Let's Sperg Super Robot Wars J - Best looking GBA SRW game, story not so great but game still pretty fun

[GethN7]

I'm already doing one SRW Let's Sperg, and since it's going better than I expected, I decided to whip this one out of the drawer.

Being one of the only other natively English SRW translated games, I consider this something of a step down from Alpha Gaiden, largely due to much lower difficulty, some bad/lazy storywriting, and some missed potential.

On the other hand, it's one of the most visually gorgeous GBA games with animations so good it's like low grade PS2 quality, the game mechanics and even the glitches work in your favor, the music quality is amazing given the system it was made for, and I will say despite the flaws, I had a lot of fun playing it anyway.

I also have to give the fan translators a hand, despite a few minor, and I do mean minor, issues, this is a very, very good translation of EVERYTHING in the game and it's so high quality it's professional grade tier work.

Here's the series this one will cover

• Banpresto Originals
• Martian Successor Nadesico (original TV anime depicted entirely)
  
• Combattler V (partially adapted, generally folded into Voltes V)
  
• Mazinkaiser (Anime OVA version, sequel movie included)
  
• Blue Comet SPT Layzner (partially depicted)
  
• Gundam Seed (depicted in full)
  
• Tekkaman Blade (debut, depicted in full)
  
• Dancougar (partially depicted, plot chucked out save for some elements folded into the other shows depicted)
  
• G Gundam (partially depicted, most of the Gundam Tournament stuff chopped out in favor of Devil Gundam Arc)
  
• Full Metal Panic! (first season of anime, Fumoffu interquel depicted partially)
• Zeorymer (Anime OVA version depicted in full)
  
• Voltes V (mostly adapted)
  
• Brain Powerd (adapted entirely)

Going to cover a few things now, for fans of some of these series, just so it won't surprise you later.

1. G Gundam's final space based part of the Devil Gundam arc does not happen, generally because the crossover lacked what they needed to render it properly. It also is probably the worst integrated into this crossover due to some bad writing. Multiple playthrougths reveal they certainly tried to make it all work, and they certainly did their best to try and make it play nice with SEED, but if you're a fan, prepare to cringe at the missed potential in places.

2. Dancougar is generally here with it's mech and characters only, it's actual plot is basically absent, and it's meant to support the other depicted shows.

3. Like in SRW MX, Zeorymer's anime OVA is used, albeit more fleshed out here. The manga will NEVER see the light of day in SRW since it was basically porn (they could only use the Demonbane anime for the same reason in SRW U), though I do plan to compare and contrast any differences for the interested.

4. Tekkaman Blade is not really a traditional robot series, more a powered armor/henshin series, but the plot works just fine for SRW, and this game started Banpresto down the road of being much more flexible with their definition of robot anime.

5. Combattler's plot is chucked out, it's mainly here to support it's sister series Voltes. Voltes also terminates after a point because they could not realistically depict the rest of the plot in the crossover with what they had to work with, but ties off at a neat enough point it works out.

6. SPT Layzner also terminates after a point, parts of its plot just wouldn't gel with this crossover, but it terminates in a manner that covers the essentials.

7. For Nadesico fans, don't worry, the way the plot works out, the cringey movie can't ever happen afterwards.

8. Gundam SEED is followed pretty loyally, with only a few minor alterations, which is not exactly a good thing, as all the cringe from that show was ported more or less intact. On the other hand, the way the plot works out, Gundam SEED Destiny is unlikely to ever happen.

9. Brain Powerd fans, good news, resident unbearable asshole Johnathan Glenn got toned down a bit in this game.

10. Mazinkaiser is generally adapted well and avoids some character deaths. Unfortunately, the movie sequel was tacked on in such a manner it is probably the most pathetic depiction of Ankoku Daishogun ever shown in an SRW game.

11. Full Metal Panic is pretty loyally followed, with some of the comedy interquel Fumoffu worked in too, and holy fucking shit, they did a good job of that, because the Fumoffu additions resulted in some incredibly funny stuff.

 

[Cubanodun]

11. Full Metal Panic is pretty loyally followed, with some of the comedy interquel Fumoffu worked in too, and holy fucking shit, they did a good job of that, because the Fumoffu additions resulted in some incredibly funny stuff.

Also this was one of the first bleep that pretty much confirmed they were working on the final season of the anime that is going to be broadcasted next month, to the point that the rule of "if it appears several times in a super robot taisen is because they are planning something with it" case in point the first time some americans manage to know the Leivatein was via Super robot taisen unless you buyed the novels

7. For Nadesico fans, don't worry, the way the plot works out, the cringey movie can't ever happen afterwards.

i always wondered why Bampresto refuse to tackle the continuation of the Prince of darkness; aka Nadesico the mission, now is just barely mentioned in recent games like V so there is hope!

 

[REGENDarySumanai]

Thank Christ you aren't playing the turd known as Super Robot Wars K.

 

[GethN7]

Well, let's begin, shall we?

 

[GethN7]

Before we go on, I want to break down the backstory details, because the narrative issues begin right here:

1. The "world setting" is Gundam SEED/Martian Successor Nadeciso. Not a bad choice, really.

2. They were a tad inconsistent on the Earth Federation name. The combined name for the EF in this game is the United Earth Federation, but you'll notice they still mention the SEED specific Atlantic Federation in the prologue.

They otherwise refrain from this mistake later.

3. There is absolutely no mention of G Gundam, nor why the Gundam Tournaments happen or have ceased to happen.

This is something of a tactical mistake, as the world setting of G Gundam require some mention of those tournaments, as they were a pretty important backstory element.

Short version is that as opposed to war, nations would have Gundams beat the crap out of each other in formalized contests to settle things.

Why they stopped doing this should have been worked into the backstory in some manner, it would have nicely allowed them to skip straight to the Devil Gundam arc with little issue later.

 

[GethN7]

Now for our protagonists and choices of mecha:

Touya Shun (translated here semi literally from the original Japanese) has a different backstory and story origin starting point than Calvina, but otherwise the plot is largely identical for both, save for some character dynamics.

Note: For reasons of text space and linguistic choice, Japanese names had the letter "o" truncated in most places, so Touya became Toya, and Kouji became Koji.

I shall use the former versions for accuracy reasons, though technically both are accurate.

I'm planning to go with Calvina is my main character this time round, though since there is a New Game Plus option, I'm going to go Touya next.

Calvina is, more or less, an alternative universe version of Selena Recital from Alpha 3. Her backstory lines up pretty much along the same lines, though there are some tactical differences.


Anyway, once we choose our protagonist, we get a mecha choice.

This machine is pure "real robot" (military style) speed sniper oriented.

As an amusing aside, it does have a somewhat unfortunate looking crotch area.

This mech is a middle of the road machine that sits on the compromise between real and super robots. Not a big fan of it personally, but if you want a balanced option, you could do worse.

The tanky super robot of the three. My favorite.

It's worth noting that the Original Generation series attempted to adapt the original bits of this game into it own series in SRW OGs: The Moon Dwellers, and the Granteed got the shaft, going from retarded strong to being a glorified wet fart in strength.

Anyway, these three are the choices we have.

There is a secret bonus machine if you play as each on one playthrougth each, and I'll cover that later.

I'm going to go with Granteed this playthrougth.

Amusingly enough you can do some renaming here, so if you want to be childish and call the player, mech, or attacks something silly, go nuts.

Finally, we get to pick Favorite Series:

This feature, originally from SRW MX (which let you pick one only), allows your favored series to have their units upgraded further and gain more experience and money for enemy kills, and you can pick three more on your next playthrougth.

Once you pick your three favorites, then the game can actually begin.

 

[Kiwi Jeff]

Once you pick your three favorites, then the game can actually begin.

So which 3 did you pick?

 

[GethN7]

So which 3 did you pick?

I'm going with Banpresto Originals, Tekkaman Blade, and SEED this time round.

I plan to go for half of the game secrets on this route, I'll do the others on my second playthrougth.

Note: Doing so sidesteps a bug with SPT Layzner secrets.

 

[GethN7]

There is a prologue scene that occurs at the beginning of the game for both routes between two parties, one who discusses how they intend to retrieve someone called "The Converted" in Calvina's route, to kill them in Touya's while the other tells them they are wasting their time thinking it will change anything in both routes.

The first cannot be dissuaded, so the second wishes them well and they muse about the outcome of fate.

It is this conversation that, cryptic as it is, will be very important to both routes.

It's worth noting this is a case where the fan translators ran into a problem: The original context of whom they referred to was ambiguous and had multiple translations, and since this scene was supposed to remain cryptic, translating it to English without giving anything away was a pain in the ass.

So they instead decided to preserve the ambiguity of who was being referred to by calling them "The Converted", which did not specifically reveal the identity or even hint at whom their target was in either route.

-----

On a related note, but this time referring to official translations, the OFFICIAL writers for Super Robot Wars Z3 Part 1 ran into a major problem regarding Turn A Gundam, which they could not legally refer to in the game because the plot demanded its complete absence, but since the plot absolutely demanded a reference to the Black History at one point, they pulled a linguistic sleight of hand to avoid having to credit a show they didn't license to use for that particular game.

They simply rendered the words for "Black History" using alternate kanji from the official Turn A translation, which legally allowed them to avoid having to credit Turn A Gundam in the credits, but still let them get away with referencing it's use in previous games.

It's worth noting it would be harder to pull a similar trick in English because the modernized roman alphabet leaves little wiggle room for this sort of thing, being a non ideographical language, so to do a similar bit of sleight of hand in English, they'd have to use an euphemism for the Black History instead of rendering the same words in a different ideograph style.

 

[GethN7]

Let's begin Calvina's story, shall we?

Basically, Calvina here was a former UEFA army member until she got seconded off to a weapons developer to do R&D. She fell for a guy there who was the liaison to the regular army and who recommended her the job.

And then the Jovians showed up and shit all over the facility and everyone in it, leaving only Calvina
here, and it goes without saying she has seen some major shit and has totally understandable PTSD.

 

[GethN7]

Scenario 1 - Nadesico, Take Off!


We start this level with Mr. Prospector of Nergal Heavy Industries speaking with someone from the head office, saying he'll be paid through the nose for getting the crew lined up for upcoming launch of the Nadeciso, so long as he gets it done right.

As he decides to get on that, there is one catch, but he's willing to do it.

Two things:

One, the guy who voices Sangar Zonvolt, Banpresto's living meme, Mr. Prospector here was his first VA role.

Second, he UNDERSTATES. The crew of the Nadesico is the biggest group of dysfunctional weirdos who are competent on paper but it's a wonder they get along.

We'll get to that later though.

We cut to Admiral Fukube, former UEFA now serving as naval advisor to Nergal as a sunset job, and Prospector assures him Nergal greenlighted the choices.

Fukube admits he has concerns, like how the chief engineer's remodeling verges on illegal, the novice bridge crew, and the limited combat personnel.

Prospector waves off these concerns, and combat wise, they've hired some people from the Nanbara Connection (the Combattler Team), the Photonic Power Labs (Mazinger), and hired three pilots of the Aestivalis machine designed by Nergal. He also mentions an ex-UEFA pilot who is being hired and wants to join the mission to Mars they are sallying forth on.

We cut to later, and it's Calvina who he referred to, and contrary to his statements to Fukube, she's ready to decline the job.

He plows on, saying her record has already been checked out. She's ex-UEFSF (United Earth Federation Space Forces), left as a 2nd Lieutenant, and got the nom de guerre "White Lynx" for her battle prowess. He then covers how she served on Mars early in the conflict with the Jovian Lizards, then was seconded off under contract to work for the weapons developer mentioned in the prolouge, and amonth later, that when to hell when the Lizards attacked.

She's a bit pissed to go over this, and she also wonders how the hell he knows so much.

He coyly responds Nergal's intel network is pretty vast. (It should be, they are balls deep in a lot of UEFA military contracts), though he admits beyond the basic details of her last assignment, the particulars are still beyond their knowledge.

He also hints the UEFA immediately set about burning all the evidence it ever happened and is about to ask her take on that.

Her response is to tell him to either give her a really good reason to give a shit, or the hospital that put her back together will need to work on him next.

He backpedals and pours on the sugar, saying they'd just like someone of her expertise to work with them, and she's all "you do know my piloting days are over, right?"

He says that won't be an issue for piloting an Aestivalis (which requires nanotech treatment to pilot to interface with it's systems), and she tells him she has no intention of doing that.

He's running out of reasons for her to care, so he plays his last card: She's seen combat, they need someone who can tell their young team of pilots how to get shit done.

She's all "why me?"

His answer amounts to "we want to buy experience, we'll pay handsomely, and we'll make it as tax exempt as possible, including your hefty sign up bonus".

She relents, saying she had no other prospects after getting patched up, and thus she's hired.

We then cut to the Lunar City, where we meet Akito Tenkawa:

He bitching people think he's a pussy for not wanting to get into a fight, but says he has no problem admitting it.

For those not aware, he's basically Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion without the need for a lot of anti-depressants. The English dub even had him have the same voice actor as Shinji, which the show alluded to.

While he's griping to himself, Yurika Misumaru is asking her friend Jun if he's really okay ditching the UEFA as a Lieutenant just to work with her.

Note: They diverge from the show a bit here. Jun wouldn't join until later, but for reasons of streamlining the plot, he joins now.

BTW, Jun has a huge flame for Yurika, which she is utterly oblivious to, and he sucks at saying anything about it.

We jump cut to the ship dockyard, where Akito and Yurika run into each cliche anime style.

After they collect themselves, she wonders if they met, and in her haste to leave drops a picture. Looking at it, he realizes it's a childhood picture of him and Yurika, who he knew since childhood.

Cue him running after her to hand it back.

We cut to the dock, where Calvina is a bit surprised by her new assignment, and that's when Akito runs by, unmindful it's a restricted area they are in, asking for Yurika.

A jump cut later, Prospector realizes Akito is an employee of Nergal, one who survived the destroyed Martian Utopia Colony, but even he doesn't remember how he got back. Prospector mistakes him for a pilot, but Akito says he's a cook and tries to steer back to asking about Yurika.

Prospector sees an opportunity to pad out the employee list of the new ship and offers Akito a job on the ship, where Yurika will also be, and he kinda gets strongarmed into it, not that he really minds.

We cut to inside the Nadesico, where he's still trying to find her, and he runs into this guy.

This is Gai Daigouji, a man convinced he lives in a Super Robot anime series, and was Nadeciso's biting satire of what happens when guys like him totally miss the fact they are actually in a Real Robot show and it bites them in the ass.

He's still pretty awesome, though, and even though he lived a whopping two episodes in the original show, this game lets him live a lot longer, and if you fulfill a few conditions, he lives permanently.

That will not be in this playthrougth, though.

He's also a fan of Gekiganger 3, a straight up parody of 70's and 80's anime, particularly Getter Robo, which may explain why they were leery of including it in this game, they weren't sure if they could plausibly get away with writing Gai in a world where Gekiganger's inspiration was actually real.

They decided to just go ahead and do it anyway in SRW W, which was made after this game, though.

Meet Seiya Uribatake, a gearhead who is indisputably a master of his craft, but he's also in a marriage going down the tubes (a part of his character the game does not focus on), a bit of a pervert, and a moderately acerbic jackass at times.

Gai thinks Uribatake is like those egghead dudes who build Super Robots in mecha animu, to which the latter facepalms, and Akito fondly remembers being a Gekiganger fanboy himself.

Uribatake, meanwhile, is not amused at being called "Professor" and thinks Gai is retarded for thinking he can be the "main pilot" of a one seat machine like an Aestivalis. He also wonders why Gai is a day early, and Gai was so pumped to pilot mecha he did that because he was too excited.

BTW, his real name is Jiro Yamada, but he prefers to be called by the name that sounds like 70's robot anime hero.

We also find the "Jovian Lizards' is just a codename, as the only weapons they've sent so far are unmanned, and he is somewhat nicer to Akito, who isn't acting like a hotblooded weirdo, and as the scene ends, he tries in vain to make Gai quit nearly breaking equipment by flailing like a kid with ADD.

We then cut to the bridge:

Minato Haruka is the helmswoman, and despite looking more like a secretary (which she was), she's good at the job. She's also, oddly enough, into older guys, to the point it was a bit of 0_0 worthy sight in the anime when she had a brief relationship with (not appearing in this game) Goat Hoary, Nergal's chief legal adviser, a guy built like a keg of beer with a face with more crags than a mountain.

Megumi Reinard is the ship navigator and a former voice actress, and she and Yurika are kinda rivals to one another, but some brief moments of dickishness aside, it never gets hateful.

Anyway, they get a call from Uribatake that Gai broke his leg being a dumbass, he was the only available pilot on duty at the time, and Admiral Fukube, who had been quietly listening in the background, he's just barely restraining the urge to facepalm.

And as Gai is whining like a little in the background, ship XO and kid genius Ruri Hoshino poses a very good question:

Ruri was based on Rei Ayanami from Evangelion, but she's far more snarky. Her voice actor, curiously enough, has also voiced Xiamou in Namco x Capcom and subsequent games, who is Ruri's polar emotional opposite.

Also, the Japanese VA of Akito and Ruri are married IRL.

It's at this point Calvina Coulange is introduced to this wacky shitshow.

Admiral Fukube also gets a brief intro, and Calvina remembers he was serving on Mars the same time she did. Everyone else gets introduced, and Calvina wonders where the captain is.

Here's she is:

Calvina takes one look at her and has this response:

Jun Aoi then introduces himself as her XO (though Ruri is a better fit, really), and just as Prospector decides to go over Nergal policy, that's when the alarm klaxons go off.

Ruri reports Jovian mobile weapons engaging the UEFA in orbit, and their first battalion got fried.

And that's when the Jovians attack the Nergal space dock.

Yurika takes Fukube's advice the Jovians are after the Nadeciso seriously and prepares to sally forth since most of the crew is already there, despite Prospector's disbelief, and her plan, since going out the straight way would be suicide, she intends to go out through the underground lunar tunnel underneath the lunar city.

Jun protests that's batshit, the docks were the only port made for the ship to exit, but Ruri confirms the path Yurika speaks of will work, but just barely.

Gai then gets on the horn to say he'll keep the enemy busy will they do this, but he then feels the pain of that busted leg.

However, an Aestivalis has already launched, and the comm channel reveals Akito is piloting it and not happy about it. Calvina wonders what the hell he doing piloting and Yurika finally remembers Akito and pours on the mush, and Akito's shocked to find out she's the Captain.

Worse, he finds out he just got volunteered to be the ship decoy (when he was simply trying to get out of harm's way), and Calvina decides to try salvaging this shitshow by telling Akito their ETA is 10 minutes, he just needs to stay alive and distract the enemy during that time.

We then cut to the battle map:

Anyway, you just need to stay alive, here's your starting position:

I suggest having Akito's unit fall back to the Lunar City and park there, he gains healing and evasion bonuses from it, and just potshot any incoming foes.

The enemy are these laughably weak losers:

This is your unit:

The Aestivalis units have several good things going for them.

1. So long as they are in the Nadesico's command radius, they can recover full energy every turn, though they need ballistic ammo resupplied manually.

2. They have a Distortion Field, which can consume a small amount of energy to occasionally blunt or obviate weak attacks.

3. They have several modes, which I'll cover later. For now, it's using the 0GF, or Zero Gravity Frame, which is ideal for space use.


Anyway, after a few turns of trading shots with these idiots and killing a few, several more of the Batta will show up from both sides.

Akito nearly panics, but Prospector notes friendlies have arrived, forces from the Outer Space Development Group (Tekkaman Blade) and Combattler.

Gai is all 0_0 over the latter, and Hyouma is all "ok, what's going on?"

Combattler here is a tank, and once this dialogue is over, have it help kill these douchebags.

Anyway, the Combattler team are all "did we really sign up for this", and Noal of the OSDG has a similar sentiment:

His co-pilot, Aki confirms they were supposed to rendezvous with the Nadesico, and Noal wants to bail if it got blown up.

Aki tells him to quit with the pessimism, but that's like telling Noal to quit breathing.

Anyway, they call up Akito, find out the Nadeciso is okay and they need to buy it time to come out, and they are all "cool, we'll help".

Akito will have taken some damage, so have the Blue Earth Jet of Noal/Aki park next to Akito and support attack and heal. Meanwhile, Combattler should starting killing these goons.

Note that certain enemies carry items you can get if you kill them, and in later levels, some will retreat at a certain point, so make sure to get the kill shot.

Also, don't just mash the confirm button to get this over with, you can die if you're stupid, so defend or evade if need be, have one of your allies support attack/defend if adjacent, and park over the lunar city for the healing and evasion bonus.

Do note the game AI favors attacking the slowest units first, which you can exploit to your advantage if you're smart.

Once you kill everything, more Batta will appear in the north, but that's when the Nadesico shows up and blasts them the hell away:

I'll cover the aftermath of this stage next post.

 

[GethN7]

After the battle is over, Fukube wants a status report.

Ruri reports the dock and UEFA forces took a bloody nose, but the Nadesico and her allies are fine.

Yurika immediately segues into a squeeing session over how Akito did, and this confuses everyone and forces Calvina to give the orders for the other units to return to the ship.

The Combattler team does a bit of griping about how this all ended up, and Noal isn't much better. Gai is in the background, wanting to pilot so badly despite his bum leg, and Megumi is facepalming.

Meanwhile, Calvina rolls her eyes at the comedy and Ruri sums it up nicely with:

"Idiots."


We cut to mysterious conversation between two parties at Nergal HQ on Earth, and they finally clarify the Altanic Federation only sums up a portion of the planet in practice (in reality, they run the entire Earth Federation both overtly and otherwise), and that a portion of their membership are Earth Supremacist bigots who fucking hate ZAFT and rant about "our blue and perfect world", and neither party is pleased
said bigots are so shortsighted and have pull in high places, and they are more concerned with sending their Project Schiaparelli team to Mars (meaning the Nadeciso) to check it out before the Federation can complain, but the recent Jovian Lizard attack has unfortunately made the Federation notice.

As the level ends, clearly the superior of the two mysterious people talking is all "eh, screw it, it should work out, let's sit back and watch, shall we?"

 

[GethN7]

Before we go on, this is gonna be a long info dump post about the mechanics of SRW J, which have changed a LOT as opposed to Alpha Gaiden.

First off, there are no Skill Points (or Battle Masteries as the English Original Generation games called them), so if you want, you can grind certain stages over and over again. In fact, I recommend doing so, I'll highlight good stages for this.


As for menu mechanics, many are self explanatory, like Unit Info.

I will, however, cover the ones that need explanation or are unique to this game.

Pilot Training: Pilots earn some bonus points per level to assign to their personal stats, and you can either manually (by default) assign or let the game do it.

It's better to do it yourself, the game is a bit spotty on assigning points for best use.

Sell Items: Enemies can drop bonus items and you can earn them in other ways, and spares can be sold off for money.

Transfer: Switch pilots between machines. You can also have Ruri be the captain and Yurika be XO if
you like, you even get custom cut-in battle art if you do.

Modules and Parts: Each are seperate menus, but modules are stat boosts and skills equippable to pilots, and Parts to robots.

Puzzle Robo: Bonus stages that award a one time bonus for beating them that teach game mechanics.

Change BGM: Stock Nadesico theme get boring? Fine, you can switch it to another series theme if you like for those units.

Unit Variants: This allows series where units can switch out add-on packs to change gear between missions.

The Aestivalis units have four options (they get another sometime later):

0GF: Zero Gravity Frame. Ideal for space combat.

Air Frame: Good for aerial use on terrestrial environments or non space maps.

Ground Frame: Ideal for land based combat.

Artillery Frame: Powerful long range frame, but slow movement.


-----

Other things worthy of note:


Chain Attacks: Some attacks can hit multiple foes in a row. Enemies can use these too.

Shield Defense: A bit buggy by default, only works properly if you haven't moved already to blunt enemy damage. A patch was released after the game was translated to fix the bugged game code.

Combination Attacks: Adjacent allies from the same series or series that are related may use an attack that combines energy from all involved units to do more damage than singular attacks.

Related series general is limited to Voltes and Combattler, made by the same creator.

Ace/Double Ace: If a pilot has one star in the stats menu, they are an Ace and have +5 Will points than normal at the start of any stage. Two stars doubles the bonus.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 2: Vs.The UEFA (Part 1)


We begin this level with some mysterious figures discussing the launch of the Nadesico at the UEFA's Panama Base, and they are a bit pissed Nergal wants to retain it for private use. They are going to attempt to get Yurika's father, Admiral Misumaru, to get her to hand the ship over to the UEFA.

A figure agrees the "Committee" will consent to this, they can't afford to look weak.

We then cut to the same base, different people, one agreeing with the mystery men:

This is General Colbert from Tekkaman Blade, and I'll be blunt.

He's a racist cocksucker and he gets along well with the bigots from Gundam SEED for obvious reasons.

After he rants about this, he then turns to Koichirou Misumaru, Yurika's father:

Even in his own show, he was a bit of a bumbling but well intentioned guy without a hateful bone in his body, and in this game, he serves as one of the few UEFA VIPs who isn't utterly insane.

Colbert wants Misumaru to get his daughter to turn over the Nadesico so they use against the PLANTs, the space colonies, and its clear Colbert is taking orders from the mystery cabal who was conversing earlier.

Adm. Misumaru is privately less than enthused, but doesn't protest.

We then cut elsewhere:

They are discussing characters from Brain Powerd, and I'm going to stop to briefly sum it up before we continue.

Brain Powerd was Yoshiyuki Tomino's attempt to do a show in the vein of Neon Genesis Evangelion (althougth he claims it was not intentional), where the cast is a collection of people in dire need of therapy, and how the actual villains aren't really the alleged monsters.

In the show, there is a conflict between the Reclaimers and those that oppose them. The Reclaimers are trying to recover Plates, or remnants of Orphan, a gigantic being that fell into's Earth's oceans and want to eventually leave the planet to go back to it's home and pilot biomechnical machines call Grand Chers, otherwise known as Antibodies.

Their opposition sees the Reclaimers as having their own nefarious purposes for Orphan and is bent on frustrating their plans, and they pilot their own machines, known as Brains.

We start with two Reclaimers in the middle of a Plate recovery op:

Meet Yuu Isami and Kanan Grims.

Yuu's parents lead the Reclaimers, but secretly, Yuu has some misgivings about what they do. Kanan, on the other hand, has some serious abandonment issues that she tries not to let on about.

Kanan mentions getting some new orders from Quincy Issa, and Yuu is not entirely pleased to hear this, and this requires some explanation.

Quincy Issa is actually Yuu's sister, and the name she goes by is not even her birth name, and the identity she has currently adopted is because she has her own issues I'll go into later.

Anyway, we cut to a mostly destroyed city, where we meet Hime Utsumiya.

Hime here is what Asuka from Evangelion would be if she were the one with her head on straight, and for the purposes of dealing with a brief time skip to occur later, the following scene will be a condensed version of the early episodes of Brain Powerd, where Hime discovers a Plate that becomes a Brain, forms a bond with it, and tells Yuu and Kanan to stay away when they try to capture it, and she's also trying to protect some little kids at ground zero.

She's one of the people who oppose how Orphan trying to escape the ocean has caused earthquakes around the world (it's displacement is so vast this was inevitable), and the scene cuts off as the Reclaimers fallback to avoid running into a UEFA squad approaching their position.

We cut back to Nadesico, where Prospector is telling Akito his unauthorized use of an Aestivalis turned out to work out better than anyone dreamed, so he's not getting reprimanded since they aren't the military.

In fact, they offer him a job as reserve pilot, which bumps his pay up from being a cook. Gai is all "I thought you guys were gonna yell at him", and Calvina dryly notes Akito did his job because Gai busted his leg being a retard, and when Gai tries to come up with an insubordination excuse for Akito being all familiar with the Captain, Calvina points out they are childhood friends, this isn't the army, so no issue there, then tells Akito to meet her on the bridge later for some combat instruction.

Akito is all "I just signed up to be a cook", but Calvina is not really listening.

The others have docked, and Gai is all 0_0 over Mazinger, which has just showed up per Prospector's earlier commentary about requesting help from the Photonic Power Labs.

Kouji Kabuto here, for those who watched either classic Mazinger or Shin Mazinger, he's largely the same, just his sideburns are extra pointy looking.

His girlfriend Sakaya Yumi is along for the ride herself:

After all the intros are handled, Yurika wants to know why she didn't hear from Akito for so long, and I think we can understand why:

Akito reveals he took this job to go back to Mars and find out why, and then they have to head to the bridge.

Prospector announces to everyone they have their own reasons courtesy of Nergal's Project Schiparelli for heading to Mars, and they have no intentions of subordinating to military command, especially part of that is to investigate what happened on Mars, which the UEFA has largely given upon.

We also find out the "Cosmic Culture Club" (SPT Layzner) was sponsored by OSDG for a trip to Mars, and they want to find out what happened to the kids who were a part of it.

Unfortunately, as we cut to them making final preparations to leave, a UEFA fleet is closing in.

Despite being happy to see his daughter again, Adm. Misumaru informs them the UEFA isn't taking no for an answer and demands their surrender to military command or destruction for refusal.

The Adm. then speaks as Yurika's dad and begs her not to be stubborn, he doesn't want to shoot at his own daughter.

Fukube then says they should say no, and Adm. Misumaru makes reference to how Fukube got his ass kicked by the Jovian Lizards on Mars awhile back to force him to reconsider, but Fukube doesn't rise to the bait.

Yurika plays along, saying she wants to know about Akito's parents before she does anything, and her dad more or less confirms they are dead, and Yurika surprises him by telling Minato to raise shields, she's heading to Mars.

The Adm. more than a little shocked, and we cut to where everyone else is marveling at Yurika's brass.

However, even though they broke through the Federation blockade, a Jovian Tulip has shown up and going to drop some Jovian weapons they'll have to fight through instead.

I'll cover the battle next post.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 2: Vs.The UEFA (Part 2)


We start this battle above lunar orbit, facing a bunch of Batta and a Katonbo, essentially an unmanned ship.

As you all sortie, Gai gets all pumped as Combattler combines into it's merged form (for sake of limited graphical power on the GBA, this is not shown), and barely listens when Uribatake tells him that Aestivalis recover energy so long as they are in the command radius of the Nadesico. His leg is still broken, but he's all doped up on painkillers and hotbloodness for now.

If you are smart, you'll have the Blue Earth and Aphrodite A cluster near the super robots and Nadesico, and you can take advantage of a bias in the game code.

The game is coded so enemies will attack the least mobile units FIRST, and since's that's usually your carrier, you can have the Nadesico turtle up while everyone else opens a case of whoopass.

You've already dealt with the Batta, they're jokes, but the Katonbo can hit much harder, though being slow as a rock makes their attacks easy to dodge.

Another battlefield element to take advantage of is that Sakaya has a heart shared with Kouji if you highlight her unit, denoting they are love interests, and when adjacent, they gain attack bonuses.

Gai has a shared orb with the Nadesico, meaning they are friends and thus gain defensive bonuses when adjacent.

The Batta and Katonbo are nice enough to approach in waves, so you can make a turkey shoot of these tards and gain some EXP and levels.

Since we've met the Batta, here's the Katonbo

Slow, decent long range fighters, but will wilt under sustained fire. Use Kouji's Rust Hurricane attack to compromise their armor if need be.

After you kill most of the Jovians, this shows up:

The three girls piloting the machine (the one you picked at the start, though on a fourth playthrougth it gets replaced by the fourth secret machine) are Katia, Festenia, and Melua, and they are running away from someone or something.

I'm gonna save everyone some trouble and show a picture of them all:

(note, kinda skeevy, but most SFW image I could find that shows all three)

Melua is the blonde, Festenia the redhead, and Katia the dark haired one. Their fan nickname is "The Powerpuff Girls", which is mostly accurate, except the Blossom and Buttercup of the trio have switched personalities.

Also, if you want see their jiggling boobs battle cut-in animations (Calvina's is included), links below

(from Gelbooru, so presume NSFW)

https://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=1028799

https://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=1028798


Anyway,the three gets you guys on the horn since they need help from someone (even if you are the UEFA, which might likely shoot them), and they get a provisional OK to do so.

And that's when this guy shows up:

His sidekicks (Squires, like the medieval term) are all "shouldn't we take that ship out and take down out target?", and Ja-Mu is all "fuck it, let's retreat, I didn't get orders to do that and I can't risk blowing up my current unit, it's a prototype, let's just go back and admit we fucked up".

As he disappears, the three girls are scared shitless, and Uribatake is practically pissing his pants in glee over the unit they brought onboard, he loves the design. Meanwhile, Calvina tries to getinformation on just who they are, without much success.

Anyway, just finish killing the rest of the Jovians, you'll find the Nadesico will be doing the heaviest blows to the Katonbo, so just have them get healing and energy refills from you support units.

Once you finish, another UEFA fleet is inbound, and they have a series of Mobieus mobile armors and Delphinus units from Nadesico. Colbert is in command, and he plays bad cop to Adm. Misumaru's good cop, and he doesn't give a shit about any excuse,s he will shoot down the Nadesico if you don't comply.

Everyone aboard is all "fuck that", and Akito gets so pissed he hops in an Aestivalis to give the bald bastard a piece of his mind. Calvina wants to go out to support the guy but has no unit,and the three girls realize the machine they piloted reacted to Calvina earlier, so they tell her she can use it, and while she initially objects, she's all "fine, but I'm rusty, okay?"

Festenia hops in the co-pilot seat (it's a two seater, and you can later switch out the other girls as co-pilots), and Calvina gasps as she realizes it's nigh identical to the mech she tested back at that R&D facility that got leveled.

She pushes this aside and sorties, and thankfully, some friendly reinforcements from Nergal appear, piloting their own Aestivalis units.

The units are piloted by another pair of triplet ladies, collectively referred to as the Mars Angels.

They are:

This girl is an aspiring manga artist and would probably be right at home on Tumblr with her love of yaoi.

Ryoko here is the team leader, was voiced by the same voice actor of Asuka in English version of Neon Gensis Evangelion (and has similar interactions with Akito, who was voiced by Shinji's English VA), and pro-tip, that hair is actually purple, she just dyes it green, but we don't see that until the movie sequel to the Nadesico TV show.

And Izumi, who while she has the whole femme fatale look, she's actually the gothlike team punster.

And while it doesn't come up in the game, her sense of humor is a cover for the fact she had a lot of boyfriends die for one reason or another and her sense of humor is her way of trying to cope with the loss.

Anyway, they start off somewhere to the left of where your team started off, so have them head over to support the Nadesico.

If Calvina attacks, she feels right at home with the mech she's is, and she's a little creeped out at that, but Festenia just tells her to roll with it. Meanwhile, Gai screams more dumb shit like he's a protagonist in a Super Robot show and Uribatake just consider him a retard.

BTW, the Granteed is extremely powerful. In fact, the other original mecha are all pretty powerful, and you might want them to hang back a little if you need to level up the others.

As for the enemy, they really suck. Mobieus are basically flying gun batteries that are really weak, and the Delphinus units are just larger, grayer colored versions of the Mobieus with less mobility.

If you have problems with these losers, I'd be shocked.

Note that Gai/Akito and the Mars Angels trio have combo attacks they can use when their Will is high enough, and so long as they stay in the command aura of the Nadesico, they can refill all the spent energy by the next turn, meaning you can abuse the crap out of these attacks.

Once you kill them all the battle ends.

I'll cover the rest next post, more game mechanics I need to explain then.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

It's a fun game, since it's an English-language SRW game. But gameplay and story-wise, Super Robot Wars D and Super Robot Wars W are definitely better. W has most of the same series as J, but deals with them better, and D has similar gameplay but more challenging levels, plus Victory Gundam and Macross 7 which give it an interesting feel.

Calvina is a cool protagonist. Better than Touya who just adds to the angst of Kira and Akito in all his scenes. You also get double the jiggling breasts if you choose her given the attack animations if you're into fanservice. Her theme music is also way better than Touya's.

1. G Gundam's final space based part of the Devil Gundam arc does not happen, generally because the crossover lacked what they needed to render it properly. It also is probably the worst integrated into this crossover due to some bad writing. Multiple playthrougths reveal they certainly tried to make it all work, and they certainly did their best to try and make it play nice with SEED, but if you're a fan, prepare to cringe at the missed potential in places.

It's just Domon fighting with the Devil Gundam and Master Asia. Feels better than the Super Robot Wars R version, that's for sure.

4. Tekkaman Blade is not really a traditional robot series, more a powered armor/henshin series, but the plot works just fine for SRW, and this game started Banpresto down the road of being much more flexible with their definition of robot anime.

Tekkaman Blade would've fit better in SRW D with the post-apocalyptic atmosphere that game had which fits well with the show's setting. It makes the animations kind of weird knowing that Tekkaman Blade (and all the enemy Tekkamen) is like 2 meters tall, compared to in other SRW games (like D), units like the Megazone 23 ones were small compared to other units.

6. SPT Layzner also terminates after a point, parts of its plot just wouldn't gel with this crossover, but it terminates in a manner that covers the essentials.

The source material itself terminates after a point, so the game just follows. The version in the game is what the show should've been.

 

[GethN7]

It's just Domon fighting with the Devil Gundam and Master Asia. Feels better than the Super Robot Wars R version, that's for sure.

Tekkaman Blade would've fit better in SRW D with the post-apocalyptic atmosphere that game had which fits well with the show's setting. It makes the animations kind of weird knowing that Tekkaman Blade (and all the enemy Tekkamen) is like 2 meters tall, compared to in other SRW games (like D), units like the Megazone 23 ones were small compared to other units.

The source material itself terminates after a point, so the game just follows. The version in the game is what the show should've been.

Agreed on the SPT Layzner part. They cut the Vichy Earth segments of that show, which other SRW that went for a darker feel made good use of, which wouldn't have fit this game at all.

As for G Gundam, I'm glad they cut the last part, but for different reasons. While your point is valid, they really did a poor job making G Gundam work into the plot of SRW J, but mostly due to poor writing that didn't elaborate on some key points.

tl;dr: The Devil Gundam's reason for existence is very poorly explained at the beginning, a mistake other SRW games generally avoided, and by the time they fix that mistake, it ceases to be part of the plot, which just feels bizarre. They tried to tie it into Gundam SEED, but the tie is a bit weak because their attempts to do so felt halfassed.

Mostly agreed on Tekkaman Blade, but they did a good job of making it work in SRW J IMO, as while the world wasn't as jacked up as in SRW D, by the end of J, they were well on their way to making it just as terrible.

 

[GethN7]

I'm gonna update this LS soon, but I have to admit it's lower priority than my other two at the moment.

Another reason is that since the Project X Zone games are approaching reasonably playable on the Citra emulator so I can more easily screenshot things, I have been trying to hunt down all the games and media involved in them and brush up on the ones I'm not so familiar with so I can eventually do LS on those games, which have been requested before.

I am pleased to say over 90% of all media represented in both Project X Zone games I will have personally played or watched before I even begin doing an LS on either, as I strive towards being as well informed as possible for covering these games.

 

[Power Armor]

these two were named ringo and starr in the american dub of this show (teknoman) and aside from some censoring of death scenes or blood, it's almost better than the original. only real issue is sound balancing.

 

[GethN7]

Since I need to take break from LARPing as the Dragon of Dojima in the Yakuza games to do some more work on this LS, here's goes.


Anyway, we resume with Ryoko bitching about how she needs a shower and some food and exchanging some gruff greeting with the Combattler team. Hikaru and Izumi also get introduced, and afterward we cut to Moal noticing the obvious: Nergal's hiring practices don't involve making sure their prospective employees are sane.

We then cut to cafeteria, where Yurika is quizzing the Powerpuff Girls on what happened, and they said some mystery man helped them escape from those guys in the robots piloted by Squires. They were kidnapped a LONG time ago and taken some institution to be experimented on, and whoever rescued them had a conscience attack and liberated them, having fought with the others who were their captors, giving them Granteed to escape in and he's likely dead, but they do know he told them to protect the Granteed.

Calvina then asks if their machine has any connection to the weapons manufacturer she once worked at, and they draw a blank. That settled, Yurika offers to keep them, provided they don't mind tagging along to Mars, which they don't object to, and Calvina gets talked into being a spare pilot as well.

Uribatake wanders by and says there is a small problem. Mazinger and Combattler have some tech manuals for maintenance, but Granteed doesn't, and he sighs when he realizes Granteeddoes most of the maintenance without needing outside help.

We pan over to Gai trying to get Akito fired up over Gekiganger like him, and apparently Kosuke is a closet fanboy too.

We then cut to the bridge, where they get a encrypted message from Nergal HQ via Omoikane.

Note: Omoikane is the ship AI and is named after the Japanese god of knowledge.


The message is not good. The UEFA finally decided to move against the PLANTs, and the agricultural colony Junius VII was totaled with nuclear weapons. ZAFT's immediate military response to the UEFA's attack was to deploy Neutron Jammers on the Moon and Earth, devices that inhibit nuclear based power sources, which has crippled their energy supplies. The 4th Space Armada of the UEFA got owned at the Endymion crater on the Moon around the Grimaldi Front, and now it's a full blown shooting war.

This is basically the backstory of Gundam SEED in summary, and since there will be a timeskip later, this let the game writers get the SEED plot set up for later to streamline it's later use. Super Robot Wars W did something similar, but in a slightly different manner.

Calvina notes the Jovian Lizards seemed to have pulled back from the hostilities, which if true, as Ruri puts it, means they are capable of high level tactical judgment, and as the stage ends, the only bright lining is that they likely have little to worry about from the Jovians until they reach Mars and that the UEFA-PLANT war can't go nuclear anytime soon.

------

Some more notes before we continue:

Gai Daigouji should be dead by now. In fact, they actually keep him alive at least three episodes longer than did his own show, and as such his interaction with the other cast members that didn't know him while alive is rather minimal, though if you keep him around permanently, that changes somewhat. This playthrougth won't cover that, though.

Second, the next few stages would be rather advantageous to spam play over and over again, it's easy to "fail" them if you choose to do so, and since you keep all money from kills each stage attempt, this can help doing some early upgrades to the cast for later stages, and will let the player get used to the gameplay.

Since there are no missable Battle Masteries/Skill Points in this game, there is no penalty for doing so.

I recommend doing so until you can max out the energy bar of all usable units, this will pay off later.