The Let's Play Archive

Super Robot Wars Z

by Brunom1, Dr. Pepper, Caphi

Part 105: Mission 29 (Setsuko) - The Burning Sea - Part 1

We’ve a long, annoying mission ahead of us…TRI attacks are at a premium and, while you won’t have enough units to fill everything up, you should deploy a Super (I like Zambot because it doesn’t have a post-movement TRI) by its lonesome for a rather important job.

Camille and Setsuko are deploying as event units and we’ve 9 slots available, so here’s how we’re going:


FYI: to make things simpler, it’d be good if you could equip Setsuko and Camille with something to either boost their water terrain or make them fly.
Ok…let’s do this…


Location: Western Galia – Battleship Garuda, Extended’s Adjustment Room



Four, Rosamia, and all the Extended are there to greet Stella when she wakes up - and it's a good thing she did, because they're deploying fairly soon.
Auel is rather annoyed to have to deploy right after undergoing adjustments and, to make things worse, they’re gunning for ZEUTH so Sting expects a tough fight – that said, there’s no way they, the “invincible” Phantom Pain, will lose this one.
Indeed, the Extended kids are raring to destroy their enemies.

Buran contrasts their enthusiasm to his own sense of pride and honor that drives him to battle, unlike those kids; Neo explains that because the Extendeds whole lives exist only to do battle, it's only victory that can give them meaning.
Speaking frankly, Buran muses that, regardless of the fact that they’re both after victory in battle, he's not comfortable sharing the title of "soldier" with them; furthermore, Buran has a feeling that the more they use such creatures in battle, the more the nature of the war itself will change.
To make his point, he says that as a soldier, he aims to go out and end this war as hard and fast as he can; both he and Neo want to bring home a definitive victory on this next sortie – the Phantom Pain name is on the line here!



To that end, before the mission, Buran wants to see the Extendeds in the sim room.
He's gonna show them how to fight in formation and, despite Auel’s annoyance, Sting's up for anything that'll make them stronger, and so, of course, is Stella.
Inwardly, Neo also wants Buran to help the kids: "Make them stronger than anyone else..."

Nearby, Four wonders for how much longer this battle will continue and can see that the Extendeds are actually exhausted, inside; Neo says that unfortunately, they have to fight anyway. All of them do.
And while we're here, he’s heard that she’s been fighting to recover her old memories and advises her to give up on that; "Humans are always forgetting as their lives go on.", he says.
Neo doesn't know if he can compare his amnesia to hers, but he knows that he's sort of replaced the old memories with new ones.



Four is silent. "I... I didn't mean to be presumptuous," starts Neo. "It just seems to me that you're wearier than they are."
And she knows he's right: fighting for her memories means fighting ZEUTH... fighting Camille. That's what's destabilizing her.
Rosamia seems worried but Four smiles thinly and, thanking Neo for his concern, says she'll fight - both because she's a Phantom Pain member and because she really does want her memories back.

Four exits stage right to prep the Psyco Gundam, a machine Neo is almost afraid of: it needs a Cyber Newtype, like Four, to operate, but it puts strain on that pilot's mind...
Rosamia asks Neo if he's ever wanted his memories back - and he feels he might, sometimes.
In contrast, she wants to be rid of her own memories of the Spacenoids making the sky – the colonies – fall and ruining the Earth (during the OYW)…those memories that haunt her viciously to this day.

"So they've amplified her childhood trauma to give her something to focus on, as an unstable Cyber Newtype..." ponders Neo.
"The Phantom Pain... it's as if even the name is a cruel joke of fate."



Mission 29 (Setsuko) - The Burning Sea





We're back on track and heading towards Gibraltar, but the Phantom Pain is approaching us - and in this open space, Talia and Bright expect them to come in full force to stop us for good.
Setsuko notes that Camille hasn't deployed - she isn't sure if she can fight here either; Heine reminds her that he gave her some pointers in high-speed combat, so he’s counting on her. (Said training has no effect on her stats. )

Setsuko promises to do her best with his pointers and, relaxing his tone, he asks her to drop the title and call him by name (the same thing Toby once said).
The Gran Knights can understand Camille’s hesitation to deploy, considering the enemy’s the Phantom Pain, but Shinn himself is willing to fight: he’ll save Stella from this war with his own hands.
Quattro figures it is Camille’s choice to make as he doesn’t NEED to force himself to partake in this fight; Amuro figures them saying stuff like that only shows that they’ve grown older.



Camille deploys after all and both Touga and Shinn both ask him if he's alright and good to go.
Camille's not sure - "but I can't just sit by and watch Four in battle."
Well, in that case, Amuro orders Camille to take care of the huge black Gundam if it appears, and Camille says he'll figure something out; Quattro asks Bright directly if he approves, and Bright has no argument with his soldier.

Kouji’s inwardly cheering for the kid and Loran says everyone here will support him to the fullest – this may be war but humans don’t need to keep killing each other.
Furthermore, Heine orders Setsuko to cover Camille's tail – all part of her training program – and while she’s not sure if she’ll be able to do any more than just be a diversion, she’s as committed as always to improving herself.
Camille thanks them both for the assist.



Kappei asks if Tetsuya has no complaints about this and he actually agrees with Camille: "If there's anything I'd absolutely hate here, it would be to give up without exhausting all options."
"Hey, Tetsuya!" cheers Kiraken. "You really are a nice guy!".
That said, Tetsuya snaps: "Don't get the wrong idea. I've no intention of meeting Four with anything but my best. So Camille, if you want to save her... you'd better beat me there."
Camille has every intention of doing so.





The Phantom Pain is here and, at Neo's orders, forming up around the Psyco - assuming Four is willing, which she seems to be.
Meanwhile, Shinn aims to personally disable the Gaia Gundam, the one Stella is in...


Mission Objective: Shoot down Buran, Neo and Rosamia.
Mission Failure: Any battleship, Camille or Setsuko shot down.
Skill Point: Achieve the victory condition within 5 turns.

Aaah, what a clusterfuck. There’s a shitton of units, a lot of damn accurate named characters with dangerous attacks and a rather strict time limit.
My big upgrades don’t help out a lot simply due to the enemy’s massive numbers. It’s very easy to get swarmed and let’s not forget that the Earth Alliance’s mooks are also Extended, so they’ll be busting accurate TRI and ALL attacks.
On a positive note, outside of the Psyco Gundam and Ben’s Garuda, none of the enemies are too resilient if you can bypass their shields, but they can certainly do a number on your reals if you’re not careful.
On its own, this Skill Point isn’t TOO bad but you get an added headache if you’re going for secrets as we have four different things to take care of.
Only two are available now, mind:

Secret Alert!

As usual, the two girls will target their respective men so you better keep Focus on them at all times because they’ll tear through them if they get a clean hit.
Try to have at least one of the three leaders downed by the start of turn 5 to give you some leeway to clean stuff up and keep in mind that Rosamia is unlikely to move as her range is massive.

Speaking of, we never took a closer look at Rosamia, so let’s do that quickly:


Gaplant (Rosamia Badam)
Pilot Skills:
Features:
Squad Leader Bonus: Weapon Power +10%
Rosamia’s Voice Actress: Kayoko Fujii (other known works: Linda in Dragonar, Emary Ounce in ZZ Gundam and a few others).

Rosamia’s what you’d expect from a Gundam-series named character: dodgy, accurate, high stats on everything but defense and a whole lot of long-range attacks.
She’s not going to move, always preferring to snipe away but, considering you have a whole lot of other enemies to deal with, there’ll be a lot to do before you can rush her down; as always, you’ll need Strike to hit her reliably but, if you’ve that, she won’t last long.



Marking Four’s range just to be safe, Kouji moves ahead to start the fight.














Alright.







Athrun and Toshiya finish the job.



Shinn moves ahead and gets to work on a Gells-Ghe group.












Pretty good damage but these things are quite bulky – the mook’s counterattack tags Roberto for some small-ish damage.



Enemy Phase!







Setsuko gets harassed by Shinn’s target while Athrun has to contend with a Marasai group – both leave their targets barely alive.



This one gets clever and goes for the King Beal.












I’ll take it, sure.

All the named enemies are hanging back.



Player Phase!





Before long, Meyrin detects a new group of troops approaching: Captain Baba's ORB troops and they’re here to reinforce the Phantom Pain.
The tables have turned on ZEUTH, now badly outnumbered and in need of a turnaround ASAP - Athrun barks an order to make a charge for the enemy command.
We might be able to change the tide of this battle by taking them out but how is Shinn going to save Stella in this mess?

Well, ain’t that nice.
Orb’s troops are dodgy but they’re also very flimsy (even Baba); that said, some of them will readily TRI your units and you don’t need that when facing down all these named units.
They can and should be used by whoever’s close to build morale but don’t go out of your way – we don’t need to worry about them for the secrets or the Skill Point.







With that in mind, both Amuro and Bright take potshots at some TRI groups (Amuro killing one) before using Hit & Away to keeping moving.




Joseph TRIs that Marasai group that attacked King Beal (Talia destroys what’s left) while the Jin Family turns their attention to this other batch.


Gotta get these Supers some morale quick-like.












Touga’s so pumped with Skill that pretty much everything he does is a critical hit…it’s beautiful.







Toshiya quickly dispatches what’s left while Athrun starts whittling away a fresh Gells-Ghe group.



Can you do something about this, Tetsuya?












No kills but at least the Barrier Field is holding nicely!







Shinn takes that thing down while Kouji blasts a nearby Zamza-Zah.



Toshiya’s all that’s left so he might as well help out with that.














Bah…just 731 HP short of a kill.

Alright, I think this is good enough for today. This mission’s damn long, so we’re gonna have to split it into three parts.

Expect the next one around Thursday/Friday.

See you all then!