Great start!
Are the differences from the male character and female character different in a huge way or just certain parts? Just wondering.
As far i know, the only differences are in the skill sets(which can actually be customized from the second playthrough onwards, so it doesn't really matter), some battle dialog, parts of the story (including the entire first chapter) and the ending.
So, it seems i have regained my composure. Akito overhears the conversation, and he remembers that he watched Gekiganger 3 when he grew up in Mars. Gai then proceeds to call Uribatake (the mechanic) professor, and Uribatake is baffled by all of it.
Gai, being GAI DAIGOJI, THE GREAT HERO, has an appropriate response.
But then, Uribatake commits the greatest sin in history of humanity...
He refers to Gai as... Jiro Yamada.
Gai corrects him with haste.
Damn right you are. So, Akito takes the time to ask Uribatake what exactly are the "Jupiterians" gives helpful exposition about the identity of the Jovian Lizards, explaining that nobody's ever actually seen them, since they only send unmanned units.
And then Uribatake remembers that they haven't been introduced yet. They introduce each other and then...
I am fangirling so hard right now, and i'm a guy. The bridge personnel overhear the absolute mess going on in the hangar, and wonder if they're okay. Uribatake arrives and explains what just happened. Apparently, the GAI SUPER UPPER was so manly, his left leg couldn't take the SHEER MANLINESS of that attack. As he is being taken into the medbay, he entrusts Akito with a great task; To get his greatest treasure, which he left inside the aestivalis. Akito and Ruri are baffled by the fact he called his Gekiganger 3 Official Completely Articulated High Quality Action Figure a treasure, because they aren't MANLY enough to understand. Then the prospector introduces our team to Admiral Fukube, who will be one of the combat advisors for the Nadesico (the other one is us
And then our captain arrives. Ruri has her usual response.
Suddenly, alarms! Also, Jovians! Oh no! They need time to get the ship in a favorable position to be able to wipe out the Jovian unmanned weapons! GAI DAIGOJI, GREAT HERO cannot fight due to his alarming state. We need a decoy! But who could fill that position? Suddenly, Ruri informs us that a decoy has already launched! It seems Akito got stuck there while trying to recover Gai's great treasure, and he acidentally launched the aesti!
Gai is outraged! Yurika finally remembers who Akito is, and asks why did he pretend to not know her before. Then she says he's as shy as ever. Akito is more confused as to why she's on the bridge of the ship. He is then informed that she is the captain.
Pictured: An appropriate response. Akito is then informed that he is going to be a decoy. He kind of panics, but our character tries to give him advice on what to do. Then we are FINALLY shown the battle map. If i were you, by the way, i'd start listening to the Gekiganger 3 Opening theme (yes, they did bother to give a giant robot show within a giant robot show a theme song, and it is glorious.)
This would be a great time to show off the fights... or the greatest moment for a tutorial!
so, the blue icons on the map are our allies (as i helpfully indicated with the perfectly drawn blue circle) and the red ones are the enemies (also helpfully indicated by me utilizing yet another perfectly drawn circumference). The bar with "HP" next to it indicates... well, our HP. On the right we have written "Aestivalis OGF Akito" and below it "Akito Lvl 1". The first line tells us our mecha's name, and the one below it indicates our pilot's name and his or hers level. Now, you see that green bar marked "EN"? That's our energy. You see, attacks in this game can either have ammo or cost EN, though some don't cost either, and i think there are some that cost both. EN is also used up by flying, so when your EN is low and you want to move fast, just land.
So, these are Akito's stats. They're pretty good, but he's severely outclassed by other units when alone. When paired with Gai, however, they're absolutely unstoppable. More on that later. Most of these stats are self explanatory, with the exception of ability and will. Ability determines the chance of landing a crit, and the chances of doing some other cool stuff that you will see later into the game. Now, about will. It's kind of hard to explain all it does, but i'll try. Basically, your will is your determination, your fighting spirit and all that. The higher your will, the higher your chances of hitting, dodging and all that. Also, some attacks have will requirements. Above Akito's stats, are his mech's stats. You can see the terrain bonuses. What are terrain bonuses? basiccally, how well does your robot fare in these terrains. A means Air, G means ground, W means Water and S means Space (no, mars and the moon do not count as space), besides those are the actual ranking: The order goes S>A>B>C. This time around, we're stuck having to use Akito's mech in a terrain he's "B" at, which means mediocre. Then you'll ask: "But wouldn't that make Akito not worth using outside of space and water?" actually, it doesn't. More on that later. (you sure must be tired of hearing that phrase by now)
This is the weapon screen. highlighting a weapon will show you it's requirements and the terrain bonuses(weapons happen to have terrain bonuses of their own), and if you press select, you can see even more details. As you can see, Akito's Gekigan Flare has a C rank in the air, and that's terrible. Luckily, these enemies can't fly, and even if WE're in the air, if the enemy is in the ground, the game utilizes our ground rank. Otherwise, this mission would be the most annoying thing ever. Also, you see that little "P" next to all of his weapons? It means "Post Movement" which means you can use it after moving. I'll explain that little green "C" over there later.
and now, the spirit menu. Spirits are basically neat little effects you can activate. For now, the only one we have is focus, which raises your hit rate by 30% and your evasion rate by 30%. It's really useful. So, first thing you should do in this stage is land Akito, and move him over here:
then you'll ask me why. It's simple. You see, this place called "Lunar City" gives me a bonus of 30% in evasion, defense, and heals my HP and EN by 20% every turn. Why land Akito? Simple. He can't benefit from those bonuses if he's flying. Also, that particular spot is great, because the enemy's most powerfull attack has 6 tiles of range, while our attack with the greatest range has 4 range, meaning that if they attack us, we won't be able to retaliate. If you stay in the lunar city, they'll have to move to you to attack you, and their only post movement attack is their weakest attack. And guess what? It has exactly 4 range. So you move Akito there, select wait (which ends Akito's turn), move your cursor to a tile where there aren't any units and select end phase. The enemy will move torwards you and attack.
This is the battle menu. On the left are his chances of hitting me, on the right are my chances of hitting him. I really should have used focus, because 49 % is a damn scary chance of hitting, and i don't like the idea of getting hit this early on.
Akito is really tired of these guys.
It's hard to capture it properly, but the combined efforts of the tile bonus and Akito's distortion field (which comes with all Aestivalis) nullified the damage and outright deflected the bullets, which is a pretty cool effect.
Akito countered, and left the Batta in the red, by scoring a crit. Later on, the other Battas started closing in on Akito, but none of them actually managed to land an attack.
With all of them close like this, it'll be hard to maneuver my way around to be able to hit them all within counter range. Will i be able to do it? Find out next time, because it's 1 AM where i live and i'm too sleepy for tactics.
EDIT: There we go, i'm ready for action! Let's go passion! LET'S GO GEKIGANGER 3! Now, we're in a sticky situation here. While they are closer, meaning that i'll be able to counter them all if i go...
... Right here. However, that also means i'll have to move out of my beloved Lunar City tile, and even though i'll be able to counter them all, they also won't have to move, meaning they can use their most powerful attack. Then again, the only difference between the two attacks is 200 base damage, so maybe i shouldn't worry so much about that.
what i
should worry about, however, is this hit chance they have. And yes, i already used focus. Anyway, Akito attacked the Batta and dealt quite some damage. Not enough to bring it down, but still. The Batta counters, but Akito dodges.
Gai is being a little harsh in his judgement.
Our character has the audacity to disagree with our lord and savior, Gai. Then the crew starts spouting some technobabble about the nadesico taking off.
Akito manages to dodge another set of missiles, and dodges most of them, but...
He gets hit a few times.
But he does manage to bring that one down with his counter.
He still needs work in the self esteem aspect though. He gets hit again, but he brings the one that hit him down, and he gets a Propellant Tank out of the deal! Propellant Tanks are usable items that restore your EN completely when used. Also, they don't use up a turn, so use them as much as you want to! However, we can't use items unless we assign them to a character in the intermission screen, so we can't use it yet. More on the intermission screen later (no, i'm not gonna stop using this phrase). Another Batta attacks, and Akito dodges, thankfully. He manages to dodge the rest of the missiles this turn. And then, something really cool happened.
But i forgot to explain one thing before. You see that little icon called "Action:L"? That's where you decide whether you'll be focusing on dodging, on defending, or if you'll just counter. If you select evade, your evading chance raises. if you select defense, the enemy's attack is weakened. However, you can only select your action if the enemy's attacking you on their turn. Anyway, the cool thing. There were actually 2 cool things. The first was...
The "Shoot Down" skill. Remember what i said about the "other cool things" that were triggered by the Ability stat? Yeah. this is one of them. Basically, your character pulls out their gun and shoots the enemy projectiles out of the sky. It only works agaisnt certain ammo based attacks, but it's pretty cool nevertheless. What could be more awesome than shooting missiles out of the sky?
THE GEKIGAN FLARE, THAT'S WHAT
THIS IS THE EXACT MOMENT AKITO BECAME A MAN
Anyways, as useful and devastating as it is, the gekigan flare isn't really useful in this stage, because of the aestivalis' lack of EN. You see, the aestis lose 5 EN per turn automatically when they're not in a certain range from the Nadesico. Since the Nadesico isn't here yet, our only way of recovering EN is through the Lunar City tile.
Thanfully, if we move here, we'll be safe and be able to destroy at least one of them, and also get defense, dodge rates AND heals for both HP and EN! Akito gets hit once for pitiable damage, and shoots down some more missiles, even if we could only destroy one.
and now, one of the main staples of the series:
At least one wave of enemy reinforcements per mission.
It seems Akito has never played any SRW games. Megumi gets worried, but our character says he's been doing just fine up until now for a cook.
It seems Gai has forgiven Akito for stealing his Gekiganger, and decides to cheer him up.
Suddenly, i hate our character. Suddenly, it seems that WE've got reinforcements! And from the Nanbara Connection!
Gai is all too familiar with what this means!
It's the Combattler V(read as vee)!
I highly suggest you listen to this
Juzo
clearly doesn't have time for this.
Oh hey, it's Noal and Aki from Tekkaman Blade, on the Blue Earth!
It seems Noal isn't quite in the mood for this either.
Also, it seems he's a pessimist too. So, the Blue Earth crew introduce themselves to the Combattler crew, and then they all introduce themselves to Akito.
Damn right we are.
Now would be a good time to explain the difference between the Super Robots and the Real Robots. Basically, Real Robots are the squishies, and while they don't really deal as much damage as the supers, they're generally dodgier and harder to hit, and since they are normally mass produced(unlike the Supers, which are normally unique), there tends to be many pilots from that same series, thus giving them more friendship bonuses(More on friendship bonuses later), while the Supers are generally tankier and hit harder, but have hit ratio problems when fighting smaller robots, and can't dodge really well. Support units normally can either Repair other units (restoring their health), Resupply (Heal their EN and reloading all their ammo) or both. All the robots in this game can be divided between Supers, Reals, and Supports. The Aestis are Reals, the Combattler is a Super and the Blue Earth is a Support. In fact, the Blue Earth is the best support unit in the whole game, due to the fact that it's extremely hard to hit, has both repair and resupply, and is available for most of the game. There is one that is generally better than it, but it is available so late into the game, it's not even worth it.
The Combattler did some heavy damage, leaving the Batta in the red. The Batta's counter dealt about 1000 of damage, wich would be terrible for an Aesti, but the Combattler shrugs it off like it's nothing. The Blue Earth repairs it anyway, because repairing and resupplying grants exp. I end Akito's turn next to the Blue earth for a very good reason. More on that later. A Batta attacks the Blue Earth. They didn't manage to dodge, but thanks to their barrier ability they didn't take much damage. More on barrier abilities later.
Let me explain defensive supporting. You see that "Noal=1/1" over there? it means that Noal (Blue Earth's main Pilot) has 1 defensive support left. What happens when you activate defense support is that your friend protects you form an enemy attack. Don't worry about their HP, the damage is calculated as if they were defending, so the damage is halved. If you don't want to be defended, you just need to go over to that "Cover:R" button and select "None". Or you could just press the "R" button until there are some lines instead of a pilot name down there. I turned the defensive support off, because Noal only has one defensive support per turn (as indicated by the "1/1" next to Noal's name), and i want it to be used for Akito's protection. That was the "very good reason", by the way.
If you pay attention, you can see that the missile fires from the crotch area It kills the Batta in one hit. And then a really cool thing happened (even if i sadly couldn't capture it): the "Counter Cut". basically, the Combattler cut the missiles in half before the hit him. The difference between this to the "Shoot Down" is that this also works on certain physical attacks. Akito manages to kill a Batta in one hit. The defensive support didn't even activate, since he didn't take any damage anyway. That netted him a level up. He brought another one down later. I land the Combattler and move him into the base to get him a few defensive bonuses. Since Hyoma's will is high enough, the Combattler can now use the "Twin Lancer", which is basically a more powerful version of the Yo Yo, except its range is shorter by one tile, and it's slightly harder to hit.
It downed the Batta in one hit. A few Gekigan Flares later, and we're done with this sta-
OH, COME ON
wait what
whoah
it's hard to capture, but the beam is not going overhead: it's so big that it encompasses all of them and we can only see the top boundary.
pictured: another approppriate response. And thus ends this mission. I'll be posting the post mission wall of text next time! see y'all later!
By the way, that guy in my avatar is, of course,GAI DAIGOJI, GREAT HERO!!!! GEKIGAAAAAAAAN FLAAAAAARE!!!!!
Mysterious Person (1): ...I have determined his location, milady. I'm going to try and reason with him. Should, by chance, my efforts be in vain...
Mysterious Person (1): A curious question indeed.
