Part 1

Like all good JRPGs. this one starts off by letting you choose the Protagonist's name. Rather than let the thread decide, I figured I would pick only the most suitable of names for our Hetero-chrome Hero.






Make us proud, Mr. Kobayashi.






Apocalyptic disaster, massive destruction, tale of revenge, blah blah blah... Let's get right to the interesting stuff.










That's what I'm talking about. This here is a GM.


Anyway, here's Katz and his friend Fritz. They're on a quest to exact revenge on a Mobile Suit that blew up their Orphanage and yadda yadda yadda basic JRPG backstory.


After they ogle the beautiful machine in front of them for a while, the room begins to shake.




Fuck yes, A Zaku-I. They don't get enough love.


I like Katz already.






Here we get a tutorial for moving around.


Hi guys!


After enough horsing around, it's time to fight!




How does he see with that bit of metal in front of the camera?


Hi Random Grunt #00251. You're about to have a really bad day.


Combat in MS Saga is somewhat unique compared to other JRPG's. The commands you can take during combat are as follows:

Attack
Boost (Special attacks)
Technique (spells and the like)
Items
Defend
Charge
Switch
Retreat.

All of the above should be self-explanatory, except for Charge. Charge is an action that will increase a characters EN bar by 1. What is EN, you ask? EN is the basis for which everything in combat revolves around. Almost everything you do in combat costs EN, with different actions costing a different amount of EN (For example, hitting someone with a stick costs 1 EN, punching them in the face requires 0 EN, and hitting them with a big fuck-off beam will cost 4 EN). One must not only keep an eye on your own EN, but that of the enemies as well, which you can keep track of thanks to the indicators in the top-right of the screen.


Right now, the only thing Katz can do is either punch the enemy in the face, or plink at him with his Head Vulcans.

There are two different types of attacks in the game, Melee and Range. Melee attacks are usually stronger, but leave you open to an enemy's counter-attack, while Range attacks allow you to plink away at enemies with impunity.


Rather than plink away at our Zaku pal, I chose to punch him.


Unfortunately, he has an axe, and counters me with it.




He's also smart enough to use his machine gun instead of using his axe and allowing me to counter-attack him right back.






After three rounds, he eventually falls.


Nice, those weapons are gonna come in handy.






Our pal Fritz also loots the Zaku.

Let's take a look at our pilots now, shall we?




The status screens tells us pretty much everything we need to know.

The Melee and Ranged stats are somewhat self-explanatory. Reflexes is your speed, and Skill and Mind effects mobile suit techniques and character techniques, respectively. I'm not quite sure HOW they effect them, but the higher the number, the better.




Our mobile suits.


Now let's equip our suits with the spoils from our first fight. Each mobile suit can only hold so much equipment, so it's a bit of a pain to make sure your suits are properly equipped.


I give the axe to Katz and the machine gun to Fritz.


Time to head out.


This thing here is a save point. It also completely heals your mobile suits.


The chests here contain some goodies. The other chest held a regeneration kit, which is a revive item.




Upgrade kits will permanently upgrade a mobile suits stats. I'll go more into upgrading later.




Type 61 Tanks! Tanks are rather harmless. If they hit they can do some damage, but they're completely helpless to melee attacks, and usually go down in two hits.






Like so.

Anyway, After the battle it was a short walk to the outside.


I absolutely love how the mobile suits in this game look.


Katz here gives an inspiring speech to his comrade.


And then they begin their journey.


-------------------------

ROBOT ROLL CALL

RGM-79 GM

First appearance: Mobile Suit Gundam (0079)

The GM (pronounced 'Jim' and usually considered to be short for 'Gundam Mass-production' or 'Gundam Mass-produced') came in rather late in the One Year War, with the Federation being forced to use tanks and aircraft to try and repel Zeon's mobile suits. Once they were finally introduced, however, the balance of the war slowly began to turn in the Federation's favor. Despite the GM's underwhelming appearance, it actually performed better than most of Zeon's mobile suits.

MS-05B Zaku I

First Appearance: Mobile Suit Gundam (0079)

While the Zaku-1 was quickly overshadowed by the Zaku-II, it hasn't stopped them from being used during the war, with some Aces still using the outdated suits, as well as various types being used for tasks unsuitable for the more combat-oriented suits.

Type 61 MBT

First appearance: Mobile Suit Gundam (0079)

The Type 61 was used by the Earth Federation in an attempt to stop Zeon's attack on the Earth. Not surprisingly, they weren't very effective, and it wasn't until the GM was developed that the Earth Federation was able to finally repel Zeon's ground forces and bring the war back into Space.