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 Super Robot Wars Z2: Saisei-hen (ENG: Regeneration Chapter or Rebirth Episode), more commonly referred to as SRW Z2.2, is the second game of the Super Robot Wars Z2 duology for the Playstation Portable, itself a subset of the long-running, mostly-Japan-only mecha crossover strategy RPG series wherein Bandai Namco calls up all the robot anime producers in its little black book, crams their works' protagonists into one unified fleet, and lets them go to town on their (typically) likewise-aligned foes. The first Z2, Hakai-Hen (Destruction Chapter), has already been lovingly Let's Played by Caphi, with this playthrough hopefully serving as a companion piece. If you've played Z2.1 or read the LP, you'll be glad to hear that all of the series from that game return, with sequel seasons making their debuts here, and even a couple of new licenses showing up. On account of his outstanding debt, Crowe will be back in the saddle with us as well. The Format As with the Z2.1 LP, this will be a screenshot LP with some homegrown (by way of half-assed .webms) or YouTube-linked video content of particularly dramatic/badass/seizure-inducing (strike as needed, but don't expect to) sequences. Unlike Caphi's Z2.1, we won't be shooting for line-by-line translations of the Intermission visual-novel plot sequences, or even of mid-mission event dialogue. This is sadly because unlike Caphi, the two guys in charge of this LP aren't doing translation work as a regular hobby. Wait, Two Guys? The bulk of the actual gameplay is being handled by a friend of mine who, despite my insistence on buying him a Forums membership, won't accept it. Until such a time as he accepts my offer, I'll identify him as Will because that's the username left on his screenshot artifacts. He's designated me as his editor/featured series fact-checker, which is where I'll be doing most of the grunt work between editing/remaking his blocks of gameplay commentary, running a Robot Roll Call of the mecha debuted in each mission, and doing a concurrent playthrough in the background with the help of a half-assed translation patch to catch anything Akurasu missed and he's too arrogant to translate himself. I'd make a Fafner in the Azure joke, but that debuted in K and we're on the wrong handheld. Carryover Bonuses, Route Splits, and Secrets The first playthrough will be augmented with carryover bonuses from a Clear Save of Z2.1 that has finished that game three times, granting a decent loadout of optional robot parts, pilot currencies, and cold hard cash: Z2.1 Clear Save Swag posted:- +280 PP and +13 Kills for all returning pilots (+150/5 from game clear, +100/5 from Scenario Chart clear, +10/1 per playthrough to a max of 10) Will intends to take the ZEXIS Route on a first playthrough, which involves setting up a lot of series plot re-enactments and/or rebuttals and unlocking as many Secrets as the route makes available. Luckily, not too much of the guesswork of that is route-split intensive, leaving us room to rapidly cover parallel bits of plot. Despite having two players, though, we'll be faced at points with 4-way splits, which leads to everyone's favorite part of a Super Robot Wars LP... Audience Participation Although our intended initial route requires a fair amount of automatic and otherwise "highly suggested" deployments, Will's willing to entertain some audience playalong and stack the roster with forumer-suggested lineups. I'll sound the alarm for such when the roster fills out a bit and our backlog's run dry, and run with as many suggestions as are viable/personally hilarious till the routes reconvene/re-divide, as appropriate. With two players, we'll also be able to cover both sides of a route split semi-concurrently (assuming said split only has two paths), and on divided routes you're free to suggest both a Will Lineup and an Andy Lineup. When the paths converge, though, Will's gameplay will take precedence over mine. For multiple-path splits, we'll try to cover two on the first pass and the rest on either a subsequent run or branching off the same-run save file. Spoiler Policy Events covered in Z2.1 (and any allusions to events from Z1) are fair game as we have a ready reference, as are their respective TV/OVA outcomes. For events going forward, try to keep both the on-screen and in-game versions of events on the down low until they're addressed in the pertinent mission. Please keep in mind that much of the new plot covered here comes from sequel series/second seasons/second cours of Z2.1's featured series; some events will play out differently than on-screen, some will be exactly the same. Try to leave something to the imagination for those in a position to ask. Features like the Robot Roll Call will, by design, link externally to wiki pages with more detailed in-universe information for that particular robot. As these often follow the development of a robot far past when it's introduced to us in-game, such links will be prefaced with one or more  to indicate how far ahead spoilers for that chassis extend in the link provided.A Technical Note Embedded webms have sound; please right-click and Unmute to enjoy angry Japanese yelling. Please be advised that most, if not all of these, go silent for a third of a second or so at the very end; despite my best efforts to play with -async and -vsync parameters this appears to be a quirk of how WebMCam stops recording and/or processor lag from me pushing a quad-core without a discrete graphics card to its limits. Table of Contents Prologue 1: Black Rebellion Prologue 2: Gundam Destruction Order Prologue 3: The Last Day of the Earth Scenario 01: Fighting Girl Scenario 02: Escapee Scenario 03: Messenger of the Sun, Tetsujin 28 Andy Waltfeld fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Mar 24, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 09:54
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(This is the obligatory Reserved Second Post.) Robot Roll Call Robot Roll Call P1: Code Geass S1 Debuts Robot Roll Call P2: Gundam 00 S1 and Gundam Wing Debuts Robot Roll Call P3: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Getter Robo Armageddon debuts Robot Roll Call 01: SRW Originals debuts Robot Roll Call 02: Gundam 00/Armored Trooper VOTOMS/Dancouga Nova/SRW/Code Geass debuts Robot Roll Call 03: Tetsujin 28/Macross Frontier/VOTOMS debuts Reader Submissions (pending such things happening) Andy Waltfeld fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Apr 1, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 09:55
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 So let's boot this thing.   As before, we undertake the incredibly Japanese tradition of setting our original character's birth date and blood type. The combination of each determines Crowe's pool of Spirit Commands (JP: Seishin) that can be used mid-battle for a variety of buffs and recoveries, as it has since the system was rolled out way back in SRW 4 (SNES)/F and F Final (PS1). Typically the variety of Spirit Command pools is only as diverse as the amount of Zodiac Sign/Blood Type combinations available, but the traditional SRW Easter Egg is putting in longtime chief producer Takanobu Terada's combination (11/11, B) for an assortment of high-cost, high-utility skills. As we'll be doing something absurd for a first playthrough, we'll be doing just that.   Additionally we can also rename Crowe (given and family names, and shorthand given name); Will will refrain in order to keep continuity with the Z2.1 run and to avoid certain bits of spoken dialogue being locked out for not having the Canon Name. I will partake because I am a horrible person.   After confirming our tweaks to Crowe's identity, we're prompted to name our culminatory organization. If you're wondering why we're doing it at game start, it's because unlike self-contained SRW games where the fleet gets assembled and named some 12 missions in, it's technically already come together as of Z2.1. Will will be keeping the default suggesstion of ZEXIS because he's not particularly respectful of LP Canon. I will rename mine to ZNOOG for generally the exact same reason. Following this, we're dumped into the usual "slow crawl" foreword that begins every SRW. Pressing START to skip that because it's a series of big blocks of Japanese that basically say "most of the main plots of the included series are cranking up"...  Curtain rise, and the Region/World Map pinpoints our location as Area 11 (Japan, as conquered by the Britannian Empire in Code Geass). Except that parenthetical isn't the most accurate description either. On account of the dimensional merging shenanigans going on in the SRW Z continuity at large, there's actually two Japan landmasses in existence - one being the aforementioned Area 11, and the other being the Japan of 80s Super Robot shows.   Suzaku Kururugi has the unfortunate pleasure of being roused awake and to deployment by  V.V., a boy with a forehead that's in no way suspicious in the concurrent aftermaths of Persona 4, Code Lyoko, and iDOLM@STER Xenoglossia. Britannian forces preparing to stomp around the place understandably bring the Black Knights to alert.  Zero scrambles    his lackeys,  Tohdoh scrambles     HIS lackeys,  C.C. annoyedly finishes the last of her Pizza Hut, and  Diethard Reid catches it all on film. PROLOGUE: Black Rebellion BGM - Previous Notice (Code Geass Next Episode theme)  The situation is dire. The Brits have intelligence that suggests Zero's true identity is that of an Ashford Academy student, and Cornelia "The Goddess of Victory" li Britannia has come to capitalize on it and wreck the Black Knights' poo poo. The good news: this means the first ingredient of our challenge run can be claimed this very mission. The culmination of the ZEXIS Route, for reasons that will be ultimately self-evident, are highly intertwined with the plot progression of Code Geass. To this end, in addition to racking up Skill Points (which are actually non-essential as a to-have for secrets compared to previous SRWs), we'll also be re-enacting certain events to accumulate hidden flags known as Zero Points. Here, we'll be re-enacting a late bit in CG's first season where Lelouch "Zero" vi "Lamperouge" Britannia exposes Cornelia to his crazy eye to extract information from her. To do this, we'll have to Shoot down her Gloucester before additional plot automatically ends the mission.  We are not particularly well-equipped to do this. She has herself and several fellow Gloucesters, and Kyoshiro Tohdoh "of Miracles" has taken note that his custom Gekka and a few subordinates in Burais will be hard-pressed to pull off a total rout.  Meanwhile inside Ashford Academy,     Rivalz, Milly, Nina, and Shirley react with shock and horror that Dem Terrorists From The TV are making their move.  Arthur remains nonplussed. So does  Nunnally, leading the others to wonder if she's expecting a white knight to come save them or something. Team Ashford instead receives a Black Knight. Zero, Kallen, and some lackeys quickly barrel through the premises to where they've stowed their Knightmare Frames, under strict orders not to endanger the students.  In particular, Lelouch really, REALLY doesn't want it slipping out to Nunnally that he's secretly Zero.  Kaname Ohgi will not be joining the Black Knights in their merry liberation of Area 11 tonight, as Viletta Nu has shot him in the gut to repay his kindness in nursing her back to health after a previous inquiry into Zero's identity got her shot by Shirley.   Will posted:Suzaku and Jeremiah turn up to join the party. ALLLLLL HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIL BRITANNNNNNNNNNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA was literally the finest moment of season 1. I don't even care that it was practically an asspull, it made the finale so much better. "The dog bites back" indeed. In proper English: also arriving to the pitch are Suzaku "the spinkick meme guy" Kururugi with the Oh, and Jeremiah himself, having been mocked by the Black Knights ever since their proper formation and irradiated half to death by Kallen, is now a berserking cyborg obsessed with repaying the favor unto Zero. Code Geass basically became that kind of show following its middle-of-cour time slot change and sequel season greenlight. It's like someone suddenly magically commanded Sunrise to move model kits and bishoujo statues  OK, so we're not as particularly poorly-equipped as I thought; the PSP screen just gives us absolutely horrid map sizing.  So let's fix that by wheedling the Analog Stick to zoom out a bit. This is our force projection at the top of control being turned over to the player: all but one of the cannon fodder Burais have withdrawn to an off-map defensive perimeter around Ashford Academy, leaving us in control of the Gekka, the lone remaining Burai, Kallen in her Guren, and Zero with his freshly-stolen Gawain and A Cunning Plan.    The star of our show, ladies and gents. The Gawain, piloted in tandem by Lelouch and C.C. (though as seen below, only the former has proper piloting stats this mission) is a passable ace unit, presently let down by Lelouch's mediocre stats and skills and the fact that we haven't yet gotten the chance to spend all those Clear Save points on damage control. Image 1 posted:Unit Quick Stats (upper left): Image 2 posted:Top: Unit Name & Size Class (from SS to XL) The first slot being filled with text indicates that the Gawain is equipped with a Jamming Function, granting +10% Hit and Evade rates to allied units within 2 squares. On its own, this is ineffectual, but it'll stack additively with similar goodies we'll discuss shortly. Image 3 posted:Weapon names, top-to-bottom: Slash Harken, Hadron Cannon (MAP variant), Hadron Cannon For being a Super Awesome Stolen Prototype, the Gawain is quite spartan in its armament. Its options basically boil down to "lash enemy with wire-guided fingertip barbs" and "fire nonspecific energy blast from shoulder cannons, either at a single target or more broadly." This being merely a prologue mission/recap episode, we'll not be worrying for long about Zero having an underwhelming ride.  Pressing Square with a given weapon highlighted gives us even MORE diagnostics; here, whether the weapon is Melee or Ranged (if you couldn't already tell that with the reticle/fist icons to the left of the weapon name), the weapon's Type (Normal, MAP, and certain Others), the amount of Upgrades applied to it, whether it can be used in a Support Attack, and its attack range if it's a non-Normal weapon (the red field of the Hadron Cannon's MAP radius here will slowly rotate and redraw to the Gawain's north/west/south/east, showing that one use of it will fire in one of those four directions and hit that field shape).     More  , this time for detailed pilot profiles.Pilot profiles in detail posted:Tippy-top: Name and Level Our previous observation was that Zero's stats were mediocre; this is based on the pilot stat values topping out at 400 apiece. For Level 14, the main points of underdevelopment are his attack aptitudes; his Evasion and Accuracy are actually pretty good at the moment, and having a decent Skill score now allows us to set up Fun Pilot Skills sooner rather than later. Speaking of Pilot Skills, let's look at our duo's: Lelouch/Zero Pilot Skills from top posted:- Tactical Command: Zero-exclusive. Instead of attacking when taking his turn, Zero can designate a 3-square radius of allied units within 5 squares of himself to assume Offense, Defense, or All-Out Attack positions, tweaking associated pilot stats accordingly for the remainder of the turn. It won't affect Zero himself, but if you use the buffed units well, it won't have to. As C.C. is presently merely a Sub Pilot, she's a lot easier to explain: having no PP and pilot stats of her own, she's mainly here to be an SP bank for her two Spirit Commands, and will automatically renew 10 SP per turn via her sole Skill, SP Recovery (common, 320 PP). Speaking of Spirit Commands: Spirit Commands posted:Zero #1: Analyze (20 SP) - Select 1 Enemy on the field. For the rest of the turn, caster deals +10% damage to that enemy and takes -10% damage from them.  It's the one who fires the last shot in the war that decides it, not the first, so we'll not move the Gawain just yet. Let's let our redshirt Burai start the party.  Why, it's Shinichiro "First Man Out" Tamaki! And no, that's not necessarily a reference to his zeal in taking the fight to the Britannians.     ...And he's not got this whole "end it in one shot" thing down pat yet, does he?   At least his counterpart in the Glasgow whiffed.  And as you can kinda-sorta see underneath the now-greyed out Burai head in the middle of the map, that dodge was partly aided by Tamaki being on the ground in urban terrain. City and town terrain generally grants +10% Defense and +15% Evasion to any mech standing inside it (no bonus for flying units parked above it), while taking 2 of a unit's Movement per turn to move through a single tile of it. It cuts both ways, but the Glasgow is on even terrain (here, paved road) that provides no such bonus. Its survival is just testament to Tamaki being THAT underwhelming of an attacker. More importantly, Will's highlighted the Guren to take the next action. The Guren is a fun Knightmare Frame, because it never got the memo that Code Geass was supposed to be a Real Robot show. Mind, all the others shredded that memo about 16 episodes in, but I digress.  Here's what the attributes for a Fun Weapon look like. Here we've highlighted the Guren's  And Kallen's well-positioned to take advantage of the Guren being a melee beast, starting this map with 140 Will (oddly translated by the patch as "Vitality", and augmented from the others' special starting point of 130 thanks to a flat +10 at mission start from Resolve) and having two skills that will benefit her greatly from getting stuck in: Guard reduces incoming damage by 20% just for having 130 or more Will (hence it being lit up in green for being active), and Prevail grants further Hit/Evade/Critical/Armor bonuses the greater its level is and the closer the owner dances to the left end of the 0%-to-50% part of the HP bar. Don't get too attached to this loadout; it gets shuffled a bit following the Prologues.  We're not "Elevens"! We're Japanese!http://a.pomf.cat/hpsxwi.webm Kallen swings hard, getting a one-shot on one of the enemy Sutherlands and triggering a Dynamic Kill animation. Certain moves, when used to kill the target, display a different animation than usual - this is purely cosmetic, but it's a beloved feature of the series, and has been around since at least Alpha Gaiden. We'll be seeing quite a few of these throughout Z2.2.  We spoke of Spirit Commands previously; C.C. will shortly drop a Focus. The little tab sticking out of it on this menu with what appears to be the Playstation face button Square indicates it'll apply to the Main Pilot (here, Zero) when cast. We have roughly 3 turns to get him in range of Cornelia AND have him defeat her. Keeping the Gawain fresh will be paramount, and generally entails keeping it from getting hit.  Of course, this doesn't preclude us going on the offensive. Every pawn removed from the board counts.  If the king doesn't move, his subjects won't follow!http://a.pomf.cat/volnll.webm Lelouch's Slash Harken also has a dynamic kill animation, and us showing it off constitutes a bit of a time paradox. Storyboard wonks might recall it as the combination attack C.C. performed against Jeremiah after Lelouch got out of the robot in this mission's corresponding episode. Ironically, C.C. will never be able to perform this attack herself; she won't gain full pilot stats until after the prologue and the Gawain will long since be gone by that point...having dragged itself and the Siegfried into the bay in said attack.   These guys are Cornelia's knight cohort and they're a lot tougher than the standard Britannian mooks. They still don't stand much of a chance of hitting Kallen, as she's standing on a building, but they also won't die in one hit from Radiation Wave unless she criticals.   The dork in this Gloucester misses with his chest-mounted Slash Harkens...     re-enacted slightly later: http://a.pomf.cat/yucuoj.webm ...and Kallen ripostes with her Fork Knife, pushing his poo poo in. She won't be one-shotting their full value of 5500 HP except on a critical, so it's better to conserve Radiation Wave energy for when Suzaku starts beelining for her. He's the most Gundamesque unit on this map, and thereby the most dangerous.  ...but he's gunning for Lelouch instead! Fortunately, his accuracy is quite low. In Z2.1 he could reliably shoot down Lelouch in single combat with very little difficulty. In fact, in the demo reels for Z2.2, he shoots down Lelouch as part of the "attract mode" montage, which is the only time a hero-side character has ever been shot down by a villain-side character in a demo reel. Though this may be helped in part by Bamco's cheeky definition of "hero" and "villain" with regards to Code Geass. In the opening FMVs to both Z2.1 and Z2.2, it's the Lancelot representing the show in the montages of Super Deformed robots tearing through robot dragons, not the Gawain, Shinkiro, or Guren. http://a.pomf.cat/venprm.webm And Suzaku luckily whiffs with his MVS not-an-Aura saber. Good for us, as that thing can easily take off 75% of the Gawain's HP on a non-critical hit.     in GIF form ...as demonstrated in a take I didn't want to remaster, because I didn't cast Focus on the turn prior. This had to be patched up by having Tamaki cast Trust (20 SP to give one ally 2000 HP) afterward. http://a.pomf.cat/ctence.webm On the rebound, C.C. and Lelouch respond by spewing Mountain Dew Code Red from the Gawain's shoulders, corroding the Lancelot into critical HP. Kallen will be taking him out on Player Turn 2. Is your resolve unshaken, boy? Shut up, witch. Elsewhere, Tamaki strikes down a grunt. AND NOW...HEAT END!!! http://a.pomf.cat/rhawzt.webm  And getting rid of an enemy ace is more often than not grounds for a Level Up. Numbers/skills/Spirit Commands that show up in green are the ones just raised/acquired at that particular moment. With her stat gains being inconsequential for our present purposes, the big takeaway is that Kallen now has a max of 68 SP to burn casting (from top) Guts (full HP restore), Invincible (the next enemy attack that lands will only do 10 damage), Strike, and Guard (all incoming damage is reduced to 25% for the turn cast).  Off to the side, Tohdoh's hunkered down on a building and is prepared to wreck some fools in the name of GRORIOUS NIPPON. http://a.pomf.cat/fqtjzz.webm Give him a lucky critical hit roll, and he'll end the basic mooks in one swing of his rocket-propelled sword. If you're willing to trust the dice that much, the kind of critical damage Tohdoh can put out here can usually one-shot everything short of a Gloucester.  En route to Cornelia, Zero engages her leftenant Guilford, generally because he's there and no allies are around to issue a Tactical Command to.    Guilford doesn't die, and you can tell he's a badass because he gets his own cut-in. He misses on the counterattack due to C.C. dropping Focus before Lelouch moved over.    On the enemy phase, this guy decides he doesn't want to pick a fight with Tohdoh and instead runs across the highway to shoot at Tamaki, who dodges, and then... misses his counterattack. An elegant showdown this ain't.     Another unwitting Glasgow pilot from that pileup isn't so smart and takes on Tohdoh, who returns fire with his "anti-snipe" "handgun". Sadly it's accordingly "lethal", committing to the time-honored tradition of annoying the player by leaving an enemy alive with double-digit HP. http://a.pomf.cat/nioqxy.webm The remaining mook Gloucester tries his hand, only for Tohdoh to escape his missile barrage unscathed.           re-enacted with a Sutherland stand-in http://a.pomf.cat/eicsmb.webm Tohdoh responds by calling in the cavalry, performing a "Summon Attack" aided by his lackeys, the Four Holy Swords. With SRW cast lists swelling beyond the player's capability to continually level up evenly over the course of a game with 15-30 deployable units per mission, Bamco has taken the recent direction of cutting some of the chaff by taking semi-plot-important, piloting-competent characters who wouldn't see much use as direct deployables and having them and their mechs show up as subordinates in an attack led by a more prominent character from their series. These "Summon Attacks" typically gain the benefits of proper Combination Attacks and other finishing moves, normally Barrier Pierce and Ignore Size.  IT'S TIME  Jeremiah's portraits are delightfully batshit insane.  And his flailing about with a non-humanoid Knightmare Frame delightfully erratic, completely missing the Gawain.  As seen in its unblemished HP bar when Cornelia rolls up, letting us hasten the process of dispatching her for sweet, sweet event flags.   She proves equally as deranged  as Jeremiah...  ...and equally unable to get a hit on Zero.   And a volley of Slash Harkens to the face puts her in check.    Tohdoh decides sliced Orange is in season. His killing crit on Jeremiah is further bolstered by the fact that his basic Brake Sword attack has an A rating in Air, and thus suffers none of the performance loss that his other attacks - even the Four Holy Swords Formation - would have to deal with on account of their B ratings. You know, due to the rocket boosters along the flat edge. It's all Jeremiah can muster, in his addled freshly-augmented state, to squeak out an "ALL HAIL BRITANNIA" and withdraw the Siegfried from the map in defiance of its evident bisection here.   Tamaki mops up that guy Tohdoh left at double-digits, levelling up in the process. Not that we'll remember to optionally deploy him following the timeskip.  And after Kallen dispatches Guilford, it's now Mate for Cornelia. http://a.pomf.cat/xalfjj.webm You lose, Cornelia! Forgive me, Euphie... Another of Cornelia's lackeys, Dalton, attempts to intervene...only for Lelouch to trip a Geass he'd implanted in him several episodes ago. Ordered to strike at Cornelia...   ...he's intercepted by the Gawain and given a traitor's just desserts, indebting Cornelia to Lelouch in the process.  "Lelouch vi Britannia... to think you've been in Area 11 for these 17 years." Lelouch is actually a member of the royal family, but his mother (and Empress and Knightmare Frame piloting pioneer) Marianne was killed in an assassination many years ago and he turned his back on the royalty after his father, Holy Emperor Charles zi Britannia, refused to do anything about it, living as a member of the non-royal upper crust under the name "Lelouch Lamperouge". Cornelia is his half-sister, insofar as halfsies count in royal bloodlines, and was in charge of Marianne's security retinue on the night of her assassination.   "Lelouch vi Britannia commands you!" And now he whips out his crazy mind-control eye to get some answers about Marianne's demise. Lelouch's initial suspicions are deterred as under the effects of Geass, Cornelia reveals that Marianne herself ordered her security retinue dismissed that night.  Further interrogation is abridged, though, as C.C. runs up and reveals that Lelouch's morality pet, little sister Nunnally (who has been blind and wheelchairbound since the night of Marianne's death due to a combination of trauma and stray bullets), has been kidnapped, and Lelouch immediately drops his Black Rebellion and abandons his Black Knights to go and save her. Because Lelouch is a ~tactical genius~. This goes about as well as you'd expect when the creative team was JUST informed they'd get a second 26-episode season to play with. By which I mean it was a phoned-in trap.  "Suzaku, you bastard...!"  "Your reasons are mistaken! You'll just drag the world down with you! As for Nunnally, I will...!"  "SUZAAAAKU!"  "LELOUUUUCH!"  And a gunshot rings out... NEXT WORLD: Another Midseason's Episode? Andy Waltfeld fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Jan 17, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 10:02
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Ooh, so this is happening. Given that the first half was already sort of weird by SRW standards, I can only wonder how this one continues to derail.
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Jan 15, 2016 14:24
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I can't remember much about the Z2.1 lp or from when I played the game, especially given I had never watched Code Geas. Is there a context or lead up to Suzaku's actions here? Or did it happen confusingly in the show and him suddenly turning on Lelouch when he spent much of the last game working along side him is supposed to be sudden and surprising?
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Jan 15, 2016 14:41
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In both Code Geass and Z2.1, Zero accidentally mind controlled Suzaku's girlfriend into leading an ethnic purge, ultimately resulting in her death. That kind of thing wrecks a friendship. Z2.2 does this really weird thing where it starts off with everything falling apart for all of the shows where there was a time skip. You'd think that would have happened in Z2.1 (especially since it's called Destruction chapter), but nope.
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Jan 15, 2016 17:53
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BlitzBlast posted:In both Code Geass and Z2.1, Zero accidentally mind controlled Suzaku's girlfriend into leading an ethnic purge, ultimately resulting in her death. That kind of thing wrecks a friendship. I imagine it's more just so things could flow a bit more easily, given that these events for Code Geass happening prior to the end of the first game merit the Black Knights ending up shattered and thus probably not in a position to help out with the super doom dimension general guy. I think it was a pretty good decision? It means the end of the previous game isn't muddled too much, but the second game can open up with dramatic effect while simultaneously explaining why you aren't at the same level of force you were in the first, which is kind of an awkward problem SRW deals with when multi-game stories are involved. Anyway yay another LP, hopefully this one has success!
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Jan 15, 2016 19:19
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It just seems like a huge waste of potential. Z2.1 could have been a game where you're at your strongest midway through and then everything just falls apart, and then in Z2.2 you get the band back together. Instead it's just your typical SRW game, which makes splitting the game into halves almost entirely pointless beyond "game 1 has the series pre-timeskip, game 2 has them post-timeskip". Then again at least it wasn't as bad as what Z3 did with it. But yeah, good luck with the LP!
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Jan 15, 2016 20:27
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BlitzBlast posted:It just seems like a huge waste of potential. Z2.1 could have been a game where you're at your strongest midway through and then everything just falls apart, and then in Z2.2 you get the band back together. Instead it's just your typical SRW game, which makes splitting the game into halves almost entirely pointless beyond "game 1 has the series pre-timeskip, game 2 has them post-timeskip". ye olde srws had weird things like that, where like, main characters of shows would either bugger off before the end or be secrets entirely. don't remember exactly which...I think the Voltes crew and/or Heero were in those categories around EX/Shin/64. those days were weird...apparently in 64 the Devil Gundam latched onto Axis and that's how G Gundam ended, fighting Devil Axis (this isn't even the last thing you do in that very stage). as you could expect this is decidedly not how things went down in G Gundam anyway it worked then because at the time SRW was just a very official fanfic and they could do whatever they wanted but nowadays people would be all 'hey, yo, wtf, all the sudden all the Code Geass guys I poured all my money into because I'm a big fan of Code Geass just left on stage 50 i can't beat the final boss like this', especially given how Lelouch is pretty much one of the most important main characters in Z2. it's a matter of game design, really: ideally you want a climactic last battle to be using all the previous elements and major characters introduced so far, and having the events of the anime wash away like half the main cast is inconvenient for that (particularly in Lelouch's case, his command power is kind of a very central game mechanic). I think it's a little more elegant this way, where instead of strictly following the order of events and causing a lot of very critical characters to just be gone for the endgame of the first half, you have a little prologue afterwards that sets up dramatic tension from the very beginning to both make a reminder of what went down in the previous game, while opening with very interesting and recognizable moments (when usually SRW struggles with opening stages being a long chain of 'punch a few basic grunts for a few turns while the villain cackles').
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Jan 15, 2016 20:48
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I loved Caphi's Z2-1 thread and everything I've read about how Z2-2 messes with the GeassR2 storyline has always sounded amazing to me, so I'm excited. I know you won't do it line by line, but I hope you at least hit the highlights.
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Jan 15, 2016 21:47
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Gyra_Solune posted:ye olde srws had weird things like that, where like, main characters of shows would either bugger off before the end or be secrets entirely. I'm reminded of the Incredibly Bad Old Days of SRW3 where Kamille's endgame plot event bonus is...re-enacting the Waverider Crash exactly as televised and getting brain damage in the form of cratered (like, double-digits in a game with caps of 255) stats.
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Jan 16, 2016 02:32
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Wow this LP is right on time considering I just started playing Z2 Hakai-Hen myself. Looking forward to seeing what they do with Code Geass, and what the hell Trieze is planning to do after the events of Hakai-hen...
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Jan 16, 2016 04:41
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Robot Roll Call These mini-updates will follow each mission, briefly spotlighting the mechs that debuted. More technical and in-series-contextual information can be found in links to each mech's entry on its fandom wiki (where available), denoted with one to three based on how far ahead its service life extends into its home series and events that will be covered/averted by SRW Z2.2. The more Sirens, the more Spoilers - click at your own risk.NOTE: For about half of the machines featured in the Prologues, these will also serve as a bit of an In Memoriam. Prologue 01 - Code Geass  RPI-11 Glasgow The first combat-capable Knightmare Frame developed by the Britannian Empire, used to steamroll conventional military firepower in its conquest of various colonial Areas. By the time we see it in Z2.2, it's showing its age compared to guerilla-owned KMFs and even Britannia's own Sutherland and derivatives. Natively (and in Z2.1), it's been mass-produced so broadly that units more often than not wash out into terrorist/resistance stockpiles as soon as the Brits receive modern kit.  RPI-13 Sutherland The first modern mass-production Britannian Knightmare Frame, developed with resistance from other KMFs (looted Glasgows or homegrown resistance designs) in mind. Like the Glasgow before it, it'd become prime secondhand for terrorists as the Gloucester proliferated.  RPI-209 Gloucester A dedicated close-combat and anti-KMF Knightmare Frame, and one of the Britannian Empire's most commonplace officers' machines. Unlike most giant robots sporting cloaks, capes, robes, etc. with some ostensible additional shielding effect, the Gloucester's is purely there to be fabulous.  Type-10R Burai Designed/remodeled from captured Glasgows for the Black Knights' predecessor/competing insurgent organization, the Japan Liberation Front. Having no access to the Elegant European Bullshit that drives Britannian R&D, it's not too much more advanced than the Glasgow, and more than outmatched against Sutherlands on up. Prior to obtaining the Gawain, Zero used a red-headed Burai with more ornate oni horns as the Black Knights' CIC unit.   Gekka Type-03T Tohdoh's Custom Type-03F Standard A limited-production JLF/Black Knights Knightmare Frame imported through back channels to Chinese Federation-controlled India. While capable of holding their own against anything not equipped with a Hadron Cannon, they're evidently lost or rendered obsolete following the collapse of the Black Rebellion.  Type-02 Guren Mk-II Another Indian import by the Black Knights, and progenitor of the Gekka line. The right forearm is equipped with a Radiation Wave Surger capable of deforming enemy Knightmare Frames in ways that'd be considered war crimes if a human body were so distorted. Kallen's up-close-and-personal fighting style pairs perfectly with it, having already gotten at least one Glasgow wrecked prior.  Z-01 Lancelot The first Knightmare Frame officially considered equipped with Seventh-Generation technology, the Lancelot eschews the Front Mission-esque design ethos of Britannian mass-produced KMFs in favor of going full-on Gundam, with twin maser swords (MVS) and a particle accelerator rifle (VARIS) being its core armaments. In its Air Cavalry configuration, it serves as the testbed for Britannian "Float System" jet backpack technology, as well as the fakeout representative of Code Geass in SRW promotional material.  IFX-V301 Gawain Another Britannian Float System prototype, this time for frame-integrated use along with twin Hadron Cannons and a black box for figuring out Geass-related mystical bullshit that Sunrise completely forgot to touch on following giving Lelouch his crazy eye powers and pizza-scarfing witch girlfriend. Developed for use by Prince Schneizel el Britannia, it would be stolen by the Black Knights and used by Zero and C.C. as their new CIC unit up to the sudden abort of the Black Rebellion.  FXF-503Y Siegfried A nonhumanoid Knight Giga Fortress ostensibly built for some manner of Mystical Bullshit Investigation. A barely-rehabilitated Jeremiah Gottwald actually stole it to confront Zero in the midst of the Black Rebellion, resulting in it getting tangled up with the Gawain and scuttled undersea. Andy Waltfeld fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Mar 13, 2016 |
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Jan 16, 2016 14:02
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Oh man, a Z2-2 LP. I'm definitely following this, I love this game even if it isn't as good as the original Z. That said, could you use videos rather than gifs for attacks? The lack of voice acting and sound effects does take a bit from how cool the attacks are in this game.
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Jan 16, 2016 16:37
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Rodyle posted:I loved Caphi's Z2-1 thread and everything I've read about how Z2-2 messes with the GeassR2 storyline has always sounded amazing to me, so I'm excited. I know you won't do it line by line, but I hope you at least hit the highlights. Seconding this in wishing the plot stuff was a *little* more in-depth than it is. It's great otherwise, though.
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Jan 16, 2016 21:06
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Blaze Dragon posted:That said, could you use videos rather than gifs for attacks? The lack of voice acting and sound effects does take a bit from how cool the attacks are in this game. I'm considering transitioning from gifs to webms for that very purpose, but the only free host I'm aware of is Minus, which has evidently doubled down on routing all its functions through MeowChat. On the plus side, the search for an alternative means I'll have enough of a delay to get Prologue 2 out on a new page. On the minus side, the source video I recorded for the first two Prologues' gifs has no audio track due to using GoonCam, and they'll have to be totally remastered to spec, meaning restarting my playthrough from the top. EDIT: Half-assed remaster of Prologue 1's animated content has ensued. Taking all suggestions for how to fix WebMCam's tendency to drop the last half-second or so of audio when I stop recording. (Effective fixes might not be fully implemented until Prologue 3 is ready to re-record.) Andy Waltfeld fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Jan 17, 2016 |
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Jan 17, 2016 04:00
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Awesome! This is the first SRW game I completed (because it took me a long time to actually start playing them) so I really want to see how this LP turns out. 
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Jan 18, 2016 15:51
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No news on the webm debugging front; I'm stuck taking that as good news until noted otherwise. The next update can be moved to final copy and go live as early as tomorrow midday, but will make the forums page stretch absurdly vertically (hell, if you've got an older monitor, the 2xPSP resolution webms are already causing chaos horizontally). Should I attempt to post it as a Test Post and grin & bear any loss of inline webm functionality? (If your responses on the matter cause a new page to be made, I'll have to take it as a no by default.)
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Jan 20, 2016 14:22
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Honestly, keeping the webm might be a better idea even if it means making a very long post. It'll be easier to read anyways, without having to click a bunch of links.
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Jan 20, 2016 16:51
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I agree. I'd rather have a long but easier to read post.
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Jan 20, 2016 17:47
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It's gonna be a long post no matter how I slice it; the key is "do you want two super-long update posts on one forums page or not". Post length aside, also bear in mind that most of the still screenshots are PNGs downsampled to 1xPSP (Will and I both play at 2xPSP resolution and I haven't yet found an ffmpeg argument to downsize recorded video in WebMCam to 1x). One webm takes the place of as many as 8-10 of these visually, but weighs as much as 15 or more as far as bandwidth is concerned (if far less than their half-framerate, soundless GIF predecessors).
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Jan 21, 2016 02:40
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 Prologue 2: Gundam Destruction Order I loving told Will the browser explosions and webm fuckups would happen if I did two live updates on one forums page. He insisted I try it anyway because the Dangan Ronpa thread got away with it and that "it's already cached in your browser's memory." I also warned you that the webms turning into clickthrough links instead of lineins doing it this way would happen, but, you know, it's preferable to shoving 50 MB+ of media down browsers' throats at once. Andy Waltfeld fucked around with this message at 10:55 on Jan 22, 2016 |
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Jan 22, 2016 07:47
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Holy poo poo this update is killing my browser.
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Jan 22, 2016 09:36
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This has been rectified and I am currently reprimanding the offending parties.
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Jan 22, 2016 10:57
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Thank you very much.
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Jan 22, 2016 11:11
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When I played the first part of that Gundam mission, I took it as a particularly cruel tactical puzzle and made a special effort to kill off all the mooks before finishing off the bosses. This was particularly aggravating because of that group that starts in the bottom of the map and just makes a beeline for Setsuna without stopping for Allelujah or Tieria along the way. This means you have to carefully kite Setsuna away from the group surrounding him while still luring as many of them to attack him on the enemy phase as possible, and carefully managing the range so that they have to approach him to attack instead of sniping him from afar with their ranged attacks. Also, Setsuna's lack of Continuous Movement threw me in this mission and caused no end of aggravation until I figured it out. This is actually a fairly challenging mission, when you play it that way. Satisfying once you get it right, too.
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Jan 22, 2016 17:12
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That's one way to do it, if you're on a playthrough without a Z2.1 save carryover or otherwise trying to scrape up as much cash as possible in the Prologues. Me, I'd been under the impression that aside from the removal of all aces from the board (or a Game Over from an ally being killed), all of them ended at the top of Enemy Turn 3/Player Turn 4 with appropriate "and then the heroes got mobbed" events. I suppose if you want to see that kind of play style, the next (and final) Prologue update will be right up your alley.
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Jan 23, 2016 14:02
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quote:
Wait, what? SRW Z2.1 posted:
Did they just decide to get as much mileage out of that CG as they could? 
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Jan 27, 2016 08:47
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BlitzBlast posted:Did they just decide to get as much mileage out of that CG as they could? May as well milk it if you're already stuck with the task of bodging the 90s cel to fit in modern, LCD-illuminated widescreen. Also, c'mon, it's Heero. He plays on European Extreme as a general rule, no matter how detrimental it is to his problem-solving skills development.
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Jan 27, 2016 08:57
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Also speaking of the animations for the Wing units, I think Z2 was literally the best showing they've ever had? Which made Z3 a real disappointment. 
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Jan 27, 2016 09:03
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BlitzBlast posted:Also speaking of the animations for the Wing units, I think Z2 was literally the best showing they've ever had? Any Wing outing that isn't limited to Endless Waltz is a superlative outing for Wing in SRW. EDIT: New page...wait, NOT new page, thought it was every 30! But there's still some dumb portrait clipping and other post-production to do for Prologue 3, so I'll have to buy time anyway with... Robot Roll Call - Prologue 2 Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (first season)  GN-001 Gundam Exia The close-combat operator of Celestial Being's Gundam Meisters. Equipped with a wide range of beam and physical blades, many of which Setsuna F. Seiei instead chooses to use as throwing knives.  GN-003 Gundam Kyrios A transformable fighter-bomber Mobile Suit in the tradition of Zeta Gundam. Among its armaments are a beam submachine gun, shield-mounted anchor claw, and tail-mountable (in Mobile Armor mode) disposable missile/bomb pod. All of these will be absent from its successor, making it roughly 70% less cool.  GN-004 Gundam Nadleeh Nobel Gundam's Oughties Glam cousin. It typically resides within the armor that makes up the bombardment-focused Gundam Virtue, but the tripartite Earth Sphere Federation operation prior to Prologue 2 resulted in the artillery equipment being damaged beyond repair.  CBS-70 Ptolemaios Home battleship of the Gundam Meisters prior to its destruction in the nascent ESF's intense anti-Gundam operations.  Assault Container An escape velocity/reentry-capable auxilary craft for enabling the Gundam Meisters to enter and leave Earth without being smuggled up and down orbital elevators. Here, its sole function is as a lifeboat for the Ptolemaios crew members Sunrise wasn't bored of writing yet.  GNX-603T GN-X The first Mobile Suit outside Celestial Being ownership to make use of GN Particles as a propellant/beam weapon medium/etc., powered by the red particle-emitting GN Tau drives. Pronounced "Jinx", a distinction lost in the Gundam 00 dub. Among so many other things that it more closely resembles a series of sped-up mecha anime clips used to pad out blocks of Ghost Hunters International commercials. (Or maybe that was just the SyFy airing.) New Mobile Report Gundam Wing  XXXG-01W Wing Gundam The After Colony timeline's take on the "plane-transformable Gundam" concept. It's unknown which of its two main weapons has more destructive power: the high-output Buster Rife, or pilot Heero Yuy's attempts to self-destruct or otherwise scuttle it at the first suspicion of his presence being known to enemy targets.  XXXG-01D Gundam Deathscythe deviantART: The Gundam. Of the five core After Colony Gundams, it's the sole unit whose use as a veritable terror weapon is buttressed with actual psych warfare tactics, between its Hyper Jammer and trademark design and armament.  XXXG-01H Gundam Heavyarms It's not the one that turns into a plane, but it *is* the one convinced it's in Macross. Leg missiles, shoulder missiles, pectoral and arm-mounted gatlings, forehead and clavicle vulcan guns...and a switchblade in the right forearm that only the most insane Endless Duel players would make effective use of.  XXXG-01SR Gundam Sandrock Another melee specialist, except unlike Deathscythe and its stealthing around, this one prefers to just tank anything daring to hit it. And it better be able to in order to get enemies into its Heat Shotels and Cross Crusher, as whether it has long-range capability depends on how the animators are feeling that day.  XXXG-01S Shenlong Gundam Nataku The First. A particularly brutal close-to-midrange Mobile Suit, and one of the few across all of the Gundam franchise to effectively use flamethrowers (embedded in the Dragon Fang gauntlet's nostril nozzles).  OZ-06MS Leo Kindling.  OZ-07AMS Aries Flight-capable kindling.  OZ-12SMS Taurus OK, now OZ is getting somewhere. Transformable for atmospheric flight and armed with a high-output beam cannon, these are the first contemporary Mobile Suits of the After Colony timeline that can give Gundams pause (though it takes some strength of numbers to do so).  OZ-00MS Tallgeese Developed twenty years prior to curtain rise in Gundam Wing and subsequently mothballed because no pilot alive could take the double-digit G-forces its thrusters could put out. It naturally falls to resident masked man Zechs Merquise to develop the equally mad idea of braking the suit with the intense recoil of its Dober Gun, resulting in a hard (by Newtonian physics standards) counter to the Gundams mucking about.
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Jan 27, 2016 11:53
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The Aries with legs will never look right to me. I'm too accustomed to see it without legs and flying.
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Jan 27, 2016 15:27
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The funny thing about the Exia is that it's pretty well-known for being a unique take on the traditional Gundam design. But when somebody asked the designer about that he responded that on the contrary, he thought it looked too traditional. Though the Exia started life as this thing:  So yeah. As another 00 design fun fact (I have a friend who is way into that series so I know way more than I really should), Kanetake Ebikawa: the guy everyone things of when they think mechanical design in 00, actually only ever designed Setsuna's Gundams. The other three were always by Takayuki Yanase, who looked at the lead Gundam design and based the co-leads off of it. Ebikawa's shown up in a few more Gundams since; he did the Build MK-II, the Wing Gundam Fenice (and its upgrade), and unsurprisingly Dark Matter/Amazing Exia in Build Fighters. He was also the principle designer of Gundam AGE, though I imagine he doesn't go around bragging about that. EDIT: Also it's 40 posts a page, so you've still got some space to go before you hit the next page. BlitzBlast fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Jan 27, 2016 |
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Jan 27, 2016 18:49
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Hmmm, something about the shaping of monochrome OG Exia is off to me. I think it's the beefier arm ribbons, they kind of make it look like it has oversized shoulders.
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Jan 27, 2016 19:43
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There's definitely some artificial volume being added with how the ribbons are wrapped in those hollow shoulder pads. Like you could pull them taut and get proper Exia proportions as a result.Blaze Dragon posted:The Aries with legs will never look right to me. I'm too accustomed to see it without legs and flying. Evidently so is any part of Bandai not called Tamashii Nations; the Robot Spirits Aries has perfectly serviceable legs, but I've yet to find a SRW/other Gundam game where they're not limited exclusively to atmospheric flight. This is a far bigger issue in the SD Gundam G-Generation World games, where your objective is to complete a Gundampendium of sorts and requires you to grind individual MS for purchase rights to successive units. Mind, the terrain limits and R&D backpedaling on the Aries, and OZ suits in general, are nothing compared to what I can reliably call Zanscare Hell.
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Jan 28, 2016 15:14
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 Prologue 3: The Last Day of the Earth In all honesty, I don't think I'd have gotten away with doing this as an inline update even if we'd made it to Page 2 first. 2 of the 9 linked webms run for close to a minute apiece.
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Jan 29, 2016 13:22
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loving Ribbons!
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Jan 29, 2016 14:06
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quote:And riding shotgun with him is Rossiu? What? I have no idea where you're going with this. If you mean Kamina died, he did that by mid-Z1. Rossiu was already Simon's copilot on the other half. quote:These enemies are called Invaders, and they're technically from a radio drama called Getter Robo: The Moon Wars. One of the things that was cool about Z2.1 was that it largely followed the plot of the radio drama, while (as the name of this stage implies) Z2.2 more closely follows the plot of the animated sequel, Getter Robo Armageddon/Shin Getter Robo (not to be confused with New Getter Robo). No it didn't. Z2.1 followed the very beginning of Shin Getter, while Z2.2 follows...most of the series. Honestly, it seemed to be in Z2.1 only because they needed to have a Getter in, it's amazing how little of its story appears there. But it's cool as hell anyways and I would never complain about the sheer power even the original Getter has. Also the Invaders are very much from Shin Getter. The radio drama wasn't released until after the series itself was, as far as I understand. quote:Ryoma doesn't really believe in a ranged stat. (From top: Battle Wing, Getter Tomahawk, Hand Getter Beam, regular Getter Beam...and a Very Special Surprise) Either you or the game has a very interesting definition for what a "hand" is, considering that's shot from Getter's forehead.
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Jan 29, 2016 15:59
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All of the above has been amended accordingly, and only that last one is actually my fault (faulty kanji memory). The perils of working with prebaked research, kids.
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Jan 29, 2016 16:39
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How far ahead is too far ahead to solicit input for a route split? I say it ought to be done right at the very mission the split occurs, but Will insists I do it at least a mission in advance. Of course, Will also insists I wait on him to move back from his parents' place to his own apartment before he sends the images & base writeup for Mission 03 (he wants to take a crack at making .webms but needs his desktop to do it), a wait projected to go on for about another month. So I guess in a way I'm already doing a route split solicit: A) Wait for prebaked content for Mission 03 onward? or B) Record Mission 03 content myself after working through remaining backlog?
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Feb 3, 2016 07:04
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