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Obviously this is the best choice of thing to do with my handy dandy new account: a game nobody has heard of that I've never got around to finishing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl-wBb0IHeo What The Hell Is This Anime poo poo SD Gundam G-Generation OVERWorld is the almost-latest iteration of the long-running G-Generation series (surpassed by the latest edition on PS4, Genesis, which is a vastly different game). The games are (largely) TacRPGs similar to Fire Emblem or Super Robot Wars, but at the same time they're very different games; how different depends on which specific game you're talking about, but I'll be going over the mechanics in detail as they come up, since they're Actually Pretty Interesting. The game was released about a year after its predecessor, World, and carries on the plot of that game, such as it is (the plot is kind of threadbare in these games; it exists, but it's only taken into account on a few stages), on the PSP right near the end of its life cycle. Much like how Super Robot Wars exists for the purpose of crossing over various mecha shows, the G-Gen games are like that for Gundam only. They generally come in two forms: "story", where the game proceeds effectively like a SRW game, and "mission", where the game is a series of missions with their own self-contained plot. OVERWorld fits into this latter category, but it has a series of boss stages and a secondary game mode that act as kind of an explanation to what the heck is going on. If you're unfamiliar with Gundam, it's basically a franchise about the evils of war following people who hate war and pilot cool death machines against people who love war and pilot cool death machines. (This is a tremendous simplification and Gundam varies widely in tone, quality, and message, but that's something that's core to basically every series except G Gundam.) About the LP... This will largely be screenshots, with a few animated clips thrown in here and there (GIFs for tinier things, WEBMs for bigger things where I want smoother quality); WEBMs in particular will likely be linked to so that they don't autoload on the page. The game's audio is not generally spectacular, and the large variety of pilots means there are comparitively few lines per pilot, so that gets repetitive very quickly. For certain things I may throw in video clips mined from YouTube, but nothing fantastic. This isn't going to be completionist because that will take forever; the aim here is to simply beat all three game modes (World Tour, World Core, and OVER World) and show off any neat things that come up along the way. To "100%" this game would involve collecting every mech in the catalogue and there is no way I'm doing that. Also, I won't be showing off HELL Mode, although I'll discuss it a little bit. I'll also do a Robot Roll Call which is probably one post I'll update after each other update because if I append it to the already-long missions. Missions in this game are quite long, so I'll probably do one per update. Also, I'll be transferring savedata from the two previous PSP titles, Portable and World, which lets us begin the game with two fairly useful equip items that will make things much less painful early on. My intent was to do one a week but after doing the prologue I realised how huge this game actually is when you're not just flipping through stuff at high speed so I'll probably aim for one a fortnight, which gives me plenty of time to not screw it up. Did you say you never finished it Yeeeees but it's actually that I got bored because the game is pretty easy and it takes a while. There are no big left hooks the game is going to throw at me, I just eventually got tired of skipping through the Japanese text and using a vaguely similar strategy per stage... but the game's in english now, so there won't be any problems there. It also means I don't have to refer to the wiki each and every time for everything. Audience Participation? Yes! Since I'll be doing one menu and one mission per update, there will often be times I'll ask for audience input when I'm presented with equal options. Also, starting from the end of the first update, there is periodically the opportunity to acquire a new MASTER character, which I'll be asking for input on (with a limited list for the first choice, for gameplay reasons). Further, at the start of the game, we'll be abusing the Your Character option to make an original character, but I'll get to that when we get there. Spoilers? While the plot in this game is pretty thin on the ground, I'd appreciate it if people avoided spoilers, since there's a fairly massive twist towards the end that changes a lot of stuff you thought you knew. As for spoiling various Gundam series themselves, feel free to go nuts with that one, since most of them have been out for a long time - this is a franchise that's been going strong since the 70s, after all. There are some weird words in here. Gundam is a franchise with a pretty well built-up lore and a lot of jargon tends to get tossed around without much thought. I'll go over some of the really common stuff now; other stuff will get discussed when it comes up. Gundam, n.; 1. (Meta) A giant robot built to a specific aesthetic, typically incorporating a V-Fin on the head and a helmet with distinct eyes. 2. (In-Universe) A giant robot built to a specific design scheme. Whether this is aesthetic or something else depends on the series in question. Mobile Suit, n.; A giant robot. Every Gundam is a Mobile Suit, but not every Mobile Suit is a Gundam. Due to the prevalence of "suit" in this franchise as a shorthand for Mobile Suits (also known as MS), space suits used by astronauts and so on are called "normal suits". Mobile Armor, n.; A weapon on scale with a Mobile Suit but more in line with a gunboat or a fighter jet. Term varies widely depending on series, but basically if it looks like a giant robot but not a person it's probably a Mobile Armor, or MA. Minovsky, pn.; A researcher famous for his work on the self-titled Minovsky Particles which run almost all of the tech in UC Gundam, the largest part of the franchise. Beam weapons are made by generating a plasma of Minovsky Particles, they're used to jam radar, they can be used to fly, and so on. Newtype, n.; The much-touted "next evolution of humanity". Might be magic, might be a mutation. Newtypes possess heightened spatial awareness and empathy, with many being borderline (or outright) psychic or able to divine the future (Judau, the most powerful Newtype until Unicorn came along and hosed everything up was able to speak with the dead on at least one occasion). The actual meaning of the term got incredibly muddled as the franchise went on, but basically everyone of import is a Newtype. This has a mechanical function I'll discuss in detail later. Funnels, Bits, and INCOMs, n; Weapons mounted on giant robots that attack by remote control. The distinction between Funnels and Bits is largely irrelevant (Bits have their own power supply and Funnels leech off the unit's power) but the point is that they're Newtype-only because a Newtype can command them with their brainwaves and extraordinary spatial awareness. A major player in the original Gundam series, Lalah Sune, used her Funnels to earn her the epiphet "Ghost of Solomon". INCOMs are like Funnels but they use really cool-looking crazy wire things that let them be controlled by Oldtypes (Newtypes can still use them better, though; you may be sensing a theme here). Index Mechanics Masterpost Update 01: OVER Impact Update 02: Mission A1 Gundam Rising Ace of Aces fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Mar 3, 2017 |
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Feb 28, 2017 13:25
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Mechanics Masterpost Pilots    Pilots have these three screens. The portrait in the upper right, and kill count, should be largely self-explanitory. Ace Points are like PP in Super Robot Wars; they're accrued in addition to XP and used to buy and upgrade a pilot's stats and skills. The bar under the portrait is labelled "MP", but you'll also hear me call it "Tension" or "Mood" occasionally. The max is usually 400, and a pilot always begins the battle at half of their maximum MP, which puts Tobia in the bright green segment of his bar, or "normal". As good things happen, like scoring hits or evading enemy attacks (or killing enemies), MP rises; as bad things happen, like being hit, or missing your shot, MP falls. Below half, the pilot's tension will decrease, which makes them much less accurate and much easier to hit, as well as making them deal less damage - they also take less damage, however. Think of it as panicking and just trying to survive. Conversely, the higher your tension, the more accurate the pilot's attacks are, the more damage they deal, and the better they dodge - but they take more damage as well. If your MP maxes out, you enter Critical Tension, which causes all of your attacks to be critical hits. Defeating an enemy while in this state will cause you to go even further beyond and enter Super Critical Tension, which causes all of your attacks to become Super Critical hits, which do completely stupid amounts of damage. If you look at the pilot stat pages in the first post, you'll notice that the way their MP bars are lined up actually differs per character, and basically comes in two forms: "cool-headed" characters have roughly equal divisions, while "hot-blooded" characters have much larger dark red (super-high tension) and light blue (super-low tension) zones. Certain characters, like Berserk Allenby or Berserk Quatre, have solid red bars; they're always in super-high tension, taking and dealing much more damage than is typical. Special Systems: MP and Tension Newtype-use and "finishing move"-style weapons also cost MP, representing the brain-drain involved. "Awakening" weapons, which is essentially any Newtype-only weapon - funnels, the Unicorn's NT-X attack, and so on - also have their range increased as tension rises, which uses some kind of weird Louis-Duckworth system for deciding how much range you get, but basically you're looking at going from 6 panels to 10 panels as your tension rises. Certain units also have special systems that activate when you reach Critical Tension. For example, Unicorn and Banshee will enter their Destroy Modes when the pilot enters Critical Tension, and leave those modes when they wear off. In World, all G Gundam units also behaved this way - entering their Super Mode when the pilot reached Critical Tension - but this made them extremely difficult to utilize well, because they lacked most of their attacks in regular mode. If a pilot gets hit during Super/Critical Tension, they immediately cease to be in that mode. If the pilot was in Critical Tension, they simply have a Tension Down and revert to 399/400 MP. At Super Critical Tension, however, the pilot will suffer Cool Down and revert to their default amount of MP. This can also happen by abusing MP moves too much, since at Critical Tension, your MP is essentially exceeding your maximum by an invisible amount. If you don't get hit, then the pilot will automatically Cool Down after a few turns. Pilot Stats Underneath the MP bar is a block of stats, which are measured from 0 to 100. The side effect of this is that every single point in a stat is relevant, since there's a very limited amount of granularity. From top to bottom, these are: Shooting: Influences the amount of damage inflicted by ranged attacks. Melee: Influences the amount of damage inflicted by melee attacks. Avoid: Marked as Avoid in this patch, but I'll almost always call it Reaction, the Japanese name. Influences accuracy and evasion. Defense: Reduces damage taken from incoming attacks. These four stats are the Combat Stats; if I say that something applies to the pilot's combat stats, then it refers to these four, without regard to the remaining three. Awakening: Measures power as a Newtype, or Newtype-equivalent (so it's also the province of characters with high spatial awareness, like Mwu la Flaga from SEED). Influences accuracy and damage of Awakening weapons, in both directions, so a sufficiently powerful Newtype can essentially no-sell a weaker one's funnel attacks. Command: Influences passive, invisible boosts to final accuracy, evade, and damage (taken and inflicted) by allied units within this pilot's Area, if they're a Leader or Master. Charm: Increases experience, Ace Points, and score (money) obtained by allied units within this pilot's Area, if they're a Leader or Master. Command and Charm are largely the province of characters who generate an Area, which is a simple-yet-complex mechanic used by most G-Gen games around this one, including Genesis; I'll discuss that in a moment. As you can see by looking at Tobia, he's quite balanced, although he lacks a bit as a commander unit, and is tilted towards melee combat; he doesn't really have any weakness, except deer. Pilot Stats & Warships Unlike a mobile suit, which has one pilot, a warship has seats for several pilots, although technically, only the Captain's chair needs to be filled. The seats in a warship correspond with specific stats, which influence the warship's performance. Captain: All stats. XO: All combat stats. Helmsman: Reaction. Gunner: Shooting. Mechanic: Defense. Guest: Charm. The warship you begin with has all seats except for XO already filled with characters who, in addition to being good at pretty much that one stat and nothing else, come with a skill that raises their relevant skill by 5 points per level provided they're in the right warship seat. Unlike SRW, warships tend to be less hit-or-miss in this game; they never reach Nadesico or De Danaan (or god forbid Yamato) levels of brokenness, but they're never totally worthless, either, particularly since when they hit they tend to hit very hard. Pilot Skills Every pilot comes with one skill by default, but any more than that have to be bought with Ace Points. Every pilot has access to the same table of buyable skills, but some pilots can also buy skills unique to them as they level up as well. New skills become available every 10 levels. Tobia's default skill is Vigor, which causes his MP to rise faster, which is always good, although arguably wasted on a character who has Critical Up. Some skills always apply, while others only matter if the unit is piloting a specific kind of unit (like Char's "Red Comet" personal skill), or a unit under a specific size (most of the Crossbone Vanguard, for example, has "Pirate", which only works in units Size M and below), or if they're in a specific position (in a given warship seat, or as a Leader or Master). Leaders, Masters, and Area Ultimately, in this game, you're able to deploy two warships, each of which holds one Master and up to two Groups. Master units have various advantages: they can be of size XL or higher (if you want to do that in a Group you have to deploy less MS, which is never worth it), and they regenerate some HP and EN every turn. Additionally, a Master unit can, once per turn, use one of their Master Skills, otherwise known as spells, which provide some instantaneous effect. Master Skills are reloaded when the Master returns to their warship. The captain of a Warship, and the unit in the first slot of each Group, are known as "Leaders", and project an Area around them, as do Masters. Allied units within the right Area (same group for Group Area, same warship for warship Area, any unit for Master Area) can perform support attack and support defend (although only units with the Defense Support ability are able to actually Support Defend), allowing multiple units to pile in and attack, so it's to your advantage to have your units work in formation. Because Master Units regenerate EN and HP every turn, and cannot be support defended, I generally use them as solo units (especially since they tend to have more movement range) - however, when a Master unit calls for a Support Attack, any number of units in their Area can pile in with them, so you can do a lot of damage that way. Additionally, many pilot skills specifically apply if they're the Leader, working as whole-party buffs for their Group. Something to keep in mind is that unlike in SRW (or later G-Gen games like Genesis), choosing Support Defense will cause the accuracy roll to be completely ignored: the support defender is getting hit no matter what. Using Warships Unlike other units, warships can't move and then shoot, or move and then use special abilities. However, they typically provide a very large Area for their Groups to operate in, and most warships have an activated ability they can use to turn the area around them into defensive terrain for their allies - UC warships scatter Minovsky Particles, the Archangel has Anti-Beam Depth Charges, and so on. More importantly, however, is that a unit that is in a warship when your phase ends will have its EN completely refilled, and its HP will be restored based on the Defense stat of the warship's Mechanic. Units burn through their EN extremely quickly in this game (even in the tutorial stage, it's very easy for Setsuna to completely run out of energy in one turn); the way I usually get around this is by having one Group go out and fight, then switch with the second Group, so that they're constantly rotating and getting reloaded. Most warships also possess a weapon with a purple background, which is a special ranged weapon typically labelled "Support Fire". Any Master or Leader who attacks a target within the arc of the allied warship's Support Fire attack (represented as a yellow area on the map) can be supported by the ship in addition to regular support attacks. While Support Fire is fairly weak (its power is about 2000) and warships tend to be quite inaccurate due to their size, that same size makes them hit pretty hard. In addition, a warship that supports an attack which defeats an enemy gets a big chunk of bonus EXP, which is about the only way to reliably level up warship pilots. Mobile Suits    MS have three screens as well, but their first shows their weapons loadout. The white-on-black numbers are the weapon's range, minimum~maximum, while the pink number is damage. Yellow is how much EN the attack costs, and blue is how much MP it costs, if any. It's not shown on this because I'm using Tobia, but weapons with an orange background are MAPWs, which hit an area of the map for guaranteed damage. Some MAPWs also move the user from point-to-point. Unlike SRW, there are no MAPWs that result in friendly fire, with one exception: Moonlight Butterfly MAPW always costs 100% of the user's maximum EN, and reduces the EN of all units on the map to 0. On the right hand side, you can see the unit's size (from S to XXL), its HP, and its EN. Unlike previous games, which treated most energy-based attacks as being unlimited if they didn't use ammo or the user's SP, World and OVERWorld (probably Portable and Wars as well) just cut their losses and condense all of these things into EN, so it functions as a mix of fuel, ammunition, and weapons energy. Below that are the unit's stats: ATK influences how much damage it deals, MOB influences accuracy and evasion, and DEF influences damage taken. MOV is how many panels the unit moves, before taking into account terrain penalties. Below that are terrain abilities. Note that "Sea" and "Dive" are kind of unusual: "Dive" is being submerged in the water, but "Sea" is for being on top of water, without flying, representing the ability of some units to hover over water without actually flying (like Doms!). Actually having a "Sea" terrain is pretty rare, though. The average stat here is B: anything below that and your movement and mobility will be severely gimped. An A rank reduces terrain penalties for movement in that terrain, while an S ranking completely removes terrain penalties and actually gives you bonuses when operating in that terrain. As you can see, the X1 BASIC is at home on land or in space; it can take to the sky or move underwater, but it's not designed for it and takes penalties when doing so. Unit Abilities Much like pilot skills, although a unit's abilities can be drat near anything. Almost all units have some combination of Deployable (Beam) Shield and Defense Support. If a unit has any kind of non-weapon function, that will almost always be demonstrated through its abilities, so this is the domain of I-Fields, Phase Shift Armor, the EXAM System, TRANS-AM, and so on. Option Parts Basically the same as parts in SRW, complete with expendable parts being poo poo because they cost a lot of dosh and disappear permanently after one use. A unit can be equipped with up to three parts, which is a lot less than it seems, since parts individually do much less than they do in SRW. Some parts emulate unit abilities, while others grant direct bonuses to the pilot or mech (or both), increase the EXP gained by the pilot or mech, or modify the mech's terrain rankings. At the start, only the most basic option parts are available in the shop, but every time you complete a mission (regardless of if it was for the first time, or how well you completed it), a new OP will unlock in the shop. Not counting the four Hell Mode items, there are 94 OPs to unlock, although it must be said that the 94th part is of... mixed quality (if you actually unlocked it it's probably useful to you, if you don't unlock it you weren't going to use it to begin with). Weapon Types That little icon beside each weapon is actually relevant, because it sorts the weapon into one of (MANY) types. Realistically, however, there are only a few we care about : Physical: Comes in ranged and melee varieties. Reduced by defensive options like Phase Shift Armor, Transphase Armor, Full Armor System, Wedge Armor, and so on. Arguably weaker, but there are several pilot skills which reduce the cost or increase the power of physical weapons that don't work on beam weapons. Also, it's impossible to take 0 damage from a physical attack, unlike with beam weapons. Beam: Comes in ranged and melee varieties. Reduced by defensive options like Anti-Beam Coating, and completely nullified by I-Fields and SEED/Destiny's all-around barriers (except for beam melee). You want to watch out for the icon that's a HUGE pink beam; that's a Penetrating Beam, and it either completely punches through defensive abilities like Anti-Beam Coating, or deals 50% damage to targets that normally nullify Beam attacks (30% if the unit is using the Positron Deflector from SEED Destiny). Special: Also marked as 'finisher' or 'hissatsu' (which is something like "sure kill"). Melee special attacks have a gold, reaching hand in them (I think it's meant to look like God Gundam's God Finger in action); ranged special attacks usually have a rippling beam in them. If the attack is based on a special system, though, it usually has that system's icon (i.e. EXAM system, TRANS-AM, System PX, the Freedom's Hi-MAT). Some of these attacks are neither physical nor beam, but for most, they're treated as physical attacks. Shock/Flame: Deals exactly the damage listed, ignoring both offense and defense stats, similar to a MAPW. The amount is increased if the attacker is in Super/Critical Tension and can be decreased by defensive abilities and commands like shields. These weapons tend to be underused on your team, but are very useful to the enemy, as they're rather accurate. The first EX stage in World is somewhat notorious for being pretty awful with Shock weapons since you end up in a fight against ten million Victory grunts spamming them. You can't fight in here! This is the War Room!  This is the hub from which I'll be playing Super Menu Wars. Organize Groups lets you set up your sortie team; Research Units is how you perform  SCIENCE! Train Characters allows you to spend Ace Points to customize a pilot, while Create Character is where you build custom characters. Captured lets you go over any units that you've captured, where you can keep or sell them, and Lists is simply a series of lists of what you have, from MS to warships to pilots; its primary use is jumping straight to the "buy warships" screen. This is the Group screen. The right side Group is currently greyed out because the starting warship, Carry Base, can only carry one Group by default. The reason I asked for a custom character is because they're going to fill the fourth position in the first team, which is currently empty. (Garrod is currently the Master because he's winning by a landslide at the time of this writing, but my save is before the selection; this is just for demonstration purposes.) Research Units mode has three options, but I can only really show off one of them right now, which is develop.   Select a unit with Develop, and it will show you what it can evolve into. Kind of like a Pokemon. It needs a certain unit level before you can evolve it, at which point it will reset to level 1, allowing you to customize the new unit as it levels up. Units you've never seen will be blacked out, although if you're As you can see if you compare the stats of the developed Gundam X to its BASIC version, its stats and attacks leap up significantly, as well as gaining access to the Satellite Cannon and its MAPW variant. Developing a unit is usually reasonably logical (i.e. Zakus will evolve into better Zakus, then Doms, then Gelgoogs, and so on), although sometimes you get really zany stuff that involves crossing series boundaries, such as developing an RX-78 Gundam over and over until you're setting on the X1 Skull Heart Full Cross. Research Units is important; once a unit has been researched, through development, design, or exchanging, you can always buy another one of those units in the shop. Since a unit that is destroyed is gone for good, it becomes important to protect your more-expensive machines. Pilots never die, though. Ace of Aces fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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Feb 28, 2017 13:26
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Prologue Stage: OVER Impact Watch the video. The game begins with what looks like a cutscene but is actually an animation on the stage map. Something this game does very well is push the PSP to its limit (which does sometimes makes it a bit laggy), but it does a lot of stuff on the map that SRW has yet to do even with the use of full 3D models on its map (which makes minor animations much easier). I'm actually a genius so I kind of missed it, but the camera pans over a white capital ship hanging out in some debris over earth. Inside...   : I used to come here on school field trips. : It's possible the La+ Program displays data when it recognises the suit's coordinates. Well... we're not totally in the dark here. Fun fact: this character is so unmemorable that I forgot her name one screencap later and named her face icon as "notfrauhead" because her role is essentially identical to UC Gundam classic character Frau Braw. : Hmm... deploy the expedition team too. : Roger!A series of units flanking the Unicorn Gundam appear as allies, ostensibly to explore this place.  Meet Banagher, quite possibly the most unlikeable Gundam protagonist in a franchise of unlikeable protagonists. At least then G-Reco came along and gave us someone Banana compares favorably to.  : Shouldn't someone have investigated this place years ago, after the bombing of the Prime Minister's residence?: Expedition team deployed. RX-0 at target coordinates.: Nothing unusual detected... stand by.: Nothing out of the ordinary. No changes to the Laplace ruins or the Unicorn.When suddenly...  ... we get signal. : The Unicorn is emitting a special signal! This signal... it's the World Signal!: The Wo... World Signal?This is actually less stupid than it sounds, because the way you'd question that is "[subject] dattou", which is closer in meaning to "explain about [subject]", but it leads to Parrot Syndrome in a lot of translations. Metal Gear at least had the grace to run with it, making it one of Snake's defining character traits. Metal Gear Rising has a really good take on it since the topic at hand is a subject in which Raiden has a fair degree of knowledge, so his version is to ask if he's thinking of the same thing that's being talked about, or to ask questions about it directly.  But I digress. Yes, this looks good. Those of you who have played World might recall Aphrodia looking a little... different. Rest assured, there's a good reason for her fanservicey upgrade. A reason that will become more apparent if you check the filenames so don't do that.  : Since Ancient Times, the Generation System has continuously monitored the world. And now that system is emitting a high-level World Signal... I warn you, worlds will mutually intersect and be distorted. Worlds will collide with each other... and before long, the world will be reduced to nothing. You must stop the distortion in the world before that happens. Deliver justice to evil, and open the path to the right future!Aphrodia's image disappears from over the Earth. On the Neo Argama, sirens sound... : Incoming mass of unknown units! It's a large fleet!: En... enemies? All hands, battle stations! Put on normal suits! : This place is within Earth's absolute defense line! To think that an enemy fleet managed to get this far...: They must have been summoned by the World Signal!: That's impossible! Watch the video.Normally I'm not going to be posting stuff with audio because in general it's not spectacular, as covered in the OP, but occasionally the game throws out stuff like this which looks really good. By the way, the subtitles are part of the english patch; they had to add them in by hard-applying them to the still images that are used for these cutscenes, which is why they float or get dimmed and stuff. My opinion on them is pretty mixed. Anyway, we finally have control now.   Banana and his Unicorn Gundam are the real deal; they can fight at any range, and Banana's already-impressive Awakening stat is boosted to a tremendous 60 points by the Unicorn's La+ system. The reason I'm not being super in-depth about mechs and pilots right now is because we only get to play with these toys on the prologue stage; this is an extremely cursory overview.   Setsuna and his 00 Qan[T] are nothing to be sneezed at either. In theory this is a melee unit, but in reality its most powerful attacks are long-range. In World, the Qan[T] was sort of a bonus unit scurried away deep at the end of the 00-series tech chain, and its choreography was stupidly awesome. Unfortunately, the movie it premiered in then actually came out so OVERWorld was obliged to use its much-worse choreography, so I don't like it as much in this. The objective here is really simple: wipe out the ELS, and don't die in the process. First of all, Banagher moves up...  Something I really like about this game is that every unit has its own map movement animation, complete with the appropriate sound effect: units with thrusters use them for thrust, I-Field units or units using compressed-air thrusters make whooshing sounds and don't have a thruster animation, the thruster is the correct color based on the unit, and so on. SRW still doesn't do that, even in Moon Dwellers on PS4 which uses articulated 3D models on the map. ... actually, I'd be playing SRW V right now, but it got sent to the wrong address so I have to wait until Monday.   Unlike SRW, all of your attacks are available after moving, except for MAP weapons (which hit a section of the map and do exactly the damage listed, accuracy and defense be damned).  Because Banana is attached to a warship, and is within the arc of fire of that ship's cover weapon (purple background), it can support him on the attack. This is basically the only good way for warships to get EXP. I'll go into the mechanics of it somewhat later, because it's rather superfluous on this map. : This fight... it's not right!He actually says "konno tatakae... machigateiru!". The translation isn't technically... wrong, but he's saying it more like, "This fight is a mistake!", which goes with what he was saying earlier, rather than coming off as wide-eyed idealism, since that's one thing Banagher very much isn't.      Banagher's attack fills the air with beam lead and he eats a counterattack for his return. The ELS hit so rarely on this map that I actually was not paying attention and nearly missed the counterattack caps. At any rate, they do a ridiculously low amount of damage, and as Banana is a Master unit, he actually has passive HP and EN regeneration, which is a huge boon. Also I missed properly capping the beam gatling's beamspam because my fingers are slow but don't worry... it's the main attack he'll use on this stage, so I'll have plenty of chances. The point of this cherry tap is to move Setsuna up into melee range...   : I must show the world... the future... the future ahead of us!   ... and this is why. Destroying an enemy unit nets you a "Chance Step", up to three per unit per turn, which is a completely free bonus turn, no strings attached - you can move and shoot all over again, use skills if the pilot has them, use parts, whatever you like. Interestingly, enemies can also do this to you if they destroy your units on their turn, which is pretty brutal, especially since in this game, if a unit dies, it's gone - you have to buy a new one, and units level up in this game as well as pilots, so losing a high-level unit can be a huge setback.  With the first ELS destroyed, Setsuna moves up to here. See the "LOCK3" in the corner of the weapon I have highlighted? That means this attack can target 3 distinct units. Your hit chance and damage are reduced against all but the first unit you target, but these attacks are still huge, and destroying any unit would get you another Chance Step. This attack looks great, by the way, so Watch the video.If you're wondering why I said "This will mostly be screenshots!" and I keep posting WEBMs it's because the vast majority of attacks in this game use essentially the same animation cycles, but the prologue stage frontloads you with units with exotic animations I want to show off.  Setsuna has moved all the way to the top of the map because very shortly there will be enemy reinforcements up there, but he's shooting the ELS in the middle largely because it's most-conveniently in-range for Banana next turn if it isn't dead by then.    In World, this attack built the huge gun-thing vertically, like an artillery cannon, instead of just being "literally a sword that shoots lasers", and it looked a lot better.    I slightly jumped the gun on the damage numbers but this did a little over 8000 damage. You don't see a lot of single-unit one-hit-kills in this game, but I'll go into details about that on the first actual mission, since most mechanics in the game are inaccessible or irrelevant on this stage. Unlike Banana, Setsuna managed to DOOOOOOOOOODGE, which is a nice change. Since the ELS' only attack counts as Fangs (variant of Funnels), it also bypasses most defensive systems in the game. Which is nice.  He didn't get a chance step, so the only thing left to do is move the Warship up as far as it could go, in order to support Banana next turn as well. Warships got a big buff in this game from World; in that game, they could either turn or move, but not both. In this, they can turn and then move, which makes them a lot easier to actually use, especially as troop transports. The ELS are massively outmatched on the enemy phase; the ones at the south move south to try and fight the capital ship, while the ones up north move north to engage Setsuna. At the start of the player phase, about a million more spawn in, but then... Watch the video.At this point, the aim is to simply defeat all of the remaining ELS, but that does give me a chance to show off Banana's dynamic kill, which only plays if he's the Unicorn's pilot and you engage and defeat an enemy with the Beam Saber attack. By the way, the audio glitch here is because Banana's dialogue is synched to deal with lag when playing this on most models of PSP, so if the game doesn't lag, it causes his dialogue to run into each other. There are a few things like this in the game (Domon's Shining Finger dialogue does it as well), but this is the most obvious. One ELS down, Banana moves North to join Setsuna to take on the ELS in the centre of the map.   Starting with about F91, UC Gundam saw a trend where MS size began to shrink and armor was reduced, since you couldn't have armor that could reliably shrug off beam attacks and penetrating bazooka rounds, which caused a renaissance in rapid-fire ballistic weapons. Unicorn's zook is part of that trend; its shells turn into scattershot to rain on the target instead of relying on directly hitting a fast-moving target in space. Moving on the Guest units, Kira moves up on the flank of the ELS and opens up with his gunboat of a mech.  His HiMAT is another Lock3, although it also has a map weapon variant that I am almost certainly not going to demonstrate anytime soon because you have to wait for the enemies to line up to use it.  Flit joins him on the left side, targeting the lead ELS that Kira didn't kill...    The two AGE Gundams have a special system that increases their base weapon power by 10% and it just makes them do way too much damage for what they are. Flit's AGE-1 Normal is capable of fighting at basically any range; it only has a beam saber and rifle, but they're very powerful. Its only real weakness is that it can be sniped, but that's the case for most units in this game, if you don't want to burn through their energy at a rate of knots.   There was meant to be a third shot here but I got the white flash that lasts for one frame every time I tried.    On the right-hand side, Amuro goes first. I'm targeting this unit so that I can take it out with Domon and then use his Map Weapon after taking it out.    At least, that was the plan until I remembered that the range on Domon's Map Weapon is his movement range so I blew it.   If you've never seen G Gundam: the Gundams in that series are "Mobile Fighters", which means they mimic the motions of the pilot, so everyone who wants to do crazy kung fu in their giant robot has to be able to do it on the ground, too. Domon's giant robot horse, Fuunsaiki, is controlled by an actual horse of the same name. G Gundam is amazing.    And now I'm going to show off the map weapon anyway because goddamnit.  Like I mentioned before, MAPWs do flat damage, regardless of defense, evasion, or defensive systems, which means they can be really useful... but they're mostly useful to the enemy. Gelgoog Jaegers, a One-Year War sniping mech, are particularly nasty, as they have a MAPW to represent their pinpoint sniping which lets them just stick a flat 4000 damage on you. Most of my game overs on the first EX stage are due to forgetting the Sniping range of the two Gelgoog Jaegers on the map. With only Setsuna left, I move him into the middle of the enemy fleet and open up with his Lock3 TRANS-AM Riser again, which vaporizes one of the already-nicked ELS.  In hindsight, I should have picked on the undamaged ones. I always forget how much damage this attack actually deals, it's super stupid.  So obviously the best choice is to do it again.  The enemy turn is basically a mop-up since there are about four ELS left and they're dramatically outmatched. On the other hand, they insist on picking on Setsuna who can't shoot back, which drags this out a turn longer than I would have liked (he ran out of energy). On the turn where you finish off the ELS, it's really important that you only use the guest characters to do so and preserve Banana and Setsuna's actions and EN, for reasons which will shortly become apparent.  I actually grabbed this one because I thought it had the Strike Freedom's much cooler beam rifle animation for some reason. Speaking of amazing-looking attacks, check out this webm of Amuro's beam saber dynamic kill.When you defeat all of the ELS... Watch the video! This one's pretty long so it's kind of large. There aren't many more big cutscenes like this in the game, though, unlike in World, where there was one in each EX stage and it was awesome.This is OVERWorld's new feature, OVER Impact; fulfill the conditions on each stage, and your allies will turn on you. In addition to being worth a lot of EXP and cash, at least one per stage will be attached to a warship; shoot down the warship, and you can capture their unit. This is one of the things that makes OVERWorld kind of easy, and it's something of a mark against it, as very soon your squad becomes "GUNDAMS FOREVER", with relatively little variation. Fortunately, we can also fix that fairly easily. So now I have to shoot down one of my former allies with Banana and Setsuna. I choose to pick on Flit, who has the least amount of HP.  When you first engage an OVER Impact unit, they rattle off one of their more famous lines.  Setsuna supports Banana's attack...  ... and misses.    Following up, Banana lets rip with his Beam Magnum...    ... and hits, racking up a cool 7000 damage. Flit even misses his counterattack, thankfully, because this is going to get messy really quickly. Normally I try and end this as quickly as possible, but it's unlikely Setsuna will actually deal the 13k needed to knock over Flit. Also, actually using his TRANS-AM Riser attack against Flit will cause Flit to defend, reducing the damage taken to 60%, so instead I'll charge in with the melee.  Something I didn't know until just now is that Flit (and presumably everyone else) actually has two pieces of OVER Impact dialogue.    Flit's counter-attack did a lot less damage than I thought (shy of 2000)... I thought that was really going to suck. I'll blame it on the Qan[T] being massively overpowered. Incidentally, each faction moves in its own phase in this game. Notice how the OVER Impact characters have orange backgrounds? They no longer move in the red enemy phase; instead, they get their own orange phase. The turn order goes Blue/Player, Red/Enemy, Yellow/Neutral, Orange/OVER Impact, Purple/Secret, and finally Green/Ally. Note that "Neutral" is not "Switzerland", "Neutral" is "hates every faction equally". OVER Impact and Purple units cooperate with Enemy units, but not Neutral units. Some maps can turn into real clusterfucks because of this.    Amuro swings in...    ... followed by Kira. I'm not returning fire on any of these attacks because the stage ends when you beat one, so I'm just defending until I can fire back at Flit. The game apparently knows this, because Domon comes up next.   Finally, it's Flit's turn. Watch the video! Most "faced" enemies have a unique reaction for being shot down, and Flit is no exception. Flit turns back to normal after getting some sense pounded into him, along with everyone else.  : OVER Impact... the inevitable, unspeakable battle. Fate has been tampered with... now people who would never fight turn on each other! They draw their weapons and fight without hesitation... soon, the growing whirlpool of madness will destroy the whole world. The World Core is the core of the Generation System. It regulates the System. An evildoer is currently trying to control the system. OVER Impact is proof of that. The world is falling into chaos. This evildoer mustn't reach the World Core! Time is of the essence... stop this person's efforts to manipulate the World Core. My name is Aphrodia, the one who will lead the world down the right path. Come... let's bring justice to the evildoers!One last video to watch. I mean realistically this could have been a GIF but I like the musical cue.Now for the audience participation! At the start of each tier of missions, including the first, you get to pick a "MASTER", who comes with the "BASIC" version of their iconic unit, and all of their Master Skills (basically spells) unlocked. After this tier, I'll put up everyone on the list for selection, but for the first tier, it's vital to select a Master who has the Free Capture skill, or else you're fighting a tremendously uphill battle. Char Aznable, the Red Comet (Gundam 0079)    An ace pilot for Zeon during the One-Year War and famed pedophile; his epiphet stems from an incident in which his Zaku II, tuned to move three times faster than a regular Zaku, sank five battleships without breaking a sweat. Amuro Ray's eternal rival, as their mutual love interest, Lalah Sune, died defending Char from Amuro. Char's Gelgoog is a basic, all-around unit with no real weak points except that it can be sniped at from outside its beam rifle's range. Char himself is a solid pilot; his stats are good all-around, with an emphasis on offense, and he possesses a fairly impressive Awakening stat, as a Newtype (a base of 30 is not to be sneezed at). His spells, aside from Free Capture, are very solid; Movement Up gives one unit +2 movement for a turn, 100% Evasion makes the unit absolutely unhittable short of MAPWs for one turn, and Gundam Killer causes the target to deal an extra 3000 damage to any Gundam-type unit for one turn. Char's personal skill, Red Comet, increases the ATK and MOB stats of his unit by 5 per level (to a maximum of 25), but only applies if the unit he's piloting is red. Anavel Gato, the Nightmare of Solomon (Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory)    Another Zeon ace pilot, and the primary antagonist of Gundam 0083. His unit, the GP02 "Physalis", is very awkward to use, particularly the BASIC version, which has the standard 19/19/20 stat layout, instead of the extreme tankiness of the non-BASIC version. Particularly, it has a massive blind spot in ranges 3 and 4 (where the vast majority of combat takes place), and its non-melee vulcans are quite weak. On the other hand, it's packing an actual nuke, which does cost all of its energy to use, but will probably instantly kill whatever it hits (the non-BASIC version is multi-lock and has a MAPW variation as well). Gato's stats are geared towards melee and defense, and his Nightmare of Solomon personal skill increases his MP (like morale in SRW or Spirit in Fist of Mars) and decreases the enemy's after combat. Later on, he gets skills related to piloting oversize units. His spells are quite simple: 100% Accuracy works like Strike in SRW, giving the target perfect accuracy for one turn (which is a huge advantage because the Nuclear Bazooka is not an accurate weapon); Attack Up adds a x1.3 multiplier to the target's attack for one turn, and the extremely good Tension Up immediately maxes out the MP Gauge and puts the unit into Critical Tension, which is a Good Thing that I'll explain in a mechanics post. Jerid "Dear Diary, Today Kamille Killed Another of my Friends" Messa (Zeta Gundam)    Jerid is the guy who got beat up for saying that Kamille is a girl's name, over and over again. That said, his stats are very balanced, with a light tuning towards defense, and his Gundam Mk-II Titans is a great all-around unit, with a 3~5 range bazooka that helps prevent him from being sniped. His personal skill, Counterattack, simply increases all damage he does on counterattacks by 10%; since the vast majority of combat happens on the enemy turn, and Masters are often separate from their squads and thus fighting alone, this is a very good skill which will be useful the whole game. He has the incredibly good Critical Tension, like Gato, but his other spells are quite interesting: Damage to Experience causes the unit to gain bonus experience proportional to the damage dealt for one turn, and Fixed Damage just straight up deals 2000 damage to an enemy target, with no possible defense (but it can't kill a target, only reduce them to 10 HP - which is convenient since it means you can still Chance Step off them). Judau Ashita, the Most Powerful Newtype (ZZ Gundam)    Judau Ashita is a junk dealer from the colony Shangri-La and the protagonist of ZZ Gundam (pronounced "Double Zeta Gundam"). For some reason he only has 27 Awakening in this game despite being stated to be the most powerful Newtype in UC before Unicorn turned up and hosed everything up, and 27 is even less than Char, who is by his own admission a fairly weak Newtype. Anyway, Judau's stats are also pretty balanced, but he's more geared for defense than offense. The ZZ Gundam is extremely tanky, although of course the BASIC stat lineup doesn't show it yet. Like Jerid's Gundam Mk-II, the ZZ Gundam has a big ranged option in the form of its twin beam rifle, which is very powerful, but burns energy like a kangaroo on a trampoline. Judau's personal skill, Shangri-La Soul, helps with that, however; it reduces the EN cost of all non-finisher attacks by 5% (to a max of a 30% reduction at the highest level), and increases his combat stats by a flat 5 each when at Super High Tension (which is easily reached because of how his MP gauge is set out); he'll also get access to Junk Dealer, which reduces the EN cost for non-beam attacks further. The ZZ Gundam can also transform, letting it move further in space and fly over difficult terrain. Judau's spells, other than Free Capture, are Attack Up like Gato; he also has Area EN Recovery, which recovers a flat 40 EN to all allied units within 4 spaces of him, and Infinite MP, which reduces all MP costs to 0 for a turn (mainly used for spamming finishing moves or Funnel attacks). Usso Ewin, Whose Friends are all Dead (Victory Gundam)    I actually don't kow much about Victory Gundam other than its theme song is amazingly peppy for a show infamous for killing the majority of the cast. Like Judau, Usso is a balanced Newtype; unlike Judau, he's balanced towards evasion. His default Newtype skill increases his starting Awakening to a solid 37, and will increase the damage of any of his Awakening weapons (read: Funnels) by Some per level (100, max of 1200). The Victory Gundam is a fairly standard Gundam-type unit, with a saber, vulcans for cherrytapping, and a beam rifle; unlike a standard Gundam, it's capable of (low-performance) flight, and it can transform into a specific flight mode for quick transit, although its defenses are very lacking in that form. It also has a Beam Shield, which works like a regular shield (reduces damage by 40%) but against Beam weapons it actually halves the damage instead. In addition to Free Capture and the amazing Tension Up, Usso has the fairly rare Shooting Range Up spell, which increases his maximum range by 1 and decreases his minimum range by 1 on all weapons for one turn (so a 3~5 range attack becomes a 2~6 range attack), and Red Buster, which is the opposite of Char's Gundam Killer: his attacks will deal an extra 3000 damage to all Red-type units for one turn. Zechs Merquise, the Lightning Count (New Mobile Report Gundam Wing)    Zechs is the Char Clone from Gundam Wing (which is my favorite Gundam series), and is my preferred start in World, because that game gives you Lu Bu really early and if you have the Tallgeese you can immediately acquire the hilariously-strong Lu Bu Tallgeese with no effort. His stats are for some reason geared towards defense, making him an offensive tank type character. His Chivalry personal skill is quite solid for a Master (increases Accuracy and Critical rate by 8% at base, to a maximum of 20%), but there's a problem with this I'll discuss in a minute. The Tallgeese, like the Victory Gundam, is capable of subpar flight (it will become less-subar after evolving the unit), but it's also a little awkward to use, as its beam saber and two Dober Gun variants give it a blind spot at range 2. That said, the early access to a Penetrating Beam weapon is extremely useful in its own right. Zechs has, aside from Free Capture, Attack Up, Critical TEnsion, and Movement Up, all of which we've seen before. The problem with Zechs is that he's a character who can form change personally, usually used for characters who have a dramatic other personality - for example, Loran Cehack's female "Laura Rolla" disguise, Berserk Allenby and Berserk Quatre, and so on. You can change these in the shop before you buy them, and at any time after, but sometimes, different forms have different base skills. In this instance, Zechs' base skill in his alternate form (or rather, true identity) as Milliardo Peacecraft has Cool-Headed instead of Chivalry, which works under the same conditions, but is significantly better due to directly reducing the enemy's defense (read: more damage), so it's arguably better to hold off until you can recruit him from the shop. Garrod Ran, Rider of the Blazing Mobile Suit (After War Gundam X)    Possibly the best Gundam protagonist ever: Garrod begins by hijacking a Mobile Suit with an improvised flashbang and an unloaded handgun so that he can sell it at a market for quick cash, and ends by obliterating a small army and putting his waifu in a coma. That's episode 1. His starts are geared towards ranged offense above all else, although his personal skill, Junk Dealer, is somewhat less than useful, due to his signature Gundam X relying primarily on Beam weapons. For some reason, the Gundam X BASIC is missing its iconic Satellite Cannon, but it's still a solid all-around unit in much the same way as Char's Gelgoog is. Garrod's spells are also largely geared around being able to abuse his Satellite Cannon: in addition to Tension Up and Free Capture, he has Post-Movement Attack, which lets him use MAPWs after moving, and 50% EN Recovery, which restores the affected unit's EN by 50% of the maximum. "loving" Ribbons Almark (Gundam 00)    Ribbons is the final boss of Gundam 00 and the big joke here is that in a series where the protagonists turn red and move three times faster, he uses a unit modeled on the RX-78 Gundam used by Amuro Ray, and even has Amuro's voice actor. His stats are perfectly balanced in every way, and Innovade increases his Reaction and Awakening by 5 each level to a maximum of 16. The 0 Gundam BASIC he begins with is just as basic as it seems, armed with a standard beam rifle and saber; it's capable of C-Rank flight like Tallgeese and Victory, but lacks the GN Drive ability even though it obviously should have it (the not-BASIC version does, at least, which causes him to regenerate energy). In addition to Free Capture, he has Tension Up, 50% EN Recovery, and also 50% HP Recovery, which does exactly what it sounds like. Desil "I Killed Ur Waifu" Galette (Gundam AGE Arc 1)    The antagonist of the first arc of Gundam AGE, Desil kidnapped and brainwashed Flit's waifu and forced Flit to kill her in mortal combat just like every other Newtype love interest who's ever been in Gundam dating back to Lalah Sune in the original series, which causes Flit to become a genocidal space nazi. Desil's stats are pushed towards offense without regard for anything else, but his X-Rounder personal skill improves his Reaction and Awakening much like Innovade does, which helps make up for that. More importantly, his Zedas BASIC and its evolutions are basically robot dragons or robots that turn into dragons. He's very difficult to snipe, having a 3~6 range beam cannon, and he has a powerful secondary melee attack, plus he can strike both physically and with beams, which helps get over most defensive types, but he does have a blind spot at range 2, like Zechs. His spells are, other than Free Capture, Jerid's Fixed Damage, Usso's Shooting Range Up, and Char's Gundam Killer (Desil was basically the Char of the first arc of Gundam AGE). Choose one of the above! There are more masters to pick from, but we'll get to those starting from the second tier, as it's very important to have a Free Capture character if you don't want to proceed through the game at a snailspace. Your Character  Your Character units are technically not as good as bought units (which is why you can make them for free), but they have their advantages: despite getting fairly low level ups, they usually have quite balanced stats, and they get access to some unique skills, beginning with Rookie, which increases the ATK and DEF of their piloted unit by 1 point each. What I need from you first of all is a name, which is at most 16 characters (nothing lewd, crude, or Ramza), and then to pick an appearance, which are sorted into the two sexes:  Click here for the full 1920x1360 image  Click here for the full 1920x1360 image Please excuse the whitespace here and there, my hands shake which defeated the point of my carefully-sized canvas. Overall I think the female costumes are better-looking.Normally I'd ask for a voice and BGM but since this is primarily going to be screenshots I don't feel there's much point, although the cast lineup for voices is really impressive if you know much about anime. You can ignore the "profile" field because I'd have to transcribe the whole thing by hand and there's no way in hell I'm doing that. So then, until next time.
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Feb 28, 2017 13:26
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There's no way we can't start without Garrod Ran. And as for our fun little CaC's, I'll start it off by naming one Timp Sharon and picking Male Costume 5 for him. Because seriously, how can you not see it? 
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Feb 28, 2017 14:04
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If you look closely on the Master Select menu (and later on in the Unit Collection/Gallery menus), you'll notice that the English patch team went and drew/typeset their own localized versions of every Gundam series logo featured (that didn't get an English release with a fully-localized logo already; those were just shrunk down and ported in). I can't really tell how many people they tasked to this; there's plenty of good ones (the Victory, X, and AGE ones shown above), and then ones where whoever did it were "what is typesetting and stylized font" (0079, ZZ, Crossbone). I vote we take Uso as our starting Master for the sake of showing off the versatility of Range Up, and for certain grinding conveniences the Victory Basic lends itself to. And let's use a Custom Character to fix one of G-Generation Genesis's DLC mistakes while we're at it. Male 03, Led Wayline.
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Feb 28, 2017 20:14
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Oh man, I didn't know this had an English translation. I tried to play it myself but having to do so in Japanese plus the fact that it has AGE content but it lacks the AGE-2 Dark Hound (undeniably the best MS of the series) made me stop playing it, because what's the point if I can't have a Pirate Gundam team? Seeing how you don't want to start with a Pirate Gundam either, the only choice that is almost as cool would be a Blazing Mobile Suit, so obviously, pick Garrod.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:28
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I've only ever watched Gundam Wing, and know very little of the various other settings, but I have no clue what the heck is going on here. Its well presented though, and hopefully the thread will shine a light on all the Gundam stuff I've missed out on. (Gundam Wing is the best Gundam show, fight me) Tex Murphy, Man 05 Garrod Jobbo_Fett fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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Feb 28, 2017 23:37
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Raquel, Costume type 8 Garrod pls. Char is cool, but I'm somewhat tired of him. But at least he's not an AGE character.
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Feb 28, 2017 23:54
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I played the Wii(?) game in this series for a while, but it didn't really hold my interest like SRW. Good start so far, I don't read many screenshot LP's but your commentary/writing is pretty good so I'll be following. I'll vote for Gato because I want to see you nuke stuff.
Demicol fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Mar 1, 2017 |
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Mar 1, 2017 01:25
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Zechs, because I want to see this game get broken over your knee. girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Mar 2, 2017 |
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Mar 1, 2017 03:00
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Demicol posted:I played the Wii(?) game in this series for a while, but it didn't really hold my interest like SRW. Huh, I legitimately didn't know that there was a Wii G-Gen game. I should get on that now that I've cracked my Wii open. I need to play Neo too, if only because it includes New Getter Robo.
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Mar 1, 2017 03:02
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G Gundam Best Gundam Shining Finger!
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Mar 1, 2017 04:43
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Blaze Dragon posted:Oh man, I didn't know this had an English translation. I tried to play it myself but having to do so in Japanese plus the fact that it has AGE content but it lacks the AGE-2 Dark Hound (undeniably the best MS of the series) made me stop playing it, because what's the point if I can't have a Pirate Gundam team? Man, you really want MORE units from AGE? We already have units from Crossbone Gundam, we have all the Pirate Gundams we need. The X1 Crossbone Gundam Full Cloth has a better design than the Dark Hound anyways. If you aren't familiar with Crossbone, do yourself a favor and go read it sometime, it's legitimately a treat.
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Mar 1, 2017 04:43
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Lynkericious posted:Man, you really want MORE units from AGE? We already have units from Crossbone Gundam, we have all the Pirate Gundams we need. The X1 Crossbone Gundam Full Cloth has a better design than the Dark Hound anyways. If you aren't familiar with Crossbone, do yourself a favor and go read it sometime, it's legitimately a treat. I read the entirety of Crossbone until the point where Space MacGyver stops being the protagonist (Ghost, I think?) because that part was not translated at the time. Believe me, I'm a fan, but that's why I wanted more Pirate Gundams! I can't make a full squad with only the X1 Full Cloth, X2 and X3! Also AGE is total poo poo but c'mon, the Dark Hound is cool.
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Mar 1, 2017 05:30
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Blaze Dragon posted:I read the entirety of Crossbone until the point where Space MacGyver stops being the protagonist (Ghost, I think?) because that part was not translated at the time. Believe me, I'm a fan, but that's why I wanted more Pirate Gundams! I can't make a full squad with only the X1 Full Cloth, X2 and X3! AGE has some good designs, I'll concede that, and among them the Dark Hound is one of the better ones in it, but I'm always going to be of the opinion that any AGE units in any game is that many too many. When you make a Gundam series that makes SEED Destiny seem watchable, you done hosed up big time.  Ghost is also pretty fun though, and it shows us how Space MacGyver will always and forever be the best Gundam protagonist.
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Mar 1, 2017 05:55
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If we're gonna steal some Gundams, there's no choice better than And for character, Male 5, Elbow Smash.
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Mar 1, 2017 06:00
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Just to point it out, I've updated the second post in the thread to make it a mechanics masterpost, which I'll no doubt update as time goes by, but what's there should be a good enough overview for now. That's probably going to be my contribution this week because uni has started up again.
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Mar 1, 2017 13:10
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Jerid Messa. Because I wanna see how gloriously he can gently caress up. As for our OC, Male 05,McCree. It's Hiiiiiiiigh Noon.
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Mar 1, 2017 22:53
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Jobbo_Fett posted:I've only ever watched Gundam Wing, and know very little of the various other settings, but I have no clue what the heck is going on here. Oh, we can fight alright. The Earth is the arena. I think for our pilot, well, maybe it's Konosuba on the mind, but Char Aznable seems the most entertainingly garbage human being on the list, so him. As for our pilot, well, since he's not an option and probably isn't in the game at all, I say we get Zeon's ace of aces, Breniff Oguz, in Costume 13. Because you know what? If we've got Char being a theatrical as gently caress newtype double crossing everyone, we probably should get a reasonable, not horrible (You know, after accounting for the Zeon thing) middle aged oldtype who doesn't even have a custom paint scheme... sniping the holy hell out of everyone and generally being the deadliest son-of-a-bitch ever born.
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Mar 1, 2017 23:17
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VolticSurge posted:As for our OC, Male 05,McCree. It's Hiiiiiiiigh Noon. I'm glad someone else thought this as well
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Mar 1, 2017 23:21
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I was going to call you a wizard for getting this game in English but I will stick with madman as it seems your haven't finished it and you are going to LP it with goons intervening. 5d
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Mar 1, 2017 23:24
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Thanks for the mechanics post, Reaction being translated as Avoid when it applies to accuracy too was really messing me up trying to play along. And I second Jerid Messa because the guy deserves to have something nice happen to him for once.
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Mar 1, 2017 23:41
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Jerid Messa lets see what happens.
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Mar 2, 2017 00:49
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Ace of Aces posted:Some MAPWs also move the user from point-to-point. Unlike SRW, there are no MAPWs that result in friendly fire, with one exception: Moonlight Butterfly MAPW always costs 100% of the user's maximum EN, and reduces the EN of all units on the map to 0. Fun Fact: on a dry run of one of the chapter-ending EX stages, this is how I discovered that: A) Enemy units have 10% EN regen by default, to avoid abuse of GEKKOCHOU DE ARU as a means to completely neuter units without outright killing them. B) Units currently parked inside Warships do not count as "on the map" for Moonlight Butterfly MAPW's purposes. 
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Mar 2, 2017 03:06
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gently caress it, lets get my man Garrod as our linchpin. Gundam X motherfuckers! As for the original... Fabio, Male costume 8. Not denying cowboyman could be great as an offset for anything serious, but seriously, can you think of anyone who could take the piss out of a canon character more that that  ?
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Mar 2, 2017 04:58
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Lynkericious posted:And as for our fun little CaC's, I'll start it off by naming one Timp Sharon and picking Male Costume 5 for him. Because seriously, how can you not see it? Seconding this for a CaC. Oh, and Char.
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Mar 2, 2017 05:17
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I vote Jerid Messa so we can have his squad of friends be killed by Kamille again if stuff goes hilariously wrong in a Zeta stage.Lynkericious posted:And as for our fun little CaC's, I'll start it off by naming one Timp Sharon and picking Male Costume 5 for him. Because seriously, how can you not see it? I third this.
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Mar 2, 2017 07:19
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Somehow I totally missed this translation. I need to pay more attention to the PSP translation scene, it seems. Anyway, for outfit, woman 16 because cat-ear helmet, and we need to apprentice under Bobbins Walmart, for maximum trollery.
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Mar 2, 2017 19:36
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Kaboom Dragoon posted:Somehow I totally missed this translation. I need to pay more attention to the PSP translation scene, it seems. I'll second this. Name our character Kawaii uguu
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Mar 2, 2017 19:37
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Senerio posted:I'll second this. Name our character Kawaii uguu Changing my OC vote to this.
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Mar 2, 2017 21:31
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Senerio posted:I'll second this. Name our character Kawaii uguu I have no ideas for the OC but goddamn use this.
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Mar 2, 2017 21:57
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Woah this got translated? Looks like it's time to dig my PSP out of the back of the storage locker and see if it still works.
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Mar 3, 2017 01:26
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Alright, stop there. I was gonna do this tomorrow but I ended up not being at uni today so I'll work on the update today. At the moment, Garrod is winning the master vote by a landslide, and there's pretty much a dead heat between Male 05/Timp Sharon and Female 16/Kawaii Uguu so I'll just make both. I'll edit this post with the actual update when it's done, I just didn't want to come back in a few hours being like "AND HERE ARE THE RESULTS" to find that they've totally changed. 
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Mar 3, 2017 01:47
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It's high noon 
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Mar 3, 2017 02:06
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Ace of Aces posted:I'll edit this post with the actual update when it's done, I just didn't want to come back in a few hours being like "AND HERE ARE THE RESULTS" to find that they've totally changed. Just make a new post, editting that post for the update will only be confusing, and having a new post alerts those who have the thread bookmarked to get reading.
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Mar 3, 2017 03:34
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Blaze Dragon posted:Just make a new post, editting that post for the update will only be confusing, and having a new post alerts those who have the thread bookmarked to get reading. Point taken, and so therefore... Mission A1: Gundam Rising  But before that, we have some things to do in the war room. First of all, let's take a look at our non-Garrod things.   This is MARK GILDER who for reasons that are unexplainable and involve terrible roleplays will never stop being hilarious to me. He's massively improved for World, as he now begins with the extremely powerful Team Work skill, which increases the stats of all units within his Group by 1 each per level to a maximum of 10, so even weak units can become quite powerful under a Leader with Team Work. His unit of choice, for now, is the Phoenix Zero, an original unit boasting above-average capabilities in all areas, and is capable of flight.    Ellis Claude and Ranalow Shade are more original characters; Ellis is geared towards ranged combat and evasion, while Ranalow is all about melee combat and defense. Ellis' Diligent skill causes her to gain 10% more EXP in combat, while Ranalow has Aggressive, which increases his unit's ATK stat by 2 and his own Reaction stat by 2; both of these will climb with level. The Tornado Gundams they use are found rather than made, and their technology is pretty baffling in the setting they actually came from, but here the plot is pretty thin on the ground so it's kind of irrelevant. You can basically treat them as worse Phoenix Zeroes; their main purpose is to evolve into various BASIC units, letting you spread out your technological base quickly.   Here's Timp in the buyable unit I thought most appropriate (I can't deploy her yet, but Kawaii Uguu will most likely get a GM). The Rookie skill that all My Character units begin with increases their unit's ATK and DEF by 1, which is not huge but is also fairly unignorable, being the equivalent of two unit levels; since the maximum stat is 100, even a 1-point increase is fairly significant. The way My Character units level up is totally random, so he and Kawaii Uguu could end up completely different or absolutely identical.   Here's our Captain and our starting warship, the Carry Base. I dipped into our starting funds slightly to buy a cheap XO for the ship to increase its performance. Zenon's personal skill, Competent, increases accuracy and decreases EN cost, which are great things to have on a warship. The Carry Base is not particularly great, as with all our starting units, and without devoting an Option Part slot, it can only carry one group. However, it does bring something important to the table: it can operate in both air and space, and by the time you get to warships that can do that and carry two groups, the cost rises exponentially. This means that it's going to be sticking with us for a long time.   Here's some SCIENCE! in progress. On the design menu, selecting two compatible units (or just clicking one lit unit and selecting "Des. All", which will show you if there's any new designs to be made) will add the resultant unit to your buy list. You still have to drop the dosh to buy it if you want one, but this is one of the easiest ways to get access to new units, since you just need the right two units on hand. Filling out your buy list will also increase your Collection%, which gives you a new pilot at every interval of 5%, starting at 10%. The first few are fairly garbage, but at 50% you get Asemu Asuno who is an amazing pilot, and the very top-end are game original characters like Code Phoenix, Code Amelias, and Aphrodia. In World you got Lu Bu at like 10% and putting him into a Tallgeese would transform it into the Lu Bu Tallgeese and so starting with Zechs would let you completely destroy the early game because otherwise it's a real pain to get a Tallgeese for him, but that's no longer the case here, sadly. Now then, to war!   Yes, the first stage of the game is the first episode of Gundam.    : I'm doing this, Chief! I can handle it! These guys are mine! : Gene! Fall back! It's too dangerous!: Commander Char rose up the ranks doing stuff like this!Gene advances on the Mobile Suit laying on a flatbed to the North... : Gene! You're disregarding our orders!: Found a white Mobile Suit, Chief! Heh heh! It's best to get rid of the enemy early on! He gives blowing up the Gundam a shot, but... : What!? That's absolutely impossible! The rifles are useless against it!: Gene, wait! Don't destroy it if it's not moving! We can capture it here!But then... Watch the video!: Chi, Chief Denim! The enemy Mobile Suit is moving!: No! Get out of there, Gene!: What are you saying? If we don't destroy it, they'll just make more! I don't care how thick its armor is... I'll defeat it!  When we get the opportunity to deploy, we plonk down over here. There's no real reason for it; there are two deployment points on each map, but this map is both vertical and symmetrical, so the side we deploy on is totally arbitrary and only chosen because the cursor begins there.  These are essentially our objectives. Every map will end if you defeat all red, yellow, and orange units on it (units that have surrendered are counted as defeated), but each map also has three waves, known as Generation Breaks; you start on wave 1, and by hitting the Break Triggers, you progress to the next break, which always means enemy reinforcements and may mean allied reinforcements as well (it usually does, in this game). Hitting the Challenge Mission will also progress to the next wave, but it will also cause a Secret miniboss to spawn, which I'll show off when it happens. Incidentally, in the original, the Challenge Missions were phrased as questions, rather than statements.   BONK! Time for Amuro to seal the deal. Watch the video!: U... uwaaah! *explodes* Slightly jumped the gun on the screenshot, but c'est la vie. An alarm goes off in Amuro's cockpit...    In hindsight I should have made a webm of that one, when the dragon thing's visor lights up it makes this awesome beedlyboop sound.  : Is that... a Zeon Mobile Suit...!?  : It's just like before... they're here to cause destruction again! They're simply monsters!: Monsters...!?METAL GEAR?? : Everyone will die at this rate! These enemies won't show any mercy... that's why we have to fight! Let's go, Gundam! We'll save everyone! So now the second wave has arrived, here are our objectives. Incidentally, if you're playing along, you might notice that my transcriptions sometimes don't match the TL exactly and that's largely because the TL sometimes louses things up for space reasons. And, because we hit the Challenge Mission...    Patrick "The Immortal" Colasour comes out to play, and summons two AEU Hellions to go with him by sending out the World Signal. Secret units give a lot of cash for shooting them down, but more importantly, if you shoot down the leader, the other units become capturable - in this case, getting Hellions wouldn't be a huge boon or anything, but it will be a big advantage in terms of cash and being able to create more designs. I move Flit south, past Amuro, because he needs to beat one of the dragonbots with his beam saber for the next secret. Amuro moves North to where Flit was and shoots at Patrick, because I'm setting up for the next Generation Break. The RX-78 Gundam's animations are really slick in this but you're gonna have to wait for Amuro to fight against for screenshots because it's basically impossible to make a reasonably-sized gif of them for some reason. Meanwhile, our actual fighting force moves South to engage the Zaku IIs.    Knock knock! The Zaku hits back for about 2000 damage, which is pretty meaningful since most of my units have about 10k HP at best.  The purple area around the Phoenix Zero is Mark's Area. Allied units within his Group get +1 to all three of their mech stats within it (because of his Team Work skill), and can also support attack and support defend with each other, so operating as small fireteams supporting each other is usually the best way to go.       Taking damage isn't Ellis' strong point, but that's what Ranalow is for. The Tornado Gundams have reinforced forearms which count as shields, so you can use him for defense support and make quite a go of it. Now then, time for Timp's glorious debut! It's high noon!Toasty. Now that Timp's turn has been refreshed by Chance Step, we get the opportunity to put together a support attack within the Leader Area, leading with Ranalow and having Timp support with his Zaku machine gun.      It's not quite the case yet, but soon we'll be able to reliably lock in kills like this, turning a small squad into a murderball that just rolls over things until everyone runs out of EN.  It's about this point that I realise that I forgot to actually equip the parts that you get for having an old save bonus from World and Portable. Incidentally, this attack also criticaled, so all of Timp's attacks so far have been criticals. Denim also explodes.  OK Timp, make me proud!   Now how did those words get there?  Damnit Timp!  ... the Gafran hit him back for like half his health too. Oh, you can support attack on the enemy phase in this game, too, so check this out. Anyway, on the enemy phase, only one of the Gafrans moves, and it wastes a shot trying and failing to hit Ranalow and getting pummelled by a teamup support attack instead. Then it's the Secret Phase, so Patrick moves down to engage Amuro, which is good and exactly what I wanted to happen, but I have Amuro defend the attack instead of shooting back and probably killing Patrick, because I'm setting up for something I shouldn't have any knowledge of yet. The Hellions also move but they're garbage so who cares.On my turn, Flit moves down and fires on the crippled Zaku II, with Ellis' support to ensure it gets killed off so that he can Chance Step. With that done, he moves up on the Zafran so he can engage it with his Beam Saber...   One day I'll get the hang of making gifs that are both not garbage in quality or huge in size using gooncam but today is not that day. Anyway, this beatdown leads to the next Generation Break...  ... and causes the colony to start shaking and explosions to go off. : An attack from outside!?: If this keeps up... the colony won't survive it! ZAFT spawn in south of the Gafrans.  : Athrun! Don't make us regret letting you tag along!    The Archangel arrives at the far North, above where Patrick spawned. This is why I've been setting him up but not killing him.  : EM interfere present! N-Jammer readings increased! X-303 Aegis detected! Engaging!    : Me!? : I outrank you, but I can't take command.: ... I understand. Go to Level 1 battle stations! What about your MA, Lieutenant?: It's under repair.: Then please run the CIC, Lt. la Flaga. The Archangel will focus on escaping the colony! Be careful to avoid damaging the colony during combat! : Launch the Strike!   : The Sword Striker... a sword, huh?  : That unit... (Kira...!? Is that really you!?) That was a lot of  and there's still some more to come, but now that we're on the last Generation Break, the next step is to beat Athrun with Kira within four turns in order to trigger OVER Impact, turning our guest allies against us. However, since Kira is attached to the Archangel, if you shoot it down, his Strike Gundam can be captured, which is a huge power boost at this point in the game. Every stage has something like this, which is part of what makes OVERWorld a very easy game; you just get a new Gundam every stage, basically.   The secret this time is the glorious Mashmyre Cello from ZZ Gundam.  He summons a couple of Gaza-Cs to back him up, and I'm finally back in control of the game again. First things first, Kira moves down and engages Patrick, covered by the Archangel and Amuro.    As a result of this, the backup he called suffers a Freeze Down, becoming inacapacitated (with a white flag emblem). Incapacitated units won't move or attack, aren't counted towards enemies that are keeping the stage going, and you can move through them; they can also be captured if your capital ship moves close enough. Captured enemies go into some kind of hyperspace pocket shared by all capships (unlike in World where each ship had a limited capacity which was THE WORST).  Next, I move the Archangel as far South as possible, and now that it's on terrain that the Strike can handle, I actually move Kira back up and have him re-dock with the ship. Although this seems contrary to purposes, the reason I'm doing this is because you can change the Strike's packs while it's in a ship, and I intend to put it in the Aile so it has a prayer of reaching Athrun within four turns. Also, the Archangel can move, and then Kira can move his full distance from it, which is further than he'd get if he just moved on both turns. Athrun will in fact move if given the chance, so this turn, instead of charging into the ZAFT forces, I move Amuro and Garrod down so they're approaching being in the melee, and scoot Carry Base up so that Mark's group can dock with it to quickly refresh their HP and EN (Timp is completely out of ammo after that one turn), while I send Flit west to try and draw Athrun up and across. Killing Vagans is just icing on the cake for him!  Nothing important happens on the enemy phase - there's only one exchange of fire (one of the Gafrans shoots at Carry Base, which misses when it shoots back). The Archangel moves down, capturing the two Hellions, as they're now in its Area, and deploying Kira as far south as the Aile Strike can take him.  It's a pretty fair distance, and he'll be able to engage Athrun next turn.  This is me using one of Garrod's spells to max out his MP and immediately enter Critical Tension, because I just realised that if I get him to Super Critical by feeding him a kill he can probably one-shot Mashmyre and stop this from becoming a really messy scrum.  Since I'm seriously worried about that happening, instead of moving the Carry Base, or having it shoot, I instead use its Disperse ability to scatter Minovsky Particles, giving allies Evasion+10% for one turn if they're in the area (against ranged weapons only). Irritatingly the description given on the map is that it reduces the accuracy of enemies which is the literal opposite of what it does.    Marky Mark engages the western Gafrans so that it's weak enough for Garrod to butcher, and also so that I can take screencaps of its awesome animations considering that it's a mook mech. The rest of the Funky Bunch are hanging back for now, since if I overcommit my currently-crap characters things are going to become very bad very quickly.    This did like 5000 damage off the crit, so it got blown up, and as a result, Garrod goes EVEN FURTHER BEYOND   Now then, time to gently caress up Mashmyre. Realistically, though, I'm a wimp, so I have Ranalow come out and soften him up a bit more first.       YOU HAD ONE JOB. Okay Ellis, get in there and fix it.    Are you loving kidding me!? OK Timp, don't gently caress it up like the other two did. I believe in you.    The hit-rate on all of these attempts was greater than 75%. MASHMYYYYYYYYRE! FROM THE END OF THE PLAYER PHASE I STRIKE AT THEE! I'll just have to swing with Garrod and hope he's gonna be strong enough to deal enough damage. Watch the video!  With Mashmyre out of the way, the Gazas Freeze Down, which means the only enemies left in this wave are one Gafran and the ZAFT crew.  Instead of just engaging, I have Garrod move as far NE as he can, so that he can engage the remaining Gafran but not be in range of Athrun's weapons, to try and make Athrun move closer.    Super Criticals do a lot of damage. Unfortunately not enough to OHKO this Gafran, so Garrod took about 1/3 of his HP in damage in return. On the enemy phase, ZAFT finally starts moving from its left side; their first GiNN targets Timp, so I have Ranalow defend and shoot back with Timp and Mark.   When an allied unit falls below about half health, this happens. For less than a quarter, there's also a DANGER alarm, but that doesn't have any dialogue attached to it.  Miguel is a prick and goes after Ranalow, so I have Ellis defend him and shoot back with Timp and Ranalow.   Even defending with a shield, Ellis is really not tanky.     So close...  Our team isn't doing so well, though. At this point, though, Athrun chooses to move up and to the center so that he can attack Mark, putting him in Kira's sights for next turn. Of course, I have to get there first.  Thankfully, he misses Mark...   ... and the combined fire of the Phoenix Zero and both Tornadoes takes a big chunk out of his health. On my turn, before anything else, I have the Archangel move down. This is so that I can take advantage of it being a target as soon as OVER Impact begins, which will be on my turn, if all goes well, letting me make a premptive strike and immediately removing both it and Kira from the equation. Then, I move Kira to engage Athrun... Watch the video!: Urgh...! Kira...!Athrun retreats, and as a result, Garrod levelled up! Well, his Gundam X (BASIC) did anyway.  You get three points to distribute, which go into those little grey boxes. Fill them out and that stat goes up by 1; as you level up a unit, it begins to earn more points per level up, but it also requires more points for each stat (based on how many times you've levelled up that stat). Technically, there's no reason you couldn't have a 100-stats mech, but the grind required is prohibitive; a unit with better base stats will quickly outstrip a unit with a high level but poor base stats. I dump this level into Defense, since I need the Gundam X (BASIC) to actually survive long enough to evolve into a real mech. Now then, we've met the challenge condition, and so...      First order of business is to sink the Archangel. Oh, by the way, when you go into OVER Impact, all your former allies get complete refills on HP and EN, so while you can't cheese it that way, you can intentionally move them to a bad position in preparation for their sudden yet inevitable betrayal. Unfortunately I neglected to do that so things are now a complete clusterfuck. Rather than deal with it, I retreat everyone to the Carry Base and have it move to the Archangel's flank, in preparation for an attack next turn - Carry Base just needs to survive, but that's pretty easy for it to do. Amuro you're in exactly the wrong place. Because he's moved there, I can't turn the Carry Base on my turn (in that direction), which will make it harder to take on the Archangel.  The Archangel doesn't have specific OVER Impact dialogye. Isn't it sad, Murrue? On my turn, since I can't turn to shoot at the Archangel, I turn to face the enemy force and Disperse again to give my guys some cover. Now here's the pain in the rear end part: the Archangel has Laminate Armor, which reduces incoming beam damage by 30%, and the vast majority of my forces (except Timp) use beam weapons. Garrod also needs to kill the Archangel so that he can get a chance step with which to cast Free Capture.  Most warships have one or more panels, usually representing the bridge; an attack that targets that specific point is called a Pinpoint Attack, and does shitloads more damage than regular attacks against warships. In this case, even though the Laminate Armor, Mark still hit the Archangel for nearly 8000 damage. Pinpoint attacks can critical, too, and yes, this is as dumb as it sounds.  After a round of Pinpoint attacks from Mark's squad, the Archangel is down to a mere 710 HP, easy picking for Garrod, even with his weaker Beam Rifle. Most Pinpoint panels won't be in range of melee attacks.    : The engine was hit! We're losing thrust and altitude!: Looks like... it's too dangerous!The Archangel pulls out, and the Gundam X BASIC levels up again, so I dump it into ATK, giving it a balanced 20/20/20 lineup.  This is Garrod casting Free Capture. Free Capture instantly captures every single capturable unit on the map. Since Carry Base moves slightly slower than a paraplegic going up stairs, Free Capture makes it actually possible to play the game and not have to take ten turns to slog across the map to each capturable unit, and in some instances, capturable units can end up in places where it isn't actually possible to reach with a warship. At this point, the only enemies left are two GiNNs and Miguel, plus Amuro and Flit. Since engaging Amuro and Flit one-on-one is likely to be fatal, I move Garrod down and have him attack Miguel, being careful to keep him in Carry Base's Minovsky Particle range.   And then Miguel exploded. Something that I didn't notice until just now is that Miguel has no cut-in for being shot down and has no voice during battles. I'm not even sure he's a playable character, which would explain why. Sucks to be you, Miguel! Although it was Miguel in this scene it's kind of weird that they didn't do something for this game like replace him with Olar, since Olar is an actual ZAFT ace (his title is "Magic Bullet of Dusk" which is awesome).  This time, Garrod himself levelled up! The increased stats are just as you see them, and that's all you get on levels-up in this game, although at every ten levels, you can access the next tier of skills in the pilot training menu.     "Help how do I sword? I would ask my friends but they are all dead!"On the enemy phase, everyone and their dog tries to take out my warship. Except Flit, who tries to kill Garrod.  Come on, Zenon, don't screw this up for me.   Ouch. When it rolls back around to my turn, the Carry Base disperses again, since it's basically gridlocked at this point and anything I can do to keep my guys alive is a good thing to do. First, Mark's Group dogpiles on Amuro...    : Urgh... is this all I can do!? Timp's ride levelled as a result, and I dumped the points into EN, increasing his maximum by 2, because I'd like to be able to shoot with him more than, like, twice.    Ellis blows away the last Gafran, which means the murderball is now on - all four members of Mark's group are still active, due to Chance Steps, letting them advance into the fray while continuing to cover one another. Timp moves down and fires on the Gundam AGE...       Ow. Flit's AGE-1 is a seriously powerful unit, and the Zaku II is not known for the quality of its armor, so... ow. Mark moves down... time to see what he can do!  : I lost...!? You gotta be kidding me! And the Phoenix Zero levelled!  I dump the points in its ATK. It doesn't care so much about its defense, since it's a high-mobility attack unit. The last GiNN is out of range, so I form my units up like so. This puts them all within the Carry Base's Area and thus Minovsky Particle dispersion range, and it means Mark's Group is within both his and Garrod's Areas, as well as forming a buffer between the GiNN and the Carry Base. Annoyingly, the GiNN attacks Garrod, meaning that I can't win this turn because Masters can't be supported on the enemy turn. When it loops back around to my turn, Timp leads the charge and dogpils the GiNN, along with the two Tornado Gundams.   Your clear bonus is based on the tier of the mission, while the score bonus is the score you racked up during the mission for successive kills, shooting down bosses, getting overkills, and so on.  Now we have a new option part because we cleared a stage. This one increases the pilot EXP gained by the pilot of the equipped unit.  The pilots who scored highest get bonus ace points. Your Masters will probably always be the top of this list if you play like I do, but that's fine. There's a sneaky trick you can do on this stage to cause all your units to tie for first and second place so that everyone gets a crapload of ace points which I might use to show some stuff off without doing massive amounts of grinding (it takes like a minute to do and nets you almost no EXP, just ace points). Now then, time for some SCIENCE! Here's our spoils from the map. I keep one of each thing for design purposes and sell the rest, so we throw out a Hellion and a Gaza-C for 14650 spacebucks.  Accessing the Design menu now lets us add these to our list. Char's Zaku II is normally made by having a regular Zaku II and putting OYW Char as the pilot, but it's also possible to do by having a Zaku II and a unit of the right color (in this case, the Gaza-C).  Whilst I have no intention of doing this just right now, this is the Exchange menu. If you have a unit of level 2 or higher, you can select one of four units and swap your unit and pay a sum in order to gain that unit, so in this instance, I could swap out Timp's Zaku II and pay 15740 capital to acquire a Walking Dumpling. The units that are available are based on two major factors: the power of the unit (based on which unit it is, what level it is, and what option parts are equipped on it), and the category of the unit (inherent to each unit, but can be modified with certain Option Parts; equipping a unit with BigZamium will cause the exchange menu to only offer Mobile Armors, for example). Next time, we'll tune up our group a little bit, actually remember to equip our option parts, and play my least favorite map in the A tier. Look forward to it.
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Mar 3, 2017 08:08
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Ace of Aces posted:Next time, we'll tune up our group a little bit, actually remember to equip our option parts, and play my least favorite map in the A tier. Yeah, A2 is a royal pain in the rear end if only because it's waaaay too big for what goes on during it. Anyway, on the note of capturing things: If you're an idiot like me you might have picked up a Master Unit that doesn't have Free Capture as an ability. Maybe your fanboyism got the better of you. Maybe you just really really wanted that shiny Gundam they had or whatever, but the point is that you don't have Free Capture. The good news is while Aces is mostly right in how much of a pain it is to capture units by hand you can make your life a lot easier by being smart and letting the Secret units get closer to you of their own accord. From there, you just kill the leader unit and scoop up the mooks that have parked themselves right next to your Land Carrier (or whatever ship you inevitably trade it out for). Similar tactics work fine for those shiny Gundams that the game throws at you when Over Impact hits.
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Mar 3, 2017 14:51
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I can see why you started with Free Capture now, that's a really drat good skill. I wish I knew it existed when I played, but now I know for successive plays. I remember I did do everything here though when I played it, because I kept the Strike on my team. It may make the game easy, but considering how bad the beginning units are, I can't complain about a free Gundam.
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Mar 3, 2017 16:46
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Dr. Snark posted:Yeah, A2 is a royal pain in the rear end if only because it's waaaay too big for what goes on during it. Counterpoint: A5. A2 may have oversize woes but at least from an RNG/time limit/placement standpoint they're more balanced than the Imminent OHKO On A Master threat on A5 Break 2. Bonus side content forthcoming; I just need to get some errands done and do the materials photog.
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Mar 3, 2017 18:13
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The thing I love about SRW-style crossover games is when a half-dozen characters from different games/series crash into each other and all say some variety of the line 'what the gently caress is this poo poo'. That and when enemy reinforcements get followed by allied reinforcements, followed by enemy reinforcements, followed by allied reinforcements, followed by...
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Mar 3, 2017 18:56
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