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There have been like four abortive attempts at this game so we're going to loving finish this one. What Is a Zoid Zoids is a TOMY toyline franchise that has been going since 1982... sort of; it began life as Mechabonica (Starzeta in Spain), but only really took off in America under the name "Zoids", which caused TOMY to reintroduce the line in Japan under that name, which is what it's famous as. It really hit it big in worldwide consciousness around the year 2000, when TOMY did a 1999 line relaunch (after letting it lie dead in Japan since 1990) that coincided with a new anime (Zoids Chaotic Century and its followup, Guardian Force), which used then brand-new and impressive-looking cel CG animation that made it rather distinct from other anime of the time, while still managing to make Zoids fairly toy-accurate (size discrepency aside). The main reason the toyline is notable is for its "Battle Story". While character descriptions on toys has been a thing for a long time, Zoids included short prose stories on its boxes, manuals, and catalogues, creating a larger world than simple character descriptions without having to rely on external media - Chaotic Century/Guardian Force draws on the Battle Story for inspiration, but tells its own story that is significantly different, making it less direct advertising than, say, a Transformers comic might be. Generally speaking, Zoids are shaped like animals, which marks a rather large departure from most giant robots, which tend to be at least vaguely human shaped (or turn into things that are human shaped). Another key difference is that Zoids are, explicitly, alive; they may refuse or fight a pilot's commands, meaning that "piloting" a Zoid is really more like riding a horse or an elephant: a trained Zoid will obey, but it's much bigger than you and won't take kindly if you mistreat it. A Rough Overview on Zoids Fiction Zoids can be fairly neatly divided into a few separate universes (universii?). Battle Story is the prose fiction mentioned above. Like all Zoids stories, it takes place on the planet Zi, on the other side of the Milky Way. Initially, Zoids were quite small and were ridden like horses rather than piloted (a few model kits of these even exist, so if you wanted to see a historical dragoon with saber and pistol riding a horse-sized robot praying mantis, this is your universe), and the conflict was mainly raiding between various decentralized tribes. History of Zoids, published in 1985, goes on to explain how this transitioned into two major nations, with massive natural disasters causing the tribes to unify under King Helic as the Helic Republic, only for the Zenebas Empire to split off from the Republic under Helic's younger son, Zenebas, after his betrayal by the Republican politicians. Many early battles consequently took place in bids for territory on the large Central Continent (Zi basically has three continents: the Eastern Continent, the Central Continent, and the Dark Continent). During this period, a ship from Earth (the Globally 3) crash-landed on Zi and as the survivors scattered, they joined each side, spreading their own technology and massively accelerating the arms race. Technology from Earth is what caused the large-scale "piloted" Zoids to become standard. Lots of poo poo happens in Battle Story and I'll cover some of it as we find new Zoids - since, much like UC Gundam, Zoids progressively get stronger as time goes on, it means that early-on in Legacy we tend to only see Zoids from early in Battle Story. Chaotic Century & Guardian Force is the first Zoids anime. Technically it's only called "Chaotic Century", but midway through the series there is a one-year timeskip and the tone of the show changes fairly radically, so the second half is usually distinguished by calling it "Guardian Force". In CC, the dominant species on the planet is Earth humans; the original inhabitants, known as the legendary "Ancient Zoidian" race, have largely died out. While there are large cities, the culture and technology (aside from Zoids) is roughly similar to 18th century Europe, with most people living in rural communities. CC kicks off with protagonist Van Flyheit being chased into a set of ruins by a bandit using him as target practice for his new Guysack, whereupon Van meets a mysterious waif known as Fiona (a member of the Ancient Zoidians who has been in suspended animation) and her guardian, the person-sized robot dinosaur Zeke ("Sieg" in the Japanese version), who is an Organoid: a small-scale Zoid capable of bonding with a large Zoid and massively increasing its abilities. Chaotic Century initially concerns Van and Fiona travelling across the world trying to discover the secrets of her past, which is put by the wayside when the New Helic Republic and Guylos Empire go into a full-fledged succession war when Gunther Prozen attempts to assassinate heir to the throne Rudolf (who falls in with Van and crew) and take over the Empire himself, leading to a confrontation with Prozen's Death Saurer, a massive walking weapon of mass destruction that had been sealed away by the Ancient Zoidians. Guardian Force initially follows a monster-of-the-week plot, with Van and a new character who form the multinational Guardian Force to help shut down Zoids-based crimes and corruption during peacetime, but in the final leg the original plot comes back in full force, finally giving us all of the answers we wanted about Fiona, the Ancient Zoidians and, well, everything. CCGF is notable for being an early 2000s anime that has a very good dub - it was dubbed by a Canadian agency and is extremely faithful to the original, and never shied away from what (relatively little) blood, death, and what (relatively A CRAPTON IN GF) horror there is. There is also a manga adaption, which is radically different, similar to manga adaptions of YGO series or the Digimon Xros Wars manga. Zoids New Century/ZERO is the second Zoids anime and is largely a direct tie-in to a Battle Story spinoff known as the Three Tigers story, although it features no actual Zoids from that toyline. The culture in New Century/ZERO is in a more modern time, and Zoids battles, rather than being used as war, are primarily a loosely-organized sport that leads into a yearlyish Royal Cup battle royale. Unlike CCGF which ran for three seasons, New Century/ZERO only runs for one, and focuses largely on junk dealer and drifter Bit Cloud, who falls in with the Blitz Team when he discovers a connection with their Liger ZERO, an extremely rare Zoid that refuses to obey most people who climb into the cockpit. New Century/ZERO is more toyetic than CCGF, but has much better animation and a fantastic brass-and-violins soundtrack by Koh Otani (Gundam Wing era Koh Otani), and a delicious number of shoutouts to the original anime. Was dubbed by the same agency as CCGF, and is consequently faithful to the original. It also aired first in America. If you want to get your feet wet, this is a good place to start. Zoids Fuzors serves as half-sequel half-spinoff to NCZ, and serves to flog the new Fuzors mechanic, which uses Blox kits that can be combined together to give Zoids more options. This one was dubbed by an American company and was shot down off the air halfway through the series, ending on a cliffhanger, although it aired in full Australia and later Japan (you heard me). Primarily notable for featuring the English voice of CCA!Amuro Ray as the protagonist, and for deciding that the Liger ZERO is loving magical. I actually haven't seen very much of Fuzors due to it airing at a bad time for me as a kid, so I can't comment on it very much, but I can tell you that the animation is a lot stiffer and uglier than NCZ and even CCGF at times. Zoids Genesis is the one we don't talk about. It aired for a double season and takes place in a post-apocalyptic, feudal world, which has undergone a massive technological collapse due to a worldwide cataclysm; most people cling on by using technology that has been salvaged from underground. I guess it's comparable to Turn A Gundam, if Turn A Gundam was poo poo. It does have a nice, easy listening soundtrack, but that's about its only good selling point. There's also the UK Zoids Comics Marvel published in the 1980s, which has no continuity with the Battle Story (and was published in the amazingly-named Spider-Man and Zoids); in this version of events, Zoids have a much greater consciousness of their own, and are largely divided into the Red and Blue factions. It was heavily inspired by the then-popular sci-fi horror trend, featuring an android villain who creates a monstrosity known as the Black Zoid, along with much body horror and mechano-biological monstrosities that seem to have been inspired by 70s and 80s Japanese horror films. It was cancelled on its 51st issue, leaving many unfinished plot-lines hanging, but it is very notable for featuring early work by legendary comic writer Grant Morrison. Unfortunately this is pretty obscure and hard to lay hands on. Zoids Legacy (actually Zoids Saga III; the other Zoids Saga games were not released outside of Japan) is primarily focused on the Battle Story, but it includes a time/dimensional travel plot that lets it give focus to the anime worlds as well. Why is This Game's Translation so Terrible? I wouldn't be playing the game if not for that but holy crap this game is badly-translated, hilariously so. Whoever translated this had a below-average grasp of Japanese at best and obviously doesn't understand how plurals work, along with just being generally garbage at translating katakana names (i.e. Brad's name is given as "Ballad", which is accurate to the katakana but anyone with a brain could see what they were going for here). It also has things that are just plain wrong or that otherwise obscure the meaning. But since the results are a terrible shitshow, I love it. About the LP... This will be fairly completionist, in that I'll be finishing the game, the post-game arenas, showing off the secret area, and showing off some secret Zoids. I won't be filling out a catalogue or anything, that's a complete waste of space. Also, I've beaten this game a few times now so we're going to OFS the poo poo out of it and basically show absolute disdain for the concept of the game having a fighting chance. We'll also be doing all the Challenge missions, both to screw the game over and to show them off, since some of them are really bizarre and can be quite difficult. I'll also be doing my level loving best to explain all the mechanics and give at least general overviews of the Zoids that appear. Regarding formatting, text that is plain text is verbatim dialogue. Text in italics is me summarizing or injecting. If there are typos or errors, grammatical or otherwise, in plain text, assume that it exists in the game. If there is a discrepancy between game text and my text, assume that I'm right and the game is wrong. What about your other LP? It's still going on, but I can work on this when there's no internet due to the trivially-small filesizes over my tether. And I can do updates on this much more quickly, so I can update this when I don't have a day to set aside for OVERWorld, since playing stages alone takes loving forever, let alone all the rest of it. Audience Participation? Yep! In addition to being able to name the protagonist and decide what he says in combat, there are a few instances where I have several equally-useful options, usually for what Zoid I'm going to stick someone in (usually the protagonist). Speaking of which.  This jerkface is our protagonist. His default name is "Zeru". Eight characters, not Ramza, nothing obscene or stupid. Otherwise it will detract from the actual stupid things. You can also choose what he shouts out in combat: 22 characters, including spaces. Don't let your memes be dreams! Unusually, you can change these at any time, so I might periodically let you re-vote on the combat message, but the name is going to stick, so make sure it's something you want to see a lot of.   These are Atory ("Athle") and Regina, two of the protagonists of Zoids Saga I and II. Atory is an actual prince and Regina is one of his bodyguards. Oh, and the fat bug thing they're in is called a Gustav. Doesn't move fast and isn't heavily armed, but it's covered in armor and could tow a ten-ton brick uphill through poo poo. And as you can see, the insane madlibs dialogue begins immediately.   : What can this be?  [muffled 60s Batman noises in the distance]   Here are Fiona and Van in their Guardian Force incarnations. Fiona is freaking out because that's what mysterious waifs do.  Hey, hey! What happened, Fiona?But Fiona runs off, the shaking starts again, and after another Batman swirl...   Get used to this. This is how this game usually parses people yelling, shouting, screaming, etc. you get "Screech!".    "Aaa!" I love how they called the Judge robot JUDGEMAN in the game. It's stupid, yet hilarious. The game gives us an opening spiel now... "Planet Zi beyond the Galaxy. There existed great metal-warrior robots called Zoids. Zoids fought wars with their own will as the strongest weapons for the Planet Zi wars... ... and time-space fusion caused by a weapons expirement... Bringing back the normal world now depends on a young Zoids pilot..." Get used to seeing "Zoids" used as both the singular and plural. This isn't actually technically wrong since the katakana supports it, but since plurals usually end in S in English, you'd think they'd follow the example of things like Gundam or their own anime and toyline and render the singular as "Zoid". Incidentally, this actually causes even more problems later on when it confuses the translator into using the wrong phrasing for singular and plural in the sentences around it.  We spawn here in basically the rear end end of the planet. Say hello to our protagonist, who also has a Gustav!  : That was a huge quake. : Oops? Where am I now?: I'm in no hurry, so I'll go to the town.The game moves you in by default.  Welcome to Cebu Town. You can't leave until you talk to absolutely everyone and some of them move.    Haven't seen a warrior for a while in town.: Huh? I am a Zoids pilot for sure, but: I've never been a Zoids warrior before.Yes. The game cuts off his line at "but" so that it can change his expression, because it has to load an entire new text box if someone's expression changes. While this is true for a lot of GBA games, most do a much better job of hiding it (looking at you, SRW OG).  ... so I heard.: Huh, a Zoids battle?You don't know? It's a gambling place, where Zoids warriors have their battles for prize money. I hope he didn't get hurt in the earthquake...  This game does have one nice feature. If an NPC that wanders freely gets in your way, you can tap the dash button to trade places with them, making it impossible to get stuck. (The actual game itself isn't bad, it's just that translation...) Anyway this place with the drill looking thing on the wall is a weapons shop.   Treasure chests. This one gives us a freebie weapon, which is nice. Unrelatedly, a side effect of Zeru's flightsuit having tan parts is that his facing south sprite always makes it look like his dick's out. Maybe that's why Juno takes an immediate interest in him.  This has no mechanical effect; it's a docking bay for Zoid modification. The scale might be off compared to what you're used to seeing in the anime because this game is primarily based on Battle Story, where even large Zoids tend to be a fraction of the size they're portrayed as in the anime.  The weapons shop sells some really legit stuff that we can't afford at all right now.  ... the Zoids Institute... ... of wild Zoids 'round here. Also, if you get allies, don't forget to put them in team formation.This is the game rather obliquely reminding you that you have to actually put characters in your party lineup; it won't do it for you.  Forgot to talk to this guy.  This one with the hammer is an item shop. There are very few items in this game, but they can be very useful in a pinch due to the battle system.  ... exciting. CA Ions are your standard potion equivalent, and come in three varieties. The CA Ion S only restores 50 HP. Our default Zoid has 135 but that will change very quickly.  The React(ivation) Unit functions as an Antidote, removing the most common status effect, while ShockWav(e) is a Remedy, removing all status ailments (there are only three... technically there is a fourth one but nothing can cure it short of death).  The Japanese word used here is more like "arms" or "equipment", so it can be used to mean either armor or weapons. This is missed, so even things that are clearly armor get called 'weapons'.  This one with the Blade Liger plate is the Zoids Institute. Even if you don't see the plate you can usually tell a Zoids Institute apart; it's the building that isn't covered in poo poo.  Institutes function as your Pokemon Centers, and often have good stuff in treasure chests and are an opportunity to pick up Deck Commands, which I'll explain shortly. Oh, and that red thing in the test tube is a Zoid foetus.  I wish I knew, my metal friend.  Talk to Nurse Joy and you get to this menu, which is slightly more complicated than it initially seems. To quickly go over the options: Zoids Repair allows you to repair a Zoid that was reduced to 0 HP, for a small fee. Zoids that aren't reduced to 0 HP are automatically repaired to full for free when you access this menu. Zoids Development lets you expend parts and money to create whole new Zoids, provided you have the right parts, money, and ZiData. Aside from characters joining you, this is the way you increase your firepower. CAU Development is for Zoids that have multiple forms, and lets you make the different forms for them. These are per-Zoid, so if you have three Berserk Fuhrer units in your team and you build a Sturm Fuhrer set for one of them, only that one will be able to access it. Customization lets you upgrade a pre-existing Zoid: you can increase the power of its fixed weapons (by up to 100 points in five steps per weapon), you can increase its GEP (by up to 2 points in 2 steps), you can improve its defense (up to 25 points in 5 steps), and you can change its color for a miniscule fee. You can also sell Zoids you aren't using, if someone joins you with garbage, for example. Again: you don't have to use the Zoids Repair option to heal your party - only to revive incapacitated units. Simply accessing and exiting the menu will heal everyone (even people on the bench) to full.   Deck Commands are strategies and tactics. Before a battle, as part of command-planning, you can choose up to 10 of them. You can use 1 command per turn in a battle, and the same command cannot be used till the next battle. Using them effectively will add to your advantage during the battle. Try the commands this institute has developed.You receive DataGather1 for doing this, an extremely important command. You can think of it as a Pokeball. During the turn that you cast it, if you defeat all the remaining enemies, you are guaranteed to receive the ZiData of one of the enemies in that battle (chosen randomly).   The game calls this a pub pretty consistently but given Zoids' heavy western influence and the architechture, it's more like a saloon, really.  Yes, I'll give this to you instead...He gives you Supplier, which doubles the money earned from battles if you defeat all remaining enemies in the turn you cast it. Also, talking to him again yields this gem: Hey, young man. Share a drink with me? It'd be nice if you could share the bill, too. Boss! Another glass of milk, please.Strangely, there's actually a non-trivial chance this isn't a dub flub. Zoids was never big on its portrayal of alcohol, and flamboyant and consequently memorable bandit Stinger makes it a point to drink milk in bars (and yes, that's in the Japanese version of CCGF too) so it may well be a reference to that. NCZ actually does show alcohol, but that's usually in the hands of the villains or people who used to be villains.   Basically life is poo poo in this village. As soon as we head out we'll get into a fight, so let's talk about mechanics!   Here's our main menu. On the right we're shown our current party; the left is all largely irrelevant at present. I can't demonstrate everything I want to at the moment, but I can demonstrate enough.   First up, here's our pilot. You'll notice that they have % values instead of straight numbers for stats. That's because these values act as additions and/or multipliers for the Zoid's base stats where relevant. The second screenshot shows the amount Zeru will gain each time he levels up. At the moment, he's level 1; on reaching level 2, his values will change to 52% for HP and 12% for everything else. Unlike many other games, you can edit the growth of any pilot at any time. The game offers a variety of default setups. Zeru defaults to Almighty, making him reasonable at everything. We're going to take a point out of SR and put it in MM instead. There is in fact a reason for this; MM influences both accuracy and evasion, which are a big deal because of the way critical hits work (more on that in a minute). HR influences hit rate, by the way, which isn't shown but is very important, again because of critical hits.   Here's our starting ride, the Saberlion - it's a Helic Zoid, a scaled-down Blade Liger made for urban combat situations, which is why its laserblade is mounted on its head and aims forward, so that it can be used in narrow streets. It's also much smaller than a Blade Liger. Let's quickly go over stats. HP should be fairly self-explanitory. When it hits 0, the Zoid is destroyed and can't be used until it's repaired at an Institute. EP is consumed to use weapons and most activated armor. The value for EP is the amount of EP the Zoid will have at the start of every battle. GEP is how much EP the Zoid gains/recovers per turn, so the Saberlion will gain 2 EP every turn for free. Having a Zoid wait instead of taking an action will also restore their EP by their GEP, doubling the rate. SP is Speed, and is an extremely important stat. In addition to increasing the Zoid's evasion and accuracy, it's one half of the IV (Initiative) equation, so it influences how soon you get your turn. MM is Movement, which influences accuracy and evasion. IV is your initiative. Add together SP and SR to get your IV. This is really simple: the highest IV gets the first turn, then next-highest, until everyone has had a turn. DF is the unit's defense value, and is directly subtracted from the weapon power of incoming attacks. This means that progressively upgrading your fixed weapons and finding new, better optional weapons is important to staying relevant. AM is armor, and is a % value that is subtracted directly from the attacker's hit rate for the purposes of determining critical hit chance. It can never exceed 99. DCP is a sort of threshold value. If a Zoid is hit by an attack that has more weapon power than the Zoid has DCP, the game rolls to see if you get hit by Freeze status, even if the attack can't normally cause Freeze. This means that very powerful but inaccurate or costly attacks have an additional use - attempting to render an enemy immobile by overloading their DCP value. SR added to SP to get IV. Doesn't do anything else, which is why we took a point out of it on Zeru (we want some, but not lots). CLV is basically a minimum level. If a pilot meets or exceeds the CLV, then their % pilot stats are added to the Zoid's base stats. For example, Zell has HP+50%, which means that the Saberlion's maximum HP gets a 50% boost. If the pilot fails to meet the CLV, then the Zoid's relevant stats are instead multiplied by (Pilot Level divided by CLV), resulting in a stat reduction. TP is Training Points, the equivalent of XP for Zoids. TP goes up by 1 every time a Zoid participates in a battle that you win, and the maximum is 200. For every 2 points of TP, the Zoid's HP, EP, GEP, SP, MM, DCP, and CP receive a 1% bonus, meaning that if you take the time to grind out 200 battles, the base stats of a Zoid will double. This provides incentive for remaining with the units you have instead of constantly changing. CP is Capacity. Optional equipment has weight (WP); if the WP of the equipped parts on a Zoid exceeds the Zoid's CP, then the Zoid's SP, MM, and HR are reduced by multiplying them by (1 minus (CP minus Max CP), divided by Max CP). Finally, Size is a measure of how big a Zoid is. Size S Zoids are harder to hit and take more damage. Sizes go up to XL, which has special rules for how it can be placed in a team, but there are glitches you can abuse to get around that. You might notice that Zeru's level doesn't actually meet the Saberlion's CLV of 1. This is fine because pilots in this game, in addition to acting as stat increasers, also carry skills with them. Unlike in most other games, some skills are negative, although Zeru won't get any negative skills.  Zeru has Liger:2 and Tiger:2. Zoid category skills are in the format of X:Type (I'll usually render them as Type:X though since that makes more sense in English), and increase the pilot's effective level for the purpose of meeting CLV by 5 per level, so aboard a Liger or Tiger category Zoid, Zeru counts as being level 11. Note that this doesn't increase his stats; it's only used for CLV.  Bolting the Laser Machinegun onto the Saberlion. It has two A slots and two OA slots. A slots are for Armor, while OA slots can contain either weapons or armor. Most Zoids have two of each, although some have three OA and one A slot, especially Zoids with back-mounted weapons. Weapons have their own set of attributes: AT is the attack power of the weapon, also known as weapon power. The target's DF is directly subtracted from the weapon's AT to determine the final damage. HR is hit-rate, and is influenced by various things. Note that hit rate can exceed 100%, in which case it is truncated to 99% for the purposes of hitting targets, but the over 100% value is retained for the purpose of calculating critical hits (meaning that even a unit with an AM value of 99 can be critically hit more than 1% of the time if your accuracy is high enough). Critical hits in this game simply completely ignore the target's DF value, which makes weaker, accurate weapons very viable. TG indicates the weapon's range and hit type. Battles in this game use two columns of three rows. 1~1 indicates that the weapon will hit only 1 column in front of the user, while the N indicates that it will hit two adjacent rows (the middle row, and either the top or bottom row). Other options are V (hits both columns of one row), W (hits one entire column), B (hits in a 2x2 box), and A (hits everything). V, B, and A weapons always have a 1~3 range (meaning they can be used from the back column and hit enemies in the back column). EP is how much EP it costs to fire the weapon once, while WP simply adds up and we're good as long as it comes in under the Zoid's CP. Finally, the Attribute bar indicates anything else that's relevant. In this case, it tells us that the Laser Machinegun is a Laser weapon (for specific defenses and pilot skills), and that it is an Anti-Air weapon, meaning it ignores the bonus 20% evasion all flying units receive (yes, even against other flying units). The possible attributes, other than Anti-Air, are: Water, which ignores the effect of Deep Water terrain that halves weapon power; DF Damage, which reduces the target's DF by 10% of the weapon's power; DF Ignore, which completely ignores DF (effectively, the weapon will always score critical hits); Homing, a uniquely-negative effect found only on Missile weapons (which usually have high accuracy), Zoids that have Anti-Homing or Jamming will halve the accuracy of Homing weapons aimed at them; Freeze, which has a chance of causing Freeze regardless of the enemy DCP; Confuse, which has a chance of causing Confuse; Pilot, which has a chance of causing the devastating Pilot Down status; and Penetrate, the exact effect of which is unknown, but it's believed to affect either critical hit rate or active shields on the target. The letter attributes are B(ullet), M(issile), L(aser), P(article), and G(rapple); various pilots have skills that make them better or worse at using or being hit by specific kinds of attack.  So we stick the Armor Plus and Laser Machinegun on the Saberlion, which increases its defense, armor, and gives it a weapon that lets it hit two things at once. We're going to upgrade from this Saberlion very quickly by abusing a rare spawn in an early area and then reloading until we get its ZiData, then using Challenge Mode to get the parts for it, so I'm not going to upgrade it.  Here's the Saberlion's database entry! As you can see, it's quite a small-scale Zoid, but ho boy is it fast. We have Zeru's profile as well: code: Setting Deck Commands. You can actually set these up at the start of a battle as well, in case your usual commands won't be useful to you. You can have ten Deck Commands set up and use each of them once per battle, so once we get Friendship very soon we don't have to worry about getting worn down by random battles. Time to leave town!  When I said Cebu Town was in the rear end end of the world I wasn't joking. Those pink dots are towns. At the moment our Gustav is limited to travelling on flat land; as we progress through the game, we'll get more carrier Zoids that allow for increased movement on the map.  Step out of town and you get a forced encounter.   Most of the music in this game is irrelevant but the battle theme is really good, in a Megaman X2 kind of way. Something that I appreciate about this game is that at the start of each fight, before you commit, you can completely set up your team and deck commands, so if you get jumped by something you weren't expecting it's not a huge deal. It's also convenient for if you forget to replace a Zoid in your team if it was destroyed. Don't be fooled by the bad translation, "Create Commands" is just for setting up your Deck Commands.  Normally this menu also has the option to withdraw, but not for forced battles. Commands lets you use Deck Commands, while "Start a Combat" commits to a round of battle; once you select it, the game goes into Zoid-by-Zoid Initiative.  Zeru is pretty fast so he gets to go first.   On the initial screen or any of your turns, you can tap R to look at the enemy's stats. For bosses, these are cancelled out by having ?s instead of numbers. The Molgas have 23 DF and an AM of 90, which means that 23 damage will be subtracted from all of my attacks against them and makes them fairly difficult to crit. Using the Saberlion's weakest and most accurate attack gives me a 93% hit chance, so my critical chance against them is 3%. There are really two ways to do this battle: wear them down with the 40-power Hi-Wave Fang, or go balls out with the Hi-Wave Blade which is very inaccurate but has a BP of 70.   Also whoops he still has his battle cry from the last time I was playing this casually like ten years ago.  The advantage to doing it this way is that you can use the Hi-Wave Claws next turn, which cost 0 EP, to finish it off. Generally speaking it's more efficient to bring down one enemy at a time, since no matter how fast you are you only get one action per round.    Posted mostly to demonstrate how bad Zeru's taking damage face is. The Molgas both attacked the same way and both did 20 damage, meaning they landed critical hits due to the Saberlion's fairly poor AM value.  This is what happens when they don't get criticals, though.  Even though another battle starts immediately, there's an event in the middle and so you get treated as if you won the fight. Double early money is yes.   The Particle Cannon in Cebu Town costs 10000 G and we're now almost halfway there. Also we got 10 XP for this. Zeru needs 150 for his next level. Levelling is slow in this game. The ZiData is an unexpected bonus... you always have a chance to get ZiData drops; DataGather1 just guarantees it. The Molga isn't exactly a big deal, but the Cannonry Molga variant has its uses. At this point, two more Molgas show up.     Mystery Warrior brings a Gun Tiger with her, which is a surprisingly advanced Zoid for this point in the game.  It's also fast as poo poo and comes with this beauty, which is almost as strong as the Hi-Wave Blade but has a hit rate twice as high.    gently caress you, Molgas! We use Supplier on the next turn and finish them off.    And then she leaves. : Aaa! What was her name? Chase after her and meet wild encounters. Hellrunners are very fast but that's all they have going for them.   They have a DF of 18 and the Laser Machinegun has a power of 60, so this will kill them both if it hits.  This is what most random encounters look like.  Welcome to Llama Town. I don't like Llamas. They spit. NEXT TIME:  Coincidences! Remember to vote! For the protagonist's name: 8 characters, nothing obscene or stupid and not Ramza. You can also choose his battle cry, which is 24 characters, including spaces. Ace of Aces fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Jan 14, 2018 |
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Jan 10, 2018 05:41
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Oh Man I love this game. The translation is a trainwreck, but I didn't know that when I played it at 12 years old and just learning english.
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Jan 10, 2018 06:55
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I guarantee you this came out in the US, because I played it to completion when it released. Zoids was one of the series that are largely responsible for my love of giant robots that persists to this day (the other being Gundam Wing), so even with the incredibly janky translation this game has, it still holds a place in my heart. I'm really looking forward to this LP. e: I will say that the screenshots probably need to be scaled up a bit. Probably about half. They're kinda small. Materant fucked around with this message at 13:53 on Jan 10, 2018 |
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Jan 10, 2018 08:47
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Ace of Aces posted:Remember to vote! Bobby What's all this, then?!
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Jan 10, 2018 09:23
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I. loving. Love. Zoids. You want the series that got a Young Onmi into giant robots after transformers (When he was a child and had no long term memory)? This poo poo, right here. New Century Zero was on at like... 6-7 AM on Cheese TV in Australia Channel 10 and it was my loving JAM, I can even remember the first episode I saw, which I believe the episode was Leena gets her Gunsniper Custom, I remember it because the loving Gunsniper Custom became my favourite Zoid and has REMAINED one of my favourite loving mecha PERIOD! I love Zoids so loving much I read a Gamefaqs walkthrough detailing the plot of Zoid Saga 1 and just loving loving every detail even though I've never actually sat down and loving played the game! I love Zoids so much that the only toy models I still have are Zoids model kits I can see looking up at my shelf (Death Stinger, Red Blade Liger, Dark Spiner, Elephander, Gustave, Shadowfox, Goujulas Giga.) I Hate young me so much for being abusive to his Pteras and Shield Liger which ultimately destroyed them. To this day, if I saw one in stores I would buy them, even if I didn't have an exacto knife or anything for the proper building! I love Zoids so much I brought this game brand new at EB Games for $60! I love Zoids so much I still have the cartridge, dead battery and all IN MY loving DS! SO gently caress YEAH IT'S TIME TO STRAP OUR SELVES IN FOR A TRIP! NAME: MARTY IT'LL MAKE SENSE IN A BIT! BATTLE CRY: GREAT SCOTT! Seriously the lack of proper translations for this game and the other Zoids Saga games makes me sad as hell. Onmi fucked around with this message at 09:42 on Jan 10, 2018 |
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Jan 10, 2018 09:40
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Lets go with Jerkface What, it's 8 letters! I remember being so disappointed with this game. I was only tangentially familiar with the Super Robot Wars series at the time, so the idea of a game with hugely customizable robots (dozens of them, to boot) was like nothing I'd heard of back then. It wasn't a terrible game for the time, but it just squandered its potential so hard.
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Jan 10, 2018 10:13
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I remember Zoids mostly through what they showed on Toonami, and I recall that as children, instead of calling the different anime by the correct names, we differentiated them by calling Chaotic Century "Dino Zoids" and New Century "Bit Zoids." I liked Bit Zoids more because Bit was funny, and while I tend to enjoy the waifish characters because I'm extremely girly, even I could hardly stand Fiona. I've never been one for giant robots, but my friends liked it and I wanted to be cool so I watched them a lot. Looking forward to seeing more of this and the "beautiful" translation. My favorite parts about bad translations are looking at each one and trying to figure out why it turned out that way (usually by being far too literal or getting hosed with synonyms).
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Jan 10, 2018 14:21
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Oh man, this game. I played a good amount of this despite knowing roughly nothing about the franchise, and got... what I think was reasonably far. Hopefully I'll be able to find the point I stopped as we go. I love that OFS is apparently a verb now. The protagonist looks like a Tidus to me.
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Jan 10, 2018 14:22
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Onmi posted:New Century Zero was on at like... 6-7 AM on Cheese TV in Australia Channel 10 and it was my loving JAM I think you mean Cheez TV...  I didn't know they aired NCZ; I recorded (on VHS!) CCGF off Cheez TV airings after recording NCZ on Toonami since that was the block it aired in for me back when I had Austar (oh yes, we're going that far back), since CCGF was in an rear end in a top hat timeslot on Toonami that caused me to miss 90% of it. Actually, I think I have a VHS somewhere that has an episode of Robot Wars (which aired at 6 in the morning) followed by Cheez TV's then-Saturday Morning block of CCGF, Transformers RID, and Digimon Tamers. 2000ish was a good loving time to be an anime fan as a kid. I'll always regret missing the last episode of Crush Gear Turbo... 
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Jan 10, 2018 14:55
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Onmi posted:NAME: MARTY IT'LL MAKE SENSE IN A BIT!
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Jan 10, 2018 18:04
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Quantum Toast posted:I know nothing about Zoids, but this sounds promising. Beats my initial planned suggestion of "Rick" and "Uh oh! Somersault Jump!" But have we considered Ken and "Omae wa shindu"? Respect for the classics and all.
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Jan 10, 2018 18:50
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Let's Play Zois: Legacy! I do not advise this course of action.
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Jan 10, 2018 21:43
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Ace of Aces posted:I think you mean Cheez TV... that's cause they aired NCZ first, then CCGF
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Jan 10, 2018 23:05
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I would recommend upping the screenshots with 2x nearest, they're pretty small right now. Don't do a half-size up, full integer upscale will look better.
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Jan 10, 2018 23:28
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Drake and Let's get dangerous! respectively.
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Jan 11, 2018 00:14
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name should be Hank because it's the perfect jrpg hero name
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Jan 11, 2018 01:42
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corn in the bible posted:name should be Hank because it's the perfect jrpg hero name yah, Hank with That boy ain't right
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Jan 11, 2018 01:52
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Tallgeese posted:I would recommend upping the screenshots with 2x nearest, they're pretty small right now. Normally I would agree with you but you absolutely are not missing anything in the small screenshots, this is not a game with particularly impressive graphics. And I don't want to mass resize 100ish screenshots every update.
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Jan 11, 2018 06:37
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Ace of Aces posted:And I don't want to mass resize 100ish screenshots every update. That's 4 clicks in Irfanview 
dis astranagant fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Jan 11, 2018 |
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Jan 11, 2018 08:56
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Like, if nothing else, we deserve to at least be able to see what you're ragging on. That size is a pain in the rear end to read and the graphics are pretty decent for the GBA.
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Jan 11, 2018 09:25
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Materant posted:Like, if nothing else, we deserve to at least be able to see what you're ragging on. That size is a pain in the rear end to read and the graphics are pretty decent for the GBA. It's really that small? It's readable size on my screen. Alright, I'll bump it up somehow then. (That's actually the native GBA resolution though...)
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Jan 11, 2018 12:50
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Ace of Aces posted:It's really that small?
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Jan 11, 2018 13:04
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I'm gonna suggest Ramses and Return the slab!
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Jan 11, 2018 14:47
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chiasaur11 posted:Beats my initial planned suggestion of "Rick" and "Uh oh! Somersault Jump!" Yeah, if you are in japan's post-apoc, you need Ken.
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Jan 11, 2018 20:14
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Siegkrow posted:Yeah, if you are in japan's post-apoc, you need Ken. It's not the post-apocalypse, Zi is just very desert-y
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Jan 11, 2018 20:46
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Any chance you can fix the table breaking in the OP?
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Jan 11, 2018 21:12
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Protagonist Boy looks kinda like Bakugo to me.
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Jan 11, 2018 21:17
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VolticSurge posted:Protagonist Boy looks kinda like Bakugo to me. Not nearly angry enough.
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Jan 11, 2018 21:29
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chiasaur11 posted:Not nearly angry enough. Well, he seems stupid enough, so...
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Jan 11, 2018 21:33
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VolticSurge posted:Well, he seems stupid enough, so... But Bakugo's smart. Third best grades in the class, quickly adapts new strategies when his baseline "gently caress you! gently caress EVERYONE!" attack rush style isn't up to the job, considers legal liability when planning to beat the hell out of people. His winning personality and charm makes it easy to forget sometimes, but he's pretty drat far from stupid.
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Jan 11, 2018 21:48
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I figured out what you're going out of your way to get and can't help but chuckle, since you go through Zoids so fast in this game.
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Jan 11, 2018 21:54
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Zoids is my favorite mecha anime and Zoids Legacy is my favorite of the two Zoids game released in the West. I have two cartridges of this games for some reason. I am really looking forward to this.
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Jan 12, 2018 18:03
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if ramza's out it should be Delita.
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Jan 13, 2018 21:15
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As punishment for abandoning G Gen OVERWorld, I decree that your name should be Katz!
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Jan 13, 2018 22:02
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Sordas Volantyr posted:As punishment for abandoning G Gen OVERWorld, I decree that your name should be Katz! I didn't abandon it! ... this time...
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Jan 14, 2018 02:01
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We can’t have Ramza but can we have Marche?
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Jan 14, 2018 06:36
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Zoids? I haven't seen the show in a long time, but I remember having fond memories of it. When I was a kid, Van made papaya look like it was tasty as poo poo, which disappointed me when I got a chance to eat it (...and smell it), yuck. That's my Zoids story for you. I don't have any preference for the name, but I vote that the battle cry be "Eeyaaargh!" because it tickles my fancy for some reason. That or "What am I fighting for?!" Edit: like I said, it's been a long time since I've seen the show, but what's this about a ZOID FETUS? I know it was said in the OP that Zoids are alive, but is that honestly how more of them are made? Even the ones that have cockpits for humans to pilot around in? I have so many questions about the ecology of this world... EagerSleeper fucked around with this message at 09:45 on Jan 14, 2018 |
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Jan 14, 2018 08:48
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EagerSleeper posted:Zoids? I haven't seen the show in a long time, but I remember having fond memories of it. When I was a kid, Van made papaya look like it was tasty as poo poo, which disappointed me when I got a chance to eat it (...and smell it), yuck. That's my Zoids story for you. Zoids were mechanical creatures that inhabited the world of Zi, they were basically modified to be piloted. There's a distinction between factory constructed Zoids and "Wild zoids"
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Jan 14, 2018 10:25
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EagerSleeper posted:Zoids? I haven't seen the show in a long time, but I remember having fond memories of it. When I was a kid, Van made papaya look like it was tasty as poo poo, which disappointed me when I got a chance to eat it (...and smell it), yuck. That's my Zoids story for you. Domesticated Zoids are essentially a man-made shell built around a biomechanical Zoid Core that contains all the living bits and powers the rest of the machine. Proper Wild Zoids are all but extinct in most continuities but in their heyday ate Zi's metal foliage or the cores of other Wild Zoids. This will not be relevant in this thread. Now's a good time to recite the MST3K mantra. dis astranagant fucked around with this message at 10:50 on Jan 14, 2018 |
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Jan 14, 2018 10:34
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 20:57 |
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dis astranagant posted:Domesticated Zoids are essentially a man-made shell built around a biomechanical Zoid Core that contains all the living bits and powers the rest of the machine. Proper Wild Zoids are all but extinct in most continuities but in their heyday ate Zi's metal foliage or the cores of other Wild Zoids. This will not be relevant in this thread. Now's a good time to recite the MST3K mantra. NBC Mystery Movie. NBC Mystery Movie. NBC Mystery Movie.
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Jan 14, 2018 10:54
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