The Let's Play Archive

Super Robot Wars W

by Brunom1

Part 35: Post-Mission 9 Upgrades, Unit Analysis #6 ("Angels, Jukeboxes, Science and Lions" Edition) and Mission 10 - Prologue

This next update will include the post-mission activities following Mission 9 (EARTH route). We’ll also take a closer look at all our new arrivals and, finally, we’ll get the Mission 10 prologue going. As always, here’s the top aces list:



Ya know, this is turning out to be a race in-between the Ardyguns and Blade. The 4th place belongs to Gai (Shishioh) and he’s 13 kills.



Unit Upgrades:


Sousuke gets all that he needs in the form of 2 points of mobility and 1 point of weapons.



Golion needs a lot more…2 HP, EN, Armor and 1 Weapon.



With so little cash left Heero gets two points of EN and 1 mobility He’ll get some more love after we finish next mission.



Finally, Mike gets HP and EN (he doesn’t need much of this but…).



Skill Parts:


Heero will make the best use of the Gunfight we saved seen as how nearly all his attacks are ranged. I might give a few to Sousuke later but he’s more of a mixed attacker.



BP Upgrades:


New pilots means they come packed with points to be used. Sousuke gets 3 in melee, 5 in shooting, 3 in evasion and accuracy.



Heero gets 7 in shooting, 3 in evasion and accuracy.



Mike needs some survivability: 8 points in evasion and 4 in accuracy.



Kogane gets 6 points in melee, 3 in defense and 3 in accuracy.



Duo has accumulated a few, so I spend them in 1 evasion and 2 accuracy.



With all that out of the way, let’s get a Unit Analysis going for our new arrivals. First off is Sousuke in his ARX-7 Arbalest:





Arbalest is pretty damn good. While not the BEST real robot in the game, it’s very usable and should have no problem being a good teammate for the rest of the game.

It’s defenses are somewhat on the weaker side and he’ll have a higher chance to be tagged by an enemy due to the broken state of the Size Modifiers; nevertheless, even if he does get hit he has plenty of safeguards with Shoot Down, Sword Cut and, most importantly, the Lambda Driver.

The Lambda Driver is all sorts of good, sciency () stuff.
Sadly, it’s not as broken as Gauron’s (No insta-focus/zeal for you) but it’s still what bumps the Arbalest to a high tier among other real robots: it activates at 120 Morale and gives you 1% extra damage done for every point, capping at 150 for a 50% attack bonus which is HUGE.
Mind you, it works defensively as well, creating a Lambda Barrier that will reduce incoming damage (the reduction also increases with morale) but, really, after some upgrades in mobility, Sousuke shouldn’t be getting hit.

Arbalest’s weapons, on their own, are sort of lackluster in power – he still has Uruz Strike with Mao and Kurz but they won’t be there as the game moves along. They do need the bonus of the Lambda Driver to get them up to speed with even the more powerful reals.

To put it in perspective, Heero’s Double Buster Rifle has a power of 4350, unupgraded; Sousuke’s 57mm Shotgun “Boxer” has 3650 with one point of updrade.
The fact that they are all ammo based (or free if you look at the Cutter) makes it a really good mook killer but you can see the necessity of that extra 50% when it goes after a boss which makes the next statement sort of a kick in the nads:

Sousuke cannot use the Lambda Driver yet. His use of the Driver in the last mission was a freak accident while under risk of his life and Kaname’s, and it will not activate, even at 120 morale, for quite a few missions. Ah, yes, Sousuke’s attacks aren’t as flashy and don’t have a dynamic finisher without the driver running!

Sousuke’s current spirit commands are:
His current pilot skills are:


Conclusion: Sousuke and Arbalest are very good, when they get to use the Lambda Driver. Without it, he’s only a decent step-up from the M9 but still lags behind the bigger cats. His spirits are very well suited for him but I question the presence of Prevail on any real robot pilot.

I’ll still be using him to keep his level around the rest of us but it’ll be a constant reminder that he could be tearing stuff up if only Kaname would whack him beside the head until he learned how to use the damn thing…



Next up, let’s have a look at Heero and his Gundam Wing Zero:






Heero, as a pilot, is very much like Sousuke but with a focus on Shooting at the cost of his melee. Wing Zero is a staple of SRW games and he’s always good; that being said, it pales in comparison to the monster it was in games like Z2 Saisei-hen and Alpha 2/3.

I’m getting ahead of myself, though. First off, know that Wing Zero is still one of the better reals in the game, being very dodgy and accurate and paired with a really competent pilot.

Mind you, it likes to chug a lot of EN with its Twin Buster Rifle (which is probably gonna be your most used attack since the options are Machine Gun and Beam Sword).
He comes with 2 MAP attacks: Rolling Buster Rifle, which you’ll know if you’ve played Alpha 2 or 3 – it’ll hit a wide area at the cost of 50 (!) EN and it’s not smart targeting (meaning it’ll hit your guys unless they’re protected) - and the MAP Twin Buster Rifle which will fire off to hit a straight line in front of Heero – it’s ammo based with 3 shots but it’ll still hit your guys.

Now, let’s talk about what makes and breaks Wing Zero in all games he’s showed up in: the Zero system. When you reach 130 morale, it’ll boost Heero’s stats by 10; in Alpha 3 this was compensated by Wing having more attack power and his strongest attack was post-movement, in Saisei-hen it was like Lamda Driver in which the stat boost increased along with morale to reach really high numbers.
In W, it’s just underwhelming (still good, though).


Heero’s spirit commands are:
And his pilot skills:

Conclusion: never mind its flaws, Wing Zero is still the best unit in the Gundam Wing series and Heero is a great sniper. The range of the attacks will allow it to snipe from outside of most enemies attack range and the MAP attacks can be useful if you’re confident your guys can dodge/resist the hit. Just give it some EN upgrades to make sure it doesn’t run out of gas midway through the mission.



Next up, we’ve cool rocker/jukebox bot, Mike Sounders the 13th:





Mike is a really unusual unit, he can be made into a support and an attacker, doing a good job on either roles. His spirit commands vary depending on whether you’re in Cosmo Robo mode (toy-looking form) or in Boom Robo mode (rocker form). He gets a resupply and repair modules when in Cosmo Robo form along with 1 extra movement but, overall, he’s better as the rocker.

Mike has two disks to use right now: Disk P is the support one, range 1-3, raising the targets morale by 5 and Disk M is the offensive one, range 1-4 with a power of 4000 (upon hit, reduces target's mobility by 50%).
Both Disks have MAP versions but they have rather hefty morale requirements for this early in game where there aren’t many mooks to kill (Disk P needs 120 morale), nevertheless never underestimate the power of giving 5 morale points to a huge chunk of people.

As I said above, Mike’s spirits change depending on the form but they all share the same SP pool. In Cosmo Robo mode, he has:
In Boom Robo mode, he has:

His pilot skills don’t change with his modes, however. He has:
Conclusion: Mike is a very flexible unit and can have a permanent spot in your team IF you’re willing to invest in him. He needs to get some upgrades in HP, Armor and Mobility if you want him to survive when staying near the stronger enemies; if you don’t give him a little boost, it’s good to keep him in the back to raise the morale of people because his base defenses aren’t that good.
If you do build him up some, you’ll find he’s actually quite strong against most enemies and all his status effects can be very useful.


Now, on to our last new unit, Golion:




Sadly, to all the Voltron fans out there, Golion is rather underwhelming. Mind you, I’m not saying he’s WEAK(truthfully, there are very few units in this game that are actually weak) but when you compare him to some of the better units, like Gaogaigar, he tends to lag behind.

Of course, he still has useful tricks up his sleeve, in special his Fire Tornado attack which applies the ever useful Weapon Attack Down effect (do note that it's a very weak attack and, if you plan on using it, it would be good to do it via Support Attack).

One thing I may point out that sets him back is the fact that Kogane Akira isn’t that good of a pilot; his melee is high-ish (being around the same as Sousuke), all his other stats are on the lower side of the spectrum (Akira’s defense is only 5 points ahead of Heero’s and that’s after receiving those points from BP).

I think this was made to offset the fact that this unit carries 5 pilots (only one unit has more pilots and it comes VERY late in the game (No spoilers! )) and they all have spirit commands to offer.

Here are all the spirit commands we have access right now:

Kogane’s the only one that has Pilot skills, though. They are:



Conclusion: as it was said above, Golion is a good unit but it could be considered the weakest Super Robot in the game. Still, being the weakest of that category in this game is like being the weakest elephant to be pitted against several ants; give him upgrades in HP, Armor and EN and he’ll be just as reliable as anything else in this game but don’t expect him to outdamage the BIG units unless you give him some serious favoritism in weapons investment. All those spirit commands in one unit is certainly a major plus to consider.



Whew…now that that’s over, let’s get on with the prologue to mission 10 (a.k.a. “Operation Federal Asswipe” as Kazuma would put it):



Kazuma recounts to the ship's log how the Nadesico ended up with the military after all, and the Golion crew got posted to the GGG.
Princess Fahra elected to have her team participate in Wärter too, giving you one heck of an upgrade in firepower.



He's not thrilled that the first job is cleaning up the Feds' mess for them, but a Trailer maxim states "Surely perform any mission given, and surely return any money or obligation or insult loaned."
And since someone's gotta save the Earth and stave off bankruptcy, Kazuma's gotta do what he's gotta do.



The Valstork exits the atmosphere without incident, and Bless sets a cautious but swift course for Block 6 of the Orbital Ring.
The team briefing is going on in the dining hall, and the smell of miso soup still lingers in the air.
Kurz had been hoping to catch Shihomi wearing an apron (and nothing else), but Mao recommends he try asking Sousuke to go for that instead.



Meanwhile, Gai introduces himself to the Golion team, who have heard of him in reverential tones while in space school.
Mikoto was also famous among the student body, and the tree on the hilltop they used to visit has become quite the popular date spot.
Quatre wonders if it's more than mere coincidence that students from the same space academy have, in their own ways, gained the power of the lion.
Kurogane asks if Gai wants to actually join their team, but Gai smiles and says that "Roku(Six)-Lion" doesn't really sound too good.
Suzuishi tells him not to worry, since the sixth team member always pilots a stand-alone mecha in these shows.



Aki then introduces D-Boy a.k.a Tekkaman Blade, whose face Shirogane seems to recall from somewhere.
Heero tells everyone to save the intros for after plans are laid for the raid on the Orbital Ring.
Kurz notes that he sure wouldn't be as up-tight as Heero, especially so close to Relena.
In his case, he'd use his position as her bodyguard to do all sorts of stuff with her - but Mao tells him to take his fantasizing outside unless he wants her to toss him out bodily.



Heero deadpans to Sousuke that neither of them seem especially blessed in their pool of comrades.
Before Kurz and Duo complain about having to deal with them, Noin reminds everyone of how much the Federation army hates you: you can't afford to fail on your very first mission.
On the other hand, it's not that the entire military is opposed to the Security Council: if you can do well here, you'll begin to further strengthen your position.
Sounds easy enough, right?



Well, a battlefield is a battlefield, and D-Boy tells Aki to take good care of Milly while the fight is on - nothing more than brotherly concern for her and Mihiro, as Mao firmly tells Kurz.



Bless starts the briefing, saying that our arrival at the Orbital Ring came not a moment too soon, as the first Federation wave is already battling the Radam.
Unfortunately, the large Federation force is still badly outnumbered by the vastly larger Radam force: you don't need much military history to see that the Federation's defeat is assured.
Which means one of two things: either, the Feds have one hell of an ace up their sleeve, or they're fond of suicide.
You then receive a message from Brigadier General Corbett, front-runner of the hawks in the military. Nobody likes this guy much, but since it might be a request for assistance, Bless has the call put on the monitor.



Akane and Kazuma notice that Corbett even looks old-school with his bald head and formal speech; he's anything but impressed by the Wärter, and tells your people to withdraw and stay the hell out of the way of his operation.
Bless politely informs him that in the GGG's simulations, there is a 99.97% chance of Federation defeat within an hour of battle commencing - and the remaining 0.03% represents defeat in under 30 minutes.
Corbett tells him to sod the stupid theories and says that he's fighting precisely because there's a chance of victory.



He shows them footage of what his trump card is, and everyone’s jaw drops when the image comes in.
It is the new weapon of the Federation and Corbett is damn proud of it.


That's all for today. Next time, we'll be seeing what shenanigans Space-Yosemite Sam is pulling around the Orbital Ring. See you all then!