Miwa then cuts in, ranting about "those fools from Nergal Heavy Industries", as apparently they cockblocked the Federation's request to deploy their newest battleship for combat purposes.
Bright is aware of this, as Miwa is pulling martial law on Nergal to commandeer the vessel (the "Nadesico") for the EF, and Bright is supposed to be the guy who repos it for him. Miwa apparently believes they are gonna hand it over to Giganos, and since their rival Anaheim Electronics is playing ball with the Feddies, he believes Nergal is seeking business with the Giganos forces since they can make a profit without having to have the tab deferred by the war.
That's when Lucrezia Noin of the Preventers (who serves as their liaison to Londo Bell as well as part of the Londo Bell forces) asks where he got the information.
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The answer amounts to Miwa being a paranoid son of a bitch and making dumbass assumptions.
He then gives them their marching orders:
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Bright tries to protest that there are certain protocols even for the military to commandeer civilian assets, they can't just outright steal the damn thing, but Miwa doesn't care, this is a war, dammit, any form of force is authorized by him to seize said asset for the Earth Federation.
The Getter, Mazinger, and Daimos peeps were patched into the call, and they feel sorry Bright has to put up with that unreasonable asshole, and Lamia gets explained they'll be chopped to Bright Noa's command once they join Londo Bell, and she assured Bright Noah is nowhere that much of a cunt.
Hayato, however, does concede Miwa one point: What does a civilian company need with a warship?
Ryouma admits that is a good point, and Miwa is all "glad you see reason on this, now haul ass!"
The good guys then decide they'd rather join up with Bright sooner than later, so they plan to meet the guy halfway, then Lamia has a lightbulb moment and says she plans to present the idea to Miwa to win him over, she has an idea what will work.
View attachment 575558
She basically plays the patriotism card, and despite the Engrish, she tosses in a brief apology for her earlier "insolence": and does kiss his ass a little to win him over.
He falls for it:
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Everyone is little surprised he cut transmission with an "approved" and a smile on his face, but Lamia assures them he was just told what he wanted to hear.
We also find out what Nergal means:
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FYI, Nergal was also the god of the Babylonian underworld, their Hades equivalent.
Nergal (the company) has been balls deep in the Mars terraforming and development as well.
We then cut to Nana asking Kazuya if he wants to bring Erika aboard the Argamma. Kyoshiro is not a fan of this idea, she is injured and amnesiac, but Erika herself wants to do this too.
We then cut to the Mycenean Empire Control Room, where Warchimedes notes the good guys left Daimobic. He orders Dungele to tail them, and we find out Dr. Hell is still looking over those blueprints. Ankoku Daishogun plans to tag along,and Burai details Hidler to go as well. Hakkotsuki asks to sally forth with them, and Hidler knows why, her daughter is near Sasebo City, and he's all "ja, you may come".
As the good guys await the Argamma, we cut to Nergal's HQ in Sasebo, where this goofy bureaucrat is handing out employment papers.
View attachment 575563
FYI, he's voiced by the same guy who does Sanger in Alpha Gaiden, for those who played that or saw my LS on it.
The guy he's addressing is Akito Tenkawa, who is amusingly voiced in English by Spike Spencer, who you Neon Genesis Evangelion fans will recognize as Shinji Ikari.
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Akito asks about a Yurika Misumaru, who Prospector reveals is the Captain of the Nadesico Akito will be working on, to his shock.
We then cut to Meio Plato of Giganos, who is also sussing out Sasebo City;
Meio her is basically an OG Char Aznable stand-in, and his question is addressedcto a Giganos soldier, who confirms it.
Ironically, Giganos was under the assumption Nergal was handing their ship over to the Feddies.
Meio is aware they appear to not be officially affiliated with the Federation, but find it very unlikely they built their own warship without Federation approval either.
His troops want to know if they should attack now, but Meio is reluctant since there is a neutral town nearby and he's not the type to get civilians in the crossfire, but the fact the ship might launch soon means he may have to do the assault now anyway.
He then is basically "fuck it", and orders his men to sortie.
We then cut back to Prospector, who is currently deflecting questions from UN Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Relena Peacecraft.
She points out the people are worried Giganos might attack, they don;t want to be in the crossfire, and Prospector still tries to dismiss things, then decides to play hardball:
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We then cut over to the Nadesico crew, who are watching Relena grill Prospector:
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Minato Haruka is the helmswoman of the ship, while Ruri Hoshino is it's executive officer, despite still being a child (she's a child genius, FYI).
Megumi Renard here is the Nadesico comms officer and a former voice actress, a walking shoutout to Megumi Hayashibara.
And that's when they get attacked.
Or rather, the deck of the ship is shaking because a certain Jiro Yamada is being a tard again.
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Jiro Yamada (though he prefer to go buy Gai Daigouji) is basically a parody of hotblooded super robot pilots, which is hilarious since the Aestivalis machines in Nadesico are very Real Robot like Gundams.
Seiya Uribatake is the ship mechanic, and while he's tad perverted (despite being married), he seriously knows his shit when it comes to mecha, and he is very unamused with Gai here practicing with the Aestivalis like a dumbfuck who thinks he's piloting something from Gekiganger,and in-universe anime that parodies super robots like Getter Robo.
They even remark on the fact he's ironically piloting a real robot and that Super Robots actually DO exist, which just gets Gai's mecha boner rock hard.
Uribatake then snarks Gai needs to calm the fuck down already, and after a little whining when Gai says not to call him Jiro Yamada, but Gai Daigouji, that's when Gai's reckless combat training results in him realizing he just broke his leg.
We then cut to the bridge of the Nadesico, where Ruri is facepalming at his idiocy.
We begin as Meio is ordering Nergal to fork over their ship:
He adds refusal to do so means they and their ship die.
It's at this point Captain Misumaru shows up:
Yurika Misumaru is not only the captain, she's also a childhood friend of Akito and has always wanted to get in his pants, and while she's a bit of a birdbrain, she's capable of being surprisingly competent at her job. She has a bit of a rivalry with Megumi over Akito for awhile, and her father is a high ranking Admiral in the Earth Federation.
Anyway, the Nadesico is making an early launch thanks to Giganos showing up, and Ruri points out someone has shown up to keep Giganos busy.
Your team:
Meio is not thrilled to be fighting Japan's greatest Super Robots, but figures they'll just need to be shot down with Nergal's ship should they resist.
The goal is simple. The Nadesico will prepare to make egress via an underwater dock while your team keeps Giganos distracted, and you must defend the base area of the Nadesico or you lose automatically.
Honestly, this isn't too hard, you just need to plant everyone on the base and shoot any Metal Armors that get close.
Anyway, here's your foes:
These Zaku-II analogues aren't too hard.
Neither are these Gouf Flight Type counterparts.
Meio's Falguen MAFFU, on the other hand, it's a speedy bastard that hits hard, but it's rather frail. However, problem is hitting the damn thing, he's very, very fast, like any proper Char Aznable stand-in should be.
My advice is this.
1. Haul ass ASAP for the base.
2. Park the Galva FX-II in the center for resupply and so everyone can bathe in it's EWAC aura.
3. Keep heavy hitters up front, support in the middle, snipers in the back.
4. Shoot every Metal Armor down.
After a few turns, you get some support as Londo Bell shows up:
With them are Amuro and Shiro Amada, the latter formerly of the Federation 08th MS Team.
Meio is pissed, as Londo Bell gave him a bloody nose in space (seen in the Real Robot route, I started on the Super Route), and he wants payback.
Tapp Oceano, Dragonar-2's pilot, notices Meio's unit.
He's basically Dragonar's Kai Shiden expy. Hell, his unit is basically an alternate take on the Guncannon from OG Gundam.
Kaine Wakaba is the pilot of Dragonar-1, the RX-78 Gundam expy. Hell, he has a thing for the sister of Meio, Linda Plato, who is the Sayla Mass to Char's Casval even.
She's even a blonde like Sayala.
Light Newman, on top of being British, he's also Dragonar-3's pilot, and instead of being a Guntank expy, it's main purposes are ECM warfare and information gathering, and his unit does repair and resupply as well as has an EWAC field.
Before I finish, where Char is known as the "Red Comet", Meio's nom de guerre is the "Blue Hawk".
Yeah, Dragonar really is OG Gundam with the serial numbers filed off.
Noin tells them to not run off like idiots into danger, but Amuro says he's going out to keep an eye on them.
As the Londo Bell deploy, the Nergal people are worried they plan to seize their ship like Giganos, and Yurika drops the title of the series:
Amuro then gets everyone on the good guy side on the horn and says they intend to assist them.
Meanwhile, Meio is not thrilled to fight the D-Weapons (Dragonars) and the White Devil (OG Gundam), and he realizes he could use some backup.
We get a lampshade hung on the fact the RX-78 is a bit long in the tooth, but then again, it's being piloted by the same guy who helped make Zeon his bitch with it.
And that's Warchimedes and Getter/Mazinger/Combattler villain alliance shows up.
Their goal is to kill all of you, and the sheer amount of goons means Gai wants to sortie to help buy time, but his leg is still broke.
And that's when someone else launches in an Aestivalis, trying to run away mostly:
Prospector gets Akito to identify himself, and is surprised the ship cook is in an Aestivalis.
Yurika mistakenly assumes her childhood crush valiantly decided to play the role of decoy, an unfortunately, she's too off in her own world to listen to otherwise.
Even Ankoku Daishogun thinks Akito is trying to show his brass balls:
Like it or not, Akito is now roped into having to fight, and you also have to keep his stupid ass alive too.
Anyway, most of these units were covered in my Alpha Gaiden LS, but those that weren't:
Amuro's got great stats for dodging, but the OG Gundam has shitty armor, though decent weapons.
Shiro Amada's Ez-8 is much the same
Dragonar-1 is basically a slightly better OG Gundam.
Dragonar-2 is basically Real Robot Texas Mack.
Dragonar-3 is like a speedy Boss Borot/Diana A hybrid with Gundam level mobility.
My advice is to take Londo Bell and fly them up to support your other allies.
You basically need to kill all foes on both sides and keep Akito Tenkawa's unit alive, which is AI controlled for this stage:
It's Distortion Field can help shrug off some damage, but Akito is a suicidal lemming, the one frustrating note of this stage.
You'll want to finish off the Giganos troops ASAP then take out the villains alliance team ASAP, meaning you can't just turtle up, leaving Akito to his own devices is idiotic.
The only real surprise the Combattler douches have is this thing:
It's not much harder than the other enemy carriers.
Once you clear out the enemies, Londo Bell is about ask Nergal to hand their ship over, but that's when another wave of Giganos reinforcements is incoming.
And that's when the Nadesico emerges and decides it's gonna leave the damned dock one way or the other.
And it deploys the Gravity Blast, the cannon from HELL, and this was the result:
As everyone else stares in shock, the Nadesico wastes no time clearing the area.
And if you got Ryouma five kills, the secret I mentioned as this woman is noticed.
And it seems she's not human:
As we cut back to the ship, Bright apologizes he doesn't have time for an extended meet and greet, they have to follow the Nadesico ASAP.
We also find out, ripping off another Gundam trope, the three Dragonar pilots fell into the cockpits, and because it assumed they were the pilots, the units are now locked to their IDs, and until they get back to Feddie HQ, the biometric lock is gonna stick.
All three were rookies who jumped into the first machines they could find when Giganos attacked, and they turned out to be the three super prototypes for the Feddie mass produced Metal Armors.
Sayla Mass is also aboard, as if we needed a reminder, since her brother is still Zeon affiliated.
Astonaige Mendoza, the Londo Bell's chief mechanic, he's here too:
Shiro introduces himself, and we find out he's here minus the rest of the 08th MS Team for some complicated reasons.
Short version, he got courtmartialed for suspicion he fraternized with the enemy like in the original show, and he just barely escaped a conviction, but he was still given a stern dressing down for conducting unbecoming an officer and seconded to Londo Bell as punishment.
We then cut to the sickbay, where Michiru is checking in on the Oni they rescued, and the translators were unsure if her name should be Lisa or Risa. It should be Lisa, but the translation is a bit inconsistent, and her name is easy to confuse with a few other similar characters, so I'm going to call her Risa from now on unless otherwise noted.
We then cut to Hyakki HQ:
Risa was held hostage by Hidler and Burai to make Hakkotsuki play ball, and they were going to make Risa fight on the front lines too, but she managed to escape during the shit that went down near Sasebo City.
And Hidler reveals he's as ruthless as his inspiration:
We cut back to the Argamma, where Risa explains she'd be shot on sight as a deserter if she ever went back to the Hyakki, and she has no love for her captors anyway, she just wanted to see her mother.
Hayato plays the paranoid, but Lamia ironically points out Risa spilled information no rational spy would ever reveal, and Risa gives Hayato the proof of her desertion by IDing the Hyakki base she escaped from, right down to exact coordinates.
Noin can confirm Risa's not full of shit, and Bright is going to have the Feddies send a recon squad to check the place out.
Basically, Risa has agreed to join the team and now available as a spare pilot.
We later cut back to bridge as they try to hunt down the Nadesico:
We also find out the Nadesico uses gravitational wave tech for their weapons, not particle beams.
We then cut to the hangar, where Kaine is asking about the Super Robots that can fly, and we find out the Dragonars don't have flight capability yet.
Astonaige then has good news, a flight pack is in the works for the D-Weapons (the MP versions have it built in).
Lady Une calls the bridge, and she's looked into Nergal, turned up squat. she also looked into Lamia, same. She also knows zilch about Erika.
As the stage ends, Bright says they might have to force the Nadesico crew to give up answers about Nergal's agenda themselves.
Interesting note on Hidler, his constant Germgrish was partially an invention of the fan translators. He was kinda prone to it in the original version, though not nearly as much, but since his dialogue was kinda meh in the original, they decided to take the Hitler parody and run with it.
Me, I enjoy it.
As for Metal Armor Dragonar, yeah, I see how Dragonar-2 looks like a Mudrock Gundam lookalike.
In fact, in the early stages of the anime design, Dragonar was basically Mobile Suit Gundam 1.5.
They decided to file off the serial numbers and spin it off into it's own show in case Gundam didn't do too hot (like it didn't originally until it got popular via syndication), but it's still basically Gundam under different names and slight redesigns.
Dragonar pretty much follows all the major plot points of the original show to the point you could watch Dragonar first before ever watching OG Gundam, then watch Gundam and pretty much pick up the plot twists right off.
Dragonar also follows up on something many may have noticed about the original Gundam and it's support units, the Guntank and Guncannon.
In the original show, the Guntank was a tad redundant, and Dragonar-3 fills a niche the original trio of RX-78 series units didn't.
And that's ECM. (Electronic Counter-Measures)
Unlike the Guntank, which was basically another artillery unit, the third D-Weapon was supposed to fulfill the role of support the artillery and assault unit by providing them information on the fly and serving to help shoot down or scramble incoming missiles and perform other electronic warfare functions.
I'll cover more comparisons and contrasts to the original Gundam as we continue, but one last note about how they used the Dragonar plot.
They basically had the D-Weapons already exist in the backstory and a MP version used to help the Feddies win the One Year War, but to still keep the original prototypes around, they basically had them sit around as testbeds for new ideas to improve the MP versions so they could retread the original Dragonar plot, not to mention they are still superior at their specific niches as opposed to the MP versions, which combine elements from all three units, but do all of those functions only partially as well as the super prototypes did.
Some more interesting Gundam related notes before we continue.
For fans of 08th MS Team, they might remember when Shiro Amada did this all out attack where he basically unloaded all his weapons in this epic looking assault that unfortunately had all the effect of a wet fart, which led to Norris Packard pithily remarking
"Well, at least it LOOKED impressive....."
He has that attack in this game, and if it connects, you get to see what happens if it actually did shit as opposed to looking like epic fail in the source.
This game also makes the humble GM Custom (the 0083 model) one of the most deadly things ever.
True, the unit is decent if not outstanding when fully upgraded, but it's real "fuck shit up" value comes from it's full upgrade bonus.
-10 WILL ON SUCCESSFUL HIT TO ANY FOE.
WILL makes several bosses hard as hell since their stats shoot through the roof at high numbers, and if you put a pilot with high support attack (LV4 or higher) in the GM and have it help support attack as well as let it attack the enemy after it does all it's support attacks, you can shave -50 WILL off any anyone, even the FINAL BOSS, every turn.
This reduces several bosses from teeth gnashingly hard to nigh piss easy, so long as you are reasonably accurate and make sure the GM doesn't run out of ammo.
We start this level with Ruri telling everyone the Nadesico the Argamma is approaching at high speed.
It's worrisome, but Yurika figures they can make their way out of this.
We cut back to the Argamma, where Bright tells all pilots to be on standby.
Miwa then gets them on the horn, and while he's been cured of the delusion they are buddy-buddy with Giganos, he and the top EF brass figure Nergal has their own agenda, and frankly, whatever it is is secondary to securing it for use by the Federation.
And who convinced them of this is Admiral Koichiro Misumaru, Yurika's father and a senior member of the Earth Federation Defense Council.
Miwa wants the Nadesico blown the fuck up, and when Amuro is all "Isn't that a bit excessive?", Miwa, like the jackass he is, retorts:
"When I want an opinion from you, Lieutenant, I'll ask for it!"
Bright then finds a way to cut the conversation short, citing the danger their transmissions might be intercepted, and everyone wonders why Bright didn't tell the man off, to which Bright is basically "it'd just be hassle than what's it's worth".
We cut back to the Nadesico, where direct contact is imminent.
Yurika is now privately a bit less confident they can bullshit out of this, and we cut to the hangar, where Akito isn't happy he has to launch, but since Gai's leg is broke, he has no choice.
We then cut to the map, and Bright sorties everyone, figuring a show of force will force the Nadesico to the table to hash this out and limit their room for maneuver.
You can sortie all but one of your units, do this, and if you want, rearrange their positions before deployment.
Protip: You won't be shooting the Nadesico at all, so don't worry about your choices being for taking it down.
Bright gets them on the horn, and after being taken aback by how YOUNG the Nadesico's captain is, Ruri gives us a condensed version of Bright's badass cred, having become the White Base captain in the One Year War when he was but 19.
After getting back on topic, Bright gives the terms to stand down and surrender all crew to the custody of the Argamma, but Yurika says they can't.
Seeing they need to explain SOMETHING, Prospector figures the truth is actually worth spilling given the situation, and it's pretty simple: The Nadesico is heading to Mars.
Basically, after the Martian colonies fell out of contact with Nergal, which had been overseeing their development, the top Nergal brass decided to speed up deployment of the Nadesico to suss out what happened and assist survivors of the apparent attacks there.
Bright informs them the EF brass feared they were pawning their ship off to Giganos, and Prospector, somewhat snidely, remarks they would never do that, not like some OTHER company.
NOTE: Anaheim Electronics and Nergal don't exactly like each other, being business rivals.
At any rate, that sets the Londo Bell guys at ease, but they point out the EF still wants all available forces for use by the EF military to defend the planet.
Seeing they aren't gonna budge on this, Akito sorties from the Nadesico and essentially bitches out the Londo Bell for being assholes. We find Akito is a survivor of attacks from Mars, though how he got to Earth after the attacks is a mystery even to him, and irrelevant. He wants to save the people on Mars, and the Feddies can fuck off for all he cares.
It's worth noting the timeframe of the attacks on Mars are very shortly before the game starts, and Akito's making it all the way back to Earth from Mars would require a month in the highest speed vessel available.
Since neither side is gonna budge, Yurika plans to force through, and Bright is about to give the attack order.
Bright fires a warning shot, and once it bounces off their barrier, he tells everyone to use ballistic weapons only.
And that's when everyone detect a large metallic mass falling from above towards their position.
Specifically, it will land......
Thankfully, the Distortion Field deflects it, but it lands next to the ship, piloted by:
It's a huge assed Gundam looking machine, and it takes an immediate potshot at the Argamma:
The Argamma is forced to sit still thanks to the engine damage, and the Nadesico takes that as a chance to haul ass while the freaky Gundam monster has Londo Bell's interest.
As they do, this guy shows up:
And he yells this and snaps his fingers:
Everyone notes he yelled "Gundam", and Tapp wonders if there was a bargain sale on them if everyone he knows has them.
Domon identifies the freakish monster Gundam as the "Devil Gundam" and tells everyone that thing's ass is his.
Everyone wants to help, but Domon tells them to fuck off, but before he make an even bigger ass of himself, Rain Mikamura (his girlfriend) tells him to quit with the autistic screeching:
He's even an ass to her over this, and while everyone is all "...." as Domon tard rages, that's when Giganos signals are detected.
And that sucks a LOT of ass, as the Argamma still can't move yet.
As Bright facepalms at the cliche, the Giganos troops show up, led by the squadmates of Meio Plato's Practice Squad:
Note: That was the Devil Gundam's name before it became the monster it is now.
At any rate, they see the Argamma is crippled and decide to head in for the kill, and Kazuya works out a quick truce with Domon (they are both martial artists, Kazuya figured him out pretty fast).
Anyway, we begin:
You have two objectives here:
1. Kill everything.
2. Don't let the Argamma die.
Here's all the new goons.
This thing is basically the Dragonar equivalent to Z'Gok from Gundam. Not too hard out of water.
Now for the Practice Squad, who are basically the Dragonar version of the Gundam Black Tri-Stars, more or less.
I'll be blunt, their units are basically lesser parodies of the D-Weapons, more or less.
Anyway, here's the Shining Gundam, which you can control:
It's already in it's "Super Mode" (kicks in at 130 WILL), and it's a pretty strong melee unit.
As for the actual level, keep your healers close to the Argamma, shoot down all the Giganos pricks, and let the Devil Gundam come to you, don't let Domon try to kill it himself, it will kill his ass.
Use the Giganos assholes to build up WILL, then beat the Devil Gundam to death.
It hits hard, but it's aim is a tad shit, use this to your advantage.
Once you lower the Devil Gundam to around 15,000 HP, it will regenerate all the damage, then run like a bitch, but not before Lamia seems to recognize how it did that.
It then burrows underground and hauls ass. Hayato asks Bright if he should pursue in Getter 2, but Bright says it would be inadvisable since it would be hard to support Getter 2 even if it caught up with the Devil Gundam.
With that, the level ends as Astonaige reports he needs another few hours to fix the mess, with Bright dreading Miwa's almost assured bitching.
We then cut to the Lunar HQ of Giganos:
Two things:
1. This guy is supposed to be named Dorchenov, I'll refer to him as such from here on out. The name Turchinov appears to have been deliberate, and while it's a proper Slavic name, Dorchenov is the official name of the character, though unlike Turchinov, does not seem to be a name that would make sense in Slavic naming conventions.
2. Dorchenov is effectively Dragonar's Gihren Zabi equivalent.
Anyway, Dorchenov is pissed, the Practice Squad fucked up despite being so eager to make up for Meio Plato's failure. He's asked if they've become expendable, but Dorchenov says to put their asses on the front lines, at the very least they can die fighting the enemy instead him having to waste bullets executing them for failure.
He then opts for Plan B.
The soldier is all "those....filth?", and Dorchenov is all "Fight poison with poison....."
We'll see the Gon Jem squad soon, but suffice to say they are the Giganos Black Ops, and they are considered scum because they do all the nasty shit the other soldiers won't.
We cut back to the Argamma bridge, where Rain explains the Devil Gundam was originally the Ultimate Gundam, designed as a terraforming device to repair damage to the Earth. It was created by Domon Kasshu's dad as a self regenerating, self replicating, self-evolving machine.
Apparently, Kyoji, Domon's brother, he stole the Ultimate Gundam, fled to Earth, and it somehow became the mutated freak we just had to beat the shit out of. It apparently absorbed Kyoji into itself, and now he's a brainwashed, zombified husk of a former human being the Devil Gundam is using as a human puppet.
Astonaige then calls the bridge, asking for Rain, Domon is tard raging in the hangar.
We cut to the hangar, and Kazuya is reasonably asking Domon why he's being such a cunt.
He's told the Devil Gundam fucked up shit for more than just him by Kouji, but he couldn't give two shits.
Ryouma asks if he has a clue where the damn thing is now, and depsite not knowing, Domon is still being a faggot.
Kazuya then decides Domon needs some sense punched into him.
Erika tries to stop him, but Hayato is all 'Pass the popcorn".
Domon realizes Kazuya is skilled in karate from his stance, so this should be a decent opponent, but that's when Kazuya takes advantage of Domon's diarrhea of the mouth and socks him in the face.
Domon then decides to return the favor, with Kazuya realizing Domon is quite strong and making an effort to avoid any direct hits.
Domon realizes the same, and that's when Tapp realizes Domon is the colonial martial arts champion. (The School of the Undefeated of the East to be exact)
And that's when Lamia decides to break this shit up-
-and gets knocked crosseyed as she intercepts the melee with her body. (She took one of Domon's and Kazuya's hits)
We cut to the infirmary later, where Kazuya is banged up but essentially okay, and Lamia, oddly enough, seems to be not much worse off, which has Kazuya all "WTF?" considering the hit she took, and it seems Erika is getting some of her memories back.
We cut to Argamma bridge, where Domon is getting a dressing down for his tard rage getting someone hurt, and Noin and Bright bust his balls by saying "We get it, you don't give a shit about us, but we have access to more information than you, information that could help you find the Devil Gundam. In exchange, we just want you to tag along and help us, and the info is yours."
Domon realizes the hidden string attached, they want to keep an eye on his spastic ass, and Shiro Amada (who is basically under something similar minus having a choice as a consequence of escaping a court martial) tells Domon he'll get used to it.
Domon finally calms down, so long as they don't hide shit from him, which they won't.
They then realize Lamia must have been far tougher than anyone realized, as even though DOmon grazed her, she took a direct hit from Kazuya, and everyone wonder just who the hell she is again.
We then cut to Lamia, who is staggering out of the infirmary, wondering two things:
1. If she should have acted more hurt.
2. More importantly, why did she get involved in the first place.
We cut back to the bridge, where Astoniage reports the engine is about 80%, which is enough for cruising at least, so Bright decides to limp his ship into the nearest port and get some more intel.
And that's when Miwa calls.
Tapp's next line earns him a dirty look from Bright as the stage ends:
Before we continue, and @Kiwi Jeff, please correct anything I get wrong, you likely know more about Dragonar than me, Dragonar is in many ways a redemption or second attempt to implement ideas intended for the original Gundam.
@Jaimas, please backstop me on that front if I screw up any of the below.
The original Gundam had it's episode count cut short, so it had to leave some ideas they intended only partially implemented or left on the cutting room floor entirely, and two of those ideas centered around Degwin and Gihren Zabi.
Degwin Zabi was intended to start having severe attacks of conscience over all the nasty shit he did, and on top initiating peace talks with General Revil of the Federation like he tried to do, he was also going to feel so much guilt over how he was responsible for Zeon Zum Deikun's death he was eventually going to confess his complicity in his murder to Sayla Mass.
Only the first half got used, and Marshal Guiltorre is something of a redemptive take on Degwin, being what amounts to Zeon Zum Deikun, only fused with Degwin's actions.
The result is that Guiltorre has a lot more ethics than Degwin, being the founder of Giganos' ideology, and honestly believing in it instead of cynically exploiting for his own gain. He also only advocates his ideology because he truly does see the leadership of Earth as irredeemable and many of its people (though not all, he's not a total supremacist) he has no respect for, but he does NOT want to see Earth glassed if he could just take out the corrupt assholes running it, who he truly deems to be fucking shit up and worthy of death for being assholes to non-Earthnoids and running the planet into the ground, and he has genuine love for the Earth itself, not wanting to do more harm than necessary to the planet in pursuit of his goals than he absolutely has to.
Dorchenov, his subordinate and effective XO, is basically a more proactive take on Gihren Zabi, who spent more time giving speeches than being on the front lines. Like Gihren, he's an unscrupulous turd whose real motivations are power, and like Gihren has no morals when it comes to pursuit of such aims. The key difference is that he's not afraid to actually risk his own ass if it actually comes to that, and taking the Hitler allusion slightly farther than Gihren did, he has Downfall-esque Hitler level breakdowns when shit completely falls apart for his plans.
Giganos is general is a more nuanced take on Zeon. Rather than being a straight up Nazi Germany parallel, they don't so much see themselves as superior in general to Earthnoids, more like they see Earthnoids being run by assholes in severe need of a culling for being corrupt and oppressive, which is why Guiltorre set Giganos up in the first place.
Yep. @Jaimas, remember Brianna Wu's stupidity about Moon Rocks?
Giganos actually CAN weaponize them (we'll get to see it in action a few times a couple of stages later)
We also need to cover a few things about how G Gundam works with the game mechanics.
At 120 WILL, all G Gundam machines that have a super mode (the five main characters of the Shuffle Alliance mostly) will have their Super Modes for their units kick in, which not only boosts their stats and critical hit rate, it can also allow them to perform certain attacks not available to them in non-Super Mode.
It's advisable to treat them as a hybrid of Real and Super Robot, thus they benefit from mobility and armor upgrades, and their full upgrade bonuses tend to be such as to make their respective abilities better.
Domon's, for instance, makes it so none of his attacks can be parried by enemies
It's worth noting that G Gundam units tend to gain WILL much faster than other series units, especially when dodging or attacking, so it's to their benefit to be aggressive assault units.
We also need to discuss a few secrets coming up.
Sayla Mass will NOT be with the team forever, she will leave the story more or less after the first route split, but you get one of two bonuses depending on whether she or Amuro have a higher amount of kills after Stage 8.
Sayla: G-Fighter
Amuro: Full Armor Gundam
Whichever one you get this playthrougth, you automatically get the other as well in a new game plus.
For a first time game, I recommend the FA Gundam, it's much better than the original version.
NOTE: Wear a condom @Jaimas, this level will make you orgasm.
We start the next level back on the Argamma, where, with the Nadesico still AWOL and the ship still a bit thready in its cruising, they are still planning to limp for a Feddie base.
Miwa calls, and oddly, he's in what (for him) passes for a good mood.
He even says some new weapons have approved for the Londo Bell specifically for taking out the Nadesico. He also says they can repair and resupply while they get said new weapons and tells them to head for Torrington Base in Austraila. He even has included some reading material on the new gear with his transmission while they head over there.
Miwa adds he's hopping over to Torrington himself to meet them, then cuts transmission.
The reading material Miwa sent over is a tad vague, saying they'll be getting some more pilots and mobile suits, which Noin finds odd, Mobile Suits use a lot of beams, which the Nadesico can laugh off.
We also find out the D-Weapon units can have their registration reset, and the pilots are happy, they kinda fell into the cockpits, they'd like a choice to not be bound to them.
We then cut to the infirmary, where Erika found some bandages for Risa to put over her broken horn, lest people like Miwa shit bricks.
We then cut to Lamia asking Noin why Ensign Amada was detailed to the Londo Bell.
We get a slightly modified version of his canon story, where his MS squad was detailed to taking out Giganos forces, not Zeon. However, Zeon forces were in the area (in the real robot route, we get to see a little of this) and Amada was apparently conversing with one of the Zeon forces, a woman, but while the contents of the conversation were not considered seditious, the fact he fraternized with the enemy was, and he was stripped of his command and detailed to the Londo Bell as an alternative to court martial that would have drummed him out of the army in disgrace.
While Domon is a hardass and approves, that sort of shit is dumb on the battlefield, Lamia postulates it might have been a romantic affair of some sort, surprising Kaine, who didn't think Lamia cared about that sort of thing.
Tapp and Light then rag on Lamia's goofy speech, to which she gives them a dirty look and wonders why she bothered asking.
We later cut to Torrington Base, and Miwa's back to being a dick.
After a bit of bitching they fucked up their missions lately, to which Bright accepts without complaint, he introduces Nina Purpleton from Anaheim Electronics.
Miwa is pleased, as with Nina are some special MS he had prepared especially so this mission would succeed, but Miwa then turns asshole as he notices Rain and Domon and wonders who the hell they are.
Bright does what Lamia did and explains they are colonial volunteers who signed up out of patriotism (Rain catches on and stomps her foot on Domon's before he says something stupid), and Miwa is glad to hear it.
We then cut to the Torrington hangar, where we meet Ensign Kou Uraki.
He's nerding out over the new gear, and Nina notices. We find out Kou has been assigned to the Londo Bell, and we find out the Gundam that Kou is nerding out over is intended for the other Londo Bell officer, Lieutenant South Burning. Miwa then shows up and asks Nina to explain what's so special about the new Gundams.
They are, respectively, the GP01 and GP02, and the latter, as Kou accurately notes, is equipped with a nuclear cannon that can fire Mk-82 warheads.
Noin is aghast, as is Bright, as they are very aware the Federation signed something called the Antarctica Treaty swearing they wouldn't deploy nukes, but Miwa points out a loophole.
In the original document, Zeon and the Feddies mutually agreed using nukes on the Earth or colonies was off the table for both sides, but the alien menace they have to deal with are not signatories to the treaty, so they can be shot with nukes all day long.
Noin calls it madness, but Miwa arrogantly insists it's needed since they proved so incompetent doing the job using less extreme means. In fact, he plans to have a certain target be used as a test of the GP-02.
Yep. The Nadesico.
Sayla points out that's an inarguable violation of the Treaty, but Amuro realizes arguing with the man is pointless and concedes by saying they'll use the weapons with the greatest of care (aka, fuck that crazy bastard, they ain't firing nukes no matter what).
As he leaves, everyone looks at Amuro like he's Hitler, but he points out he never agreed on a time or place they'd ever use the nukes, and everyone else is all "Oh, now I get it."
Bright then asks Nina why Anaheim even made the damned thing to begin with, and she says it was a call by the top brass, she doesn't know shit about who made the call. Bright concedes against some enemies, like the Devil Gundam, it might be a valid option, killing that asshole could very well require such extreme measures.
Nina is confused, and Amuro is about explain things, but that's when both he and Sayla's Newtype senses start twitching HARD.
I'll cover the rest next post, need to explain some things before I continue anyway.
The Distortion Field tech of Nadesico generally laughs off beam weapons and related armaments to a considerable extent, but a large tactical nuke would certainly overwhelm it. While most of the radiation would likely be deflected or absorbed by the field, the blast effect would easily fuck it up pretty hard if not kill it outright because the initial radiation pulse would be powerful enough the field would die trying to fend off the brunt of it.
That would be if fired at while on the Earth or within a space colony (though the latter could be just as deadly to the launcher as to the target).
In space, where there would be little oxygen, it would have the same general effect, as the blast effect from a nuclear warhead would be sustained by a chain reaction caused by the initial radiation pulse compromising the targets, exposing their oxygen to the blast, and likely causing their engines to go nova in the process, which is how it worked in the source where it was used to hose over a Federation naval review fleet.
So it makes tactical sense to use a nuke.
Another thing I wanted to cover is the Antarctic Treaty, it's original usage in Gundam, and how it's handled in this game and other SRW games.
In the original Gundam, Zeon was abusing the shit out of WMDs like colony drops, which devastated the Federation, especially their Operation British, where they fucked up Australia so bad it left a 300 mile wide crater. However, Zeon overshot their hand because while they had a military edge, the Federation was about to crack open their nuke storage at the Luna II asteroid and bomb the fuck out of them in return, which would have ended the war in the Feddies favor.
Zeon then hit upon an idea to buy time, which was to capture General Revil (commander of the Feddie forces), then let him escape with partially true information about how they overplayed their military hand, leading the General to give a speech saying "Zeon is exhausted", which brought both sides to the peace table to not end the war, but hammer out just how far they were willing to go to fight it.
Both sides agreed nukes and colony drops were off the table, and while there were a few other provisions they hammered out, the important part was a ban on WMD usage for both sides.
The Feddies agreed because they really didn't want anymore damage done to them and they needed some time to get their shit together anyway, and the conclusion of the negotiations included a cease fire period they could use to do just that,
Zeon agreed because they wanted to take the Feddie nuclear option off the table because they had the advantage in conventional warfare anyway with their mobile suit tech.
However, the treaty was still violated more than once by Zeon; at least twice during the One Year War, though it was otherwise honored in large part. After the war, a successor document called the Granada Accords was hammered out that merely extended the same provisions with some revisions to the Republic of Zeon, which succeeded the Principality of Zeon that had lost the One Year War.
The Feddies then violated it a few later later in 0083 with the creation of the Gundam GP-02 and it's nuke cannon.
In Super Robot Wars games, they tend to gloss over the finer details, like the Granada Accords (they always refer to the operative treaty by its original name), but it always get some play as a political issue when political issues between the UC Gundam factions are mentioned.
For the most part, though, it's usually only operative between the Federation and Zeon like in the source, though Gundam Wing Endless Waltz's Mariemeia made reference to it in Alpha Gaiden when telling Relena Peacecraft that expecting people to honor agreements not to use WMDs is ultimately pointless.
The only time the series ever made a serious mistake in using it as a plot point was in SRW Alpha 3, where Murrue Ramius from Gundam SEED cited it being operative in the war with ZAFT, which is bullshit, ZAFT was never a signatory to the document.
The creators clumsily tried to handwave it (like they did their poor shoehorning of SEED in general) by claiming ZAFT was a successor to the colonial independence movements Zeon helped kick off since the first game, which still makes them not bound to the treaty since they are a completely different political entity and not one of their members has any relation to Zeon in any political sense.
Then again, SEED was meshed badly in general with that game, so it was far from the only fuckup Alpha 3 made.
The Distortion Field tech of Nadesico generally laughs off beam weapons and related armaments to a considerable extent, but a large tactical nuke would certainly overwhelm it. While most of the radiation would likely be deflected or absorbed by the field, the blast effect would easily fuck it up pretty hard if not kill it outright because the initial radiation pulse would be powerful enough the field would die trying to fend off the brunt of it.
That would be if fired at while on the Earth or within a space colony (though the latter could be just as deadly to the launcher as to the target).
In space, where there would be little oxygen, it would have the same general effect, as the blast effect from a nuclear warhead would be sustained by a chain reaction caused by the initial radiation pulse compromising the targets, exposing their oxygen to the blast, and likely causing their engines to go nova in the process, which is how it worked in the source where it was used to hose over a Federation naval review fleet.
So it makes tactical sense to use a nuke.
Another thing I wanted to cover is the Antarctic Treaty, it's original usage in Gundam, and how it's handled in this game and other SRW games.
In the original Gundam, Zeon was abusing the shit out of WMDs like colony drops, which devastated the Federation, especially their Operation British, where they fucked up Australia so bad it left a 300 mile wide crater. However, Zeon overshot their hand because while they had a military edge, the Federation was about to crack open their nuke storage at the Luna II asteroid and bomb the fuck out of them in return, which would have ended the war in the Feddies favor.
Zeon then hit upon an idea to buy time, which was to capture General Revil (commander of the Feddie forces), then let him escape with partially true information about how they overplayed their military hand, leading the General to give a speech saying "Zeon is exhausted", which brought both sides to the peace table to not end the war, but hammer out just how far they were willing to go to fight it.
Both sides agreed nukes and colony drops were off the table, and while there were a few other provisions they hammered out, the important part was a ban on WMD usage for both sides.
The Feddies agreed because they really didn't want anymore damage done to them and they needed some time to get their shit together anyway, and the conclusion of the negotiations included a cease fire period they could use to do just that,
Zeon agreed because they wanted to take the Feddie nuclear option off the table because they had the advantage in conventional warfare anyway with their mobile suit tech.
However, the treaty was still violated more than once by Zeon at least twice during the One Year War, though it was otherwise honored in large part. After the War, a successor document called the Granada Accords was hammered out that merely extended the same provisions with some revisions to the Republic of Zeon, which succeeded the Principality of Zeon that had lost the One Year War.
The Feddies then violated it a few later later in 0083 with the creation of the Gundam GP-02 and it's nuke cannon.
In Super Robot Wars games, they tend to gloss over the finer details, like the Granada Accords (they always refer to the operative treaty by its original name), but it always get some play as a political issue when political issues between the UC Gundam factions are mentioned.
For the most part, though, it's usually only operative between the Federation and Zeon like in the source, though Gundam Wing Endless Waltz's Mariemeia made reference to it in Alpha Gaiden when telling Relena Peacecraft that expecting people to honor agreements not to use WMDs is ultimately pointless.
The only time the series ever made a serious mistake in using it as a plot point was in SRW Alpha 3, where Murrue Ramius from Gundam SEED cited it being operative in the war with ZAFT, which is bullshit, ZAFT was never a signatory to the document.
The creators clumsily tried to handwave it (like they did their poor shoehorning of SEED in general) by claiming ZAFT was a successor to the colonial independence movements Zeon helped kick off since the first game, which still makes them not bound to the treaty since they are a completely different political entity and not one of their members has any relation to Zeon in any political sense.
Then again, SEED was meshed badly in general with that game, so it was far from the only fuckup Alpha 3 made.
Description of that's accurate, but we really need to get into the RX-78GP02A because good god the Federation is a load of pricks with this thing. A reoccurring theme in the original Gundam timeline is that the Federation was just as fucking bad as Zeon, and nothing shows this quite like the fucking Physalis.
Remember that loophole Miwa exploited? That aliens weren't covered under the treaty? That at least is fucking accurate. The Federation built the fucking Physalis fully knowing that not only was it a walking violation of the treaty if it ever got up and running, but did so with the full fucking intent to use it against Zeon at some point, the argument being used to allow this being that it was illegal under treaty to deploy WMDs, but not to fucking develop or test them. It was frankly built with the fucking hope that saner heads wouldn't prevail.
The thing was purpose-built from the ground-up to be the most powerful mobile suit ever built, with its main gun being the aforementioned guided thermonuclear warhead. It had other weapons, including mounted vulcans, beam sabers, and the ability to mount and use additional weapons, but as a general rule it was designed to end fights in one shot, and specifically take out entire Zeonic force groups. Unfortunately for the Federation, their hubris in building this fucking thing turned out to be a case of laser-guided Karma - it was stolen by one of the only Zeon pilots with a reputation to rival Char's, and who immediately used it to destroy over 70% of a Federation battlegroup that was stationed for an inspection.
The Federation tend to be the architects of their own woes in this universe - arguably more than the Principality's own forces.
We resume at a Zeon Frontline Base near Torrington, where Major Anavel Gato is asking one of the troops if they leaked info like he asked.
With that settled, he then notes the Feddie uniform disguise he's got is a bit loose, and the soldier apologizes, they couldn't find any in his size.
Small funny note before we continue from the 0083 manga adaptation:
In the manga, we get to see that Gato made it to Earth in a hilariously tacky tourist disguise, including a Hawaiian shirt that he utterly loathed. By the time he made it to where he'd don a Feddie disguise and use it to sneak into Torrington to hijack the GP02, he was HAPPY to wear the enemy uniform, as despite his pronounced contempt for the Federation,anything beat having to wear that hideous shirt for one more minute.
A mysterious man tells Lt. Cmdr Gato they'll have to make do with what they have, and before we go on, small Gundam trivia note that SRW tends to carry over.
Gundam always tended to ping-pong between Army and Navy ranks for officers in various translations, and Major is the Army equivalent to Lt. Cmdr in the Navy, so calling Gato either would not be inaccurate depending on translation. SRW usually goes with one or the other depending on whatever source they draw from and whatever the translators decides makes the most sense given the nature of the Gundam source in the crossover plotline.
He then adds to Gato they won't have to bear the indignity too much longer, to which Gato acknowledges his submission to his superior (a Captain by naval rank, equivalent to Colonel in the Army).
We cut back to the Torrington hangar, where Kaine is asking about the flight parts for the D-Weapons, called "Lifters".
Noin wonders why they care, since the biometric locks being removed means they are no longer obligated to pilot anymore, and they are all "oh", and Kaine thanks Noin for their piloting lessons in the meantime. Astonaige then shows up and says the Lifters will be added at the same time the biometric locks are removed.
Kaine then asks Noin if they couldn't pilot the D-Weapons a bit longer, if only to test out the Lifters.
She all "fine, but we'll have to delay removing the registration by a few days".
As they are "sweet!", Shiro makes this comment:
Lamia then collars him and asks why he bothered being friendly to an enemy soldier to begin with. Shiro admits he was a Feddie zealot until he met a Zeon pilot named Aina, then he had doubts, figuring if she wasn't evil incarnate, both sides had to have good people, just fighting under different banners.
Naive, admittedly, but he's making another WWII parallel here, as many German soldiers and officers were NOT Nazis and many in fact resented them while simply trying to serve Germany loyally and honorably, not Hitler.
Lamia calls him on the naivety, but he counters (leaving her with no retort) the only hope they have is remind themselves the other side has human beings too, else they just destroy each other for no real purpose.
She is left pondering that point.
We then cut to where Kazuya is quizzing Rain on how things look medically, and she says she checked, the medical supplies they got should be good for quite awhile. Erika concurs, but adds she fears once she remembers everything, they might not be able to see each other again, leaving him confused and Rain like she should leave them alone.
As she's turning to leave, Domon snarks:
"Love blooming on the battlefield?"
Kazuya initial brushes this off, but Domon keeps pushing, saying the scene was so sweet his teeth were rotting, prompting Kazuya's dander to rise again, and he calls Kazuya a pussy for being such a softie, to which Kaz really wants to punch Domon in the face.
The two morons are about to punch the shit out of each other, but that's when alarms klaxons go off.
We cut to outside the base, where, sure enough, the Bharmians the Zeon forces tipped off are closing in:
Raiza confirms their source info, and Richter decides to give them an ultimatum, which is basically:
"We know you have nukes, don't bother denying it. At the same time, we need your planet for space for our people, and I'm sure neither side wants bloodshed, so stand down NOW, or your nukes and the planet we're taking by force!"
As he says this, the last puzzle piece falls into place for Erika, who knows who Richter is.
He's her brother.
While she's having a freakout to Kazuya's ignorant confusion and alarm, Bright is having one of his own, wondering how the hell the Bharmians knew of the nukes.
Miwa is in shock, they kept a tight lid on that information, and Bright calls for an emergency sortie, but they can't,most units are in maintenance, so they have to scratch up whatever is available.
Thankfully, Lieutenant South Burning and his GM Custom are on deck.
Daimos can launch too, as can the Mazinger, Getter, Angelg, and the Dragonars.
Amuro is deploying ASAP, though he hands command over to Burning for the interim.
We can begin, but take a look at the map:
We have 2 objectives:
1. Kill everything.
2. DON'T let any enemy enter the base (the two 9 square base areas, the road between them excepted)
Bharmian reinforcements will arrive from the south soon, so divide your forces between the northeast and southwest sectors of each base area edge.
By the end of turn 2, Gato will announce in the corner of the map the time has come, and his Captain will come with him.
This is also when the Bharmains will arrive from the other side, led by Balbas.
Nina's about to shit herself, if they destroy the base, it could cook off the nuke, and Erika realizes she fucked up falling for the enemy of her own brother, so she makes a judgment call in the hopes of getting the Bharmians to back off, so she runs in front of Balbas, reveals her wings (she forgot she had them while amnesiac, they can be hidden at will), and asks him to stay his hand.
It partially works, as Balbas takes Erika with him and falls back, but the rest of the Bharmians are still gonna attack.
This also, for reasons that should be obvious, kneecaps Kazuya's WILL down to 70, meaning he'll take slightly more damage and do less critical hits till it gets back to 100, but being parked on a base tile should mitigate the worst of it.
At any rate, keep taking down Bharmians before then can get onto even ONE base tile.
BTW, if Richter and Kazuya fight, you get special dialogue where Richter is cheesed off at the possible thought Kazuya fell for his sister.
Once you fend off the Bharmian assault, everyone is about to breathe easy, save Kaz, who is emo for reasons I need not belabor.
Miwa is pissed off for obvious reasons, but that goes without saying too, and he wants Kazuya executed for treason, but in Kazuya's defense, he honestly didn't know she was a Bharmian.
And that's when Gato gets noticed just as he's about to get the GP02 by Kou, who is bit too slow to realize he ain't a real Feddie.
Thankfully, Linda Plato and Shiro Amada are a bit quicker to realize they have one too many pilots on deck.
Domon nearly uppercuts Gato retarded, making Gato go a bit 0_0 that Domon even managed to jump ridiculously high in the attempt to punch his lights out.
Note: For non G-Gundam fans, Domon is the kind of guy who can drop kick skyscrapers and scale three story building in a single bound, it's that kind of show.
Unfortunately, Gato manages to get the GP02 activated just in time and hauls ass.
But before Sayla can help run him down, this guy shows up:
That's Char Aznable, the "Red Comet" of Zeon, brother of Sayla Mass (real name Artesia Deikun, his is Casval), and neither is happy to see the other is still on the opposite side.
Amuro shows up, but Char hauls ass to his Gelgoog, and Gato also makes his announcement like he did in canon:
Amuro runs to his Gundam, as does Shiro, and Kou is all "fuck it" and jumps in the GP01.
It's at this point we can sortie four more units, pick whoever you want, and Part 2 of this fight begins:
Nina's a bit aghast Kou just jacked the GP01, but considering the situation, Kou didn't have too many other options, and he and Gato have a standoff while Char gets some reinforcements on the horn.
Led by this guy:
That's Ramba Ral, an old family friend of Sayla and Char, and a pretty decent and honorable man who just happens to be fighting for a Nazi Germany parallel, basically serving as an Erwin Rommel stand-in.
Some miscellaneous sperging:
I'd love to see a crossover where he and General Dommel from Uchuu Senkan Yamato meet, as Dommel is even MORE a Erwin Rommel expy, with only one letter change to his last name and even has the same rank and job for the Gamilas Empire. Given USY debuted in SRW V for the PS4/Vita, it's vaguely possible it just might happen one day.
We also have Gaia, Ortega, and Mash, the Black Tri-Stars of Zeon, along to help out the Zeon Forces.
From Gundam 08th MS team, we have their Char/Ramba Ral expy Norris Packard also along to help:
And Aina Saharin is also along, piloting the Apsaulus II mobile armor.
Your objectives have changed.
1. Kill all enemies.
2. Don't let enemies enter the base or shoot down your carrier.
SECRET: If you want the Apsaulus II later for yourself. Have Shiro get next to Aina and use the Persuade command to speak to her once in this fight. That fulfills Part1 of getting her unit along with her later.
Now for your foes:
Char is one speedy fucker, you may have to break out Strike to hit his ass. He gets special dialogue if fought by either Sayla or Amuro.
The GP02 is surprisingly agile, and it will runs automatically after a certain amount of damage. Gato and Kou have special dialogue if they fight.
The Apsaulus II hits hard and from long range, but it's accuracy needs works thankfully. Don;t shoot it down until you convinced her first with Shiro if you want it later.
Yawn.
Norris and Ramba Ral pilot these Zakus on crack. They hit fairly hard, but are frail, though they can evade well.
Norris gets special dialogue with Shiro, while Ramba Ral has a few words with Sayla and Amuro.
Rick Doms are good at long range, and it's best to kill at least one of them ASAP, all three have a team attack call the Jet Stream Attack that hurts like hell if all three are together.
Gaia has a full beard, Ortega has a head that looks like a gourd, and Mash has a scar over one eye. All three have really pronounced Southern accents in the English versions of the Gundam anime for some reason.
Note that Char and Gato will try to run for the edge of the map, and if they get away, whatever, you don't have to kill or even hurt either.
Anyway, once your targets run/die or you kill everyone else, the map end, with Bright cursing their shitty luck. Miwa wants you all to follow the GP02, but the Argamma still needs repairs, it was hastily launched still half crippled for this fight, it could fall apart long distance.
Kou is pissed he let Gato escape, and Amuro is dreading what Zeon wants with a nuke.
We cut later to the Torrington Base Control Room, where Nina is wondering who tipped Zeon and the Bharmians off about the GP02.
Miwa thinks he knows who, and he orders Kazuya and Shiro Amada be brought before him NOW.
We cut back over to the Bharmians, and Richter is fucking pissed again, but this time at his own sister for having the temerity to fall for Kazuya, of all people.
Raiza tries to get things smoothed over by asking Erika give Richter an apology, but she refuses, she did nothing wrong.
Richter consider Kazuya guilty of their dad's death (because Kazuya's dad was at the negotiations where Grand General Leon died, he's clearly holding the son guilty for what he thinks the father did, even though he has no proof save his own grief stricken rage)
Erika tries to talk him down, but he's too pissed to listen and orders her locked up and the key tossed away.
We cut back to the Torrington Base, where Miwa is losing his shit hard, accusing Kazuya of bringing Erika in as a spy on purpose.
He has it correctly pointed out to him even Kazuya didn't know she was a Bharmian until SHE revealed it to everyone, and Light reasonably adds a real spy wouldn't have dropped the ruse in such a flagrantly obvious manner. Rain adds, medically, her amnesia was not faked, that was determined to be real, so she clearly wasn't faking anyway.
Defeated on that front, he then turns on Shiro and accuses him of being the info leak.
However, Bright can defend him, Shiro was always under his close watch, per orders, since his reassignment, and all communications Shiro made were monitored, but Miwa isn't happy and wants to interrogate (aka - beat the shit out of) Shiro privately.
Amuro has had enough of this shit though:
Miwa is not taking it too kindly Amuro is telling him to chill, but Amuro points out they themselves only found out about the GP02's nuke capability when they got to Torrington, not before, even Miwa's advance briefing told them nothing about it. The enemy knew what they were after from the start anyway.
In other words, the enemy knew long before anyone else Miwa could suspect on your team.
Miwa is NOT happy he's running out viable people to blame for this clusterfuck, so he hauls off and slugs Bright in the face for not telling his subordinates to not get so uppity.
Everyone else is ready to say "fuck protocol" and just beat the shit out of General Sakimori right then and there, but Bright powers past the pain like a boss and merely says he'll be pursuing the GPO2 immediately, adding he will be interrogating Kazuya and Shiro himself on the Argamma in the process.
Miwa just storms off, and Lamia gets the impression Bright rolled over and played dead on purpose.
Bright confirms he did, and Light notes if Bright had not let Miwa vent his anger a little, he'd have been even more unreasonable.
We then cut back to the Zeon Frontline Base, where Ramba Ral notes Lady Artesia is still with the Feddies, and Char grimly notes history is repeating itself. Gato then asks if they are at serious risk of pursuit, and Char is certain Londo Bell will be detailed to do so, but Gato need only worry about his mission, they'll cover his ass.
We cut back to the Torrington Hangar, and it turns out the D-Weapon biometric locks can't be rest now, the equipment got fucked up during the attack.
And it gets worse, as South Burning is going to take over from Noin on being the D-Weapon pilots drill instructor, especially since they got the Lifters and some other equipment.
He promises to go all Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann on them and Ensign Uraki, and all three of them are all "Oh shit....."
We cut to a Bharmian prison cell, where Raiza is trying to guilt trip Erika into seeing reason, but Erika isn't falling for it.
NOTE; Raiza has a crush on Richter, her boss.
We cut back to the Argamma, where Kazuya is still emo and Kyoshiro notes the stage title cliche is in effect along with Mary King.
Domon tries to make up for being a jackass, a bit clumsily, but he tries, and Shiro understands where Kaz is coming from and both guys are planning to someone find a way out of this with the ladies they have a thing for in tow.
Lamia is confused, but for some reason can't bring herself to shit on either for those feelings.
We then get a funny moment where Rain wistfully says she jealous of Erika and Aina (for having guys who are really into them despite everything), and Domon totally misses that cue and thinks Rain wants to be kidnapped by the enemy instead.
We then cut back to the Zeon Frontline Base, where Aina is still thinking about Shiro, and Norris Packard, who is for her what Ramba Ral was for Sayla, isn't sure what to say to her.
We cut back to the Argamma, where Bright says they are pursuing the Gundam GP02. Boss asks if they are still going after the Nadesico, and Noin says they have no intel on it so far, but it still can't have left Earth yet, and the Preventers are working overtime to suss it out.
Meanwhile, their intel suggests the Zeon forces are heading to Africa, where they are apparently trying to find a space booster to hop off the planet ASAP.
There is also a stray assembly string the translators missed as the stage ends.
Note: This level has several secrets, pay close attention to instructions, it's very easy to miss them if you screw up.
We are in the Argamma docking back, where Kou is nerding out over the Super Robots.
Nina agrees, and both asks Astonaige how he deals with maintenance of the combining mecha especially, their level of doing so is usually above that of Gundam tech.
His answer is that sometimes he has the manual on hand, sometimes he gets the answers from the pilots, but if neither is on hand, he has to get their source lab to do the repairs. Nina isn't a big fan of this, as Anaheim uses reusable frame technology to avoid this sort of issue, allowing anyone who is even vaguely competent to swap out parts and fix shit without needing to worry about specific manuals for certain units.
Astonaige then sardonically points at the Shining Gundam,noting how even for a Gundam,it requires special maintenance, mostly due to it's custom Mobile Trace Interface, to which they decide to hit up Rain for info on. Kou thinks it would be cool if they could mass produce it, but Rain points out two flaws with the system.
1. It was designed to accommodate the movements of a martial artist of some sort.
2. It has to be custom tuned to each specific pilots movements.
Some miscellaneous sperging:
Motion capture systems like used by Daimos and the G Gundam machines really would be poor for mass production, because motion capture technology IRL is often imprecise outside of very broad applications (anyone who has ever used a Wii or Wii U with motion controls should be familiar with how janky they can be outside a limited radius of movement), and while Daimos and the G Gundam units partially beat this issue by marrying the pilot suit to the pilot and thus getting proper data constantly fed to the machine by using the suit as a middleman, the unit would be SOL if any aspect of this interface was damaged, inhibiting proper flow of data, wheras a bog standard mobile suit, if it lost an arm, just re-attach another and you're good to go again.
Granted, a levers and pedals mobile suit is far less mobile and capable of a dynamic range of movement, but the maintenance cost of keeping them mobile is also a lot lower, which is a quite realistic tradeoff.
They then discuss Lamia's machine, and none of them really buy Lamia's backstory for the machine. Rain and Nina would like to look it over, but Astonaige warns them to be careful, he detected what appears to be a self destruct device, so outside of a certain level of maintenance, any detailed tampering might set it off.
We then cut to Mycenean HQ, where Ankoku Daishogun is asking Dr. Hell if he finally got those blueprints turned into something useful.
Dr. Hell is a bit cranky as he replies he wants to make sure the end product won't be halfassed. However, to placate his boss, he offers to give him usage of something he worked on back when he was original Mazinger Dr. Hell in the meantime, which he has used Mycenean tech to augment.
Upon seeing what the good doctor is talking about, Ankoku Daishogun is all "Ah, I see, good idea."
Hidler concurs:
He reveals they have there own "Trumpfkarten" (I adore his Germgrish), and both Warchimedes and Daishogun are all "top kek!" at what they see.
Dungele confirms they are crossing the Indian Ocean enroute to Africa, and Hidler, Warchimedes, and Dungele set out to intercept them.
We cut to later, as the Dragonars finally got their flight packs on the Argamma, and Kaine wants to take them for a spin on a recon patrol. Lamia notes they are so happy they aren't emo over the registration not being cancelled, but they are all "make lemonade from lemons" and Burning warns them not to be tards and fly out too far in case shit goes pear shaped.
And despite Kaine's assurances they won't, Burning's retort is pretty lol:
We cut to the bridge, where Kazuya asks Bright permission to go with them, he'd rather have something to focus on aside from his own emo, and while Noin isn't sure, Amuro is for it, and wants Shiro to go too. Lamia asks to go as well, and Bright sees no reason to deny it, though Lamia is hoping her mystery employers will send her new orders soon.
We then cut to the Zeon Africa Base HQ, where Neune Bitter is prepping Gato's Heavy Lift Vehicle (HLV).
Note: An HLV is an ancient (by UC Gundam standards) space entry vehicle, basically a contemporary space launcher on crack by our standards.
And it seems Ginias Saharin is a bit impressed something that belongs in a museum is seeing some use.
Note; Ginias is Aina's older brother, a Zeon commander who was the project leader for the Apsaulus Mobile Armor, and suffered from some form of mental illness in the source, likely a combination of manic-depressiveness and schizophrenia, he certainly was mentally unbalanced by the end. He was also implied to be somewhat autistic, but in the dark sense of the term, as he was a brilliant engineer, but dealing with things he couldn't control resulted in him losing his shit in such a way even guys on his own side suffered from his tard rage that often crossed into utter lunacy.
Ginias plans to sortie in his own Apsaulus to assist.
Bitter is glad for the help, but Ginias privately thinks Admiral Augille Delaz (Gato's boss) is batshit for relying on nukes when he could have instead helped finish the Apsaulus Mobile Armor, which was designed to do the same job.
However, before Ginias can continue to privately bitch to himself over this, some mystery person is seriously losing it in the background:
Mystery dude was captured by Ginias in the hopes they could get some Feddie intel out of him, but all they got was a blubbering mess. As Ginias orders someone to get mystery dude to "lol, calm down", they get a page from Gato.
Bitter orders all units to sortie upon getting word Gato's team got spotted.
We cut to the map, where it seems the Argamma recon squad ran into Gato and his escorts, and while Char, Aina,and Ramba Ral offers to hold them off while Gato hauls ass, mystery dude freaks out again, and Char senses him and confuses him for Amuro for a moment.
Gaia notices and asks Char if something is wrong, and he brushes it off, then says they need to do a fighting retreat, making damn sure Gato's ass is covered the whole way.
Bitter and his peeps sortie with Ginias to assist and make sure Gato makes it to the base as well.
The Argamma will arrive soon, but until then, the recon team plans to slow down the GP02 as much as possible until help arrives.
Note: It's been awhile since I saw 08th MS Team, so @Jaimas or any other Gundam fan, please fill in any blanks I got wrong if need be before we continue.
Before we continue, a few notes for people who were introduced to Lamia Loveless via the officially translated Original Generation 2.
Aspects of hers and Axels canon routes were a bit cut and pasted for that game, so her portrayal here may come off different, so I'll just go over what they had in common and any changes.
1. Lamia's machine was examined by multiple techies in both OG2 and SRW A, but eventually they decided to give up when they realized any further investigation would be a dead end.
2. Lamia found excuses to ingratiate herself with Lee Linjun (who was Miwa's OG counterpart if lower in rank and status in the Earth Federation), but for reasons of plot had less opportunity to get on his good side. In both games she also found reasons to go along with the cast whenever possible, hoping her mystery bosses would run into her in the process (which happens a few levels onwards from now)
3. In both games while she was winging it without orders, her default orders were to keep her head down, take note of everything, and otherwise try to remain above suspicion as much as she could. Her willingness to fight on the front lines and exert legitimate efforts against enemy forces in both games were her attempts to keep her cover intact.
4. Lamia was incapacitated in OG2 by drinking one of the infamously terrible tasting (but with positive effects regardless) "health drinks" of character Kushua Mizuha. She drank it to avoid suspicion (figuring she could get an antidote for poison later), and her getting put down for a brief while was roughly the same, though for reasons of plot (she wasn't the only character to unknowingly down one of those hideous concoctions without knowing the effects), this was effectively neutral in nature for suspecting her.
5. Lamia's cover story gets a lot of holes poked into it in both games, but eventually the good guys just decide to wait for the truth to come out after they can't poke anymore holes and they still can't find the smoking gun.
Just a note that you've seen all the enemies here in previous stages, save Bitter's Zaku II (Commander Type), which has the commander headfin:
As for objectives, don't die. If you can, shoot down foes, but don;t strain yourself too hard, more are inbound.
SECRET: DO NOT kill Aina's Apsaulus II if you convinced her with Shiro in the previous stage. You will get her on the team with her unit at the end of the stage. As for the one piloted by Ginias, frag his sorry ass.
SECRET: Destroy Char's Gelgoog if you want if for yourself. Do so ASAP, killing too many enemies sans Char will trigger both him and Gato to prematurely retreat. If you did this right, Char will mention leaving the Gelgoog behind.
No matter what, Char and Gato will haul ass along with the rest of advance Zeon team sans Aina, and Gato will waste no time blasting his ass off the planet in the HLV.
The Argamma will show up at this point. You can sortie eight units. They must include Getter Robo and Mazinger Z for the next two secrets.
Bright will freak on seeing the HLV, and Nina faints, prompting Bitter to utter this remark:
Mystery Man freaks out again, and Amuro, Sayla, and Fa all sense him.
And that's when the Alien-Underground Empire forces show up.
Warchimedes is his usual smug self, and he and Dungele's idiocy prompts Hidler to tell their first trump card to sally forth.
Background on who Miyuki Saotome really is for those who don't follow Getter Robo's manga:
She was originally Gora, daughter of Emperor Gore of the Dinosaur Empire, but she was turned into a sleeper agent by having her consciousness transferred to a human form and then her saurian memories were repressed and she was basically dropped off near the Saotome Institute with no memories five years prior to the series to ingratiate herself to the Labs and she would be awakened and allowed to remember who she was when the time came for the Dinosaur Empire's invasion to begin and she would be their saboteur from within.
Professor Saotome adopted her and gave her the name Miyuki Saotome, and for five years, she basically became part of the Saotome family. When she was reactivated, she had basically gone native to the point her loyalties were conflicted, and even though she had hijacked the Getter Q(ueen) from the Saotome Institute (a precursor to the original Getter), she felt so much guilt for turning on her human family while ashamed of turning her back on her biological father she allowed Ryouma Nagare to defeat her and end her life, but not before apologizing to both her real and adoptive fathers for disappointing them.
All this game did was presume she survived the events of the first manga series and was instead incorporated into the Hyakki forces, who were secretly backing the Dinosaur Empire in the manga, using their invasion as a prelude to their own, while the Dinosaur Empire was it's own entity in the anime versions.
Anyway, she's not really happy about what she's doing, but she feels she has nowhere else to go now one dad is dead and she's a disappointment to the other as well as her adoptive sister.
Domon wonders who these guys are, and Hayato tell him these asshats have been hunting them like he's hunted the Devil Gundam.
Mushashi points out the Getter Q, to Ryouma's horror.
Worse, Light notices a machine that looks like the Mazinger Z and Diana A.
And the lightbulb clicks on for Sakaya:
Minerva X lore below:
Minerva X was supposed to be the partner machine to Mazinger Z, only with a female appearance and a fully functioning AI. Dr. Hell managed to hijack it and tried to force it to turn against the Photon Power Labs, but it wrested free of Dr. Hell's meddling and self destructed rather than turn against the Mazinger Z.
As a funny side note, Minerva X tends to treat Mazinger Z as if it were fully alive, she was to be it's partner, after all, and she also was a big Kouji/Sakaya shipper.
And, continuing with the running Greek/Roman theme of all female Mazinger machines, it has the Roman name for the Greek Goddess Athena.
This game presumes Dr. Hell managed to recover the self destructed Minerva X and repaired it for another chance at turning it against the Mazingers.
Anyway, Bitter notices the aliens are more interested in kicking your ass, and figures they can be used to weaken you so his forces might eke out a win here.
As for Ginias, he just wants his Apsaulus to run wild and blow shit up.
Mystery Dude freaks the fuck out again, screaming "You can't let it reach space!", and that's when Amuro realizes who they have to be.
Heads up for people who need some Zeta Gundam lore:
At the end of Zeta Gundam, which this game is set after, the villain Paptimus Scirroco tried to fry Kamille's brain as he died to take Kamille down with him. It failed, but it did leave Kamille a bit of a vegetable for awhile. He spent time since then till present getting over most of it, but he was still shaking off the rest when he got wind of the shit Zeon was doing, and since the Gundam MK-II was still lying around, he jumped out of bed and flew his still mildly brain fried ass in their direction to prevent them from fucking shit up, he got caught, and now he's out again.
Anyway, Kamille here recognizes Fa and Amuro (Amuro was part of the resistance to the Titans in this game's backstory, but they leave his exact affiliations per the Zeta source slightly vague), and Bitter is all "wasn't he a drooling tard?"
That all said, he's parked on the Zeon base in his Gundam MK-II, and the rest of the fight is to kill everyone on the enemy team before they kill you.
SECRET: Fight Getter Q ONCE with Ryouma, Hayato, and Mushashi (they just need to have a battle scene with her, no need to actually attack the Getter Q). Then, once each of the three speaks to her, convince her with Ryouma, and she'll join your team.
SECRET: Make sure Ankoku Daishogun and Dragonar-3 are still alive prior, then have Mazinger Z park next to Minerva-X and persuade her. Once you do, a scene will play out where Light jams an attempt by Ankoku Daishogun to force Minerxa X to attack. After this,Minerva X becomes an uncontrollable ally, and she MUST survive the stage to receive her permanently. If she dies, she will not be available after the stage.
Also, Kamille's Gundam MK-II is parked on a base, but it's not gonna be fine unless he gets support soon:
I would split your force in two, have one half take down Bitter's Zeon troops, the other take on the other assholes.
If you want to keep Minerva X alive, you will have to babysit her like you did Akito's Aestivalis a stage or two ago, she tends to be a bit suicidal.
Also, while difficult, DO NOT shoot at Aina's Apsaulus if you want to get it later along with her. Thankfully, it's aim is still pretty shit.
This is why Minerva X needs babysat:
At the end of the level, Shiro will convince Aina to quit being a bitch (aka pawn) to her own brother.
As for Kamille, he's mostly chilled out now and Fa is relieved he's okay. Amuro reminds her they might have to fight again soon, but Bright gives him a chance to opt out.
Kamille declines the offer, even though Bright knows he's still recovering from his near brain frying post-Zeta, he's here because he wants to be.
After the fight, Burning reports the base was searched but they found squat save a spare Zaku prototype. Amuro deduces they had all this expertly planned, everything has just been too organized from the start.
At any rate, they have to head to space, and Kouji asks what they plan to do about the Nadesico, but that's still on hold.
Miwa is also expected to be a raging assbag shortly.
We cut to where Shiro and the other are worried Miwa Sakimori will piss all over the rules of warfare and respecting the rights of prisoners (aka Aina) as spelled out in the Antarctica Treaty (nice touch, this often isn't referenced in SRW games, just the provisions on WMDs), but Shiro points out she's not a prisoner, she changed sides, so he has no room to bitch.
Miyuki is in a similar situation, and even though she's still tore up with guilt over the crap she pulled, Hayato tells her to chill, they aren't bigots, they understand.
And Lamia offers a way out of this: She'll do what she did last time and tell Miwa Miyuki and Aina defected because they saw the rightness of [the Federation's] their cause.
We then cut to the hangar, where Astonaige and Mina repaired the Gelgoog Char left behind. They then take a look at Minerva X, and it's a bit of a problem.
The AI function crapped out due to the stress of jamming the signal used to control Minerva X, but they have a workaround: swap out the AI for a cockpit someone can pilot it from.
NOTE: Some games let Minerva X be it's own pilot, but this one let's become a unit any Mazinger character use.
Later, Bright asks Aina what she knows of the Zeon plans for the nuke. However, she was left out of the loop on that, her only business was serving as Gato's escort and working on the Apsaulus.
We then cut to somewhere around the Mediterranean Sea, where Ginias is throwing a tard fit over his sister changing sides. Norris is wisely keeping his mouth shut, but he's quietly rooting for Aina anyway.
Note: In some games, while he usually remains loyal to Zeon, he respects Aina has the right to choose her own path in life, even if it means they might become enemies, and she's aware of this. Hell, in some games, he either helps her defect or, if Ginias has gone bugfuck insane by that point, he joins your team too.
Bonus tip for SRW GC players: To know you got Aina to join the team in that game, disable her unit, but don't kill it. Do it right, and Norris will smile. Fuck up, and he has a sad look.
We cut back to the Argamma, where Lamia pulls Aina aside later, and asks her why she changed sides, and her answer is basically falling for Shiro, which has Lamia confused, and while she tries to spit on that attitude privately, she finds herself having a hard time doing just that instead of valuing being utterly loyal to her original team.
Lamia also refers to herself as "W17"
Anyone who played Original Generation 2 or the Endless Frontier games will know EXACTLY what that refers to.
We then cut to the Campbellian's Earth base, where their boss, Empress Janera, she's tearing them a new asshole.
But that's where a guy named Commander Gandal tells her to calm down and he takes over for her in dressing down her fuckup subordinates.
Instead, after demoting them, he promotes someone else to lead it.
He's Prince Heinel from the Boazians of Voltes V, and when Janera objects, Gandal tells her King Vega of the Vegans (yes, that their name) approved this, to which I should explain something.
The aliens of the Campbell and Boazan from Combattler and Voltes V are vassal states of the Vegans from UFO Robo Grendizer in SRW A, as this an alien version of the Earth based villains alliance, which the aliens are moonlighting with for their own gain.
Janera is also reminded she got her ass beat (per her own canon) and she fled with her forces to King Vega's protection, in exchange, she's basically a vassal ruler of King Vega, and while she doesn't like it, her options suck otherwise.
Gandal tells Heinel they have high expectations of him, and while he outwardly confirms his loyalty, he privately remarks he knows that Planet Vega is slowly becoming uninhabitable thanks to radiation, and soon, he won't have to kiss King Vega's ass anymore.
We then cut back to the Argamma, where Miwa is being a cunt again, and after he bitches Bright out for another fuckup, he notices the newbies, and Lamia makes good on her word to play the patriotism card so Miwa won't tard rage.
He falls for it despite Lamia's Engrish being pretty bad.
We then cut to the hangar, where Domon doesn't want to go to space, as the Devil Gundam is still on the planet.
We have a route split coming up soon, and I plan to do both routes, though one will be "canon" so we can acquire certain Gundam based secrets.
In fact, both routes have some Gundam secrets, and we'll have to sacrifice some to get the others, I'll get to that when the time comes and I'll see what you guys want to do, as each has legit upsides and downsides both short and long term.
BTW, since I didn't cover the new swag, I'll do that now, only showing art for things not shown yet.
Getter Q: Can heal other units and is a pretty decent attacker. Has a more powerful Getter Beam than the stock Getter, but since that gets an upgrade eventually, this isn't really unbalanced. Getter Q can be piloted by Miyuki, and after a point, Risa as well. Michiru Saotome can eventually become a pilot, and she can use it too.
Gelgoog (Char Custom): This is a kickass unit because it's evasion is through the roof and it's pretty sturdy, so hand it to someone needing a good mecha ASAP. Full upgrade it, and all it's weapons obtain barrier piercing capability, which is pretty nice.
Minerva X: A great counterpart to the Mazinger and a good alternate mech for Sakaya to pilot. Has a combination attack when combined with Mazinger Z that does sick damage too.
Apsaulus II: A damn good and quite beefy artillery unit, but it has an issue where if you move, you can't shoot till the next turn, so best used for siege levels for shooting down incoming assholes.
Gundam MK-II: Basically a better version of the first Gundam in every category.
And then we have this:
This weird kitbashed Zaku II is like a discount Gelgoog in the mobility department, and fully upgraded is surprisingly sturdy for a Zaku. If you didn't get the Gelgoog, this is a pretty decent alternative, and you can always hand it to a spare pilot who needs it.
We resume with the Argamma peeps at Kilimanjaro Base, where Domon really wants to head back to Japan, but Rain hands him a report from Noin saying the Devil Gundam seems to be in Africa, and Giganos is still after it, hoping to reverse engineer it into a weapon of their own from the looks of things.
We also find out, thanks to how the Devil Gundam project went tits up, Domon's father paid the price, and he was sentenced to cryogenic imprisonment for the clusterfuck, a decision that baffles the others, as he built it, putting him on ice seems to be stupid, he would know how to kill it, hence Domon wants to take out his brother for screwing their dad over.
We cut over to Ryouma saying it's time to leave along with Domon to Lamia, and Domon is all "I can fight by myself", to which Kyoshiro and even Lamia chide him for being naive. Domon also exchanges a parting "we're rivals, get better so we can settle shit" to Kazuya.
He's all for it, promising to get Erika back, then knock Domon on his ass in front of her.
We then cut to the Giganos Practice Squad, who are apparently infiltrating Kilmanjaro, but before they get caught, their current boss, a pink haired woman, tells them to fall back.
FYI, she's Min, a member of the Gon Jem Squad, and she's basically the token girl as well as being the nicest member of the Giganos Black Ops team.
However, as they leave, seems someone else noticed them, a third party who was also slinking around the base.
We cut to outside the base, where the Argamma is about to launch for space.
Amuro is worried they be shot at since the launch pad wait makes them super vulnerable-
-and he was right, this asshole showed up:
Bright asks how long it will be before they launch, Linda replies eight minutes.
Domon sorties, of course, and the Dragonar team realizes Domon needs some help and sortie as well. The Getter guys decide to join them as do the Mazinger peeps, and this when we have our first route split choice.
Option 1 means Lamia stays in the Argamma to help the space team of the Operation Stardust route.
Option 2 means she helps them and stays on the Earth Route, which will cover the beginning of the Daitarn 3 plot and continue focusing on the Dragonar and G Gundam plot.
I cover the pros and cons next post before anyone asks me what should be the "canon" route, both routes means some secrets will have to be sacrificed short and long term.
