Another Century's Episode Portable!

[Lynxara]

Don't forget units that are human sized too, like the Tekkamens.

Tekkaman units are at least in power armor! If you've played R or MX, then you know that Vega's Valkyrie is literally just a masked woman on a motorcycle.

(Putting parts on her so she can fight IN SPAAAACE is so much fun omg.)

But yeah, with the exception of Aquarion and Getter Robo, the ACE series typically just deals with Real Robots...

IIRC, most ACE games will have a wacky "Super guest star." It was G Gundam in ACE 2 (iirc) since another Gundam was easy to create in the engine. Getter Robo in ACE 3 (again, iirc) was an experiment in creating a super-sized units. ACE R did Aquarion so it could play around with the crazy extendo-arms.

So I'm guess Knights of Lamune is the "Super guest star" for ACE Portable. If so, it's a good choice. The Lamune units are only around 10 meters in SRW Neo so they'll be easy to create in a portable game's engine. ACE Portable and Neo have the same producer, so I guess that guy just really likes Knights of Lamune.

I'm not sure if Knight Lamune would be considered real or not, as I've never even heard of the series till ACE

Knights of Lamune is one of the "super-deformed fantasy mecha shows" that got made in the early 90s, capitalizing on the success of Majin Eiyuuden Wataru (which itself I think was made to capitalize on the success of SD Gundam toys).

Most of these shows tend to be comedic but Knights of Lamune pushed it all the way into abject parody. The show can be pretty funny though I also find it kind of... Go-onger-ish. It can be loud and annoying and sometimes what's funny about a scene is that PEOPLE ARE SHOUTING.

You can see Lamune in SRW in Neo, which used this really interesting new gridless engine that makes the SD robots fun and viable. Some other SD robots that show up in that game are Iron Leaguer and Ryu Knight. Neo does use a 3D engine, which is usually the kiss of death for SRWs, but it actually looks pretty good. Some of the "anime" cut-ins are sorta ragged, though.

 

[Rider Kick]

SOLD!

 

[Dark Kabuto]

Tekkaman units are at least in power armor! If you've played R or MX, then you know that Vega's Valkyrie is literally just a masked woman on a motorcycle.

I have played R and MX, those are some of my favrioute SRWs.

The funny thing about Vega was she was one of the units where even if you don't bother upgrading her, she's practically untouchable.

 

[Lynxara]

The funny thing about Vega was she was one of the units where even if you don't bother upgrading her, she's practically untouchable.

It goes back to SRW's size system being kind of broken. SS-size units like Vega get HUGE bonuses to dodge and accuracy because the games are balanced around the notion that in most games there simply won't be any with significant damage potential. So when they do design something that can do decent damage like Vega or the TFO, you can mow through mooks with hilarious ease.

Even S units with substantial damage output can be really busted in certain games, especially if they're balanced to be capable of going up against bosses. The Ryus in Neo are completely ridiculous, so's Lamune's robot thing whose name I can never remember. The Iron Leaguers are, like, god tier when it comes to grinding through mooks. Tekkaman Blade's units can I believe solo every game they've appeared in.

 

[Dark Kabuto]

Even S units with substantial damage output can be really busted in certain games, especially if they're balanced to be capable of going up against bosses. The Ryus in Neo are completely ridiculous, so's Lamune's robot thing whose name I can never remember. The Iron Leaguers are, like, god tier when it comes to grinding through mooks. Tekkaman Blade's units can I believe solo every game they've appeared in.

This is especially true for the Tekkamen blade 2 units in W, because you can pretty much map spam everyone.

...wow, we're getting way off topic huh?:laugh:

 

[Dark Kabuto]

Bumping this thread because the PV is out!
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxEqlUkthY8&feature=player_embedded"]YouTube - Another Century's Episode Portable PV 4minutes Long[/ame]

 

[arnoldmcguire335]

This game would be an even more difficult thing for me... it makes ACE-R easier than this one.

 

[Sage Shinigami]

So, am I incorrect in guessing that ACE: R sucked?

They have made SRW games that aren't SD, but they ended up being some of the worst-looking games in the series.

A major problem with making SRW units full-size is that the series deals with some units that are canonically 10 meters tall, and some units that are canonically 100 meters tall, and some units where canonical height is totally unclear. So how do you keep from making units that run off the top of the screen or are no more than tiny specks?

(It's also, honestly, much easier to find units when they're SD and all have very large heads that are mostly easy to tell apart. Well, except Gundams. Games where I use a lot of Gundams rapidly degenerate into telling units apart by color or their funny backpacks.)

The SD sprites typically allow for more fluid movement in 2D animations, with some full-size cut-ins in modern games to punctuate particularly dramatic moments. In some of the latest games, you see the sprite organically "grow" from SD to full-size rapidly during a single animation, which just looks really nice.

ACE dodges this problem by using a much narrower series selection than SRW. It's mostly Gundams and "Real Robots", which tend to all fall solidly in a 10 to 20 meter range. The largest units in ACE to date are only around, I think, 40 meters, and you don't get to control carriers. SRW routinely deals with much more extreme size variations, from literally motorcycle-sized units like Vega's Valkyrie to, well, the entire Macross.

I should point out that what caught my eye in that description was the mecha being fully-detailed--I could care less about the scale. (Just create a range of height for all of them and let every robot fall in that range.) And yeah, during the 16/32-bit era, I could see how the SD models would work better, but the PS3 boasts some pretty awesome graphics, and I can't help but want to see my favorite giant robots rendered in HD.

 

[arnoldmcguire335]

So, am I incorrect in guessing that ACE: R sucked?

To some it did sucked, but to one who started playing the series starting with R, it's not bad. two things: English menus and easier controls.

 

[Lynxara]

So, am I incorrect in guessing that ACE: R sucked?

Kinda. The Japanese fans had some pretty serious issues with it. Here's the ones I've read about. I'll note that Western players, on the whole, seem totally unconcerned with some of these problems.

1. Everyone hated the Tension system. Tension was meant to act like Morale in SRW. In SRW, as your morale goes up from fighting enemies and doing other things, your robot can start using bigger and more spectacular attacks. For whatever reason, Japanese fans playing ACE R totally hated this. They wanted to be able to do their upside-down HiMATs immediately rather than starting out using the beam rifle and sabers.

2. Everyone hated the emphasis on Macross Frontier. I've read some forums call ACE R a Macross Frontier game that happens to have some other robots in it. The ACE R plot follows Macross Frontier in great detail while glossing over the storylines of most other shows. Many people bought ACE R basically for the Code Geass and Full Metal Panic inclusions and were then pissed to see the plots of these shows totally ignored.

3. It was extremely buggy compared to earlier games in the series. And one of the more common bugs was a game freeze bug that could occur during a long Macross Frontier stage that mostly consisted of unskippable cutscenes followed by a period of token interaction that you couldn't fail and posed no challenge. Did I mention that one of the trophies involves playing through this stage with every unit in the game?

4. Certain cutscenes were unskippable. Basically any cutscene that played a Macross Frontier song couldn't be skipped under any circumstances. All other cutscenes were skippable. This seems to be what really pissed off Japanese fans with regard to Macross Frontier's inclusion in the game.

(Just create a range of height for all of them and let every robot fall in that range.)

Doing this would eliminate some really popular SRW mainstay units like Daitarn 3, most carriers, definitely any Macrosses, and Gunbuster. On the "small mecha" end, you'd eliminate Tekkamen, the SD robots of the early 90s, playable human-size guys like Alberto the Shockwave and Gai Shishio, the Megazone 23 units, the Dunbine units, Steel Jeeg, and possibly the Valkyries themselves.

It would also eliminate Gurren-Lagann from ever appearing in the series since size scales in Gurren-Lagann increase exponentially throughout the course of the series (parodying the way size scales in actual Super Robot shows got progressively more ridiculous as you move from the 70s to the 80s). Personally I think a mecha crossover game that can't absorb the super-sized units of the early 80s or the tiny units of the late 80s is intrinsically flawed.

SRW's gameplay goals are just very different than ACE's. SRW is turn-based and grid-based, while ACE is an action game. An ACE-style size system in SRW would serve no purpose beyond limiting series selection artificially. Likewise, an SRW-style size system is highly impractical for an action game where levels are designed such that you can never control carriers. Using carriers wisely is a cornerstone of good SRW gameplay since SRW is tactical.