SRW@3 - BEATEN. Ohhhhhhh, yes, the final battle was cathartic. Keiser Ephes is Ganeden's polar opposite: dies to a stiff breeze in practice, blows you up good before dying. Same HP! Too bad @3's damage scale is about 2.5x higher. Go figure.
Anyhow, it's probably the best SRW I've ever played. The squad system is still shiny, the polish is so good it hurts. There weren't many changes mechanics-wise from @2 to @3, except Size mattering a lot more and you getting a whole damned lot of more broken. The pacing also improved: @3 is, in spite of the 60 stages, a fair deal being two-parters, moves -fast-. It's a blitzing game, where enemies try to overwhelm you with good offense. This makes for funky stages early on, but crumbles when your army starts getting wrong (something like stage 20 or so). The games rewards Supers more in general due to their generally much better offense and bigger size. Defensively, both are balanced. And, in general, @3 is a lot less balanced than @2, but a lot more fun due to the more entertaining units you get and the general blitzkrieg approach the game takes. It's really awesome and shiny, and it's a blast to blow through. 9/10 material, methinks, probably the best SRW I've ever played.
Unit evaluations!
Selena (AS Alegrias) - The queen of unmitigated broken in my file. @3 mains are utterly insane, and Selena shows by being a goddess of evade and P offense, alongside having a second pilot. The main with the best starter mech and with the best random-busting mech as well, due to an utterly retarded intelligent remote P MAP off good Melee with Soul (not that her 110 Will 4900 base ASBS P ALL hurt). She also benefits greatly from getting cash-pumped, since her weaponry has awesome caps. Ended up with over 700 kills in my file and was the general MVP for everything offense-related due to the excess PP: best damage, best MAP, best mobility. Absolutely beautiful. I put two Zealers (Puru and Judau) on her squad to drive the fact home.
Kouji (Mazinkaiser) - Was less impressive than in @2, but still very good. One of my offense leaders and very tanky, just he has far more competition this time around. Still hard to say no to a no-Will 5000 base P ALL, though. And Kaiser Nova is godlike against bosses.
Shinobu (Final Dancougar) - Rules. Not all that tanky early (although he's fine at taking hits), but probably one of the most consistently badass offense Supers in the game, with 6k base or something P ALLs and the likes. Four pilots (later on, five) with Valor, three of them with Spirit, one with Zeal and Aggressive Beast just for the extra offense kick. Getting 4 Will everytime it gets hit is awesome early as well. Guzzles EN and requires Will like a drunken hobo, though. Still, it's @3, and EN guzzling is a minor issue in it, and three pilots with affordable Spirit make Will issues fairly moot.
Noriko (Gunbuster) - My second-MVP. The Gunbuster is a one-mech army with world-shattering offense and unsurmountable durability. 15k base HP! 5k base long-range ALL! 4000k base intelligent remote MAP! A barrier! LL Size! Then, it decides it's not broken enough and gets Kasumi as a subpilot and Super Inazuma Kick. 1-4 P ALL on the mid-6000s for base is SO VERY WRONG. And hay look Noriko gets Courage and Kasumi gets Love. Impossibly awesome and destroys puny worlds. It costing four squad points sooooooooooooooo doesn't balance the utter retarded.
Ryusei (Banpreios) - Hey look! It's SRX that only takes one slot! And four pilots! Um, yeah, that's not right. The offense isn't so ridiculous when you get it, but it's quite fine and versatile, and Banpreios has a Selena-like MAP for abuse. Rai also gets Drive, which solves any Will issues it might ever have had. Also, three pilots with Valor? Sign me up. Getting the combo finisher ALL with Viletta is just icing. My third-MVP.
Chief (Temjin) - Cool as hell, but not that awesome for boss offense. Has a beautiful long-range ALL for grunts and dodges for years and looks cool, but that's about it.
Apharmd (The Hatter) - Even cooler than Chief! Also has an ALL! Also could stand to have a bit better offense, but worked fine. Just used him because he was stylish and could hold his own.
Amuro (Hi-Nu Gundam) - Wow, deceptive damage and just about the best squad sniper ever. Fin Funnels are essentially infinite sniping death monsters with 2-11 range, 4800 base, S Ranks everywhere and 15 EN cost. All packed within the typical Amuro goodness.
Cosmo (Ideon) - Eh. The Ideon has very obtuse mechanics, starting out with epic weaponry, and Cosmo is a crappy pilot. The offense is downright horrifying once the Ide Gauge gets rolling, though, and Ideon just gets stronger on all regards the longer the battle goes on. If @3 rewarded blitzing less, Ideon would be absolute instead of just a solid machine. Granted, EX Hard should make it shine like a diamond. Points for the nice design synergy, regardless.
Max/Equizedol (Battle 7) - The Battle 7 repeats the winning battleship formula of @2: slapping a downright insane pilot inside a titanic battleship. While Max is its pilot, the Battle 7 DODGES IN SPITE OF BEING A 3L-SIZED 60 BASE MOBILITY BEHEMOTH. And the offense and HP are horrifying. When Equizedol takes control, the dodging is lost and it gets a smaller SP pool. But Macross Cannon is still a world destroyer.
Basara (Sound Force Squad!) - This really needs to be about the whole squad. Basically, the Sound Force is the most retardedly awesome support squad ever. With MAP songs that buff stats/Will/regenerate SP and the possibility of buffing them further for impossibly evil results, the Sound Force mitigates one of @3's potentially biggest issues: Will building. The stat buffing and free spirit pools don't hurt either. It's funny how broken a downright offenseless team can be.
Akira (Raideen) - Mostly there for the dodging Super shenanigans and GOD VOICE DEATH AND DESTRUCTION. Just okay otherwise, and I often subbed Gamlin to abuse his combo P ALL with the Diamond Force instead.
NotElzam (Aussenseiter) - Mid-5000s 1-6 P ALL off Elzam stats and combo of death with Sanger. More or less it, but that's still pretty damned awesome.
Shinji, Asuka and Rei (Evas) - Treating them as a squad because I kept them bunched together the whole game. Harrrrr, the Evas are broken. AT Field makes them downright immortal if you don't slack on upgrades, and they have nice, more escalating offense than SRW average to boot. Their combos are beautiful (EVA Barrage slaughters squads early, and Unison Kick is great for bosses all the time), and they just improve. Asuka getting a spammable 5100 base 1-4 P ALL with two S Ranks for 110 Will is just the crowning in the awesome. Not to mention all three have brilliant SP pools and good Spirits. So wrong.
Guy Shishioh (Genesic GaoGaiGar) - Shiny. Very shiny. A bit on the frail side, but offense was always there.
Jung Freud (Sizzler) - Gunbuster -. Which is to say, it's pretty awesome. Too bad I picked it up so late.
Baran Doban (Bemidoban) - DOESN'T. DIE. EVER. Nice ALL, and his finisher is great to bust boss defense as well. Replaced Selena's stat-busting when I got him.
Shingo (GoShogun) - Was pretty fillerish until GoFlasher Special kicked in. Afterwards, became my most damaging sniper ever. Still really fun.
Kamille (Qubeley) - Filler gruntbuster. Kamille still has awesome stats, and the Qubeley is great for randomslaying, though.
Ibis (Hyperlion) - Real with three pilots was the big thing here. The Hyperlion, as I commented earlier, is pretty versatile. The issue is that the offense doesn't really pan out too well, and that's problematic. Three SP pools mitigate that somewhat and the versatility/mobility combo works well, regardless. Played more utility than anything else.
