The Let's Play Archive

Super Robot Wars W

by Brunom1

Part 4: Post-Mission 1 Upgrades, Menu Options and Unit Analysis #2 ("Double Gundam Bishounen" Edition)

This update will be split inbetween my explanation of the menu and all the options, along with the Unit Analysis for Duo and Quatre.

First off, let’s go over the menu:


On the left side of the screen, you may notice that it’s showing Kazuma, Bless and Duo. Those are your Top Aces (I.e. the characters that have scored the most kills). Kazuma is in 1st place with 5 kills, Bless is in 2nd with 4 and Duo is in 3rd with 1 (tied with Quatre).

The Ace system has been a part of the Super Robot Wars games for a very long while and It’s very useful. The Ace system can give your pilots Morale bonuses depending on how many kills they’ve done. When a character reaches 50 kills, he becomes an Ace and gets a permanent +5 to his starting morale in battle.

A Top Ace doesn’t require 50 kills, he only needs to have enough to show up in your top 3 screen. Being in the top 3 gives those pilots a permanent +5 Morale (provided they stay there) and being in the 1st place adds another +5 While playing through Mission 2, I noticed that this isn't the case (which is odd because this feature was in place in several other SRW games).

This may sound confusing, but this is all you need to know:

So, as we are right now, Bless, Duo and Kazuma are starting the missions with a +5 boost to their morale. Very nice.


Now, let’s check the options available on the right side of the screen: the option selected on the screen above shows your Pilot Status. Go in there if you want to check your pilot skills, levels, etc.


Up next is the Unit Status option. It’s the same as the Pilot Status but you check your mechs.


The third option in the first row is the Save Game.


The option shown above is an important one. It’s your Pilot Upgrade option.
Everytime one of your guys kills an enemy, they get Battle Points (BP). You can use those to increase any stat you wish in your pilot, giving you an extra boost along with the one they get from leveling up.

The name of each stat is shown on the left side of the screen and they are, from top to bottom:
In most SRW games, points like these would be spent on Pilot Skills but W has a different way of acquiring them (which I’ll go over when we’re able to do so).


As I said before, Duo is a melee fighter and he’s dodgy (he also has no accuracy problems). As such, I boost his Melee and Evasion up some. Primary focus will be on melee with a bit of spillover to Evasion.


Now, I already mentioned that Quatre’s more support oriented, meaning I won’t be sending him right in the middle of enemies all the time. His priority will be to survive so he can help people out, so I’ll prioritize his dodge but still give him some melee for when someone goes after him.


Kazuma a balanced attacker with his most power weapons being melee but he will still need to dodge. With that in mind, I boost his melee up alongside his evasion and give the one spare point to shooting. I’ll try to keep balance inbetween his two attack stats, giving smaller priority to his evasion until I feel that he’s not dodging so well, then I might bump it up some.


Bless is a battleship captain and that makes this a no-brainer. Shooting and Defense.


Next option on the menu is the most important one: Unit Upgrade.
In here, you can upgrade 5 different stats of your units to give them a boost in strength. From top to bottom, they are:



For now, I’ve decided to blow nearly all the 20k I made from the first mission on the Valhawk. Boosting his HP, EN, Evasion and Weapons by 1 bar. You may be asking why the HP boost since it’s a real. The answer is below:


The Valhawk/Valstork duo (no pun intended) is special because they share upgrades with each other. For the price of one, you get two which makes this the better choice. Mind you, there are other situations in this game where upgrades from a unit will transfer or be shared with to another but that’s only in special cases. I’ll let you guys know when a unit’s a priority because it’ll affect others.


Next, we have the Spirit Command menu, which will give you a list of all Spirits you have available and who in your roster can use it.


Down here is the Parts menu. Sometimes, when you kill an enemy, he may drop an item like those Propellant Tanks, Cartridges and Repair Kits we got in the last mission.


Parts can have a whole lot of different effects, some boost your HP and Armor, some boost your evasion. It’s always good to check what you have before starting a mission.


Next to it is the Sell menu, where you can sell parts you don’t need. I usually dump HP, EN, Ammo restoring parts in here for some extra cash (not right now, though) but never sell anything other than that. They all have a use.


Next is the Options menu that you don’t need to touch unless you want to change a character’s music with someone else.


Finally, the last option is the Start Mission one.


Now for the Unit Analysis. We’ll start off with Duo Maxwell in his Gundam Deathscythe.



Duo is a pure melee character and he’s really good at what he does. He only has 3 attacks and it’s all he needs. First is his Vulcan which is as common in Gundams as it is weak and you don’t want to use it.

Next up is his MAP Beam Scissors with 3300 attack power: it’s centered on him with a range 5, which is quite big, and it’s only 120 morale but it has some drawbacks. First and foremost, it’s not post movement which gives the enemies in your target area a chance to move away and, second, it’s not smart-targetting (read: he’ll hit your guys too if they are in range). I don’t use that attack very oftenly but it’s got its uses. It takes away 40 EN per use so watch it.

Finally, his strongest attack is his normal Beam Scissors, with 3800 attack power, which I’ve shown in the last fight. It’s got a small range but it can be used Post-Movement and Duo has a big movement capacity, it also has a high critical ratio (30%!) and accuracy modifier (40%). It eats 20 EN per use which will require us to exercise a bit of restraint but Deathscythe has enough EN to use 8 times which should be plenty in these early missions.

Duo is also very dodgy and his gundam has a LOT of safeguards for high-accuracy enemies attack. Deathscythe can use Sword Cut, Shoot Down, Double Image (when over 130 morale, applies a 30% chance to instantly dodge the incoming attack - mitigated by Skill stat) and a Jammer (diverts missile attacks away, preventing damage). Duo shouldn’t be getting hit unless you get extremely unlucky with the RNG gods.

Now, for Duo’s Pilot Skills:
And Duo’s Spirit Commands:
Conclusion: Duo’s always been one of my favorite units in SRW games because he’s so competent. He’ll do his job and will dodge nearly anything thrown his way (do remember to use Focus when throwing him in large groups, though). Problem is his attack isn’t that high which may make him lose space in our group as we get stronger and stronger units (a problem that haunts him across every game).
Nevertheless, up until around the middle of the game, he’s great.


Next up, we’ll discuss Quatre Raberba Winner in his Gundam Sandrock.


Quatre is the more support-oriented pilot of the two gundam pilots but that doesn’t make him any less useful on the field.

It’s attacks are short range, like Duo’s, but slightly less powerful. Aside from his Vulcans, his second most powerful is Cross Crusher and it costs nothing at all. It’s got high crit and accuracy but it’s power is so average that it’s only there so you have something to use if you run out of EN for Heat Shotel.

Heat Shotel is the attack I showed in the last mission. Same Accuracy and Crit modifiers as Duo’s Beam Scissors with 300 (3500) less attack power but only costing 10 EN. It’s the reason why Quatre will be able to see some action and not be forced to sit in the back, away from the front lines.

His Sandrock has pretty much the same stats as the Deathscythe but it loses a few safeguards. It can use Sword Cut, Shoot down and Shield Defense.

More importantly, it can use Energy Ressuply. Simply park a unit near Quatre and you can exchange his movement to use the Ressuply command, restoring the adjacent unit’s EN and Ammo up to full at the price of 10 Morale. Good for emergencies or when you don’t want a unit to backtrack to sit in your battleship for a couple of turns. Note that ressuply is NOT post-movement, Quatre can only do it from where he’s standing at.

Let’s look at Quatre’s pilot skills now:
And his spirit commands:
As you can see, he hasn’t unlocked his Support spirits yet but he’ll get there soon enough.

Conclusion: Like Duo, Quatre is a good unit to have until around the middle of the game. He’s dodgy enough to survive and will have some very useful spirits to use. Stick with him and he will not let you down…just don’t send him in the middle of a crapton of enemies, yes?


That’s it for today. Next update, we’ll be starting on mission 2.