Ataru

It really is Shinn's fault that many of those civilians died. If he hadn't brought her back, he would have fought someone else, yes. I'm not sure if just anyone is capable of piloting it though, maybe only another extended. But let's say it's just anyone. Either pilot skills are completely meaningless in that thing, or throwing some random pilot in there would make the flying hand attacks suddenly about as dangerous as a couple normal pilots, as far as someone like Kira is concerned. (if the hands were completely computer controlled, sheesh, they should be making armies of flying hands, not mses) So Kira wouldn't be nearly as pressed and probably could have taken everything himself. Ok, now let's throw that all out the window and ignore Kira. If it were just Shinn, he wouldn't have been stunned like he was with Stellar. A quick repeat of his slash would result in a dead pilot and a non-functional destroy, meaning no more city-frying shots that probably killed thousands even just then. Lastly, even with the turn of events as they actually happened up to that point, Shinn should have made the decision to kill Stellar in order to save everyone else. If not for Kira everyone would have been completely screwed, not just those thousands of civilians I mentioned before. It's a painful decision but one he had to make, and his weakness doesn't excuse him from what his indecisiveness brought and almost brought. All in all, give me Four and the Psyco gundam any day. BTW, anyone catch the 0079 homage in there? At the beginning of the episode, watching the carnage unfold on a monitor, one of the characters (forgot the name) said nearly the exact same thing Amuro said in 0079 when he saw everything getting trashed by the big zam. attouteki janaidesuka/attouteki janaika meaning literally "it's overwhelming" but actually more like "It's completely one-sided".

The mkII is one of the best mses. I think the bazooka version is better- at long ranges it's nearly impossible to hit with a straight shot anyway, but the scatter shot gives a chance of doing a little, which is perfect for playing keep away on an almost dead player (just boost flying backwards a lot while firing vulcans and bazooka). The bazooka also gets more shots, and almost without exception, bazooka shots have higher velocity than beams in these games, so it's easier to shoot people out of the air, a big plus. The one significant disadvantage is that if you both fire at eachother at the same time from certain angles, and they have a beam, your shot's destroyed and you get smacked. One example of a significant balance change is that you get 3 hambrabis now. The hambrabi was weak at 2, compared to the zeta, baund doc, the o, etc., but at 3 is a complete beast. One of the fastest MA modes in the game, insanely damaging sea snake, back up beams so lacking the particular weakness of the gundam hammer gundam, and great melee on top of that. Only problem is bad life. The Asshimar is great too- it has huge life for a suit you get 3 of, and does massive damage with the beam. Suits with MA modes are pretty much the only suits that can fight truly effectively from range excluding the qubeleys and zeong, because you can manually aim, and you can quickly escape back to long range if you choose. Most importantly, they are the best at running down an enemy when you are using a special, or escaping an enemy that just activated one. With the asshimar you get the aforementioned life and speed, but also one of the more damaging beam rifles in the game. The melee is mostly garbage, but the special r1 melee (dempsey roll) is one of the most damaging attacks in the game, worth learning how to use effectively. It may seem unusable with its short range but it certainly is not- activating the power special when you're about to get hit by a melee combo and going right into that is one of the strongest turn around moves possible, for example. (instead of eating a melee combo, you hit them with an increased damage version of a move that already can almost kill most mses in 1 use) The other one I mentioned before, the gaplant, is pretty much like a gundam mkII that can transform, which is why I prefer it. It can't use a bazooka, so it has that disadvantage compared to the mkII, nor can it reload. On the other hand, it has slightly better melee than the mkII and the ability to do more damage when needed with the double beam shot, but its shields are not functional. Don't use the MA form well and it's a slightly worse gundam mkII, but use it well and it can make all the difference. Man, I wrote a lot. I just love this series of games and really wish more people would realize they have some actual depth- Capcom put in the effort.

It's definitely one of the best. In multiplayer it has lots of advantages, but one of the things to remember is not to go crazy with the high mega cannon. It does a lot of damage but less than a melee combo, so never use it to exploit a close range vulnerability. Never, ever fire it if someone isn't frozen from landing or doing a move- a good player will dodge and get a free hit on you every single time. It doesn't have as good characteristics as the super gundam's gun, so you can't use it in the same ways. My brother plays the version of the ZZ that uses the shoulder guns a lot, and that version has much longer beam sabres and better melee than the other version- it can also block. Its scariest move though is the air dash melee, which can hit people miles below as well as straight ahead, and is so fast and long lasting that an opponent can go into mobile armor form for many mses, start flying away like a second or even more, and you can still catch up to them and hit them. Yesterday a friend of mine got annoyed when he was playing as the methus, was flying away for about 2 seconds and then my brother charged him down right out of MA form with that attack. All around though, I'd still rather have a good suit that you get 3 of, like the Asshimar, Hambrabi with sea snake or Gaplant.

Yeah, the space combat will probably suck. My worry is that the normal combat, with its new emphasis on prolonged aerial combat, might get something like the space combat. Space levels that are just like low gravity normal levels are still good in the old engine though, like a baoa qu, the surface of axis, von braun, etc.

The base is the same but there are going to be lots of changes to the engine for the seed game. Almost all combat in Seed takes place in space or in the air, so they're reworking the way aerial combat will be. I don't know the details, but for one thing I think you'll be able to fly much longer, and another thing is that the camera angle now changes when you're flying around, so sometimes the ground will be on the side of the screen, not down. The camera changes may get across the feel of flight better, but who knows whether it will be good for gameplay. I know the game will also have a mirage colloid effect and it seems like they may have added manual blocking, but it's hard to be sure on that. There are screenshots showing melee and beam attacks getting blocked by shields, but even in the UC games there's a block animation if an attack happens to it your shield, and some units hold their shields out in front of them, most commonly when they have their melee weapons pulled out. Anyway, I'd recommend getting gundam vs. z gundam now, especially if you have friends that you could play it with. The multiplayer is actually very deep. The seed game could be better, but it could also very easily be worse, and it's pretty much certain to have far fewer mses either way.

Hey Black Valkyrie, I was looking at your sig and saw you have kadoh senshi gundam in it. You may know this, but just in case, kadoh/kado/kadou means articulation and kadou senshi gundam is the name of a toy line, but the actual show is kidou senshi gundam. I was just thinking that your sig looks like part of the opening song so maybe it wasn't intentional. If it is, forget I mentioned it.

One other factor to consider is that unless your friends can all read Japanese, you go through a somewhat more extended learning process whenever you want to get them in for some multiplayer, helping them navigate the menus and memorizing which "awakening" special is which. It's not that bad. An experienced player completely crushes newbies in this game to the point that it's just about worthless for casual multiplayer unless you never play it multiplayer against anyone else. No different from any real fighting game in that regard, though. One feature lots of people don't know about with this game is that various balance aspects have been tweaked. The hyper mega launcher zeta gundam and the o both got severe downgrades, but they're not the kind of downgrade you'd even notice unless you play a lot of multiplayer. Char's Gelgoog on the other hand is now pretty much the fastest non MA/MA form unit in the game. Lots of nice additions for other stuff too, like new colors available for the rick dias and bound doc, with new moves for the new colors. A few new moves for other mses like the hyakushiki. Oh, and the bound doc now has a gerwalk mode that lets you hover! It can fire the scattering beam gun straight down in that mode, so it can be insanely annoying to your opponent if you play hit and run on a map like great canyon and always try to attack from above whenever they try to fly up to your level. Also, I never tried to use them in fed vs. zeon, but the grabro and zakrello are both beasts in this game.

It all comes down to personal taste. I think almost every ms out of seed and seed destiny looks terrible compared to almost every UC ms. I don't really like the look of the Turn A, but I like the feel of it in the show at least. Turn A ms movement has a more machine-like feel to it (except for the UC mses in it). Most UC stuff has a more human feel. Seed and Seed Destiny stuff on the other hand has an exaggerated feel, like power rangers (I'm talking about stuff like the way mses will fling their rifle up high before leveling them on a target, or how everything seems to dodge around in that flashy one-knee-bent-one-leg-straight flying pose). I wouldn't expect a fix of the Turn A, as fixes are all about the look- if not they wouldn't keep popping out mses that aren't even from shows. Turn A has quite a bit going for it but the look of the Turn A itself is not one of those things, at least not for most people. It *is* an ugly ms, but some people like ugly robot designs more than pretty ones.

Hey, that's not a scopedog, it's a brutishdog!

It's no big deal but that website shouldn't be translated to Toysroom. "Toy room" is only the name of one part of the site, and the site's actual name would translate to something like "Toys, models and stuff."

Man, that Qubeley looks depressed.

LOL, that Kakizaki looks like Hitler when his head is blowing up at the end of Bionic Commando.

Both color variations have parts for all three configurations. I don't think the problem you're worried about exists, unless I'm missing something here.

I like them better than the HCMPros. My rick dias hasn't come yet though, and it looks to be the best HCMPro yet by far. Still, I I have no illusions that it could possibly match up to the likes of the dom 2nd version or the EMIA gouf. The line has some real potential if they can keep up with the subdued markings of the rick dias and stay away from the blatant ones of the early releases, and especially if they start putting in double joints and dump the removable armor gimmicks + cylinders. The cylinders on the rick dom and rick dias are just stupid, but at least on the rick dias they're pretty hard to see in most poses. The line can fill a valid niche quite well enough just by being highly detailed hard plastic 1/200 gundam figures- without the dumb gimmicks.

Of course, seed *did* have thousands of obnoxious flashbacks, so I wouldn't blame people for thinking there were lots of recaps. *edit* Hikuro beat me to the punch.