Let's Sperg Super Robot Wars Advance Portable - A PSP remake of one of the hardest SRW games ever

[GethN7]

First off, this is going to be a Let's Sperg of the PSP remake of the GBA game Super Robot Wars A, and compared to the original, the PSP version is basically the same game but better in every relevant way, though it's still obscenely hard, to the point you can abuse a max money code, upgrade everyone to max stats, and still have trouble.

I'll be using the fan translated PSP translation, which, while generally accurate, has some translation choices that were done because the Japanese was hard to translate into an English equivalent, which will also be noted. Some names were also changed for translation limitations given the engine or other reasons, I'll note this where appropriate.

For the purposes of the playthrougth, I'm going to follow the "canon" set forth for this game as depicted in the SRW Original Generations games (which take all the original bits from games with licensed characters and make an game out of them alone), more on that later.

On top of original characters, the following properties will be represented:


(some information taken from Wikipedia)


Chōdenji Robo Combattler V - See my Alpha Gaiden LS for character info.

Chōdenji Machine Voltes V - See my Alpha Gaiden LS for character info.

Tōshō Daimos - We'll go through the plot of this one from the start. It was basically the predecessor to G Gundam in that it came up with the idea of robots that move according to how the pilot does. Also features themes of racism as a big plot point.

Invincible Steel Man Daitarn 3 - See my Alpha Gaiden LS for character info. We'll run through an altered version of the plot here.

Metal Armor Dragonar (debut) - This was basically a serial numbers filed off version of Mobile Suit Gundam made by Sunrise as a potential series franchise, but stopped at just one because it didn't take off that well, but was popular enough in it's own right. We'll follow it's storyline with some minor changes.

Getter Robo - Storyline already concluded to some extent, but elements of this will still appear, see my Alpha Gaiden LS for character info

Getter Robo G- Storyline is generally followed from the manga with some moderate changes.

Shin Getter Robo (based on Banpresto's original design of Shin Getter Robo) - Banpresto's original take on Shin Getter before it became part of the original source is used here.

Mobile Suit Gundam - Storyline mostly concluded, but with some changes.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team - Storyline mostly concluded, but with some changes.

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory - Storyline will be played out like original, with some changes

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam - Storyline mostly concluded, but with some changes.

Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ - Storyline will be followed, with some changes

Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack: Some events, characters, and units will appear.

Mobile Fighter G Gundam - Storyline like the original, with some changes, with the Gundam Fight parts generally omitted.

Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz: Post series.

Mazinger Z: Post-series.

Great Mazinger: Semi-concluded, rest will play out here.

Grendizer: Somewhat concluded, rest will play out here.

Martian Successor Nadesico (debut): Storyline followed save some changes.

Invincible Super Man Zambot 3: Storyline somewhat followed with some changes.



It's worth noting that a lot of the series that we don't follow from square one played out in a far different manner then their source canons, this is a major plot point I won't elaborate to spoil things, especially the Gundam series that are used.

I will, however, note specific changes when and where appropriate.

Since I may have to cover some plot or other details frequently, and my knowledge is a tad rusty in spots, expect my updates to this thread to be a tad slow.

Feel free to sperg with me as I go along as well.

 

[GethN7]

Before we go on, I'm just going to get this out of the way to save some tedious explaining of things later. @Jaimas, you'll find the Gundam changes pretty interesting in particular.

Chōdenji Robo Combattler V - The story line is kinda sorta over, except some of enemies from this show are pissed they got their asses beat and want some payback for it, and have joined an alliance of other series villains for revenge.

Chōdenji Machine Voltes V - Same deal as Combattler.

Getter Robo G- The second manga plot will be followed more or less, game starts as most of the major recurring characters have been introduced.

Metal Armor Dragonar - The storyline of this got altered and fused with the Gundam plotline . The Earth Federation managed to select the mainstay unit of this series (a fusion of the three super prototypes piloted by the heroes) and mass produced it, which allowed them to win the One Year War a lot faster than in canon. The three prototypes technically came after the MP version, which combines elements from all three, but is weaker than each one separately in it's specific area of expertise. Regardless, the Federation picked MP Dragonar Metal Armors over Gundams or other series units as their mainstay units. We'll still follow a slightly condensed version of the original plot, with alterations to account for the crossover.

Shin Getter Robo - It generally exists as an upgrade to Getter Robo G, much like it did in Alpha Gaiden, this is NOT the Shin Getter from the Shin Getter Robo series.

Mobile Suit Gundam - This is set in AU where, after the Antarctica Treaty limiting use of WMDs on both sides was signed, the Earth Federation got their shit together a lot faster than Zeon and whupped their asses. Most of the characters were introduced, Char and Lalah Sune survived the One Year War, but they will reappear soon into the plot, as will a few other characters.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team - Due to how Zeon got it's asses beat a lot faster in canon, the Apsaulus Mobile Armor project Zeon was working on never got off the drawing board during the One Year War, so they had to keep working on it in hiding during the interim between then and the present. Shiro Amada is the only member of the team we'll see from this, as he just barely escaped court martial for the events of the series, though Aina and Ginias Saharin from the Zeon side survived like Char and Lalah, they'll show back up soon into the plot as well with a few others.

Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory - This is largely unchanged, though Bernard Monsha, Alpha Bate and Chap Adel are not depicted, their places taken by the Dragonar Team, overseen by Lt. South Burning. The Albion crew is also absent, with Bright Noah and his crew taking up their role.

Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam - Due to how Earth kicked so much ass in the One Year War, they got cocky and ruthlessly started hunting down Zeon remnants, the Titans forming as an anti-dissident group like in canon in the interim for this reason, but like in canon, they got arrogant and stupid and got their asses handed to them. Amuro was not a member of the AEUG/Karaba this time round (at least not the latter), though Kamille Bidan was. They are kinda vague on who else besides Kamille was on the anti-Titans side, though Char later dons his Quatrro look for other reasons. By the present they have been disbanded, and Kamille had to take time during the interim to recover from how the late Paptimus Scirroco tried to fry his brain with his Newtype powers since. A few other characters from this time survived through the present with changes for the crossover and altered events.

Mobile Fighter G Gundam - Storyline like the original, with some changes, with the Gundam Fight parts generally omitted. This was given some other changes to account for the crossover as well.

Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz: The events of Gundam Wing already happened, with the Preventers from this as a good guy faction from the get go. We'll cover the plot here to some extent like in Alpha Gaiden.

Great Mazinger: We start with most character introduced, with Dr. Hell from the original series here as the Grand Marshall of Hell, how he was depicted in Great Mazinger after he was revived by the series villains from GM. Part of the villains alliance.

Grendizer: Most characters introduced, we'll run through it's plot to some extent.

Invincible Super Man Zambot 3: We'll generally follow the plot of Daitarn 3. Zambot 3 is it's sister series, generally here minus most of it's plot to support the Daitarn plot.

 

[GethN7]

Some gameplay tips for people following this as a guide. I will be using a max money cheat only for the sake of getting this updated somewhat regularly, but the game is hard enough this isn't really gonna help me that much.


Regardless, some gameplay tips in general:


1. Super Robots will be better than Real Robots early game, but late game Real Robots will kick a lot of ass while Supers remain useful but aren't the sole ass beaters on your team. They are still excellent tanks, and in this game tanking hits is valuable.


2. The Random Number God in this game is that vicious, spiteful bastard from the harder Fire Emblem games, and it hates the air you breathe. There is very little random chance involved in how it calculates evasion and accuracy rates, though this does affect everyone, including enemies, equally. This also means your best attacks won't hit shit, while crap like Vulcans on Gundam will be quite effective actually hitting the broad side of a barn. Accuracy and evasion boosting on all Real Robots like Gundams is VITAL, abuse every means of doing this. Super Robots are somewhat better off, but they too have shit accuracy.


3. EWACs (aka Command Auras) are very, very valuable. Just being in one raises accuracy, so units with these are worth their weight in gold. Overlapping EWACs auras don't stack, only the aura with the highest bonus in level counts.


4. Shield Defense is wonderful for all shield using units, it allows them to tank a hell of a lot better than they could otherwise. You need at least one level in this, any extra levels are just a bonus. Real Robots will die a lot slower with this in particular.


5. Weak attacks will be laughed off hard by anything with a barrier, which the Nadesico series will field in abundance. Anyone with Barrier Pierce as a skill will be OP.

Note that barriers like Distortion Fields only negate damage UNDER a set amount, anything over means they take full damage.

It's usually these values:

Beams: 3000 DMG
Gravity weapons; 5000 DMG


6. OFFENSE IS THE BEST DEFENSE. Given how hard this game is, killing the enemy faster than they kill you is vital. Max EN and weapon damage values on all units ASAP. Real Robots like Gundams benefit extremely from Mobility upgrades, while Supers should focus on Armor, but still, they can tank well anyway, so make it easier for them to kill stuff first.


7. Certain skills are OP. Seishins/Spirit skills like Strike and Attune are worth their weight in gold for actually hitting bosses worth a damn. Pilot skills like Gunfight/Infight are valuable when leveled, they can even increase weapon and movement range.


8. Secrets in this game are plentiful, and some suck long term even if you like the series they are from. I will cover how to get all of them and their strengths and weaknesses, but I'll be sticking with the most useful ones for my "canon" playthrougth.

Just to give an example, this is a game that actually lets you get Master Asia and his Master Gundam on your team, but you have to sacrifice a lot of other secrets to do this, and while he and his unit are pretty kickass even if you aren't a G Gundam fan, you may hate what you have to sacrifice to get him. Some secrets are also exclusive, picking one will disqualify the others, so your choice is important both short and long term.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Oh god this game. Gotta love how Lamia's stage 1 is pure luck due to having no upgrades and having to fight all those Getter Robo guys with a fuckton of health (like 90% of all the enemies). Or how the last 9-10 stages take 2-3 hours minimum to beat because they're so fucking long. On the bright side IIRC there's no repair cost for getting a unit shot down in this game.

Was thinking of a second playthrough sometime, is Don Zauser really that bad? Last Daimos stage was a bitch with a fight IMO as hard as the final boss and you don't even get Master Asia (best unit in the game) to help.

 

[GethN7]

Oh god this game. Gotta love how Lamia's stage 1 is pure luck due to having no upgrades and having to fight all those Getter Robo guys with a fuckton of health (like 90% of all the enemies). Or how the last 9-10 stages take 2-3 hours minimum to beat because they're so fucking long. On the bright side IIRC there's no repair cost for getting a unit shot down in this game.

Was thinking of a second playthrough sometime, is Don Zauser really that bad? Last Daimos stage was a bitch with a fight IMO as hard as the final boss and you don't even get Master Asia (best unit in the game) to help.

I'll get to that, but pro-tip on Don Zauser. He's stupid hard if you allow him any advantage whatsoever and don't prepare well in advance. If you plan well to strip him of any advantage whatsoever and do everything in your power to keep him crippled, he goes from insanely hard to simply very difficult.

 

[GethN7]

Let's start with characters and machines you can choose:

Each one has their own campaign, and I'll be picking Lamia for "canon" reasons, but first time players may want Axel, simply because he has a 10 SP Cost Strike off the bat. It's worth noting who you DON'T pick will be an antagonist. According to SRW Original Generations canon, Lamia was the protagonist, Axel the antagonist in their original appearance, but eventually he came around to being the good guy like he is if you pick him the start with.

Japanese gamers tend to call Axel as a good guy in this game as "Ahoseru", or "Silly', because he temporarily loses his memory and acts like a goofball for awhile. His antagonist persona is a huge asshole, and his persona after going from bad guy to good guy is closer to his silly persona with a hefty dose of maturity tossed in.

Lamia is a different story. She starts off kinda aloof and cold but attains a warmer persona over time, but as an antagonist she's basically a robot.

Also, the original last name for Axel should be translated "Arma", short for Armalite, as he and a few other original characters all have gun themed names.

We can then choose for them to have a Super or Real Robot.

First the Reals:

First off, the translators went for fairly literal Japanese to German translations, the official English translations are "Ashsaber" and Randgriff.

Anyway, strengths and weaknesses of both choices are:

Aschenretter: Basically a funnel equipped Gundam without needing Newtype abilities. Pretty good choice. No flight capability by default, which kinda cripples mobility at the start though.

Razangriff: Long term powerful artillery platform with tons of ammo attacks. Will suck early on due to being a slow long range unit with poor evasion, but long term can be a consistent ass beating machine. Has an ability to jam missiles which is useful, and can Shield Defend if you invest in Shield Defense, making it quite durable.

Small note, the Razangriff is essentially a serial numbers filed off mech from the anime "Fang of the Sun Dougram" in appearance.


Now for our supers (Lamia specific):

Vysaga: A decent unit all around, has a Barrier Pierce attack by default. Really needs investment in its armor and Shield Defense to take advantage of most of its defensive powers, but is awesome when you do.

Angelg: Most balanced of all your choices, but doesn't really shine in any one particular area. Has a weaker Barrier Pierce attack than Vysaga, but does leave the gate with a decent amount of passive special defenses that allow it tank and dodge better with little to no investment.

Angelg is Lamia's "canon" machine.


Now for our supers (Axel specific):

Soulgain: Bit of a yo-yo, this one.

Starts with the best damage ratio, 20% HP regen, and high armor, makes early game easy.

Craps out about midway through without upgrades due to how the game scales difficulty.

If you keep investing in it, it remains a superb tank.

Axel has a high Support Attack ability, which this unit uses very poorly unfortunately.

Soulgain is Axel's "canon" machine.

Aside from Lamia, I leave the choice of Real or Super and which one to the audience, so let me know your choices everyone.

 

[Intelligent Calcium]

Good to see the older games are still getting translations. Alpha soon (lol)? As for mecha choice, if we're going with Lamia for canon reasons we might as well complete the package with the Angelg.

 

[GethN7]

Well, seems the overwhelming opinion has spoken, so Angelg it is.


Anyway, here's a slight reworded version of the intro:



Universal Century 0XXX.

After the One Year War and the Gryps Conflict, Earth was finally starting to recover from those wars and the terraforming of Mars was proceeding apace.

Then the flames of war were sparked anew.

After losing their home planet, the Bharmian people wanted to see asylum on Earth, and initiated negotiations.
They initially showed promised, but when their ambassador was assassinated, war erupted between them and the Earth.

Meanwhile, the Lunar Empire of Giganos led by Marshal Guiltorre declared independence, having concluded Earth's leadership was corrupt. Mars' proto-colonies were attacked by a mysterious foe, and the Oni of the Hyakki Empire declared humanity their enemies.

The Earth Federation created a new organization to handle these threats, the 13th Earth Federation Autonomous Corps,
Londo Bell.

Yet even they don't realize this situation is going to get worse, thanks to so that are "So Close, Yet so Far......"

And the flames of war will grow ever hotter.......

--------


Before we continue, let me add some notes.

Londo Bell, much like in SRW 3, has to function like they did then, using ancient hand me downs for awhile and taking awhile to actually get decent gear, because Earth's leaders were cheap bastards and Marshal Guiltorre had a point, as some of them (whom you will meet) really ARE corrupt.

This justifies having post-Zeta era Gundam cast members piloting One Year War level gear.

The Oni are the enemies from the second manga series of Getter Robo, succeeding the Dinosaur Empire, which is now dead but will get some mentions. The Oni are the leaders of the villain alliance of the other series that got their asses whipped that the intro glosses over, which includes the Boazians from Voltes V, the Campbellians of Combattler V, and the Mycenean of Great Mazinger.

Giganos gets most of the villain spotlight on the human side as opposed to Zeon, which will begin with the 0083 plot, but that will change as the story progresses. And considering Giganos is Zeon 2.0 anyway, it's basically just a different take on the original Gundam plot anyway.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 1: Under Cover


We start this level as Lamia Loveless has to crash land, having gotten attacked on her way to her destination:

She remarks she lost generator power and thus cannot leave the atmosphere, which is bad, as she wasn't supposed to be on Earth for this phase of the "Plan". Her radar is also crapped out.

As she tries to assess her options, some assholes from Getter Robo show up:

Led by this guy:

That's General Hidler of the Oni Army, and before you ask, yes, he's supposed to be a parody of Adolf Hitler.

The fan translators had a blast writing this guy's dialogue, it's loaded with tons of gratuitous German.

As he says she'll make a fine test subject, Lamia makes this pithy remark:

He kinda stumbles over his words next, spewing some mangled German before say if she resists, he'll cut her legs off.

Meanwhile, Lamia realizes his IFF code is that of the Hyakki (aka Oni) Empire.

And Hidler, realizing she isn't answering, figures Emperor Burai won't mind if he tortures her for a little while.

But that's when the Getter Team shows up.

As Mushashi Tomoe of the Getter Team asks Lamia if she's alive, she finally puts together the identity of the Getter Team, and curtly replies she's fine but damaged:

We can now fight for real, and here's a breakdown of your available team:

First, the Getter has three forms:

Getter-1 specializes in aerial combat and has the Getter Beam attack, which is pretty useful against Oni units. If you are big fan of tomahawks, it's got a lot of those as attacks. Ryouma Nagare pilots this unit.

Hayato Jin pilots Getter-2, which excel at ground warfare, has a lot of drill attacks, and can burrow underground to move past certain terrain like mountains a lot faster and is the speediest of the three Getter forms.

Mushashi Tomoe pilots Getter-3, which can tank the best and kicks obscene levels of ass in water.

As you can see, she's a bit damaged.

My tip to not die is switch to Getter-2 form and have the Angelg fly, and by the next turn, try to park both on mountains for evasion and defense bonuses.

Warning, enemies get the same on that terrain, so try to beat them there.

Park both ally units next to each other for support attack bonuses, you will need this if you want to have a chance to kill Hidler's mech before he runs like a bitch.

The numbers above the units are their WILL, which increases their stats, allows more powerful attacks to be used, and activates special abilities like Double Image (50% evade any attack) on the Angelg.

Enemies benefit from WILL too, try to kill them before theirs gets too high.

There are ways to lower WILL, and resupplying allied units will cost the resupplied unit -10 WILL points

The limit of WILL for most units is 150.

Keeping Lamia alive isn't too hard as long as you parked her on the mountains next to the Getter, and if you need to heal her, use Ryouma's Trust seishin on her.

Have Mushashi use Spirit once ASAP, high WILL (130+) lets the Getter get their version of Double Image, aka Open Get, this extends Getter's survival extremely.

The enemies are Mecha Kamuneki (the red horned machines) and Mecha Hakkutosi (the skull faced mech with the gatling gun arm), which you should kill to build up WILL for making Hidler your bitch.

His machine is this thing:

It's not too hard if you survived his goons, and while he's got an EWAC aura, it's quite unlikely his allies will be around long enough to take advantage of it.

The Hakkutosi is piloted by this woman:

Not everyone on the Oni side is an utter asshole, she's actually one of the more honorable Oni of the Hyakki Empire.

Killing her will get you a Booster part.

Eventually, Hidler will get bored and sally forward, at which point you should beat the shit out of him, but save your best attacks before lowering him below 55-60% health, you'll want to kill his ass for a part. You don't have to, but if you don't want him run like a bitch, wear him down to above stated point, then have either the Getter or Angelg kill his ass with the other support attacking as well.

If you can't don't worry, he's a 22,000 HP damage sponge anyway.

Either way, you get him falling back to fight another day.

After he runs, Ryouma and Mushashi are ready to haul Lamia's busted mech back to the Saotome labs for repairs, but Hayato sensibly realizes they don't know shit about her, trusting her completely this early is stupid.

And Lamia realizes he's no fool.

With that, the level ends as they decide to take her with them since they'll won't find out shit just sitting there, and we cut to the Saotome Labs:

And no sooner do they get there, that's when Dr. Saotome starts quizzing Lamia:

He tells her he did some digging and her machine isn't part of any official military register he's aware of, and when she attempts to respond, it comes out kinda weird, and no, it's not a translator fuckup:

Ignoring the weird looks, she explains she wanted to join the Earth Federation forces, was attacked in space, had to make emergency Earthfall, and that's when she met the Getter Team.

Her reasons, as she elaborates, started with the One Year War. Her parents owned a robot repair business one one of the space colonies, bought a weird mech off someone one day and worked on it for awhile, the Angelg being the finished product. Zeon wanted to commandeer it, and shot Lamia's mom when she wouldn't cooperate.

Her dad and her escaped with the Angelg, and had her master the Angelg so she could one day join the EFA and shoot the bastards, and even though the OYW is over, she'd like to help hunting down what's left of them.

Saotome hadn't heard of this, and Lamia explains it was kept quiet by her father, and it took longer than expected to complete it. She then explains her new place of living was attacked by Giganos. Her dad died and she barely managed to escape.

Saotome is all "so this is revenge, basically"

Lamia: "Yes"

That's when Mushashi says they are planning on hooking up with the Londo Bell force to do something similar themselves soon, and offers to let her tag along. Ryouma explains they'll rendezvous with the Mazinger team before that, and Lamia has apparently heard of the Londo Bell force.

And that's when Hayato cuts in and reminds everyone Lamia's story sounds like a cover for something else.

Lamia also realizes she's been speaking weird, and wonders if the crash jacked up her speech module (she's a biodroid, FYI)

Michiru Saotome, the doc's daughter, comes to Lamia's defense:

Hayato is all "don't say I didn't warn you" and finally drops it.

Dr. Saotome then says he noticed some things as he repaired Lamia's machine, and while most of it was a black box, the model number was SMSC-Angelg, and it's coded to only accept control from Lamia. He remarks to himself the military is currently working on a similar project to use biometric locks to prevent mech theft. He also notes the generator won;t handled extended engagements, but the units is pretty versatile combat wise, and Lamia explains all she really knows is how to pilot her machine, this is all news to her.

To avoid suspicion, Lamia signs off on Dr. Saotome looking it over some more, figuring he can't do too much harm in the process, causing Michiru to facepalm because her dad's mecha geek is coming out again.

He meanwhile quietly remarks to himself again that Hayato may have a point.

We then cut to the Hyakki Empire HQ, where Hidler's boss is tearing a stripe off his ass:

As Hidler grovels in apology, we cut back to the Saotome Labs.

We cut back as Saotome gives Lamia a refresher on the current world situation, and we find out Giganos' ideals are a bit different from Zeon. They feel the Earth is overpopulated and that waging war to kill the weak is a valid means of population control.

We also find out the Mycenean Empire and Hyakki are working together, courtesy of information from the Photon Power labs run by Professor Kabuto.

We also find out Londo Bell was formed of veterans of the One Year War, and most super robots are gonna join up with them soon.

As we end this little talk, Lamia still wishes her speech patterns weren't messed up and worries Hayato might need eliminated if he becomes a problem.

We then cut to some mystery people talking back and forth, the conversation goes like this:


Person 1: .....How it'd go?

Person 2: I'd like to say smoothly, but I'd be lying. The energy spiked during the transition, surpassing the safety threshold by a large amount. And it seems we missed the transition point.

Person 1: If this operation failed, we need to move on to the next plan.

Person 2: Now, now, don;t be impatient, the transition itself was a success. Instead of acting from space, we'll have to act from the ground, but that's no big deal. It's just that...well...

Person 1: Out with it.

Person 2: There may be some side effects to her nervous system, she's a delicate flower you see....

Person 1: Serves me right for thinking she'd be useful. We'll have to send "him" instead.

Person 2: Give her some time. She more suited for this kind of thing anyway.

Person 1: Very well, but she'd better not disappoint me.

Person 2: (Don't fail me now, my girl.....)


With that, the level ends.

 

[GethN7]

Before we go on, some notes about how Lamia was translated in this game as opposed to the official translation of her as depicted in SRW Original Generation 2.

In OG2, where she had a similar plot, her speech issues were rendered as a stutter, though the fan translators for Advance Portable figured that was inaccurate, as the script indicated her speech patterns were grammatically odd, not that she had a stuttering problem.

Accordingly, her speech pattern are somewhat Engrishy in this translation to account for her speech issues, similar to how the original JP script would render her speech as somewhat mangled if still somewhat understandable Japanese.

In both games, her speech patterns eventually snap back to normal, but for some time, her lines will render oddly, but this is the major difference between the official Atlus version in English and the fan translation, and IMO, the fan translators were a lot closer to the original intentions for her character arc.

The OG2 script also handled her undercover story slightly differently. In OG2, she claimed to work for an in-universe company named Isurugi Industries as a test pilot for an experimental weapons project and the company in question, which was in league with her mystery employers, reinforced the cover story, though it's Kyosuke Nanbu (aka Nambu, after the Japanese pistol model) of the ATX team who takes Hayato's place as realizing her story smells like bullshit.

She was then inducted into the Steel Dragon Battle Group forces (Londo Bell's OG counterpart) from that point onward.

There are some other differences between OG2's rendering of the Advance plot and this version I will elucidate on where appropriate later on.

 

[GethN7]

We're at the intermission screen now before the next level, and I'm going to cover some game mechanics, including some changes from the GBA version.

For those who played Alpha Gaiden or saw my LS on it, this has many of the same features. Only real changes are you can set BGM track for pilots to something different if you hate their stock themes and "mods' refer to pilot skill boosts, like Counter and Prevail, which you can equip on pilots or boost skills they already have.

The game is fairly generous with mods, especially if you make a point of killing stages bosses before they try to run.

They also fixed a few weird bugs from the GBA version.

One of them was a strange bug where weaker units could surpass much stronger units in stats thanks to a parts glitch, this was fixed from the GBA version.

They also fixed the leveling curves of upgrade unit stats and weapons to be more in line with modern games, which is actually somewhat more fair on the player than the original GBA game formulas. Game is still hard, but now you don't have to ruthlessly munchkin your stats in every regard to have any sort of edge anymore.


ADDED NOTES:

There were some other minor bugs the translators fixed from the original Japanese, mostly stray event pointers resulting in copy pasted dialogue, but on a coding level, this game was far more competently put together than the shitshow that was Alpha Gaiden frankensteined hack of the original SRW Alpha codebase.

In fact, there is VERY LITTLE dummied out or unused content, only thing they didn't use that is still in the code is an enemy version of the Sazabi.

For those planning to use cheats or hex editing save files, beware, the translation to English shifted a LOT of memory addresses around, so code for the original Japanese version and older English patches may break.

Renaming anyone or anything like at the start of the game can cause bugs if it runs over an 80 byte limit, and each byte represents a single English character, so if shit breaks, have a backup save.

I also highly dis-recommend importing Japanese saves to the English version (any patch version), it will cause weird untranslated bits to muck up the translation since some of the data is directly ported from the save file.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 2: Team Work


We resume back at the Saotome Labs again, where Professor Saotome has Lady Une from Gundam Wing on the horn, as she runs the Preventers, which does talent scouting work for Londo Bell.

She has reservations like Hayato about Lamia's trustworthiness, but he's dismissive this will be an issue and she concedes for now.

We also find out Londo Bell got tied up dealing with some shit in space, so they be awhile longer to arrive.

We then cut to the mech bay of the labs where Lamia is impressed at Saotome's tune up work. He notes, based on his earlier examination, it's primary function was for combat. She wonders if the Getter is the same, but he says it wasn't, but stops himself from following that train of thought.

We then cut to the Hyakki HQ, where Emperor Burai is welcoming Ankoku Daishogun and the Grand Marshall of Hell (aka Great General of Darkness, will use the Japanese name from here on, will also call The Grand Marshal "Dr. Hell" for shortness, since it's basically him in a new body from the original Mazinger).

After Burai comments they have trouble with the Mazingers and Dr. Hell retorts they aren't much better off with the Getters, this smug asshat chimes in.

This prick is from the Campbellians from Combattler V, FYI.

He explains Empress Janera sent him to help them out, since their mutual foes are also joining up, and despite some initial skepticism, the value of an alliance since they all have problems kicking ass separately is too lucrative for everyone to ignore, and with that decided, General Dungele from Campbell (younger bro of Warchimedes) will also be arriving to assist.

Burai is all for this, and they plan to kill off the Getters before they link up with the Mazingers.

As Warchimedes takes his leave to prepare, he remarks to himself Empress Janera is just using these idiots to wear down their mutual foes, and resents he's the one who had to parley with them to broker the deal.

However, back with Burai, he's not a dumbass, he's well aware that's what the Campbellians want, but in the short term, they'll take the help and long term backstab them before the Campbellians can do the same.

They also mention the unidentified machine the Getter Robo rescued, and while the Campbellians expressed interest in it, Burai just wants to blow the damn thing up.

We cut back to the labs where Lamia Engrishly says "I'm ready, now what?"

Hayato is blunt:

"Tell the truth. Now."

He explains her story smells to high heaven of bullshit, and ignores her attempts to deflect, pointing out given how advanced the Angelg is and her story of being rigorously trained don't add up, saying something that well put together would not be feasible without some serious backing like a military or research organization.

However, just as she about to try taking him out (which Hayato is expecting, it will confirm he's right), they are interrupted by Ryouma showing up saying a possible enemy is gonna show up, but as they leave to intercept, Hayato warns her he's not gonna drop this.

However, as we cut to the battle map, it's not an enemy, it's this guy:

Before we go on, a lot more sperging about Jack King here and his role in the Getter series, read if you're interested:

Spoiler

Jack King was an American secondary protagonist in the original Getter Robo manga, and given it was released back in 1974, Jack was an abrasive asshole, pretty much fulfilling every definition of the term "Americunt".

He was on the hero's side, but he was a massive fucking douche who was up his own ass about America was better, to the point even people who had vivid memories of World War II in JAPAN thought he was cringe inducingly racist in depiction.

Later adaptations toned him down to still being arrogant, but more an affectionate parody of Americans than a hateful one.

I'll cover the rest next post.

 

[GethN7]

Some on-topic Jack King sperging before I resume.

His appearance in this game is a slight anachronism, as he debuted in the FIRST Getter Robo manga, not the second, but SRW loves mixing up stuff, and his appearance in that instance is easy enough to adapt to the second with few changes anyway.

Also, the fan translators made a pragmatic translation choice concerning him and his sister Mary, who co-pilots his robot.

In the Japanese versions, he and her both have a pronounced American accent to their stilted Japanese, and both are prone to random English mid sentence, Jack especially, which just would not make sense to English speakers, for which we have no equivalent.

Instead, they opted to follow the path of playing up their Texan background in dialogue, since that can be rendered normally in English text.

Also, Super Robot Wars will deviate from the source to avoid elements that were poorly received, such as Jack being a total asshat in his original manga incarnation, so they usually default to one of three things:


1. If using the original manga Getter Robo, they will water down his most offensive traits.

2. If using a less offensive adaptation of original Getter Robo, they'll go with that as a basis for writing his dialogue.

3. They will use his character as portrayed in Shin Getter vs. Neo Getter Robo, where he was either hilarious or a honest to God badass, albeit one still prone to goofy stilted Japanese interspersed with Engrish.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 2: Teamwork (Part 2)


Resuming with the last LS stage, Jack King is about to show up on the Saotome Labs doorstep in his Texas Mack, and his sister Mary explains why:

And remember how I said Jack's Texan origins were played up in dialogue? Here's how:

His accent is noted, and Ryouma snarks he's giving a Lamia a run for her money in goofiness in speech, and she's all "I heard that".

However, Jack, muck like in the first Getter series, wants to test the Getter in combat to make sure he's not gonna be bailing out a wimp in a fight.

Professor Saotome tries to argue beating their units up is unwise, to which Jack is all "Y'all chicken?"

This just gets the Getter team ready to prove him wrong, and what follows is basically an exact pastiche of the original scene from the manga in a series of automated battle encounters where the Texas Mack shows off it's moves and they trade blows.

After a few hits are traded and both are damaged by a set percentage of health (this automated fight is coded not to kill either regardless their stats), that's when the villain alliance shows up to rain on your parades.

In fact, they waited until both Texas Mack and Getter weakened each other before showing up to kill both while crippled.

Among them is this guy:

Tekkoki is one of those guys who the type who just wants an honorable duel between foes, making him a decent guy despite his loyalty to the Hyakki, as he has a code of honor.

Dungele is Warchimedes' younger brother and is more thuggish in appearance and tactics.

He shit talks his allies in being too pathetic to take on the enemy, but before Ankoku Daishogun can blow a head gasket, Hidler then sweet talks Dungele into going on ahead to prove how badass he is instead.

As the dumbass falls for it, we also find out this chick wants to fight the Getters too:

Kochoki here is basically looks like a hot blonde, only with a horn growing out of her forehead, and despite being on the enemy team, she REALLY wants to get in Ryouma's pants.

Anyway, Lamia sees she needs to help so this shitshow doesn't get worse, and the bad guys notice.

We can now begin, tactical map time:

The lose condition is to let even ONE enemy get near the Saotome Labs and if one tile of the labs is crossed by them, game over, so have your guys park on it to prevent that.

This stage also teaches the bonus in parking over bases, as you get a 20% HP/EN Regen per turn as well as hefty Defense/Evasion bonuses for doing so, so turtle up.

Anyway, here's your new ally:

The Texas Mack is a ranged sniper unit, and for now, have him park on the labs with the Getter to heal up. Place Lamia on one side of the Getter and Mack on the other to derive their support attack bonuses, and I recommend covering the lower half of the labs to re-tard the enemy progress while you snipe at them.

As for the enemies, you've seen most of them before, save these:

These Combattler grunts are slightly more meaty versions of those red horned Hyakki goons, nothing more.

This is Tekkoki's personal ride, and it's an in close physical fighter for the most part.

Kochoki's personal ride is a ranged unit, but it's tad on the frail side.

Ankoku Daishogun's personal carrier is this beefy HP sponge, and while not that accurate, can hit hard and has an EWAC aura.

We've already seen the others from the last stage save this Combattler goon:

Dungele's personal ride is a beefy but slow dumbass that is easily sniped.

Thankfully, after a few turns, you get reinforcements:

I'm not gonna waste time on detailed intros, read up on my Alpha Gaiden Let's Sperg for Mazinger info.

The bad guys are annoyed the Mazinger Team showed up faster than expected, but shrung their shoulders and decide, screw it, let's kill them all in one go then.

We also find out Hakkotsuki's daughter is being held hostage, and unless Hakkotsuki wants to see her again, she'll not wimp out, courtesy of some not so subtle threats by Hidler. Needless to say, that's more than enough encouragement for her.

Note: Her daughter is called either Risa or Lisa, the Japanese L/R issue at work here. It should be Lisa, but the translators were apparently unsure which one should stick, remedied somewhat in the latest English patch.

Anyway, my advice is to have the Mazinger team firm up the lab defenses and shoot back when they have the chance after doing so.

Unless you have a crippling case of stupid, this level is actually pretty easy so long as you park everyone on the lab and let them snipe people. Boss' Borot should be used for resupply, Sakaya Aphrodite A and Jun's Venus A for support attacking and healing, and the Mazinger and Great Mazinger should support Texas Mack, Getter, and the Angelg in killing enemy goons.


TIPS:

Try to get Ryouma's kill count around 5 in this level, you'll get a secret for it a few levels later. After that, work on Musashi, get him 15 kills by Stage 15 for another secret.


After the battle, Saotome thanks them for the save, then Tetsuya asks Lamia what's up with her goofy speech pattern.

Meanwhile, Koji remarks Lamia's a bit cold, but pretty drool worthy in the looks department, but Hayato reminds everyone they still barely know shit about her.

Boss concurs Lamia is a hot piece of ass, and to be fair to the guy, she is a busty babe in what amounts to a leotard and half jacket that just accentuates her bust.

Meanwhile, Mary apologizes for Jack being a bit of an ass earlier to Mushashi, but he's all "in the past, we're cool".



We then cut back to Hyakki HQ, where Dungele is all "WTF is up with the Mazingers arriving sooner than expected?"

Dr. Hell then busts Dungele's balls by reminding him he was the dumbass who just blindly ran ahead and got his ass kicked for his trouble, and Warchimedes tells Dungele to zip it before he makes a further embarrassment of the Campbellians.

They then leave to prepare for next time, and Emperor Burai reveals he was no fool, he expected the Mazinger Team to show up faster than anticipated and had the Campbellians goaded to fight them on purpose to deflate their egos and remind them just who runs the show around here.



We then cut back to the Saotome Labs, where Lamia tails the Professor, and discovers a hidden area with a new Getter Robo model. She is noticed by Michiru, and it turns out it's not the Getter Robo G (the model from the second manga series), but a new model entirely (Shin Getter), and the professor admits Getter was originally built to study Getter Rays, only having to be deployed as weapon when the Dinosaur Empire emerged.

He admits he's not happy what was intended for research became a tool of war, and he intends to make sure this particular model will never see use as anything other for peaceful research. He then asks her to keep it a secret, as he wants to keep the Earth Federation from forcing them to use it as a weapon, as well as keeping the Hyakki or anyone else from getting their hands on it.

She accepts this, but privately thinks he's being naive, as it's just a weapon, like she is.

We then cut to another part of the labs, where Hayato Jin is humming a few bars on a harmonica, and she tries to smooth the waters between them, to which he retorts:

"If you want to start, fix those eyes of yours. They constantly evaluate everything; makes them and you look suspicious."

He then adds she'll show her true colors sooner or later, he's just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The Labs then get a distress call from the Daimobic, with a report the Bharmians are attacking as the stage ends.

 

[GethN7]

Before I continue, I believe it valuable to describe a few game mechanics so as to explain why this is one of the harder entries in the franchise.

Both the GBA and PSP version of this game are one of the few games to add an accuracy PENALTY to certain attacks, which, while applying to everyone equally, also explains why many battles have both side miss quite a bit.

Another features that applies is "evasion decay", or rapid spamming of evade attack decays in usefulness, meant to punish players and enemies equally for trying this tactics, and while it's applied in other SRW games, this game generally has very hardassed random chance math when applying the decay factor, meaning even the Nu Gundam can only evade so much before even it is getting tagged by enemy hits even with maxed out mobility.

Finally, if you kill a foe with another mech doing a support attack, IT DOES NOT COUNT AS A KILL FOR EITHER, meaning your character kill count for both allies does not rise. This is meant to keep early game secrets that require an ally to have a certain kill count from using support attacks as a crutch to achieve the condition.

Most SRW games let kill count for the primary attacker, this one does not if a support attack is added to the primary attack.

 

[GethN7]

Writing this primarily for @Jaimas, as he might be interested to know this before we get into the next stage, which covers the opening plot of Daimos.


Daimos was part of a trilogy of series by the creators of Combattler and Voltes around 1978, but instead combining robots powered by electromagnetism, it pioneered a different idea.

The idea that a robot can be powered to respond to the motions of the pilot and perform combat actions in response to actions made by the pilot in the cockpit.

That's right, Daimos is where G Gundam (released 1994) got the Mobile Trace System inspiration from.

In fact, while the implementation of the interactive cockpit control system is different (it was more a motion sensor activated pilot suit in Daimos while G Gundam essentially slapped a "skin" over the pilot that interpreted their body motion as combat datum via said skin overlay), the basic concept is essentially identical in execution.

In fact, this game will feature the hero of Daimos and Domon Kasshu interacting quite a bit.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 3: Brave Leader Daimos


We're gonna kick off the beginning of the Daimos plot this level, when the asskicking by the titular mech debuts. We will also get introduced to one of the biggest bigots in all of anime this level, a man so repulsively racist and bloodthirsty that he was practically Muruta Azrael's drinking buddy in SRW Alpha 3 (one of the few good ideas to come from shoving SEED in that game).

As for the latter, don't worry, he'll eventually get what's coming to him, but I'm getting ahead of myself.


They are about to head out, but Tetsuya asks a very good question:

However, even though the thought this could be diversion is very valid, seems Tetsuya's dad Kenzou Kabuto tagged along, and he urges Tetsuya to quit waffling and haul ass:

He then gets reminded Kenzou's Fortress of Science and the Getter Labs aren't exactly defenseless and that he needs to quit being a worrywart. We also fight the hero of UFO Robo Grendizer (Duke Fleed) went off to fight Giganos and Kouji (who was his sidekick for awhile) hasn't heard back from him in awhile.

Sayaka (Kouji's girlfriend) assumes the worst, which Kouji won't consider.

NOTE: Daisuke Umon is Duke Fleed's Earth alias.

They give Lamia a brief recap on who the hell Duke is, and that's when the move out.

And it turns out Tetsuya was right.

Sure enough, they plan to swoop in for the kill while you defend Daimobic.

We cut over to Daimobic, where Prince Richter is leading the Bharmians, still very pissed his father died at the peace talks that went down the shitter.

Two things, the translators slightly changed the title of Richter's dad, the original Japanese was nigh identical to the kanji used for the word "Daishogun" or Great General (like Ankoku Daishogun), but since the character used indicated an "evil" rank and Richter's dad was anything but, the English translation of Grand General is to separate the two in terms of alignment. Second, the Bharmians (also transliterated as Balmians or Brahmins) are winged humanoids with a vaguely angel like appearance.


Balbas is his thuggish yet loyal adjutant, with similar feelings.

We then cut over to the surrounded Daimos:

And this shithead:

Meet General Miwa Sakimori. A racist, bloodthirsty fuckwit who unfortunately happens to be the Defense Secretary of the Earth Federation and thus Kayuza Ryuuzaki, Daimos' pilot, is forced to answer to this sack of shit.

Thankfully, Kazuya's buddy Kyoshiro, a dude with nice shades, a sweet afro, and an aviator jacket which has twin swords strapped to the back sorties out in the Galva FX-II jet to support him, copiloted by Kazuya's childhood friend Nana Izumi.

Turns out Kazuya isn't moving because there is a civilian woman he's trying to shield and Miwa is all "screw that shit, kill the enemy!"

Miwa doesn't give a fuck, and Kyoshiro offers to pick her up while he falls back.

That done, Kazuya is free to move, being told not to be stupid, help is coming soon.

We can now move, here's the Daimos:

It's fairly strong, but fall the fuck back to the Daimobic (the military base with the rocket ship) and park there for now.

Here's a map, the Daimos has numbers over it:

On the way there, you'll have to fend off red machine that look like construction machines with spiked heads that shoot missiles and even their own heads attached to chains like spiked maces as attacks, and while you can deal with them in the short term, keep falling back to the Daimobic, you will die in a knock down drag out fight with all of them.

By round 2, the good guys show up, to which Miwa is an ungrateful POS, and Lamia sums his ass up nicely:

But that's when Tetsuya gets a call from the labs saying they are under attack, meaning Tetsuya and Jun double back and leave the field. Meanwhile, Raiza, one of Richter's adjutants, asks if they should pursue:

Richter is all "Screw them, we kill what's here first."

Anyway, my advice is to get everyone else over to the Daimobic base, you lose if the enemy occupy one tile, and it can heal and provide defense bonuses too.

If possibly, have the Galva FX-II's EWAC umbrella cover as many troops as possible in the process for an accuracy boost.

The other enemies are these things:

Raiza and Balbas control slightly tougher flight capable models of this beast, and Richter pilots this carrier:

It's not much harder than the other enemy carriers you've had to fight.

BTW, it doesn't hurt to check the enemy move range by using the cancel button to click on the enemy, which will show their range of movement, like so:

NOTE; This level is where you should ensure Ryouma's kill count is 5 or higher for a secret next stage and you can work on Mushashi's kill count here, there is lots of water for him to kick ass in.

Once you've taken out all the Bharmians, Richter falls back.

As he does, Kayuza goes over to check on the woman he tried to save.

Her name is Erika, but that's all he can get out of her, she's pretty shook up.

We then cut over to the Bharmian underwater base, where Richter is FUCKING MAD!

Balbas stammers Lady Erika (sound familiar?) went missing in the last battle, and Raiza notes she was tending to wounded soldiers and must have gotten caught up in the battlefield.

As Richter nearly shits himself with worry over his sister, we cut back to the Daimobic.

There, we get a recap over how the peace talks between Bharm and Earth went down the toilet.

Their planet lost control of its orbit and the people had to leave before it crashed into Argol, their sun. Unfortunately, this meant they now had no planet, and 1 billion Bharmians needed a new home. Apparently, some on Earth were edgy about inviting 1 billion aliens to share space with us, especially since the Earth had just wore it's resources down with the One Year War and Gryps Conflict, but since space colonies could be built for them, that quashed that objection.

However, some asshole spiked Grand General Leon's drink with poison and he died. The Bharmians blamed Earth for his murder, and now they are wanting to kill Earthlings in revenge, though there is no open-shut case proof we Earthlings poisoned the drinks.

The worst part is that Kayuza's father was the peace talks guy on the Earth side, and he was the first to be killed in revenge for General Leon's murder, as they assumed he planned it.

It's at this point, as they remark Kazuya has some complex feelings about the matter, they realize he's off still looking after that woman he rescued, and Nana seems a tad jealous of this.

We cut over to Kazuya and Michiru, who is telling Kazuya that Erika apparently has amnesia caused by the shock of the attack according to the doctors who looked at her.

We then cut back to Richter and his peeps, where Balbas is apologizing for not being able to find her.

Balbas feared she got captured, and Richter darkly hopes she would never suffer imprisonment in an Earth cage, to which Balbas remarks he'd off himself if that were his situation, and Richter, wanting to not turn into a sobbing wreck, assumes this happened, she offed herself to spare herself the torment, and he's running with this idea it happened so he doesn't have a breakdown.


Note: Richter is a very emotional guy, he knows it, this is his shitty way of coping with crap that might overwhelm him, he jumps to first convenient conclusion to explain it away.


We cut back to the Daimobic, where Erika wonders why Kazuya cares so much about her, and the answer is basically "love at first sight", more or less, and Boss is about to gag on the sweetness level.

Lamia wonders if Kazuya's comment about Erika being beautiful applies to her, since no one ever swooned over her like that, and Jack tries to cheer her up:

Hayato reluctantly concedes she's attractive, but adds that's only on the outside.

Michiru considers that a bridge too far, and Miwa shows up with "can we get back to business" attitude.

He got a call from the Science Fortress Labs, and apparently they opted out of joining Londo Bell, the risk of leaving the Fortress and Saotome Labs undefended is too great.

Ryouma concedes the logic, but Miwa is annoyed, he'd rather their minds be changed instead. He then says one or two labs are worth diddly squat compared to the whole planet, they accuses them of being cowards.

Kouji is about to tell the guy off, but Lamia cottons on to the fact Miwa needs to have a logical reason to back down, so she's all "those labs are a critical source of supply and repair, losing them could be a long term blow to Earth in general".

Miwa is not happy, considering her comment back-talk,and Kyoshiro tries to calm Miwa down, while Hayato is a bit surprised, he expected Lamia to pour on the sugar and kiss Miwa's pissy ass.



We then cut to Hyakki HQ, where Warchimedes didn't expect the Great Mazinger and Venus A to double back to the labs, causing him and Dungele to have a little slapfight over them losing to them while Hidler facepalms.

Burai, on the other hand, is amused, as he enjoys watching the Campbellians egos taken down a notch.

Also, destroying the labs was not their real goal, it was cover for another one entirely.

Hakkotsuki brings her boss what he wanted, and it seems she brought back something from the labs during a break in done using the attack as a distraction, and as a reward, Hidler will be keeping his promise to let Hakkotsuki see her daughter again, for the first time in five years (Emperor Burai held Hakkotsuki's daughter under house arrest to make sure Hakkotsuki, who wasn't initially willing to fight for him despite being an Oni, would follow orders anyway).

Meanwhile, seems the stolen item was mech blueprints, which Dr. Hell is very interested in, as they are plans for mass producing Mazinger machines, and they plan to use those plans against humanity as the stage ends, though Dr. Hell will need to study them for awhile before putting them to good use.

 

[GethN7]

Some more game mechanic explanations.

When you fully upgrade a unit's stats, they gain a unique bonus, like the Texas Mack gains +2 range to all ranged attacks, making it an even better sniper unit.

You can also pick one generic bonus, and I usually spring for the movement bonus, as high movement scores will be vital in late game levels.

Another important thing is that this game has two mechanics that make it harder than other games. Many of the best attacks of some units are usually unavailable until Level 20, and energy weapons tend to use far more energy than they do in other games.

Enemy forces are usually subject to the latter as well, but early on, this is why raising EN values for units is a cheap and effective early game upgrade worth doing.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 4: Martian Successor Nadesico

Note: @Jaimas, this is when the Gundam stuff starts to enter the picture.

We begin this level as the Daimobic gets a hail from the Argamma.

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.

The answer amounts to Miwa being a paranoid son of a bitch and making dumbass assumptions.

He then gives them their marching orders:

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.

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:

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:

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".

But with a caveat:

We then cut to Sasebo City some time later, it's a coastal town.

As the good guys await the Argamma, we cut to Nergal's HQ in Sasebo, where this goofy bureaucrat is handing out employment papers.

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.

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 here is basically an OG Char Aznable stand-in, and his question is addressed to 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:

We then cut over to the Nadesico crew, who are watching Relena grill Prospector:

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.

Jiro Yamada (though he prefer to go by 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, an 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.

And that's when the actual Giganos forces attack.

I'll cover the rest next stage post.

 

[GethN7]

Important notes on Martian Successor Nadesico and it's portrayal in Super Robot Wars, especially this game.

SRW Advance was the first one to adapt this series, and it did so fairly well if you ask me, although the biggest asshole of the series doesn't get his ass shot off unfortunately, though you fuck him over so badly all the shit he tries to pull blows up in his face.

SRW Judgment is when said bastard finally gets his ass shot off, by RAU LA CREUSET of all people.

As for the series itself, it's a parody, mainly a deconstruction of the applying super robot series logic to a real robot series world, and it verges between hilarious and deadly serious at times.

Regardless, it's still a pretty good series, though the movie set after it is pretty dogshit, though SRW will usually do it's best to adapt said movie minus the suck, which will thankfully not be adapted to this game. In fact, the way the plot is set up, the movie can't happen, which is a good thing.

To quote @Cubanodun on his comments on this series in my Alpha Gaiden LS, the Nadesico tends to be a really overpowered monster of a ship, and while this game tones it down from how later appearances made it a one man asskicking machine, it's still a damn good carrier.

The Aestivalis units have several different modules they can switch between depending on terrain, and they are tethered to their ship by a field of energy that replenishes their energy each turn, and straying outside said field means they don't regenerate energy.

@Jaimas, you will be interested to note Yurika Misumaru will be personally mentored by Bright Noah in the art of ship captaining in this game.