Okay! I've held you guys up long enough so let's cut to the chase shall we?
So here we have the Original for this game. His name is Mist, apparently, and his machine is the Levirias. Or the Revilius. I never know which and I can't read moon runes, so yeah.
This is the favorite series list; you might recognise it if you've played Super Robot Wars W. The upgrades have no real significance in the short run as you likely won't make enough money to take advantage of it on more than a few units. On the other hand, robots from your favorite series' gain more money from defeating enemies, which is very useful. For this playthrough, I picked Godannar, Gaiking and Jeeg since no matter what happens, you will always have scenarios where you use them.
So, if I'm not mistaken, Mist regains consciousness at Dannar Base. Words ensue.
It is a period of civil war.
Mimetic Beasts, striking
from a hidden base, have won
their first victory against
the evil Dannar Base.
*THIS LP WAS REMOVED DUE TO A COPYRIGHT CLAIM BY LUCASFILM LTD.*
2 months later...
Or is it 2 years? I'm not sure. Anyway, Mist works at Dannar base for food now.
Wait, Sayaka? I didn't know she was at Goh's wedding. I also kinda wonder why Mist is here, unless he became close friends with Goh and Anna in two months. I like to think he's an usher.
You guys know the rest, presumably. Goh and Anna are about to get married, a Mimetic Beast attacks and Go leaves Anna at the altar. I find it funny that he has a video screen built into his glasses.
Stage One: Wedding Bells Chime in the Battlefield
GameFAQs told me so.
Boss Borot and G-Gunner are already on the scene.
As usual, Boss is a bit of a failure. But we forgive him.
During this first part of the game, the most important pilot you have is Shizuru, because of her Alert Spirit Command (highlighted). Alert allows the pilot to automatically evade the next attack against them. (Note: The effects of Spirit Commands will be explained for people who have never played a SRW game before)
Unfortunately, the G-Gunner's main strength is its long range weaponry so Tetsuya attempts to retreat to higher ground. The G-Gunner still gets blown away and Shizuru takes over in the Core Gunner.
Goh shows up just in time and the Core Gunner retreats with a not-quite-dead Tetsuya in tow. Unfortunately, he seems to be a bit of a failure too... Fortunately Anna and the Neo Okusaer arrive in time to back him up.
In spite of its frail appearance, the Neo Okusaer can take a few hits. To finish the mission as quickly as possible, let her counterattack the Mimetic Beast; her Angel Wall will negate a bit of the damage. If things get really pear-shaped, Anna also has Alert so don't hesitate to have her attack enemies for now.
Allow me to introduce the second Kouji of this game (they can get a little confusing at times), Kouji Kabuto of Mazinger Z fame. Don't get him confused with Tetsuya Kouji who pilots the G-Gunner.
Take note of his Spirit Commands, Strike (to the left) and Invulnerability (highlighted). Many pilots have these Spirits and they're quite useful in combination; Strike gives you guaranteed hits for your turn and the enemy's, and Invulnerability cuts damage from the next attack down to 10. Especially useful later in the game where enemies start to do enough damage to threaten even Super Robots with their thick armour.
Also, one thing to note about Mazinger Z - it is very, very spendy on energy.
Here we have the Diana A. Now I don't particularly like or dislike Mazinger Z but Sayaka has the all-important Bless spirit, which doubles the money you get from any battle. Since the Mimetic Beast is a rather strong enemy, you can make a killing. I'll be using the Diana A as often as I can, even if her ability to kill anything tails off later on in the game.
After you kill the big guy, several lesser Mimetic Beasts turn up. Because Anna was closest to the water, they went for her but once again, the Neo Okusaer's Angel Wall proves itself. After that, you can just mop them up.
Now you may have been wondering where Mist was hiding this whole time. Well, now you know. Turns out, the Levirias was being hidden near Dannar Base, or something. No, Mist can't actually attack three enemies at once. Yet.
So the rest of the level is just cleanup. Don't have Godannar and Neo Okusaer go into the water because they aren't built for underwater combat; have them defend from the shoreline while Mist and Kouji (Kabuto) mop up any of them too stubborn to advance. Well, here we are, with one last enemy to go. Just need to use Mist's strongest attack to finish it off and...
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. This is a regular fixture in my playthroughs, at least in the early levels. I count on Mist to finish off something and he fails. Which is actually quite fitting given his backstory. Yeah, Mist's backstory is full of failure. So in the end it's up to Mazinger.
Hey! It got back up, ohshi- Well, as you can see, Mist generally tends to fail quite hard. But he never really dies so you have to give him credit for his tenacity. You'll be seeing situations like this a lot.
Hell yeah Godannar Twin Drive!
This is the post-battle menu. From here you can tune up your mechs, upgrade your pilots, equip special parts and other such things. The top screen shows your three top aces and each one gets a +5 morale boost, which is important later on. For now it's enough to know that it's good Goh has a top ace bonus.
Partnering up is the gimmick of Super Robot Wars K, kinda like the squad system from Z except with two people instead of three. When two units are partnered up they can support each other by attacking and taking blows for their partners, and they each share in the experience gained. They're always in a position to use combination attacks and to combine (you saw Godannar and Neo Okusaer combine during the stage itself. That option will always be available now once Goh and Anna have accumulated enough Will.) and if one of the partners is a repairer/reloader, they will each regenerate their HP (or Energy) slowly.
Here we have the mech upgrade screen. Robot stats are divided into 6 categories: HP, EN, Accuracy, Evasion, Armour, and Weapon Power. You'll hear a lot of talk about Real Robots and Super Robots among SRW fans, the basic difference is that Real Robots tend to have higher Accuracy and Evasion, and more ranged attacks while Super Robots tend to have higher Health and Armour, and more melee attacks. Of course this isn't always true and the majority of the robots in this game are Supers, despite the fact that some of them are insanely agile. Anyway, we'll want Godannar to have as much Weapon power as it can handle, and we can use the rest of the money to give Mazinger a little extra energy.
As a general rule of thumb, the most expensive upgrades are always weapons while HP and EN tend to be quite cheap.
Pilot upgrades are just as important as those for mechs. Basically enemies will drop items that can be used to give the pilots certain skills or stat increase - I got those two from killing the large Mimetic Beast earlier, the Type 12 (for those who have seen Godannar before). The first one is In-fight, which I will give to Goh. The second one is Gunfight and goes to Shizuru since the Core Gunner specialises in ranged attacks. These skills increase the power of your melee and ranged weapons, respectively.
Okay, so we got quite a lot of the basics out of the way today. Movement and combat, spirit commands, and the intermission screen. Oh, and we've set the scene now, which is also good. Next time, we'll be tackling some invaders from another world. It might get a little difficult to understand
because I haven't yet watched the anime so I'll be calling in some additional support.
Xan! Your presence is required. Get your ass up here.Until next time.
