#srw games always been so good

[rexo3o]

SRW Z2 Saisei Hen Gundam Arios (Super Soldier ver.) All Attacks

[cerastes]

Do not apologize for posting the unvarnished truth that is the gospel of Amuro Ray.

I am a firm believer in the idea that if Lalah's Newtype Ghost learned to give Amuro some GODDAMN PERSONAL SPACE ONCE IN A WHILE instead of getting up in his business every time he even thought of going into space, he probably would have been like... at least 10% less fucked up by the time Zeta Gundam rolls around.

Maybe.

He also 100% deserves to be a dad, if not in some kind of AU of the Beltorchika's Children timeline, then at the very least should get to be a surrogate father figure to other kid/teen mecha pilots in SRW games.

Lalah wanted to keep him fucked up for real, there's no other explanation.

SRW!Amuro is always heartwarming to me because he gets to hang out with a lot of people that ground the shit out of him, so you end up with the same Best Pilot Ever skills, but with a far, FAR happier personality that his usual "holding onto his last shreds of sanity with bloody splintered fingers" self. It's legitimately a miracle he never really snaps again after '79, but goodness, you can tell that he's trying his hardest, hence his freezing cold, silent, focused rage, that seething ardor that burns and consumes without making a ruckus.

My favorite parts of SRW!Amuro interactions are when he's just chilling with the mechanics and support staff of other shows and they are like "wait holy shit, why is this Super Ace Pilot so good at engineering and robotics?" that's his passion! That's what he actually loves and does! He just wants to build round little fellas, he just so happens to be Death Incarnate!

[over-the-time-flow]

Super Robot Rollcall: The Neo Getter Team

Neo Getter Team

Source Material: Shin Getter Robo vs Neo Getter Robo

Voice Actors:

Go Ichimonji: Takahiro "Cheated on His Wife" Sakurai Sho Tachibana: Yuu Asakawa Gai Daido: Toshiharu Sakurai

Following in the steps of the original Getter team before them, these three youths' dreams shall light the path forward to stand against Emperor Gore's black shadow.

Go is, as we've just seen, a complete outsider, but Sho and Gai have been receiving proper training to be Getter pilots for longer. Together, they fit the three roles the Getter Team always needs: Go is the hotblooded pilot of the Neo Getter-1, Sho is the cool and collected pilot of the Neo Getter-2, and Gai is the large and jolly pilot of the Neo Getter-3.

Ahh, multiseaters. Take a good look at that; three different sets of spirit commands. As a result, there's very little missing! But what IS missing is dearly missed. Mainly, we don't have anything for extended survivability as of right now. What i mean by that is that we have Indomitable, we have Alert, and we have Guts, but we're sorely missing something like Focus or Wall, which we can use preemptively to last longer when we can expect the Getter to be focused upon. Alert and Indomitable, even if cast together, will only be saving you from two attacks, and Guts is worthless if you don't survive the turn in the first place.

As for stats, they're basically what you'd expect if you've played a SRW game before. Go, the Getter-1 pilot, has the best Melee stat, Sho, the Getter-2 pilot, has the best Evasion and Accuracy, and Gai has the best Defense. Nothing groundbreaking here.

Neo Getter Robo

Source Material: Shin Getter Robo vs Neo Getter Robo

Energy Source: Plasma Engine

Heights:

Neo-1: 42 meters Neo-2: 45 meters Neo-3: 40 meters

After the infamous fallout of the (seemingly) final battle between the original Getter Team and the Dinosaur Empire, the Getter laboratories were forced to branch out to other energy sources, as Getter Rays proved too dangerous for the japanese government's liking. After much effort, the Neo Getter is the fruit of research into an alternatively-powered Getter Robo. Though its power is no match for a hypothetical "true" Getter Robo, it'll have to do, so long as we can't justify the risks that go into attempting to harness the Getter Rays' immense power...

Also, as an aside, this is my favorite Getter Robo. All other ones have at least one form i don't particularly care for, but with the Neo, i feel like all three forms hit it out of the park.

The Neo Getter is... serviceable. It seems very solid at first glance, but as you look closer you realize its setbacks; for one, all three forms have rather low stats. Coupled with the aforementioned issues of survivability on the pilot side of things, you can't get too cocky with this thing on the frontlines.

Its other issue is one of post-movement range; across the board, all three forms have a post-movement range of a whopping 3 tiles. You might try and circumvent this issue by making use of Getter-2's incredible movement range, but its frail Armor and mediocre Mobility means you can't really leave it in the frontlines by itself. Further, it's got a B-rank on the Ground, limiting its damage output if the opponent isn't flying. You'll just have to suck it up and cast Accel often.

Also, its firepower in all three forms is rather underwhelming. On top of that, since it has no EN recovery, you'll have to be careful about overusing its already rather modest finishers.

All of these issues most likely stem from its rather slapdash nature. Hayato just needed something out the door to fight the Dinosaur Empire in time for their return. Oh, if only there was a new Getter Robo, that used Getter Rays to their fullest potential... alas, it was not meant to be.

Fun Fact: Emblematic of its position as an amalgamation of both stories, the Neo Getter and its forms take design elements from both the Getter Robo G and the Getter Robo Go.

hd debut when

[rlyehtaxidermist]

SRW30 "I'm probably about halfway through this game?" impressions

It is hard to tell how far I am through this game

Fixed difficulty is always a poor substitute for SR points. Even "expert" difficulty is usually only as hard as "I don't know where the reinforcements will spawn on this stage where I have to wait for my ships to arrive"

GGG v Betterman needs an actual anime

HUGE missed opportunity with having Knights & Magic but not OG isekai mecha Dunbine considering Shot is basically a dark take on what Ernie plays completely straight

Mazinger Infinity continues to be the greatest addition to the recent SRW canon, playing off Armageddon and CCA as well as it did in T but now GGG v Betterman is in the mix too

I am always happy to see the Eldora Team in an SRW, and this time they get to bounce off actual Combattler

OG plot hasn't really gone anywhere but that might be because I've been chasing down every side mission before playing the key ones

J-Decker remains an Awkward inclusion given, well... shall we say cultural differences on policing between me as a human rights student in Minneapolis in 2021 and Saturday morning cartoons made by Sunrise in 1994, but it's worked in well with the GGG elements

I'd forgotten how much of a banger the L-Gaim OP was

They did NOT need to make Gridman that good. Seriously, he got benched for being too good before Ryoma did

Not a huge fan of how the world map is implemented, especially because it replaces sub orders - so if you want to keep your back bench up to spec you need to spend a lot of time wandering around the map randomly (to say nothing of the random map event that gives you resources)

Plot-delaying they may be, the nonlinear missions are fun and I'd like to see how much combinatorics goes into the script - there's definitely a few times where I'm like "ah, they checked to see if I had recruited [x] already and had an extra line in there, nice"

Not a fan of how the "relic" missions are designed - they're optional missions where you need to use a small number of units to complete a specific objective which you don't actually know until you open the map, and you can't back out of the mission from the deploy menu. That said, I can just throw Gridman, Getter, and Guy at them and reduce everything to a fine pulp but I feel like that's against the spirit of the thing

[nomadicism]

I read that one posts. I agree with Sol. I think it's more likely that Dreamworks crunched the numbers, figured it wouldn't be profitable and just canned the project than them cancelling it because of a very small section of the internet. p1

“p2 Mecha is just a dying genre as a whole. Even in Japan, isekai has taken it's place and there are hardly any new mechas outside of Gundam. That's in Japan! In the west, mecha is even more niche of an interest and general audiences don't gravitate towards it. I don't think that any mecha movie wouldn't do well at the box office. I'm even worried about that Gundam movie bombing at the box office.”

Hi Anon, thank you for the Ask!

Yeah, I agree with Sol too—and at risk of repeating what I’ve said in other posts about the movie thing—it’s really hard to convey just how incredibly unlikely a property like Voltron or Robotech will ever be made into a live-action movie. It really is about the numbers, as it always has been. Since the 80s, there’s this whole persistent and stupid element of the cartoon industry that continues to delude itself that promises or interest from Hollywood will ever pan out. There are so many scripts sitting in production limbo, that it’s almost criminal.

No one wants to risk money on a live-action movie based on children’s media IP that won’t bring in rated PG-13 or R dollars from adults, and no one wants to risk repeating the 80s He-Man film. The exceptions are live-action films made from children’s media IP that are fully owned by the company paying to produce the movie. I’ve got more to say about the complexities of royalties, but that’s awfully long-winded when I get into it, and I’d rather be long-winded about giant robots. (◕ᴗ◕✿)

The topic of mecha genre dying out is what really interests me here. It’s a topic that I think about a lot, as the beginnings of the mecha genre had a lot of deep cultural time-and-place stuff behind it, even if the stories were just kids and teen boys hopping into a giant robot to beat up other giant robots and monsters, in what were essentially 30 minute long toy commercials.

Isekai will come-and-go as all genres do. It’s not a new genre, but right now the types of themes driving the isekai stories being made speaks to a lot of interesting things happening in the youth of Japan’s relationship with digital gaming and role-play escapism. It’s fascinating, even though the focus of the genre as it’s done today hasn’t really grabbed me in the same way that isekai of the 80s-90s did.

Mecha isekai exists, and it’s only a matter of time before someone either remakes Vision of Escaflowne, or does a more mecha-focused isekai story similar to Magic Knight Rayearth. I doubt anyone would revisit Aura Battler Dunbine, or Super Dimension Century Orguss, but an otaku can dream.

Before we can say the mecha genre is dying, let’s briefly skim over the genre trends of the past +40 years. Every decade or era of mecha anime has a trend that reflects cultural concerns built into it, in a way that I don’t think any other genre of animation can touch (until now, with Digital/Virtual/Fantasy RPG World Isekai).

Late 60s-70s was: Super Robot smashes monsters and alien robots

Mid-70s – early 80s was: Combining Mecha Sentai Team Super Robot smashes monsters and alien robots

80s was: Real Robot + “how many sci-fi/fantasy settings can we put a robot into?” + the death-throes of Super Robot (e.g. Dairugger XV, Golion, Baldios, Godmars)

Also 80s: What the hell was Super Dimension Fortress Macross about? Cold war tensions of escalating end-the-world arms race meets an alien species whose only culture is fighting. Where songs about love, and the culture of love, are what win the day, not just transforming robots and big guns. Macross is deeper than it lets on.

Fun 80s: GoShogun happened. The first parody-satire mecha anime that still feels more serious than they intended, but is actually hilarious once you get past the dated gender roles humor (which was also kind of intentional satire).

WTF 80s: Space Runaway Ideon broke everyone’s minds.

Still not done with 80s: Gunbuster happened. The first angst-driven parody-satire mecha anime that blew everyone’s minds.

Late 80s-early 90s OVA mecha was a mix of Serious Cyberpunk-influenced Real Robot for older teens and adults + Mecha with Tits & Tentacles for Adults (see also space elf lesbians).

90s was: The Franchises Will Survive With Prettier Pilots, and Super Angst-Bot That Was Way More Influenced By Drugs And Ideon’s Ending Than Anyone Wants To Admit (aka Neon Genesis Evangelion) + “Since Gunbuster was a success, how many parodies of Super Robot and Real Robot can we do?”

Mid 90s isekai gems: Magic Knight Rayearth and Vision of Escaflowne

Late 90s: Brain-Powerd (not a typo) happened and it’s a shame no one remembers it. I’ve seen it’s influence come up in the 2000s – 2010s.

The 00s seem to be filled with a lot of re-treading of everything that came before but with different cross-genre influences and some of it really damn good but hard to remember because it all kind of blends together.

The 2010s-today: I have no idea what’s happening now b/c I can’t keep up with anything that isn’t Gundam. And why bother when there has been a flood of classic 70s-80s mecha releases—many for the first time in the US—to binge watch?

Knights of Sidonia was cool.

Since I haven’t kept up, I can’t speak to what new mecha anime is like, or why it's less popular (though I have an educated guess). It was gonna happen eventually, and I suspect that the kinds of post-nuclear and Cold War existential dread that informed mecha anime of the 60s-80s has moved on as target audiences grew up. Those lates 80s OVAs, where the stories could be more adult, reflect that growing up (and also Blade Runner’s influence).

I see the 90s as very transitional, includes reactions to the prior eras, but also reflects a lot of angst by Japanese teens and young adults caught up in the after-effects of 80s stagnation, and the constant test-studying to get into the best school to get the best job (if it exists) and figure it all out before you’re 14 so you can pick the best school to test into. Also, salary-man dad works 120 hours a week and is never home. Get in the Angst-bot Shinji.

Excluding the stand-out brands that survived their respective eras: Gundam, Macross, Braves series, Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, Evangelion; there’s not much other ground that can be covered right now that would warrant a series. The franchise mecha shows are grounded in their respective niches. It’s kind of odd that there isn’t an isekai mecha franchise, b/c that’s a niche that hasn’t been owned in the way that the other niches have (unless maybe Machine Hero Wataru is still a Thing?)

It’s worth mentioning that Sport Anime has really been having a moment for almost a decade now, and that’s super interesting to compare against isekai. Isekai about dungeon slimes or whatever vs literal horse-girls racing each other like high-school track. Thanks Japan, are y’all all right over there?

A few last things:

The success of Super Robot Wars tells me that mecha genre isn’t dying. Consider the ages of players. How many of them actually grew up watching Yuusha Raideen (aka Yūsha Raideen / Raideen the Brave)? There is an SRW manga anthology series, and loads of gachapon and collector’s grade mecha figures from old mecha anime get released with regularity. Someone’s buying that all that shit.

SRW is nearly 20 years old now, and they are still making video games that do one thing really well: rotate a 40 year old cast of everyone’s favorite robots into a battle strategy game held together by a duct-tape plot that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The games are fun, and it’s cool to put all these mecha into the same field. It’s really great to see older shows that will never be remade have little cut scenes in a newer animation style that still feels like the originals.

There’s also the old staple that started it all: the tokusatsu genre of live-action Super Sentai shows (e.g. Power Rangers). They’ve been making the Super Sentai Series since 1975, and there’s still fun to be had watching color-coded warriors use special powers/tech to summon forth some combining mecha to do battle with rubber suit monsters from outer-space. The effects are much better these days, but it’s the same formula, year after year and people still love it.

So with respect to mecha, I think what’s died or dying, is that people are afraid to have shameless child-like fun with giant robots. The genre got too serious and too angsty (and too horny without the grown-up edge of 80s OVA Tits & Tentacles mecha). The franchises carved their niches and aren’t going anywhere, while the genre survives in video games and collectables.

A lot of that shameless fun has moved into other genres, because nothing else explains a title like: “Is It Wrong To Pick Up Girl’s In The Dungeon?” or the nearly-ecchi concept behind the sports anime “Keijo!!!!!”. But that kind of fun is less child-like and more self-deprecating or pervy-humor. Both sports and isekai anime have their serious side, but seem to be dominated by stories that don’t take themselves too seriously, or like Yuri on Ice, aren’t afraid to take a concept that no one ever saw coming, and shape it into a good story.

I eagerly await a mecha sports anime (wait, no, I think that already happened), and I’d love to see a knock-out isekai mecha anime again. I think it will happen eventually, but probably not from Toei or Sunrise. If Tatsunoko could get beyond Moe Idols In Space, then the Macross franchise already has everything it needs to do a isekai series. That would be rad.

[final-mazin-blade]

Futher thoughts on SRW K below

LIke Mazinger Z’s story was SO EASY TO ADD. Just say Dr. Hell made the Insania Virus after he died so Kouji has a reason to fight alongside the Godannar team Or something! Anything! Just having Kouji, Sayaka and Boss  hanging out with the Godannar team was weird. We also needed at least one more old school Super Robot rep other than Dangaioh which came out far later than Mazinger Z. If anything I would say that K is a game where no Mazinger Z in it would be better than what we got. No plot relevance, no enemies, post story, and no tie in with Getter or Great Mazinger. Even just recycling most of what was in J would have been OK considering how good Mazinkaiser always is, plus that’s a Mazinger property that’s more recent than the Toei version. And as for Godannar, I expected more considering it was it’s first time in SRW in K. Blade Gainer was a chore to unlock, and the Triple Drive attack could’ve been a summon rather than a combination attack between a combiner and half of another combiner. I’ll forgive K for not using ANY of the other countries’ Super Robots from Godannar but it is a crime that L featured none of them at all. It’s just depressing that we could’ve had the other countries’ Super Robots but instead here’s all the fodder mecha from Zoids, SEED, and King Gainer to pad out the roster while all being effectively useless. Instead for a Godannar rep we get . . . Cosmo Diver. Thanks so much guys. China, Europe, and Russia all had cool robots and it could have been kinda like G Gundam but instead it didn’t at all. If you played K then you likely know what’s so bad about Mist Rex as the protagonist. I won’t go into that as much but compared to J and L, K feels like such a hassle. I don’t know if it’s an odd roster, following the plots of SEED Destiny and Gaiking to a T, making unlocking the GUN X SWORD units and Blade Gainer a chore, or a bunch of uninspired OG enemies but it’s just a pain to play. At least we got ZIPS and Dangaioh’s Laser Blade Theme. And they gave Shizuru some sweet Dynamic Kills.

[scope-dogg]

Invincible Robot Tryder G7: Final Thoughts

This was one of the series in the SRW T still-to-watch list that I wasn’t especially looking forward to. A lot of these old super robot shows tend to be really dated both in terms of plot and presentation, and this one in particular only has one fansub available with that being of dubious quality. However, while the subs aren’t good and the show does stick to a very formulaic episode structure like a lot of similar shows, I actually thought it had a lot of things going for it, including surprisingly strong art and animation by the standards of its time and a charming cast of characters, and above all else themes and ideas that were ahead of their time in many ways.

The plot setup is that mankind has entered a true space age and has expanded its industries into the solar system - however, a threat to this age of plenty has revealed itself in the form of the Robot Empire, a race of androids from beyond the stars who now seek to enslave the Earth. The first and last effective line of defence against their incursion is the fighting robot Tryder G7, owned by the Takeo General Company, who take on contracts from the Earth’s space forces to fight off the Megarobots sent to destroy mankind’s vulnerable installations. The catch is that the Takeo General Company is a small family company that’s now run by 11-year-old Watta Takeo, who has taken up the reigns as CEO and Tryder’s pilot following the death of his father. Watta’s daily struggles as a young man and Takeo General’s struggle to keep afloat are challenges just as great as any that an alien war robot can bring.

The entire aspect of the namesake robot being a corporate asset that needed to budgeted and accounted for was something I thought was more or less unique to 1997′s Dai-Guard, but this did it a lot earlier. In addition to that, this is a series with a child protagonist that was really well realised, with realistic little-kid problems, like butting heads with his rich asshole classmate, trying to avoid the ire of strict teachers, helping out his mother and two siblings, and still trying to find time to have a nice time with his friends between everything else. With that said, while he could occasionally be a bit of a brat he still has a strong sense of duty to his friends and family, to the company he now technically runs, and to the people he’s charged with protecting, and he ended up being a protagonist you want to root for, not only in battle but in his private life. In fact, that’s almost the chief focus of the series, with the threat of the Robot Empire almost playing out entirely in the background. While the viewer gets shown what they’re up to and gets to understand the scope of their plans, to Watta they’re just a job to do and a contract to fulfil. The battles that take place are arguably more important as life lessons, with the things he learns in them often being applicable to whatever personal struggle he’s dealing in that episode (although, sometimes the reverse is true.) Both this slice-of-life aspect and the practical take on piloting a super robot would have been something I would have expected from a more modern series, not a vintage super robot series from 1980.

The supporting cast are another great aspect of the show. Each of the characters that Watta interacts with on a daily basis are all really distinct characters, whether it’s his friends, teachers, or Takeo General’s staff - the standout was probably Kakikoji, the company director, a mustachioed 65-year old with 14 kids, who always comes charging in on his bicycle to fetch the boss whenever a new contract comes in and starts sweating bullets whenever anything happens on a mission that might cut into the already tight profit margins. On the other side of the coin, the villains from the Robot Empire are a colourful and dysfunctional bunch as well, with each new commander brought in to try and save their failing campaign being more ridiculous than the last. Their fighting robots were really distinctive and imaginatively designed as well, and it was fun to watch Tryder smash them up. The chief mechanical designer on this show was Kunio Okawara, who’s known for designing a ton of famous mecha like the original Gundam, the Scopedog, Gaogaigar and many more besides, and I think his work here stands up with some of those, both for Tryder and its adversaries. The animation work is also pretty solid as well, at least by the standards of its time - I thought it easily surpassed the animation work of contemporary Sunrise mecha shows like Gundam and Zambot 3 by quite a way, though that’s tempered by the use of a lot of stock footage - they use the same animation for Tryder launching and its Bird Attack finisher in virtually every episode, probably killing a good two or three minutes of episode run time each time.

With all that said, I have to address the elephant in the room, those being the subs. They’re not that bad... but they’re certainly not good either. It looks like they worked from the Italian sub of the show, adding another layer of translation, and in other places they just guessed. They’re never so far off the mark that you can’t tell what’s going on, but it’s not strange for you to hear a line of dialogue, look at the subs, and conclude “whatever they just said, it definitely wasn’t that,” even if your knowledge of Japanese is the very rudimentary sort that you pick up by just watching lots of subbed anime. I can’t complain too loudly, because at the end of the day it was a fansub and it beats having no subs at all, but it definitely makes it tougher for me to recommend people watch this, unless you’re fluent in Japanese. The subs aren’t even particularly good in English either, with a lot of odd language and screwed up grammar, though it never really reached the point of incomprehensibility.

With all that said, I still do think this is a recommendation from me, even with the bad subs. Again, I burned through 50 episodes in about a week, and not just because I’m trying to work through a list of shows to watch, it was a genuinely enjoyable time. If I had to recommend an old super robot show, it’s probably still be this one rather than Zambot 3 or Combattler V. Maybe one day I’ll get round to Daitarn, Voltes or another one that trumps this one, but for now, this is my favourite.

As for how this show will play out in SRW T, I think it’s a good addition that makes sense and adds some variety in the cast, and Watta and Tryder are already SRW veterans anyway so I’m sure they’ll be implemented well. It’s a little disconcerting that the Robot Empire and their Megarobots have been absent from the trailers so far, as I think it’d be a shame not to include some of the more distinctive designs as enemies to fight. However, even if they’re absent from the final game, I think Watta and the Takeo General staff will be colourful additions to the roster by themselves - not to mention that there are parallels with the Tiranade, this game’s original, and the VTX corporation that owns it.

Anyway, speaking of corporate robots and crabstick subs, it’s time to move down the line to the next show. This one’s been one I’ve been wating to give the green signal to for a long time, and I’m hoping I can work through it at the same express pace.

[moistwithgender]

(Overdue) Media round-up (January 2019)

Feb’s almost over and I was gonna write about what I’ve processed when I realized I only posted about the anime I watched, I think? So this is a catch-up post for manga and games, before the end of this month in a few days. If you want to read the January anime round-up, it’s in my “curry watches anime” tag.

Games:

Puresabe’s 2019 New Year Rockman Hack (NES): Puresabe does one of these every year and they are always pretty hard! But I think the last few years have been much more balanced than their older projects. They are always just boss fights, but with complex patterns and sometimes multiple phases. Being just a boss fight (or two) means they are super short, but you will spend most of your time learning them. Also there are no checkpoints, so every death means you’re back to phase one. It’s very fun when it’s a good hack, and this was a good hack. I had a very rough start to the year and considered giving up, but went back and beat it, for good fortune in the new year. (Beaten 1/2/19)

The 2nd Super Robot Wars (NES): I decided 2019 would be the year I got into SRW, and so I started here, because the first game actually has no hard plot. I enjoyed it to a point, but the difficulty climbs to an absurd degree, and I wish I’d cut my losses and just youtubed it. The game allows you to save at any time during a turn, and resetting the console means it recycles the RNG and you can get different luck. This is...required. Most of the way into the game, I was having to reset twenty times in a row per unit action, just to make sure I could survive an enemy attack, or successfully hit an enemy. The funniest thing is that when I finally beat this, I almost immediately started up one of the later games, so clearly the kernel of value was visible to me through all that bullshit. (Beaten 1/13/19)

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: World of Light (Switch): I had been chomping at the bit for what felt like forever just to play this mode of this game, and not only was it good, it surpassed my expectations multiple times. This mode has a lot of twists for something that mostly implies narrative, or otherwise ignores it. I’m the rare person who mostly plays Smash Bros solo because I have NO FRIENDS, and this was worth the price of admission for me. I don’t consider Smash Ultimate itself beaten yet because I haven’t beaten Classic Mode on 9.9 difficulty yet. I have finished with 9.8, like, four times. Please kill me. (Beaten 1/18/19)

PaRappa the Rapper (PSP): While taking care of my cat, I found an opportunity to actually use my PSP for the first time since...2008 or 09? When I bought it secondhand? Jesus. Anyway, it turns out that PaRappa actually has absurd input detection and an equally hard to parse system for what counts as “freestyling”, which ultimately results in a final stage where you’re...required to play notes that are completely unrelated to what it says to do on-screen? I still beat the game (in a single sitting, too. it’s short), but I was pretty frustrated. Greenblat’s aesthetic is iconic, and the songs are very fun to listen to (this game has maybe the only potty humor I actually enjoyed), but the game part is actually the problem. (Beaten 1/25/19)

Patapon (PSP): I played PaRappa spontaneously, but I’ve actually meant to play the Patapon series for quite a while. This is less a song-performing rhythm game and more of an action/strategy type of rhythm game where you consistently keep a beat to keep morale up. It’s pretty good, but missions can be 3-6 minutes of consecutively hitting four notes and then waiting four notes, and while that itself sounds doable, I am just terrible at rhythm and messed up a lot of good opportunities. The difficulty curve in this is high in the beginning, lowers over time, before hitting a huge spike and then being a cakewalk for the last four or so missions. There’s also a lot of grinding, which means this rhythm game came out to almost a 16 hour run. A bit tiring. Not sure when I’ll jump on Patapon 2, but I hope it’s easier to play, since my impetus for picking up the series was the intro FMV for the third game. (Beaten 1/30/19)

Games beaten in January: 5 Games beaten in 2019 thus far: 5

Manga:

Getter Robo Vol 2 (Finished): I didn’t feel like plowing through 51 episodes of the old 70s anime, so I decided to just read the much shorter, and somewhat unrelated manga. In the show, the heroes are what they are, heroes. Likable mains for kids to watch on Saturday mornings. In the manga, as per Go Nagai’s influence (and the main author, Ken Ishikawa, who I LOVE and who was Nagai’s assistant), the heroes are violent asshole moron sociopath terrorists who gradually become more unhinged as they are exposed to the very radiation that powers the machine they use to fight dinosaurs (though said gradual descent is more of a thing in the later manga/OVAs). Also, the villains are dinosaurs. Turns out they had the original ancient civilization and Getter Rays chased them into the Earth’s core and they want to planet back. That’s Getter Robo! It’s very good.

Getter Robo G Vol 1-3 (Finished): This is kind of more of the same as the first, and again, I didn’t want to watch the 39 episodes, I wanted the primer so I could play SRW. As I’ve approached the later games, it turns out they prefer to take influence from the shows, not the manga. Oops! Whatever. In this sequel, it turns out the Dinosaur Empire was a pawn or something to It Was Aliens, the Hyakki Empire, and it’s...more of the same. In both the GR and GR G mangas, I found the occasional chapter with wildly different art, and I figured that those were Ishikawa’s gorgeous art, and the majority was Nagai’s. But, I’m not sure, and I wonder if those were revised or extra chapters done years later. Idk. Anyway, they are both very fun reads, even if they serve more as primers of the lore.

Shin Getter Robo Vol 1-2 (Finished): HERE’s where things start to get really good, and surreal, and bleak. This manga is not adapting a tv series (though later OVAs would reference it. This manga is actually I think where a lot of the inspiration for Gurren Lagann came from, and if you like that series, you should read this to see the connection. I can’t really explain without spoiling either (though if in 2019 you don’t know what happens in Gurren, you are super lucky and need to go watch it all asap). NOTE, this takes place after the 7 volume Getter Robo Go manga, which has a show but I think is unrelated, but more importantly is probably the BEST Getter Robo series. I read that before knowing a thing about Getter and still loved it (though I think having context will really benefit it). GR Go is the biggest justification for getting into the series. If any friends of mine want to look into this series, I’ll actually help give them a guide. Interestingly, the most modern Getter series (of which the most recent was in 2004 (please come back)) all take reference from the darker mangas, not the old 70s show.

Mazinger Z Vol 1-5 (Finished): I think Go Nagai’s works are weird, melodramatic, gross, and just kinda badly drawn. They are great experiences, if you go in with a grain of salt and also avoid the *most* transgressive ones. Don’t google Iron Virgin Jun. Just. Don’t do it. Devilman is probably his best work, but Mazinger Z is another series with a much more famous long-running 70s cartoon (92 episodes!!!) and burned itself into the nostalgia of Japan. Whereas Devilman eventually becomes traumatizing, Mazinger Z is pretty laid back and goofy, while also being Nagai’s brand of The Most Dramatic Thing Ever. If you follow me, you might’ve seen me post pages in my manga tag. It’s a LOT. Though, actually, I don’t think this manga is all that great. It can be *really* funny, but I don’t even remember if the series actually ends. If you read one or two volumes and want to put it down, I think you’re safe to. You got most of the lore. The biggest events seem to take place in later series that I haven’t delved into yet.

UFO Robo Grendizer Vol 1 (Finished): I actually haven’t been able to find anywhere to read Great Mazinger, the sequel series, so I skipped to Grendizer, which is the second sequel. It’s pretty unrelated continuity-wise, so it’s easy to pick up. This is only one volume and yeah they really just want you to watch the 74 episode show, but I’m good. Still, this is a fun book, and Nagai throws in his batshit ideas. The main character is an alien prince whose tragic backstory is literally that the villain kidnapped his younger siblings and all the country’s children and just! Dropped them all from the sky to their death in the middle of the city! And they don’t censor it! GO NAGAI! I really need to read the autobio manga Gekiman because of what snippets I’ve seen, Nagai is actually a super mild-mannered dude who doesn’t really get where his ideas cross lines. If you want to say “oh that’s just wacky Japan”, it’s really not, he was public enemy #1 with parents all over the country for a long time.

Super Robot Retsuden Vol 1 (Finished): This is a single volume crossover of Nagai super robot IPs including Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, Great Mazinger, Grendizer, and Steel Jeeg (a guy who’s more Ultraman-adjacent than super robot), and there’s no real plot beyond “oh no new bad guy! buy the toys, kids!” It’s throwaway, and I mostly read it to see who Jeeg is without getting into his own series. Also, it was drawn by Ishikawa, so I felt a bit obligated. His art is just so pretty.

Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer Vol 1 (and maybe 2?): Satoshi Mizukami is a godly storyteller who uses the language of shonen to tell deeply mature and introspective stories for adults and if you follow my posts you might remember me gushing about Spirit Circle and Planet With. I actually haven’t touched this series since February started but I need to get back in because the first two volumes out of ten are amazing (warning, though: there’s a pet death and it’s real sudden and was hard for me to handle). Please read Mizukami’s works.

Manga volumes read in January: 14-15 Manga volumes read in 2019 thus far: 14-15

---

Okay that’s everything. I wrote a lot more than I expected to. If you read all that, thanks. If you are interested in any of the things I wrote about, great! If you decide to play through SRW2, don’t, stop, don’t do that. In a few days I’ll be writing about a much better SRW game.

[universal-translation-services]

List of All Translated SRW & Video Games

Video Games and Their Impact:

A lot of times, the focus of the world is on making money and improving the situation for corporations. However, at the end of the day, it is the people whose happiness is on the line. If the world isn’t producing helpful content for the people, it is not doing its job properly. This is why there are entertainment industries in the world, but sometimes they just aren’t challenging enough for some people. For that reason, video games were created to give people something different. Over the years, many people have questioned the usefulness of games, but no one can deny that they are a good way of entertainment for people of all ages.

Translation of Games:

Just like movies, games are created in all parts of the world. However, most of the time, they are launched in the native language of the creator. So, if a game created in Japan would be in Japanese. But this creates a problem for the geeks who want to try every popular game. The linguistic barrier keeps them from playing a new game. Famous consoles like Xbox and PlayStation launch the games on their stores in English, but even that can be a problem for those who don’t speak the tongue. In order to make sure every person has access to popular games, translation is necessary. But every type of linguistic service is unique. You cannot apply the same rules everywhere. For instance, the translation of a video is not the same as that of a document. The same rule applies when the translation of a video game is required. Whether it is multiplayer or single-player, accurate translation can easily make a game more popular. There are plenty of virtual reality sports that became popular in their home country first and were later translated into other tongues to make them available to a foreign audience.

List of All Translated SRW and Other Games:

Here are a few examples of the games that have been translated into other languages: Super Robot Wars: Commonly referred to as SRW, it is a series of role-playing games that were created in Japan. There are also manga and anime of SRW, and characters from one format often make an appearance in the other. Officially, only the Original Generation was translated into English. However, there are plenty of fan-made translations of the 2nd and 3rd Super Robot Wars in both English and Chinese. More official translations are also into making. However, people can find more versions of SRW in Chinese than in English. But since fans work on these unofficial versions, more English ones can be released in the future. Assassin’s Creed: This is another action series that is quite popular among geeks. It is available in various versions that can be played on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. Its unique storyline keeps players hooked until the end. It has been translated in multiple languages by fans, including Spanish and Russian. The Witcher: Based on a book series, this action trilogy has gotten more popular after the release of The Witcher TV series. The fantasy world shown in The Witcher alone is worth every minute spent on playing the game. It is available for Microsoft Windows. It has been translated by fans in German and Russian. Skyrim: Considered by many as the greatest game ever created, Skyrim has also been translated in different vernaculars, including Spanish, German, and Russian. People can easily access different versions and enjoy playing Skyrim in their vernacular. The translations allow people from different parts of the world to enjoy the games they have always wanted to play. Read the full article

[bonerhitler]

Super Robot Wars V is spectacular.

A while ago I briefly spilled some word soup about Super Robot Wars, and mech anime in general, and one day I'd like to dig in deep and write more about giant robots because oh snap do I love giant robots. But for now I'm going to talk about Super Robot Wars V because I am still playing this game and loving every minute of it. Hours, really. Stages are taking an hour or more to complete now and it's eating my life away.

So, what makes V in particular so great is that it has an English translation. Bandai has been doing a thing lately where a lot of their series that would otherwise never get localized have been getting English subtitles for their SEA releases, which is fantastic if you're not adverse to paying crazy import prices. Quality of these translations has been a bit rocky, another SRW game “Moon Dwellers” wasn't the best in terms of translation quality, but V's translation is generally decent. There are a few names that are mistranslated such as the Doven Wolf from “ZZ Gundam” being hilariously called the Dooben Wolf. Generally, however, the translation is fine. It's refreshing to be able to play through an entire SRW game where the whole story is translated, as prior to these releases there were only a handful of complete fan patches.

Gameplay-wise V is much like any other of the recent SRW games with a few streamlined quality of life changes. Now you can use Spirit skills directly from the pre-combat screen whether you're attacking or defending. On one hand it's nice to be able to save a unit if you're the victim of an unlucky one-percent hit that nearly wipes them out, but on the other hand it does make the game a bit too easy when you can ensure that every character that gets attacked can always protect, evade or heal to survive an attack.

The only other major change from the typical SRW Format is a fairly large one; pilots don't earn skill points anymore. Before you would have to level up each individual pilot and teach them skills and enhance their stats one by one and it was all very tedious and rather uninteresting in all honesty. That has all been replaced with the “TAC” system, you gain TAC Points by killing enemies, meeting certain requirements (usually events based on the canon-storyline of the stage) and then spend them how you see fit. They're used to buy extra parts for your mechs, such as boosters to add more mobility, or to customize your pilots. And boy howdy has pilot customization been expanded.

Previously you would just upgrade your pilot's stats and that was that. They would learn skills as they leveled up, but nothing too involved went on. Now with the TAC system you can do that by spending your TAC points to level their raw stats. Or you can spend those points on pilot skills. These skills range from the more simple ones such as “Proud Ace” which lets you earn the Ace and Great Ace titles ten kills earlier, and “Save Energy” which lowers energy consumption by a small percentage based on how many ranks you put in. To the hilariously broken like “Attacker” which adds twenty percent to your attack once your pilot gains high enough focus, and “Full Counter” which always lets your unit attack first. You're given more than enough slots per-pilot that customizing them in almost any way you see fit is possible, the only limit is how many TAC points you can save up and spend. Whether you want to dump all those points on your specific favorites, or spread the love to the whole team is up to you.

Otherwise gameplay is largely the same. Each mission you're given an objective, a failure quota and a bonus objective. You gain bonus money for meeting the side objective but it's not required, and you're tasked with hitting your objective whatever it is. Usually it's just to kill all the dudes that show up. Sometimes it's just to kill one dude, and any others that show up are bonus cash and TAC Points. You're given a list of available mechs and choose who to launch and have at it. This game heavily favors the UC Gundam cast, and I love it for that. You quickly get the “Crossbones Gundam” stars Tobia and Kincade  and eventually build up a star cast of Judeu (Zeta Gundam), Hathaway (from the novel series Hathaway's Flash), Amuro (Mobile Suit Gundam, ZZ Gundam, and Char's Counterattack) and even Kamille (Zeta gundam) as well as Banagher from “Gundam Unicorn”. Meanwhile the cast of Getter Robo: Armageddon make an appearance as well with Ryoma in his Black Getter serving as an excellent unit for a third of the game before being replaced by the amazing Shin Getter and later the Shin Getter Dragon rears its head as well.

Stealing the show, however, are the Mazinger Z units. Starting with designs straight out of “Mazinger Z: The Impact!” you have the famous Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger which later upgrade into the Mazinger ZERO, from it's own titular manga series, and the Mazin Emperor G, a new mech created just for this game which they went so far as to produce new figures of timed with the game's release for some boost in marketing. Visually speaking a lot of the game's effort and budget went into designing and animating these two monsters alone, and it shows with how fantastic they look when doing their special attacks.

Other series that make appearances are Martian Successor Nadesico (based on the movie rather than the excellent series), Cross-Ange, Space Battleship Yamato 2199, Full Metal Panic, Neon Genesis Evangelion (The rebuilds, rather than the original series) and surprisingly Brave Express Might Gaine.

There's not a whole lot to say about the plot, for the most part it's an adaptation of a few core series' plotpoints with a decent focus on Cross-Ange, Gundam Unicorn and Space Battleship Yamato while the other series slot in when and where they can. But one really interesting thing this game in particular does is that it improves the endings of several of them vastly. Without spoiling it, I'm just going to say that it doesn't end on the dreary would-be teaser that the Nadesico movie does, and Unicorn doesn't just end on a lame note with the villain vanishing into dust because he was literally nothing but a ghost. Even Evangelion gets a better ending because it doesn't leave players hanging on for a sequel that might never happen for a few years. So in some ways, it's incredibly satisfying to see better endings for series, and especially a few key characters, than the original series ever bothered to.

As a final note I'd like to say everyone should go watch Getter Armageddon because it's amazing, it's second opening theme is spectacular and it plays every time one of the getter machines gets into a battle and I love it. If you at all like Super Robot Wars or have ever been interested but found the lack of localization difficult then this is an excellent chance to hop in feet-first. It's got all of the series mainstays, a ton of good music, the gameplay is pretty peak and there's just no going wrong with any of the cool  mechs and characters on display here.

[bwprowl]

It’s my birthday, I’m old! My own misgivings about impending mortality aside, I’ve got time to check out new versions of old robots. I’ll also round up pre-orders for a bunch of fun oddities like government-issue standees, space rabbits, and space samurai. And speaking of space, I’ve got an in-hand look at an on-hand transformation device from that new Space Sentai. Come on in and celebrate with me, it’s Tuesday Night Toys!

New Stuff: Too close to the sun

We just got a surprise new reveal from Transformers Masterpiece: Sideswipe’s brother Sunstreaker will finally be joining him in the line. TakaraTomy’s worked their now-usual engineering magic to bring this stuck-up yellow bastard to life, including such touches as a roof/windshield that *inverts* during transformation, and an accurate storage spot for his pistol. He’s even got an ‘alien’ mask from his acting attempt in ‘Hoist Goes Hollywood’, and a mini-figure of Chip Chase (the most hardcore human from the cartoon). Though it is kinda weird that we got full pics of this guy, who we just found out about, before seeing anything of the previously-announced Masterpiece Dinobot.

If even higher-end robots are your desire, then Studio Halfeye has this stupidly-nice colored-resin mold model of maybe the most famous original Super Robot Wars robot, the Cybuster. Or the ‘Cybaster’ as it’s lovingly romanized here. You’re gonna pay over $500.00 for this thing, but I know there are SRW fans that dedicated out there.

As Tamashii’s Ultraman SH Figuarts line marches on, they keep branching out into cooler and cooler stuff. I’ve long appreciated how willing they were to keep making figures of the various iconic Ultra Monsters, and now they’re getting into the secret identity game with an SHF of Dan Moroboshi, the human form of Ultra Seven. He’s rocking the classic Ultra Garrison uniform, and his release signals a strong precedent for other areas of the line. Most importantly to me, anyway, does this mean we can look forward to the human-identity Kamen Rider Figuarts, like that Takeshi Hongo we saw last year? Fingers crossed.

Wishlist: Space Tourism

I’ll make no secret of my love for currently-airing anime Sakura Quest (you can catch me basically gushing about it weekly). So seeing a decent smattering of merchandise for it going up for pre-order warms my heart. There’s not really any ‘true’ toys yet (a Nendo or two would be lovely), but those increasingly-popular acrylic standee things are getting made for the main characters in little chibi form, as well as a ‘big’ (over 8 inches tall) one of Yoshino, and they all light up! These could make decent desk-buddies until proper plastic renditions arrive.

If you need oddly-macabre robot figures littering your life, Bandai has you covered with the new ‘MS Imagination’ set of Gundam toys. These candy-packed figurines recreate the suits in various degrees of destroyed, and at least look truly unique in that respect. I kinda wonder how in-scale they’ll be with regular Gundam kits, for display purposes.

I suppose I should take a second to talk about Boss Fight Studios’ upcoming Bucky O’Hare figures. I don’t have a lot of investment in the classic comic-book space critter, but I know there’s a solid pop-culture following there, and the nearly-ready for release figures look to be a good choice for fans. And I’m always a fan of how nice Boss Fight’s stuff looks.

And if the ridiculous price tag of the above Cybuster wasn’t enough for you, then here’s one for the annals of the truly absurd: ‘Musha Ningyo’ Darth Vader. There of course have been previous Samurai Vader action figures in the Movie Realization line, but this big glorious thing is the iconic sci-fi-bad-guy fully reimagined as one of those prestigious samurai statue display pieces, and he comes with an appropriately ridiculous cost of over $1,400 bucks! Forget passing fandom, this is firmly in ‘are you a bad enough dude’ territory for how dedicated you are to something this nerdy. And it’s amazing for it.

On Desk: Kyu Kyu myan

Yup, Kyuranger is definitely a thing. The show’s still in that odd holding pattern so many Sentai Series go through in the teens, but it’s consistently entertaining and the sheer amount of characters makes it impressive how amusing they all are. I’m engaged and interested in where it’ll end up going (hopefully off Earth again soon). So along with a ton of the mini-pla mecha (most of which I still, uh, need to build) I’ve wound up with the transformation device, the Seiza Blaster.

As we all know, wrist-mounted changers are objectively the best kind, so the Seiza Blaster already had my attention, but of course seeing and hearing it in action on the show just sold me on it further. As usual though, the real deciding factor was that I ended up needing it for cosplay purposes.

It’s a slick piece of work. The details all look good, the colors are crisp and attractive. They even stuck the power switch in a really inconspicuous, out-of-the-way place this time (I actually had trouble finding it!). Attaching the Kyutama to the thing is easy; even with all the connection points and clamps that need to clip onto it, it snaps right on. The lightshow on this thing especially needs to be respected: There’s a full cycle of all the Rangers’ colors it goes through, and coded for attacks from each Kyutama (I’ve got Red, Orange, and Black to test out). The joystick moving action to get the different functions/sounds with the Kyutama is fun. Going double-back for that sweetly-spoken “Galaxy!” is probably the most satisfying; gives me flashbacks to the finishers from Kamen Rider Gaim.

Maybe it’s just me, but the sounds on this one do sound just a bit muffled compared to the very crisp audio we’ve been getting on role-play toys for a while now otherwise. It might just be the filter on it or how they say it, but these just sound a little less clear. They’re still very *cool* mind you, not a deal-breaker, but still something to keep in mind. The impressive lights more than make up for it too, I think.

What is an issue, however, is the size of the hand-grip. These toys have always been unambiguously targeted to kid-sized people, but that’s not usually been a problem beyond having to shell out for extensions for belts. On this thing though, the hard plastic grip is just a *little* too narrow for my adult hand. It still fits, barely, but it’s a tight, uncomfortable one. Oddly, the included wrist strap for the back half of the thing is rather long by Bandai’s usual standards; it fits around my arm with plenty of room to spare. But that grip has no adjustment for width at all, and as a result cramming my hand in there is kinda not-fun. It’ll be interesting to see how I handle this wearing it for my costume. I mean admittedly, I have pretty big hands, so other grown-ups might not have the same issue, but it’s still a notable problem for me, anyway.

Overall though, Bandai still clearly knows what they’re doing with these role-play toys. If you’ve watched the show and you think it looks cool, you should go ahead and get it. Just be prepared to shell out for any different Kyutama you want, especially depending on which Ranger is your favorite. And watch out for clearance on your hands.

Thanks for spending this time with me, everyone! I’ll see you later, and I hope you have lots of fun!

[chaorelance]

SO ANYWAY HERE’S THE FIRST EPISODE OF THE NIGHT, DEPENDING ON IF I DO EPISODES ON THESE JOBBERS I REMEMBERED EXISTED.

Like, no, seriously. I just remembered a guy who called himself CHAOS BLACK was part of the motley early age crew. God, I’m amazed at how many people I fucking forgot.

We probably won’t get an episode on him, sorry, I think he ran a few characters or games that were alright but he’s really not important in any way.

Today, we’re going to talk about a good pal named ‘Gal’, of which that is a nickname because I can’t remember his full name.

Gal was another case like Ookami, except he was more like Geintz in which he was HONESTLY just an unbearably human being. He ran games occasionally, and to be honest they were among the more fun ones, mechanically.

But everyone fucking hated this dude, besides again, Me and Nathaniel, because Nathaniel was just that guy, as I’ve said, and well... Look, Ittybittybun just wanted to be friends with everyone.

Completely and honestly, I was the kind of kid who would’ve walked up to you on the streets and said ‘Hey, want to be friends?’. I could’ve probably been an anime protag before I fell off the truck.

Especially because I was super dumb, god was I super dumb.

So yeah, Gal was a pariah and like Beamed he eventually kinda faded out and no one liked him. But he fucking stuck like GLUE to me, because I was super accepting and have always been super willing to talk to people.

Gal especially, liked to talk to me about Robots. Gal is actually how I learned about SRW. He imported that shit from Japan and like screencapped to me a shitload of shit about Z when it first came out, mostly about how fucking awesome Rand was and holy shit you like Masaki, look at ASAKIM. It was actually kind of cool.

Like god, I remember him super negatively because he WAS kind of annoying, but he’s why I love SRT and shit. I actually really remember being excited when he was going to run an SRT game, and then I ended up making kind of revere Calvina Coulage by mistake and it was kind of hillarious???

CHRIST, YEAH, he was an annoying shit but I think I really enjoyed being his friend. ‘Unbearable’ pfpfpf I sat through that shit for years, self. He was kind of annoying, but he was a good guy? way older than me, and clearly had his shit more together.

Like, I don’t think we stopped being friends because drama like I started this thinking we did? I eventually just got tired of talking to him.

I don’t super miss the guy, but actually he was a good friend. He was just... out of BTG, and at the time BTG had slowly became my life. Everyone I knew was there, and eventually that was all I had.

...it was kind of sad, honestly. I spent hours on the computer- till dawn sometimes, just doing that with those guys.

Gal was the sole exception for a pretty long time.

I think my most vivid memory besides all the super robots was when I asked him what he thought I looked like? Keep in mind at the time I had massive body image issues. I still kinda do.

He said he thought I was probably like my avatar, an anime dude.

...it cheered me up a lot, at the time. Fueled my egotism and desire to never reveal myself to anyone online, but man.

He was a good guy, Gal. Fuck what anyone else said.

[over-the-time-flow]

Super Robot Rollcall: The GEAR Fighters

Ginga Izumo

"The universe doesn't need no 'king'!"

Source Material: GEAR Fighter Dendoh Age: 11 Birthday: May 5th Height: 145 cm Hobbies: Watching anime Voice Actress: Youko Mitsuoka Character Designer: Hirokazu Hisayuki

A little boy who enjoys practicing karate at his mother's dojo, playing sports, watching anime, and idol bands... until one day, through a series of convoluted events, he finds himself alongside a classmate he can't stand in the cockpit of a mysterious robot! A story as old a time.

As 11-yos often do, the two very quickly conciliate their differences and become friends.

His dad is often travelling around the world, but he doesn't really miss him, because he tends to bring the customs of wherever he last went along whenever he comes to visit, which tends to cause a lot of embarrassment for Ginga...

Compared to Hokuto, Ginga has better Melee, Defense and Skill. All around, both of them have fairly good stats, but defensively they're not so impressive.

Hokuto Kusanagi

"This isn't some sports match! We can't just say 'oh well, i lost!' and go home!!"

Source Material: GEAR Fighter Dendoh Age: 11 Birthday: July 7th Height: 147 cm Hobbies: Watching anime, playing billiards and football, building plastic models Voice Actress: Naomi Shindou Character Designer: Hirokazu Hisayuki

A timid boy who enjoys spending time with his parents, with his computer, with plastic models, and most of all, with his beloved dog. One day, the Galfa Empire attacks his town, and in the commotion, he ends up in the cockpit of the Dendoh alongside a classmate he can't stand!

As 11-yos often do, the two very quickly conciliate their differences and become friends.

Lately, his duties as a Dendoh pilot have been getting in the way of his personal life. He's no Peter Parker, but he finds himself having less time to spend with his dad, and his mom seems so distant recently...

Compared to Ginga, Hokuto has better Ranged, Accuracy and Evasion. They're both fairly competent in terms of statline, but even though i like Hokuto more, it's kind of a fact that Ginga's a better pilot in a vaccuum. Still, you'll be shifting between them many times a stage if you're deploying them anyway.

GEAR Fighter Dendoh

Source Material: Gear Fighter Dendoh Height: 24.5 meters Power Source: double a batteries 2 Hyper Dendoh Batteries Real World Designer: Jun'ichi Akutsu

A mysterious robot that can only be controlled when both Gear Commanders (in essence, control units) light up, which only happens when Dendoh itself judges the pilots to be worthy. The Gear Commanders allow the pilots to catch "Data Weapons", large bioelectrical cryptids who become weapons for the Dendoh, powering it up.

In other words, it's the closest SRW will ever have to a "summoner" type character, which (combined with how great the show is) really endears me to this thing.

We get the Dendoh with the Unicorn Drill already acquired, and shifting to it will swap the pilot to Hokuto. Unicorn Drill grants us Fire Wall, a decent barrier ability, and most importantly, having a Data Weapon grants the Dendoh the ability to use the Final Attack, a move that deals more damage the more EN the Dendoh has remaining, but that will always leave it with only 10 EN remaining. As of right now, we have no way of refilling Dendoh's EN without putting it back in the ship (which will RAPIDLY drain the pilots' Will, especially in R), and all of its moves spend at least a little bit of EN, and most spend quite a bit. As such, the Dendoh is a potentially VERY powerful unit, but it requires wise utilization, and i find it to be one of the most fun and rewarding units to use in the game.

Both forms are clearly meant to be Super Robots, but have fairly unimpressive HP and Armor. Unicorn Drill's Fire Wall will prove very useful to us in the future.

Vega

"Rushing in blindly out of rage is the same as admitting defeat."

Source Material: GEAR Fighter Dendoh Age: ??? Birthday: ??? Voice Actress: Kotono Mitsuishi Character Designer: Hirokazu Hisayuki

The mysterious second in command at GEAR HQ. She finds herself tasked with taking care of the Dendoh's young pilots, and she's quite adept at her job. She's extensively trained in CQC, and can fight beyond the limits of a normal human, demonstrating superhuman abilities at multiple points.

For whatever reason, she sometimes finds herself uncomfortable around Hokuto.

You would be excused if you thought she was a support unit, but make no mistake, Vega is a real robot pilot geared to be dealing damage through and through. Her stats are all quite decent, and her Spirit learnset does not disappoint either.

Valkyrie

Source Material: Gear Fighter Dendoh Real World Designer: Jun'ichi Akutsu

Vega's specialized combat bike. It's loaded with missiles and various lightweight CQC weapons that make use of Vega's fantastical skillset. So long as they're on the ground, Vega can stand up even against Mobile Suits, Mechabeasts and the like.

It can also hover above water, although "hover" may be an incorrect way of putting it; rather, it's capable of driving atop water.

It's no powerhouse, but this thing can actually put in some work. It's nigh impossible to hit (especially with upgrades to its Mobility), and while it'll never hit quite as hard as a dedicated combat unit, it can hit hard enough thanks to Vega's stats.

The true draw of this thing, however, is that it shares upgrades 1 to 1 with another unit we'll get much later, and that other unit can be piloted by other characters. If you really want to, you can pump upgrades into this machine and get two competent machines to decently upgraded levels for the cost of one.

[passingthroughstranger]

Ultraman Orb x Zone of the Enders x Super Robot Wars V

The game is a month away. Ultraman Orb is one of the best shows Tsuburaya has made thus far. Zone of the Enders is the least overrated game of all time that deserves your money. But Fucking Konami screwed over Kojima Hideo and the chance for ZOE3 has been thrown into vector space forever. Imma combine them all into a fanfic. And because I always wanted to have either one of them in an SRW game... in a way, I can have two for the price of one lol I'd put a Read More, but it's not available on mobile so... A warning; I've been reading that Self Inserts are frowned upon. But I'm unable to think up of a good OC to be the protagonist. And I also read that SI-Fics are mostly okay and haters gonna hate. Or something. So yes, this is gonna be an SI-Fic. I can only promise that I won't make the same mistakes that are common on SI-Fics or many OC-centric stories. And that it will have cool moments. Anyway, the story... I need SRWV to be released so I can buy the game in order to know when should SI-Me appear in the story. But I know one way to start, thanks to Crossbone Gundam. The manga's story started around Jupiter. Both Zone of the Enders began also around Jupiter. I can have either Kincaid/Seabook or Tobia discovering SI-Me who's inside Jehuty. Not knowing how he got inside here, where or when he is, SI-Me teamed up with the Crossbone Vanguards to survive. Yes, I am basically redoing the plot for ZOE2, but let's be real; only Kojima can do a proper continuation. But there will be differences, to spice things up. For one thing, BAHRAM or anything related to the ZOE universe doesn't exist in the SRWV timeline. I'll tell you know that Jehuty WILL fight Anubis. But the one who is runnin Anubis? Not Nohman, lemme tell ya now. When does the Ultraman part starts? Well, I don't think I'll be repeating the plot for Orb, maybe I will for certain episodes, but I plan for it to be tributes to the battles from past Ultraman shows. Like both times when Ultraman fought the Baltans, Ultraman stopping Jamila, Ultraseven struggling against King Joe, Jack being double teamed by Gudon & Twintail and Knuckle & Black King, the Six Ultra Brothers vs Tyrant and Alien Tempera, Tiga vs Kylieroid... I'll figure out how to do them while the Super Robot Wars and ZOE plots are happening, but in order to make those tribute battles better, the forms Orb!Me uses will correspond with the respective Ultras I'm basing the chapters on. So Hurricane Slash Orb will be facing both Gudon and Twintail, Photon Victorium Orb will survive against Gan-Q (I'd watch Gaia to know more if the episodes from Crunchyroll were available outside of the USA, but I guess I can blame those Chaiyo guys for us Southeast Asians not getting them), Emerium Slugger Orb will get his ass kicked by King Joe... Man, it would be cool if Juggler still has the Dark Ring, he can combine Showa and Heisei monsters like Zeppandon and become them. Imagine a Mephilas x Kylieroid form, or a Alien Empera x Dark Zagi combo... But he's a good guy again now. And my ability to describe things are still absolutely shit. Fan-fucking-tastic. Well, you get the idea. Oh, he will start with only the Specium Zeppelion form, so it won't make him OP if he had all the cards from the show and the arcade game... and SI-Me will share Dingo's misery by having him be stuck inside Jehuty. The twist is that due to the differences of technology, nobody knows how to replace his artificial heart and lungs with organic ones. I'd tell you, but I don't want to spoil anything. Unless one or two of the mecha series have such tech, that is. There's a lot to watch. So yes, he'll be stuck inside the hangar and the only people he can interact with at that state are the more sociable heroes and the mechanics. Tall, athletic, buff, pretty lady mechanics who are older than SI-Me (I be 24 now). Thank you Sunrise for creating Mora Boscht lol Speaking of Stardust Memory, that entry doesn't appear much these days. Same goes for the 08th MS Team and Christina Mackenzie from War in the Pocket. I plan to rectify that. Yes, they should be older by CCA, and (some) are probably retired (or dead) from the war thanks to the Federation's bullshit (maybe Christina is still around) but somehow I'm gonna have them appear in this story. Heh, maybe have Jehuty use their respective Gundams' arsenals. Like the Dendrobium Orchis, Alex's gatling gun arm, Ez8's backpack hooks... or something. Ooh, maybe have the mechs themselves come back... maybe have a story where SI-Me discover the files of Operation Stardust and show them to the others. Giving me a good reason to have Kou Uraki and the gang in the story. In conclusion, the main plot for the fanfic, other than following the stories of Orb, ZOE2, and SRWV, is this; SI-Me woke up inside the Orbital Frame Jehuty. Neither he or ADA know how both of them are in their current predicament. He will be rescued by Kincaid/Seabook or Tobia, or perhaps any other of the casts of V depending on how the story of the game goes, and joins them to figure out why both he and Jehuty are there. Before he does that, an Ultra Kaiju or alien appears to wreck things. The Orb Ring he found glowed a bit, and when it resonates... he understood. Then, SI-Me transforms into Ultraman Orb Specium Zeppelion, and I can finally have and Ultraman in an SRW story lol Like in many Other World stories these days, be they official or fanfics, SI-Me knows who the SRW casts are (except the Original Generations, since I rarely cared for them) so he has to be careful on what he says to them. Although, I read that Might Gaine has a... pretty meta story. I think it could help. Fortunately, tokusatsu still exists in the timeline, so SI-Me can have an easier time explaining how an Ultraman works. There will be mysteries, there will be High Speed Robot Action, there will be romcoms consisting of a short-ass scrawny looking joe being teased a lot by a gang of taller, beautifully buff mechanic ladies, there will be giant robots teaming up with an even bigger giant alien (note that many mechas are at least around 20 meters high. The Ultras are around 40-50 meters taller) There will be running gags regarding Jehuty's peculiar cockpit, and people will laugh. Come February 23, I will buy that game and that fanfic will be written.

[over-the-time-flow]

Our triple kill nets us 8k monies, a Repair Kit, and a Solar Panel, an item which grants a machine 10% En regen every turn, which is pretty handy.

...wait, why's the stage not over?

...GOOD LORD, I'VE FORGOTTEN THE DINOSAURS

GETTER TEAM? RAUL?

oh awesome

Go is feeling himself, but Colonel Jin's mind is elsewhere.

"Heh... I finally got all three pilots. Were you watching, Musashi...?"

:(

At the Frieden's bridge, Hayato and Jamil exchange thanks for the mutual aid, and Go grumbles about it. He could have handled it all himself, he thinks.

Already feeling in the dadscold mood, Ryoma immediately calls him a dumbass and tells him that the Getter Robo is all about teamwork. Go blows him off, introducing the frankly indecipherable nickname he has for Ryoma, "Rotor". I get that it's supposed to be Go misremembering Ryoma's name, but Rotor sounds so unalike it that surely it's like. a reference or something i'm missing, right? does anyone know?

In any case, Hayato apologizes for the nascent fight can't take getter 1 pilots ANYWHERE and further apologizes for asking to accompany the ship all the way to Japan. Continuing this interaction's trend torwards mutual respected punctuated by extreme politeness, Jamil of course says it's no bother and gets started on introducing the Getter Team to everyone.

Raj immediately perks up when the word Getter starts getting thrown around, leading to Kid making fun of him for his special interest in energy sources. Hayato is sorry to burst his bubble, explaining that the Neo Getter uses Plasma, not Getter Rays. It's not as potent as Getter Rays, but it's easier to control, and it still gives Photonic and Super Electromagnetic energy a run for their money, so they figure they may as well play around with it. Seemingly not very picky, Raj still wants to hear more, but Sho shuts him down; this is all confidential, so she can't say much more without Colonel Jin's permission.

Later, in the hangar, Ryoma says his farewells; seems like he's going off on his own now, saying that now that the Getter Team has all three members, his job here is done. He's not gonna be piloting anything anytime soon, WHAT A REFRESHING SENTIMENT TO HEAR FROM RYOMA IN A SRW GAME AFTER THREE BILLION YEARS OF MODERN SRW, LET ME TELL YOU so he might as well do his own thing and gather info on the Dinosaur Empire. Noin apparently has been offering him a position in the Preventers, but Ryoma just doesn't see himself fitting into an organization like that.

Ryoma: "Alright, see ya!" Hayato: "Ryo...!" Ryoma: "I know, i know, i'll stop by Musashi's grave before leaving!"

Go barges in, saying "old man Rotor" can't leave until they've settled their fight, but Sho drags him away because he's got a MOUNTAIN of piloting drills to catch up on as the New Guy. As he's restrained, he promises Ryoma that their duel is a soulbound endeavor, but Ryoma really just wishes he'd direct that sort of gusto torwards fighting the dinos...

Back at their room, our intrepid time divers are once again stumped. They really haven't particularly thought things through. What will they do once they reach Japan? Should they have really joined up with the Preventers?

Mizuho in particular is worried that with all the mechanical talent concentrated here, they probably won't be getting that much budget allocated to working on the Excellence...

Having grown used to her and noticing she's doing her patented self-deprecation again, Raul springs to action, telling her that as far as he's concerned, the Excellence is the best machine around. It's the best fit for the Timeflow Engine, after all, and that too is the best engine around, so it only makes sense. She says he's exaggerating, but he says that she's the one always going overboard with the self deprecation, and as usual, the Raul Pep Talk™️ is her weakness and she immediately feels better.

am i insane. theyre so fucking cute

[bonerhitler]

I love Super Robot Wars

So! I feel like the past few posts I've made have been disappointingly negative. I don't like writing negative things, it's too easy. Anyone can write a few pages about how bad everything is! So lets get the good thoughts back on track by writing some dumb words about something I love. Giant robots. Specifically, Super Robot Wars.

For the unfamiliar Super Robot Wars is a franchise largely consisting of turn based strategy games wherein your units consist of giant robots. In the main series these robots are largely from various series such as Gundam, Mazinger Z and Getter Robo, in fact they are the three main pillars of the franchise. Whereas in the Original Generation games your units entirely consist of new, original creations but the gameplay is otherwise the same. Units are also typically segregated into two categories. “Super Robots” which are generally big, tanky and more implausible robots such as Mazinger Z or Gurren Lagann, usually powered by their pilot's willpower with a penchant for unrealistic weaponry and a heavier focus on flashy skills. And “Real Robots” which tends to encompass series like Gundam and Martian Successor Nadesco, they're usually smaller, faster with a focus on dodging things and using ammunition instead of energy with far less of a focus on the pilot's willpower and a heavier emphasis on the machine's capabilities.

Typically speaking the gameplay is straight forward on the surface. You're given a large field to move your units around in and each unit can move a number of spaces and can take one action per turn. Your turn ends when all  units have moved, or if you wish to end it prematurely you can while the AI typically has the same restrictions you do. Each unit has a small list of attacks they can do, restricted by range, energy cost and “will”. “Will” being a stat that goes up and down based on each pilot's individual personality, but most characters will gain will by attacking and defending their allies, but lose it by being hit or watching friends die. Each pilot has their own skills they learn as they level up as well. Generally those range from simple skills to increase your aim or reduce damage, to crazier high-cost skills that double your attack damage or refill your health completely.

After each map is complete you're given a wide array of options from swapping pilots mechs around, to upgrading mechs and pilot skills or even changing the equipment of your unit, if at all applicable. The series tends to be decent about letting you use your absolute favorite units even if the units you like aren't the objective best. Balance is, however, a minor issue. So units like the Evangelions tend to have some very unbalanced skills and stats due to their defensive AT field with Evangelion Unit 01 in particular gaining access to several different forms over the course of the franchise. But due to the fact that you can upgrade units to your preference, field whoever you want and equip the ones you want the natural imbalances are hardly an issue.

Then there's the approach to the story the games take. They usually tie the stories together based on a common theme or idea and mesh them together using characters, events or plot items from one story as  replacement for similar ones in another. The main arc of each story the game focuses on follows through as expected, however, but the background details tend to shift slightly to better fit the strange amalgamated world the game takes place in. At least, usually. One really cool thing the SRW franchise does is fill its games with secrets and alternate paths, protagonists who die are often able to be saved or recovered. Even villains can occasionally be turned hero if the player figures out the right options and requirements. There are occasionally even entire game-exclusive redesigns and upgrades to pre-existing series mechs like Zeorymer hidden fairly deep in the game.

As for why I, personally, like this series so much? Well largely because it's just fun to play around with cool robots from my favorite anime and blow up a bunch of lame generic evil minions before fighting a boss to the awesome themesong from that show. It's also always rewarding when you manage to figure out a great strategy to finish a tough stage with no losses and gain a bunch of cool bonuses, or discover a neat hidden unit somewhere. There's also always the chance of discovering a new series you've never  heard of with a cool mech design or something. I didn't know what Tekkaman Blade was before playing SRW:J but I know now, and I love those designs, or Blue Comet SPT Layzner. I absolutely love that the series will just bust out less popular, even occasionally obscure, series and it's always a treat to see something you're completely unfamiliar with among the old favorites.

There are downsides, however. As far as I can tell only six SRW games are in English. Super Robot Wars: Original Generation, and it's sequel Original Generation 2 for the GBA were released in America. Super Robot Wars: V and Original Generations: Moon Dwellers for the PS4 were given English subtitles for their SEA releases. And at least two games, SRW: J, for the GBA, and Alpha Gaiden, for the Playstation, have fan translations. One of the biggest reasons the series can't make it over seas is licensing, a lot of the series are owned by multiple different anime studios so they can't legally bring it over. The OG games, however, were met with lackluster results on the GBA so they haven't bothered translating any since. At least now we will likely get more translated subtitles with the SEA releases, as they seem to be doing with all of their Gundam games as well.

So, in the end all I have to say is if you like robots and haven't given these games a try it, go for it. They're super fun and my only regret is that I'm not fluent enough in Japanese to fully understand the stories of the games that aren't translated. Watching Mazinger Z wreck dudes will never grow old for me, especially when it's paired up to the amazing openings from Shin Mazinger Z.