Part 16.3: Progress? Whats that?Again, massive apologies on the delay.
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I spread around upgrades as ordered, focusing on HP, Energy, Armor and Weapons for the super robots. Most of them are untouched until now, except Mazinkaiser who's inherited all of Mazingers upgrades.
They also need parts, so I steal liberally from Kira for equipment. Also I use what else is in the repetiore on the other new Supers.
Also important to spend all those Pilot Points they've gotten from showing up above level 1.
"You big meanie! How dare you call for backup just because I brought 50 guys!"
Meanwhile, we find yet another mysterious council of mysteriousness, this time holding their council meeting in the woods:
"Thats not true! Thats impossible!"
Steve had not read the Mysterious Council of Mysteriousness's How-To Guide.
Anyone now have the mental image of a Volkswagen truck speeding to save our heroes?
Despite Domon and the Brain Powerd pilots being mentioned specifically, this level has no requirement to keep anyone but the ships alive.
First order of business is to get Domon and Kira to dry land: Domon because his rank in air sucks and he needs to be on the ground, and kira because without all those parts, he's kinda not able to travel with the others thanks to the water.
We send everyone else south, including Boss. The Boss Borot is weak and without the Flight Unit I gave it it'd be almost unable to move or attack here, but once its airborne the sheer utility of having 3 pilots makes it useful for support duties.
Meanwhile we get back to the original group and continue their fight against the remaining Reclaimers.
Nangas girlfriend is useful for counterattacks, because you can't use teamup attacks like Chakra Extension on the enemy turn.
Calvinas firepower is a bit good for this stage of the game, even her standard missile launcher is sufficient once her will is up.
Turn 2, and we get Domon on the dirt where he belongs.
And Zeorymer, now that I think about it. It raises the issue of how he'll get across the river, but thats less of an issue for him: At 130 will, Zeorymer, and the Brains, can teleport, ignoring terrain and any enemies in the way. Which is very handy.
Blue Earth's cannons are rarely that good, but they're usually enough to finish off weakened enemies....unless they have barriers.
We instead have to have our strongest unit finish this one off.We then move in Mazinkaiser, which is able to attack at unusually long range. This appears to be due to a bug that it 'suffers' from: Because Mazinger Z can equip 2 part but Kaiser only one, it was forced to drop the HE Radar it had in the second slot, allowing us to give it to Boss. However, it still gets the benefit of it.
In any case, the effect is that
both of our Mazingers can show off their rocket punches this turn.
The Brains and Calvina continue their own rampage. Soon, we're out of standard Reclaimers. On to the two bosses.
They have annoyingly high accuracy and evasion, but nothing a few spirits cant handle.
But now its the enemy turn again and
Shiela goes for someone who isn't prepared for her.
Johnathan, on the other hand, is still roleplaying.
Back to our turn and
our first move is fairly simple to make.
Hime, being quite awesome, is able to take off 2/3 of Jonathans health in one go.
However, the others take quite a bit of time to deal the finishing blow.
I'm not sure if this actually comes up again. I'm going to assume he gets, like, a tiny scar on his pinkie and then rages about it through the series (but not in this game thankfully). At least Yzak has an excuse, he's actually been disfigured by Kira.
And then something explodes on the Archangel.
And another explosion.
Once again, the terrible graphics of the game fail to portray this properly, but Master Asia, a man wearing a purple shirt and black pants and little else, is on top of a flying ship and kicking off the gun turrets one by one.
Master Asia can balance on a 6 foot length of ribbon with no problem. Little things like being upside down don't phase him.
One of the few times Yurika should react like she always does.
You know, given this is a universe where G Gundam is canon, it shouldn't be that wierd to find out that theres, like, one or two guys in every country who are badass enough to take on mechs barehanded.
Ok, in case you missed it again: Asia just did a flying kick from the Archangel to the Nadesico, across a major japanese river, and it actually affected the ship, Distortion Field and all. Thankfully theres no plot damage this time, but still, something broke.
If this were Star Trek someones console would have dramatically exploded by now.
Domon makes the grab, but Asia jumps away.
And predictably, a bunch of units spawn in, including some new faces.
We're understandably a little lost here, as the game has barely hinted at who these guys are, and indeed, they haven't had a place in the narrative until now. Much like how the Shining Gundam doesn't make much sense when all Gundams are products of Morgenroete and the Federation, these Gundam Fighters, champions of their nations who were Domons friendly rivals, don't have much place in this universe of Federations and Coordinators. But despite this they're still some of the best characters in the game, so I forgive them.
Oh, and quick rundown for people who don't know the series: Chibodee is Rocky with YuGiOh hair, George is a frenchman with ideas of chivalry and being fabulous, Sai Saici is a shaolin monk with attitude, and Argo is a Russian Space Pirate who's built like a brick shithouse.
George shoots at his butler, who's piloting what is essentially an oversized fencing dummy.
About the only thing Raymonds mech is good at is running, and he legs it across the river to safety.
Stop asking such silly questions Calvina! As long as we have Heart, things will always work out!
It becomes harder and harder to justify the Nadesico crews behaviour as anything but that of an RPG party.
Its kinda worrying that Yuu's baby robot is a better hero than he is.
In order to get our units across the river quickly, I load the ones who haven't moved yet this turn onto the Nadesico, which will leave them off next turn. Zeorymer will get left behind, but as I said, it can move well enough as is, and Miku has Accel and not much else to use her Spirit Points on.
Calvina charges in shooting, because why not, its worked before.
We haven't had the Nadesico be awesome for a while. So here it is again.
Several of the zombies go for Calvina, with predictable results.
The survivors have then lined up for a map attack, which I let Calvina have because its a function we don't use often enough IMO.
In other news,
Boss makes his debut in the Boss Borot.
Its handy that someone like Blade has the Wall spirit so he can no-sell attacks like that infamous nuke he tanked in his own series. But this serves as a demonstration that he isn't unhittable yet. Which, again, could be a good or bad thing, depending.
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