Super Robot Taisen 64 (スーパーロボット大戦６４）, released 10/29/1999, developed by A,I and published by Banpresto

As usual with the Super Robot Taisen posts, this will be message board posts from 2008 — in this case I gave a story summary of most of the game. I still think this is one of the best SRW games that I’ve played, largely because of the story and the huge branching paths. The story is something they didn’t do in most games: rather than making all the storylines run at once, they do them in sequence so it makes a bit more sense. It also creates some interesting situations where at times you are actually allied with some of the groups that will later become enemies.

I played this on an actual N64 so I only have a few screenshots I took with a Gamebridge at the time, and I made a couple of videos too.

Anyway, below this is 2008 kurisu.

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SRW returned to Nintendo consoles after three years with SRW 64. This game is right on the cusp of the major change that entered the series with Alpha, and displays elements of both the older games and the newer ones. On the old side is the fact that you still cannot skip battle animations, and the battle animations are still limited to sliding sprites (although there are some Shin-style cutins). Also on the old side, this is really the last game to feature heavily divergent route choices that actually change the storyline.

One new feature is the way the Banpresto Originals are dealt with. For the first time, you have a choice between four distinct characters, each with their own background and own mech. This is also the first game that has specific stages for each character (although there are only 7 total, including the initial stage for each character at the beginning).

Graphically, the game is impressive. The character portraits are some of the best in the entire series (IMO they look better than Alpha and Alpha Gaiden), and the mechs are well-represented.

The series list includes the normal lineup of Gundams, including G and W. 08th MS Team makes its first appearance in this game, although since the OVA was still in progress, the storyline is only partially included. Layzner and Dunbine round out the real robots. For Super Robots, you’ve got the old standbys of Mazinger, Getter, Combattler V, and Grendizer. Newcomers on the super robot side are Giant Robo and Godmars.

The storyline is very interesting and a departure from what has been done before — the amount of dialogue also increases heavily in this game, including a lot of character development dialogue that extends to more than just “here’s why you’re fighting the enemies on the next stage”. (Apparently the story writer for D also worked on this game.)

This is basically the setup of the plot at the beginning of the game:

• The war between Zeon and the Earth Federation happens
• The Muge Zolbados empire (which includes Grados from SPT Layzner) attacks and conquers Earth; this is the One Year War
• The Muge Empire gets underground empires (i.e. Getter/Mazinger enemies) to join them; they don’t like working for Muge nor do they like working with each other and seem to be looking for a chance to beat Muge
• Treize Khushrenada and the Romefeller Foundation join with Muge, their army is the Specials (which includes the Titans). Treize is looking for a chance to defeat Muge, though
• Your heroes are members of various resistance groups such a Karaba and AEUG; various scientists have also been making mechs (like the Mazinger) to fight against Muge.
• The M Plan (from Gundam Wing) occurs with 6 mechs coming to earth; I’m not sure yet what the 6th one is

On the system side, this game has the first instance of combination attacks (on both your side and the enemy side). There’s also the love system from F, although this time actually represented on screen. The enemy levels vary based on your own levels, and the enemies sometimes have Dummies, which sort of act like the shields in later games — each hit takes off one dummy and does no damage to the mech.

Incidentally, this is the final console SRW before animated attacks and animation skip options. It’s also the final game for a console with a cartridge system — because of that, the load times are almost nonexistent.

I’m starting from stage 8 of the Super (Manami) route since that’s where I played up to before. As I said in another thread, I will try to give some indication of what’s happening in the story as I update, but not a full summary like I did for FF.

Stage 6 – The daring Le Cain

Le Cain tries to trick your guys with a fake version of himself, but you see through the trap and beat everyone up. Later, Le Cain differs with his father on policy — Le Cain thinks that Gresco is becoming too soft after living on Earth.

This mission is kind of tough because there are so many enemies; as long as you keep your guys together and take the groups on one at a time it’s not too bad.

Stage 7 – Blade of Suffering

Treize has Relena’s father assassinated (by Lady Une), but Alan saves Relena and whisks her away; just like in the anime, she gets the last words from her father telling her she’s actually Relena Peacecraft. This stage is from Gundam Wing (the Scenario for Bloodshed level); it’s the meeting of the Specials and higher-ups of the Empire in New Edwards base. Duo and Heero head for there, Quatre and Trowa meet each other, Wufei buys his weapons, and your guys show up to crash the party.

Now, this is what SRW should be. This stage was awesome — first you clear out a bunch of grunts, then the Solidar with Noventa shows up and your guys have to take it out. Manami did it instead of Heero. 🙂 It’s actually a pretty tough stage since there are a lot of enemies, and if you want to defeat the ones with items (instead of the NPC Gundam Wing units) you have to rush over there pretty fast.

Afterwards, the real and super lines combine; you also get Quattro and Duo.

Stage 8 – The Gundam That Brings Ruin

This stage is a fight vs. the Specials — afterwards, you get the Z Gundam scene with Amuro coming in to save the Audhulma, and his verbatim dialogue with Char. Also the Devil Gundam appears along with Getter (which appears to be newly built) and Shining Gundam. The DG was the 6th meteor, and the Wing boys were also charged with defeating the DG. The DG’s purpose is unclear at this point but Duo seems to think it’s fighting the Empire.

I was able to kill the DG (12,500 hp is when it runs) because I’ve been upgrading Suimurg a lot and Manami has Hot Blood.

Stage 9 – Sorrowful Soldiers

The Dancougar team joins here — well, all but Shinobu. Shinobu seems to be pissed off in California somewhere; he’s tired of fighting, but maybe Sara can snap him out of his funk. Amuro is emoing also and won’t fight. Beltorchika joins and the dialogue is straight from Z. Now we’re off to Hong Kong to get food (seriously). Tekkouki shows up but retreats when it’s not a fair fight. It seems like this is the first time the plot is really allowing the Mazinger and Getter enemies to be non-generic and actually have developed storylines.

This stage was a good chance for Kouji and some others to catch up but Kouji refuses to learn Lock On.

Stage 10 – Break the cruel trap!

Hong Kong is a self-governing city ruled by Wong (from G Gundam) who appears to be doing enhanced human research; one of his subjects is Four. Une is there urging him to fight the rebels. Une gives the rebels a chance to surrender; of course they don’t, but you have to protect the Audhulma and retreat after everything is done so that they don’t destroy the city. There are several new things — 100-shiki, Amuro’s Dijeh, Jet Scrander for the Mazinger, Diana A, and Dancougar.

If you want to convince Allenby you have to get the enemies below 5 before the 9th turn, then get Domon up to the top left and convince her. Then she turns into good old Berserker Allenby:

Wong seems to be playing the part of that scientist who promises to restore Four’s memories if she fights in the Psycho Gundam.

Stage 11 – In the Space Between Sea and Land

Looks like Lady Une’s pursuit of the Resistance isn’t what Treize wants, he was hoping just to watch them. Zechs and her have the argument like in GW. Afterwards we learn that Shapiro joined Muge at the end of the One Year War, but since then nobody knows what he’s doing. Also, strange mechs are popping up all over — the Aura Battlers, of course. This stage starts with the same old Galaria-Shou stuff where you can get her on your team by not attacking her for 4 turns until the Resistance shows up.

Not too tough of a battle, just don’t use too many beam weapons.

Afterwards, Shiro joins the team. Shapiro is apparently working with Drake. Burn vows to become the Black Knight so he can beat Shou. Lady Une is upbraided by Treize and they stop chasing the Resistance. Meanwhile, the Resistance goes to Beijing to make contact with the IPO (the Giant Robo group).

Stage 12 – His Name is Kusama Daisaku

Professor Yumi is with the Giant Robo people, apparently they saved him from the Photon Lab when some people attacked. Giant Robo appears and fights the Q Boss, who was apparently looking for Yumi’s notes. Then some Getter enemies appear, including Boryuuki, who is apparently an old friend of Hayato’s who became a demon (Hayato never had any story or much of any lines before this game…)

Afterwards you get a tearful conversation between Hayato and Boryuuki (Isamu) as he dies, then Kouji finds some girl named Erika who has lost her memory — that seems like Daimos, but Daimos isn’t in this game. Is she a Mazinger character?

Stage 13 – Town of Betrayal

This is a little mission involving some Mazinger characters; an android named Erika who wants to be human, and her evil Mikene overlord, Janus:

But, Erika finds her humanity, frees the heroes who are trapped in a jail cell, and helps them escape. You can get her after the mission by picking the first option; she can pilot Mazinger stuff. Afterwards, it seems that the Empire has launched a major offensive that has decimated the rebel forces, meaning that your guys have to schlep it out west to hole up with Quatre’s people.

Beating Janus is a little tough, but it’s worth it — you get 10,000 bonus money and then she’s worth 15,000 (30,000 with Luck). She leaves when you beat only a few enemies, so you basically have to sit around until you can run some fast people down there and take her out.

Stage 14 – Shock at Victoria

Apparently the Romefeller Foundation has used their successful offensive against the Resistance to gain access to space as a reward from the Empire. So we go to Victoria to try to stop them from going into space. Events from Episode 4 of Gundam Wing take place here (where Wufei destroys the base and refuses to kill Noin because she’s a woman). Eiji also leaves for this mission; they hear about a “holy girl” who is leading troops, and Eiji thinks it’s his sister.

Aina comes out during the mission and you can persuade her with Shiro — I think this is the only aspect of 8th MS Team they used in this game since the OVA wasn’t finished yet (Compact 2 includes Gineas and Norris; I don’t know if any game has the other 8th MS team heroes in it. GC, maybe?) Aftewards they find Aina and she joins up.

Bask leaves on the 5th player phase; it’s pretty tough to get to him and kill him before then. There are a lot of reinforcements but it’s not too bad.

Eiji finds his sister and Relena together, they’re going to meet with Gresco and hoping for complete pacifism. Le Cain doesn’t like this, but it seems there’s a spy working against the Empire from within. Your heroes go off to South America to meet up with a hidden Resistance group in an old Federation base (Jaburo?)

Stage 15 – Shapiro’s Transformation

Le Cain is suspicious of Gresco again because he wouldn’t let them chase Eiji, and he met with Eiji’s sister and Relena. Meanwhile, Shapiro notifies Le Cain of the secret base at Nazca, so a big force goes to destroy it — including Drake and friends, who Shapiro seems to be inciting to fight the Empire at some point. Sara knows that Shapiro is behind all of this, but she doesn’t say anything.

It seems almost impossible to kill Gra before he leaves on turn 4, but you get a Minovsky Craft so it would be nice. He leaves behind another Getter Robo G enemy who you kill, this pisses his father off and so I guess he’s coming to kill you next. Tetsuya and Jun join here; now that I have Great Mazinger I can do my first combination attack (with Mazinger + GM).

Todd’s picture is goofy in this game:

Afterwards, you find Marvel in the middle of the ocean, and it’s off to find either Shira or Elle and get another ship, I guess.

Stage 16 – Bloodstained Road

Time to save Elle (or at least that’s who I picked). This is the old standby “save the medea” map although it’s much easier than in F. You get a lot of money for killing Janus. Kou, Kamille, and Fa all show up.

After the mission, Le Cain learns that the Grados and humans are from the same source, and so Grados are not superior to humans. Gresco is disappointed that Le Cain seems immature and just wants power to control everyone, and he removes Le Cain from his position — this enrages Le Cain so much that he shoots Gresco. Gresco kills Le Cain’s female companion and then tells him to kill Eiji’s sister so that the secret of the relationship between humans and Grados can be protected.

Stage 17 – Shattered Ideals

After a funeral for Gresco, Le Cain becomes the head of the Earth forces, and the heroes are in trouble since everyone is gunning for them. This is a long mission with many enemies, so it really does seem like you are in trouble.

Aftewards, Roan, who had seemed to betray Eiji, takes over the command building and makes Le Cain flee. Treize is also able to run away without playing his hand yet (Alan and Roan think he’s still an enemy). But then they have to flee themselves before the Mikene show up, so things aren’t perfect yet.

The rest of the Gundam Wing people join here; they’re all pretty good.

Stage 18 – We Meet Again, Teacher

As the stage name suggests, more G Gundam. This is almost like the stage in F except that this time the Death Army actually appears. Devil Gundam is sighted in Tokyo, so the Wing boys and Domon want to go off after it, but of course the entire hero group goes as well. You get the tearful reunion of teacher and disciple, etc. Also, beforehand, you hear the news that upon Gresco’s death, a new commander has come in from space — I think. It’s a little hard to tell because of the roundabout nature of their talk. Death Gaia, maybe?

This stage has the first appearance of the dreaded Dummy Balloon system, something that only appears in SRW 64. It’s a little like the shield system in later games but more powerful — basically, each dummy balloon blocks one attack. So in this mission Le Cain has 3 dummy balloons, so you have to hit him three times for 0 damage, then you can start actually hurting him. Not too bad in this mission but from what I’ve seen, later in the game you can get multiple enemies with 5-7 balloons each, which sounds pretty annoying.

Afterwards, it’s hard to tell if Le Cain dies or not — I guess we’ll find out later. But some of your guys get drawn into a trap by the Shuffle people (Chibodee, Sai, and George) who appear in SRW for the first time. They’re infected with DG cells. Interestingly, the Gundam Fights have not been mentioned at all; I don’t know if they’re in the 64 backstory at all.

Stage 19 – In the Name of Shuffle

More G Gundam; this is the usual stage where Master Asia betrays Domon and Schwartz saves Rain. This time you also have to fight the Shuffle Alliance but they’re not too bad because they’re all in the water. One big tip is that Gundam Deathscythe has an A rating in water, and his beam scythe weapon is also A — he can clean up the water enemies singlehandedly. There are tons of enemies in these stages; by the time Master Asia appears at the end, most of my guys were at 150 morale. You can only beat either MA or the DG — MA has a better item.

Afterwards, the Shuffle alliance join your team (they’re not too good, from the looks of it). Sara is able to verify with Shou and Marvel that Shapiro went to Byston Well and joined Drake; Sara seems to think Shapiro was the one to bring Drake to the surface. The next scene is at the Will Wipps when Shott appears — it looks like Shapiro promised Drake to mess with the empire so that Drake could more easily take over the surface. But I don’t know what relationship Shapiro has to the Empire.

Stage 20 – Operation Daybreak

Le Cain and Gresco both being dead, new commanders come to earth — Gildrome and Death Gaia. Unlike Gresco, they have no use for anyone else, and want to disband the Specials and get rid of Mikene and the other underground races. They also don’t trust Shapiro very much. Meanwhile, the underground races have all banded together to try to defeat Muge so that they can take over the Earth. Also meanwhile, the Romefeller Foundation has decided that things have come to such a point that it’s time to put their plan into place. Jamitov is going to take care of Space (well, leave Bask up to it at least) while Treize puts the plan into effect on Earth.

The Resistance goes to Jaburo to attack it; they have Murasame (from Giant Robo) inside as a spy to help them out. They know it’s a desperate attempt, but this is their only chance.

This level is extremely difficult. There are three waves of reinforcements with many tough named enemies, and everyone loses 30 Will at the beginning of turn 3.

Afterwards, Zechs shows up with a Specials unit to take over the base — it seems that Operation Daybreak has been put into effect by Treize, and all the Muge bases have been taken over. Treize wants the Resistance to join OZ as a special unit; of course many people are hesitant about that. You have the major choice between OZ and Independent here — the routes are separate for 30 stages (although you can get back into OZ route through the Pacifist route).

I picked both to see what would happen; if you pick OZ then the Wing boys all leave, and nobody is particularly happy about the choice but they realize they have to do it. If you pick Independent, also people are pretty worried about the choice but they just don’t think they can follow OZ and Romefeller and agree with their methods.

Stage 21 – Farewell, Soldiers

Duke Dermail and Treize make the announcement to the world about OZ’s plans to rule the Earth for its own protection. It seems that they’ve also started to go into space and clear out the Empire’s strongholds there. Meanwhile, the former Resistance is uncertain of what to do next, but while they’re hiding and deciding what to do, they’re attacked by Drake and Helmat. Drake is pissed off at Shapiro for getting them to ally with the wrong side, but when he sees Elle’s aura ship, he thinks they should focus on taking her out.

Once you beat them up, an OZ group shows up. Zechs tries to get them not to attack the Resistance but to go after Muge instead, but the two leaders attack Zechs and he’s forced to kill them. Then he attacks you. After they’re gone, Avi Ru shows up in her mech and challenges your guys, saying she wants to test your strength. When you finally defeat her, she revives. The Getter goes out to try to blow the thing up with Getter Rays — Hayato and Ryou both escape, but Musashi isn’t able to, and he blows up with the Getter. As Avi Ru blows up, she thinks that she has found a planet that can equal the might of the Muge Emperor and the Emperor of the Galaxy. Afterwards, everyone is sad about Musashi, but the Resistance is off to their next destination. Meanwhile, Zechs learns that Relena has declared herself the Peacecraft name, so Zechs leaves OZ to be Milliardo again. (This stage also has Hyper Jerril in it)

Avi Ru is really hard if you wasted all your SP on the previous enemies; your Super Robots will have 0% to hit, and she regenerates about 8000 HP per turn. Save as much seishin as you can for her, and try to take her out in a round if possible.

Here’s a video:

Stage 22 – The Fight at Mount Liang

You head to Mount Liang where many of the former Resistance members are meeting. Relena and Eiji’s sister are also there, spreading their pacifist message. The Getter team buries Musashi and receives the Getter Robo G. Meanwhile, the BF dan attacks them at Mount Liang — first, Albert and Domon fight hand to hand and Schwartz shows up. Then you have to defend the base against the BF dan attack. Afterwards some beasts show up; Brai and GGD themselves appear. Once you beat them, Albert tries to come up to investigate why the BF dan is so interested in the Resistance, but Master Asia fights him off. Bright asks about the BF Dan, but all anyone knows is that they’re a secret group headed by Big Fire (whose identity is unknown), and that they built Giant Robo, but Daisaku’s dad felt bad about his role in that and fled with the robot.

It seems that OZ has been able to peacefully talk to the colonies and is beginning to bring them into their group, this causes the Wing boys to despair and leave your team. Relena has set up the Cinq Kingdom in Europe, Manami thinks that she wants to help them if possible (well, if you go the Pacifist route, that is).

I’m surprised that Godmars, Combattler V, and Grendizer have not even been mentioned yet.

Stage 23 – Spreading Evil

The Resistance takes stock of the situation. On Earth, the Mikene and Aura Battlers are a problem, and some remnants of the Empire as well. In Space, OZ is dealing with the Empire, who is basing their operations from the Moon. Blex thinks they should concentrate on Earth. Meanwhile, Shapiro is heading into space, but Death Gaia goes to defeat the Resistance instead.

Bright’s group is made into an independent group; the Resistance is reforming in anticipation of having to fight OZ once space is brought under control. You get to choose a name (I picked “Bloodandos” based on an inside joke). It also seems that the Cosmo Crasher (from Godmars) is going to join you. Quattro gets a private communication and learns that Axis is coming back to the Earth Sphere. People start debating whether to help out the Cinq Kingdom or not; of course some are opposed to the complete pacifism but others like it. Death Gaia attacks, and it’s time to fight.

Drake also shows up during the fight with some guys. After the fight, Noin asks the Bloodandos to help protect the Cinq Kingdom. Bright agrees, but this causes some people who disagree with the pacifist ideal to leave (Dancougar, Great Mazinger, Quattro). The loss of GM especially is going to make the next stage tough.

Stage 24 – Purification

The Bloodandos go to the Cinq Kingdom and meet Relena. Some are still unsure about the pacifist ideal but they’re willing to stay for now. Drake approaches the border, and Noin asks them to fight outside of the border so that the Romefeller Foundation cannot intervene. Shira wants to make this the final fight against Drake.

Since this is the final fight, you get all the Aura Battlers against you (plus Hyper Mode Todd and Black Knight). Actually I didn’t feel like this stage was as bad as some of the previous ones. Once you beat Drake and Shott, the stage ends with Shira sending everyone back to Byston Well — although Shou and your other party members immediately return. Meanwhile, Bask and Jamitov have succeeded in driving away Muge from the Moon (Dermail is happy about his mobile dolls, of course) back to the Asteroid Belt. Also, the various professors have built a research lab in the Cinq Kingdom so that they can keep studying Getter rays and the like.

Stage 25 – Far-away Peace

Dorothy Catalonia comes to the Cinq Kingdom and starts to do her sarcastic stuff with Relena. Meanwhile, Dermail is concerned about the Cinq Kingdom’s pacifist stance spreading even to the Romefeller Foundation, so Jamitov leaks information to the underground empires telling them that the research labs are in the kingdom. Mikene Emperor is suspicious, though, and Janus goes to investigate. She finds not only the labs but the Getter and Mazinger themselves, and is able to set bombs. At the same time, Judau and his friends infiltrate the hangar and steal the Gundam Mk II. The Mikene begin to attack the Cinq Kingdom to get the labs; Relena has the townspeople evacuate, while Noin authorizes (on her own) the Bloodandos to go out and attack.

After the fight, Relena isn’t upset that they went out to fight; they protected the town. Judau and the other junkyard people join the Bloodandos for food. Bask succeeds in driving the Empire out of the Asteroid Belt; Shapiro was killed (yeah right) and Gildrome and the others escaped into another dimension. Meanwhile, Lady Une (in her “nice” guise now) is upset that her peaceful efforts didn’t bear fruit, but Treize tells her that his time will come eventually.

Stage 26 – The Shooting Star That Still Burns

Relena is conflicted over her ideal of pacifism. Meanwhile, Treize tells Jamitov that he no longer agrees with OZ’s actions, and is imprisoned because of it. Apparently this causes some OZ troops to stop taking orders. Duke Dermail enacts Operation Nova, which uses a whole bunch of mobile dolls to try to bring Earth completely under OZ control. Quattro is having some trouble at an old Resistance base, and Blex has been killed, so the Bloodandos go to assist.

Finally, a short mission — once you beat it, Quattro rejoins the team, feeling a little lost after Blex’s death. Relena agrees to a meeting with the Romefeller Foundation, and Quatre and Heero wonder what to do next.

Stage 27 – The Meaning of Fighting

Pro-Treize factions within OZ begin attacking other OZ soldiers. Bask is chasing one particular group when they near the Cinq Kingdom borders; Bask purposely chases them inside. Relena tries to get him to stop from crossing into the Cinq Kingdom, but she agrees to take in the people they’re fighting as well. Just then, a Mikene force shows up, and Bask uses that chance to come into the CK with weapons.

Aisha also shows up with some Specials — Manami tries to convince her again; Aisha seems to agree that Romefeller has turned evil but doesn’t know what else to do. After the fight, Dermail is able to use the Bloodandos attack on the Specials as an excuse to either tell the Cinq Kingdom to completely surrender, or be destroyed. Relena doesn’t want to give up the Kingdom but isn’t sure what to do. The Bloodandos vow to fight to protect the Cinq Kingdom.

Is there any special meaning to two-part missions in this game (for instance, how SRW F had that system that lowered your morale if you send out the same people in both parts)?

Stage 28 – The Fall of the Cinq Kingdom

Quatre gets recruited by Noin and decides to rejoin the Bloodandos to protect the Cinq Kingdom. Heero goes to fight elsewhere, gets shot down and rescued by Treize, and receives the Epyon. Milliardo heads towards CK in the Wing Zero (to attack, apparently!) Takeru has a dream where someone calls him Mars and tells him to awaken, but he doesn’t. Bask announces once again that the Cinq Kingdom has to surrender unconditionally; of course they don’t, so it’s time to fight.

Zechs shows up a couple of turns later in the Zero; Hero refers to some stuff that happened in the anime with respect to that.

On the 10th turn, Relena tells everyone to stop fighting and offers herself to the Romefeller Foundation as a hostage. Dorothy takes her to Duke Dermail, her father. The Bloodandos leave, wondering what they’re going to do next. Heero takes Zero from Zechs and gives him Epyon instead — Zechs leaves, but I’m not sure if Heero does. Meanwhile, an unidentified ship approaches Earth…

Stage 29 – Break Through! Destroy the Moving Fortress! (Part 1)

The unidentified fleet continues towards Earth — it declares itself to be the front battalion of the Galaxy Emperor’s fleet. Dermail tries to convince Relena to be the spokesperson for the Romefeller Foundation — it’s more important now than ever to have Earth united under one force in order to face these invaders. Meanwhile, Takeru has another dream — Emperor Zuul is telling him that he is Zuul’s sun, and to awaken as Mars and destroy the Earth. Takeru refuses.

Tetsuya and Jun reappear and tell the Bloodandos about a floating fortress that the Mikene and others have constructed as a last ditch effort — time to destroy it! First, though, you have to get through the Great General of Darkness and his mass produced Great Mazingers (I assume that MP GM thing is from the show since it appears in so many SRW games).

After you make mincemeat of GGD, it’s time to invade the fortress itself.

Stage 30 – Break Through! Destroy the Moving Fortress! (Part 2)

Murasame contacts you and lets you know that to destroy the fortress, you need to destroy four generators inside. However, because the fortress is still under construction, destroying the generators may mess things up and cause the whole place to explode — because of that, it would be better to destroy them all at the same time, or as nearly as possible.

If you destroy all 4 of the bosses without destroying 2 generators, the goal changes to “escape in 10 turns”.
If you destroy 2 generators, the goal changes to “destroy the other two generators in 10 turns”. So what you should do is have people ready to destroy the generators, leave one boss alive, destroy the 3 so far, kill the last boss, and destroy the last generator.

Afterwards, Relena declares herself Queen Relena at the head of the Romefeller foundation; the Bloodandos struggle to understand why she did that. Meanwhile, someone is heading back towards Earth, trying to escape notice of the Galaxy Emperor’s forces:

HAMAAAAN

Stage 31 – Dark Clouds Covering the Earth

OZ is having trouble with the attacking Galaxy Emperor fleet; Dermail wants to finish the Libra as quickly as possible, but it seems that having to divert their forces to attack the pro-Treize factions on Earth is weakening their power.

Meanwhile, the Bloodandos head to the Karaba base in England. Eiji gets the New Layzner. Someone from Zuul breaks in and tries to kill Takeru; he chases after her/him and a robot, Gaia, comes to save him. When Gaia gets messed up by the enemy, Godmars appears to save him — Takeru hears a mysterious voice telling him that Godmars will protect Gaia.

An OZ fleet appears; Yazan tries to get the Bloodandos to surrender, but they won’t. (On the whole, OZ seems a lot more reasonable in this game than they usually do; when Zuul is actually attacking, perhaps we can understand their desire to unify Earth, even by force. At least they’re not colluding with all the enemies like normal, although I bet they join with Neo Zeon later.)

This stage is pretty easy since there’s no reinforcements, but remember that Yazan and his groupies have a powerful combination attack, so kill them quickly when they arrive.

Combattler V shows up during the mission, as does Aisha (if you convinced her). Aisha apparently doesn’t like the way OZ has gone, and sympathizes more with the Treize faction so she’s willing to join your team.

After the fight, everyone wonders what’s going on with Takeru and the Godmars — they think he might be an alien spy. He has no idea, and tells them about the voice in his head, and they decide to trust him for now. But Takeru is still pretty worried.

Later, Treize contacts the Bloodandos and tells them that he is going to try to attack OZ in the near future; now that they’re occupied with the Galaxy Empire it’s a good chance to work against them. In that case he may ask the Bloodandos for help. Of course everyone is suspicious about working for Treize. The Combattler team also introduces themselves. Then, the Elbless and the Suimurg are combined to form one robot; Aisha is pretty pissed off that her own robot is gone, but Lawrence convinces her to be the copilot of the Suimurg instead of him. (I kind of liked the old butler as the copilot, but this is fine.)

Meanwhile Emperor Zuul is learning about the successes of the Galaxy Empire on the battlefield; he seems most concerned about Earth, though. Marg wants to go to Earth himself to see Mars (his brother); Zuul catches him and orders him to go to Earth to kill Mars.

(The background picture of the intermission screen is now the Suimurg S)

Stage 32 – Return to the Battlefield

The Bloodandos have three choices — surrender to OZ and join them, join Treize’s faction, or continue to act on their own. Nobody wants the first choice, but there’s some difference of opinion on whether to join Treize or not. In any case, they need to go into space to assist the fight against the Galaxy Empire. There’s a rumor that some Empire fleet has come to Earth, but they don’t know more about that. Time to go to Lake Victoria to get into space.

Meanwhile, Dangel has led a force down to earth to try to kill Mars. Daisuke sees this force and recognizes it as the Galaxy Empire — the people who destroyed Planet Freed. He decides to fight in the Grendizer; he didn’t fight against Muge, but this is different because the Galaxy Emperor is out to destroy, not control. Hikaru goes with him (over his protests).

After a fight vs. OZ and then the Galaxy Emperor forces, all the G Gundam characters and Grendizer rejoin the team. Daisuke introduces himself and tells everyone about how the Galaxy Empire destroyed Freed, but he escaped with the Grendizer. His sister, Maria, has somehow gotten into the ship and wants to destroy Grendizer, but Freed proves he’s Maria’s sister and then they have a happy reconciliation. Meanwhile, Relena is proving hard for Dermail to handle — she’s going to speak at a council and try to stop OZ from oppressing everyone on Earth instead of fighting against the Galaxy Emperor. But now it’s time to head into space, and you have to pick whether to follow Treize or go alone (I picked to follow Treize). Everyone lets Manami choose because she seems to have a strange power of destiny that lets her make decisions. 🙂

(It looks like the Gundam Fights do not exist in this universe; there’s still really no explanation of what the Shuffle Alliance is. I guess the mid-season defeat of the Devil Gundam happened offscreen, perhaps if you take the other route considering there’s a stage called Clear Heart, Still Water.)

Also, is it just me or is flying ability much more important in this game than in any other? It seems like 80% of the enemies fly, and a lot of mechs have mostly ground abilities.

Stage 33 – Fierce Fighting in Space

You meet Treize in space. Treize doesn’t know much about the Galaxy Empire; they’ve just attacked without really saying anything. He asks Quattro what he knows about Axis; but all Quattro knows is that Haman Karn is the commander and that they’re building up strength to become Neo Zeon. Meanwhile Paptimus Scirocco joins up with OZ; Bask doesn’t trust him, of course. The Bloodandos head to La Vie En Rose but a Galaxy Empire fleet attacks. Marg has bombs around him that Blacky will activate if he doesn’t kill Mars; Takeru sees this and tells everyone to avoid attacking Marg.

After a long (really long) fight against the Empire and then OZ, Marg is taken to the infirmary. He tells Takeru about his true nature and gives him a pendant to control Godmars. But then there’s an explosion later and he apparently escapes. Meanwhile, Haman contacts the Bloodandos and offers her help against the Empire; they don’t really trust her too much but Bright and Treize think that she can be trusted at least until the Empire’s invasion is repelled. Dermail has completely failed to control Relena, so Dorothy urges him to go into space and win the war there. Jamitov is hoping that Haman can be brought to their side; Bask really doesn’t like all the untrustworthy allies they’re getting. Meanwhile the Bloodandos get new units (GP-03 and Z Gundam).

This stage had a huge amount of reinforcements…I guess after a few stages of relief it’s back to the long ones again. At least I’m acquiring more MAP weapons so I can finish things faster.

Stage 34 – The Man Returning From Jupiter

Marg is brought before Roze and his memory erased; he is then given the mission to destroy Mars in the next fight.

Haman gives the Bloodandos two conditions for her help — first, they have to give her Side 3, and second, they have to cover her back if her negotiations with the Romefeller Foundation break down. Nobody likes these conditions, but they feel like they have to accept. Haman goes to negotiate with OZ just like in Z Gundam; the negotiations break down, she escapes, and Scirocco shoots and kills Jamitov. The Bloodandos then come in to help Haman escape.

Unfortunately I forgot to send out Takeru and I wasn’t about to spend an extra hour replaying the mission, so I wasn’t able to persuade Marg.

Afterwards, Scirocco gives his newtype speech and tells Jerid and Mauer they might be the next leaders of the world. Treize prepares to take his place at the head of OZ. Haman and Bright come to an agreement to attack both OZ and the Galaxy Emperor. Marg’s brainwashing begins to weaken.

Haman is an NPC in this stage:

Stage 35 – Big Brother and Little Brother

Emperor Zuhl is getting upset at the repeated failures of the advance fleet to take over Earth; he may even come himself. The Treize faction successfully drives Scirocco’s OZ away from the Moon; Scirocco takes that chance to concentrate their strength around the Barge and the Libra. Haman and the Bloodandos continue to attack the Galaxy Empire fleet.

Finally, the advance fleet is defeated. The Bloodandos head to the Moon to rest and wait for the coming attack from the main Galaxy Empire fleet. Dermail tries to go back to Earth, but Scirocco reprograms his mobile dolls to shoot down his ship, and he dies.

Stage 36 – Prelude to Destruction

Emperor Zuhl appears in the Earth Sphere with his fleet. He orders Roze to go kill Mars or die trying, since Roze is nothing more than a tool for Zuhl. Meanwhile, Amuro checks on the progress of the Nu Gundam at Anaheim (and gets caught between Chein and Beltorchika again). When the fleet finally arrives at Earth, it’s a massive army that splits itself to attack OZ, Axis, and Treize’s people at the same time, while sending a part to Earth to conquer it. The Bloodandos need to try to stop the Earth invasion force.

As they are preparing to go, Naida tries to put a bomb on Grendizer. She accuses Duke Freed of betraying Freed, since he left people alive there — their brains were then used by the Empire to make the AI of the robots they’ve been fighting. Freed is understandably upset at this news. Takeru knocks out Naida, and it seems later that she was acting under some kind of brainwashing from Zuhl — she determines to fix her mistake, just as the enemies attack. You get a choice (first one you get Naida, second you don’t). I picked the first choice, so Duke goes out to stop Naida before she blows herself up to take out some enemies.

Afterwards, the Bloodandos learn that they were the only ones to succeed at stopping part of the Zuhl fleet from getting to Earth, so Earth is now being attacked by a huge army. Treize’s OZ forces are not enough to stop it. He asks the Bloodandos to come down to Earth to help — they’ll have to leave space to Scirocco and Haman.

This game really gives you the sense of a huge war and not just Londo Bell vs. 10 different enemy factions who barely acknowledge each others’ existence. It makes sense that something like the Zuhl army would attack all Earthlings, not just Londo Bell.

Stage 37 – The Unseeable Tomorrow

Avi Ru talks with her other two companions. It seems that Avi Ru is associated with Earth, but she fears that Earth is about to be defeated, so all that will remain are the Muge Empire and the Galaxy Empire — it will have to be seen which one is victorious in the end (it seems like the other two originals are allied with one empire each).

Meanwhile, the Bloodandos descend to Earth and see the destruction the Galaxy Empire is wreaking. Unlike the Muge Empire, they are just killing everyone they encounter. The Bloodandos head to the base in America where many of the OZ troops are gathered. The enemies are mostly in New York. Quattro gives a rousing speech to encourage everyone. They hear from Treize that the Cinq Kingdom has been ruined, but Relena and the other girl are safe. The super robot researchers are safe too. Unfortunately, Hazuki(?) and Igor are still in the Juusenki base. Shinobu and Alan decide to go after him — perhaps they are working on some weapon. After they leave, the enemies attack.

During the fight, Todd shows up to help in order to defend Earth. Also, Dancougar comes back with Schwartz, and the Gandol, which is a mobile version of the Juusenki base. Unfortunately Igor is dead.

Although the Bloodandos manage to defeat the enemies, they have to abandon the base and go to South America where Treize is. As it turns out, half of the Earth forces have been destroyed, and the base in South America is basically all they have left. Dancougar gets a new weapon. Relena is at the base and meets Heero, who tries to reassure her that she can do some good after the fight is over. Meanwhile, the BF Dan is working for Zuhl, searching for something in ruins on Earth. Even Zuhl doesn’t know what he’s looking for, but he fears failure if he doesn’t find it (I’m not quite sure on this part, since I’ve never seen Godmars).

Wing Zero Custom is insanely broken. His main MAP attack has no morale requirement and is based on shots instead of EN, and with double move you can take out huge numbers of enemies with no problem and then just hop back into the ship and do it again. I don’t know if any of the other GW upgrades are good.

Stage 38 – Cusco, the Final Defense Line (Part 1)

There seems to be nothing that can win against the Galaxy Empire except a miracle. However, that may not be out of reach — there have already been three chance events that have allowed humanity to continue. Takeru was released from his capsule early by an earthquake. Second, he was taught to love Earth by parents. Third, he went against Zuhl and refused to detonate the bomb that would destroy Earth. Perhaps they can create a miracle. Wing Zero and Epyon both say there is no chance, but Heero and Zechs are determined to fight anyway.

The Bloodandos have no plan except to hold out as long as they can against the Empire. Jeria suggests going to Cusco, where some power of Glados is supposed to reside. She explains that Glados and Earthlings are originally from the same source, and that their far ancestors left something behind to help the Earthlings in case they met Glados when they were still too weak. The exact nature of it is uncertain, but she feels it’s somehow related to the fact that the Muge Empire seems to be in another dimension. She wonders if this might result in the miracle they’ve been looking for. Meanwhile, the BF Dan have found the Cusco ruins — this is apparently what Zuhl is searching for as well. Albert doesn’t like that they’re working with the aliens who are going to destroy humanity, but apparently this is Big Fire’s will. Zuhl gives the order to all his troops to put the destruction of Cusco above all else.

Treize decides to send everyone to Cusco to protect it. The Bloodandos form the final defense line. Meanwhile, Eiji, Jeria, and Relena try to activate the seal of Glados. The Zuhl forces easily defeat the outer defense lines, bringing them to the Bloodandos, who are the last hope of humanity.

After beating many of the enemies, it seems that some of them have managed to get inside the structure and are fighting the troops protecting Eiji and the others within. The Bloodandos mop up the remnants in 5 turns and then go into the structure to assist the defense, while Treize’s last troops come to the outside of Cusco.

Stage 39 – Cusco, the Final Defense Line (Part 2)

Inside Cusco, Treize and Eiji take up the defense of the central section while Jeria finishes whatever she’s doing. The BF Dan is there to take control, but Albert is so upset at having to join with aliens that he leaves everyone else to do the fighting. The Bloodandos appear, and it’s time to protect the Glados Seal.

After 10 minutes, Jeria activates the seal and a pillar of light shoots into the sky. The enemies aren’t sure what to make of this; Warl doesn’t know what it is since even Zuhl wasn’t sure, and they’re unable to contact Zuhl because of interference from the structure. Warl leaves Janera and the others in charge and asks them to monitor the situation, and goes into space himself to consult with Zuhl.

The pillar of light seems to be twisting space so that Zuhl’s forces cannot return to their homeworld, nor can any reinforcements come. Albert is pissed off that they didn’t succeed, but the other BF guy tells him that everything is proceeding according to Big Fire’s will.

Zuhl decides to create a second homeworld on Earth; his underlings fear that the soldiers will turn against him if he does that, but Zuhl insists that the soldiers follow his will. On Earth, though, it seems like the Galaxy Empire is in retreat. Meanwhile, the Devil Gundam is sighted in Neo Hong Kong; Domon goes after it, of course. Treize asks the Bloodandos to follow (after telling them the story behind Devil Gundam).

Stage 40 – The Fist of Despair and Sadness (Part 1)

This is familiar stuff; it’s basically the same as the mid-season G Gundam story that shows up in a lot of SRWs. As the Bloodandos are going towards Neo Hong Kong, Saotome manages to complete the Getter research, and the Shin Getter is born by absorbing Getter G into it. Of course Saotome doesn’t want them to try using it but they convince him in the end.

The rest of the stage is basically a plot mission and is the same “Master Asia teaches Domon to use Sekiha Tenkyouken” as in all the other games.

Stage 41 – The Fist of Despair and Sadness (Part 2)

The bulk of this stage is the same as in the G Gundam anime; the main differences are that Wong comes out in the Devil Gundam after Kyouji is defeated, and Schwartz survives somehow by the magical power of the Getter Rays.

After that stuff happens, the Bloodandos go to Europe to talk to Treize, who sends them into space. Rather than licking their wounds, they should strike at the Empire now, while they’re in disarray. In space, Scirocco decides to sit by and watch, while Haman prepares to attack the Empire. The Bloodandos go into space. They receive word of Haman and Scirocco’s actions, but notice there’s still the light of battle — it seems the Zuhl forces are fighting amongst themselves. There’s also an interesting conversation between Quattro and Kamille where Quattro seems to be sympathetic to Master Asia’s goal of exterminating all life on Earth…

Stage 42 – Deciding Battle! The Showdown with Emperor Zuhl (Part 1)

Warl reports to Zuhl that the Earthlings are attacking; Zuhl won’t listen to Warl’s claims that their fighting force is down 20%. He just orders all the deserters and rebellers to be killed.

Word of the rebellion reaches the Bloodandos via Haman; Haman also gives them the information that Emperor Zuhl himself is among the troops. This makes the course of action obvious — they need to find Zuhl and defeat him, to end the fighting. They come across a fleet that contains Zuhl’s ship and the attack starts. Takeru tries to convince Zuhl that he has to live on Earth now since he can’t return home, but Zuhl won’t listen to him.

Unfortunately when you defeat the enemies, you discover that the Zuhl you defeated was a fake. (Unless this “fake Zuhl” thing is something that happened in the anime, it just seems like padding out the levels; I don’t see the point of this stage.)

Stage 43 – Deciding Battle! The Showdown with Emperor Zuhl (Part 2)

It seems that Haman was also wasting her time fighting a fake, but she’s discovered the location of the real Zuhl and asks for the Bloodandos’ cooperation in fighting him — otherwise, Haman will have to attack the Bloodandos instead. I chose to accept her help (the first choice), and so she gives you the location of the real Zuhl and you begin the attack.

Haman shows up to help the next turn.

You can finish this battle through plot events — when Zuhl shows up, have Takeru fight him, and he will regenerate, laughing about how nobody can defeat him. Mars hears Marg speak in his head and tell him to defeat Zuhl. He also hears his Earth father’s voice. Have Takeru fight Zuhl again, and Takeru will decide to use God Mars’ bomb to blow up Zuhl and him at the same time. Zuhl tries to stop Takeru by telling him that any cells of his that survive will eventually regrow and rule the galaxy, but Takeru does it anyway, and Zuhl dies — Takeru lives somehow, though. (As a side note, it’s interesting that Janera and Combattler V have dialogue for two fights, even though there’s nothing in the plot of SRW 64 to suggest that there’s any relation between Combattler V and the Campbellians, who are never actually referred to as Campbellians in the game.)

Haman then thanks the Bloodandos for helping her get rid of all those who would stand in the way of the rebirth of Zeon — nobody is particularly surprised at this. She offers Treize a Side if he will join her with his OZ troops; Quattro cuts her off. She decides to leave them alone for now as thanks for helping her with Zuhl, and goes off to deal with Scirocco.

Now a new mech shows up, piloted by Jei Ren. She sees that Avi Ru was right about the Earthlings being stronger than Zuhl, although she can’t believe it. The heroes ask who she is, and she says that they are called the R. E. Quis (or aru ii kuisu, I have no idea what the intended romanization is), the Will of the Universe in corporeal form. Their goal is to ensure the continuation of eternity, and now she has to test something out (by fighting the Bloodandos, of course).

Treize wonders whether it was really a good idea to reject Haman’s offer, but he laughs that off as a joke. Although everyone is happy that Zuhl has been defeated and the Earth saved, they can’t help but feel sad that now the Earthlings have to fight amongst each other. Then there are these mysterious new beings, the R E Quis. Maria seems to recall hearing this R E Quis before — Daisuke then recalls as well. Apparently in the Freed legends, there are legends of the time before the Glados, Gishin, and Freed civilizations existed, when the entire galaxy was unified and protected by beings called the R E Quis. He doesn’t think that has anything to do with now, though, since it would hardly be true that human-like beings would be the legendary rulers of the universe. Maybe these women just heard about this legend and are using the name for some reason.

In any case, the Bloodandos head back to La Vie En Rose to rest, and Bright has his usual madcap encounter with Emalie.

Of course, Jei Ren was easy to defeat, taking only three attacks, including her 50% HP heal. It seemed to take the designers a long time to realize that a boss with five-digit HP cannot stand up to an entire player team of Hot Blooded finishing attacks with Flash to avoid damage.

Stage 44 – The Future of Life and Death

All things considered, Treize decides that it would be better to go after Scirocco first. They have to attack in space without care for Earth; either Haman or Scirocco could easily defeat the scattered and weakened forces on Earth. The Peacemillion shows up with Howard in charge; he’s picked up many of the refugees from the colonies. Trowa is also with him, but he doesn’t remember who he is (after being defeated by Quatre in the Wing Zero). The Bloodandos head to Barge to fight Scirocco.

Wufei shows up during the fight, but he doesn’t want to join the Bloodandos because of Treize. Meanwhile, Treize leaves in his Tallgeese II and goes to the Barge, blowing it up and killing himself in the process. He tells the Bloodandos that the future is in their hands.

Scirocco retreats to the Libra. The Bloodandos go there. Haman, hearing this, decides to go herself, hoping that both Scirocco and the Bloodandos can be eliminated here. Meanwhile Trowa recovers his memory and decides to fight, and Une sadly hears the news of Treize’s death. Chizuru is also having some kind of problem.

Stage 45 – Space Vortex

Scirocco pulls his forces back to the Libra, even though Jerid wants to avenge Mauer right away. The Bloodandos, along with the remaining OZ forces, put Operation Maelstrom into motion — they try to surround the enemies and defeat them all. Quattro, Haman, and Scirocco get into a fight and Haman tries to get Char back into Zeon; of course he won’t listen. It turns out the mobile dolls were bait; the Libra fires its cannon at the OZ ships, destroying a number of them. Bright pulls the forces back. Quattro and Kamille are still out; last anyone saw, they were heading for the Libra along with Haman in her Quebeley.

The decision is made that they have to strike now; perhaps Quattro and Kamille disabled the Libra. As the battle goes on, the conversations from the final episode of Z Gundam keep happening. Gremy comes out with his people and you can kill him, then convince Puru with Judau to get her.

When only the Libra is left, the people on the Libra loyal to Treize get everyone to abandon the ship and then blow it up.

After the battle, Quattro does not return to the ship and they find his bullet-riddled 100-shiki abandoned on the battlefield. None of the newtypes can sense him, but they don’t get the feeling he’s dead. So it’s back to the Moon to recover and plan their attack on Haman. Along the way, Chizuru gets confined to sick bay because of heart valve trouble — she’ll have to have surgery at the Moon.

61 enemies, 17 of them named, two of them with 5 dummies, several with double move. Despite that it’s not quite as bad as I thought it would be; Haman tends to attack the OZ people instead of you, and most of the named characters have low HP and can be taken out with MAP attacks or just hot blood regulars.

Stage 46 – Haman’s Shadow

Haman sends Gato to the Moon to attack the Bloodandos; she also wants Gremy to go there with Puru II in a new Psycho Gundam. Chizuru has her surgery and so the Combattler can’t participate in the battle.

After the battle, Haman decides to trap the Bloodandos on Earth by stationing a force around the Moon and then capturing the colonies. Bright is afraid to do anything because they might drop a colony if they’re not careful. Haman sends Gremy down to Earth to deal with the Romefeller remnants, but Gremy decides this is the right time to start his rebellion.

Stage 47 – Driving Ambition

Gremy begins to attack Axis. Haman knew he planned to rebel, but hoped that he would at least wait until the Bloodandos had been defeated. In any case, she’s forced to deal with Gremy. This gives the Bloodandos the chance to leave the Moon. They have to decide what to do — I picked the first choice, which means you go after Gremy first rather than trying to take on both Haman and Gremy at the same time.

Once Gremy is defeated, everyone retreats. It would be interesting to see what would happen if you ran away to the corner of the battlefield and let the neutrals and enemies duke it out — Haman’s army should win, but Haman’s Quebely might run out of funnels and Gremy could theoretically beat her. If Haman does win, though, this is one of the few battles in the SRW franchise that you can win without doing anything.

Stage 48 – Life, Scattering

Haman heads towards Axis to defeat Gremy. The Bloodandos decide that they should enter the fight rather than hanging back; this is their best chance to ensure that both Gremy and Haman are defeated. At Axis, Gato agrees not to attack the Bloodandos until Gremy is defeated.

If you beat Haman with Judau you get the speeches from the end of ZZ.

Afterwards, the Bloodandos go back to the Moon. Kamille, Amuro, and Judau discuss Haman’s end — she couldn’t accept Earth as it was; they think Quattro is the only one who could have changed her mind. Now everyone starts thinking about what to do since the war is over — they decide to settle the Gishin people in a destroyed colony, and Eiji and the others will help with that while the Winner family supplies the money. Une has been able to take control of Romefeller and OZ on Earth. Now they can rest and think about the future.

Meanwhile, the professors and Sally Po discuss an alarming event. It seems the Muge Empire is back; the sensors at the asteroid belt have activated. They decide to let the Bloodandos rest for a while more while they analyze the data.

Stage 49 – A Nightmare From Which You Cannot Awaken

Finally they break the bad news to the Bloodandos; Muge is back. They go out to fight the coming Muge fleet, while the scientists work to discover exactly how they managed to get here despite the Glados Seal.

After the fight, the Bloodandos realize that Muge is only going to come back again and again. Fortunately, the professors have discovered that the Muge Empire lies in another dimension, and by studying one of the ships from the previous battle, they are able to use a week to modify the Gandol to allow for the dimensional transportation. However, they aren’t sure if it will be able to come back. It would take several months to study everything well enough to ensure return transport as well. One by one the Bloodandos start volunteering to go anyway — this is the best chance to defeat Muge. But since only one ship can be sent with the dimensional transport, some people have to stay at Earth. In any case, some of them need to remain to help protect from Neo Zeon or OZ remnants. Manami gets to choose to go to Muge Space (1st choice) or stay at Earth (2nd choice).

If you pick Muge: At the Muge home, Death Gaia is worried that the Earthlings might find a way to get to Muge space, but the Muge Emperor would be happy if they did, since they would have no chance to beat him.

If you pick Earth: Everyone watches the Muge party leave and wishes them luck; Anna has a flower for Eiji to take. The transport seems successful, but of course they don’t know if they’ll ever return. Those who remained on Earth return to the Moon, and the professors vow to start working on repairing the Gandol and fixing it up so that they can go rescue the Muge party if necessary.

Stage 50(Muge) – Far Away Gain

The Muge party gets blasted with the Gandol cannon and warps to Muge space. It’s all dark. Meanwhile, the Muge Emperor allows Death Gaia to choose the battlefield he will fight on. DG chooses the Red Hell, and the Nel Argama pops out on a red-tinged area of land. Death Gaia soon appears. On the second turn, of course, everyone’s Will goes down 30 from a spirit attack.

Once you beat Death Gaia by some spirit attack, Muge appears. Once you defeat him, he vows to revive, but somehow everyone lends their power to Dancougar and Muge space begins to break up. Avi Ru appears, and once you beat her, she tells you not to die or things won’t be interesting.

The Nel Argama is able to escape Muge Space, but is now stuck out in the middle of nowhere.

Stage 50(Earth) – Char’s Rebellion

Four months have passed since the Gandol team left, and recovery efforts on Earth are going well. Relena has become the representative of the colonies. Quatre is using the Winner family wealth to rebuild a colony for the Gishin to live in. They need to check some of the outlying areas where the Gishin are starting to collect to make sure there aren’t any military commanders left. The rebuilding on Earth is proceeding, and Jeria is helping the people to cope with their losses.

Also, the Gandol has been refurbished and refitted, and Hazuki goes out to rescue the Muge party from wherever they are. After he leaves, Chein brings terrible news. Char has declared himself the leader of Neo Zeon, which is formed from the remnants of the Axis fleet. He has taken over Sweet Water and is going to drop Fifth Luna on Earth, in the middle of America. Henken hurriedly assembles a crew for the new Ra Kalium and the Bloodandos (well, half of them) head out to stop Fifth Luna. There, Gyunei and Rezun are leading a Neo Zeon fleet to protect it.

Char soon comes out himself to have CCA dialogue with Amuro (“ego da, sore wa!”), and though the Bloodandos are victorious, Fifth Luna falls on Earth anyway. The Bloodandos talk it over; it seems that Char was able to amass his strength unknown because of colony support — the colonists have always resented the Federation for sticking them in crappy colonies after the One Year War. However, they know that Fifth Luna can’t represent Char’s whole plan to induce nuclear winter on Earth — he has to be planning to use Axis. For now, though, they need to return to Side 1 and wait for Gandol’s return.

Stage 51 – Terror! Devil Axis Begins to Move! (Part 1)

(From Muge)
The Nel Argama has only 3 days of supplies left. Some people think it’s time to die, others have some hope. The Gandol appears, though — even though only 2 weeks have passed in Muge Space, 4 months have passed back at Earth, so they were able to fix the Gandol. The Nel Argama has to be abandoned, though. Hazuki tells everyone that Earth is basically at peace. But, when they get back, they see Axis with the Devil Gundam head on it. Amuro informs them that Char has planned it; he is no longer Quattro Bajeena, but back to Char Aznable. He has already dropped Fifth Luna on Earth. Now they have to get into Devil Axis and destroy it.

(From Earth)
Char gives his CCA speech to the troops, telling them of the history of the long wars and the necessity for exterminating all life on Earth. He silently asks Amuro to stop him if he can. Meanwhile, the Bloodandos head towards Axis, and they see that the Devil Gundam has been grafted onto Axis, to grant it regeneration powers. Even blasting it with nukes won’t help; they’ll have to go in and defeat the core. Luckily the Gandol team comes back, so they can participate in the attack.

In Axis, Char gives his speech to Quess about letting Earth rest, and then he commands Quinze (from Gundam Wing) to detonate the remaining nuclear pulses. The Bloodandos show up. Amuro and Char have some CCA dialogue, and then Kamille tells Char he should have died at the Libra. Char responds that he found the truth in that fight, even though it’s hard to accept.

Once the enemies are taken care of, it’s time to break into Devil Axis.

Interestingly, Zechs is still on my side. I guess he only is an enemy in this section if you took the Independent Route.

Stage 52 – Terror! Devil Axis Begins to Move! (Part 2)

Inside, they face down Wong in the Devil Gundam and destroy it, but this doesn’t stop Axis — it’s still heading towards Earth. Time to refuel and then try to stop it again. Amuro thinks that Char wants to have a final showdown with him, and decides to go out in front.

Stage 53 – Screaming in Space

The plan is to blast Axis with nuclear missiles, then Gandol’s cannon, then if that doesn’t work, take the Ra Kalium inside and blast it apart manually. The missiles fail, and so does the Gandol cannon, so all they can do is take the Ra Kalium in. During the battle, Lady Une broadcasts the fight to Earth.

I moved a small party towards Char as fast as I could, took away his dummies (7!) and then killed him with Amuro. Then the Ra Kalium moves on to Axis, and a party goes inside to bomb the structure. A few turns later, they succeed in blowing it up, but a fragment will still fall on Earth. At this point CCA events are verbatim (the dialogue is a bit shortened) except that after the light engulfs the Axis piece, the Super Robots go and save Amuro. They can’t find Char, though.

Now everyone talks about the future of the world (the aliens moving to a colony, Relena leading the Earth council, etc.), but they still have one enemy left to fight — the R E Quis. And sure enough, the radar picks them up.

Stage 54 – Taking the Future in Our Hands

The R E Quis aren’t attacking, and some of the Bloodandos want to take the initiative. But Val Ah, the leader of the R E Quis, contacts them and wants to tell them something. Nobody wants to listen to her, though, they know it’s just going to end up with a fight.

Val Ah transports the Bloodandos outside of the galaxy, and then tells them her story. The R E Quis are charged with preserving the eternity of the galaxy. They do this by carefully controlling when civilizations fight each other and how large they grow. If left unchecked, the will to fight will engulf the entire galaxy and eventually destroy it. But the R E Quis are dying out, and they need someone to take over the will of the galaxy. That’s why they brought together Muge, Zuhl, and Earth to fight it out, to see who was the strongest. Even though the Earth is still young, they can take over the will of the galaxy and then when they are ready, enforce order throughout the entire galaxy. Of course the Bloodandos don’t want to do this. Jei Ren can’t believe they would put their Earth above the fate of the entire galaxy, but the Bloodandos don’t think they have the right to decide when people fight wars, and where people will die. They want to have their fate in their own hands. The R E Quis decide that they have to kill the Bloodandos and then hope the other Earthlings will be more receptive to their message.

After you beat them the first time, Val Ah realizes that she can feel in these Earthlings a power and will close to their own. Jei Ren and Avi Ru want to head to Earth — they’re wasting their last strength; they need to find someone to take the memories of the galaxy now. Val Ah wants to try one more time to defeat the Bloodandos, though — this will finish everything.

Here’s a video of the one-hit kill on her:

Once you beat them the second time, the Bloodandos are happy that they won, but now they’re trapped in outer space. However, Val Ah is still alive (barely) — she uses her last power to send them back to Earth, and thinks to herself that Earth is truly the successor to the will of the galaxy, and some day in the far future, when they escape the bonds of their own planet, they will be able to accept that.

Back at the Earth Sphere, the tired fighters head back to rest, and then to start rebuilding Earth.

THE END