Let's Play Galaxy Angel, Chapter 1, Part 4: Curse You, Kill-Stealers
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Sorry for my lack of posting over the weekend. I had a ton of other stuff to do. UG@ apps, for one... ohhh, boy. Blue Moon 19, too. Actually, mostly Blue Moon 19, which is just about done. Anyway, you guys aren't here to listen to my excuses, you're here to watch me finally finish chapter one.
Rezom has been taunting us about the small number of ships we've got. The Angel Wing is pretty confident that they can kick his butt, and between him and them, I'm more likely to believe the latter. Mint asks if we need the vital statistics of the Emblem Frames gone over, but I've already covered that in the last few chapters.
This is the situation. The areas labelled MOVE IMPROPER DOMAIN are asteroids that we apparently can't just go over or under. Oh, the wonders of two-dimensional space. The Elsior is too busted to move, and really, we don't want it in the heat of battle anyway. It's the only place where the Emblem Frames can resupply, but it can't fight well on its own, and losing it is an instant game over. What we need to do is keep it safe.
The enemy's got seven Spards, four Barmells, and a new class of ship marked in orange. This is a Zarl, and it's the first battleship we see in the game. Shoot this down and win. On the other hand, we may want to put that off as long as possible just to gain the points from shooting down all the other enemies first. (This is another reason not to let the green units fight anything: in the unlikely event that they do survive, they might steal our kills.)
Remember when I said that there will be times that we aren't going to be following the plan the game comes up with because it sucks? This is one of those times. We are going to have the green units and one Angel guard the Elsior while the other four Angels clear out the minor enemies, then send everybody after Rezom. (I should probably not be a tactician in real life. I realize this.)
This launching video (why did all the videos have to be taken down...) appears in front of a good number of battles. I suspect it's to buy time for the game to load. (Again, 2002.) The CGI is dated and the animation is often off-model, but, well, that's just how Galaxy Angel is.
[BGM: Emblem Frames Soar Through the Galaxy]
Battle begins.
Trick Master is a pretty solid unit. Since we don't have any snipers in this game (the team's sniper is introduced in the second game), it's the unit you most want to use for ranged attacks because of the Fliers. They're these little things that fly out from Trick Master and fly around it, shooting things. You know how every other mecha series has some type of psychic character whose abilities tie in with their unit? Mint is it. She controls the Fliers with her mind, and she also reads minds, occasionally unwillingly. We'll have more on that later.
Harvester is decent for its stats. Until you raise Vanilla's affection high enough, all it's really good for is healing, so I'm keeping it around the other units just in case. Kung Fu Fighter's a ways away from it since I'm having it attack those enemies to the east, but just in case Ranpha starts doing badly, I have Milfie with the green units guarding the Elsior until she needs to switch out.
Just to note, before she destroyed that ship, Vanilla's Willpower was at 9%. After, it shot to 77%. Drywall characters, I will never understand you.
Some of the enemies get close to the Elsior. I send Forte back to get them and send Milfie out, since Mint and Vanilla are done with the ones between the asteroids and have gone over to help out Ranpha. Her HP's pretty high, too. Between Happy Trigger and Lucky Star, the enemies last about three seconds.
Here's Mint using her special attack, Flier Dance. The Fliers spread out and spiral in front of Trick Master, circling and firing upon a single enemy. Like I said, good for long- to mid-range.
You may also notice that, when their energy bars are full and while using their special moves, the Emblem Frames appear to leave a trail of giant glowing white feathers that quickly dissipate. Clearly, this is not hinting anything significant at all, especially not anything that will happen much later down the line.
Vanilla's special, Repair Wave, isn't an attack. Instead of flying over to one person and healing them, she sends Harvester's nanomachine colony all over the battlefield to heal all the other Emblem Frames to full at once. Not that the other Angels really need it right now, but I needed to show it and this was good.
Once all the other enemies are finished, the Angels converge on Rezom in his Zarl. Ranpha takes him out with an Anchor Claw.
From here on, battle scores are evaluated. Stupid green units, stealing my kills. I should have just left them there to die. Oh well.
Rezom throws a fit and the Angels just keep trolling him until he runs away. Luft and Lester admit that they sort of feel bad for him. Tact shrugs and congratulates the Angels on their victory.
Oh, come on, Coco, the ship's fine. Post-battle dialogue changes depending on the shape our units were in and how many kills everyone got. In this case, since I let the enemies get too close to the Elsior once (even though Forte and Milfie bailed us out and we were still at an acceptable level of HP), Coco reprimands me for it. The Angels all congratulate me, though, since they were all doing fine. Even Milfie, who didn't shoot anything down. Then again, Milfie is usually very difficult to disappoint compared to the others. She is a happy derp.
Since it's too dangerous to stay in the asteroid belt when the coup forces know we're here, the Elsior now has to move to another asteroid belt to finish its repairs. Tact gets the rest of his Criom fleet to help out with fixing the ship. Now on to more important things.
Tact immediately asks the Angels to start calling him "Tact" instead of "Commander Mayers". It takes them a minute to get used to the idea, but they all agree and get him to call them by their names (and in Milfeulle's case, to call her "Milfie").
Lester: Instructor Luft... Are you sure about choosing Tact?
Luft: ...I'll leave it at "no comment". I'm sure it'll all turn out all right.
If you say so, Luft.
Chapter 1: The Angels Arrive
COMPLETE
Now that the introduction is done, the next five chapters (of the game, not of the LP; like chapter 1, each chapter will alternate VN and RTS segments and will probably take four parts each to cover) will focus on each individual Angel in order of numerical callsign. Since chapter 2 is Milfie's, keeping her happy is pretty much an inevitability unless we are really, really dumb, so the poll this time will be a bit different. Please answer in the comments!
Other than Milfeulle, whose affection levels do you want to focus on raising in the next part of this LP?
a) Ranpha
b) Mint
c) Forte
d) Vanilla
I'm going to keep asking this until the character chapters are done, so keep voting for your favourite haremette in hopes that she'll be in the top 3 of affection points by the cutoff. (And if you like Milfie best, vote someone else until we move to the next chapter.) Ah, the true spirit of democracy.
Sorry for my lack of posting over the weekend. I had a ton of other stuff to do. UG@ apps, for one... ohhh, boy. Blue Moon 19, too. Actually, mostly Blue Moon 19, which is just about done. Anyway, you guys aren't here to listen to my excuses, you're here to watch me finally finish chapter one.
Rezom has been taunting us about the small number of ships we've got. The Angel Wing is pretty confident that they can kick his butt, and between him and them, I'm more likely to believe the latter. Mint asks if we need the vital statistics of the Emblem Frames gone over, but I've already covered that in the last few chapters.
This is the situation. The areas labelled MOVE IMPROPER DOMAIN are asteroids that we apparently can't just go over or under. Oh, the wonders of two-dimensional space. The Elsior is too busted to move, and really, we don't want it in the heat of battle anyway. It's the only place where the Emblem Frames can resupply, but it can't fight well on its own, and losing it is an instant game over. What we need to do is keep it safe.
The enemy's got seven Spards, four Barmells, and a new class of ship marked in orange. This is a Zarl, and it's the first battleship we see in the game. Shoot this down and win. On the other hand, we may want to put that off as long as possible just to gain the points from shooting down all the other enemies first. (This is another reason not to let the green units fight anything: in the unlikely event that they do survive, they might steal our kills.)
Remember when I said that there will be times that we aren't going to be following the plan the game comes up with because it sucks? This is one of those times. We are going to have the green units and one Angel guard the Elsior while the other four Angels clear out the minor enemies, then send everybody after Rezom. (I should probably not be a tactician in real life. I realize this.)
This launching video (why did all the videos have to be taken down...) appears in front of a good number of battles. I suspect it's to buy time for the game to load. (Again, 2002.) The CGI is dated and the animation is often off-model, but, well, that's just how Galaxy Angel is.
[BGM: Emblem Frames Soar Through the Galaxy]
Battle begins.
Trick Master is a pretty solid unit. Since we don't have any snipers in this game (the team's sniper is introduced in the second game), it's the unit you most want to use for ranged attacks because of the Fliers. They're these little things that fly out from Trick Master and fly around it, shooting things. You know how every other mecha series has some type of psychic character whose abilities tie in with their unit? Mint is it. She controls the Fliers with her mind, and she also reads minds, occasionally unwillingly. We'll have more on that later.
Harvester is decent for its stats. Until you raise Vanilla's affection high enough, all it's really good for is healing, so I'm keeping it around the other units just in case. Kung Fu Fighter's a ways away from it since I'm having it attack those enemies to the east, but just in case Ranpha starts doing badly, I have Milfie with the green units guarding the Elsior until she needs to switch out.
Just to note, before she destroyed that ship, Vanilla's Willpower was at 9%. After, it shot to 77%. Drywall characters, I will never understand you.
Some of the enemies get close to the Elsior. I send Forte back to get them and send Milfie out, since Mint and Vanilla are done with the ones between the asteroids and have gone over to help out Ranpha. Her HP's pretty high, too. Between Happy Trigger and Lucky Star, the enemies last about three seconds.
Here's Mint using her special attack, Flier Dance. The Fliers spread out and spiral in front of Trick Master, circling and firing upon a single enemy. Like I said, good for long- to mid-range.
You may also notice that, when their energy bars are full and while using their special moves, the Emblem Frames appear to leave a trail of giant glowing white feathers that quickly dissipate. Clearly, this is not hinting anything significant at all, especially not anything that will happen much later down the line.
Vanilla's special, Repair Wave, isn't an attack. Instead of flying over to one person and healing them, she sends Harvester's nanomachine colony all over the battlefield to heal all the other Emblem Frames to full at once. Not that the other Angels really need it right now, but I needed to show it and this was good.
Once all the other enemies are finished, the Angels converge on Rezom in his Zarl. Ranpha takes him out with an Anchor Claw.
From here on, battle scores are evaluated. Stupid green units, stealing my kills. I should have just left them there to die. Oh well.
Rezom throws a fit and the Angels just keep trolling him until he runs away. Luft and Lester admit that they sort of feel bad for him. Tact shrugs and congratulates the Angels on their victory.
Oh, come on, Coco, the ship's fine. Post-battle dialogue changes depending on the shape our units were in and how many kills everyone got. In this case, since I let the enemies get too close to the Elsior once (even though Forte and Milfie bailed us out and we were still at an acceptable level of HP), Coco reprimands me for it. The Angels all congratulate me, though, since they were all doing fine. Even Milfie, who didn't shoot anything down. Then again, Milfie is usually very difficult to disappoint compared to the others. She is a happy derp.
Since it's too dangerous to stay in the asteroid belt when the coup forces know we're here, the Elsior now has to move to another asteroid belt to finish its repairs. Tact gets the rest of his Criom fleet to help out with fixing the ship. Now on to more important things.
Tact immediately asks the Angels to start calling him "Tact" instead of "Commander Mayers". It takes them a minute to get used to the idea, but they all agree and get him to call them by their names (and in Milfeulle's case, to call her "Milfie").
Lester: Instructor Luft... Are you sure about choosing Tact?
Luft: ...I'll leave it at "no comment". I'm sure it'll all turn out all right.
If you say so, Luft.
Chapter 1: The Angels Arrive
COMPLETE
Now that the introduction is done, the next five chapters (of the game, not of the LP; like chapter 1, each chapter will alternate VN and RTS segments and will probably take four parts each to cover) will focus on each individual Angel in order of numerical callsign. Since chapter 2 is Milfie's, keeping her happy is pretty much an inevitability unless we are really, really dumb, so the poll this time will be a bit different. Please answer in the comments!
Other than Milfeulle, whose affection levels do you want to focus on raising in the next part of this LP?
a) Ranpha
b) Mint
c) Forte
d) Vanilla
I'm going to keep asking this until the character chapters are done, so keep voting for your favourite haremette in hopes that she'll be in the top 3 of affection points by the cutoff. (And if you like Milfie best, vote someone else until we move to the next chapter.) Ah, the true spirit of democracy.