesn't find this the least bit funny, and Demitri is getting tired of the comedy too, as is Kagekiyo, who really wants to run Yoshitsune through with his blade at the moment.

As Kagekiyo is about to do that, regardless of Tarosuke's pleas to stop, Andaba patches herself into the room via a spiritual cell phone connection, informs them the Dragon Castle they seek is at the bottom of the Lake of Blood and tells Kagekiyo to chill out and work with everyone, he's not strong enough at present to go all one man army, and tells him to speak of Otohime of the Dragon Castle for help.

For more background, see here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otohime

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryūgū-jō

Anyway, Tarosuke knows her (and judging by the perverted look on his face, she's kinda hot), then Jin refers to Urashima Tarou from the Japanese legend, who received a great reward from her.

With that, Andaba cuts the feed since they got what they needed, but they still don't know how to get to the bottom of the lake.

And then Tron has an idea and has the tactical panel in the conference room show her submersible craft, saying they can use that to get there, and then they note most of the other people in the room went to the mess hall to get something to eat (Bruce especially), and the stage fades out as Fong Ling and Hsien-ko both facepalm hard at the Don-Gua that is Bruce.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 13 - Thank You Very Much For Your Patronage

We resume with the cast have arrived at the Dragon Pavilion Castle via submersible, and Tarosuke confirms you've found the right place as that goofy music from the Path of Penance stage plays.

After a bit of awe over how the air is breathable and the size of the place, everyone realizes it's too quiet.

And that's when Kazuya shows up.

Jin gets PISSED and runs right for him. Everyone tries to get him back off, but he isn't listening as a bunch of Druaga goons show up between Jin and your team.

This is pretty simple. Don't let either Jin or Ryu get KOed, and kill everything.

Short version, get as many troops to reinforce Jin as you can while taking down Druaga goons along the way. None of the Druaga goons are too much of a problem by themselves, but try to whittle them down as fast as you can.

After taking down most of the Druaga goons, Reiji will do a status check on Jin. As Kazuya continues to piss off Jin (Jin REALLY doesn't like to be reminded he's Kazuya's son), that's when more goons warp in, but this time, they are somewhat different from the usual Druaga goons, including big lizardmen.

And then things get worse as both Kazuya and Ryu sense a very familiar aura. Sure enough, it's Akuma, who appears to the left side of the arena (revealing some treasure boxes if you're so inclined).

After a brief bit of silence, he tells your team that while you had your thumbs up your asses, the gates between worlds finished coming down. He further elaborates that not just magic is needed anymore, but science can make the problem worse, makes allusions to the "Power of the Heart" and Bison's Psychodriver powers.

While your team is trying to piece things together, Kazuya seems to have figured it out a bit sooner and thanks Akuma for the info, then when Akuma tells him to piss off, Kazuya smirks and does just that, having gotten some info out of the whole exchange.

As the fight resumes, you have Akuma on one side, who hits like a truck, and the new Druaga goons. The only ones who are really a problem are the lizardmen, who have really high HP and can hit fairly hard.

Be very aware that Akuma will prioritize Ryu above all else, so keep Ryu alive. Also, Akuma's attacks a real bitch to use the Guard command against as well.

After a few turns, a dimensional warp will occur, and some Gnosis will warp in. And, just as your team gets used to that, another warp causes....this shop and it's owner to appear.

Brief pause for some lore info: That is Slyphie from Forgotten Worlds/Lost Worlds, a Capcom coin-op side scroller, and she ran the shop in that game, and she will be a recurring source of shopping in this one. In fact, if you didn't do the money trick, save all your money till the end of the game, and on the next to last level, she'll sell the best equipment in the game, which unfortunately doesn't carry over if you try the new game plus option. She also reappears in the second Project X Zone game as a shopkeeper option.


Everyone is all like "Wat?", and she's just as confused. Hell, even Akuma just stares blankly at her.

Well, except for Masuyo, who knows her (and isn't overly pleased to see her), and Masuyo explains Slyphie (also called Silph) was the one to dole out the gear she used in the Baraduke canon and still has.

Meanwhile, Akuma and Ryu take a pause from punching each other to have this paraphrased conversation:

Akuma: Another person from another world?
Ryu: You know how to stop any of this dimension warp business?
Akuma: Hell no.
Ryu: Well, that aside, I'm not giving in to fighting like you, but I'm still giving it my all.

Slyphie realizes shes kinda interrupting something important and is about to nope out of there, but asks you all to visit your store when you all are done, prompting Tron to bitch at her for the Gnosis showing up.

Slyphie (who has some level of ability to dimensionally transfer herself) is all like "Oopsie.", and Shion has MOMO activate the Hilbert Effect since the Gnosis won't wait forever. Slyphie is impressed and namechecks the Xeonsaga tech that originated the Hilbert Effect, and then when Masuyo asks if she's planning anything shady, she assures them she's not and offers to help out with the Gnosis.

The rest of the team still finds her a bit hard to trust, but decide 'hell with it, we need the help".

As the fight resumes, you get control of Slyphie, and she's kinda game breakery for two reasons: One, she's got a skill that adds 5% of her MP back per hit, meaning she almost will never run out of MP, and she's got a nice assortment of multi-hit attacks as well as learns MP using skills that are very useful to keeping your team alive.

Short version, she kicks ass, you'd be retarded not to take advantage of the above.

As the fight resumes, have Slyphie help take on the Gnosis and be a healing dispenser for those who need it.

Once you manage to take down Akuma, he repeats to Ryu he's seen all the crazy shit in the worlds and knows what to do about it, and when pressed to quit being so vague, he just nopes out of there instead.

Once you kill all the enemies, everyone else wants to get on with saying hi to Otohime, and Slyphie, mercenary merchant that she is, tries to shake you guys down for money in exchange for goods as the stage ends.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 14 - Oni God And The Hazy Shadow

We resume where we left off last time, with the crew meeting Otohime:

Surprisingly, Tarosuke, perverted kid he is, acts very respectful around her, but hilariously enough, Hideo is the one who is having to wipe drool off his chin, which does NOT make Kyoko happy, and Nakamura isn't much better (remember, he's married), and Momo disses him for this. (then again, introducing yourself as a salaryman for an insurance company is a very lame way to impress a woman).

After the comedy ends, Otohime has sad news. Someone recently stole the Golden Seed, a certainly blue demon that Jin doesn't like *coughKazuyacough*.

The good news is that Otohime knows where he is gonna go with it, the Phantom World (aka the Fantasy World, as Klonoa's world was assimilated into it as part of the crossover). KOS-MOS then asks the logical question how they can get there, and Otohime confirms she can send them there on her own., handing them the treasure box from the Dragon Pavilion legend.

(This prompts Sakura to goad Karin into opening it, which is HILARIOUS, since doing so would make you age and Karin's vanity probably wouldn't be able to handle that)

Thankfully, Otohime swapped out the age-up magic for transportation magic, and as they prepare to leave, Kagekiyo politely (odd for him, but considering who she is, it makes perfect historical sense for him to show her deference) requests a loan of something in her possession.

It turns out to be one of the three items Andaba told him he'd need to beat the shit out of the Genji, the "Jewel", and when Tarosuke asks him for details, he refuses to elaborate.

We then cut to the Gesellschaft engine room, where Tron is getting a sitrep from her Servbots. They inform her they still need a deflector, and Slyphie pops up, and when Tron is like "uh, aren't you done here?", Slyphie is like "I could sell you what you need, interested?"

We then cut to the bridge five minutes later, and we get to see KOS-MOS with kitty ears, and MOMO in cosplay as a magical girl:

And Shion barely has time to get used to the costume changes before Tarosuke pops open the box and they warp.

We then cut to the Phantom World, Ghost Palace.

Mitsurugi has no damn clue where he is, and Taki is with him, telling him to "lol, calm down", but even she admits she's confused too. Mitsurugi chalks it up to bizarre sorcery, and Taki concurs he may be onto something with that assumption. On that note, Mitsurugi doesn't really want to partner up with Taki and heads off on his own, and just as she facepalms as his foolhardiness, his blade Mekkimaru resonates again, meaning the Soul Edge is near.

We then cut back to Tron's ship, where everyone is a bit pissed at Tarosuke for opening the box without warning them, given it blinded the shit out of them and now they don;t know where they are. Jin notices something weird out the window, and they find themselves.......above an amusement park.

Everyone wonders if they are hallucinating, but Klonoa confirms they are indeed in their world, calling the amusement park Joylant. We then get a retrospective where Gilgamesh headed to after the prologue he was introduced in, and he apparently was headed here, and when every is like "who's that?", Morrigan fills in the blanks.

Demitri then deduces that the Golden Seed would be the strongest magical signature in the area so they could hunt it down better, and Tron has the Servbot's scan for energy signatures.

They find two: One is near a rollercoaster, bearing dimensional energy patterns, and another is the palace Mitsurugi and Taki are currently in. However, neither signature seems to match the Golden Seed, or at least cannot be confirmed as such, so KOS-MOS suggests they divide into two teams to search each area.

(Shion notices KOS-MOS is still wearing the kitty ears and wants her to take them off, apparently Slyphie's idea of dolling KOS-MOS up for the lulz didn't amuse her)

With that, they split up, and we cut to inside the Ghost Palace, where Mitsurugi is already engaged in battle not only with Phantom Beasts, but Velociraptors from Dino Crisis:

Mitsurugi is not impressed. If anything, all he's thinking is how good lizard steak is gonna taste. He then tells Taki to come out of hiding already, since he knows she's around.

Sure enough, she shows up and after they are like 'okay, we still have no clue where the fuck we are", Taki asks if he was really serious about eating dinosaurs, and the raptor actually panics when he describes how he plans to pan fry them.

Just as Taki is cringing at the thought, the Soul Edge shows up in the upper part of the castle stairs, and the both of them are simultaneously all like 'THAT SWORD IS MINE, DAMMIT!" as we get this nice title card of Heishirou Mitsurugi and Taki:

Just want to note the art is based off their appearance in Soul Calibur II, and I again want to note how.....tame Taki's art is, since in this game she got a sizable boob reduction.

Anyway, objectives are to get to the Soul Edge and to make sure neither Taki nor Mitsurugi die. The various Phantom Beasts are too hard as long as you aren't stupid, but the tougher versions are damage sponges, and the raptors are kinda tough attackers but don't have amazing HP.

My advice is to have Taki and Mitsurugi leapfrog their way forward and back each other up as you advance steadily but carefully forward.

After a few turns, Reiji's half of the away team shows up as reinforcements. The SC guys are a bit on edge at first, but they recognize Tarosuke and Kagekiyo. In turn, Reiji notes they from the Sengoku Jidai (Warring States) era (technically correct, but the SC canon is set in a somewhat anachronistic variation if it).

The SC guys notice the weirdos on the team and reasonably are still wary, and KOS-MOS concedes her point.

That's when Regina notices the dinosaurs and understandably freaks out, since she thought she killed all of them in her own game series. At any rate, all parties concerned come to the realization a temporary alliance until the Soul Edge is secured is a good idea, and the battle conditions change.

Basically, get to the Soul Edge by the 26th turn or it's game over, and Reiji and Xiaomu can't die like the SC cast either.

With this in mind, HAUL. ASS, as about six or so turns have been gone though at this point, so you only have about twenty. All characters that have skills that grant them extra movement should abuse the shit out of them. All characters capable of ranged attack should also be abused to your advantage as well, as the enemies will try to slow you down.

Also, make heavy use of the Guard skill to regain AP so you can get turns back faster. Counterattacks and evasion will only slow you down.

As long as you keep pushing forward, it should be pretty easy to beat the turn limit, and once you reach the Soul Edge, Reiji's skull starts hurting again, but instead of Saya showing up the Soul Edge starts resonating with power like crazy.

And that's when a time distortion occurs, dropping Cammy (who initially thinks Saya double crossed her) and a lot of Ouma goons in your lap, and just as everyone gets used to that, Saya and her groupies join the fight.

Tarosuke gets all giddy about Saya due to the fanservice, and Hsien-ko slaps him down with this retort:

Reiji immediately goes into "I WILL KILL YOU" you mode upon seeing Saya, and Saya refuses to talk, as does Cammy.

However, they don't have to, as Regina pieces together they had something to do with the Third Energy from the Ibis lab, but since Regina had the data to keep the energy reactor from functioning, she realizes the Shadowloo had to join forces with the Genji and the Ouma as a workaround.

Saya is all like 'Well shit, no use playing dumb, ya got me."

Regina then goes in to fill in added blanks, such as how certain Japanese industrial concerns were rumored to be behind the Ibis Island incident (i.e. - Heihachi and the Mishima Conglomerate, which would be very logical for Heihachi to be involved in, nice cross company crossover done here).

With that said, Reiji then demands to know what Saya's getting out of this, and she just says "my time been frozen since ten years ago...."

Basically, the Ouma are going for round two of their little plan to make time and space their bitch, and they are helping other groups with their own goals to do that.

(Also this wasn't their exact destination, but it seems the Soul Edge led them here anyway)

Cammy is bit annoyed Saya is just dropping info so carelessly and Saya is all apologetic, then here and Reiji have this conversation;

Saya: Now, we'll be having the that sword, boy.
Reiji: OVER. MY. DEAD. BODY.

Mitsurugi and Taki are annoyed at the newcomers who want the Soul Edge, but mutually agree letting it fall into Saya or Shadowloo's hands would be bad, so they will help you stop Saya, Cammy, and their goon squad.

The fight resumes, and you have to keep the parties mentioned above alive and beat the crap out of all the enemies.

The enemies are the standard Ouma goon squad troops of Scythe Weasels and a few Tengu, whittle them down as you home in on Cammy, Saya, and her demi-human groupies.

After whittling down the goons somewhat, KOS-MOS sense a dimensional distortion incoming, only this time it's the Soul Edge again, and it summons Black Bravo and some of Dr.Bakuda's goons along with him.

Both Nakamura and Tajima are very surprised to see each other, and as Black Bravo confirms, we find out Bakuda made his own dimensional transfer device, which Black Bravo chalks up to his being sent here (or, more likely, it crossed wires with the Soul Edge during activation and the Soul Edge dropped him here)

Bravoman confirms the information, referencing events from Bravoman, but confirms it was only for teleportation, not dimensional travel, and Kagekiyo comes to conclusion above that the Soul Edge was the cause.

Upon hearing the Soul Edge can hop dimensions on top of being a badass blade, Mitsurugi damn near creams himself with glee over the revelations, but before Tarosuke can crawl his ass over his retarded greed, more goons show up with Black Bravo, two JACKs and a red haired ninja girl in a green outfit.

Black Bravo tell her it wasn't his fault they got blown off course (Heihachi apparently had Bakuda rig up the device so they could give Ibis Island another look see for the Third Energy data), and just as the team is like 'how many damn goons are we gonna see?', that when the ninja girl recognizes Bravoman.

He calls her Wayahime, and here I need to explain a little Bravoman lore.

Her name translates to "Trickster Princess", if you go with a literal translation, but in truth, she's actually an android from the game that was a boss, and since Bravoman is post-series in Namco x Capcom, that version is basically a prototype for THIS version of her, as Bravoman destroyed the original prototype in his own series.

And that brings up to the JACKs.

They are autonomous killing machines built by the Mishima Conglomerate, and a model of each debuts in every game that features Tekken in any regard. These are the Prototype model versions.

Also, we find out Wayahime uses the same style of martial arts that Taki does (Musho Battou), which is another clever bit of canon welding between the Tekken, Soul Calibur and Bravoman series which shocks Taki.

Jin is like "let's kick her ass', and Wayahime is like "bring it, Jin".

Meanwhile, Black Bravo tells Wayahime to go for Reiji's team and Bravo, ignoring Cammy and Saya's goons, and Cammy and Saya decide to consider them allies, and Black Bravo decides to roll with it.

I recommend having your forces make the middle of the stairs a chokepoint, with the ranged units facing down the Mishima/Bravoman reinforcements while the melee guys deal with Saya and the Shadowloo teams.

As always, Saya and her goons are tough and can inflict Poison, Cammy is also a decent fighter, and both Wayahime and Black Bravo are reasonably tough. The JACKs are fairly tough but slow, and the real pain in the ass will be the Bakuda goons, which are weak but have good range. Do note that Wayahime will home in on Jin, so keep his HP up.

Once you either finish off Cammy or reduce her to 25% HP, she'll withdraw.

Once you whittle Saya down to about 35% of her HP, she decides to withdraw as well.

Once you take down Wayahime, Black Bravo tells her to withdraw. She doesn't want to, but decides it's a good idea anyway.

Once you take down Black Bravo, he'll ask when Bravoman got his new friends from, then decides to withdraw.

Once you've cleared the field. everyone decides to secure the Soul Edge, and that's when the Soul Edge has other ideas and nopes out of there.

Since that plan was shot to hell, Bravoman recommends they head back to Tron's ship to think up their next move as the stage ends.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 15 - Golden Knight, Fallen Knight

We cut back to the other team (half of it, the other half is elsewhere at the moment) outside in Joylant near the roller coaster the team saw from Tron's ship, and Sakura and Klonoa are arguing over who gets to ride the rollercoaster's front seat. Gantz and Karin try to get their wayward charges to be serious, but then the former decides to troll a little and muses about goosing the rollercoaster super hard just for kicks, and Tron wants to take it apart.

This gets so silly Morrigan has to be the mature one.

That's right, MORRIGAN HAS TO BE THE MATURE ONE.

It's on that note they notice some Phantom Beasts, and Kurino and her agree they need to deal with them.

The enemies are a bunch of Glibz, so just send your guys to whittle them down from as close up as possible since they are ranged units.

They aren't very hard and once they are gone, Klonoa is ecstatic, and Sakura wants to get back to the rollercoaster talk. Karin tries in vain to ask her to be more catious since they are in another world, and Karin then facepalms hard when Sakura misses the point by a mile and says she'll be cautious riding the coaster.

And that's when Tron detects an ionized energy signature. Another distortion later, and turns out to be Juni, Juli, and a mix of various goons from Megaman Legends and Captain Commando.

Juni and Juli were also going to check out Ibis Island, they wound up here instead, recognize Karin, and they decide since the enemies are in front of them, they might as well do their thing. Meanwhile, Tron recognizes the foes from Captain Commando and wonders why they are still around since their criminal organization was defeated by CC.

Before we get onto the battle, little bit of Capcom lore for you all.

In every Capcom beat'em up, there has always been the obligatory skanky looking evil henchwomen in every gang you had to fight, and Captain Commando is no exception, with their goons, Carol and Brenda, pictured below (this was the most SFW image I could find, Carol on the left, Brenda on the right)

In fact, Final Fight merely kept this going with Poison and Roxy (censored to Billy and Sid in some versions), the second game had Eliza and May (censored to Leon and Robert), and the third had May (by this time, Capcom quit pussying out and censoring their henchwomen from US releases, but by then no one cared).

Anyway, back to the fight.

Beat the shit out of Juni or Juli, and it won;t take long before they you are stronger than anticipated., and that's when a new party arrives.

Meet Black Valkyrie, the "evil twin" from "The Legend of Valkyrie".

Kurino and Morrigan recognize her as Valkyrie's asshole counterpart (whom they thought vanquished), and just as she about to engage Kurino in battle, a familiar golden knight says:

"That's enough, Black Maiden!"

And we get this nice title card as well:

Yep, it's Gilgamesh and Kai, and just as they are relieved to see Klonoa and Gantz, the other half of the good guy team shows up on the other side of the arena.

Ryu notices the Shadowloo troops, and Demitiri recognizes Black Valkyrie (I'll call her B. Valkyrie to keep it short from now on.) with disdain, and then compliments Gilgamesh (as he made Druaga his bitch).

B. Valkyrie really couldn't give a shit, but Gil has other ideas, especially since it seems she has the Eye of God the Tales of Destiny cast wanted to keep out of baddie hands. Unfortunately, while the non informed get the other good guys up to speed, the news of the Golden Seed leaks, and B. Valkyrie is immediately interested and wants to kill you all.

Demitri is all "Then come down here and try, bitch."

Juli and Juni decide to ignore B. Valkyrie and consider her an ally more or less, and the latter refuses to answer Kurino's questions about Valkyrie's whereabouts (not that she really has a clue anyway) as the fight resumes.

Gil starts behind the Shadowloo people, but he's pretty strong, so have him chip away at their troops. B. Valkyrie will home in on Kurino, so keep that in mind as she's pretty strong. More enemies will be arriving soon, so try to make sure you other half of the team is reinforcing your current team.

Once Juni and Juli are defeated, they withdraw.

Once you wear Vaklyrie down to about 25% HP, she realizes you guys aren't pushovers, and this triggers the Druaga reinforcements to show up.

B. Valkyrie is pleased to hear this, as it means she wasn't the only thing to escape the Abyss of Time. Gil also realizes some of them are hiding and calls Joka out.

Joka and Janga appear on cue, and while Joka tries to be polite with his intro, Janga just wants to murder people so they can get the Soul Edge. Gantz adopts Reiji's "I WILL KILL YOU." mode upon seeing Janga, and thus Joka and Janga join their goons.

The reason I said to move your team to the other side of the bridge was to prevent them from getting ganged up on by the Druaga squad, and if you followed my advice, you can use the bridge as a chokepoint to engage them on your terms.

Meanwhile, B. Valkyrie finds all this amusing and leaves, and when Gil demands she hand back the Ey of God, he accidentally gets Joka's attention with that line.

With that, the fight resumes.

I first recommend finishing off any Shadowloo goons, then advancing to the bridge, waiting for the Druaga goons to come to you. Joka and Janga are reasonably tough, and Janga's poison is an even bigger threat, but if you follow my advice, you can whittle down their goon squad and gang up on them.

Oh yeah, if you get a chance, use Gantz and Hiromi's Mutiple Assault attack, it consists of the two of them running their target over with their bikes then blasting the shit out of what remains with every gun on their bikes.

Once you take down Janga, Gantz is about to pop a cap in him permanently, but he withdraws before Gantz can, but not without some shit talk.

Once you whittle Joka down to about 25% HP, he'll decide to withdraw. Demitri praises his discretion and tells him to stay away while everyone else would rather beat the clown the death to make sure he'll stay gone. Sakura especially wants to beat the shit out of him, and Joka acts like that turns him on, which creeps out Shion and Sabine. He then runs like a bitch again.

Once you clear the map, Gil is still disturbed by Druaga's plans, but Kai tells him thanks everyone for the help is more appropriate at the moment, at which point he takes off his helmet and does just that (and Morrigan thinks he's pretty hot with it off), and on Kurino's suggestion, he and Kai join your team:

We then cut to Reiji and Xiaomu's half of the team meeting the other half. They swap notes on what's been going on with each other, and then we cut to the Central Plaza of the park.

Meet Sir Arthur, the "Silver Knight", of Ghost and Goblins fame. He hails from a stupid hard side scrolling game that was hard as balls but made you feel like a badass if you beat it (I did, and damn, it was kickass).

Stahn and Rutee are with him and want him to slow down so they can catch up, and just as they do, Rutee's sword Atwight and Stahn's sword Dimlos sense a shitload of trouble, and that's when the dimensional distortion noise can be heard.

The three of them look up and see the Soul Edge embedded in a nearby building and before they have a chance to run, a dimensional transfer blinds them and we cut to everyone else.

Taki's Mekkimaru is resonating like crazy, and that's when everyone else is caught up in the dimensional transfer as well.

We then cut to Lord Enma's place, where Enma and Andaba are discussing recent events, and they are concerned the Golden Pond (i.e. - the source of the rebirth of souls more or less) could go batshit if things go worse, and as decide to to see what they can do to fix things on their end, we then cut to Ibis Island in the Material World.

Reiji's team has warped here, and it seems Zuhl (the merchant dude from The Legend of Valkyrie) has shown up as well. As everyone gets their bearings, Regina's deja vu meter goes off the charts as she recognizes the island she fought dinosaurs on, and even more shocking the cruiser Volklinde (from Xenosaga, which Shion and and the other XS cast members were on) is nearby.

Shion immediately wants to check it out, and KOS-MOS charts its location as the stage ends.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 16 - The Legend Of Valkyrie, Once Again

We resume in the hangar of the Volklinde, A.G.W.S. storage (their mini-mecha storage basically)

Masuyo and Hiromi are very confused as to why a Vector cruiser from the future is in the contemporary era, and Tron and Tarosuke point out it's not that weird, they've already seen other stuff flung to other worlds.

As they prepare to investigate, Morrigan is very on edge about something and doesn't seem to want to discuss it. MOMO detects several source of life inside the ship, one confirmably human, and Demitri immediately recognizes the life energy as that of Valkyrie.

Kurino is all 0_0 over that news, and that when you get a choice where to look

1. Realian Room
2. KOS-MOS Control Room
3. Bridge.

All that changes is some minor dialogue and some scenery, so let's pick the second one.

We cut to where Valkyrie is already engaged in battle with Velociraptors, and she also senses she's being watched and calls them out.

It's B. Valkyrie, and Valkyrie immediately pieces together why she's there. B. Valkyrie is pleased she was spared a long monologue, and with that decides to cut the crap and bum rushes Valkyrie, who will take some unavoidable damage.

They then pause to reassert their bearings before continuing, and B. Valkyrie confirms she met Kurino in Joylant, then resumes the melee.

You already start with a disadvantage, and you must keep Valkyrie alive through this next attack, though this time you can use the Guard command.

After that round, B. Valkyrie lays on the shit talk, and just as B. Valkyrie starts gloating hard, Kurino shows up, and just as it gets all emotional, B. Valkyrie summons some of the demon lord Zouna's troops to wrap this up.

Valkyrie decides to quit being all Ms. Nice Guy as we get this title card:

With that, the fight begins, and your first goal is to keep Valkyrie alive and face down her darker half.

Kurino and Sabine start with a maxed out yellow meter, so after using their S.Bell skill to boost Valkyrie defense, have them kick her asshole counterpart's ass. Valkyrie is also maxed out, so have her heal herself, then join in the ass beating.

This should take off nearly half her HP, and she'll congratulate you all on your performance. Kurino tells Valkyrie reinforcements are inbound, and B. Valkyrie sensibly decides she needs even more troops.

However, instead of more Zouna forces, it's the Gnosis.

Thankfully, KOS-MOS shows up and deploys the Hilbert Effect. A few more of the team show up afterward, including Felicia/King, Tarosuke/Kagekiyo, Taki, Hideo/Kyoko, and Ryu. Tarosuke gets all perverted again and Kyoko facepalms. Gilgamesh and Kai show up soon as well.

All the new faces make B. Valkyrie pull out her trump card, who chides the former for not making use of her sooner.

This is Rose, from Street Fighter. Rose is an Italian fortune teller who is, on a soul level, the other half of the coin of Bison. Essentially, their powers are essentially mirror images of each other, and while Bison's Psycho Powers are basically made of pure evil, Rose's Soul Powers are the opposite, and she's essentially Bison's "good" counterpart.

Don't read the below spoiler unless you want to know how this would mesh with SF and Project X Zone canon, as it will spoil later N x C events.

Spoiler

This game causes a minor continuity snarl if you take it into account with mainline SF canon, as N x C uses a modified and condensed version of SF Alpha 2 plot as backstory and SFA3 plays out in a modified fashion in this game, where Rose actually did die trying to off Bison and she failed to pull it off.

Rose survives her "death" in SFA3 in mainline canon, and Bison essentially lets her kill his original body and hijacks hers briefly until he gets a secondary clone of his former body in the mainline games, as the Alpha series is set before SF2, and Rose eventually regains her old body, with no memory of what Bison did with her body in the interim, allowing her to return in SFIV, set after 2.

This clashes with Project X Zone, as Rose returns to the grave in the ending, which is why she does not reappear in the P x Z games, with the first game using modified SFIV canon, and the second a modified SFV canon.

Basically, while the events of N x C could be mostly reconciled with mainline canon for Street Fighter, this part in particular causes a continuity issue.

The game follows up on how she sacrificed herself to try and take Bison out in the Alpha series, which didn't work out, as Bison is still alive and Rose died, and thanks to the well of souls going haywire due to the dimensional walls breaking down, Rose has revived, although she's been press-ganged into helping the villains because they basically placed a spiritual choker chain on her as she revived.

She restores some of B. Valkyrie's HP with her powers, and thanks to the chain on her, she can't tell a horrified Ryu she's been forced to work for the bad guys, much to her current employer's amusement, and just to twist the knife, she summons her second trump card.

This is Armor King, the original King from Tekken, who canonically died and thus the current King took up his legacy and like Rose has been revived and forced onto the villain team.

King is understandably horrified, and Kagekiyo and KOS-MOS quickly realized they were revived like Kagekiyo and forced onto the villain team, though according to B. Valkyrie, they are alive again because they chose to be.

Which, given Enma and Andaba mentioned that the weakening of the dimensional walls would make it possible for some souls to come back to life if they had strong enough will in the last stage, makes sense, they just got a shock collar put on them afterwards and told to work for the villains or die again.

Anyway, the fight resumes, and I recommend focusing all your efforts in beating the crap out of B. Valkyrie first.

After beating her half senseless, she withdraws, but Rose and Armor King stick around (though make it clear they think she sucks, showing they still have some measure of free will), leaving the Gnosis, Velociraptors, and Zouna forces behind for you to deal with.

The Gnosis aren't too bad, and you should be well aware of the other forces strength by now, just use this as a chance to level up your team. Rose and Armor King are the far side of the map, and while both are fairly strong, don't bother trying to fight them, just focus on the other foes first.

Once you whittle Armor King down to 25% HP, he will withdraw. Armor King will bleed from the mouth as he does, which is reference to how he was dying of disease in his own canon before he truly died in the Tekken series.

Once you whittle Rose down to 25% HP, she too will withdraw. However, she leaves Ryu with some cryptic advice about how he has two men inside him, and alludes to Sakura by calling her a girl like a cheery blossom (which is what Sakura means).

Before we go on, brief SF Ryu lore. Rose's comment alludes to the Satsui no Hidou, or "Fist of Murderous Intent", a technique that unleashes great power inside those who practice Ryu's school of martial arts, but it also can drive them into murderous rage, much the ZERO system from Gundam Wing, the GEIM system from SRW Original Generations, Bison's own Psycho Power and many other series with forbidden techniques/power/magic/technology that makes you really powerful but can also drive you crazy and/or evil.

The reason Ryu despises Akuma is because Akuma embraced this particular aspect of their art (and in doing so killed their master), while Ryu almost did but stopped practicing that aspect of their art in horror of what he could become, but the temptation to utilize it has never completely gone away.

Anyway, once you clear the field, everyone swaps notes and Valkyrie joins the team, finally realizing she can't one woman army this crap away.

With that, the current party heads for the bridge as the stage ends.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 17 - My Real Body

We start the next level with the kickass open stage theme from Captain Commando playing, and two members of the team are investigating the ship they are on.

The silent purple bandaged dude on the left is called Jennety in Japan, but America, noticing his knife fixation, calls him Mack (the Knife), which makes more sense, and the fan translation goes with American name, as will I. The one on the right is basically a genius stuck in the mind and body of a infant, called Baby (Head) in Japan and oddly called Hoover in America, but I'm going with the former for logic reasons. And, being in an infant body, he uses the green mech suit to get around.

Anyway, Baby points out how horribly wrong it is for a Vector cruiser from their time to be here and deduces it was a time distortion that caused all this. He then wonders if Sho and Guy are around, and Mack (who does not speak) shakes his head.

Mack then assumes a combat stance, as enemies are inbound.

It's Amazona, Raptor and some Wonder Momo goons. They are looking for the Soul Edge, and Baby quickly figures out Raptor is necrotized tissue that has been reanimated and Amazona is under mind control. Raptor then shit talk Baby about being one and Baby wants to have Raptor learn some manners.

With that, the fight starts, and it's best if you fight defensively for now, letting the enemy come to you while avoiding getting ganged up on.

Mack and Baby are pretty decent fighters, with Mack being able to combo the crap out of enemies and Baby having a lot of high damage dealing attacks.

After a turn or two and a foe or two dead, a new person shows up.

This is Lilith Aensland, who, as the name implies, is basically Morrigan's little sister, but to be more accurate, she's a part of Morrigan's soul that was split off in the backstory because Morrigan's full powers were a bit much for her to handle at a young age, so a sizable chunk of them were sealed away and eventually reborn (with help from a Darkstalkers villain in the third game) as Lilith, who in-universe resembles a flat chested Morrigan because she's basically an imperfect copy of Morrigan, hence the younger look.

Out of universe, let's not kid ourselves. While Morrigan caters to the big boob lovers, Lilith is Morrigan for the flat chest fans.

It's worth noting that this game uses an altered version of how Lilith is unsealed, with a different factor unsealing Lilith in this game than in canon, which is why Lilith isn't a playable character in the Project X Zone games, to avoid causing a plot hole by her appearance, though it would be a negligible one that could have simply been ignored without too much trouble.

Lilith is looking for her 'real body" while Raptor realizes she can't be Morrigan due to being a billboard. Baby realizes she isn't human, and then we get this title card of Morrigan:

Guy and Sho then show up as reinforcements, but some Velociraptors show up to reinforce the enemy.

It's at this point Raptor tries to get Lilith to join his team, guessing she's related to Morrigan and saying if she helps them out, he'll help her find Morrigan, and it works, as Lilith realizes that's who she needs to meet.

With that, the fight resumes and Lilith joins the enemy team. She's a Morrigan-lite, with all the danger that implies, so have the current good guys remain on the defensive. The good news is that Raptor and Amaazona won't move close unless you do, so keep it that way for survival reasons.

After another turn or so, Morrigan and some of your other crew will show up as reinforcements. Shion recognizes it as KOS-MOS's maintenance room, while Morrigan feels an odd aura from Lilith. Meanwhile, Hsien-ko facepalms HARD over seeing Raptor again, while Amazona notices Wonder Momo.

The big surprise, though, is that Tron notices Baby and turns out to be one hell of a fangirl of his. This funny for three reasons:

1. He's a member of the police force, she's a pirate.
2. Their mech suits are somewhat similar, they even get a combination attack together, and it can be inferred her Gustaff (her mech suit) was based off Baby's in terms of design, which is a nice bit of canon welding.
3. Did I mention the irony of a criminal fangirling over a cop yet?

Bravoman mistakes Tron's fangirling for a really creepy version of "robbing the cradle" (in fairness to him, it does look that way), and Tron makes it clear she's just a platonic fangirl, then goes on to say she loves how he's a genius and thinks he looks handsome (not helping your case, Tron....). Shion and MOMO confirms the Captain Commando guys are good, while Ken name checks Guy.

The attention then turns to Lilith, who Xiaomu assumes is Morrigan's daughter (close, but not quite). Lilith can't be persuaded to leave the villain team, so the fight resumes.

Also, conditions change so Morrigan cannot die or game over.

By this point, Amazona and Raptor will finally get the thumbs out of their ass and go after your team, so have the original two teams of good guys fall back to where you other reinforcements are.

After another turn and few more goons down, Lilith, will start to convulse, and that's when the Soul Edge will appear in KOS-MOS's maintenance pod. Lilith then tells Morrigan that the tie between them will be cut by that sword (it's the thing that unsealed her in case you haven't figured out, it's own ability to warp time and space cracked Lilith's seal earlier than it was supposed to be unsealed in canon), and when Morrigan wants her to explain, she runs away.

And that's when a Dimensional Transfer occurs.

Gnosis appear in the southern part of the map. Reiji's skull starts to hurt too, and that means Saya is near. Sure enough, Saya and some Ouma goons appear at the south end with the Gnosis, and Saya is after the Soul Edge. Saya hits on Guy a little, and then Bravoman asks what Saya wants with the sword, recalling how it "drew her" toward it once.

Saya commends his astuteness, and then Morrigan blames her for Lilith running away. Saya couldn't give a shit, and that's when Wayahime and Black Bravo appear, also brought here by the Soul Edge. Black Bravo is pleased to have a chance to kick Nakamura's ass again, and he thanks Saya for the opportunity.

She's happy to oblige, and Shion has MOMO activate the Hilbert Effect to make the Gnosis mortal.

As the fight resumes, keep in mind Black Bravo and Wayahime will waste no time moving in for the kill, so have your team fight defensively. I should point out a sweet trick you can pull with both Morrigan and Shion. They have a skill that will let them drain 30% of an adjacent enemy's MP, and you can use this on foes like Saya to replenish your MP pool and spam MP skills for both doing this.

Once Raptor is down to 25% HP, he will withdraw.

Once Amazona is defeated, she will withdraw.

Once over 70% of Wayahime's HP is gone, she will withdraw.

Once Black Bravo is defeated, he will withdraw.

After a few more turns and most of the enemies dead, the Soul Edge will resonate again. It will vanish, and Saya will withdraw.

Once all foes are defeated, we find out the Captain of the Commandos on the bridge and everyone withdraws. As they do, Lilith reappears as the stage ends, ironically as Morrigan left, wondering if she'd see Lilith again.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 18 - I Am Captain Commando

We cut to the bridge of the Vector cruiser, where Bison is thrilled over all the futuristic information he's collected, especially because he got the Third Energy working (he's got some Velociraptor goons on hand), and he also got his hands on the T-Virus as well.

He is then greeted by some reinforcements from the Captain Commando series (who are working for him), with a leavening of Megaman Legends goons. However, it seems they aren't happy about working with Bison, and they bicker over handing over information to each other.

And that's when a mysterious figure shows up to crash the party, identifying the leader of the CC goons as Sturm Jr, who was one of the sub-bosses of the CC game.

Enter....CAPTAIN COMMANDO!

Before we go on, FUCK Captain Falcon, this Captain was setting shit on fire with his fists and making bombastic voiceovers while doing so before it was cool (even if the English voices sucked ass), and thankfully Ryotaro Okaiyu is doing the seiyuu (voice actor) work this time.

Anyway, Bison has no clue who he is, so he introduces himself:

Bison is amused and teleports back after Sturm fills Bison in on the Captain, and when the Captain accuses Bison of being a pussy, he has Sturm "test" the Captain to see if he'd be a worthy foe first.

Sturm really doesn't like working for Bison, but he has his own reasons for wanting to kick the Captain's ass, so he spits, cracks his knuckles, and decides to get to work.

Note, CC is set post-series, so while Genocide, the boss of Sturm's former syndicate is dead, his goons eventually linked up with Bison after some time travel and are working with him to revive the syndicate they worked for and get a little payback, more or less.

The fight starts with just the Captain, who you have to keep alive. Thankfully, he's a decent fighter, so have him go to town on the nearest goon and play for time until reinforcements arrive.

Keep the following in mind, he's a heavy melee fighter, and he's got a lot of high damage dealing attacks, that, if you are decent at combo chaining, can do a high as hell amount of damage with, and he only gets better as he levels up.

Masuyo, Hiromi, and some of your other team members arrive after a turn or two. Chun-li sees Bison and is predictably pissed off at him, and after the Captain gets filled in on how much of a POS Bison is, that only inspires him to want to beat the shit out of him even more, and Masuyo namechecks the Captain as a good guy.

We also find out from Bison that he survived Ryu trying to kill his ass with Rose help from the Alpha backstory, and now he's collecting allies and technology to perfect his Psychodrive powers.

As the fight resumes, do yourself a favor and DON'T go out of your way to fight Bison yet, He's tough as hell, so just work on the goons first. Sturm Jr. is a heavy hitter, but the other goons are no worse than before.

Sturm and CC will exchange some mutual respect for how tough each side's forces have become after chipping away at some of the goons, and Bison is not amused and decides to call in more help, and Sturm decides to call in his own help as well.

Cue a shitload of Baraduke reinforcements and some "Assassins" (I'll get to that later), who are essentially slightly tougher Gun Octis.

Everyone is all 0_0 and wonders how Bison and Sturm have Baraduke goons on their team, and Bison has the sheer brass to say flat out he's just using them, and that (Sturm) thinks he's using Bison, but whatever, they are getting what they want by working together, so that's okay.

CC then makes mention of something called the "3rd Moon" and wonders if its in this world as well.

As the fight resumes, just keep chipping away at the goons. Keep in mind Sturm will prioritize the Captain, so keep his HP up.

Once you defeat Sturm Jr, he will withdraw, and the Captain again mentions the "3rd Moon".

After killing most of the reinforcements, Bison is impressed, and everyone proceeds to shit themselves as Bison uses his Psycho Power to cause a dimension distortion that summons his own troops, which include Cammy/Juli/Juni, some Bakuda and Mishima machines, and he also reveals he got the ability to dick with time and space thanks to info he got from the Ouma.

Jin wonders what his connection to Mishima (Heihachi in particular is), and we find out Bison is actually in opposition to him (and this confirms that Heihachi was screwed out of getting to the Third Energy and T-Virus first), and this confirms to Jin that Bakuda is working for Heihachi alone (as Bison merely forced the Bakuda/Mishima units on his team into service via some forcible reprogramming).

Regina then manages to surprise Bison by telling him she figured out he used his power to jimmy the ignition of the Third Energy Reactor, a deduction that has Bison shocked at the accuracy, and then Bison admits it served it's purpose and he found a better alternative. He then sics his forces on you and withdraws for now.

Once you defeat Cammy, she will withdraw.

Once you defeat Juni, she will withdraw.

Once you defeat Juli, she will withdraw.

Once all foes are defeated, everyone decides to swap notes and the Captain is confused as to what the Klonoa cast are, and they all decide to get the other teams back together to pool what they know as the stage ends.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 19 - The Soul Eating Evil Sword

We resume with everyone on the Volklinde's bridge, and they are all sharing what we found out over the last three stages. An energy signature is detected in the hangar, presumed to be the Soul Edge, hence everyone heads on over there.

Sir Arthur is there with Lilith, who actually waited for him to regain consciousness after he briefly lost it during the dimensional jump from Joylant. He notices her demonic nature but realizes she isn't inherently evil, then he asks if she saw Stahn and Rutee.

She then asks if he can "feel it", and we cut to the battle map, where Arthur is starting to get the idea what she's talking about. Lilith then wants to "play", but Arthur declines, but the choice to avoid it is taken away when some Phantom Beasts show up. Stahn and Rutee show up as reinforcements, having been looking for Arthur. Lilith still wants to fight, but even though Arthur realizes it's just because of her nature and not out of evil intent, he tells Stahn and Rutee to be careful as the fight starts.

Sir Arthur is not a bad fighter, though he mostly a ranged fighter (since he throws his weapons like in his home series), and he can be good for combo juggling if you play him right. He's also got, ironically enough, pretty decent defense, which is very ironic indeed given how poor it was in his own canon.

I recommend having Stahn and Rutee focus on the Phantom Beasts while Arthur keeps Lilith busy.

After a turn or so, Lilith realizes you guys are good, and Rutee starts ranting at Lilith for attacking them. The rant is cut short when the Soul Edge shows up to the party, and this also attracts Saya, who explains the Soul Edge brought them all there, and after hitting on Stahn a little, Reiji shows up and tells her to cut the crap as she tries to play all innocent so she can snag the Soul Edge.

You get to pick six more characters beside Reiji, Xiaomu, Kai, Gilgamesh, Morrigan, and Taki, so pick who you like. After a few intros, Valkyrie shows up as well as reinforcements, and Saya is getting annoyed.

Cue Dimensional Transfer as some Ouma goons appear opposite your team on the map.

As the fight starts, keep everyone relatively close together, some more enemies will show up soon, and I suggest, as you make your way across the field you might as well finish off Lilith first.

Once you take down Lilith, it confirms to Lilith her and Morrigan are connected and she withdraws.

I then recommend you quickly work to kill off the tougher goons on the field first, especially the Ouma ones.

Gilgamesh and Arthur have Multiple Assault attack, use it if you can, it can hit at least two foes, is quite powerful, and the ending is very amusing.

After taking down half the foes on the map, some more foes show up, the Demon's Blazon and Red Arremar. He's surprised and pleased to see Arthur, Gil, Valkyrie, and the other good guys, and then when Gil asks him about Druaga's location, he like "Duh, his tower."

Stahn then points out his tower is destroyed (in their world), and Red Arremar points out it's in the Infernal Village now, fully restored. Arthur then pieces together what they'd need to get to both, something that can make dimensional barriers silly putty, and so far, the Soul Edge fits the bill.

Red Arremar is then like 'Time to talk, over, now we kick each other's ass.", and Taki's blade Mekkimaru is going nuts once more as the fight resumes.

For now, keep eliminating the Ouma and Phantom Beasts, the Demon's Blazon forces will come to you soon enough.

Once you take down Saya, she'll withdraw after leaving a cryptic hint what she's waiting for is "Reiji himself" and makes a reference to Reiji's dad.

NOTE: Keep this in mind, it's a hint to the endgame plot.

Once Red Arremar is worn down to around 25% HP, he will be all "damn, they are strong", and then Reiji asks if the Soul Edge drew him here. Arremar is like "first time I've heard of it", and that's when the Soul Edge starts really glowing like a torch, leaving even Arremar all 0_0 at it.

And that's when it summons these horrifying freaks called "Charades"

For those not up on your Soul Calibur, these monsters are essentially incarnations of the Soul Edge's power, more or less.

The Charades are hard hitters with meat shield level defense and HP, but there is only three of them, so gang up on them as they approach, and they should fall.

Once they are gone, the Soul Edge goes batshit and a massive Dimension Transfer occurs.

We then cut to the 3rd Moon, Earth Control Section.

A creepy shadowy figure is pissed to find out about intruders on the 3rd Moon, and a ninja-ish looking guy reports they have no clue whom they are. One of the "Assassin" units (called Solos) arrives and reports while most got there via time-space crap, one got in via another method.

The shadowy figure then tells Hien (the ninja guy) it must be one of the "striders" that oppose him, and calls him the Grand Master.

Before we go on, these guys are from the series "Strider", and the Grand Master has "Meiou" appended to his name in English translations, which makes little sense, because that means "Master" and is thus redundant, so I'm just calling him his JP name.

The Grand Master then reveals himself and tells Hien to take that Strider out.

Hien reports Tonpuu has already gone to see to the intruders, but the Grand Master is more concerned with the Strider, and Hien assures him he will deal with that himself, calling the enemy...Strider Hiryuu.

We then cut to the 3rd Moon, Antigravity Corridor.

Morrigan is upside down, as the gravity is off, and Klonoa is about to toss his cookies because he's upside down, and Baby tells them they need to consider the ceiling the floor to get their bearings.

We then cut to Nakamura, who is getting used to the gravity, and Demitri wonders where they are. Baby surmises it's the 3rd Moon, a space station, and the guy who runs it is basically at the top of the future space police shit list. At that point, they realize not everyone is there, and as they hear an explosion, they figure it must be the others, with Ken leading the way as the stage ends.

 

[GethN7]

Before we continue with the sperging, I'm going to give a little background on the Strider series.

The Strider series is a joint effort between Capcom and the manga collective Moto Kikaku. Capcom owns the rights to make games based off the property, but the latter has to sign off on the use and has input on how the property is used, very much like how the BBC has the right to use the Daleks in Doctor Who, but they still have to get final approval from the estate of the creator on how they are used to do so.

Striders are futuristic ninjas that are part of a technically neutral PMC, but the main character, Strider Hiryuu, he usually winds up working for the side of good in most incarnations due to circumstances and his own morals.

Given what I said above, Capcom had to run the use of the series in this crossover by the Moto Kikaku guys like always, and if you ask me, that's good, because they fit, very, very well into this crossover.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 20 - From The Lost World

The next stage stage drops us right into a battle, where Grand Master goon Tonpuu is hunting down the intruders:

She is demanding the names of two guys built like brick shithouses, and this one replies he has no name:

For those of you who play Metal Gear Solid games in Japanese, his voice should be familiar to you. That's because it's Akio Otsuka, the guy who voices Snake and Big Boss.

His buddy clarifies they didn't mean to show up here when they did:

Before we go on, these two guys are from the game Forgotten/Lost Worlds, and they LITERALLY HAVE NO NAMES. They are even called "Unknown Soldiers", though for convenience, they do refer to each other as Alpha and Beta (in order as depicted above), and I shall do the same) on occasion. Slyphie also comes from this series.

It bears mentioning these guys were pulled from their own canon mid-game, which is set on an alternate, post-apocalyptic version of Earth called the "Dust World", so their confusion is perfectly justified.

Tonpuu doesn't believe them and tells them they are trespassing on the 3rd Moon, and they are still confused, as they were in the process of looking for the villain of their own canon to kill him when they wound up here. Tonpuu finally realizes these guys aren't lying and confirms they likely showed up here not only due to a warp through space, but only time, since this in the past from their own time period currently.

Alpha/Beta are still confused and would like to leave quietly if they could, but Tonpuu plays hardass and summons some Carols to take the two mercs out, and they are like "aw shit, might as well do this then...."

Alpha/Beta are a paired team, and they are as tough as they look, being a ranged team that is great at juggling and doing damage as well as defense. They are only long range and kinda slow as a counterbalance. They are accompanied in battle by two mini MobilSuits from this series:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyper_Dyne_Side_Arms

This just means they get to chain even more hits in their combos.

Anyway, you have to keep the two soldiers alive until help arrives, so have them play for time.

Be warned Tonpuu can hit pretty hard, so keep your guard up.

After a turn or two, she acknowledges they are pretty tough and Alpha appreciates the compliment.

And that's when another Dimensional Transfer occurs....and it's Slyphie again, shop and all.

Both soldiers facepalm as they realize who it is and the merchant herself is pleased to see her favorite customers. Tonpuu is not amused to see ANOTHER intruder and adds Slyphie to the shit list, and we get this cool title card as the fight resumes:

Have Slyphie join in on beating the crap out of Tonpuu, and have the soldiers back her up while fending off the Carols.

After another turn or so, the good guys from the last cutscene of the prior stage show up (after Alpha and Beta crack an amusing one liner about how the Carols are "jailbait" to them, which is hilarious given their adult figures), and they all say their hellos, with Slyphie handling the "these are the good guys" for Alpha/Beta's information.

Tonpuu is really annoyed now and calls in the Gnosis to deal with the new intruders. Slyphie starts praising MOMO when she deploys the Hilbert Effect to render the Gnosis mortal, to the point it starts sounding borderline pedo-ish (GREAT, can't MOMO go one fucking series without someone creeping on her because of her age......?). Shion is disturbed the Grand Master can control the Gnosis, and as the fight resumes, just have your reinforcements handle the Gnosis while Slyphie and Alpha/Beta continue making Tonpuu and the Carols their bitch.

Once you defeat Tonpuu, she will withdraw.

Once most of the enemies are gone, more Captain Commando foes will show, led by a guy who looks like a purple version of Sturm Jr, and we find out the Gnosis the Grand Master has been using are actually synthetic ripoffs identical in all particulars to the originals in terms of power, except controllable.

And it turns out this is Sturm's big brother, and just as everyone tells him to bring it, he summons....clones of Captain Commando.

Brief pause, this is actually using a bit of CC lore here, as one of the bosses was Doppel, a Genocide syndicate goon who specialized in making clones of the CC team you had to deal with, and it seems he survived and helped the Grand Master make those Gnosis ripoffs as well as his usual shtick.

Everyone is a bit taken aback by this, but figures, hell with it, might as well take down the clone army too.

I'd worry about taking down the CC clones first, they can do some nasty damage. The Brenda's and Z's are nasty as well, but no worse than the other bog standard CC goons. Sturm himself is a nasty piece of work, but manageable as long as you take down his goons first.

After taking down one of the clones, a funny conversation ensues where they discuss the possible benefits of using the Doppel tech to the good guys advantage, and when Morrigan suggests to Wonder Momo that she become a clone of herself, Beta is all for that idea.

Once you take down Sturm, Baby proves to be damn good at shit talking, to the point the rest of your team is frankly in awe.

Once all the foes have been defeated, the new guys say hello and once the fact they have no names comes off as annoying, Felicia and the others try to come up with some, but Demitri puts his foot down on that nonsense, and Alpha/Beta don;t really care what they are called (though they do veto Felicia's suggestions), and as the stage ends, Slyphie still comes off as a goddamn pedo over MOMO.

P.S. - Nothing really untoward comes of this little running gag concerning MOMO, but it's still creepy as fuck.

 

[GethN7]

Chapter 21 - Steel Adventurous Spirit


We start the next level in the space dock of the 3rd Moon, where we find the titular hero of Megaman Legends along with Roll Caskett, his adoptive sister, and they are trapped on their crashed airship Flutter:

For those not aware, this series (called Rockman DASH in Japan) is "far-future" story in the MM universe, much like how Turn A Gundam is supposed to be set in the far future of the Gundam universe, and it's hero is Megaman Volnutt, who is notable for not only being one of the few MM incarnations to have no helmet by default (though he can equip one), his series got left on a damn cliffhanger after the second one because some asshole at Capcom decided to let the series rot and screwed fans out of a third game, and this game is set during an altered late-game version of the first game canon, some time before the second game.

This series is also weird in that the character Tron Bonne has gotten more traction than it's own hero outside of the series, to the point only Tron showed up in the first Project X Zone.

Anyway, they refer to some guy who was with them who was going to look around, and while they wait for him to return, they were going to take on the Rebirds around the ship.

And that's when Solos led by yet another Sturm recolor show up:

He introduces himself as Drak, and when Megaman and Roll try to explain themselves, Drak makes it clear he doesn't care, they must die.

Roll, as you can see, thinks that a bit drastic:

Drak then orders his goons to attack as we get this nice title card:

As the fight starts, play defensive for now, keeping in mind Mega and Roll are a ranged paired dual unit, and not that durable under sustained fire.

Survive for a turn or two, and Mega suggests they run and abandon the Flutter. Roll is reluctant, and Drak let them know he'll make their deaths quick.

And that's when Sho tells Drak he's an asshole.

Cue Sho, Guy, and most of the other half of your team showing up to save the day.

Everyone notices Drak looks like the other recolors, and Tron is shocked to see Megaman (she kinda got a crush on him in the first game, despite being a bad guy at the time) yet pleased, yet less pleased to see Roll (who she considers a rival) and the feeling is mutual.

Bruce and Regina figure they must be good guys (despite Tron's bitching) and Masuyo and Hiromi confirm it.

Drak gets annoyed they are ignoring him, and Bruce tells him to shove his complaints up his ass.

In response, more enemies show up....clones of Mitsurugi, Kurino, and Ken, to be exact.

Everyone is briefly confused, but Sho explains they are Doppel knockoffs of the real things. Mega and Roll make the connection to the Genocide syndicate immediately, and they all decide to join forces to take down the enemies.

My advice is to immediately move to reinforce Mega and Roll while doing a covering retreat against the clones while getting Mega and Roll into allied covering range, as you must keep Mega and Roll alive.

Once you whittle down the enemy forces a bit, Drak realizes you guys are tougher than expected, and then this prick shows up:

This guy is Megaman Juno, who, for those who don't know your Megaman Legends, he's an asshole. A genocidal motherfucker whom you should feel no pity beating the shit out of. Won't say more to avoid spoiling things for those who haven't played, but I repeat, he's an asshat.

Both Mega and Tron go all 0_0 at the sight of Juno, who doesn't remember them (amnesia, he got his ass kicked so hard in MML his memory was hosed up). Mega realizes Juno doesn't remember them and quickly whispers the basics of Juno being an evil bastard to Roll.

Everyone else is trying to figure out what Juno is, and they quickly realize he's a machine like KOS-MOS, only, minus anything considered decent or remotely human, and Mega tells Juno he's got to die.

Juno isn't going to just lie down and die, and hence summons some Baraduke goons to deal with you, and everyone assumes they are more ripoffs created by the Grand Master, and Juno is ready to kick your ass, while Masuyo is quietly wondering if someone she knows is also there.

As the fight resumes, consolidate your position around the lower left staircase area to establish a chokepoint against enemy assault, as Juno and most of his goons are on the far end of the map and you still need to keep Mega and Roll alive.

I suggest working especially hard to take out all the Solos, those assholes are meatshields who can hit fast and hard. the Baraduke goons aren't too bad, and the Rebirds are still pretty so-so, and Juno's henchman are tough but manageable if you whittle down the other goons first. Drak hits hard but is manageable when isolated.

Interestingly, you can defeat Drak and he'll just recover some HP, so you can use him as an EXP pinata if you want to.

Once you whittle down some more of the enemy (ideally try to position most of your ranged guys around the left side of the Flutter to turn fighting Juno and his goons into a snipe hunt), some more foes will show up, including more Pookas from Dig Dug.

And then, MR. DIG DUG HIMSELF APPEARS!

Yeah folks, THAT'S the little dude with the balloon gun from Dig-Dug, I shit thee not.

FYI, he's the guy Mega and Roll were waiting on.

Masuyo is all 0_0, especially at the mention of the name "Taizou" and corrects Tron's mis-impression of his digging tool as actually being a weapon.

Yeah, as I mentioned way earlier, that guy is her ex-husband.

Taizou recognizes Masuyo, and his greeting to her isn't as chill as hers is, and she sounds a little pissy when she confirms he's indeed Taizou Horii, her ex, to Hiromi.

She then goes on to explain the Baraduke Raid (a fusion of hers and Taizou's own games in one backstory) went utterly to shit, and we find out Taizou's so damn badass because he's one of the best combat engineers alive, and he was one of the few people who survived that shithole with her.

He basically quit the military after that operation and became a full-time Digger, and see the end of this post for the incredibly autistic backstory behind the Baraduke and Dig-Dug canons.

Masuyo's bitterness is really obvious, to the point everyone comments on it, and Taizou is a bit miffed to hear she still has a grudge.

It's at this point, as Taizou is like, "so, how do we get out", and Juno cheerfully let's him know not to worry, he'll send them straight to Hell.

Juno then elaborates they have a lot more goons on their side, and Taizou confirms he's not bullshitting, Juno's current benefactor (the Grand Master) is breeding the Baraduke/Dig-Dug goons as foot soldiers for his army, with the help of some of Genocide's former technical support staff.

It's at that point everyone decides they better haul ass soon and get the Flutter free so they can escape, and Taizou joins up at Masuyo's insistence as the fight resumes.

Taizou Horii is a badass, k? He's primarily a melee guy, and he does high damage with his attacks, which include the classic "inflate foe like a balloon" attack, as well as his pile bunker being able to fire harpoon rounds and being able to fire into the ground and shoot fire waves.

I suggest having him stick around to deal with the Dig-Dug goons, he will chew through them easily enough.

You can also permanently take out Drak at this point, and he'll withdraw.

Juno should be able to make his way to your position by now, and be warned, he's got a mountain of HP, great range, and a deadly super attack should his yellow meter get to full.

Once you whittle Juno down to a 1/5 of his HP, he will withdraw, but not before revealing the Grand Master found what was left of him after Megaman wrecked his shit, put him back together, and out of gratitude he's helping out the Grand Master in return. Megaman really wants to kill the bastard ASAP, but Juno beats a retreat before that can happen.

NOTE: Tron and Roll know Juno and Megaman had a dogshit meetup, but not all the details, and given how traumatic said meeting was, Megaman really doesn't feel like sharing.

Once all foes are beaten, Hiromi and Masuyo put out an SOS for the other technically inclined people on the other teams to pick up while Taizou and the others decided to work on freeing the Flutter so it can fly again as the stage ends.

And, @Jaimas, @AngeloTheWizard , and all other autists of all ages, sit back while I describe the incredibly autistically detailed backstory of Baraduke and Dig-Dug.

Our story begins shortly before the plot of both games, which according to N x C took place in the same place but both were assigned to different areas in a military op to clear out all the monsters. Masuyo and Taizou fell for each other during their military days and got married, even had three children, with one of them, Susumu, aka Dig-Dug II, becoming the star of the second Dig-Dug game.

Unfortunately, as both of them were as married to their jobs as they were each other, one or the other had to grind away at the other, and unfortunately their marriage wound up on the losing end of the deal, and by the time the plots of their respective games finished up, their marriage was in the final phases of demolition, and they divorced soon afterwards.

N x C picks up after all this, with Masuyo taking a job with the Space Police, while Taizou went full time freelance Digger, with their kids being left mostly with Masuyo, who sensibly enough had other people look out for them, since she had to work to put bread on the table and she was still so pissed off at her ex she was too proud to ask him to kick in some alimony.

The two of them meet back up ironically at the ruined, bombed to hell remains of the fortress of Baraduke all over again back when we first met Masuyo and Hiromi in their prolouge, and neither Taizou nor Masuyo, who once again entered from different areas (with Tron and Roll's ships also in different areas) of the same place realized they had come back to where they once fought monsters and had their marriage go down the toilet, at least, not until after the fact.

As this game is set before Dig-Dug II (set a couple years later), their story will continue by the time of that game with them still divorced, but Masuyo would still watch over her kids with Taizou if only because their kids need parents, dammit, especially since their eldest son followed in Daddy's footsteps in Dig-Dug II.


....yes folks, the Japanese wrote all this incredibly detailed backstory for two characters from old-timey coin operated arcade games, I shit thee not.

Also, Taizou's name is actually a pun on the Japanese phrase "loves to dig".

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

That...

Is some legendary autism. Who's the bigger autist, the player, or the one who writes all of this for us to autistically sift through?