Part 17
The Eisengrad Army begins it's march towards the Dark Alliance's base...
Let's do this thing!
I hate it when dungeons branch off at the beginning, because I never know which way leads to treasure, and which way leads to the boss.
A few of the enemies here are the same as the ones we encountered during the attack on Eisengrad.
Oh cool, a downed Gaw. The area past the crashed Gaw is a gauntlet of yellow encounters.
Finally, something new!
Gouf Customs are a pain because their melee weapon can inflict Overheat. Arctic leaders can cause Short Circuit with THEIR melee weapon. Hope you stocked up on Coolant and Fuses!
Because you will need them. Make sure you have at least one person immune to Short Circuit on the front line.
Awesome! Shield techniques will both cure the status effect, and render them immune to it for the rest of the battle.
Fuck Barrier Doms forever.
Fuck Gouf Customs as well.
After winning that fight, Rezner learned a new Boost. Hyper Charge is a stronger version of Power Charge.
The last fight in the gauntlet is a trio of Gyans.
They were swiftly dealt with.
Miniboss time! These guys can cause you some trouble if you take them lightly.
Tremmie destroys the Gyan Lancer while the others deal with the normal Gyans.
After defeating that Miniboss, a cutscene plays. That means that this is the way towards the boss.
Behind those yellow encounters is some treasure that I want. This was the only notable battle, since the Shot Killer is completely invulnerable to Ranged attacks.
The other chest contained 7 Rick Dias Data. I can't wait to get my hands on one of those.
Anyway, time to use escape to get back to the beginning so I can take the right path this time.
Anytime you re-enter the dungeon, a little scene will play. It's a rather nice touch. A similar scene will play if you walk out of the dungeon instead of use an SOS flare or Escape technique where Katz will say he's leaving to get resupplied.
This is an interesting encounter. the Mirrors are immune to Beam attacks, and the Barrier Gelgoog is immune to melee attacks so you more or less have to concentrate on one enemy at a time. But other than that there's not much to it.
The Gelgoog was guarding this piece of equipment. Similar to the Extra Wing, only it (I think) increases Speed by 60 instead of 30.
The chests here contained 10 Nemo Data, an Arm Missile Kai, and another Energy Capacitor (Gives you an extra bar of EN at the start of battle, but your Range and Melee stats are lowered by 15).
Gavenger gets the Arm Missile Kai.
On the way back up the mountain, Katz learned Gatling fire, which he will never use despite Gatling Fire being completely awesome.
Onwards!
This tunnel is annoying.
The Yellow encounter is full of Defenders. Normally, this would be a pain in the ass to fight because they have very high defense, and a decent amount of HP.
Instead, I just use High bomber and Bits, since they ignore Armor.
Another Miniboss.
Same deal with this one. Don't bother with normal attacks, just use Bits and High Bomber until everything is dead.
Oh ho? What's this?
...You call that a Gatling Fire?
THIS is a Gatling Fire!
Outside the tunnel is another yellow encounter.
Moving on.
A save point with some chests filled with healing items. The Regeneration Kit DX will revive a downed unit for 500 HP instead of 50. The other chest contained 3 Repair Units, which restores 500 HP for the entire party.
Anyway, there's one last Miniboss I need to fight.
This fight can be dangerous. The Gyan Lancers can use Power Charge, and the Kaempfer can use Sonic Storm.
The Kaempfer is a hardy foe as well. He even managed to survive a Gatling Fire attack!
Of course, he then died to a counter attack before I could revive Rezner.
At least I got a pretty nice gun out of it. The Shotgun has a chance to lower enemy armor if it hits. Pretty nice weapon.
At this point, I take the time to bring everyone up to at least level 19.
Almost there!
All of a sudden Tremmie is really concerned about Gavenger. In order to mess with her, Gavenger starts talking about settling down after the war is over, maybe starting up his old family farm and marrying a nice girl.
BEFORE YOU GO TO THE SUMMIT, MAKE SURE YOU TAKE OFF ALL OF YOUR BEAM WEAPONRY!
The next boss is immune to beam weapons, so switch over to stuff that fires bullets and shells instead.
like so.
Once the Big Zam is mass produced, we'll put an end to the Eisengrad Army in no time!
Depending on how you play it, the Big Zam can either be extremely dangerous, or extremely easy.
He shares the same vulnerability to Melee attacks as the previous Mobile Armors had, so you can use Melee attacks with impunity. Most of his Boost Attacks can be blocked with Beam Chaff as well.
Don't underestimate his basic attacks, though.
Make sure to use buffs and debuffs. They can make all the difference.
When the Big Zam starts using Boosts, he will have a certain pattern when using them.
First he will use Beam Cannon x28 twice in a row.
I didn't have enough EN for a second usage of Beam Chaff, so I had to defend against the second one.
After using Beam Cannon x28 he will use Earthquake, which can't be blocked by Chaff so you have to defend.
Earthquake hurts and can inflict stun. Sometime he will use Earthquake twice, so be careful of that.
Katz' Repair All is a godsend for this battle since it heals a rather large amount of HP for the entire front line.
After a grueling fight, I finally manage to get him to this point. I also learned something, if the boss goes into this scene with full EN, than he won't waste a turn charging his EN up to full.
Of course, none of this really matters because, well...
...The boss ended up dying after two attacks. Huh.
HOLY SHIT, WHAT A TOTALLY UNEXPECTED TWIST!!
Holy shit, he's taking the mask off!
...PPFFFTT HAHAHAHAHAHA what the hell is that thing on his forehead? No wonder he wore a mask.
OH FUCK, ANOTHER PLOT TWIST. EVERYTHING I KNEW ABOUT THIS GAME IS CRASHING DOWN FASTER THAN A COLONY ON SYDNEY!
"Blah blah blah the world sucks so I'm going to recreate it"
"Also meet some of my buddies."
Since we would probably die a horrible death if we tried to fight them, Rezner decided to sacrifice herself to buy us time to escape.
Like I said before, the Eisengrad Army has the best characters. Except for the fat guy.
We have no choice but to keep running.
Fuck!
Everyone runs in...
Except Gavenger.
After giving us a destination to run to...
...Well fuck...
Only three left now...
With no other choice, we run.
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Robot Roll Call
MA-08 Big Zam
First Appearance: Mobile Suit Gundam (0079)
The Big Zam is a Mobile Armor designed to be used to destroy Jaburo, which was the Federation's largest base on Earth. Thanks to it's I-field Barrier, it was completely immune to Beam weapons.
XXXG-01D2 Gundam Deathscythe Hell
First Appearance: New Mobile Report Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz
A Mobile Suit that could use an "active cloak" system to appear invisible to the enemy. It also used a Beam Scythe, which is completely awesome.
XXXG-01S2 Altron Gundam
First Appearance: New Mobile Report Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz
A Mobile Suit with two extendable arm weapons called Dragon Fangs. Other than that, not much about it stands out.
MRX-009 Psyco Gundam
First Appearance: Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam
The first unit built by the Federation to be used by newtypes, the Psyco Gundam was equipped with a Psycommu system. Thanks to it's massive amount of firepower, it could attack more than one enemy at a time.