Let's Play Galaxy Angel, Chapter 1, Part 2: TUTORIAL FIGHT TUTORIAL FIGHT
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Welcome back. Where we last left off, what had started as a suicide mission turned into something that we actually have a chance of winning when the unknown fighters revealed that they were on our side. Now that that's all sorted out, we can get on with that fight we were preparing for.
This has nothing to do with anything ever and is basically just an excuse for why the game lets us monitor all the ships on the battlefield in real time. Lost Technology: it can do anything. Forte asks if we need it explained, but I've played this game before and you guys don't really want to sit through the explanation.
We have another briefing screen with the updated battle situation. You'll notice that there's a new colour of ship: blue. Now that we know that the Angel Wing is on our side, their Emblem Frames will from now on be coded as blue. Since we don't have the Elsior yet, just think of blue as the colour of the ships we actually want fighting things.
Six against seven lots still looks like pretty bad odds, but Ranpha shoots down any objections because They're The Angel Wing And Obviously Awesome. Can't really argue with that logic.
Here's the plan: let the Angels kill everything while the NPC ships sit there and do nothing. I am not arguing with this. Every allied NPC in this game sucks.
Now we get to the battle segments! This'll be fun.
The CGI in these segments is jarring at first, if only because of how dated it looks, but you'll get used to it. Just remember that the game came out in 2002. Every fight begins with a few lines from characters in the scene before you actually get to fight anything. Once that's done, the ships start moving around and you can control them.
The battle screen looks like this. There's an overlay of the battlefield in the top right-hand corner that looks a lot like the overview screen. The little ship icons move to show you where everyone is at any given time. You cycle through which ship you want to look at (and control, in the case of allied units) with the UNIT arrows on the bottom centre. The other options there are just to change how you're looking at it. On the bottom right is a profile of the unit you're actually controlling, with HP, EN (energy) and SP bars. EN is drained and SP is gained in the process of fighting enemy units, and HP, obviously, goes down when you get hit. The bottom left has similar, but less detailed bars with all the Emblem Frames.
Right-clicking on an allied unit gives you even more options. I can tell Milfie to just sit there and do nothing, to move in a certain direction, to go attack something, or to guard another allied unit. For example...
The plan has Milfie attacking that guy over there.
But maybe I want her fighting that guy instead. I can do that. When she's done, however, I'll have to go back and make her do something else or she'll just attack the nearest enemy.
Oh, yeah, and we're timed. Well, 15 minutes is plenty of time for this.
Ranpha is doing pretty well. Dodging missiles like this is generally normal for her. This is especially a good thing in her case, because if she actually gets hit, she's not going to last long. Let's go into the Intel portion of the menu and check out her stats.
Here you can see Kung Fu Fighter's ranking in various categories. It's basically good for speed and nothing else, but I love its detachable claw weapons. Those are cool. If you look at Ranpha's own status, though, she obviously doesn't want to be here. Let's go see Forte's screen for comparison.
51% still sucks, but it's a lot better than 29. Willpower is affected by the Angel's mood and her opinion of her commander, i.e. Tact, i.e. the player. Thus, it'll go up as the game goes on if I keep her happy. It is therefore a good idea to keep all the Angels in good moods, not just the one you want to date.
Were you wondering what the "Fire Special" option in the right-click menu meant? This is what happens when the SP gauge fills up. (Actually, if you look, all three Emblem Frames' icons are flashing, so they all have full SP gauges.) It allows the unit in question to use its special attack, which will do more damage. The special attacks we have so far are:
Lucky Star's Hyper Cannon. Pretty basic pink beamspam here. The only thing is, depending on the angle Milfie shoots it at, the beam can drag across the screen instead of fire in one spot. This can be a total waste where you only graze the enemy, or it can be a good thing where you hit all the other enemies in the process. You never really know with Milfie.
Kung Fu Fighter's Anchor Claw. KFF's magnetic claws tear into enemy ships. It's one of my favourite specials just because of the idea behind it, but in practice, Ranpha's got pretty low Attack.
Happy Trigger's Strike Burst. Basically, it fires, like, fifteen different guns on the same target at once. Forte here can already one-shot anything with it even in this tutorial fight due to her high starting Attack.
It also looks pretty cool. And yes, they call out their attacks.
Once we beat the seven ships on the screen, four reinforcements show up. I lose one of my Spards, but let's blame the fact that I'm taking screenshots while planning what to do and I forgot to tell them to stay on the bottom half of the screen. Tact and the Angels are still fine. Ranpha just zips around and kills everything, and we're done just like that.
You said it, Tact.
We've established this, Lester. The random NPC crew member scans for life and finds that every single ship in the enemy fleet was automated, lending credibility to the theory that Eonia has no friends. Tact and Lester have never heard of somebody making a whole pile of pilotless warships of all things, but Tact figures that the Angel Wing will know what's going on. Tact finally gets around to asking them what's going on and how they know his name, but they're interrupted again because Milfie's hungry. You'd think she would be able to wait.
More unanswered questions! The Angel Wing orders -- well, "invites", since they have no authority over a random patrol fleet -- anyway, they ask Tact to come with them so they can explain everything. Tact figures why not, since he's really got nothing else to do. Except, you know, his patrol. When your empire is in chaos and a bunch of mysterious pilots who are supposed to be protecting the seat of government show up to ask you for help, that's probably more important anyway. Forte promises to take Tact to someone who will answer all his questions.
The in-file save menu. It pops up every so often, and it keeps changing throughout the game. I'll show you a few more examples when we get to them. You may notice that we haven't met all the haremettes in this image (or in the opening movies) yet, either. We'll get to them.
Before we get to that, though, we have our very first decision-making poll! I'll be taking a number of these throughout the game, as they will determine (for the most part) which paths will be open to us at the big route split halfway through. This particular decision isn't going to road-cone us by itself, don't worry. It's just a starting point. In the comments below, please answer this question.
In the next major decision in the game, should I...
a) Pick the option that will impress Forte and Ranpha.
b) Pick the option that will impress Milfeulle and the two remaining Angels.
I look forward to your answers!
Welcome back. Where we last left off, what had started as a suicide mission turned into something that we actually have a chance of winning when the unknown fighters revealed that they were on our side. Now that that's all sorted out, we can get on with that fight we were preparing for.
This has nothing to do with anything ever and is basically just an excuse for why the game lets us monitor all the ships on the battlefield in real time. Lost Technology: it can do anything. Forte asks if we need it explained, but I've played this game before and you guys don't really want to sit through the explanation.
We have another briefing screen with the updated battle situation. You'll notice that there's a new colour of ship: blue. Now that we know that the Angel Wing is on our side, their Emblem Frames will from now on be coded as blue. Since we don't have the Elsior yet, just think of blue as the colour of the ships we actually want fighting things.
Six against seven lots still looks like pretty bad odds, but Ranpha shoots down any objections because They're The Angel Wing And Obviously Awesome. Can't really argue with that logic.
Here's the plan: let the Angels kill everything while the NPC ships sit there and do nothing. I am not arguing with this. Every allied NPC in this game sucks.
Now we get to the battle segments! This'll be fun.
The CGI in these segments is jarring at first, if only because of how dated it looks, but you'll get used to it. Just remember that the game came out in 2002. Every fight begins with a few lines from characters in the scene before you actually get to fight anything. Once that's done, the ships start moving around and you can control them.
The battle screen looks like this. There's an overlay of the battlefield in the top right-hand corner that looks a lot like the overview screen. The little ship icons move to show you where everyone is at any given time. You cycle through which ship you want to look at (and control, in the case of allied units) with the UNIT arrows on the bottom centre. The other options there are just to change how you're looking at it. On the bottom right is a profile of the unit you're actually controlling, with HP, EN (energy) and SP bars. EN is drained and SP is gained in the process of fighting enemy units, and HP, obviously, goes down when you get hit. The bottom left has similar, but less detailed bars with all the Emblem Frames.
Right-clicking on an allied unit gives you even more options. I can tell Milfie to just sit there and do nothing, to move in a certain direction, to go attack something, or to guard another allied unit. For example...
The plan has Milfie attacking that guy over there.
But maybe I want her fighting that guy instead. I can do that. When she's done, however, I'll have to go back and make her do something else or she'll just attack the nearest enemy.
Oh, yeah, and we're timed. Well, 15 minutes is plenty of time for this.
Ranpha is doing pretty well. Dodging missiles like this is generally normal for her. This is especially a good thing in her case, because if she actually gets hit, she's not going to last long. Let's go into the Intel portion of the menu and check out her stats.
Here you can see Kung Fu Fighter's ranking in various categories. It's basically good for speed and nothing else, but I love its detachable claw weapons. Those are cool. If you look at Ranpha's own status, though, she obviously doesn't want to be here. Let's go see Forte's screen for comparison.
51% still sucks, but it's a lot better than 29. Willpower is affected by the Angel's mood and her opinion of her commander, i.e. Tact, i.e. the player. Thus, it'll go up as the game goes on if I keep her happy. It is therefore a good idea to keep all the Angels in good moods, not just the one you want to date.
Were you wondering what the "Fire Special" option in the right-click menu meant? This is what happens when the SP gauge fills up. (Actually, if you look, all three Emblem Frames' icons are flashing, so they all have full SP gauges.) It allows the unit in question to use its special attack, which will do more damage. The special attacks we have so far are:
Lucky Star's Hyper Cannon. Pretty basic pink beamspam here. The only thing is, depending on the angle Milfie shoots it at, the beam can drag across the screen instead of fire in one spot. This can be a total waste where you only graze the enemy, or it can be a good thing where you hit all the other enemies in the process. You never really know with Milfie.
Kung Fu Fighter's Anchor Claw. KFF's magnetic claws tear into enemy ships. It's one of my favourite specials just because of the idea behind it, but in practice, Ranpha's got pretty low Attack.
Happy Trigger's Strike Burst. Basically, it fires, like, fifteen different guns on the same target at once. Forte here can already one-shot anything with it even in this tutorial fight due to her high starting Attack.
It also looks pretty cool. And yes, they call out their attacks.
Once we beat the seven ships on the screen, four reinforcements show up. I lose one of my Spards, but let's blame the fact that I'm taking screenshots while planning what to do and I forgot to tell them to stay on the bottom half of the screen. Tact and the Angels are still fine. Ranpha just zips around and kills everything, and we're done just like that.
You said it, Tact.
We've established this, Lester. The random NPC crew member scans for life and finds that every single ship in the enemy fleet was automated, lending credibility to the theory that Eonia has no friends. Tact and Lester have never heard of somebody making a whole pile of pilotless warships of all things, but Tact figures that the Angel Wing will know what's going on. Tact finally gets around to asking them what's going on and how they know his name, but they're interrupted again because Milfie's hungry. You'd think she would be able to wait.
More unanswered questions! The Angel Wing orders -- well, "invites", since they have no authority over a random patrol fleet -- anyway, they ask Tact to come with them so they can explain everything. Tact figures why not, since he's really got nothing else to do. Except, you know, his patrol. When your empire is in chaos and a bunch of mysterious pilots who are supposed to be protecting the seat of government show up to ask you for help, that's probably more important anyway. Forte promises to take Tact to someone who will answer all his questions.
The in-file save menu. It pops up every so often, and it keeps changing throughout the game. I'll show you a few more examples when we get to them. You may notice that we haven't met all the haremettes in this image (or in the opening movies) yet, either. We'll get to them.
Before we get to that, though, we have our very first decision-making poll! I'll be taking a number of these throughout the game, as they will determine (for the most part) which paths will be open to us at the big route split halfway through. This particular decision isn't going to road-cone us by itself, don't worry. It's just a starting point. In the comments below, please answer this question.
In the next major decision in the game, should I...
a) Pick the option that will impress Forte and Ranpha.
b) Pick the option that will impress Milfeulle and the two remaining Angels.
I look forward to your answers!