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

[GethN7]

Before I go on, I'm going to point out something, for everyone following this as a guide.

You need, bare minimum, 33 Skill Points to stay on the True Final Boss route. By this point, you should have more than enough, but if not, you have until Stage 40 before the game locks you into a route.

if you have 11 or less points, you get the easy route where you take on the Dinosaur Empire, then the Ancestors, then you get the ending.

12-32 Skill Points locks you into the Normal Route, which is basically the same, albeit a bit harder (the final bosses are slightly harder)

33 or more locks you into the hard route, which not only allows us the canon ending that Alpha 2 uses as default canon, we also get a few more levels not in the other routes as well as the True Final Boss.

Hard is the ONLY route that also allows us the possibility of recruiting Sanger Zonvolt and his Thrudgelmir, which is frankly one of the most OP badasses you can get and will be one of the few on your team besides MazinKaiser and Shin Getter that can possibly tank more than one hit from the True Final Boss.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 37: This is The War We Sought

Note: We begin the prequel to the showdown with Gym Ghingham this level, and the story takes some cues from the novelization of Turn A to make Guin an outright villain and thus set up his altered fate here.

We start this stage as Elche wakes up from her last nap, still slightly schizo from the brainwashing.

Meanwhile, Jiron is not feeling hopeful upon seeing it.

We then cut to Puru 2, who has an idea to help Elche.

They cut to Arthur, who thinks it might work, but Tex, speaking as a physician, finds it incredibly risky.

The method is essentially having a Newtype do a heroic version of Paptimus Scirroco's "fry someone brain with Newtype mind tricks" to hose the brainwashing.

Tex still isn't for it, saying it could kill the person chosen to do the un-mind wipe.

Arthur says he'd like to be the one on the firing line for this idea, and Amuro warns him he could have his eggs scrambled.

Arthur is willing tot take the risk. He also has a good idea whose persona was used to mind-wipe Elche.

Besides, he already knows his life won't be too much longer before he succumbs to the outside world his body was not conditioned to handle, so he knows he's gonna die soon, might as well save a life in the process.

He then asks Jiron to take him out if in the process the mindwipe makes him go berserk curing Elche.

Jiron points out this would piss off his fan club, and while amused, Arthur still wants Jiron to do this for him.

We then cut to the hangar, where Sid has given Guin a copy of all information they have on the Preventers MS and other machines.

Guin is apparently planning to see if he can buy off Gym Ghingham's attempt to start breaking shit if he can dangle some Black History knowledge under his nose.

(This kinda glosses over the fact he's handing a warmonger more WAR data though)

Sid has reservations, and Guin admits he's also doing this in the hopes of jump starting Earth's tech level several orders in the process of the horse trading.

Loran shows up, asks what the hell he's thinking, and upon getting the full scope of the plan (after telling Guin to call him LORAN, dammit), he calls Guin out:

Guin tries to pour on the sugar, but Loran considers this Black History 2.0 bullshit, and he won't be party to it.

Guin then pulls a gun on Loran.

He tries to order Loran to do what he says at gunpoint, but his boner for Loran is thankfully preventing him frompulling the trigger, so he just runs off with what he has.

We cut back to the Freeden crew, back on their own ship, and it seems the Militia took care of it and is ignorant of what their boss Guin was doing.

Sarah then relays a heads up from the Ra Calium that they are going to stay stationary for awhile to cure Elche.

And that's when the enemy chooses to make a nuisance of themselves.

Well, to be specific, the Soliel is apparently being pursued by a bunch of Breakers.

We cut to the battle map, and it seems Phil is getting cornered by a serious force of Breakers led by Caloon.

We get some amusing banter between Greta and Caloon on the virtues of money versus youth, and Hola and Geraba are bitching about their lack of screentime (I LOVE HOW META XABUNGLE IS) .

It's at this point Milan is realizing their dying here could be what they deserve for their earlier douchebaggery, but thankfully, the Ra Calium has Diana aboard, and she wants to save them, despite their earlier foolishness.

You can sortie the Freeden or Iron Gear, then you can also sortie 12 units of your choice.

Diana then orders Phil to fall back, they'll handle this, and he doesn't ask questions for once.

You also find out the Ra Calium CANNOT get hit by the enemy or Elche's life could end.

The Ra Calium is at the rear of your formation, and the Innocent are deploying a mix of all the shit they've used before, so just keep them away from the Ra Calium.

It takes one hit from ANYTHING, you lose. It cannot move either.

Note: The Mountain Cycle nearby has a Haro, those are VERY valuable parts.

Anyway, once you repel this force, those pricks known as the Frost Brothers show up.

They are here to kill Diana because they want to see everyone kill each other because they are butthurt failures for Newtypes, hence the title of this stage, taken from a line they say in the original Gundam X show.

If you want a Skill Point, kill both Frost Brothers at the same time (Hint: MAP ATTACKS)

They only have a half dozen Mahiroos and three Almeyers, so get your guys between them and Ra Calium, then unload everything you have on taking their asses out.

Once you take out their goons, the Frost Brothers decide to play their trump card.

Those assholes have a FUCKING NUKE!

And that's when the Ancestors show up, even they think this is fucking stupid:

They deploy the Machine Cells, and the nuke is destroyed by without cooking off.

The Frost Brothers realize it's time to run, and everyone else realizes the way they hosed that nuke was like watching the Moonlight Butterfly.

We then get a replay of the discussion from the end of the Earth route, and they get pissed the Dinosaur Empire is not your immediate target (even if they are on your bucket list).

But this time a Doran escapes the Ra Calium and decides to kamikaze their asses.

It's Arthur, who apparently decided he's gonna leave this world taking shitheads down with him.

Before that, he reveals Kashim King's persona was used to brainwash Elche, and he took it on himself to free her, and before it turns him into a berserker, he's gonna give the Ancestors a parting fuck you.

It actually works, doing enough damage the Egrets decide to fall back, partially out of respect for Arthur, whose sacrifice even they can't deny was impressive.

Afterwards, everyone's weeping for Arthur, and Jiron gets pissed and takes his anger out on Tex, but he takes it like an adult and tells Jiron Arthur gave his life to save Elche's.

Meanwhile, Diana swears to carry on his will.

We then cut to Quattro realizing the Earth Cradle is all too real, and that they expected you guys to jump when they ordered it, or they'd declare Earth beyond saving.

We also have the news get around Guim fell in with Ghingham, and Diana is not surprised. Monsha even notes it's no secret Guin's technophilia was pretty obvious, hence his willingness to make a Faustian bargain with Ghingham.

We then cut to Phil and the Soliel guys, who Diana is willing to pardon in exchanging for helping her stop Gym. They do the mature thing and accept, and that means the Soliel and Poe Aijee in her silver SUMO join your team.

We then cut to the Earth Cradle, where Uruz Egret is making his report to Magus, and you might note she looks....different......

Uruz then says "Man is fucked, who cares about giving them chances to save themselves", and Magus considers this. She's also not pleased to hear that the Irregulars aren't jumping on command.

She then orders Thurisaz to switch the Earth Cradle to battle mode, then tells Uruz to install the "black box" into the Aurgelmir.

Sanger then shows up:

She tells him to find the Irregulars, then kill them with the Thrudgelmir.

He seems to hesitate, then when she orders him like a machine again, he notes compliance. As he leaves, she notes contact with other humans must have caused his original persona to resurface, indicating Sanger (who still seems human) was subjected to some form of mind control eliminating his free will, and it's weakening.

As the level ends, the Bazaar is selling a copy of Corin Nander's Eagail, if you want it.

You now also have the Soliel as a deployable vessel, with Diana as it's pilot.

Note: Oddly, Poe's SUMO can be more powerful than Harry's due to a strange coding oversight.

Oh yeah, @Jaimas, next level is when we take down Gym Ghingham for good.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 38: Moonlight Butterfly (Part 1)


We start this stage with Emperor Gore noting the Ancestors have woken up again. He's concerned and details Gallery to hunting their asses down.

We then cut to Ankoku Daishougun, who shares the same sentiment.

We then cut over to Gym, who is examining all the data he got, and he's pleased to note he's going to be fighting the greatest warriors of the Black History.

Midgard then shows up to report they've dug up some retarded powerful shit, including an Adrastea.

Guin then pops in, and while he's joined the dark side, even he's against how the Frost Brothers used a nuke.

Gym is all "desperate times justify any extreme, something you'll need to accept since we have equally desperate foes".

Guin still stands by how poisoning the Earth with nukes is a bridge too far, but Gym counter with "don't worry, The Turn A and X have a built in function for fixing that sort of damage".

Guin reluctantly concurs, and says mass produced Turns would make them nigh invincible.

He then segues into reference to an old story of the sun and the north wind, and while he's trying to sound smart with hislittle parable, Merrybell accurately notes Guin really wants to impress people with his smarts.

Katejina shows up and tells Gym they are ready to attack the Irregulars, and Gym lets her lead the advance team, much to Merrybell's annoyance.

With that, Gym orders the attack.

We then cut to the recovering Elche, who is recovering but in something of a coma due to the trauma removing Kashim's persona incurred.

We then cut to Viletta, who is concerned Huckebeins and Grungusts were found in the Moon Cradle.

They then examine the Ancestor machines data, and Kamille says they should assume both Cradles, while having obvious differences, should share the same basic design and defense plans, and the other eggheads concur.

We then cut to Diana, who is very concerned Gym's Turn X will also display the Moonlight Butterfly soon.

We cut to the hangar, where everyone is prepared to sortie.

We then cut to bridge,where Torres announcers the Ghingham Fleet is heading their way, and Bright tells Harry and Burning to sortie their forces ASAP.

We then cut to Burning and Harry heading to the hangar, and we get a nice 0083 shoutout when Burning advises Harry to not leave any lingering regrets (a reference to how Burning died in canon). Harry acknowledges the wisdom in that advice, then both get back to business.

We cut to Usso, who realizes he'll have to fight Katejina again.

We then cut to the battle map, where Part 1 of this fight begins. The Skill Point involves taking down everyone save Katejina in nine turns.

First, sortie one of your four flagships, your choice.

Loran is forced deploy, then you can sortie 14 more of your choice.

On top of the usual assholes, they dug up some new assholes:

Despite the translator fuckup, this is the Doggorola from Victory Gundam, and it's a tanky bastard.

These carriers from Double Zeta, however, aren't nearly as bad.

And these Victory grunts are just jokes:

And just in case I forgot to cover Bandits:

They are annoying, but not too hard.

Anyway, if you don't need more Skill Points, take your time. If you do need them, blitz these bastards.

Once you get this done, Katejina finally remembers who the hell she is, apologizes to Usso for all the shit she pulled, or attempts to, before she blows up and dies.

And then this happens:

Gym shows up, says he figured Katejina would get her ass shot down, and when Usso tries to bitch him out for this, he points out Katejina was offered salvation, she took him at his word fighting would be the logical way to get it, so it was her choice.

That, and a little psycommu fuckery, but who's splitting hairs here?

Usso wonders what the hell he thinks people are, and Gym's answer is rather blunt:

"Tools of warfare".

Gym then decides to fight you at this point, and this won't be the final battle, so conserve your strength.

Actually, if you have any left, beat on this asshole as hard as you can, you get a free refill for Part 2.

Once you finally manage to take this fucker down (yes, you CAN actually kill him this time), he's quite impressed.

However, he's far from actually dead.

Worse, he's finally unlocked the true power of the Turn X:

Afterwards, the horror of everyone present cannot be understated.

That crazy bastard now has the power to restart the Black History.

Bright manages to recover his wits though, and says this just means they need to kill the Turn X NOW.



I'll cover that in Part 2, when the two Turn Gundams will have their final battle, and decide if the door to the Black History will reopen or not........

 

[GethN7]

Before I post Part 2, small warning for those using this LS as a guide.

Even if you are on Easy and cheated your ass off, this is the official point when the game goes from moderately to very difficult to SADISTICALLY HARD.

That is not an understatement. If the next level makes you weep and gnash your teeth, it GETS WORSE.

This is ESPECIALLY true if you are on the hard route.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 38: Moonlight Butterfly (Part 2)


The beginning of this level has the Soliel and Loran as forced deploys, then you can sortie 15 units of your choice.

Also, note what Tetsuya says:

Kosuke notes that if the concentration gets thick enough all artificial structures will be dissolved to nothingness.

And you don't have long:

Let me make it pretty clear what that means:

YOU HAVE TEN TURNS TO PREVENT THE SECOND COMING OF THE BLACK HISTORY!

Loran will finally have the Moonlight Butterfly for use as regular attack now.

Also, Gym and his forces will make this hell to do.

On top of the other assholes you've seen before, he has four of these assholes from Victory Gundam as guards:

He's got a passel of other jackasses, but my suggestion is to drop everything and just blitz that fucker, you'll need at least three turns to get close to him anyway.

Also take a look at the map:

If you have a sharp eye, you'll notice, lack of water aside, it's very similar to the DC Japan map from Stage 2.

By Turn 2, he goes into a little rant about how this is the second Black History, Amuro and Quattro calls him out, he's all "you assholes helped kick off the first", and while Amuro tells him they'll do what they can to prevent it, Quattro wonders if he might have a point (CCA Char hint).

Note, this is voiced by all parties, specifically done for this game.

By Turn 3, Loran and Gym have a back and forth over how Loran thinks Gym's insane, but Gym fires back this shit was inevitable.

By Turn 4, Guin shows up.

Gym also confirms this place used to be the capital of the Innocent before Jamil hosed it with the Satellite Cannon awhile back.

Guin also admits he wants to mass produce the Turn-A, and Loran is all "You bastard......."

I recommend doing your best to kill Gym's guardians, then beating him like a drum, but conserve your strength, this asshole can regenerate ALL OF HIS HP/EN at least once, just to piss you off.

Thankfully, he's out of refills after this, so drop everything and beat that asshole to death for good.

Be warned, this time, the Turn X is at full strength, even having it's own demented parody of the Moonlight Butterfly, and this guy is badass enough to even give Shin Getter, the Hi Nu Gundam, and MazinKaiser trouble.

Note if the battle goes on long enough, Guin will deploy in a Psyco Gundam (which he calls the "Black Doll", similar to what he did in the novelization of Turn A)

This fight will be fucking HARD, I will not lie, even cheating your ass off doesn't make it much easier if you elect to do that, but, honestly or not, you can eventually prevail.

And this is what happen when you achieve victory:

Loran tells him to accept his defeat, and he screams defiantly as the Turn X goes nova.

Afterwards, the Turn X readings have vanished, and the remains of Gym's forces lie dead. Milan hopes they have prevented the second coming the Black History for good, but Diana says the Dinosaur Empire, Kashim King, and the Ancestors must be stopped to ensure that.

Next level, we will take down Kashim and the rest of the no so Innocent.

 

[kawazu217]

Finally caught up with this one. I actually binge-read your posts. Didn't think you'd be about 2/3rds done before page 10. I have some thoughts to share. I wish I could put these as quotes but, I'm still testing the stuff here.

"Text Glitches"
I actually followed the Something Awful LP of this game (and then I was hit by a paywall, when I clicked Sign Up) and it was mentioned there. Didn't know that the coding was just functional enough and could bug out in a lot of ways.

"Save Editor Shenanigans"
You talking about the Save Editor from that GeoCities Japan page? That's the one I used. I didn't try doing stuff like altering the Previous and Next Scenario toggles, but I did use it to equip additional parts to units. I think I glitched in a Psyco Gundam, equipped HP upgrade parts on its unused part slots, and then when I manually upgraded its HP, it rolled under and it ended up with only 9000 HP. I did use it to fix the Musashi on D.O.M.E. route glitch, and gave me Tifa points so I got Corin Nander and the G-Bits at the same time.

"Difficulty Routes and whatnot"
Hmm. There's alternate stages after Tifa and Elche gets kidnapped at S-Point, right? Jiron and Garrod are understandably emo about the whole thing, but I noticed that nobody has given them the slap to stop the self-pity. The normal route tackles what the Iron Gear crew feels about Jiron crying about Elche. Rag actually gets sick off it, quits the team and conspires with Hola to take you down. But don't worry, she comes back.

The second stage has Kouji tripping out and seeing Ashura (the two-faced enemy from Alpha) on the ship. He chases after him and he falls into a trap set by Gallery and Dante. You fight machine enemies like the ones Khamen brings with him on that other stage. It was a very okay stage, but it doesn't resolve Tetsuya being a douchebag this entire game. Ashura is actually available as an unused pilot in the Save editor, and I thought they just forgot to completely dummy him out, because he still has voices.

I'll probably leave it at that for now.

 

[GethN7]

Finally caught up with this one. I actually binge-read your posts. Didn't think you'd be about 2/3rds done before page 10. I have some thoughts to share. I wish I could put these as quotes but, I'm still testing the stuff here.

"Text Glitches"
I actually followed the Something Awful LP of this game (and then I was hit by a paywall, when I clicked Sign Up) and it was mentioned there. Didn't know that the coding was just functional enough and could bug out in a lot of ways.

"Save Editor Shenanigans"
You talking about the Save Editor from that GeoCities Japan page? That's the one I used. I didn't try doing stuff like altering the Previous and Next Scenario toggles, but I did use it to equip additional parts to units. I think I glitched in a Psyco Gundam, equipped HP upgrade parts on its unused part slots, and then when I manually upgraded its HP, it rolled under and it ended up with only 9000 HP. I did use it to fix the Musashi on D.O.M.E. route glitch, and gave me Tifa points so I got Corin Nander and the G-Bits at the same time.

"Difficulty Routes and whatnot"
Hmm. There's alternate stages after Tifa and Elche gets kidnapped at S-Point, right? Jiron and Garrod are understandably emo about the whole thing, but I noticed that nobody has given them the slap to stop the self-pity. The normal route tackles what the Iron Gear crew feels about Jiron crying about Elche. Rag actually gets sick off it, quits the team and conspires with Hola to take you down. But don't worry, she comes back.

The second stage has Kouji tripping out and seeing Ashura (the two-faced enemy from Alpha) on the ship. He chases after him and he falls into a trap set by Gallery and Dante. You fight machine enemies like the ones Khamen brings with him on that other stage. It was a very okay stage, but it doesn't resolve Tetsuya being a douchebag this entire game. Ashura is actually available as an unused pilot in the Save editor, and I thought they just forgot to completely dummy him out, because he still has voices.

I'll probably leave it at that for now.

This game is LITERALLY a hack of SRW Alpha. It's basically what Fallout New Vegas was to Fallout 3, and I'd love to see some crazy coder try to port the original Alpha to the upgraded engine with a lot of assembly cleanup to fix the bugs, it would be amazing.

They core dumped all the original assets from Alpha into the hack engine, stripped out all the stuff they knew they could never use again from Alpha (like Giant Robo and Aura Battler Dunbine), kept the rest, dummied out stuff whose scripting they needed for one reason or another but not necessarily the unit data (basically all the original units that don't reprise their roles), made new art and other assets for the new series, then wrote the plot.

It's worth noting the engine of Alpha Gaiden is basically a beta test of the engine of SRW IMPACT for PS2, which is built on Alpha Gaiden's codebase, but the cleaned up all the crappy code and reoptimized it for PS2 processor instructions.

Another interesting thing is that a lot of older assets that weren't used were used a crude form of failsafe and debug testing. There are multiple copies of some units, some balanced for Alpha, some for Alpha Gaiden (it's why base stats MazinKaiser is more robust in its intro stage than the version you get after, it uses Alpha's damage formulas). Some serve as a fallback to prevent the game engine from shitting itself if you are piloting something goofy (like having Boss in a Nuclear Missile, which is treated as an ingame unit), and some fill predetermined slots as a means of spackling old Alpha code that references their existence and their removal would cause more problems than it solves.

In fact, the D.O.M.E stage bug is caused by the ingame code accidentally overwriting it's stock list of all units in the code if you hacked the shit out of your save file, which causes an overflow error that makes that stage shit the bed so hard the engine craps out.



It's also worth noting Alpha Gaiden was not originally part of the plans for the series. They wanted the series Gao Gai Gar since Alpha 1, but were unable to secure the rights in time, and the way they had to rewrite the script combined with how their relationship with Winkysoft had soured at the time forced them to leave Alpha 1 on a "to be continued", with Alpha Gaiden filling the blanks.

Unfortunately, the script for Alpha Gaiden was a bit of a rush job, much like New Vegas had less dev time than Fallout 3, and that's why the game engine is unstable, there are weird artifacts of older story writing decisions at odd intervals (Tiffa shows up in a cutscene when she shouldn't be there at one point due to this sort of oversight), and examination of the game files reveal unusued alternate versions of some units that were balanced for Alpha Gaiden but oddly were not used.

 

[kawazu217]

Another interesting thing is that a lot of older assets that weren't used were used a crude form of failsafe and debug testing.

They improved the failsafes somewhat. Trying to hack in let's say Ring Mao (she has pilot stats but no voice) as a pilot in Alpha would crash the game, in Alpha Gaiden the battle would proceed without lines from her.

They core dumped all the original assets from Alpha into the hack engine, stripped out all the stuff they knew they could never use again from Alpha (like Giant Robo and Aura Battler Dunbine), kept the rest, dummied out stuff whose scripting they needed for one reason or another but not necessarily the unit data (basically all the original units that don't reprise their roles), made new art and other assets for the new series, then wrote the plot.

They made sure to remove those they didn't need, also stuff like Evangelion units, but just dummied (like replace all words and weapons as "Dummy") out units generic enough that could be used as extra mook units, like the Char's Counterattack units. I guess it also explains why there's also fully functional alpha version of Daitarn 3 in the tables.

In fact, the D.O.M.E stage bug is caused by the ingame code accidentally overwriting it's stock list of all units in the code if you hacked the shit out of your save file, which causes an overflow error that makes that stage shit the bed so hard the engine craps out.

Hmm, I don't know if I already hacked my save when I got to that part. The first thing I did was add in Kayla and the Zeta II, before I went crazy on a subsequent playthrough. That is something they should've fixed though, I thought I was having emulator problems.

Unfortunately, the script for Alpha Gaiden was a bit of a rush job, much like New Vegas had less dev time than Fallout 3, and that's why the game engine is unstable, there are weird artifacts of older story writing decisions at odd intervals (Tiffa shows up in a cutscene when she shouldn't be there at one point due to this sort of oversight), and examination of the game files reveal unusued alternate versions of some units that were balanced for Alpha Gaiden but oddly were not used.

That Tiffa thing is definitely an oversight by the event/dialog planner. The coders probably didn't have time to hunt down the bits and remove it in time for release. Some of the units are enemy versions of units. I was so disappointed that Shin Getter and Mazinkaiser only had 4-digit HP by the time you got them.

Kind off a random thing, but I am biased towards Sochie in this game. She has her own share of heroic battle lines, good enough stats and unlocks Rouse/Rally. Personally I stick her on the GP-03 Dendrobium. And it all started because I had her shoot down Poe with Gain/Great Effort. Miashei, however is Katz tier. Kinda bad stats, and too much support Seishin.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 39: Showdown at X-Point!


Alright people, time to take down that jackass Kashim King.

Speaking of that, he just got the news we kicked Gym's ass.

Biran adds the Moonlight Butterfly almost fired up, but they stopped that too, and Kashim is scared we want totake his ass down (and he's right).

Dowas is panicking, but Kashim tells him and Biran to come with him, he's got a surprise.

We show up at X-Point's central computer core:

He then asks why that is.

Biram is all "uh, because it's where our ancestors started?"

Kashim: "Wrong. It's where their biggest stockpile of military shit is located."

Underneath X-Point is the greatest Lost Mountain on Earth, and this is his feelings on unlocking the greatest storehouse of Innocent weapons:

We cut back to where Shakti is still watching over Elche, who just woke up. We then cut to infirmary, where Elche is back to normal, and she wants to repay her debt Arthur by taking Kashim King down.

We then cut to Kamille, who hears the good news, and wonders if he can save Rosamy too. Fa wonders why he'd bust his ass to someone lying her ass off about being his sister, and he responds it's sheer principle: she's being used by the Innocent, and despite her lies, she doesn't deserve that.

She reminds him he nearly died doing the same for Four, and he responds that why he's giving a shit, he cannot look away and do nothing in this case, he couldn't face a mirror with pride if he did, but Fa's jealously seeps out and she runs off.

Four manages to run into Fa, and tells her rival for Kamille it's not about her, Kamille just has a compulsion to save people being used, and to quit getting romantically jealous, that's not the concern here, and practically says "you've won, get over it, I concede defeat over his heart to you."

As Four walks off, Fa just stands there stunned.

We then cut to the briefing room for the assault plan.

Burning then lays out a map of X-Point provided by the Diana Counter, and the map shows it's similar to Jop Point. The key will be to blitzkrieg the place and seize the domes ASAP.

Jamil warns it's the largest Mountain Cycle on Earth, so they have all sorts of deadly shit.

Isamu muses they might have Ghost X-9's, Kazikaki asks him not to jinx them, but Fokker quietly realizes it might be a possibility.

Caris also worries they may have something similar to the Patulia too.

Burning then says they have two options: daytime or nighttime assault.

Attacking at night is SOP for stuff like this, but with the Satellite Cannon being known to the enemy, enemy resistance will likely be stronger then.

I picked night for two reasons:

1. I'm planning on EXP farming, the final battles will make it important to do.
2. Enemy disposition will be barely different by too much during the day.

SECRET TIP: If you want Zeta Gundam to get a powerup, deploy Kamille in the Zeta Gundam. He's a good unit/pilot for this stage, so no reason not to.

We cut to where Hola and Timp are both thinking to themselves they'll come out on top despite their losing streaks, though the latter plan to bolt like a good little rat if need be.

Deploy whatever battleship you prefer. Xabungle (Full Power) (Elche as main pilot) and Walker Gallier are forced deploys.

You can then deploy 13 more units, focus on guys with speed, accuracy, and the Mercy spell.

I'll mention why later.

The enemy consists of a bunch of Develagalans, some Doran, and three Emperor Custom landships

This has a ton of comic relief. Take down Greta's Doran for some lols. Take down Hola's landship for him and Geraba to reappear in a Blackalley after doing a cheesy send-off when you take down their landship. Take down Hola again for more laughs at his expense.

Fun fact: Timp will hang back like a little bitch while everyone else advances on you.

Once you kill off the Breakers, Kashin cruses their uselessness, and a Psyco Gundam MK-II launches in Mobile Armor mode.

Kamille finds out Rosamy is the pilot, and he tries to use the family lie to get her to stand down, but she's been brainwashed further by Dr. Mane, so that's not working.

This is why Kamille should be deployed, knock her HP below 50% and Kamille will unlock the Waverider Crash attack (how he fucked up Paptimus Scirroco in Zeta Gundam, his strongest attack)

Once you do this, Kamille will try to get Rosamia free, and Kashim orders Dr.Mane to make the Psyco Gundam kamikaze the enemy.

It will try to hit your carrier, but that's when Kamille will intercept it.

Her mind finally snaps free long enough it seems she's snapping out of Dr. Mane's bullshit, but she's also had her Titans brainwashing removed too, so the brother lie won't work anymore, forcing Kamille to kill her in self defense.

He does hesitate, but Quattro tells him it's do or die, literally.

So he does.

Kashim then launches, and you will gnash your teeth HARD.

That asshole has a shitload of Patulias, Ghost X-9's and G-Bits.

Timp also shows back up in a Blackalley.

And Kashim has one final trump:

NUKES!

Kashim plans to hose Ameria and Gallia with the nukes, as a "if we can't have them, NO ONE WILL!"

Kashim then rants shit to this effect, and Issac roasts his balls over a fire by explaining the Innocent are of a dying breed, the Civilians they created are their inheritors, and even the Moon Race had the balls to leave their sanctuary for Earth, while the Innocent have to live in seclusion or die.

Banjou even delivers his classic "I'm gonna kick your ass" one liner, his seiyuu even delivers a custom voiced line version for Kashim specifically:

Kashim is like "Even you assholes can't stop nukes!"

Quattro: "Amuro, please explain for the class how to stop a nuke."

Amuro: *does so*

Kamille gets so pissed at this point, his Zeta gets a permanent power up as Kamille personally wants Kashim's head for the shit he pulled.

It's at this point I suggest, despite the massive amount of assholes Kashim has at his beck and call, you drop everything and kill those damn nukes.

If one leaves the map, you lose.

BTW, kill Timp with Jiron for some extended dialogue.

Once the missile are dead, KILL KASHIM KING.

Eventually, he'll panic:

Dr.Mane takes this as her cue to run, but Elche hunts her down and to personally put a bullet in her ass.

Mane tries to beg for mercy, and Elche decides she really would be Kashim if she just callously shot someone begging for mercy, so she lets Mane run for it.

Kashim will regain any HP he lost and auto-cast Guard at this point.

In fact, he'll take some more damage, then cast Valor, Alert, and Guts on himself.

Once you kill his sorry ass, he ironically screams this:

He tries to run after reappearing in another landship, ordering Biram to haul ass, but Elche and Jiron pin him down.

Biram tries to beg for his life, but Elche already used up her solicitude on Mane, and Kashim has one last missile he plans to cook off as a "I'm not dying unless I go to Hell with some company!"

However, the missile gets tagged by some accidental friendly fire, and is spirals out of control.

And lands right atop Kashim's ship.

Unfortunately, Elche gets caught in the blast.

She's alive, Kashim took the brunt of it, but the blast light was so intense it rendered her blind.

Biel then shows up in Doran, and sees its all over.

Seems he tried to get all the anti-Kashim Innocent to get their thumbs out of their asses long before now, but before he could get them to do so, you guys took the bastard down for him.

He does concede this means the Civilians have the right and expectation to inherit the Earth, the Innocent no longer hold sway over them.

Afterwards, Kamille is emo his attempt to save Rosamy came to nothing, and Quattro tries to comfort him, but Kamille's not in the mood.

We cut to Biel, who is speaking with Diana, and he, as the highest ranking remaining Innocent after Arthur and the late Kashim, agrees to ensure Arthur's dying wish will be upheld.

Everyone else makes similar commentary, and one of Roybea's lines gets garbled, but you can grasp the gist of it.

Elche is AWOL from the victory party, though, and while Jiron is feeling a bit like a pussy at the moment, Tetsuya and surprisingly Tiffa tell him to grab his balls and go after her already. Everyone concurs, and Garrison helpfully adds he expected this, so he attached a transmitter to the Xabungle.

He hands Jiron the locator, and he runs off to use it.

The currently blind Elche is wandering around in the middle of nowhere, and just as she runs out of gas, Jiron shows up.

She tries to run, but nearly kills herself falling out of the Xabungle.

Jiron manages to catch her though.

We get a conversation that is practically clipped from the end of the original show.

And that's when everyone else shows up.

Fatman is the very first one to run up to Elche.

As everyone welcomes Elche back, Hola is watching from the distance, hating himself yet unable to look away.

And Kihel has good news, the Soliel can heal her damaged eyes.

How?

*meme incoming as stage ends*

NANOMACHINES, SON!

 

[kawazu217]

I find it funny that the X-Point group got sidetracked so hard in getting to X-Point that by the time they got there, you had the D.OM.E. group with you. And one more thing from the previous page, Agrippa is an unused pilot as well. He spouts phrases like "Hail to the Moon Race!" when you used him in battle. Maybe in an earlier draft of the script you were supposed to fight him on the lunar base alongside Khamen Khamen.
----
Rosamy died? Didn't they say that they salvaged the cockpit and had her rest in one of the carriers? It doesn't matter either way, you can't use her whether you save her or don't. Also, they finally put that Neil Sedaka part-owned song to good use, the 2nd OP song is now Z Gundam's theme song from her on out.
----
The Develagalans are the mook units of this stage at night. In the morning they are Galapagos units.
----
At this point, things start to get un-fun because you don't get the wacky dialog nor awesome music (you'll be hearing Arrow of Destiny a lot more, it gets too repetitive even if the song is good).

 

[GethN7]

I find it funny that the X-Point group got sidetracked so hard in getting to X-Point that by the time they got there, you had the D.OM.E. group with you. And one more thing from the previous page, Agrippa is an unused pilot as well. He spouts phrases like "Hail to the Moon Race!" when you used him in battle. Maybe in an earlier draft of the script you were supposed to fight him on the lunar base alongside Khamen Khamen.
----
Rosamy died? Didn't they say that they salvaged the cockpit and had her rest in one of the carriers? It doesn't matter either way, you can't use her whether you save her or don't. Also, they finally put that Neil Sedaka part-owned song to good use, the 2nd OP song is now Z Gundam's theme song from her on out.
----
The Develagalans are the mook units of this stage at night. In the morning they are Galapagos units.
----
At this point, things start to get un-fun because you don't get the wacky dialog nor awesome music (you'll be hearing Arrow of Destiny a lot more, it gets too repetitive even if the song is good).

There is an alternate scene for Rosamia if you DON'T sortie Kamille where that happens, but since she's canonically dead by Alpha 2, it's just a bonus for not offing her for Kamille's upgrade.

The upgrade is frankly more worth it and makes Zeta more useful for the final bosses.

Agrippa got a battle portrait, and one of the goofy things about the game engine is that if they are assigned the "pilot" of any unit, no matter how generic, the game will give them pilot stats. Otherwise, the game treats them as cutscene only, and he was a "pilot" of an Almeyer.

Earlier, Generals Oka and Igor were given a portrait but no unit to go with it, but it's likely any "battle portrait" must accompany a "unit" and they must have a battle stats sheet, even if it's a placeholder, though they do not have to be visible or accessible by the player.

It's much like how Bethseda games have to assign scripted dialogue to an NPC, even if the dialouge does not come from a NPC character, as the scripting anticipates an NPC tied to the dialogue or the engine goes berserk.

As an odd quirk of this engine behavior, that means they had to assign them voices (or blank placeholder sound files), especially if they were intended to be used in battle (to sidestep that engine crashing issue from Alpha if they didn't), and it's quite likely an earlier draft of the script had him as an enemy.

Funny thing about Zeta's theme song, there was a massive clusterfuck over who owned the rights to all of it for awhile, hence why Zeta in earlier games mostly used that in show "Fleet Battle" theme, the English dub of Zeta actually had to cut it out of the show and replace it with something else because of this legal snafu.

Technically speaking, on the X-Point delays, since the D.O.M.E and Earth routes occur simultaneously, about the same amount of time technically passes between the two.

And thanks for reminding me about the daytime units. The Develagalans are better for leveling up anyway.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 40: ABAYO

This level is something of a breather level, honestly, and one of the last you will get before the next few levels prove to be painful ass beatings one after another.

We start at the Earth Cradle, where Uruz reports we took Kashim down.

Magus says Sanger will be kicking their asses soon enough anyway, and Uruz worries he might go rogue if he regains his original persona. Magus is all "well, he'll be disposed of if that happens".

Uruz is cool with that, but notes Sanger is still human, she didn't turn him into a bastardized parody of one like the Machinery Children, and further notes she made sure to NOT use Machine Cells to alter his body.

Magus tells him to shut the fuck up on that topic.

If you've been paying attention, you might have guessed who Magus really is, and hint, hint, Sanger was the security chief of the Earth Cradle even before the Black History.

She then tells him to make sure the black box has been added to the Aurgelmir.

We then cut to Bright noting their only two major enemies are the Ancestors and Dinosaur Empire.

Banjou reports the analysis of the Ancestors will take awhile longer, so Bright asks about the Dinosaurs.

Ryouma expects their next appearance will be their "throw everything and the kitchen sink" battle.

Isaac then reminds everyone Khamen Khamen is still unaccounted for.

Isaac then goes over what they know.

Khamen mentioned the planet Jupiter, and Isaac got wind back in the Space Era that the Federation Space Development Bureau head Josesilva Valencia was apparently meeting with Khamen. Valencia was in charge of the development of the planets of the inner solar system.

Jupiter was high on the list, as extracting Jupiter's massive helium reserves is a vital resource for the Federation. However, given it's not sure all the Jupiterians were wiped out in the Balmar War, the Feddies were a bit leery of just waltzing over there, so Khamen decided to check it out while the Feddies decided to focus on other things.

Basically, Valencia helped make sure the Feddies looked the other way while Khamen did his thing.

And that's when Omachi admits the truth:

Josesilva Valencia is her father.

Her real name is Machiko Valencia (which she prefers not to go by for obvious reasons).

Once we've covered that, Isaac covers the "Great Atum Plan"

Isaac points out Atum was a god of the sun associated with destruction following creation.

And Khamen mentioned he wants the destructive power of your machines to help him achieve his plans.

And that's when some douche appears from high altitude to fight us.

It's Khamen himself.

He's ranting about he's following Atum's will, and creating a new world of Nubia on the battle map.

Sortie a flagship (Braiger is forced deploy), then 15 units.

Make sure they are your strongest ones, a secret will require it.

Isaac flat out says he's figured out most of Khamen's plan, he'd just like the man himself to fill in the blanks.

He decides to honor Isaac's curiosity and does so.

His goal is to first destroy Jupiter.

His plan is to use the destructive power of your machines to cause an atomic reaction that would convert Jupiter's gaseous body to metal, and through this process, create several dozen new planets.

Hence destruction leading to creation.

Everyone at first thinks Khamen is just utterly insane, but Isaac admits Khamen is following a plausible theory:

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

Short version is that Khamen wants to short circuit the process of how planets form by speeding it up artificially and wants to create new worlds since Earth is pretty jacked up.

Jupiter going nova for this is actually a fairly sane idea, because as a gas giant with many of the essential fuel elements of the Sun, it could thus be turned into a secondary sun whose atomic reaction could kickstart the process of causing nearby masses to react to the atomic changes, and odds are good several mini planets at least could be born.

It's speculated, with good reason, this how the current Sol solar system was created when our own Sun was born.

Granted, this could very likely fry all the currently existing planets and reorder the entire Sol solar system, but Khamen is all "can't make omelettes without breaking eggs".

Khamen then explains that there were two projects to stave off disaster. The Earth Cradle, which he had secretly helped finished after it had been suspended, while the still legit Moon Cradle was funded by Banjou and Mao Industries.

He then reveals he got screwed because it's Magus System and Machine Cells have gone out of control, thus he got screwed out of the Earth Cradle.

Khamen figured one Cradle was enough, hence his hijacking of the Moon Cradle in this time.

The snazzy instrumental of ABAYO fires up at this point, and it's time to kick Khamen's ass.

He's a joke and so are the week bee units he's got, no need for the map on this one, just save your energy and beat him to death.

By Turn 2, Garrod notes Khamen oddly has few reinforcements.

Once you take him down, this is not, everyone will comment how easy it was.

And that's when TWO of him appear:

Khamen is all "lol, my life is eternal".

Your Skill Point will be to kill all of his flagships in the same turn, and your limit changes by difficulty

Easy: 4 turns after killing him the first time.
Normal: 3 turns
Hard; 2 turns.

Note that BOTH must die in the same turn, or another will spawn to troll you.

If you don't care about the Skill Point, it's possible to game this for EXP farming, but Khamen is so annoying I wouldn't blame you guys if you decided to skip that.

Also, still save strength for the upcoming secret.

He'll still claim you can never kill his ass even after you pull this off, and he leaves with one last annoying laugh.

Everyone is all "wait, that's it?"

And then the real threat shows up:

SECRET: Want to recruit Sangar and get his machine later?

SHOOT HIS ASS DOWN!

This is why I said keep all your good stuff in reserve. He'll leave after so many turns (or at 20% HP), but if you make a point of killing him ASAP, you can do part 1 of this secret.

And honestly, there is no good reason not to, he's OP as fuck.

And he still hits like a damn tank like before.

But it CAN be done:

Sanger will have a mini-freakout, and he'll get orders to self-destruct, but before he does that, he rejects the orders in favor of defending Magus.

In fact, it's obvious he's fighting the brainwashing from the inside and WINNING.

He leaves just as he tells the brainwashing to fuck itself for the final time, and the stage ends as everyone realizes whatever happened, Sanger just told his boss NO.

Afterwards, everyone comments the presumably late Khamen told us the reason the Earth Cradle went batshit, hence changing it's purpose, and it's why Magus is nuts and staffed by creepy cyborg/nanomachine human ripoffs.

Basically, Magus is the Earth counterpart to D.O.M.E, and when Fokker dissents, saying Magus seemed human enough, Banjou brings up the Meganoids from his series, who could pass well enough for humans outwardly.

Given what they know, Magus could well be the former Dr. Sophia Nate, and thanks to being corrupted by the same shit that turned the Earth Cradle hostile, she's now your enemy, Magus.

They then turn to the Machine Cells, which are similar to the nanomachine tech used by the Turn A and Moon Race, though differing in application.

We then cut to a funny scene where Pancho Poncho of the J9 is apparently pocketing all the Blue Stones and Rag and Chiru catch him.

He explains he's planning to load up at a Bazaar with supplies they might need while they have a chance (the game's way of saying you won't get use of it for much longer), and Elche confirms he's got a point.

-----

With that, the level ends, and you might as well spend any remaining Blue Stones now, the Bazaar is not usable after this.

No new units, but blow it all on parts you might want.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 41: The Black History's Demise

We get this stage on Normal/Hard, which wraps up Gundam X. Otherwise, we skip to the Dinosaur Empire final battle.


We cut to the Earth Cradle, where Sanger is explaining his role is to be Magus' GUARDIAN. Refusing the self-destruct order was the only way he could honor that directive.

She points out he's not her only guardian.

Uruz chips in the Machinery Children serve as that, but Sanger ignores this as Magus patiently tries to explain his role is to be a sword, not a shield as she applies the mind mojo.

Sanger resists, calling out the name Sophia (what did I tell you guys?), and it seems underneath Magus' current state her original self is not dead.

Magus reasserts herself though, and Sanger snaps back into line.

We cut to later as the Machine Kids are discussing even Magus snapping back to who she used to be, but consider Sanger a bigger threat.

Sanger killed the man whose bullshit forced Bian Zoldark to mothball the Earth Cradle as a rogue project. More on him later.

We cut to the Dinosaur Empire staging area, where Archduke Gorgon is asking Ankoku Daishogun where he's going, and his boss wants to settle shit with the Mazingers before the Dinosaur Empire does their purge. He cites the DE forces can't move until they are ready, he's available as a vanguard, and he wants the purge to succeed, dammit, so fuck it, he's going to take down the Mazingers or die trying.

He tries to tell Gorgon to take over if he dies, but Gorgon refuses. If his boss has balls of solid brass, so does he, and he wants to be by his liege's side even in death.

Daishogun is moved, tells Gorgon to get all their troops ready, it's their do or die time soon.

We cut to where the good guys are heading back to Gallia to hunt down the Earth Cradle. Bright acknowledges the DE forces are a potentially bigger threat, but at least the Ancestors' position is reasonably known at this time.

Before anyone can dissent, several attackers approach.

They are mobile suits, affiliation unknown.

We cut to the battle map, where you can deploy a carrier and 14 units of your choice.

The enemy turns out to be remnants of the Ghingham Army, led by the Frost Brothers.

Oh yeah, they have Guin (who managed to survive Gym's defeat) in a Psycho Gundam.

Guin is still a fucking moron who wants progress at the price of another Black History, and the Frost Brothers are so butthurt blood is dripping from their assholes over wanting to watch the world burn.

They all get called on being self-centered, sociopathic faggots, and then the fight begins:

These douchebags have a mix of some of the most annoying cocksuckers you've seen before like Ghost X-9s, Zannecks, Doven Wolves, you name it. Merrybell survived too, and killing her prompts Guin to send out some extra Doven Wolves and some Rig Contios to be a bigger pain in your ass.

Next turn they call out some more dogs to piss you off, and Guin makes clear his fall to the dark side is complete this time.

PROTIP: If you qualify for the hard route, purposely fail this mission (just let your carrier get blown up for example) and use it to level grind a few times, it will help in later stages.

Skill Points don't matter anymore, technically, but if you are one point shy of the hard route, you can make up for that at by killing Shagia and Olba in the same shot (MAP ATTACKS ARE THE WAY TO PULL THIS OFF)

Otherwise, next level resumes at the normal ending path.

Once you've finally killed Guin and dealt with the butthurt Frost Brothers for good, Ankoku Daishogun and Archduke Gorgon show up with some of their finest troops,making it clear this is a battle to the death.

Assuming you weren't too drained from before, these assholes hit hard but should eventually drop.

Afterwards, you guys resume heading to the Earth Cradle, but the Getter Team is still more worried about the Dinosaur Empire.

Speaking of them, Emperor Gore has figured out you intend to kick the ass of the Ancestors, and he's hoping you'll kill them or they'll kill you, then he can beat up the weakened victor. Also, Ankoku Daishogun's last stand bough them valuable time, all they hoping for is yours or the Ancestors demises first.

 

[kawazu217]

Kinda short, but this was pretty uneventful anyway. Also, while you've fought against Newtypes and other pilots who possess Guts and Prevail, this scenario is where Newtype bonuses to enemies will hit you hard. I wouldn't recommend giving in to RNG percentages, only attack the Frost Brothers with pilots who have high targeting stats (ironically, good Newtype pilots like Amuro are very recommended) or use Strike if you're using anyone else.

And as observed while fighting Gym and the Turn X, the bosses will start padding out fights by using Seishin at specific HP values, sometimes even fully healing their HP or applying Guard which pads out the fights even more. It's a good thing they don't use the "Fear" Seishin (I know Gore and Magus has it, Rai and Shu had it in Alpha, Fatman can learn this once his level is high enough), which they have and would've deducted 5 Will (10 Will on Alpha) from all your units. Using the Daunt/Exhaust Seishin to weaken bosses might be a good strategy for the coming bosses, IIRC, Bowie (Brygar), Boss (Boss Borot) and Mio (Zamzeed) has that Seishin.

 

[GethN7]

Kinda short, but this was pretty uneventful anyway. Also, while you've fought against Newtypes and other pilots who possess Guts and Prevail, this scenario is where Newtype bonuses to enemies will hit you hard. I wouldn't recommend giving in to RNG percentages, only attack the Frost Brothers with pilots who have high targeting stats (ironically, good Newtype pilots like Amuro are very recommended) or use Strike if you're using anyone else.

And as observed while fighting Gym and the Turn X, the bosses will start padding out fights by using Seishin at specific HP values, sometimes even fully healing their HP or applying Guard which pads out the fights even more. It's a good thing they don't use the "Fear" Seishin (I know Gore and Magus has it, Rai and Shu had it in Alpha, Fatman can learn this once his level is high enough), which they have and would've deducted 5 Will (10 Will on Alpha) from all your units. Using the Daunt/Exhaust Seishin to weaken bosses might be a good strategy for the coming bosses, IIRC, Bowie (Brygar), Boss (Boss Borot) and Mio (Zamzeed) has that Seishin.

Amen. These levels would be a lot less tedious without all the seishen spamming crap the bosses do. Alpha Gaiden is actually less punishing than Alpha because the damage formulas are tilted to give both sides the same advantages as opposed to how certain units were just broken as hell because the damage formulas handed them instant victory (one shotting Euzeth Gozzo with a full powered SRX Cannon shot comes to mind from Alpha).

The game also is less asinine than Alpha regarding will gains and defense. An early infamous example of stupid defense gains was in an early level where you fought Basque Ohm in Alpha 1, and if you didn't kill him ASAP and he gained a few Will points, his defense got to the point he was laughing off critical hits from the Deathscythe Gundam.

I found a good way to beat the final levels is to level grind the shit out of your best Newtypes and super robot pilots who can actually hit the broad side of most barns without needing the Strike Seishen save for the speediest assholes once you cleared the Hard route Skill Point requirements, as there is no other penalty save not getting meaningless extra skill points for purposely dying on some stages to level grind.

 

[kawazu217]

That battle with Basque really was something. It makes me want to fire up Alpha and try to take him down.

 

[GethN7]

Before I get on to the final battle with the Dinosaur Empire, some fun information about save game hacking:

1. If you are going to hack your save file, always have a backup, no exceptions. This game has piss-poor stability.

2. I do NOT recommend trying to tweak ingame upgrade settings for units or weapons if you used the SRW Alpha Gaiden Save Game Editor (especially if you broke the internal ten bar upgrade limit and pushed the numbers up to fifteen. You can, but there can be be some weird glitches and overflow errors from doing so. I also noticed fucking around with what parts you have in your inventory will break the Bazaar pretty hard, so if you are going to dick around with that, wait until after Stage 40 at least.

CAVEATS: You can kinda sorta get away with dicking around with UNIT upgrades, you can upgrade them five more times past the max bar if you broke the stock limit but be wary you don't go further than that, or the numbers will roll back to stock numbers.

You can also, rather harmlessly, glitch the max limit for many units much higher than it should be by maxing it out,rolling it over, then pressing left once or twice, this acts as a modifier to the randomized stat rolls for critical hits and such.

3. The Bazaar is the worst coded part of the game and breaks easily if you do ANY editing of your stock item inventory. It's easier to edit your unit stock with the save editor with less risk of crashing unless you edit in things that cause the game to freak out like spare landships or dummied out units, but editing your parts stock will certainly cause weird issues.

4. You CAN edit in the enemy only versions of Shin Getter and Mazinkaiser (which are really OP with five figure HP), but they lack a transformation feature, so if they are required to transform (especially the former) and they can't, game will likely crash. The player specific Alpha version of MazinKaiser is semi-dummied out, you can edit it in with some manual hacking with a hex editor program, but it's a tad buggy because the game was coded with two unit sheets, and it's supposed to switch from the Alpha stat sheet to the AG version after the stage. It should still work, but I make no promises it will be crash free nor will the game formulas work right for it, as it uses the Alpha engine rules, not the revised AG rules.

Shouldn't be an issue past Hard Mode final fight with the Dinosaurs, however.

5. The Save Game Editor was originally written for 16-bit Windows. A few years back it was rewritten for 32-bit Windows, get that version for modern OSes. They are otherwise identical.

6. If you are just super bored and/or the D.O.M.E. level is causing your game to shit bricks due to that engine glitch, you can use the Save Editor to skip past the level, but make sure you set the last stage number and previous/next scenario names correctly in the save editor, use this flow chart for help:

http://akurasu.net/wiki/Super_Robot_Wars/Alpha_Gaiden/Flow_Chart

Also, use this for help in setting up secrets correctly:

http://akurasu.net/wiki/Super_Robot_Wars/Alpha_Gaiden/Secrets

7. There is some dumb shit you might want to fix with the save editor once you get certain units, short list of the worst offenders and things you might want to play with.

SUMO (Harry version): There are two version in the game for him, and for some reason, when he joins he gets a gimped to hell version that is worse than his enemy only version, even though it's in no way unbalanced, switching out to the better version gives him the small HP regen the original had and makes it so Poe's Silver SUMO doesn't outclass his, which it shouldn't according to canon.

Sazabi (There are two versions, the game tends to hand you the first version with better weapons but a crappier air terrain stat, while the other version has better armor instead. Pick your poison on this one)

Raideen/Combattler/Voltes: The game tends to hand you the better versions most of the time, but you may want to try the others. Warning, could cause game instability when they are required to split apart for story reasons for the latter two.

Getter Robo G (This has a few variants for the component machines lying around, some better than the stock versions, try at your own risk)

 

[GethN7]

Stage 42: Fall of the Dragon

This level starts with your team essentially running into Machineland as it's surfacing and beginning to spew it's poison gas to kill everyone on the planet. Bright orders everyone to sortie in environmental suits and be prepared for anything, you've just run into the strongest assholes they've got now.

Here's how you start out after you sortie your troops:

It bears mentioning your foes are led by General Bat, who the DE guys BARELY managed to keep alive, but he's essentially a walking corpse who is going to die soon regardless what happens, so he elected to die on the field of battle.

The enemy forces are a potpourri of various Dinosaur Empire goons, and I'll be blunt, the entire first half of this battle is to wear you down so you won't have the strength for Round 2, when Emperor Gore shows up.

The key to this fight is going to basically outlasting the first round with as few wounds and ammo loss as possible. Do that, and the next is far easier. Otherwise, by Round 2, you'll be screwed.

By Turn 2, the big purple thing (Machineland) will fire a blast of energy at a random ally that will halve their current HP.

It's Chief Gallery and his Magma Cannon, and that thing will continue to fire once per turn at a random ally until the battle ends.

Anyway, as you wear down the first wave, keep in Bat will not want to die easily.

After reducing his HP to half once, he'll cast Guts, Alert, Valor and Strike.

Do it again, and he casts those as well as Spirit and Guard.

He's out of seishin spamming crap after that, so kill him ASAP, but make sure to position your troops just north of him to intercept the second wave.

Once you defeat him, he dies for real, saying as he dies "at least I made Emperor Gore's job easier by wearing you down".

Gore then shows up with Round 2. He'll basically says this is "either we die or humans die here, we decide that question today", then he in his Dai along with Gallery in a Guda with attack you a mixed force of Zoris and Gudas.

Here's Gore's stats:

First off, dude has a ton of ammo and is very long ranged unit.

Second, he's a damn tank, and he can spam full healing of himself up to FOUR TIMES before you can finally kill him, so wear him down repeatedly before unleashing all the firepower you have left.

Third, kill everyone else before dealing with him, the Zoris will take damage for him, and he's not half as bad once you murder all his support.

Also, unlike Bat, Gallery just has Prevail but won't spam healing crap, so beat him to death ASAP, he's piloting a Guda flanked by two Zori.

If you want some special dialogue, have Gore fight Mushashi or anyone from the Getter team.

Do note Gore will also spam Alert, Guard, Valor, Strike, and other fun seishin skills as he recovers his HP, so don't be a retard and keep attacking him until after his boosts wear off.

This prick will even have access to Soul and Snipe.

Once you finally wrest victory out of the clawed hands of this punk ass bitch, this happens:

However, he refuses to die without company, and as dies, Machineland is set to self-destruct.

Everyone clears the fuck out as Machineland goes nova, and with that, the stage ends.

Later, Sarumaru confirms the concentration of poisonous gasses emitted from Machineland was not near high enough to be a long term issue, and after about forty hours, it should naturally dissipate.

With the Dinosaur Empire gone, that just leaves the Ancestors.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 43: Mankind Must Perish (Part 1)


The final secret of the game is on this map, and if you don't get, no Sanger and Thrudgelmir for you.

To get it is easy, shoot his ass down before he drops below 20% HP.

Trust me, you WANT him at all costs.

-----

We resume at the Earth Cradle, where Uruz reports to Magus you guys finally took out the Dinosaur Empire. Magus is pleased, and the smile doesn't fade even knowing the Preventers are headed their direction. They plan to kill your team, and I'll let Magus describe her plans after that:

Before we continue, let's just take a minute to contemplate the insanity involved and how this is more crazy than what the Dinosaur Empire had in mind. The latter at least gave a shit about their forebearers and had active plans to repopulate the Earth once humanity was dead. The Ancestors are mutated humans who have no known means of propagating themselves but still want to kill off humanity based on inane butthurt, while the Dinosaur Empire at least had a valid point the planet was theirs before we showed up.

We cut back to Garrison on the Soliel showing all the data they gathered on the Ancestors.

1. Dr. Sophia Nate is confirmably a staff member of the Earth Cradle and the current "Magus".

2. One aspect of her professional research involved autonomous self-repairing metal cells, similar to nanomachines, but different in construction. Given their known effects, they seem to be based on the Zehirut crystals used by the Balmarians during the Balmar War, meaning the Machine Cells are a reverse engineered derivative.

3. The Machine Cells have self-repairing properties, meaning they could stave off entropy for non-organic objects, much like the machines in the Mountain Cycles, and if applied to human beings, it would mutate them into what effectively amounts to having a form of immortality.

4. The Machine Cells seem to have corrupted the Earth Cradle residents and systems, meaning they went horribly wrong and turned everyone inside batshit insane.

5. The "Egrets" are named after Egret Fehu, 37 years of age at the time his name shows up in the records, a colleague of Dr. Nate. Given how the Egrets claim lineage from him but are not his biological children, they are either artificial human, or humans with biological mutations he created.

6. Sanger is a test pilot who was a member of the Divine Crusaders and was attached to the Earth Cradle as it's security chief.

7. Kamille explains their mobile weapons, the Bergelmir and Thrudgelmir, are based on, respectively, the Huckebein and Grungust class of weapons the Divine Crusaders developed, and Wendy and Cenia concur that the Earth Cradle defenders and their likely originators have strong structural similarities. Kou Uraki confirms their weaponry is, with some modification, otherwise based on weapons specific to the Grungust and Huckebeins. Burning counters he does not remember a Grungust model with drills, but Dr. Anzai confirms there was a model known as the Grungust Type-3 with drill bit attached weaponry. It was destroyed before completion back in Alpha 1 and its remains incorporated into the Ryukooh discovered during the Balmar War, but that was only one of them. There were two other test models, and Viletta confirms the DC had one assigned to the Earth Cradle, and their different designs are likely attributable to being changed with Machine Cells.

8. Whatever caused things to go haywire warped the original members of the Earth Cradle into the mutated beings they are now, and they've perverted their original intentions to safeguard the planet to mean killing the human race.

As the talks wrap up, Quattro/Char quietly remarks to himself that he believes their time travel here was to make up for their own mistakes back in their own time. (CCA Hint)

We cut to the battle map after this, and you can pick a landship and 17 units of your choice.

We discover the Earth Cradle, unlike Machineland, is stationary, but it has only one entrance to the underground core from the surface, and the Ancestors deploy a shit ton of Mass Produced Bergelmirs as guards upon sensing your presence.

Worse, you have a time limit in this stage:

YOU HAVE EIGHT TURNS TO PARK YOUR CARRIER IN FRONT OF THE EARTH CRADLE.

And Sanger's Thrudgelmir is parked on the goal, meaning the carrier must survive the Bergelmirs, and you must take down Sanger or at least force him to stand down.

This stage only has one new threat, but these guys are long ranged pains in the ass:

Given Sanger has three taking hits for him, kill them ASAP, then beat him to death ASAP, you will not be able to kill them all before 8 turns are up and keep your carrier and team alive.

Sanger will regenerate his HP and do some familiar seishen spam (up to three times), so don't blow all your strength, but don't waste time wearing his ass down either.

Once you take him down, this happens:

The Machine Cells will prevent him blowing up, but it seems that brainwashing effect Sanger was under is gone, and he remembers the past:

Short version is that Sanger caught Dr. Fehu doing some shady shit back in the Space Era, sent Bian Zoldark a report, and Zoldark decided to mothball the Earth Cradle project before it got out of hand.

However, as the game implies and a side story manga confirm, Fehu wasn't about to have his hard work go down the drain, so he unleashed the Machine Cells sometimes after the Nubia Connection helped finish the project Zoldark tried to kill off, corrupting Dr. Nate into Magus, and while Sanger killed Dr. Fehu, his "Machinery Children" mutants essentially carried on his will and helped ensure Dr. Nate's corruption would stick.

Initially, they followed their original directives anyway, but as we saw, they got arrogant and impatient they, as "superior beings" couldn't just order the good guys around, so they snapped and decided if we won't obey them, then we (the human race) should die.

Sanger remembers all this, tells you he knows now all that was left of Dr. Nate (who, if you haven't guessed, he has feelings for) is gone, and Magus, what's left, must be stopped, and he's going to join you:

Once you've done that, park over the entrance, level over.

Afterwards, Magus is a BIT butthurt as her boss theme plays:

She's so fucking pissed, she tells Uruz to get her Aurgelmir ready, she'll kill them all herself. He tells her the "black box" isn't completely bugtested yet, but she doesn't give a damn:

MANKIND MUST PERISH!

 

[GethN7]

Stage 43; Mankind Must Perish (Part 2)


We start Part 2 inside the Earth Cradle, once you select your carrier, you can select 17 units, Sanger's Thrudgelmir included.

Note, he's at base stats, but his Thrudgelmir is so powerful (and retains it's large regen bonuses) it's still worth it to deploy.

Deploying him also nets some custom dialogue from the Ancestors who are quite butthurt he turned on them.

Once you make your choices, Ansuz and Thurisaz Egret are waiting in their custom machines with a lot of MP Bergelmirs as guards, and they first complain you came in uninvited, then shit talk humanity as worthless and worthy only of death.

We also find out that unlike the Moon Cradle, they killed off all the cryosleeping humans from the Space Era, because, y'know, fuck humanity.

Be warned that Uruz and Magus are next, save strength for them.

Here's the map:

Both your current targets have a bunch of goons taking hits for them, and the MP Bergelmirs are annoying damage sponges.

I advise taking your time if you want, there is no time limit for now.

FYI, Thurisaz and Ansuz will seishen spam, be careful. They'll do so up to three times each.

Once you take those pricks down, the three MP Bergelmirs on the far platform to the north will disappear, and the boss theme of Magus plays once more as she and her Aurgelmir come out, alongside Uruz and some more MP Bergelmirs.

She basically states enough is enough, humanity must die for it's repeated crimes to the planet.

She also fills in the blanks, stating Dr. Nate and the other residents of the Cradle were asleep until the Dinosaur Empire attacked, hence Magus activated and when mere humanity couldn't do shit, Egret Fehu used the Machine Cells and his mutated Machinery Children, who were able to fight back successfully.

It seems Dr. Fehu tried to transform himself (Banjou Haran notes that Fehu sounds like his own dad, who created the villains of his own series), but he kinda fucked up when he tried to turn Sophia Nate as well, plugging her into the Earth Cradle at the same time to augment the Magus control system.

That backfired because his power hungry ass got wasted by the attempt to turn Nate into a biological CPU, and Magus and Dr. Nate became one gestalt entity.

Sanger was pissed at this and was the guy who killed Fehu on the spot for this bullshit. Magus' still kept Sanger around because he was unable (then) to raise a hand to Dr. Nate, even if Magus had hijacked her, and she used that to control him via mindwiping.

Magus then finished what Fehu started and Machine Celled the Dinosaur Empire until they fled screaming back into the magma layer.

After that was when the Innocent and Moon Race returned to Earth and eventually fought each other.

This soured Magus on whether humanity was worth giving a shit about, and while Loran concedes Magus has a point humans are fuckups, he still refuses to let them decide the fate of innocent people who had nothing to do with said fuckups.

Uruz then tries to guilt trip the post-Black History party members into shitting on the others, but they are all "who gives a shit about the past, they don't want to repeat it, why hold it against them?"

Magus then drops a bombshell:

She might have been the one to draw you to this time period. Courtesy of the "black box" installed on her Aurgelmir.

And this what said "black box" can do:

BTW, she also reveals the date she had recorded from what she repaired and added to her Aurgelmir:

Your team is horrified, and this is why:

And the very day the "Black History" began.


Oh, it gets worse when Magus reveals her plans:

That's right, she didn't stutter.


SHE PLANS TO ENSURE THE BLACK HISTORY IS ETERNAL.


Keep in mind the partial implementation of Aegis was what led to this time period you're in now, so imagine what would happen if it COMPLETELY failed.

In fact, behind her is a dimensional gate she's gearing up to do just that, which she plans to enter once it's ready to forever blacken history.

Banjou delivers a custom version of his asskicking one-liner specifically for the Ancestors, and she also is still pissed as fuck Sanger turned on her, even though Sanger was being mind controlled.

With that, the final battle begins, and she is no pushover:

While not shown here, the animation gives the machine a "boob jiggle" that frankly looks disturbing.

Also, she is a VERY powerful, long ranged fighter, all of her weapons are energy based, meaning she can't run out of ammo, and her regen bonuses are OBSCENE.

And worst of all, since this is the HARD route, she's not even the final boss, even though she's only slightly tougher here than she would be in the normal route.

If you are an Alpha 1 veteran, you should recognize the black thing

It's the Astranagant, once piloted by Balmar mole/Earth Federation Army traitor Ingram Prisken, and whose machine is canonically able to bend time and space.

You killed Ingram (or he died in the final battles after being convinced to betray his employers if you met certain conditions) in space shortly before the gravity bomb was detonated to kill the STMC and which created the gravitational shockwave.

However, the remains of his machine eventually fell into Earth's atmosphere, were recovered by Magus,and are now part of it's Aurgelmir.

Meaning she's not fucking around, she DOES have the ability to forever cock up reality as you know it, meaning if she succeeds, HISTORY IS FUCKED.

Also, small bit of creepy to consider: The Astrangant was killed LONG before the day Project Aegis was supposed to start, and Ingram partially did all the shit he did because he said humanity was fucked, so if he had the day of the apocalypse on record on the Astrangant, that means he likely saw the end of humanity before anyone else and decided to do as his Balmarian bosses wanted to stop you all before you kicked off Armageddon, and even if you got him to join you, he still died taking down his former boss Euzeth Gozzo, who straight up admitted part of his invasion plans were to stop you before you destroyed the galaxy.

Meaning the Balmarians might have been assholes, but in that case, THEY WERE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.

Also, Uruz Egret, unlike his brother, he's got a LARGE HP regen ability, not merely small. And both he and Magus will seishin spam.

BTW, you don't have to kill Uruz if you don't want to, just keep wearing Magus down until this happens:

Wanting to win before you kill her ass, she forces an emergency time jump, and everyone feels the same dimension shift they did when the Neo-Granzon went nova.

With that, she's all "enjoy your last moments until history is over" and goes into the gate, and everyone else shits themselves and realizes they need to follow her and kill her before Project Aegis fails another time.

The Space Era guys try to tell the post-Black History cast to stay behind, but they are all:


"Fuck that noise, that bitch Magus is as much our enemy as she is yours, and if we don't save our past, we have no future!"


The only exceptions are Kihel Heim, who Diana asks to take her place leading the Moon Race if she doesn't come back.

And with that, you all head back to day of the apocalypse.

Because if you don't and stop Magus then, then the Black History will never end........



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If you have any money left during the intermission, upgrade the shit out of Sanger's machine.