Oh I know about save scumming but the level was so damn easy and I've got loading/unloading people into the two ships off to a tea so nobody comes close to dying, buuuut I got overconfident with Mankeizer, I'll play some more later on. I'm looking forward to meeting Fei-Yen <333
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Super Robot Wars UX |OT| Hot blooded yelling that you can actually hear!
- Thread starter Lostconfused
- Start date
haha, I dunno, at least those have interesting plots/characters. I actually think Fafner is pretty underrated as a show. Sure the mecha designs are weak, enemy designs weaker, and plot is not so good; but the music is great, and it's a story about death and sacrifice and has a lot of emotional moments. It's probably the only recycled entry in this one that I don't mind, since getting Fafner with voices is nice. I wonder if we can get Rahxpehon back in one of these handheld ones. Would go well with stories like Fafner.
Linebarrels is cool since I haven't read the manga and the mech designs are AWESOME. I like that it's really in-depth in the coverage so I don't have to read the manga and I get all the plot!
For me the weakest link is Tobikage Ninja and Mazinkaiser SKL. I like old school shows in SRW, but the characters in Tobikage are boring and the mecha are pretty dull too. The theme isn't very catchy either. Mazinkaiser sadly is the most boring Mazinger design, has dull attack animations, the BGM sucks, and the enemies suck too. Yawn.
Heroman is pretty boring too, mainly because the enemies and story suck. Heroman as a unit is pretty fun.
Demonbane is good times, both in unit, BGM, story, and characters. Cool enemies too. Rean has batshit crazy Tomino, great BGM, though the attacks for all the units all look THE EXACT SAME (pull out sword [maybe two swords, maybe with fire] rush and slice). And Gundam 00 Movie hasn't really appeared much so far early on. Same with Mac F.
All in all, still enjoying this plenty and haven't touched 2nd OGs since I started it. Not planning on playing 2nd until I finish UX since if I have free time to play a SRW map, I'd rather play the one with cool anime units with story stuff happening every map, then the one that moves at a snails pace and has a ton of repetition.
Lostconfused
Member
Which is exactly the problem here. This game hasn't really covered the plot for anything other than Fafner, Linebarrels and the 00 movie. I am only on stage 23 or so, but the game has short changed every other series in terms of plot and character development and has give them a bare minimum of stages.
Which series need more plot though? Mazinkaiser literally has like 3 maps worth of plot in the oav. Heroman from what I hear has almost no plot the whole show and do you really want Mac F plot again?
Demonbane I'll give you and it's a shame they're not doing SD gundams story, but otherwise not sure what you're looking for with this cast. Who knows how much story tobikage show has.
Demonbane I'll give you and it's a shame they're not doing SD gundams story, but otherwise not sure what you're looking for with this cast. Who knows how much story tobikage show has.
Lostconfused
Member
Heroman is definitely getting the short end of the stick as far as any part of it is concerned. For the sake of convenience large parts of character development, interaction and cast are skipped over and ignored. Now I understand that it's SRW and it's all about the robots but Heroman is pretty much a comic book cliche and it's focus is Joey. It's supposed to be all about his relationships and interactions with other characters and how they influence him to become the hero. By pruning anything that isn't directly related to Heroman punching things a lot of the style and flavor of the original work is lost. There are some problems with Demonbane for similar reasons, even if some of that can be attributed to the anime adaptation.
Wings of Rean is rather shot on content just like SKL but they even brought back Dunbine for it. So far they are getting very little out of the two series but it might pick up in the later stages. Oh and the Mac F plot is supposed to comeback in full force eventually. So far they seem to be playing it safe and primarily focusing on the series that have appeared in previous SRW games.
It looks like some of the usual suspects are playing the game despite the lukewarm reception here: I just stumbled on a tweet by Sugita talking about how people from Heroman pretty much became Demonbane characters considering how their stories are in sync lol
I'm still pretty early (stage 8) since I was busy with KH but I'm finally done! Will play this a lot more from now on. I actually like Fafner, 00 and Linebarrel (the manga) so I guess I should be happy with the game ahah.
I'm still pretty early (stage 8) since I was busy with KH but I'm finally done! Will play this a lot more from now on. I actually like Fafner, 00 and Linebarrel (the manga) so I guess I should be happy with the game ahah.
I'm currently really enjoying this, although I took a break from playing it as although it was only a short set of levels, the Macross F levels made me want to go watch it, so I spent the entire weekend watching it.
Damn Macross is pretty cool, going to watch Plus today, but I don't know how I've never really liked mechs/macross until now, they're awesome! Do you guys have any reccomendations for a gundam series I should watch?
Anyways, I'll start playing this again after lunch. I'm on stage 13 now I think ^^
Damn Macross is pretty cool, going to watch Plus today, but I don't know how I've never really liked mechs/macross until now, they're awesome! Do you guys have any reccomendations for a gundam series I should watch?
Anyways, I'll start playing this again after lunch. I'm on stage 13 now I think ^^
Lostconfused
Member
Yeah it's kind of depressing really. Heroman plot got jettisoned in favour of everyone becoming secondary supporting characters for Demonbane.
Best place to start is always the movie trilogy: Mobile Suit Gundam, MSG: Soldiers of Sorrow, MSG: Encounters in Space. The movies ditch a lot filler content that isn't necessary and are overall better than the tv show. There are several sequels to it such as Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam followed by Double Zeta. But the movie trilogy should fill you in on most of the franchise conventions and standards which the later series heavily lean on.
Excellent thankyou very much. After I'm done with the 2 Macross Frontier movies and Macross Plus I'll move onto those. ^^
Lostconfused
Member
Finished the first playthrough and missed every single secret. Well almost, I did get night raid Dunbine colors but not the the actual important secret tied to it. At least the complete guide will be out some time next month supposedly. I'll hold off on another playthrough until then, the secret requirements are absolutely insane as it is. It's madness to try and get them without knowing what they are.
fatgamecat
Member
Not a great SRW overall unless you really loved the series. It's not a must play like the Z or Alpha series.
Yeah, I'm still only about 20 maps in, but by making the game longer and meatier like the mainline console titles, they just ended up adding most of the bad from those titles.
GRUNTS GRUNTS GRUNTS GRUNTS.
Tons of enemies & way too long story scenes make the pacing really drag. Has all the pacing problems of Z2 and 2nd OGs without the visual spectacular to make up for it.
Oh well.
GRUNTS GRUNTS GRUNTS GRUNTS.
Tons of enemies & way too long story scenes make the pacing really drag. Has all the pacing problems of Z2 and 2nd OGs without the visual spectacular to make up for it.
Oh well.
Lostconfused
Member
And yet it's still not nearly as bad as some of the previous hand held games.
Eh, those ones seemed to move faster and have fewer maps.
Shouta
Member
You didn't play J did you? 'cause that one is a nightmare of grunts. W, K, L were kind of bad about this as well. You really had to use the more spammy/MAP units to get through the game at a quick clip.
Have you played UX yet, Shouta?
It's pretty slow. Very few/no map attacks, ki takes a while to build, upgrades add minimal improvement so fully maxing a units weapons only improves the attack damage from like 3600damage -> 4200damage.
Lostconfused
Member
Personally I didn't have any trouble with will gain and killing enemies at a decent pace. But that's primarily due to my play style where I just favor a small number of units and let them take care of everything. But the way I see it your complaints are purely about how different the game dynamics are from the usual.
Most of this stems from all the mechanical changes that have been made to the game. Overall will gains have been lowered, you might have noticed that no one gets +5 will per kill in this one anymore. You will be getting a lot more will from large overall kill counts for your entire group.
The game does withhold really great map attacks from you. As always it's usually real units that have them and most of them are limited it to one square with a range of Eight. So it would only marginally speed up your pace if you don't spend too much time setting them up. This is probably because you are expected to use the special commands to buff/debuff large numbers of units on the map. You get quiet a few units that are capable of doing this and that should swing the overall flow of battle in your favor.
The game also streamlined a lot of the combat by giving you options for automatic combat and having shortcuts that move units to the nearest enemy. None of that is really optimal but it streamlines the process of managing a lot of units at once.
As for upgrades,
once you are past the 1st chapter of the game the number of upgrade slots will double for all the units.
Lostconfused
Member
Nope it's a route split. You have to pick one and the others will play out in whichever way they are supposed to. You can pick a different option on the next playthrough or you can play like Bebpo does and make a save file before picking the option and then play through all of them at the same time. I would suggest that nobody actually do that because it's an absolutely terrible idea.
I made a save file and might go and check out the others to see the story, but I picked
America since I love Heroman, hopefully I'm not missing out on any Macross stuff, if I am I might have to switch it over 
lol
Yeah, it kills the pacing but the other way is to be spoiled because you already know what happens in the other routes (who joins, who gets upgrades, story events) and that kills the motivation for me to care about the other routes let alone play the game again.
Honestly it doesn't hurt the pacing too much if the game itself has good pacing and each route split is exciting. But when some draaaaaag out it can drain you for sure.
My main problem with the speed is that I just did a map, all animations off, holding R+A for enemy turn movement, and it still took like 45 mins with dialogues.
Whereas most SRW games have like initial wave, then story trigger and second wave; UX has like 3-4 waves per map, sometimes with cutscene breaks between. It just feels like the maps go on way too long.
The other thing is the animation when an enemy squad of 2 attacks your squad of 2 with animations off...it's too damn slow! Watching the first one attack, then the unit dodges or is hit, then counter attacks, then next unit attacks, then counter attacks...the whole point of animations off is that they're supposed to be lightning quick! When there are dozens of enemy units attacking on an enemy turn it can take minutes to watch them all attack even with all animations off. These are probably the slowest "animations-off" fights I've seen in a SRW post-2005. The animations-off combat animations just have a slow laggy feel compared to modern SRW.
So yeah, it's a bit slow, there are lots of waves, and there's tons of maps in the game so they can spread the story slowly across the maps instead of having them be super awesome lightning speed condensed like the DS SRW games were. Kind of a shame imo.
Whereas most SRW games have like initial wave, then story trigger and second wave; UX has like 3-4 waves per map, sometimes with cutscene breaks between. It just feels like the maps go on way too long.
The other thing is the animation when an enemy squad of 2 attacks your squad of 2 with animations off...it's too damn slow! Watching the first one attack, then the unit dodges or is hit, then counter attacks, then next unit attacks, then counter attacks...the whole point of animations off is that they're supposed to be lightning quick! When there are dozens of enemy units attacking on an enemy turn it can take minutes to watch them all attack even with all animations off. These are probably the slowest "animations-off" fights I've seen in a SRW post-2005. The animations-off combat animations just have a slow laggy feel compared to modern SRW.
So yeah, it's a bit slow, there are lots of waves, and there's tons of maps in the game so they can spread the story slowly across the maps instead of having them be super awesome lightning speed condensed like the DS SRW games were. Kind of a shame imo.
Played some more of this last night. It really does seem like a good SRW riddled with bad game design structure and lack of ambition.
For one thing, the game hardly has any crossovers. Which is kind of the whole point of SRW. Almost every map focuses on just covering one story point from one show and at most you'll get a little OG plot thrown in. You don't get stuff where it's like 3-4 series having plot points all occurring together at the same time making the plot exciting. Exception is Demonbane/Heroman usually being combined but even then the fact that those plots disappear and reappear only within branches is all kinds of stupid. Why isn't every series included being constantly in the picture? It's just weird and bad design that makes the game stick with Fafner/Linebarrel while having short "arcs" in the other series.
A lot of this feels like it's because the game is so long and was dragged out. In 3 hours of 3 maps, I feel like the plot points that occurred were equivalent to about 1 map in a good SRW. Everything is just stretched out so you get maps in a row of just the same good guys fighting the same bad guys over and over. zzz city. I mean the fact it takes half the game before Gundam 00 movie or Mac F really start is just silly. Again, bad planning by the designers.
And then like someone else mentioned, the animations are really bad. The sprites are good and detailed, but all the attacks lack even the animation of the DS games. Whereas there'd be neat Tekkaman Blade spinning, or super flashy Godanner attacks, here all the attacks are boring rush over and slash a few times or shoot a gun. Very, very few good animations. A lot of cheap looking cut-ins too. Just feels like no one making the game cared all that much.
Also the menu suck. Making teams is slow and cumbersome. The whole interface feels like it was made for a GBA era game and not a modern SRW.
All in all, definitely seeming like the worst SRW since at least the GBA titles. Hopefully they put a little more effort into the next one.
For one thing, the game hardly has any crossovers. Which is kind of the whole point of SRW. Almost every map focuses on just covering one story point from one show and at most you'll get a little OG plot thrown in. You don't get stuff where it's like 3-4 series having plot points all occurring together at the same time making the plot exciting. Exception is Demonbane/Heroman usually being combined but even then the fact that those plots disappear and reappear only within branches is all kinds of stupid. Why isn't every series included being constantly in the picture? It's just weird and bad design that makes the game stick with Fafner/Linebarrel while having short "arcs" in the other series.
A lot of this feels like it's because the game is so long and was dragged out. In 3 hours of 3 maps, I feel like the plot points that occurred were equivalent to about 1 map in a good SRW. Everything is just stretched out so you get maps in a row of just the same good guys fighting the same bad guys over and over. zzz city. I mean the fact it takes half the game before Gundam 00 movie or Mac F really start is just silly. Again, bad planning by the designers.
And then like someone else mentioned, the animations are really bad. The sprites are good and detailed, but all the attacks lack even the animation of the DS games. Whereas there'd be neat Tekkaman Blade spinning, or super flashy Godanner attacks, here all the attacks are boring rush over and slash a few times or shoot a gun. Very, very few good animations. A lot of cheap looking cut-ins too. Just feels like no one making the game cared all that much.
Also the menu suck. Making teams is slow and cumbersome. The whole interface feels like it was made for a GBA era game and not a modern SRW.
All in all, definitely seeming like the worst SRW since at least the GBA titles. Hopefully they put a little more effort into the next one.
Lostconfused
Member
I'll agree with the main point that the plot is rather weak and some series deserved a lot better. While some were still handled relatively ok. The crossover stuff is there and it is rather significant, it just doesn't feel like it has a huge impact on the overall plot of the game.
fatgamecat
Member
The biggest issue is the repetitive stage design imo. It really suffers from the lack of variety.
I finished the game this morning! Overall, I had a lot of fun with it. I went through the full cycle from the "cast list announced: not buying" > "everyone talks about it: mildly interested" > "launch period: hyped to death, buying it in the end".
Do I regret that last part? Nope, not one bit.
Animation wasn't that good, especially after Z2 and OG2nd, but nothing egregious IMO. The (over)use of cut-ins was probably a good thing. I was initially not impressed by the 3D after checking the eshop trailer, but I found myself liking it quite a bit, and had it on for most of the later stages battle scenes. Music selection was alright, and despite some arrangements being pretty bad, I think I liked most of them and also the fact it was more varied than that violin overload we got in Z2.
I already told you guys what I thought about the series selection in the community thread. This didn't really changed and Bebpo illustrated the problem pretty well with his complain about how late the Macross and Gundam plots kicked in.
However, I think the crossover aspects where pretty cool, especially if you went for secrets. I got all the Fafner ones, which got me things like
; plus the usual seiyuu jokes, the whole thing about Three Kingdoms Gundams being "human gundams", the (IMO) nice integration of Shinn with the Fafner cast (better than doing absolutely nothing like Dancouga people)... I'm pretty happy with what I got.
Also, I thought the game had pretty strong moments at its climax. Shit started going down with the death of
, then you get the Fafner meltdowns, Rean's finale, Linebarrels final two stages (especially the death of
). They nailed most of these moments really well IMO, my favourite ones being the end of the 00 movie (I really didn't expect them to put that BGM in the game just for that!) - because, yes, I actually like that movie - and the final Tobikage + Zerokage scene in 50.
The OG story didn't do a whole lot for me. It wasn't bad or anything, but nothing amazing, and I felt the way Arnie's actor forced himself REALLY HARD to sound badass in the third act was terribly silly. Kinda like the character and Saya, but they really didn't do a whole lot.
On the gameplay front, it was okay. I hadn't played K or L and am way more used to the way Alpha/OG/Z handle character progression, so I had to adjust a bit, but I think I like the skill part system better. One could argue the differences are ultimately pointless though, since UX is so fucking easy. It doesn't have skill points too, which usually bring a little bit of variation to Z or OG games, so the stages were definitely a bit repetitive. But for some reason, this is the first game I didn't got the usual SRW fatigue with, where I usually stop playing half or 2/3rds in, and wait a few weeks before finishing. Played one or two stages religiously every day and bam, it was over before I knew it.
To summarize, UX was definitely not the best game I played in the franchise, but I liked it quite a bit and think people initially cautious about should definitely give it a try.
Do I regret that last part? Nope, not one bit.
Animation wasn't that good, especially after Z2 and OG2nd, but nothing egregious IMO. The (over)use of cut-ins was probably a good thing. I was initially not impressed by the 3D after checking the eshop trailer, but I found myself liking it quite a bit, and had it on for most of the later stages battle scenes. Music selection was alright, and despite some arrangements being pretty bad, I think I liked most of them and also the fact it was more varied than that violin overload we got in Z2.
I already told you guys what I thought about the series selection in the community thread. This didn't really changed and Bebpo illustrated the problem pretty well with his complain about how late the Macross and Gundam plots kicked in.
However, I think the crossover aspects where pretty cool, especially if you went for secrets. I got all the Fafner ones, which got me things like
Shoko being sent to Rean's Byston Well and becoming a Holy Warrior, Michio being saved by Irbola from Tobikage etc
Also, I thought the game had pretty strong moments at its climax. Shit started going down with the death of
Richard
Ishigami
The OG story didn't do a whole lot for me. It wasn't bad or anything, but nothing amazing, and I felt the way Arnie's actor forced himself REALLY HARD to sound badass in the third act was terribly silly. Kinda like the character and Saya, but they really didn't do a whole lot.
On the gameplay front, it was okay. I hadn't played K or L and am way more used to the way Alpha/OG/Z handle character progression, so I had to adjust a bit, but I think I like the skill part system better. One could argue the differences are ultimately pointless though, since UX is so fucking easy. It doesn't have skill points too, which usually bring a little bit of variation to Z or OG games, so the stages were definitely a bit repetitive. But for some reason, this is the first game I didn't got the usual SRW fatigue with, where I usually stop playing half or 2/3rds in, and wait a few weeks before finishing. Played one or two stages religiously every day and bam, it was over before I knew it.
To summarize, UX was definitely not the best game I played in the franchise, but I liked it quite a bit and think people initially cautious about should definitely give it a try.
Good review. Looking forward to the later stages since it sounds like they're good stuff. I'm still around stage 30, doing a map every couple of days. Gonna have to drop the game soon for SMTIV, but definitely plan on finishing it up after that.
I'm surprised you like the skill parts system. I really dislike it. I hate only having a few "morale limit break" and good skills whereas in other games you can buy them for all. Also the max unit upgrade bonuses and ACE pilot bonuses being the same takes out a lot of variety from the character building that made characters/units feel unique. The lack of map attacks on your side and lack of getting hot blood or anything until late game makes your team feel underpowered and maps feel slower. I don't like how if you use partners you can't get support attacks/defense, so no stacking for ultimate damage combos on bosses. And the slow skill growth makes some units suuuuck early on. Like R-Daigun (from Dancouga) is a strong attack super, great for partner support attacking. But it gets hit by every attack and has no damage reducing skills for a long time. Overall I just don't find the gameplay all that much fun for a SRW.
Also the BGM choices bug me a ton. I love playing SRW to chiptune versions of pop/rock songs and like 70% of the songs in UX are chiptune versions of instrumental pieces which are zzzzzz. The only good song is still Wings of Rean, Destiny, Dancouga. They even destroyed the Mac F pop song compared to Z2.
I'm surprised you like the skill parts system. I really dislike it. I hate only having a few "morale limit break" and good skills whereas in other games you can buy them for all. Also the max unit upgrade bonuses and ACE pilot bonuses being the same takes out a lot of variety from the character building that made characters/units feel unique. The lack of map attacks on your side and lack of getting hot blood or anything until late game makes your team feel underpowered and maps feel slower. I don't like how if you use partners you can't get support attacks/defense, so no stacking for ultimate damage combos on bosses. And the slow skill growth makes some units suuuuck early on. Like R-Daigun (from Dancouga) is a strong attack super, great for partner support attacking. But it gets hit by every attack and has no damage reducing skills for a long time. Overall I just don't find the gameplay all that much fun for a SRW.
Also the BGM choices bug me a ton. I love playing SRW to chiptune versions of pop/rock songs and like 70% of the songs in UX are chiptune versions of instrumental pieces which are zzzzzz. The only good song is still Wings of Rean, Destiny, Dancouga. They even destroyed the Mac F pop song compared to Z2.
UX is getting a little better as the story gets more serious and more events happening with actual value. Also more Demonbane is good. Demonbane is awesome and I only wish there was even more of it in UX.
Which reminds me about another thing with the upgrade system. Not being able to equip parts for extra movement spaces or FLYING ABILITY. In normal SRW wars games, if you have a good unit that has crap movement, you just throw flying + some boosters and it can hang with the rest of your party and wreck havoc. Here when you have a water map, all of your non-flying units freaking suck, or when you want to use Demonbane with 5 movement you always have to be using movement seishin just to get him to keep up with your party and he still lags behind. Yeah, I like equipment, PP to buy pilot skills, and unique ACE bonuses.
Also the fact it takes until the last 1/3rd of the game to get the useful seishin skills is kind of annoying. Almost no one has the MONEYx2 seishin which is like a series staple to use on every boss and bring in more cash along with EXPx2. Also moneyx2 is great for SRW games with actual useful map attacks when you're taking out a line of grunts. There's a lot of good leads in UX and shit's expensive to upgrade from lvl.6-10! I'm almost done with maxing the OG unit and have about 6 other leads at lvl.5 everything so I got about 20 maps to try to bring a few more to max lvl.10. Right now I want to do Demonsbane, Quan[T], and Mazinkaizer SKL if I get enough cash. Would also like to do Fafner, Linebarrels and Destiny if I can afford it, but that's a lot of money and not a ton of maps and I only get about 200k per map.
I think the story and game overall would have been much better if they actually did the Dunbine and Tobikage full plots. Or the SD Gundam. There's so many series in UX that are basically mid/post-series and a waste. I mean when you have so many short OAVs/movies (Rean, SKL, OO Movie) it makes no sense to also have so many post-series shows. The lineup is not bad! It's quirky and weird and fun (could've used Geass or Gurren though), but the lineup is fake when they don't actually use any of the plots! The entire game is simply: Linebarrels, Fafner, Mac F and that's it. Occasionally you get a map from the OAV series of Rean, SKL, OO Movie, Heroman (yeah, Heroman's not OAV but it's treated like one with only a few maps) and OG plot.
So they take this interesting lineup of series and make it a SRW about three plots and occasionally 1-2 map short arcs of guest series. Not only this but they make it a large/long SRW almost on par with the console/Z2 ones. But those have TONs of plots going on constantly, usually like 6 full length series running and then 4 OAVs/movies/OG + non-plot series. It just makes it feel repetitive and padded as hell. I don't know what they were thinking. It's not like it's any cheaper to license since they still have the series. I guess it's cheaper in that they don't have to make sprites for the main characters in those shows, but I dunno, that seems super lazy. I actually like Linebarrels/Fafner (especially Fafner), but if I didn't I would hate this game.
I keep thinking back to K and W and how they covered the entire plots of all these great shows from Gainer, to GunxSword, to that show with the boobs that Shouta loves, to Seed Astray mangas, to GOLION mothafucka! to Gaogaigar ENTIRE SHOW + FINAL, to Tekkaman Blade, to Seed Destiny, to ZOIDS, to Dancouga Nova, to FMP, there were so many full plotlines of interesting series done and those games were limited to 30-35 stages total!! Yet here with are with UX and it's 52 maps and we get Fafner, Linebarrels, Mac F. Just a huge waste, kind of boring, and feels cheap/lazy/uninspired.
And next up is a SRW with a great lineup (Operation Extend) but almost entirely recycled series, cutins, voices in episodic form. Which also screams lazy and cheap.
I get that you can't expect a high quality SRW like 2nd OGs or Z series more than once every 3 years, but you can also make cheaper, shorter, smaller SRW games in between that don't come off as lazy cheap cash-ins. I guess this should be no surprise as while last gen started strong with W & K along with balls hard A remake and Neo, it ended lazy with L and that Gakuen game. /qq
Which reminds me about another thing with the upgrade system. Not being able to equip parts for extra movement spaces or FLYING ABILITY. In normal SRW wars games, if you have a good unit that has crap movement, you just throw flying + some boosters and it can hang with the rest of your party and wreck havoc. Here when you have a water map, all of your non-flying units freaking suck, or when you want to use Demonbane with 5 movement you always have to be using movement seishin just to get him to keep up with your party and he still lags behind. Yeah, I like equipment, PP to buy pilot skills, and unique ACE bonuses.
Also the fact it takes until the last 1/3rd of the game to get the useful seishin skills is kind of annoying. Almost no one has the MONEYx2 seishin which is like a series staple to use on every boss and bring in more cash along with EXPx2. Also moneyx2 is great for SRW games with actual useful map attacks when you're taking out a line of grunts. There's a lot of good leads in UX and shit's expensive to upgrade from lvl.6-10! I'm almost done with maxing the OG unit and have about 6 other leads at lvl.5 everything so I got about 20 maps to try to bring a few more to max lvl.10. Right now I want to do Demonsbane, Quan[T], and Mazinkaizer SKL if I get enough cash. Would also like to do Fafner, Linebarrels and Destiny if I can afford it, but that's a lot of money and not a ton of maps and I only get about 200k per map.
I think the story and game overall would have been much better if they actually did the Dunbine and Tobikage full plots. Or the SD Gundam. There's so many series in UX that are basically mid/post-series and a waste. I mean when you have so many short OAVs/movies (Rean, SKL, OO Movie) it makes no sense to also have so many post-series shows. The lineup is not bad! It's quirky and weird and fun (could've used Geass or Gurren though), but the lineup is fake when they don't actually use any of the plots! The entire game is simply: Linebarrels, Fafner, Mac F and that's it. Occasionally you get a map from the OAV series of Rean, SKL, OO Movie, Heroman (yeah, Heroman's not OAV but it's treated like one with only a few maps) and OG plot.
So they take this interesting lineup of series and make it a SRW about three plots and occasionally 1-2 map short arcs of guest series. Not only this but they make it a large/long SRW almost on par with the console/Z2 ones. But those have TONs of plots going on constantly, usually like 6 full length series running and then 4 OAVs/movies/OG + non-plot series. It just makes it feel repetitive and padded as hell. I don't know what they were thinking. It's not like it's any cheaper to license since they still have the series. I guess it's cheaper in that they don't have to make sprites for the main characters in those shows, but I dunno, that seems super lazy. I actually like Linebarrels/Fafner (especially Fafner), but if I didn't I would hate this game.
I keep thinking back to K and W and how they covered the entire plots of all these great shows from Gainer, to GunxSword, to that show with the boobs that Shouta loves, to Seed Astray mangas, to GOLION mothafucka! to Gaogaigar ENTIRE SHOW + FINAL, to Tekkaman Blade, to Seed Destiny, to ZOIDS, to Dancouga Nova, to FMP, there were so many full plotlines of interesting series done and those games were limited to 30-35 stages total!! Yet here with are with UX and it's 52 maps and we get Fafner, Linebarrels, Mac F. Just a huge waste, kind of boring, and feels cheap/lazy/uninspired.
And next up is a SRW with a great lineup (Operation Extend) but almost entirely recycled series, cutins, voices in episodic form. Which also screams lazy and cheap.
I get that you can't expect a high quality SRW like 2nd OGs or Z series more than once every 3 years, but you can also make cheaper, shorter, smaller SRW games in between that don't come off as lazy cheap cash-ins. I guess this should be no surprise as while last gen started strong with W & K along with balls hard A remake and Neo, it ended lazy with L and that Gakuen game. /qq
Lostconfused
Member
I'll agree with the complaints about the plot and the way this game uses the series but I wouldn't agree at all with your complaints about the mechanics. It seems like you are having trouble adapting to game mechanics in UX.
Terrain in UX is far less of an issue compared to any other SRW game I have played yet. You have multiple units that that confer partner bonuses for specific terrain types or allow other units to fly when they are paired up. Not to mention that the maps in this game are tiny and you can move from one corner to another in a single turn.
Terrain in UX is far less of an issue compared to any other SRW game I have played yet. You have multiple units that that confer partner bonuses for specific terrain types or allow other units to fly when they are paired up. Not to mention that the maps in this game are tiny and you can move from one corner to another in a single turn.
Lostconfused
Member
Oh apparently the secret bible is already out so should have the exact requirements for all the secret characters soon.
I'll admit I haven't messed with Partner bonuses much. Mainly because the UI is so shitty that configuring stuff is a pain in the butt. Been using auto-team build mostly. Like you said, the game's easy so it doesn't really matter much.
Also I think the deploy count being so high makes it feel slower. Going through each of your 20 units, applying seishin, moving, attacking, each turn just takes a while.
fatgamecat
Member
Much like 2nd OG, you can spend a lot of time optimizing team setups, but the game is so easy you generally don't have to bother until the last few missions.
Lostconfused
Member
From what I can tell SRW Z is probably the only game where you might need to bother with putting together a good squad. Otherwise pretty much any game with a squad system is beyond easy.
fatgamecat
Member
2nd OG ex-hard mode you might have to think about your squad setup a bit past stage 40.
I hate going back and forth, but I'm at map35/52 now and the game's been a pretty solid SRW for about 6 maps now.
It's been like this:
Maps 1-~13 - Series introductions, pretty fun stuff. Get new units, new storylines.
Maps 13~27 - NOTHING HAPPENS FOR 20+ HOURS (made even worse by putting all the longest branches in this section so if you're playing all branches simultaneously, this section draaaaags). Very few new units, not many important plot events, keep fighting same enemies over and over and they retreat and you fight them again. Fafner/Linebarrels/Fafner/Linebarrels/Fafner/Linebarrels.
Maps 28-35 - Major plot points happening in all series, everyone's getting their upgrades, final support units being introduced, finally start getting HOT BLOOD and good seishin.
Hopefully 36-52 are continued major plot movements leading into finales, finales, finales of storylines to keep it moving and exciting.
I really feel like the expanded length (compared to the 30-40 stage DS games) just caused them to put a chunk of padded filler in that post-introduction, pre-midpoint event area and killed the pacing. Even the branching is almost entirely in that section. After map 28 or something there's only like 5 map branches for the rest of the whole game.
Oh and another thing that makes it pick up in the middle is finally getting some good music. It bugged me so much that UX had the worst soundtrack selection I've ever heard in a SRW. There'd only be 1 or 2 tracks I'd enjoy hearing as I fought with all the units w/animations off (Rean/Destiny). But SKL 2nd OP is good chiptune jrock, OG 2nd OP is awesome, etc...
Btw, not really a fan of how unit gattai upgrades now ALL seem to require hitting morale before gattai. It's been like this for a few units here and there in SRW, but like what's the point of
.
Another negative is that the game has A LOT of re-use in animations. Kind of lame when an upgraded unit still has the same animations as the previous ones mehhh. Although, I have to say the UX OG unit and its attacks are sooooo much better than Crowe's shitty mech in Z2. Z2 was an awesome game, and Crowe was a great OG character but goddamn, what a boring real robot mech they made for the OG units. Even had the worst animations compared to the licensed robots. Z3 better have multiple characters so I can have an OG super robot.
It's been like this:
Maps 1-~13 - Series introductions, pretty fun stuff. Get new units, new storylines.
Maps 13~27 - NOTHING HAPPENS FOR 20+ HOURS (made even worse by putting all the longest branches in this section so if you're playing all branches simultaneously, this section draaaaags). Very few new units, not many important plot events, keep fighting same enemies over and over and they retreat and you fight them again. Fafner/Linebarrels/Fafner/Linebarrels/Fafner/Linebarrels.
Maps 28-35 - Major plot points happening in all series, everyone's getting their upgrades, final support units being introduced, finally start getting HOT BLOOD and good seishin.
Hopefully 36-52 are continued major plot movements leading into finales, finales, finales of storylines to keep it moving and exciting.
I really feel like the expanded length (compared to the 30-40 stage DS games) just caused them to put a chunk of padded filler in that post-introduction, pre-midpoint event area and killed the pacing. Even the branching is almost entirely in that section. After map 28 or something there's only like 5 map branches for the rest of the whole game.
Oh and another thing that makes it pick up in the middle is finally getting some good music. It bugged me so much that UX had the worst soundtrack selection I've ever heard in a SRW. There'd only be 1 or 2 tracks I'd enjoy hearing as I fought with all the units w/animations off (Rean/Destiny). But SKL 2nd OP is good chiptune jrock, OG 2nd OP is awesome, etc...
Btw, not really a fan of how unit gattai upgrades now ALL seem to require hitting morale before gattai. It's been like this for a few units here and there in SRW, but like what's the point of
The OG unit upgrade not just being The OG unit upgrade once you get it? Seems dumb
Another negative is that the game has A LOT of re-use in animations. Kind of lame when an upgraded unit still has the same animations as the previous ones mehhh. Although, I have to say the UX OG unit and its attacks are sooooo much better than Crowe's shitty mech in Z2. Z2 was an awesome game, and Crowe was a great OG character but goddamn, what a boring real robot mech they made for the OG units. Even had the worst animations compared to the licensed robots. Z3 better have multiple characters so I can have an OG super robot.
Yeah, the first Fafner movie takes place a few years after the series. It's alright, but I didn't like how unconclusive it was (I expected it to be a finale, while it was more like a side-story... And the last battle is messy,
)
There's a sequel in the works, I think it's supposed to come out late this year or something.
I like my Fafner and I'm quite happy of the treatment it got here. I saved every single person I could too, which made for some pretty nice moments.
you can't tell what happens to half of the cast FFS
There's a sequel in the works, I think it's supposed to come out late this year or something.
I like my Fafner and I'm quite happy of the treatment it got here. I saved every single person I could too, which made for some pretty nice moments.
Alright, finished the game after like 75 hours (this was a loooong one) and it's a mixed bag.
Positive things that stuck out to me:
1. I think this was the second time I've seen a SRW do a huge manga storyline in detail with Linebarrels and that's awesome. Linebarrels was by far, the star of UX. So much story and maps were devoted that it was like reading a 20+ volume manga in detail. It seems they went REALLY far into the current manga that's still running and I guess they made up their own ending (which worked pretty well!). Makes me want to jump into the manga where they diverge and see how the manga ends. Reading about the anime plot...lol, I'm so glad they did the manga version here. The anime plot is like the total opposite of the true plot to the series. One thing I was surprised about was how PG-13 Linebarrels manga is, it's all super happy and not full of horrible character deaths like I expected from something like it, even
.
Anyhow even though SRW's done manga series like Astray & Crossbone, those were short mangas and I'd like to see them include more lengthy mecha manga like Linebarrels (although I don't think there are that many mecha manga, and Five Star Stories will never get in because the author dude hates all adaptations)
2. Demonbane was really cool and enjoyable. It has a neat plot, some great Giant Robo meets Zone of Enders mecha designs and I liked the cast. Would be open to seeing it in another SRW.
3. Voice acting added a lot for sure.
4. Gameplay was decent. Pretty typical easy handheld SRW. Felt like too many grunts and too many maps. My lead character had 400+ kill count by the end of a single run, tons of characters were over 100+. The partner system never really added anything at all and only made enemy waves take twice as long to kill (since on counter, you usually just kill 1). The parts system was alright, but then stuff like "continuous turn" was limited to 2-4 units total by the end. Only bugs me because it's the most useful on MAP ATTACK units so you can move into place and then MAP ATTACK away all the grunts. But if you don't know which units are getting the map attacks...yeah
5. I really liked the OG unit. The OG characters were cool too. I think they'll be fun in an eventual OG game (and the final boss will probably be a paaaaaaiiiin to fight in a real OG game)
6. Some of the music was good in the 2nd half with upgrade themes. I especially liked the OG unit music.
7. Mac F 2nd movie finale. Having never seen the movie, I'd heard they changed the ending quite a bit and yeah, that was sort of out of nowhere and enjoyable.
Things that weren't so good:
1. Overall poor selection and usage of series. Linebarrels, Fafner + Fafner movie, Demonbane got good treatment and the story is basically about them. Everything else was underused, not used, or they really couldn't do anything with it like the OO movie which after UX I've decided is impossible to even re-write into a good story since there's like 3 plot events total and no characters. Game is long, OG story is incredibly sparse and it's one of those "NOT GONNA TELL YOU WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE OG PLOT UNTIL THE FINAL BOSS 70 hours in", and then when they tell you everything it's like WTF LOL Definitely one of the most ridiculous/convoluted SRW OG plots.
2. Animations sucked. Seriously sucked. I feel like the DS games had more interesting animations. Like every Gundam flies at this shitty looking angle forward and then launches weapons. OO Quanta has awful awful animation; other Gundams have better animations than it and it's the lead one! The actual sprites I feel are good and detailed, just the animations are minimal and everything is so boring. The credits showed 4 guys total for doing all the battle animations in the game. Makes sense. At least the voices kind of helped. Without voices I would have skipped every animation in the game.
3. Not much challenge, tons of grunts, bosses all have like 500k HP and then when they get halfway down there is an event and it fills back up to full HP again @_@ Not that it matters since you have 20 units pound on them with hot blood/tamashi and take them out in 1-2 turns total.
Overall an average SRW. It's hurdled by having a lot of boring series, a mostly non-existent OG plot, boring animations, and trying to be somewhere between the length of a portable SRW and a console SRW which makes it drag on at times. I enjoyed playing it to get the Linebarrels & Demonbane experience, but looking back if I used the time I spent on the game on L or MX which I still need to play, they probably would have been better picks.
Hopefully the next 3DS SRW has better series, better animations, and doesn't try to keep being LONGER AND MORE CONTENT. I like having big long mainline SRW games and short, fast portable SRW games. It's nice having some variety and not having every SRW take 1-4 months to complete.
Positive things that stuck out to me:
1. I think this was the second time I've seen a SRW do a huge manga storyline in detail with Linebarrels and that's awesome. Linebarrels was by far, the star of UX. So much story and maps were devoted that it was like reading a 20+ volume manga in detail. It seems they went REALLY far into the current manga that's still running and I guess they made up their own ending (which worked pretty well!). Makes me want to jump into the manga where they diverge and see how the manga ends. Reading about the anime plot...lol, I'm so glad they did the manga version here. The anime plot is like the total opposite of the true plot to the series. One thing I was surprised about was how PG-13 Linebarrels manga is, it's all super happy and not full of horrible character deaths like I expected from something like it, even
the villains don't die, they turn into the heroes and join up! And everyone you think is a traitor/secret villain is actually a good guy! There's like no real "bad guys" in the series besides the frog bomber guy early on.
Anyhow even though SRW's done manga series like Astray & Crossbone, those were short mangas and I'd like to see them include more lengthy mecha manga like Linebarrels (although I don't think there are that many mecha manga, and Five Star Stories will never get in because the author dude hates all adaptations)
2. Demonbane was really cool and enjoyable. It has a neat plot, some great Giant Robo meets Zone of Enders mecha designs and I liked the cast. Would be open to seeing it in another SRW.
3. Voice acting added a lot for sure.
4. Gameplay was decent. Pretty typical easy handheld SRW. Felt like too many grunts and too many maps. My lead character had 400+ kill count by the end of a single run, tons of characters were over 100+. The partner system never really added anything at all and only made enemy waves take twice as long to kill (since on counter, you usually just kill 1). The parts system was alright, but then stuff like "continuous turn" was limited to 2-4 units total by the end. Only bugs me because it's the most useful on MAP ATTACK units so you can move into place and then MAP ATTACK away all the grunts. But if you don't know which units are getting the map attacks...yeah
5. I really liked the OG unit. The OG characters were cool too. I think they'll be fun in an eventual OG game (and the final boss will probably be a paaaaaaiiiin to fight in a real OG game)
6. Some of the music was good in the 2nd half with upgrade themes. I especially liked the OG unit music.
7. Mac F 2nd movie finale. Having never seen the movie, I'd heard they changed the ending quite a bit and yeah, that was sort of out of nowhere and enjoyable.
Things that weren't so good:
1. Overall poor selection and usage of series. Linebarrels, Fafner + Fafner movie, Demonbane got good treatment and the story is basically about them. Everything else was underused, not used, or they really couldn't do anything with it like the OO movie which after UX I've decided is impossible to even re-write into a good story since there's like 3 plot events total and no characters. Game is long, OG story is incredibly sparse and it's one of those "NOT GONNA TELL YOU WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE OG PLOT UNTIL THE FINAL BOSS 70 hours in", and then when they tell you everything it's like WTF LOL Definitely one of the most ridiculous/convoluted SRW OG plots.
2. Animations sucked. Seriously sucked. I feel like the DS games had more interesting animations. Like every Gundam flies at this shitty looking angle forward and then launches weapons. OO Quanta has awful awful animation; other Gundams have better animations than it and it's the lead one! The actual sprites I feel are good and detailed, just the animations are minimal and everything is so boring. The credits showed 4 guys total for doing all the battle animations in the game. Makes sense. At least the voices kind of helped. Without voices I would have skipped every animation in the game.
3. Not much challenge, tons of grunts, bosses all have like 500k HP and then when they get halfway down there is an event and it fills back up to full HP again @_@ Not that it matters since you have 20 units pound on them with hot blood/tamashi and take them out in 1-2 turns total.
Overall an average SRW. It's hurdled by having a lot of boring series, a mostly non-existent OG plot, boring animations, and trying to be somewhere between the length of a portable SRW and a console SRW which makes it drag on at times. I enjoyed playing it to get the Linebarrels & Demonbane experience, but looking back if I used the time I spent on the game on L or MX which I still need to play, they probably would have been better picks.
Hopefully the next 3DS SRW has better series, better animations, and doesn't try to keep being LONGER AND MORE CONTENT. I like having big long mainline SRW games and short, fast portable SRW games. It's nice having some variety and not having every SRW take 1-4 months to complete.
Lostconfused
Member
Secrets are fine, the secret requirements though are kind of crazy!
fatgamecat
Member
I thought it had some of the worst gameplay and level design of any SRW in the series. Maybe you got more out of it being able to understand the story.
KingPhizzle
Neo Member
I would love to get the UX but im going to have to wait until someone hacks the 3ds to buy it. The only thing is that I don't understand all the hate for the lineup, or K's lineup. We all love Shin getter and Mazinkaiser, but shows like GunXSword, Tobikage, Zoids, and wings of rean need more air time. And for christ sakes can we stop with Seed Destiny. Where's V Gundam or Turn A Gundam, or even better Ideon
The lineup would be fine if they actually used them all. Rean is wasted in UX. It gets a few maps, and then ends really early. SKL is barely in the game. Tobikage is rushed through it. SD Gundam is no plot outside 2 scenes. Miku has no real plot purpose. Dunbine has no plot, etc...etc...
KingPhizzle
Neo Member
O okay I understand. It was the earlier comment about K that triggered my mild rage. But I would love if they really used some of the more obscure units
Lostconfused
Member
Well Rean and SKL have no plot to begin with and Dunbine is simply there to prop up Wings of Rean. So I wouldn't blame Banpresto for skimping on the plot for those shows, but otherwise yes the game does very little with the licensed series that it has.