Let's Sperg Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden - The first game in the series to make mecha nerds cry from the difficulty

[GethN7]

Before I get to the very last levels, I just found out Super Robot Wars A Portable, the PSP remake of SRW Advance, has been fully translated.


If I ever get to that, it will be a long while, and even when I get to that, it will be slow going because SRW A and it's PSP remake are HARD AS FUCK.

It's got a random number god who hates you straight from the hardest Fire Emblem games, not to mention retains most of the more wooden gameplay mechanics of the original GBA game, even though some of the dumber issues were smoothed over.

 

[GethN7]

Stage 44: For Whom Does The Future Exist?


I'm not gonna bother with pictures this time for two reasons:

1. You've seen pretty much all the characters before.

2. We'll be back at the same lunar transmitter map we were at when we fought off the Mariemeia Army, same basic tactics apply there too, except this time Magus MUST die.


This level cuts back to the various people from pre-Black History era Earth, on the day Project Aegis is supposed to start, and things look bad.

1. The Macross can't make it to the Moon in time thanks to the Neo-Granzon explosion damaging them enough the repairs delayed them too long.

2. At best, Project Aegis has 54.8% of the energy it actually needs, meaning even if they mostly shield the Earth, the space colonies are fucked.

3. They proceed with getting Aegis ready anyway, and Magus and a shitload of Bergelmirs show up as she all "time travel success, now to destroy Project Aegis.

What few defenders Earth has left (the remains of the SRX Project, Gomez in the Lean Horse, Henken in an Alexandria, and Irmgault Kazahara in a Gespenst) nearly shit a brick, but that's when the good guys appear.

You can sortie one carrier and 18 units of your choice. You can sortie the SRX guys and you and the others I mentioned, but don't bother, your team is stronger.


Honestly, this level is easy as fuck as long as you aren't a total dumbass, as you can bask in the HP/EN Regen of the lunar transmitter station, and kill Bergelmirs as they advance. You can even lure the Aurgelmir in close after a dozen or so turns and keep having your guys beat on her until she dies.

Be warned, Magus WILL spam seishin shit like crazy, including spamming Zeal to get DOUBLE turns, and she will do this crap up to SIX times before you can finally beat her ass to death.

She's only about LV75, five levels higher than the last level, but otherwise is much the same.

The only way to really lose is to let her or her goons on the lunar transmitter area or die.

In fact, this is a breather before the True Final Boss, honestly.

Once you final take down Magus, the original Sophia Nate manages to wrest back control over herself, to Magus's shock, and tells her alter-ego to accept her demise, the true successors of the Earth are those who defeated her.

Also, pay close attention to dialogue Magus has with Quattro/Char if they fight, he's basically spewing dialogue from Char's Counterattack almost word for word, only in a "heroic" context.

Anyway, once Magus is dead, everyone prepared to hook up everything for Aegis, which is less than three hours from starting, but that's when another asshole warps in.

It's Shu Shirakawa and his Granzon, and his two girlfriends Monica and Saphine.

The intermission comes after this, and you might as blow any surplus money upgrading your best troops if need be, because the next level is the finale, and it will be hard as FUCK.

I'm NOT kidding, this bastard is so fucking hard he's considered only second to Dark Brain from Original Generations Gaiden as one of the hardest bosses in SRW history.

So, that said, grab your balls, swallow any lumps in your throat, and be ready for the True Final Boss of Super Robot Wars Alpha Gaiden next post.

 

[GethN7]

Making a separate post before I cover the final level because it's pretty important to know before you bother with the true final boss.

As this game is a hack of SRW Alpha, the original rules for Alpha still exist in the game engine, and one of the reasons the True Final Boss is so damn hard is because every single one of the worst advantages that could be given to this asshole is given, to your eternal frustration.

First off, Will gains and stat boosts from will gains follow Alpha's rules, meaning the already high stats Shu has get WORSE.

Alpha Gaiden toned these stat gains from Will boosts down, but Shu gets to enjoy the absurd bonuses from the original game engine.

We got a small preview of this when we got the MazinKaiser in Stage 36 when it briefly enjoyed it's advantages from Alpha before we got the AG version afterwards.

Second, don't even THINK you are fighting the same boss from Stage 9. This bastard is basically now a super OP asshole who can even rip bloody holes in the Thrudgelmir at max stats if he wants.

And I haven't even gotten to the worst part.

HE HAS BUILT IN DOUBLE MOVEMENT.

"Double Movement" was an older game engine quirk of the classic SRW games that Alpha retained, where after a certain level, player characters and some bosses could move twice in one turn regardless of anything so long as they were at the appropriate level to unlock the Double Movement bonus.

Alpha Gaiden, in the interests of game balance, generally excised this feature, but just to piss you off, Shu as the True Final Boss has this ability by default, meaning every turn he WILL attack twice.

CAVEAT: This sometimes is not always true, and it's usually as he's near death this happens, apparently, the double movement code misfires, be grateful if this happens.

Also, just in case all this hasn't scared you yet, he also has a BUILT IN Prevail, meaning his stats will rise HIGHER the closer he is to defeat. Doesn't show up on his stat sheet, but if you blew all your seishin skills when you get close to killing him, well, you better pray you get lucky.


P.S. - If you need to, fail this stage multiple times and level grind the shit out of everyone a few times before trying to take Shu down for good.

 

[GethN7]

FINAL STAGE:

RAGNAROK

Okay, people, it's time.


As you start this stage, Shu is all "Hi, I see you're here. I got pretty banged up last time, but I'm back yall. Oh yeah, I still want to stop Project Aegis, so would all kindly roll over and die plz?"

Everyone else: "Fuck You!"

Shu: "Yeah, I figured as much. Guess I'll have to do this the hard way".

This will cue him to summon a crapload of Ghost X-9's and MechaGilGilgans, including four of the later as bodyguards.

The battle starts like this:

The first part of the battle means you'll have to defend the lunar transmitter area, and that means waiting until all the Ghost X-9's and Mecha GGN's are dead before you can move down to kick Shu's ass.

After killing the outliers, then focus on the Mecha GGN's surrounding Shu as guards.

BTW, don't worry about Shu's girlfriends, he'll tell them to withdraw a few turns in.

Anyway, once you've killed those pricks, then you have to fight Shu's Granzon:

Just because it isn't the 'Neo-Granzon" doesn't mean you should laugh at this asshole. It hits like a brick, is a massive damage sponge, and has regen bonuses out the ying-yang.

He'll also seishen spam three times before you can kill his ass.

He also has all the attacks you remember from last time.

BTW, consider this a measure of your skill if this is not too hard, means you just might have a chance of killing his Neo-Granzon, which he'll bring out once you kill this bastard.

And it's an even bigger bastard:

It's far more powerful, and he upgraded the Blackhole Cannon attack to the Degeneracy Cannon, which is the most powerful attack in the game. A direct shot powered by the Valor Seishin could likely murder the Thrudgelmir in one shot, it's that strong.

Oh yeah, he will seishin spam five or so times in this form too, just in case you thought it was gonna get easier.

There is also a nasty trick he pulls once you bleed his energy dry.

He turtles up and defends unless you're directly next to him, and while you might be tempted to bust out all your most powerful attacks at this point, if he's still got some seishin spamming left, you'll piss it all away for nothing.

He might, once near death, bust out double movement and prevail will kick in, making his ass harder to kill, but by the time he does this he's usually out of seishin spams, so beat that fucker to death.

Note, if you have Masaki deployed, there will be a scene where Masaki offers his life to his Elemental Lord, and he gets the "Spirit Possesion" powerup, which shoots Masaki's stats through the roof, gives him a free HP/EN refill, and maxes out his Will.

This battle will be fucking grueling, you will likely die more than once, and you will probably want to smash your controller into tiny pieces, and I wouldn't blame you at all, but eventually, you WILL make this asshole your bitch.

He's graceful enough to admit you guys are truly badass, and he says this as he dies:

Remember how his soul is the bitch of a death god named Shiva Volkruss? By killing Shu here, Volkruss will revive him later, but Volkruss no longer has hold over him after that.

In a way, you gave Shu what he wanted.

Anyway, as Shu goes nova, they get reminded "gravitational shockwave incoming".

I'll cover that in the next post, where I cover the ending.

 

[GethN7]

Alright, time for that ending, people.


We cut over to the transmitter control room, where Misa Hayase reports all enemies are finally dead, and Ring notes we have less than 30 minutes before the gravity wave hits, and all the eggheads are making sure the mecha have hooked themselves up to the transmitter relays.

We cut back to the battle map, where everyone is in position, and even the Braiger is donating it's power to the Aegis Project.

And so we begin:

We cut to where everyone is still seeing the Earth minus it being raped by shockwave, and a loud cheer goes up as Aegis succeeded beyond everyone's wildest dreams.

We then pan over the future people, who just saw the very event that caused their time to happen be averted this time, and that are all in shock that they were living witnesses to making sure there will NOT be a repeat of the Black History.

They also wonder if they can make it back to their own time, but good news on that front.

Seems the Aurgelmir is barely holding on, and Sophia minus Magus says she's got just enough gas to open one last time warp, but after that, the stress will crap it and by extension her out for good.

Sanger obviously doesn't want to see that happen, but I'll let Sophia speak here:

Jamil is all "uh, this may not work", but Diana is willing to have some faith, and besides, they have their own time to make sure this salvation does not go to waste.

With that, we get various farewells and regrets they can't stick around in this time period just for the sights, then Sophia opens the gate.

We cut later to the control room, where the various heroes are saying hi to their parents (many of them the eggheads who set this all up), and I'm not gonna cover anything in too much graphic majesty, but all the various good guys announce their plans to go back to life before alien invasions and time warps to bad futures.

We also have Macross' original ending finally play out (where the SDF-2 is going to launch), and the Macross guys are going to tag along.

We also get the Gundam Wing cast planning to send their Gundams into the sun again like in Endless Waltz, but that's not gonna stick since Alpha 2 happens.

We cut later to Earth, where Bright is reporting to General Oka and Igor and decommissioning the 13th Autnomous Corps Londo Bell, but he's gets told the EF will be recommissioning Londo Bell as an auxiliary vanguard for the indefinite future for the Earth Sphere's defense.

Amuro also takes a bullet for Bright, who is too duty bound to ask, and asks to take charge of that while Bright takes furlough and visits his family for awhile.

Oka and Igor are all "Bright, go visit your family, you deserve a vacation for your hard work".

We also cut over the SRX team, where all but the R-3 is getting mothballed, and the SRX Team is getting a partial pardon. Essentially, they'll be able to resume working for the EFA, but under observation, though Ryusei will be under house arrest and Viletta and Mai Kobayashi/Levi Tolar are still under arrest pending a full investigation of their activities during the Balmar War, and while Aya and Rai aren't happy they are getting off easy while their friends aren't, they get reassured the guys who worked on the former SRX staff are pulling all sorts of strings to get shit settled in their favor.

Note: By Alpha 2, Viletta is finally cleared of all charges, and by Alpha 3, everyone is off the hook.

We also get Usso and the Victory team gracefully exiting the plot and retiring (since Crossbone Gundam shows up in the next game, this sidesteps any goofy canon weirdness), and we also get the Mazinger cast finally getting their weird family issues settled for good, especially now that Tetsuya's head is no longer crammed up his own ass.

The La Gias guys also get written out of the plot so we don't have them show up in future games (until the Original Generations series).

We then cut to the J9 getting paid out the ass by Banjou for their hard work, and he even threw in bonus pay as an extra thank you.

We also get a small sequel hook in that since the Black History never happens now, the Earth Cradle is left alone (so Sanger can be a playable protagonist come Alpha 2).

We then cut to the future world, which hasn't PHYSICALLY changed, as it exists in an alternate timeline created by your actions, but at least everyone who tried to fuck it all up is dead.

We cut to where Harry and Kihel are being teeth rottingly romantic, and it seems the Argamma left behind was re-christened the "Laura Ran" (get the reference?) and made civilian transport.

We cut to where Jamil and Tex are glad they've purged the demons of their past, and Sarah shoots Roybea down, she's made up her mind she's gots the hots for a guy in blue coat and shades, and he's cool with that. Witz and Tonya suck horribly at hiding they finally spat it out, and Ennil and Roybea decide to hook up.

We also have Garrod, Carrus, Pala, and Tiffa saying their goodbyes, then we cut to Lily and Gavan seeing off the Laura Ran before it heads for the Moon (via space booster).

The Iron Gear shows up to also give them a sendoff.

We then cut to a town where Hola and Geraba are basically giving the exact dialogue some nameless goons from Gundam X did about fighting Newtypes, and Garrod and Tiffa walk by and are all "lol, yeah."

Literally, it's a perfect pastiche of that ending scene from Gundam X.

We cut to where Diana is chillin with Loran on Earth (if you haven't guessed, Kihel is taking Diana's old job on a more permanent basis), and they rewrote a bit of cringe from Turn A.

Basically, Loran had a massive unrequited boner for Diana that he ended the show with, Sochie flipped the fuck out, and it ended on a slightly shitty note.

Alpha Gaiden has Sochie be a lot more graceful about things and makes Loran somewhat less a cringelord, though they concede his pining for her is still likely not going anywhere.

We cut to where the Iron Gear has dropped Sanger off near the Earth Cradle, and after gracefully declining an invitation to hook up with the Iron Gear crew on a more permanent basis, we get a pretty sad scene where our resident badass, once he's all alone at the Earth Cradle, he just finally breaks down and weeps, his only solace is knowing Sophia is finally free of the curse of Magus.




Roll credits.

 

[GethN7]

With that, this Let's Sperg is finished. I may do so more followup posts where I show up some alternate routes and save hacking fun, but otherwise, this LS is complete.

And I'd like to thank the following.

The Akarasu Wiki, for providing some help keeping some information straight.

@Jaimas, for backstopping me on Turn A Gundam information.

The various other mecha fans and SRW geeks of this thread, I appreciate all your contributions and look forward to more of your fine posts in other Let's Spergs.

Everyone else, members and non members, who have read and enjoyed my posts.

And @Null, who has continued to be gracious enough to let me post these threads for your enjoyment.

 

[kawazu217]

Well, its finally over. Wish I popped up earlier so I can remember the pain alongside you. While I am here though, I'd like to take this opportunity to say some stuff lest I indefinitely hold my piece again.

Truthfully, I think the game stops being funny right after the X-point battle. It gets teeth-gnashingly tedious until you jump back to the past, where everyone is happy that you managed to come back just in time. Maybe its also the fact that you start hearing your units themes less and less as you go along, until all you can hear is the Ancestor's theme, Arrow of Destiny and finally Shu Shirakawa's theme, which while badass in their own right, doesn't ring the same bells as Violent Battle (PSX version) or Armageddon. You get a slight reprieve in the final battle when you fight the Ghost X-9 units, where you unit themes will play, but after they're smashed, they're gone. tl;dr I could put the game down after X-Point or at least Guin and the Frost Brothers' downfall because I don't see the appeal in continuing.

One of the things that makes the whole game hard and would probably bring the difficulty back down to at least SRW F level, is that the "Taunt" Seishin is missing. Beecha and Asuka had it in F/F Final and Wufei had it in Alpha. Casting Taunt would probably cheese the game because it forces the target to break formation and make a beeline towards the caster, away from the enemy lines, and especially, the support units who will block attacks on the target's behalf. Having this removed really jacked up the difficulty as you have to waste turns just to get to the target and into enemy lines as well as gave so much padding to bosses, because they have support blockers as well as the Seishin spam when you finally start whittling down their HP.

I forgot the name of Cenia's sister (Christine? Kathleen?), but she's piloting a souped-up version of the Nors Rei. IIRC, Cenia's unit maxes out at 5040 HP, her unit starts at 5000 HP and every stat and weapons is just overall stronger out of the gate than Cenia's is. If you hack it to your unit list, its pretty much the same, except the game plays Lune's Flapper Girl theme when you fight using it.

I don't remember Saphine being shown on the overworld chit chat, but if you look at the people info page, you'll see that she has one. Other people like Astonaige only have the square portrait and some, like Greta Karas, can only be seen by taking specific routes.

The La Gias units were given justice here. I haven't made it far enough in F Final for the Granveil and Goddess to join me, but the Zamzeed is straight up disposable. I'm glad this game gave it justice with how it ranked its weapons and promoted the punch attack to a finisher that is damaging especially when partnered with Mio's Guts ability.

I could see myself trying SRW A if it didn't have a squad system. I know that kits for the better as it allows you to deploy more pilots and units rather than have to not sortie some good units on missions, but I like the classics better (which is also why I've dipped my toes in SRW MX, probably the only PS2 SRW I've played so far).

Haman's Quebeley is finally given reverse-justice in this game. In F, it was horribly overpowered with 50,000 HP and armor thicker than most Super Robot units which only served to make Puru's Quebeley mk-II and its paltry 3500 HP even weaker than it really is. Alpha took it down to just ~10,000 HP but the fact that you still don't even keep the unit make me angry at times. Here, its about Nu-Gundam tier which is much more appropriate. I would understand the OP-ness if it was bigger or had more weapons, but its pretty much as vanilla as its color (if you take out the funnels, its not much different than the Methuss or a Nemo).

My thoughts on future posts for this thread? I would suggest the branching paths right after Tiffa and Elche gets kidnapped. Or maybe show us alternate units you will get from the mountain cycles or the normal and easy endings.

 

[GethN7]

Well, its finally over. Wish I popped up earlier so I can remember the pain alongside you. While I am here though, I'd like to take this opportunity to say some stuff lest I indefinitely hold my piece again.

Truthfully, I think the game stops being funny right after the X-point battle. It gets teeth-gnashingly tedious until you jump back to the past, where everyone is happy that you managed to come back just in time. Maybe its also the fact that you start hearing your units themes less and less as you go along, until all you can hear is the Ancestor's theme, Arrow of Destiny and finally Shu Shirakawa's theme, which while badass in their own right, doesn't ring the same bells as Violent Battle (PSX version) or Armageddon. You get a slight reprieve in the final battle when you fight the Ghost X-9 units, where you unit themes will play, but after they're smashed, they're gone. tl;dr I could put the game down after X-Point or at least Guin and the Frost Brothers' downfall because I don't see the appeal in continuing.

One of the things that makes the whole game hard and would probably bring the difficulty back down to at least SRW F level, is that the "Taunt" Seishin is missing. Beecha and Asuka had it in F/F Final and Wufei had it in Alpha. Casting Taunt would probably cheese the game because it forces the target to break formation and make a beeline towards the caster, away from the enemy lines, and especially, the support units who will block attacks on the target's behalf. Having this removed really jacked up the difficulty as you have to waste turns just to get to the target and into enemy lines as well as gave so much padding to bosses, because they have support blockers as well as the Seishin spam when you finally start whittling down their HP.

I forgot the name of Cenia's sister (Christine? Kathleen?), but she's piloting a souped-up version of the Nors Rei. IIRC, Cenia's unit maxes out at 5040 HP, her unit starts at 5000 HP and every stat and weapons is just overall stronger out of the gate than Cenia's is. If you hack it to your unit list, its pretty much the same, except the game plays Lune's Flapper Girl theme when you fight using it.

I don't remember Saphine being shown on the overworld chit chat, but if you look at the people info page, you'll see that she has one. Other people like Astonaige only have the square portrait and some, like Greta Karas, can only be seen by taking specific routes.

The La Gias units were given justice here. I haven't made it far enough in F Final for the Granveil and Goddess to join me, but the Zamzeed is straight up disposable. I'm glad this game gave it justice with how it ranked its weapons and promoted the punch attack to a finisher that is damaging especially when partnered with Mio's Guts ability.

I could see myself trying SRW A if it didn't have a squad system. I know that kits for the better as it allows you to deploy more pilots and units rather than have to not sortie some good units on missions, but I like the classics better (which is also why I've dipped my toes in SRW MX, probably the only PS2 SRW I've played so far).

Haman's Quebeley is finally given reverse-justice in this game. In F, it was horribly overpowered with 50,000 HP and armor thicker than most Super Robot units which only served to make Puru's Quebeley mk-II and its paltry 3500 HP even weaker than it really is. Alpha took it down to just ~10,000 HP but the fact that you still don't even keep the unit make me angry at times. Here, its about Nu-Gundam tier which is much more appropriate. I would understand the OP-ness if it was bigger or had more weapons, but its pretty much as vanilla as its color (if you take out the funnels, its not much different than the Methuss or a Nemo).

My thoughts on future posts for this thread? I would suggest the branching paths right after Tiffa and Elche gets kidnapped. Or maybe show us alternate units you will get from the mountain cycles or the normal and easy endings.

Pretty much agree with all this.

Planning to do either A Portable or Masoukishin next (as well as finish my G Generation Overworld LS), which you game for?

Also, I might show off some alternate units and goofy shit later, but I'm gonna spoil the easy ending right here because it's firmly in non-canon territory and they skip over a lot of stuff from the hard ending that is canon.

In Easy, after beating Magus, Shu shows up, but apparently had second thoughts about the whole "kill everyone" idea and he offers to be the power source for Project Aegis. Canon goes out the window at this point because Shu is supposed to canonically DIE for real at the end of Super Robot Wars 3, Alpha Gaiden, or Original Generations Gaiden, depending on the timeline you're in.

It's basically a slightly extended version of the ending in SRW3 where just before he would have ditched your team in SRW3 to go evil he instead is all "eh, fuck it, let's just enjoy the peace, shall we?"

 

[kawazu217]

Planning to do either A Portable or Masoukishin next (as well as finish my G Generation Overworld LS), which you game for?

I go where G Gundam goes, so my vote goes to A Portable.

 

[NoTimeToLose]

I am currently in my 2nd playthrough.
My first playthrough went with the Normal Ending. I'm currently going for Hard Ending and I'm planning a 3rd Playthrough again for Hard Ending but instead of playing with the guys at Space, I'm curious to see what happens with the Super Robot guys at Earth.

On my current Playthrough I went to space just for a simple bias for Gundam X and Turn A. And I wanted to unlock the G-Bits, which I missed on my 1st blind playthrough.

I so late to this threads. But hi again @GethN7 , I enjoyed your SMT reviews from the christcenteredgamer.

 

[Pope Negro Joe the XIIIth]

But hi again @GethN7

>Last Seen: Jun 17, 2020

He's gone fren.

 

[NoTimeToLose]

>Last Seen: Jun 17, 2020

He's gone fren.