Part 22: Sortie 22 - Rapture

Sortie 22 - Rapture

Well folks, we've made it to the end. Despite all odds, we're here at the final 'campaign' missions of Another Age. It feels like forever since it's started, and in a way it has, what with eleven billion changes going on over three houses and other insane mishaps. So let's get straight to it with nine-gear crow here to see us off. Because he threatened to kill me if I didn't bring him along.



As for Robot Time, Polaron is our winner this time, blowing into the thread like a blue gale to claim his victory in identifying Xabungle, Tomino's favorite blue bot with a disgustingly catchy opening







Pilot: Frogman
AC: Coral Line

Strengths:
-PLOW, as is par for the course by this point.
-Ludicrously mobile
-Weirdly competent AI 99% of the time.

Weaknesses:
-Other 1% of the time he's a goddamn idiot who will float right in front of you and shoot into walls
-Refuses to use his pulse cannon

Strategy:
Okay, I'm not gonna lie, I have no idea what to make of this guy. In the same breath he is a brilliantly tuned opponent who will do things like make good use of his backwards boosters, actively mess with your FCS, and overall has a good strategy going with the pistol, blade, and his high mobility making him hard to get a bead on. He'll even try to lure you towards the water, and pester you with vertical missiles should you stay on the cliffs. On the other hand, he steadfastly refuses to use his biggest gun and he'll often spend time doing some really dumb shit.

When fighting this guy, assuming you're not on hover legs, generally your first priority is to engage him before he drops down to the water. Once he gets down there, he wants to stay there, and will do everything in his power to annoy you, so heading towards him when he spawns in is the best thing to do. From there he'll do one of two things. Either stay on the ground and be an idiot like you saw in my run, or take to the skies and be an absolute ballache to hit. And with his PLUS energy reserves, he'll never need to come down. In the former, he'll be easy enough to hit, but he loves to use his backwards booster extensions to dash out of the way and counterattack, so if you're going for a blade, make sure you're close enough to catch him. In the latter, it's all about careful shooting during his arc plateaus and valleys, preferably with something with high knockback like a bazooka or rockets, but machineguns also work to keep the pressure on.

If you've got hover legs though, then you'll actually want to engage him near the submarine, because for some reason, that breaks his brain. He will spend almost all his time near it, and will often run into walls or the sub itself, leaving you able to get plenty of clear shots and take him down in no time flat.



Pilot: Vaser
AC: Gargantua

Strengths:
-High armor and attack power

Weaknesses:
-Almost no mobility
-Target acquisition issues
-Has had AP artifically reduced

Strategy:
Welcome to the polar opposite of our last friend. Vaser is a complete and utter pushover, who, despite ostensibly being a hulking behemoth, manages to be a wet paper bag. The sad irony of him is that despite his weapons all being power focused, he can hardly hit you, and even when he does, you need to work towards him doing enough damage to not make it to the mission's second phase, where you'll just be repaired and resupplied anyways, so even the threat of resource management doesn't work in his favor. To put him out of his misery, just bring along something with some nice big attack numbers and he'll go down in no time, given his horrible evasion.



Pilot: Carlyle
AC: Wonder Raid

Strengths:
-The Cover AC
-The God Rifle
-Buttlegs
-Quite mobile

Weaknesses:
-...Not a PLUS? Or even Overweight? what
-This means he can't use his grenade launcher without kneeling, just like in the opening
-Super low armor and AP
-The most boring colorscheme ever




Strengths:
-PLOW
-Missiles make for good support firepower

Weaknesses:
-Dumb, tryhard AC name
-Main laser rifle is weak for a boss, doubly so for the final boss
-Hates close combat for some reason

So here it is, our final boss. Es. Plural. But honestly, compared to what we've fought before, this isn't even a blip on our radar. There is one and only one threat in this mission, and that's Carlyle tying you up with repeated concentrated fire from the God Rifle while Antares charges up for a full missile salvo. Generally, Carlyle should be your first target, since he's the main actual threat at the start, and getting rid of him early on removes the threat of his rifle and love of melee, meaning you can focus all your effort on making Antares regret every choice he's ever made. Thankfully, Carlyle is enough of a lightweight that no matter what you decide to bring to the fight, he'll be going down easily, just try to keep Antares on the other side of the big ramp, or otherwise away from you, because getting a rack of his middle missiles in the face can bring an easy victory down to a hard fought one.

As for Antares himself, once Carlyle is down, you'll want to beeline straight for him, as close as possible. For some reason, he will do everything he can to keep from engaging in a blade duel, meaning you can run circles around him and dump whatever heavy weapons you want or pour a billion bullets through his back, and he'll fight to keep get away. Thankfully, we have a much more angelic final boss yet to come next time.