Super Robot Taisen J- Finished. So, while every other aspect of the game is good, it has to be said; there is way, WAY too much Seed in this game. I literally took Nadesico over Archangel at every split and there's still, what, ten or so Stages devoted to Seed? Cripes. That Seed, at least in this game, is several steps below TALES RACISM PLOT!!!, isn't helping, but it's just not a terribly entertaining cast or villain set. I mean, at least Brain Powered and Zeorymer are crazy, not just racist asshats.
But like I said, everything else about the game is good. Well, except enemies. Enemies are terrible. Learn to hit guys~ But that doesn't bother me really so. Anyway, good things. I gather the series in general switched over to Favorites and all weapons running off a single upgrade bar sometime right after OG2 came out (well, not that OG can have Favorites, but anyway) and both are definite steps up from the spend-athon of before. Money is fairly tight, although doing Puzzle Robo helps (not that I'd do Puzzle Robo without FAQ in hand), but I think this is the game's attempt at balance. I mean, until the very end of the game, I was using over half my party (if admittedly good units like Dancougar, Mazinkaiser, and Blade) completely unupgraded, and while they had to make use of support defense and repair units, since the game floods you in both that's not at all a hindrance. Meanwhile, I immediately maxed out Granteed's defense, and quickly found that Calvina had hit double-ace status by Stage 10 and ended the game with over 700 kills even though I actually made an effort to feed other people kills. When Granteed hit full upgrade status, you had a super that took 6HKO damage from boss ultimates, had dodge rates above 70%, and soloed maps. Before getting the Dracodeus, even.
What I'm saying here is that the game isn't really balanced for proper use of upgrades and feels scaled to unupgraded units. That literally every pilot in the game gets some levels of Support Attack and Defense, and it all seems fairly overkill.
And that's why J is called an easy game.
So, unit hype. Favorited Originals, Full Metal Panic! and G Gundam
Granteed Dracodeus (Calvina, Melua)- Touched on this, but yeah. No grunt in the game dealt more than about 500 damage to her, and most bosses failed to do more than 2k. Silly awesome.
God Gundam- Domon sucks for a long time. Valor is weirdly late on his spirit list (I mean, this is DOMON KASSHU. Hot Blood should be the TOP of his list, not something he gets at level 25), and the Shining sucks hard. He gets three upgrades of course. God Gundam itself is solid, but kinda meh on weapon power. This is because his finishers are a separate upgrade, and those're solid. You never use them, because THEN he finally gets his combo partners...
Rising Gundam- I really wish Rain joined earlier. Rising's the best healbot in the game (lack of Resupply notwithstanding), with good stats and more importantly competent offense with excellent range. Since she does join so late, though, it's hard to get her kills (in part my fault though, since I immediately jacked her evade to "enemies ignore her" levels. Oops, overestimated J grunts again.), so really she hangs out, activates Love Love Tenkyoken, and fittingly smites bosses backed by Love'd <3<3
Nobel Gundam- So apparently there's just 2 good secrets in this game, and Allenby isn't one of them. She's easy to get though, and while she badly needed an ultimate besides the team attack (especially because that's range 1) her lower stats relative the other G Gundam units came to her aid as it meant enemies targetted her with single-digit hit rates. So she still snagged double ace status despite objectively being the worst unit I was using (supposing I hadn't upgraded the hell out of her of course)
Gundam Rose- Great in the midgame, thanks to being the first and for ages only targettable MAP. That said, his having a Real spirit list is detrimental, because he doesn't have a Real pilot's accuracy and badly needs some hellp on that end if you want use out of him; even Focus only helps so much for him. My #2 guy on kills, but not terribly good in the endgame.
Gundam Maxter- Chibodee hung around to get a few kills so he could eventually spam team attacks with George, which didn't work out too bad. I think he was my death leader though.
Bonta-kun- Yeah, I know the Arbalex or whatever is technically better. But hey, Bonta-Kun's got a little extra range, some non-ammo attacks, and the HP is irrelevant since nothing will ever target him anyway (you'll never see a double-digit hit rate against the bonta-kun). And more importantly is bonta-kun. In general though, neither of Sousuke's units have good finishers, making it sup-bar for endgame shenanigans. Flipside, nothing would target it, so it could hang around Granteed and trigger its support attacks, which is pretty handy.
Tekkaman Blade- If I'd upgraded it throughout the game, instead of leaving that for the final maps when I had infinite money, I'd probably be the best unit in the game. Pegas is a free Strike pool basically, so you can spam Voltekka MAPs and the like all day. Hung around with Calvina doing the support attack tango as well, just wouldn't have needed to if I'd used it regularly.
Dancougar Final- You don't have to be a good unit when you have 5 SP pools. Dancougar just is anyway. A finisher you can bloody snipe with is a hell of a thing.
Mazinkaiser FS- Mostly filler by the end, but always handy to have around. Good mix of attack ranges and not terribly Will dependant.
Boss Borot, Blue Earth- Healbots. Boss liked to die, but like that matters.
Yamato Nadesico- y'know, if I'd put any money or effort into the thing, it coulda been a front-line unit. I didn't, but it's cool that it's viable.
Archangel- Meanwhile I never gave the Archangel any attention. Fortunately, since I never took its path splits, teh pilots stayed well levelled anway. Unfortunately, they have no good support spirits. Bastards.
I used Mao, Kurz, and the other Mazinger healbots regularly but they never left the ship after initial deployment in the final chapters. Just not damaging enough to keep up without any upgrades in the end (and I didn't need much healbot duty by then for whatever reason).
I think I like this better than OG2, but not by a significant amount, so still 8/10 range.
