Super Robot Wars: Alpha 3 Skill Point Guide 00: Table of Contents 1: Introduction 2: What's a skill point? 3: Stage Chart 4: The Guide 5: What's Finished? 6: Miscellaneous 1: Introduction This guide is intended to be a list of the different objectives that are necessary to complete in order to obtain skill points. Mission objectives will be identified as well, and some basic suggestions will be given, although specific strategies and platoon creation is left up to you, the player, in most cases. The objective listed under the stage number and name is the objective for the skill point; mission objectives will be identified in the descriptions if necessary. Some stages have two parts, or multiple events separating different sequences; the skill point will only apply to one of these parts, or only be revealed after a set of events has occurred. Initially, for some reason, I wasn't identifying which part a skill point referred to except in the descriptions, although I've tried to go through and fix this; most skill point objectives should specify which part of a multi-part stage they refer to. However, I may have missed some. If there is doubt about what part of the stage the skill point is referring to, check the descriptions underneath. The stages are listed by route, mainly so users of this guide can just scroll past what they don't need in one big chunk, rather than one by one. Route splits occur at the same time and for the same length in this game, so the combined stages will be the same no matter what routes you've selected. Routes may contain spoilers, although they generally won't be terribly in-depth. If you want to avoid them, just read the objective and only read the descriptions below if you're having trouble. While this isn't strictly a secrets FAQ (there's a perfectly functional one at GameFAQs already), I'll point them out if they're part of the general strategy or flow of the stage (an example is the RaGowe secret in stage 21 Earth route, which requires playing a specific way). Generally I won't mention things like kill count secrets unless, like the RaGowe secret, it needs to occur on a specific stage. Generally, when I refer to defeating enemies in the descriptions, it refers to enemy platoons; most event triggers are based off of how many platoons you defeat, rather than individual enemies. However, I don't always remember to make this distinction, so assume I mean platoons rather than individual enemies unless I specify otherwise. Cardinal directions refer to those given by the compass at the top of the screen. The main characters are, from left to right, Touma (SR Male), Kusuha (SR Female), Cobray (RR Male), and Selena (RR Female). I refer to them by name throughout the guide. I have no plans to make this a comprehensive guide to the game, nor do I intend to add a translation or anything of that nature. 2: What's a skill point? Skill points are earned by completing objectives during each mission. While you can't buy anything with skill points (like you can with pilot points), they're necessary to unlock the good ending. Earning 57 skill points and having a turn count under 420 by the end of scenario 59 will earn you access to the 'good' final stage and ending. Earning a skill point also gives each pilot who is currently alive and deployed 5 pilot points. While this only amounts to 295 max PP from skill points alone (assuming you could deploy someone on every stage), it's a nice supplement to the PP you already earn from kills. Finally, earning skill points changes the difficulty. Pressing Circle to bring up the command menu will tell you which difficulty you're on. Your skill points appear in the data box, on the bottom line. Next to the number of skill points is a letter indicating your difficulty (E for Easy, N for Normal, and H for Hard). Difficulty affects a number of things, notably how easily you can gain morale and how many enemies deploy against you. I don't recommend playing on Hard if you're new to the series; there's a bonus you can get if you complete the scenario chart, and to do this, you need to get the normal ending at least once. Series veterans are, of course, encouraged to do whatever they want (of course, series veterans likely don't need this guide in the first place). 3: Stage Chart I thought I might as well make a list of the various stages and route splits so that there's a quick reference guide for people who don't want to quick-reset and check the scenario chart in the middle of the game, and so that people can quickly look and see if the stage they're having trouble with is on a route split or not. 'Combined' refers to the stages that are the same no matter what character or route you've chosen; splits are referred to as I refer to them in the guide. 1-2: Touma/Kusuha/Cobray/Selena 3-5: Combined 6-12: Touma/Kusuha/Cobray/Selena 13-18: Combined 19-23: Earth/Space 24-29: Combined 30-33: Earth/Space 34-35: Touma/Kusuha/Cobray/Selena 36-37: Combined 38-40: Solo Ship/Battle 7 41-42: Combined 43-44: Touma/Kusuha/Cobray/Selena 45-47: Irui Search/SEED+EVA/Macross 7/Nagahama 48: Earth/Space 49-56: Combined 57*-58: Ideon/Gunbuster 59: Combined 60: Normal Ending/Good Ending * There is an alternate stage 57 for the Ideon ending, although it's not numbered as 57 and it just splits off horizontally from stage 56 on the scenario chart. 4: The Guide Touma Stage 1 Skill Point: Defeat all enemies in 3 turns - An easy one to start with. This should present little difficulty. - After defeating the initial enemies and obtaining the skill point, Touma will launch in Rai-Oh and be faced with more enemies, which, again, should be easy to dispatch. Touma Stage 2 Skill Point: Defeat the 4 Zonder Robots in 2 turns. - The 4 Zonder Robots are the ones in front. Ignore the Primevals in back. You've just got Touma and Guy, but they should be enough to deal with the 4 Zonders. - Once you've defeat the Zonders, events will happen and you'll lose Guy, but gain the J-Ark, Great Mazinger and his crew, and Jeeg and his crew. Take out the Zonders and then the remaining Primeval; don't let J bogart the kills, as he won't be joining you permanently for a while. Kusuha Stage 1 Kusuha Stage 2 Cobray Stage 1 Skill Point: Defeat all enemies within 5 turns of the enemy reinforcements showing up. - Self-explanatory. Once the initial three enemies are destroyed, the reinforcements will show up. - PC reinforcements will arrive on turn 2 (I'm unsure about whether they actually show up on the player turn after enemy reinforcements appear, or whether they appear on turn 2 regardless, but since Cobray can probably solo the mission and complete the skill point objective anyway, this point is rather academic). Cobray Stage 2 Skill Point: Destroy the enemy missiles and the enemy battleship in 7 turns. - The missiles are triggered once the enemy battleship engages in battle for the first time; at this point, the 0083 and Zeta characters will show up as reinforcements, and the two missiles will launch. - When the first missile is destroyed, there will be some talking, and the Ra Kaillum crew will show up as reinforcements, as well as some Balmar units as enemies. - When the second missile is destroyed, there will be an event where the friendly NPC battleship is destroyed, and the Ra Kaillum is attacked. Cobray will then launch in a mass-produced Nu Gundam and join Zeora's squad (it's worth noting that if Zeora has already acted and you trigger this event, you can still move the combined Cobray-Zeora squad again). - Defeating the enemy battleship and the missiles will end the stage, so destroy anything else you want to destroy before doing so. Selena Stage 1 Skill Point: Destroy all enemies except the Salamis Kai in 4 turns - The Salamis Kai is the battleship. You lose if it's destroyed, so don't attack it at this point. Just concentrate on destroying the grunts. - Once you defeat all the grunts, the R-Gun Powered will show up, and you'll have to defeat it. As long as you keep Concentrate up, you should be fine. Once you destroy it, the stage will end. Selena Stage 2 Skill Point: Destroy the enemy battleship in 5 turns - The mission objective is to destroy the battleship anyway, so get down there and start destroying whoever you feel like destroying on your way to the battleship. - On player turn 2, Amuro, Judo, and Bright will show up with their respective units and supporting characters. - Destroying enough enemy units will cause some Balmar enemies to show up, as will Selena. Destroy whatever you want to, but keep in mind that your goal is the enemy battleship. Stage 3 Skill Point: Destroy all enemies in 6 turns. - If any of the enemies reach the white line at the south end of the screen, so prioritize enemies that are close to the white line while still moving forward through the asteroids as fast as you can. Use supers to break through the Zonder Barriers once they activate. - On turn 3 or when a certain number of Primevals are destroyed, J will show up as reinforcements. Use him to dispatch any nearby Primevals that need dispatching, but don't move him too far forward. - On turn 4 or when more Primevals are destroyed, ZX-03 will show up. He'll start near J's starting position, so make sure to have a couple of characters near there to help destroy him. Stage 4 Skill Point: Destroy all enemies in 5 turns - For once, the skill point condition is the same as one of the win conditions. However, if it goes to player turn 6, it's game over, so there is risk involved. However, there are no tricks or reinforcements involved with this stage, just an all-out slugfest, so deal with the grunts on your way to the big units and have at it. - There is a second part to this stage, but it's entirely story- and event-driven. Stage 5 Skill Point: Clear the stage in 6 turns - 'Clear the stage' means 'keep fulfilling the winning conditions until there are no more winning conditions'. In this case, the win condition is to destroy all enemies. - It's tempting to rush the enemy battleships and high HP units, but once you kill enough grunts, all of these will withdraw, so don't waste your energy. At the same time, ZAFT units will show up at your rear, so don't leave yourself completely unguarded (I like to leave the main character there, since he or she can usually deal with whatever comes on his or her own). - Once the Vesalius (the ZAFT battleship) engages in battle, there will be an event, Muu will show up, and Rau will launch in a Cgue. At this point, destroying either the Vesalius or Rau will result in the ZAFT forces fleeing the battlefield; if you're pressed for time, go ahead and destroy one or the other, but if you have the time, mop up the remaining ZAFT forces for the cash and experience. Rau will gun straight for Muu if given the chance, so be careful; if Muu dies, the mission is over. - After the mission ends, the routes split. Your route is mandatory based on the character you selected. Touma Stage 6 Skill Point: Destroy all enemies in 5 turns. Destroy the Yamata no Orochi last. - The Yamata no Orochi is the round enemy battleship at the very rear of the enemy lines. You're going to need to be careful of the support units that are out in the open, Boss especially. Mic only has his non-song attack, as he hasn't discovered his hidden power, so he's basically a glorified resupply unit at this point. - Note that when Touma hits 130 morale, System LIOH will activate, boosting his stats. Don't get too used to it. Touma Stage 7 Skill Point: (second part) After the allied reinforcements show up, destroy all enemies in 5 turns. - You start with Jeeg against some Jeeg enemies. Taking them out should be easy. - The second part starts with Jeeg as a head against some enemies. Hold out as best you can; they should have a rough time hitting you. - When you attack the rear robot, KouRyu and AnRyu will launch as reinforcements, and you'll get Miwa and the Jeeg parts. Take out the rest of the enemies. - Once you defeat the enemies, more of them show up, along with the Alpha Numbers. Don't forget to set up platoons. From here it should be pretty straight-forward. Touma Stage 8 Skill Point: After the allied reinforcements show up, destroy all enemies in 5 turns. - Mike Sounders against a Zonder. Defeating a Zonder in the Zonder platoon will cause it to regenerate health and an event to occur. Mike will whip out Disc X against the Zonders, wiping them out. After some more events, the Alpha Numbers will show up, and Gai will perform Fusion with Galeon. - A couple turns after those events, some Jeeg enemies will show up, making the skill point a slightly more daunting prospect, but help will arrive in the form of the Yuusha Robo Gundan and the Gao Machines. Gai will perform Final Fusion, and all is right with the world. Keep in mind that destroying ZX-02 ends the stage, which you don't want to do until you've destroyed everything else. Touma Stage 9 Skill Point: Destroy the Bramble within 4 turns of the allied reinforcements showing up. The Bramble will flee at under 8000 HP. - You'll start with Touma alone against the enemies. Start working your way through them. - On turn 3, or when enough enemies are destroyed, Touma will challenge Dangell. He'll do pretty well, but Rai-Oh will malfunction, and Retsuel and Zengar will save up to save Touma's bacon. - On the player turn after that event, Raideen, Dancougar, Mazinger Z, Getter Dragon, and Combattler V will show up, along with the Alpha Numbers. At this point, head towards the enemy and start taking them out on your way to the Bramble. A good support attack should help do the requisite damage, if you can't do 8K+ in one shot. - Once you defeat all the enemies, Touma will go nuts thanks to System LIOH and you'll have to take him down. Knocking him to low hit points will cause him to use Guts+ and recover to full. Defeating him again will cause him to use Guts, but Zengar will take him down this time. Touma Stage 10 Skill Point: Clear the map without the lab taking damage - The white square is the lab, and can be attacked by enemies. Your job is to take them out before they get to it. Put your land units in the 1-4 slots and the flying units in the 5-8 slots. Split your forces three ways to deal with the enemy groups. - When Flora is attacked, more enemies show up and Rai-Oh launches. Retsuel and Zengar also show up. Touma Stage 11 Skill Point: Defeat all enemies in 7 turns - Sadly, you're stuck with just the Archangel and Strike for the moment against the oncoming ZAFT forces. Try to avoid using up all of Strike's ammo by switching to Muu in the leader position. - On player turn 3, more ZAFT reinforcements appear. This is what makes this stage the giant pain that it is, as the four ZAFT enemy Gundams have Phase Shift armor, which deflects all attacks except beam weapons. The only units you're going to have with beam weapons are Strike and the Archangel. Keep destroying the ZAFT forces, and try to get Kira near the enemy Gundams so he can start doing some damage. - On player turn 4, the Alpha Numbers show up. At this point your mission Skill Point changes to destroying the Vesalius, which is the ZAFT enemy battleship. However, you still need to destroy everything for the skill point, so work on that first. Your supers can still do some damage through the Phase Shift armor with their finishers, but Kira is probably still your best bet if you can keep a respectable hit rate. - If you don't manage to destroy the enemies by turn 8, or once you destroy the Vesalius, an event occurs that ends the stage. Touma Stage 12 Skill Point: After the enemy reinforcements appear, destroy the enemy in 5 turns. - You start with Touma against his rival, Baran Doban. Once you do enough damage (or possibly just attack him once) there will be an event battle and Touma will get creamed by Baran's giant iron ball. Touma will then retaliate with the Rising Meteo. Once this happens, the enemy reinforcements will arrive, Baran will retreat, and Touma will regenerate to full. - Once Touma destroys an enemy, the Alpha Numbers show up. The Ra Kaillum will also show up with various Gundam characters. - Once you destroy the enemies, Isamu and Guld will show up out of a Gate and the stage will end. - The routes combine again at 13. Kusuha Stage 6 Kusuha Stage 7 Kusuha Stage 8 Kusuha Stage 9 Kusuha Stage 10 Kusuha Stage 11 Kusuha Stage 12 Cobray Stage 6 Skill Point: Accomplish either of the mission objectives in 4 turns - The objectives are to destroy the Cgue and the Vesalius. - When you attack Rau's Cgue, an event occurs, the friendly NPC battleship is destroyed, and a bunch of ZAFT units disappear inside the colony. This doesn't effect your objectives, however. - Rau is a pain in the ass due to his high dodge and Potential, so get to him as fast as possible and use Judou's Intuition for guaranteed hits, and get yourself in position for support attacks so you have as many chances as possible to hit him. Alternately, pound on the Vesalius. - The second part of the stage takes place inside the colony, with a fairly straight-forward 'destroy all enemies' scenario. Ignore the enemy across the map; once you defeat the 4 enemies closest to you, Kira will launch in Strike and be in position to take care of him after an event. - You'll have your first opportunity to set up platoons after this mission, so make sure you do so. Cobray Stage 7 Skill Point: Defeat the enemies in 5 turns. - Completely straight-forward. Once you defeat the initial group of enemies, the Archangel will launch, as will Strike, and Muu will join Kira's platoon. At this point you can either defeat the enemies or get Archangel to the indicated square to win. - Once Rau is attacked, Asran will appear in Aegis. Aegis, like many of the ZAFT antagonists, has Phase Shift armor, which can only be penetrated by beam weapons; any other type of weapon will do reduced damage. Cobray Stage 8 Skill Point: Destroy Aegis, Duel, Buster, and Blitz in 5 turns. - See the last stage's comment about Phase Shift armor. Fortunately, you've got mostly mobile suits, so you've got plenty of beam weapons. Move forward quickly and focus on the necessary units, finishing the grunts with counter attacks. Once you defeat the four enemy units, go after the Vesalius to complete the immediate stage objective. - At some point, the Ra Kaillum will arrive as reinforcements; I'm unsure about whether it appears once you shoot down one of the named enemy Gundams, once you shoot down enough enemy units, or once you shoot down a specific enemy unit (in the process of writing this guide, reinforcements appeared when I shot down Duel). They may also appear after a certain number of turns. - Once you shoot down the Vesalius, Balmar forces will appear; I assume, though this is unconfirmed, that any remaining ZAFT units will retreat along with the Vesalius at this point. At some point, there will be an event involving Cobray and his rival, Calico, after which Zeora and Cobray will leave the map. Much of the rest is event driven and straight-forward. Cobray Stage 9 Skill Point: Before you accomplish the win condition, defeat all other enemy units. - You start almost in the same situation as the last stage, with the four enemy ZAFT Gundams and the Vesalius, although Rau has deployed against you also. Once you destroy one of the named suits, more ZAFT reinforcements will show up, accompanied by Trowa and Wufei. The win condition here is to destroy the Vesalius, which you might want to do if things get too difficult. - Once you defeat the Vesalius, or it hits turn 6, the ZAFT forces will retreat and some Dancougar enemies will show up. At this point the skill point becomes apparent. Your win condition is to reduce the enemy battleship to under 200 HP without killing it, before it leaves the map. Kira has 1 SP cost Mercy, which can come in handy for the finishing blow. Cobray Stage 10 Skill Point: Destroy the Gamoff, which will retreat if it is reduced to under 8000 HP. - This one is interesting. You start with some of the ZZ Gundam crew against Blitz...except Blitz is using his Mirage Colloid for camoflague and is invisible. Your immediate goal is to reduce him to under 7000 HP, but you can only do this with counterattacks, as he can't be attacked on your turns. So basically you have to use your accuracy boosters (mostly Concentrate) and hope you hit. - Once you beat up on Nichol enough, ZAFT reinforcements, with Duel and Buster, Wufei, and Trowa, will show up and your skill point objective will become clear. - On the player turn after the ZAFT guys show up, Isamu and Guld will appear out of a Crossgate. They should be able to hold off the ZAFT guys for a while, although they won't do so well against the SEED antagonists due to the fact that they have no beam weapons. - On the next player turn, both Balmar enemies and the Archangel crew will show up. Your win condition at this point is to defeat the Gamoff (as per the skill point) and all Balmar enemies. You'll probably want to send Cobray and the Macross Plus guys after the Balmar enemies and use your mobile suits to take out the ZAFT enemies, just to divvy up the beam weapons properly. Also be aware that ZAFT and the Balmar forces will fight each other if given the opportunity. Use support attacks if necessary to take out the Gamoff. Cobray Stage 11 Skill Point: Defeat all enemies in 5 turns. - After some events, Kira is left to fend for himself against a bunch of ZAFT grunts. Concentrate should be enough to keep Kira safe, so dive in. - On player turn 3, the rest of the event units (Cobray/Zeora, Heero/Quatre, and Duo/Hilde, as well as Muu, who joins Kira's platoon) show up. From here you should have no problem wiping out the remaining enemies. Just make sure to position yourself optimally for counterattacks. - Once you defeat enough enemies, Trowa and Wufei show up to complicate matters. Take them out with everyone else. - After defeating the ZAFT enemies and earning the skill point, some Primevals show up, along with Arad. Engaging ZX-02 will trigger reinforcements in the form of the J-Ark and the various super robots. Defeat ZX-02 to end the stage, and any other Primevals you feel like defeating for XP and cash. Cobray Stage 12 Skill Point: Meet the win condition in 5 turns - The win condition is to defeat the three bosses; the Bramble (large battleship-type thing with four blue things sticking out), the Magnum (blue and purple robot; you've fought this guy before on stage 4), and the Sangaio (the red and green unit in the other enemy cluster). - It should come as no surprise that Balmar units will show up on the western side of the map once you destroy the three boss enemies, at least if you checked out the event platoons before the stage began. Make sure the Archangel is either away from there, can get away from there, or has Iron Wall up so it's not taken out. - Attacking Spectra will trigger an event, and afterwards you'll have the usual Cobray/Zeora/Arad platoon, as well as the Wing characters, joined by Trowa and Wufei. Your objective is to defeat Calico, but feel free to destroy the remaining Balmar units before you beat him. - There's another event that may have multiple triggers; I did it by destroying enough Balmar units, but it may also trigger by lowering Calico's hit points enough, by destroying Spectra, or by actually destroying Calico. In any case, Calico will use Guts+ to regenerate to full, pound on Cobray a bit, and be stopped by the arrival of Viletta, Retsuel, and ZENGAR. After this, Cobray will get his new attack, and Calico will use regular Guts (if this does, in fact, have multiple triggers, this is a far easier way of lowering his hit points if you're doing a no-upgrade game or an EX Hard runthrough). The objective is still the same; destroy Calico. - The routes combine again at 13. Selena Stage 6 Skill Point: Defeat all enemies in 4 turns and get the AS Soleares to the target square. - The AS Soleares is Selena. She's working for ZAFT, so for a while you'll get to use the enemy units. At the moment it's her and Rau in his CGue. Move forward and destroy the enemies; be sure to position yourself so that you can counterattack on the enemy turns. - Once you get to the target square, some more enemies will show up, including Muu. Part of the fun of Selena's scenario is getting to fight the heroes, so have at it. Defeating Muu causes the stage to end (after a bunch of SEED storyline). Selena Stage 7 Skill Point: Defeat all enemies in 5 turns and get an allied unit to the target square - The flipside of Selena's scenario is that you have to use a bunch of units you can't upgrade (aside from Trowa and Wufei, after this scenario), so getting the skill point may be a bit more challenging (unless you're doing a no-upgrade game, in which case it's all the same). - When you get a certain distance away from the enemy, more enemies will show up, making the skill point even more obnoxious. Use the Vesalius' Leadership aura to your advantage. The 4 SEED Gundam units have Phase Shift armor, but that doesn't do too much good against beam weapons, which your enemies have in spades. Keep your defensive seishin going, whatever those may be. - Once you get to the target square, there will be some more events and the stage will end. Selena Stage 8 Skill Point: Destroy all the Jegans - Things get really interesting here, as you're up against mostly good guy units. The Jegans are the green units; there are three squads over in a cluster by themselves, two hanging out by the Deathscythe, and one by the Hyaku Shiki and Quebley. The skill point doesn't specify a time limit, but one of the mission objectives is to last for 6 turns, after which the stage will end, so you've got until then to do what you need to do. The other mission objective is to destroy all the enemies, which you may or may not feel like doing. Elma should have Disturbance by this point, which you can use once things get heavy (although you'll probably only have enough SP to use it once, to pick your moment carefully). - Defeating enough enemies causes the Archangel to arrive with Strike and some of the other UC characters. This is probably a better time for Disturbance, actually. - As I mentioned before, the stage ends once you hit turn 7 or once you defeat all of the enemies. Selena Stage 9 Skill Point: Destroy the Valk Isha (the Valk Isha retreats at under 4000 HP) - You've got two mission objectives here to start, with the skill point unknown. You can either destroy all other enemies except the Archangel, or reduce the Archangel to 50% HP. You're up against mainly what you fought against last stage. Try to take on the series aces with Selena, Trowa, and Wufei, and leave the ZAFT guys to mop up the scrubs and support units. - Once you complete either of the mission objectives, there will be some events, the remaining 'good guys' will take off, and some Balmar units will show up, including Spectra, Selena's rival, in the Valk Isha (which is the unique enemy unit). You may need to Support Attack to defeat her; if you do, keep in mind Deakka's squad leader ability (+20% to support attack damage). Alternately, Trowa, Wufei, and Selena should all have Support Attack, and you may have upgraded their weapons by this point, which would make them better options. - Once you defeat a few of the enemies, there will be an event, and Viletta will show up. Your mission objective changes to knocking the Valk Isha under 4000 HP (previously, it was destroy all enemies), so get to destroying it. (Hilariously, it's quite possible for this event to trigger on an enemy turn, and for Viletta to get attacked and destroyed; fortunately, this doesn't end the stage or really affect anything as far as I can tell). Selena Stage 10 Skill Point: Clear the map in 6 turns - Ah, the life of the spy. You're up against your former ZAFT comrades here; the mission objective is to destroy all the enemies. You shouldn't have a huge amount of trouble, given that you've had a few scenarios to upgrade and outfit 3 of the 4 characters you've got (with that in mind, you should probably have Selena switch places with Kira so that she's in the lead). - At some point, the various good guy mobile suits will show up as reinforcements (for you, instead of against you). This is triggered either by defeating a certain number of units or by defeating one of the enemy Gundams (or possibly also by a certain turn). - After this (it happened on the player turn after the previous event for me), Isamu and Guld will show up out of a Crossgate. By this point, you should have enough units to finish off the ZAFT enemies (and enough beam weapons to get through the Phase Shift armor). Unlike other iterations of this scenario, the stage ends when you defeat the ZAFT enemies. Selena Stage 11 Skill Point: Destroy all enemies in 7 turns - Surprisingly, your enemy isn't ZAFT for once. You've got a mix of super robot enemies here, but you shouldn't have too much trouble with them. - Once you defeat enough of the enemies, the super robots will show up as reinforcements, ensuring that you'll have more than enough firepower to finish the stage in 7 turns. One of the Dancougar bosses will come out as well, but he shouldn't be much of an issue. Defeating all the enemies ends the stage. Selena Stage 12 Skill Point: Defeat ZX-02 in 5 turns. - ZX-02 should be easy to identify, given that he's got an easily-identifiable name. - Destroy enough of the Zonders and J will come out to give you a hand. - As usual, once you destroy the Primeval, there will be an event with J and he'll take off. - After some chaos inside the Orbit Base, Spectra will come out with some Balmar units. At this point, Selena will launch, aided by Viletta, Retsuel, and ZENGAR~! You now have to destroy the Valk Isha. - After you defeat the Valk Isha, the stage ends, but not before Slay shows up in the Vegalion. The routes join up here for a bit. Stage 13 Skill Point: Clear the map within six turns. Destroy all other enemies before you destroy ZX-06. - More GaoGaiGar enemies. Head to the center of the map, taking the lead with your supers and any other heavy hitters. Leave some of your reals by the ships, and move them a bit to the east as well, as there will be enemies showing up there at some point and it's best to be prepared. - Once you defeat 2 enemy platoons, there will be an event where ZX-06 lowers your morale, Mamoru launches to deal with it, and the aforementioned enemies (more Balmar bugs) show up. Some of them will kamikaze the Archangel, but Shinji, Asuka, and Rei will show up as reinforcements. Split your forces appropriately to destroy both enemy groups, and finish off ZX-06 when all other enemies are defeated. Stage 14 Skill Point: Meet the win condition in 7 turns - The win condition is to reduce the Helmoze Effad (the large green Balmar battleship) to below 80000 hit points. There are, naturally, some snags. The first time the battleship is engaged, Ace will launch in the Devarium, which is notable mainly for the amount of MAP weapons it has. You'll want to destroy it before it uses any of them, of course. I'm going to break my own rule here and give a bit of in-depth suggestion. What I like to do to facilitate this is to position Isamu and Guld in their own platoon so that they can get within range of the Helmoze, which can hit anywhere within 10 squares. On the enemy's turn, the Helmoze will shoot at Isamu/Guld, they'll most likely dodge, and Ace will launch. Now, his only post-movement MAP weapon requires 120 Morale, which he likely doesn't have, so he'll just move up to you and be done. From here, you're free to pound on him, which you should do. - Once you've dealt with Ace, you'll need to either take out the rest of the Balmar units and then the Helmoze, or just rush the Helmoze and ignore the rest of the Balmar units; it's up to you. All the Balmar battleships have medium HP regen, so if you're planning on finishing them off, make sure you focus on one of them at a time (along those same lines, you're better off dodging or defending against them unless you're specifically aiming to take that one out). - One final note about the Helmoze, namely that it has a MAP weapon as well that fires in a 3x7 block in front of it. Take care not to make yourself too tempting of a target until you're ready to take it on. Stage 15 Skill Point: Defeat all enemies within 7 turns, defeating the combined Primeval last - Once you get a certain distance away from the combined Primeval (9 squares for me, though it might trigger at 10 or 11. 9 seems right, however, as it's the combined Primeval's maximum attack range), there will be an event, and J will cast Flash and move up near the combined Primeval. This is handy, as J will be in range to lay down some hurt on pretty much every enemy group, and he can avoid or tank the combined Primeval's attacks until you're ready to attack it. Take advantage of his MAP weapon once his morale is high enough. - The combined Primeval has Invincibility cast, so use one of your less-powerful attackers to get rid of that before you start whaling on him. Stage 16 Skill Point: (second part) Destroy all enemies in 4 turns - Time for something different. The first part of the stage is easy; just destroy the two planes. - The second part is the real deal. You need to clear the map in 4 turns. Sadly, Bess and his 10 SP Lock-On has migrated to the Solo Ship, but Cosmo's got enough to use it three times, which you'll definitely need to do to consistently hit. - On player turn 2, Macross 7's Diamond Force will show up. Even with Concentrate, they won't get to 100% hit/0% dodge, so try and have them stay in Valkyrie mode for the extra mobility and keep some in-battle saves in case the enemies get lucky hits. Stage 17 Skill Point: Meet the win condition in 4 turns - The win condition is to destroy the Jig Mack, which is not, for a change, the enemy battleship, but rather the big brown unit next to it. - Once you defeat the Jig Mack, the remaining Buff Clan enemies will leave and some Protodeviln enemies will show up (although none of them are actually Protodeviln yet). The more reddish one (Gigil) is your target for ending the stage. - On the player phase after the Protodeviln show up, Gigil attacks Docker, draining his spiritia and effectively knocking him out of the combat. Basara will launch in his red Valkyrie and "attack" Gigil. Afterwards, Basara hangs around as a friendly NPC unit; his songs won't damage the enemy, but if they lower their morale below 90, it will 'destroy' them (I believe this only works for the Macross 7 enemies). - You can actually end the stage by destroying the enemy battleship or by destroying Gigil's unit; in either case, Battle 7 will transform and bust out the Macross Cannon, and the stage will end. Stage 18 Skill Point: (first part) Meet the win condition in 3 turns - The win condition is to shoot down Gigil. He's in the same unit he was in in the last scenario, so he shouldn't be too hard to identify. The new member of Diamond Force, Physica, may require a bit of babysitting, since you can't spend skill points for him or upgrade his Valkyrie until after the scenario is over. Hide him on one of the battleships if you're really worried (he should do okay with Concentrate every turn). - Basara shows up on player turn 2, and is once again uncontrollable. This time, however, he's so far from the battle that you'll likely finish before he gets there. - The second part of this battle requires you to shoot down another Jig Mack (there are two of them; the stage objective refers to the one in the east-most position when you start the stage). Your battleships can't move, and you're without Ideon for a bit, but Diamond Force should be up to the task. - Basara will once again launch on player turn 2, and will be uncontrollable (you may begin to see a pattern). - On turn 3, Buff Clan reinforcements show up, things go nasty inside the dome, and Cosmo launches with a level 2 Ide gauge. At this point, your battleships can move. Defeat whoever you want to before accomplishing the stage objective. - Once you complete the stage objective, things go nuts, as more Buff Clan and Protodeviln people show up. The Ide guage maxes, and the good guys disappear. Also note that you can trigger this by defeating the Buff Clan battleship. *** Route Split *** The Alpha Numbers split up to take care of business; half of the forces stay on Earth and half go into space. The Earth route follows the next bit of the Gundam SEED storyline, as well as meeting up with the Macross 7 characters from the previous 3 stages (it also features the only Macross Plus story bits). The Space route does some super robot storylines, involving bits of the Nagahama Trilogy (Combattler/Voltes/Daimos), GaoGaiGar, and (mainly, as far as I can tell) Dancougar, as well as meeting up with the Ideon crew. If you're playing solely for secrets, there are a couple that are exclusive to the Earth route, while I don't believe there are any specific to the Space route other than kill counts related to the characters who go on it. Here's who goes on the respective routes if your decision still isn't made. Earth Route - The Ra Kaillum and Archangel, as well as all mobile suits (including Amuro, now that he's back), Valkyries, and the EVAs. Space Route - The Gaiking ship, as well as Gaiking, the Mazinger team, the Getter team, Jeeg, Combattler V, Raideen, Dancougar, and the GaoGaiGar characters. The Earth route is the top selection, and the Space route is the bottom selection. They run for the same number of stages, like all route splits. *** Route Split *** Earth Route Stage 19 Skill Point: Defeat all enemies in six turns - As a note for the pre-stage set-up, Kira is in a blue event platoon, which means you can add units to it, in case you want to give him some back-up. - This stage is pretty straight-forward. Don't forget about the Phase Shift armor on the named enemies. Your main won't have beam weapons, so feel free to use him or her to take out the battleships. - When you shoot down Duel, Yzak will regenerate some HP and attack the Archangel. After this, Kira will SEED and destroy Duel, ending up back near the Archangel. - There's an event that ends the stage; this may trigger if the battle goes to turn 7. Earth Route Stage 20 Skill Point: Destroy the Receps in 6 turns - Destroying the Receps is also the mission objective. The Receps is the enemy battleship. - This mission (much like the desert arc of SEED itself) is pure pain. The enemy Dinns and BuCues have very high dodge rates; Concentrate likely isn't going to get you to 100% hit rate unless you've jacked your characters' accuracy and equipped +accuracy items. Fortunately, the grunts have nothing to do with the mission objective. Your higher mobility/accuracy characters should head for the BuCues on the hill if you plan on wiping out the enemies. Note also that the Archangel is immobile. - On turn 2, Kira will launch in Launcher Strike (at 140 Morale), reprogram his OS, and shoot down a BuCue. - At some point, the Receps will move towards the Archangel in an event. I triggered it by destroying enough enemy platoons (notably 2 of the BuCue platoons on the hill) but I've previously triggered it by just attacking the Receps. Regardless of how you trigger it, the Receps movement will be followed by the arrival of the Albion and the Stardust Memory cast, and more Dinn and BuCue reinforcements. The Receps will now be in a spot very near the original Dinn cluster, which should be right around where the bulk of your forces are. - The Receps will only defend. It will counterattack at some point (I believe at a certain turn count, as low hit points and wiping out the other enemies didn't change its behavior). This makes it harder to destroy it, but not impossible. - Protodeviln enemies will show up after you defeat the Receps, but they're just scouting; defeating the Receps ends the stage. Earth Route Stage 21 Skill Point: (second part) Achieve the win condition before Gigil meets with Sibil. - The first part of the stage has nothing to do with the skill point. Diamond Force launches to protect City 7 from the Protodeviln. The objective is to defeat Gigil, who is in the blue battleship. You can fly in with Diamond Force and start ripping it up, but if you're after secret units, you'll need to use a bit of finesse, and not kill any of the enemies with Diamond Force. Instead, lead them over to the plateau in the middle of the north edge of the screen. Note that if you're not trying to get the secret units, ignore the next couple of paragraphs until it starts talking about the second part of the stage; if you're not trying for the secrets this part is very straight-forward. - On player turn 2, Milia will launch in her VF-1. She needs to get 10 kills on this stage if you're after a secret Valkyrie unit (some sources will word this as getting her kill count to 30, but since she starts at 20, it amounts to the same thing). However, she's not the only one who needs kills on this stage for secrets, so if you care, have her hold off once she hits 10. - On player turn 3, the Alpha Numbers will show up and Diamond Force will join up into one platoon. Continue pulling the enemies over to the northern plateau area if you care about the secrets; otherwise, start pounding the enemies with your reinforcements. - On player turn 4, Bartfield and DaGosta will launch in the RaGowe and BuCue, and Cagalli will launch in a Skygrasper. Here's the other secret requirement; Bartfield and DaGosta need to get 10 kills between them and survive the stage. Now, their post-movement weapons are low-range (and DaGosta's won't hit flying units), which is why you wanted to pull the grunts over to the area where they show up. If you care about the secrets, back everyone off (preferably by hiding them in the Archangel and hiding the Archangel in a corner) and let the grunts start attacking Milia, Bartfield, and DaGosta so they can get some counterattack kills. There are 21 grunts total, so to get both secrets you're going to have to have the three people who need kills hog them, and keep careful count so you can back Millia off once she's got enough kills. - On player turn 7, or when you destroy Gigil's battleship, Diamond Force will charge the ship, Sibil will show up and attack Ginryu, and then head inside City 7. It then switches to the second part of the stage. - Part 2! The win condition it refers to is to defeat Gigil, so basically you need to defeat him before he gets to the northwest corner of the screen. You've got Basara (controllable this time) and the remains of Diamond Force to start with. As mentioned in an earlier stage description, Basara can destroy Protodeviln units by bringing them under 90 morale with his song. He should work on doing that while Gamlin and Physica shoot down grunts on their way to Gigil. - On player turn 2 you'll be able to launch 6 reinforcement units. Pick for mobility or pick your favorites, but realize flying units will have an easier time making a beeline for Gigil over buildings. Once you destroy Gigil he'll do some screaming, Basara will chase Sibil away, and the stage will end. Earth Route Stage 22 Skill Point: Destroy the Receps in 5 turns. - Time to destroy the Receps again; doing so is also the win condition, so destroy any enemies you want gone before you destroy the Receps. - The grunts are still the same high mobility annoyances they were in stage 20. Duel and Buster are around as well. - Once you destroy the Receps, Bartfield will launch in the RaGowe, which you'll have to destroy; Kira will also SEED at this point. Once you destroy the RaGowe, it will regen some HP and there will be an event battle where Kira destroys it. Earth Route Stage 23 Skill Point: Clear the map in 9 turns - You're going to want accuracy boosting items on Isamu and Guld's units, and you're going to want their mobility as high as possible (boosting their accuracy with pilot points isn't a bad idea either). I don't normally make comments on intermission stuff, but you'll want to do this to make the next mission less painful. - I love this map; Information High is a great song, it's good to see the Macross Plus story, even if it's very brief, and there's a great save by Basara later in the stage. But man, is this first part obnoxious and horrible (though in a fun way). You've got Isamu and Guld alone, against 2 Ghosts. Ghosts have insane dodge rates in the best of circumstances, and while Sharon's song is playing, you can't use seishin, meaning you're relying on raw stats. The next part of the stage will trigger either when you beat the Ghosts or when a certain number of turns pass (I believe it's player turn 4). If you want the skill point, you'll have to do your damndest to kill off the Ghosts. Guld has the higher accuracy weapons, and his Valkyrie naturally has higher mobility than Isamu's, so he'll have the better chance of hitting them. Move Isamu and Guld forward, positioning them next to each other, then on subsequent turns attack with Isamu first, using Guld's support attack. Then attack with Guld. Use your highest accuracy attacks. If Isamu or Guld die, the stage is over, so if you've got very little chance of hitting on a counterattack, don't be afraid to dodge or defend (unfortunately, the Ghosts seem to aim for Isamu over Guld). Stay in Valkyrie mode, as Battroid mode takes a mobility hit. Also note that as an alternate strategy, you can ignore the Ghosts and head straight for the ZAFT units at the back of the battlefield, which will stay put for the moment; in this case, just ignore the Ghosts until the next event triggers. I don't really advise this, as you can finish the stage just fine without doing this, plus if you rush the ZAFT units with Isamu and Guld, they won't come to meet the bulk of your forces when they show up. - In any case, once the Ghosts are destroyed or turn 4 (I believe) hits, more Ghosts get sent out, and Isamu and Guld discover the power of friendship and unleash the Double Pinpoint Barrier Punch. After this, the Alpha Numbers show up (note that the previous intermission screen lies and tells you you'll be deploying 14 platoons; the reality is that you'll only have 12). Anyway, Sharon is still singing, so none of your characters can use seishin (not even Rei, which surprised me, given her immunity to similar things later in the game). The win condition changes to 'destroy all enemies' at this point, so that's what we need to work on for the moment to clear the map for the skill point (although it will change again before the stage is over). Isamu and Guld will join the same platoon; when you get a chance, switch the leader to Guld to have a better chance of hitting the Ghosts. The ZAFT enemies will start heading your way now. - The next event will trigger at player turn 6 (in the past I believe I've triggered it by destroying a certain number of enemies, which you should be aiming for anyway). The Alpha Numbers bitch about Sharon's song for a bit, Battle 7 attacks the Archangel, and Basara shows up to disrupt Sharon's song with his own. At this point, Max kicks the Macross Plus weasel out of Battle 7 and takes it back, the Protodeviln show up with Sibil, and the final mission objective (and thus skill point objective) becomes clear; destroy the Zaft army (which includes the Ghosts) and hit Sibil with Basara's song. You've got your seishin back, and 4 player turns (if the event triggered on turn 6) to complete the objectives, so have at it. - Basara is controllable here (thankfully, or it would be hard as hell to complete the stage). He has little chance of hitting Sibil even with Concentrate, but Rei should have learned Inspiration by this point (2nd column, 3rd row on the seishin chart. It gives 100% chance to hit to one target unit), so make sure to conserve her SP. Sibil will head to the cluster around Battle 7, so have Basara head in that direction as well. Hot Blood will increase the effectiveness of his song, and you'll probably want to do that at least once to get a Totsugeki Love Heart off on Battle 7; once Battle 7 can use the Macross Cannon, you've got a much better chance of wiping out the ZAFT army. Once Sibil is in range of Basara, have Rei use Inspiration on him and hit her with a song. She'll take off, as will any remaining Protodeviln units (so save this until turn 9 if possible to get as much XP and cash out of them as you want). - The routes join back up at this point, so scroll down to stage 24 to continue. Space Route Stage 19 Skill Point: Destroy the Muge battleship in 6 turns. The Muge battleship will flee at under 10000 HP. - The battleship is easy to identify. You've got to destroy all the enemies for the mission objective. - Once you defeat enough enemies, your troops will suffer a morale loss and the enemy battleship will move southwest. - Attacking the enemy battleship triggers an event that causes a morale gain for your troops, as well as enemy reinforcements. Space Route Stage 20 Skill Point: Destroy Marbette's Muge battleship in 4 turns - There's only one Muge battleship to start, and it's Marbette's, so you know what to aim for. Defeat any enemies you want to before defeating Marbette's ship, as once you do, the Solo Ship and Buff Clan will show up, and the initial enemies will retreat. - There's an event that triggers eventually; I did it by destroying a bunch of enemies and then damaging Gije's battleship a couple of times. However it happens, Cosmo will whip out the Ideon Sword MAP attack. The rest of the enemies will then retreat. Space Route Stage 21 Skill Point: Defeat all enemies in 5 turns - It's the return of Goshogun, if you like that sort of thing. Anyway, you've only got Ideon and Goshogun against the enemies to start, so do your best to start clearing them out. Note also that you've got control of the Goshogun battleship for this battle; it has Disturbance, which can help you survive. - The Alpha Numbers show up on player turn 3. Space Route Stage 22 Skill Point: Get the Solo Ship to the indicated area in 4 turns without it taking any damage - The Solo Ship has enough movement to get to the square in 2 turns with Accelerate if it goes straight through the enemies, but it will likely take damage that way, so you'll want to have it go around along the west edge and block the enemies with your other units. - Once you get the Solo Ship to the white area, the Buff Clan will show up, as well as the Gaiking battleship. Deal with the initial enemies and then turn your attention to the Buff Clan. - Attacking the main Buff Clan battleship triggers another event, in somewhat less of an epic fashion than its anime counterpart. Space Route Stage 23 Skill Point: Clear the map in 9 turns - Don't push too far ahead as you pursue this group of enemies, as there will be reinforcements coming from the south near the crater, and from the southeast. However, send a couple up to the green battleship and destroy it, since that's what triggers the reinforcements and you want as much time as possible to deal with them. - The reinforcements, as I said, will show up in the south and southeast. There will also be four units that surround the Gaiking ship, and a morale down effect will be used on the Solo Ship which renders it unable to move, attack, or use seishin. You'll need some units to free the Gaiking ship, some units to mop up the initial enemies, some to take it to the new enemy battleships (which will hang back for a while) and some to fend off the units which will head for the Solo Ship. - Attacking the western green enemy battleship of the two enemy battleships in the south will cause an event where the Solo Ship regains mobility. - The routes join back up at stage 24 at this point. Stage 24 Skill Point: Defeat all enemies in 3 turns - Welcome to Mars. This one should be pretty easy, as long as you're careful about using defensive seishin and Accelerate. Transform Noin's Taurus to Mobile Armor mode to get Zech's airborne. - More enemies show up when you defeat the first wave. - On the player turn after the enemy reinforcements appear, the Alpha Numbers show up. Despite what it looks like, you'll want to split your forces, since enemy reinforcements will be showing up on the northern side of the map; this enemy force will include your main character's rival, so plan accordingly. Sound Force will launch as an event unit; use them for stat or morale boosts as needed. - Said enemy reinforcements will appear once you destroy enough of the existing enemies, so finish off as many of them as you can with Zechs, Daimos, and Voltes V so that you don't move too many of your own reinforcements needlessly. After this, just destroy everyone to end the stage. Stage 25 Skill Point: Clear the map in 8 turns - Your first win condition is to destroy the Helmoze, which you should remember from stage 14. Your main character's rival is also hanging around. It's not strictly necessary to destroy all the other enemies, but it will probably make your life easier. Be aware that you've got things to do after destroying the Helmoze, so don't take the full 8 turns to get to it. Ground units will have trouble getting up the hill, so you may want to just rush up with your flying units and leave your ground platoons to fight off the rest of the enemies. - When you reduce the Helmoze to below 80000 HP, it will be replaced with the Zufield. Your new objective is to destroy it. It's got a barrier, as well as high HP regen, but hopefully if you were quick about getting to the Helmoze you should have enough time to destroy it. Stage 26 Skill Point: Destroy all enemies in 3 turns - This shouldn't be terribly difficult; the main issue is the mobility of the smaller STMC bugs, which can be hard for some units to hit without Lock-On. Make sure to get some of your stronger units to the STMC 'battleship', as its HP pose the largest obstacle to meeting the time limit requirement. Don't bother with EN or SP conservation, as this objective is all you have. Stage 27 Skill Point: (second part) Defeat all enemies in 7 turns - Note that GaoGaiGar is in a blue event platoon, which means you can add units to it if you so desire. I'll stop mentioning blue event platoons at this point, but keep an eye out for them. - The first part has nothing to do with the skill point, so play how you like. You'll begin the next part of the stage down a fixed amount of HP, EN, and SP regardless of how much you use in this part, so feel free to blow everything you have (although you shouldn't need to). All you have to do for this part is defeat the Zonderized enemies; one set of reinforcements appear a little behind the westernmost group once you've defeated enough of the initial enemies. - Once you defeat all the enemies, an event will occur, and you'll move to the second part of the stage. This is the part the skill point applies to. As I mentioned, all your units are down HP and EN, and are at half SP, and you'll be back at starting morale. Move forward, taking the enemies one group at a time, and be careful of their support defenders and Zonder barriers. Try to prevent your characters from dying, and don't be afraid to use SP as needed. - Defeating a certain number of enemies will trigger an event. Gai overcomes adversity, and the Alpha Numbers are filled with ZA POWAH NO CHIKARA. Your HP and EN are restored to full, as is your SP, and your morale is increased to 300 (!). Now you can begin to clear the map in earnest. - Once you defeat the enemies, that Arm jerk will combine the Primeval cores and form the Z Master. You've now got 5 turns to destroy him, which you should be able to do pretty easily, since you're still at 300 morale. He's got Invincibility up, so get rid of that before you attack him in earnest. The stage finally ends once he's out of the picture. Stage 28 Skill Point: Destroy the Zonuder in 5 turns - Things look bleak to start with, as all you've got is Galeon. You might as well attack with him, if only to see his animations, but realize that you won't be able to do more damage than the Zonuder can regen. The Zonuder won't attack on its turn. - On player turn 2 the Gaiking ship shows up and is immediately grounded, since the Zonuder drains energy. You'll want to launch your strongest 8 platoons. Move them up near the Zonuder, but don't attack yet; you're going to want to wait and focus all of your attacks during one turn. Again, the Zonuder won't attack on its turn. - On player turn 3, Gai will show up and form GaoGaiGar, with the help of the Yuusha Robo Gundan. The Zonuder will move forward a bit, and should be in prime position to come under fire from your entire force. Now, here's the catch; whenever anyone other than GaoGaiGar attacks the Zonuder, it will leave the battlefield, so you'll only have one shot with each platoon. Thus, go all out with your seishin (this is the only time that Encourage will actually be useful) and hit her with everything you've got. GaoGaiGar can attack more than once; however, as he does, parts of GaoGaiGar will break (represented by the loss of the Yuusha Robots as sub-pilots). If you attack 6 times with GaoGaiGar and the Zonuder isn't destroyed, it will be game over. It's not too difficult to do it in one turn if you're prepared (if nothing else, Gai with the Yuusha Robots as sub-pilots can pump himself up to ludicrous levels for the finishing blow if everyone else can't quite do it). Note that whoever strikes the finishing blow won't be knocked out of the battle (with the exception of Gai, who will leave once the whole thing is over). - The stage isn't over at this point, but the rest is mostly straight-forward, and packed with events. Whoever you've got left plus Cobray, and eventually some other original character reinforcements, will be up against some Balmar enemies. Stage 29 Skill Point: Destroy all enemies in 6 turns - It's been a while since you've fought ZAFT enemies. In an odd reversal, you'll probably want to send your mobile suits to engage the boss enemies and keep the super robots back to work over the grunts (the Ghosts will, as always, require Lock-On to hit with any regularity). Your battleships are immobile. - Cagalli will launch in a Skygrasper on player turn 2. She won't be too useful unless you've seriously jacked the Skygrasper (and her) for some reason. You can't hide her on the ship, since she's needed for an event later, but don't leave her near them either; I usually hide her over by the west edge. - After defeating enough enemies, enemy reinforcements will show up to the east of your battleships. Fortunately you get your own reinforcements, in the form of the Ra Kaillum, GaoFaiGar, and KouRyu and AnRyu. Between these reinforcement and your own battleships, you shouldn't need reinforcement from the rest of your units. Note that the first time KouRyu or AnRyu attack an enemy, they will automatically combine into TenRyuJin. - The aforementioned Cagalli event will take place once you defeat Aegis. Asran will try to flee and be pursued by Cagalli, at which point they'll both leave the battlefield. *** Route Split *** It's route split time again. Once again it's Earth and Space, with the Earth route dealing primarily with continuing the SEED storyline, and the Space route dealing primarily with the Macross 7 storyline. As far as secrets go, I believe that staying on the Earth route is required for some of the secrets (I'm thinking specifically of the IWSP), while there are no secrets specific to the Space route. Here's who goes where. Earth route - The Ra Kaillum and Archangel, as well as the mobile suits, the Mazinger team, Jeeg, Dancougar, Voltes V and Daimos, and the EVAs. Space route - The Gaiking ship, as well as Goshogun, the Getter team, Combattler V, Raideen, the GaoGaiGar crew, the Gaiking units, and the Virtualroids. Earth is top, Space is bottom. Again, they run the same number of stages. *** Route Split *** Earth Route Stage 30 Skill Point: Clear the map in 7 turns - Your first objective is...kill all enemies. Simple. You've got the standard ZAFT lineup of Ghosts, Dinns, Ginns, and the enemy Gundams. If you're gunning for the IWSP, there are some specific things you need to do in this scenario. Muu needs to destroy Deakka, and Kira needs to destroy Asran after they both SEED (you'll know when this happens). - You'll want your ground units to take the time to go around the hill in the center, rather than trying to walk over it. Duel and Buster don't move all that much until later in the battle, and you'll get to them faster if you go around. - Destroying Aegis or Blitz will trigger an event. Aegis will run off to the side of the screen, Strike and Blitz will follow, and Nichol will get shot down. Duel and Buster will cast Guts+, Iron Wall, Invincibility, Vigor, Hot Blood, and Lock-On at this point. Asran will cast Guts+, Iron Wall, Invincibility, and Vigor, and he'll also SEED. Tolle will get in the way, get shot down, and Kira will SEED as well (this is where you need to have Kira kill off Asran if you're gunning for the IWSP). Kira will probably need some help destroying Asran, so after you've waited a turn for things like Iron Wall to wear off, run a couple mobile suits over for the assist. - You'll need to use weak attacks to peel away the Invincibilities from the three remaining enemy Gundams, and use Flash or an Invincibility of your own to soak up the Hot Bloods from Duel and Buster. Once you do that, finish them off. Once you defeat Asran (regardless of who you do it with) he'll self-destruct, taking Kira and Strike with him. Defeating Deakka will cause him to take off, fall in the water, and leave. Earth Route Stage 31 Skill Point: Clear the map without any of the ZAFT units being destroyed. - Oh boy. This one is rough. It's completely straight-forward if you don't care about the skill point, but if you do, it requires some finesse. We start with some ZAFT units in the southeast corner (these are not the ones that the skill point requirement refers to). I suggest you split your forces here, into grounded units and airborne units. Try to let the enemies come to you and let them face off against either your grounded units and the Ra Kaillum, or your airborne units. Send whichever group isn't engaging the enemy off across the water to the northwest (have your grounded units jump in the Ra Kaillum and have it haul them across the water if you're sending them now). You want to get at least across the water to be prepared for the second part of the stage. Send Heero wherever, as he'll be busy doing event stuff eventually and it won't really matter where you have him. It doesn't matter how much time you take with this first part, as the skill point doesn't have a time limit requirement per se. - Once you defeat the first group of ZAFT enemies, there will be some events and more ZAFT soldiers will show up, northwest across the water; they should show up right about where whichever group you sent that way is now. These are also not the ones the skill point is talking about, so destroy them. The Archangel will also show up on your side. Keep moving northwest, firing and counterattacking as you go, and start moving the first group that way as well (if you left the ground units, pile them into the Ra Kaillum and have it use Accelerate to get across as fast as possible). - Defeating enough of this second group will trigger a text event between Muu and Rau (and later Aran). DO NOT defeat the last enemy on an enemy phase; if it looks like you'll kill the last one in a counterattack, dodge or defend instead and finish them off on the next player turn. - When you kill the last of the ZAFT enemies, some events will happen. Even more ZAFT enemies will show up, Rau will kidnap Frey and leave with her, Muu will launch in his Skygrasper, and Federation Mobile Dolls will show up and knock off some of the ZAFT units. A Ghost will head for the Archangel and get headed off by a returning Kira, piloting Freedom. Kira will tell everyone to get the hell out of Dodge, but Duel will try an attack on Freedom anyway and get fought off (but not destroyed). Muu will join Kira's platoon, and you'll finally learn the skill point requirement. Now is the time to not destroy any ZAFT mobile suits; however, they are suicidal, and will attack the mobile dolls even if a counterattack would kill them, which is why you wanted to rush into the corner; you're going to want to destroy the Federation units and let the ZAFT units flee the battlefield. - Ignore the ZAFT units if they attack you; only attack the Federation units. If nothing else, keep Yzak alive, as it's required to recruit him later. If you're confused about which is which, hit start; the ZAFT units are the red ones, the Feddies are yellow (it's hard to tell with the Ghosts, but those are Federation units), and your own are in blue. You may want to make an in-battle save to return to in case you lose a ZAFT unit. Work the Federation units from west to east, as you can win the stage either by destroying all of the Federation units or by having the ZAFT units flee by reaching the white line. - After you destroy enough Federation units, there will be an event with Heero going nuts with the Twin Buster Rifle, after which some mobile dolls will show up near him, and Banjou will bring out Daitarn 3. Aran will also come out and join up with Banjou's platoon. Use Heero and Banjou to take out the nearby Feddies and then join up with the rest of the group if necessary. Feel free to go all out on this last group of enemies. Earth Route Stage 32 Skill Point: Destroy either of the two enemy battleships in 5 turns - I've reworded the skill point objective a bit (it names the pilots specifically) but the idea is the same. The battleships in question are the round units on the north edge of the map, not the dinosaur-headed one at the front of the enemy group. You've got Zengar and Retsuel to start, so head up and do some damage. - Once you engage either of the battleships, the Alpha Numbers show up. The easiest way to get down to the fight is to pile your grounded units into one of the battleships, move it down to the lower level, and then have them all jump out again; this is a little faster than having them move slowly off the cliff. You'll want a couple high-mobility units with Lock-On to head a bit south on the plateau to deal with some later enemies; alternately, leave some grounded units up there with a battleship to ferry them away once they're done. Note that your units start with slightly lowered HP and EN. - Zengar can pretty much take care of the skill point singlehandedly if you can get him up next to one of the battleships. In fact, this is advisable unless you're particularly hurting for XP, as after one of the battleships is destroyed, enemy reinforcements show up, the two battleships leave, some Balmar units appear on the plateau near the spot I mentioned earlier, and Zengar and Retsuel take off to chase Irui. Now all you have to do is destroy all the enemies. Make use of the buildings for defense if necessary. Earth Route Stage 33 Skill Point: Defeat all enemies except for the Albion in 8 turns. - You should recognize the Albion since you've used it in the past; sadly, Blue Cosmos is in charge, so good men are forced to follow bad orders. Anyway, this isn't quite as easy as it looks, given that there will be a number of reinforcements all over the place. With that in mind, split your forces. Half should stay and fight this group of enemies and half should head for the northwestern corner. There's talking on enemy turn 1 and player turn 2, but nothing that effects the battle yet. - On player turn 3, things start going down. The Archangel launches right behind Kira's starting position, Muu launches in Launcher Strike, and Kira moves over near him. Cagalli launches in Strike Rouge, and the M1 girls launch in their Astrays and join Cagalli's platoon. The Albion heads to the southwest corner and launches the three new enemy Gundams, Forbidden, Raider, and Calamity. They all have Phase Shift armor, which you should know how to deal with by now. Get Cagalli and her crew onto the nearby building so they can take advantage of its defense bonus and regen. - Damaging one of the three enemy Gundams enough will cause an event; Raider will charge the Archangel, get shot down by Buster, and retreat. Buster will then join up with Muu (and frankly I prefer switching Deakka to the leader position when you can, for the boss post-move ALL attack). Forbidden and Calamity will charge the Archangel after this, and get attacked by Asran in Justice. Asran and Kira will unleash the power of friendship, knocking off a good portion of Calamity's HP, and Asran will join Kira's platoon. - The next event triggered for me after I destroyed one of the enemy Gundams (Calamity) but it might be based on enemies destroyed. Regardless, more Federation units will show up in the southeast corner, including Yazan, who rushes to the northwest area. Camille will launch at this point and have an event battle with Yazan. After this, Dancougar enemies will show up in the northwest corner and start bombing the shit out of Orb. Aran will head inside for a scene, and then come back out to form Final Dancougar. - By this point, things are pretty crowded, but just keep plugging away and you should finish the stage in time. Make use of buildings for defense and regeneration if you can, and if you manage to finish on one side of the screen, try and get to the other side through use of Accelerate. Once you defeat all of the Federation grunts, there will be a dialogue and you'll get another win condition; survive until turn 9. If you're aiming for the skill point, this isn't necessary. - Once everything except the Albion is destroyed, there will be some more events, the Albion will fire on the Archangel and miss, and Orb will self-destruct. - At this point the routes join back up again and some main character-specific stages follow, so scroll down to the main character you're using; it's time for the mid-season upgrade. Space Route Stage 30 Skill Point: Destroy Grabil and Gabil in 6 turns. Destroy Grabil before destroying Gabil. - You start with Skull Squadron. Grabil is the large monster enemy, and is a Protodeviln; if you haven't fought them yet, this means they take reduced damage from everything except song attacks, unless they're under 100 morale. Gabil is the fruitcake in the blue unit. Get your protective seishin going and attack if you feel like it, but hold off on taking on the boss enemies. You might want to switch the platoon leader from Roy to Hikaru; Hikaru gives +20% to dodge and takes 10% less damage. - On player turn 3, the Alpha Numbers show up. You've got to keep Skull Squadron, Fire Bomber, and Diamond Force (i.e. all the event Valkyries) alive throughout the stage, so be careful with them. At this point, head towards Grabil and hit him with everything you've got; Basara does full damage, so try and get him in range to sing at him and use Hot Blood. Alternately, use Exhaust if you have it. Note also that Basara can reduce enemy morale with his songs; with the Macross 7 enemies (i.e. these) this will destroy them at under 90 morale. - Once you defeat Grabil, Gabil should be easy enough to finish off. - Kakizaki will get his dumb ass shot down after you defeat Gabil, after which Gigil will show up and force City 7, along with most of the Alpha Numbers, to fold. Space Route Stage 31 Skill Point: (second part) Defeat Gabil and Grabil, then reduce Gepelnitch's battleship below 50000 HP, all in 7 turns - Just head towards the enemies. Destroying enough platoons (4, I believe) will cause Basara, Mylene, Gamlin, and Physica to come out. Some grunts will come out, and Basara and Gamlin will move to defend them together. - Once you defeat all the grunts, you'll head to the second part of the stage. - You've dealt with Gabil and Grabil before, so you should know who they are and how to deal with them. Gepelnitch's battleship is the red one. - Once you damage Gepelnitch's ship enough (although before you hit 50000), some Balmar enemies will show up. They're allies for this fight, however. - Damaging the main battleship to belowe 50000 HP will trigger an event, and the stage will end. Space Route Stage 32 Skill Point: Defeat Vargo in 6 turns - Vargo is the non-grunt unit at the enemy's rear. He's a Protodeviln like Grabil, so deal with that accordingly. On a separate note, Diamond Force is complete again, since Docker is back, and Basara is absent. - On player turn 3, Gabil and Grabil show up, as well as Basara. Deal with them if you want to before taking on Vargo. Defeating one or the other will cause an event, and you get the Sound Boosters for Fire Bomber, as well as a morale-down effect on the remaining enemies. - Ideon, the Solo Ship, and some Buff Clan enemies will show up when you defeat Vargo, and your new task is to take them out. Space Route Stage 33 Skill Point: Defeat Etseera, Vargo, Grabil, the Gaburo Zan, and Gije's Ganga Rube within 8 turns - This one is completely nuts. You've got Macross 7 enemies to start, including Vargo and Grabil, but don't rush your entire force over there; keep some units by the starting area (preferably slower ground units, which probably includes your main character at least). - On player turn 2, Buff Clan units show up in the northwest, which is why you want to keep some units there. Hold them off with whoever you've got. Keep working most of your forces over to the Macross 7 enemies, but again, don't rush all of them in there, as you'll need a few to hold off something else. - "Something else" will show up once you defeat enough enemies; it's the Balmar Empire. The Solo Ship will be attacked and immobilized, and you'll learn the skill point. Vargo and Grabil you should already recognize. Etseera is the unique Balmar unit. The Gaburo Zan is the long Buff Clan battleship, and the Ganga Rubes are the purple Buff Clan units; check each of them to see which one has the different name, as that's the one you'll want to destroy (although you probably have enough time to destroy all three of them regardless). Split your forces as you see fit. - Defeating enough enemies causes more Macross 7 grunts to spawn. It does this forever and ever, or until you hit turn 9. - Defeating Grabil causes him to go nuts and attack...Raideen? An odd choice, and futile, as Akira returns in bad-ass fashion one event dialogue later and unleashes GODDO VOOOOOICE on Grabil, making him retreat. - The stage will end on turn 9 with a series of events. From here it goes straight into the main-character specific stages, so scroll down to whoever you're using; it's time for the mid-season upgrade. Touma Stage 34 Skill Point: Defeat all enemies in 6 turns - This one is pretty simple except for the fact that Son Ganlong is involved. He's easily the most obnoxious of the four rival characters, and if you're playing Touma's route you likely haven't had to deal with him yet. The main problem is his Medium HP Regen, although he also has a barrier you'll need to deal with. Other than that, it's the standard mix of Balmar units. - Attacking Ruria (the brown unit that starts farther away than the others) will cause Minaki to launch in Rai-Oh. At some point after this (I'm unsure of the trigger), there will be an event with Touma and he'll get into Rai-Oh. - Once you defeat everyone, Touma will chase after Baran Doban for a one-on-one duel. Defeating Baran Doban causes him to regen and smash the hell out of Touma, ending the stage. Touma Stage 35 Skill Point: Once the allied reinforcements appear, defeat all enemies in 4 turns - Probably the most bad-ass of the main character upgrade debuts. Once the carnage is over, you'll have Touma vs. 20 Balmar units. They should be no trouble to finish off. - The real battle starts afterwards, with more Balmar enemies, including Calico and Spectra (the real robot rival characters). Retsuel and Zengar will also show up and join Touma's platoon. 4 turns should be plenty of time. Kusuha Stage 34 Kusuha Stage 35 Cobray Stage 34 Skill Point: Defeat the Shin Ryuu-Ou-Ki in 6 turns - You won't have fought the Shin Ryuu-Ou-Ki on Cobray's route, although it showed up during stage 28 for some conversation. Anyway, he's a pain, as he starts with Iron Wall and Concentrate cast. He's also got a Nendou Field and medium HP regen. This isn't going to be easy by any means. Like the Zonuder on stage 28, you're going to want to spend some time getting into position before you unleash your might on him (and, just like stage 28, Encourage is actually useful for once, although you'll want to save some SP for defensive seishin; Concentrate means Son Ganlong doesn't miss often). Fortunately, Son Ganlong will only counterattack; he'll just spend his turns re-casting Concentrate and Iron Wall again. Note that the Nendou Field doesn't activate until he hits 110 morale, so if you have enough pilots who can cast Exhaust, you can make him a little easier to deal with. Don't blow all your SP Exhausting him as far as you can, however; just keep him below 110. - Once you knock him under 25000 HP or so, an event will happen, some Balmar units will show up, and he'll lose Iron Wall (though not Concentrate). He'll also regenerate back to full and rise to 150 morale. Without Iron Wall, the Nendou Field isn't so terrible, so don't feel obligated to drain him down to below 110 again. You've got two options at this point; destroy the Balmar units for cash, XP, and morale gains, or just blow your seishin pumping your characters up and focus on destroying the Shin Ryuu-Ou-Ki immediately. - When you defeat the Shin Ryuu-Ou-Ki, he'll regen some HP, and Cobray will attack him and knock him to 1 HP. Son Ganlong will then flee the battlefield. Cobray will give chase and get caught by Calico and Spectra, at which point Arad will try to save him. However, they'll take off, along with any remaining Balmar reinforcements, and the mission will end. Cobray Stage 35 Skill Point: Destroy the Bemidoban in 5 turns - First Son Ganlong and now Baran Doban; it's Cobray's day for encountering other character's rivals. The Bemidoban is the knight-looking unit with the red crest, in case you don't already recognize it on sight. Unfortunately, Cobray is in a Valk Ben, instead of his Belgbau, so you're going to have some difficulty. Every enemy on the map will make a beeline straight for Cobray, so deal with this as you like; I had his shooting stat jacked, and the only shooting attack on the Valk Ben was non-post-movement, so I just sat still, cast Concentrate, and wailed on the enemies as they came. However, if you're less confident of Cobray's abilities, feel free to run. - At some point the Alpha Numbers will show up. For me, it happened when Ruria (the other non-grunt unit besides Calico and Baran Doban) attacked Cobray, but it may occur on turn 3 or if Cobray manages to destroy a certain number of units (although it's doubtful that you can do this last bit). I assume it will also trigger if Baran Doban attacks Cobray, but Ruria beat him to it. Calico will also take off. The Alpha Numbers show up right near Cobray's starting position; if you don't move Cobray, Baran Doban will conveniently be right near them, which means you can start wailing on him at your leisure. - Defeating Baran Doban will trigger some enemy reinforcements, including Calico. What follows is probably the freakiest of the main character new unit introductions, and afterwards you'll have your new goal; destroy it. There will be an event either when you attack it for the first time or when you do enough damage (I did a hell of a lot of damage on my first attack, so I'm unsure as to which one it is) but in any case, it doesn't effect your immediate goal. - Once you destroy this new arrival, Cobray will jump into it, and after some events you'll finally control your new upgrade; the Dis Astranagun. Your new objective is to take out Calico, but feel free to destroy the remaining Balmar units before you do so. Selena Stage 34 Selena Stage 35 Stage 36 Skill Point: Destroy all enemies in 6 turns - With one slight exception a little bit later, what you see is what you get. If you're concerned about secrets, deploy Shinji. This is the standard assortment of miscellaneous Zonderized enemies, most of which you've dealt with individually by this point. - Defeating enough enemy platoons will cause an Angel to appear on the far end of the map, over the water (Ramiel, for those who are interested in those things). Conventional wisdom says that Shinji defeating this Angel is part of the process for getting the upgrade parts for his EVA, so if you're interested in that, go to it. It has an AT Field, which means that unless you do over 4000 damage in a hit, it won't take any damage. There are no other surprises for this part of the stage, so destroy the rest of the remaining enemies. - The second part of the stage features GaoFaiGar alone against...GaoGaiGar. Easy enough. Stage 37 Skill Point: Destroy all enemies in 6 turns, saving the Devarium for last - Hey, this objective looks familiar. Balmar enemies to start. - As you may have anticipated, defeating a certain number of enemies results in reinforcements, in the form of Ace and his Devarium for the enemies and the Eltruem plus the Gunbuster units for your side. This makes the skill point make a little more sense. Anyway, as long as you don't move anyone close to Ace on the turn he starts, and as long as you don't do too much to raise his morale, he shouldn't be able to MAP you to start off. Exhaust him if he gets over 120 morale before your turn ends (use Spy to check his morale). - On the player turn after the reinforcements show up, the Blue Danube will start and the Goshogun 'enemy' battleships will show up as allies. Relish this chance to use them if you're into that sort of thing. - Once you defeat Ace (remember, save him for last), he'll head for the edge of the map and some Balmar enemies will show up, at which point your units will retreat and the stage will end. *** Route Split *** This one is short, with only three stages. The Alpha Numbers are getting separated; half are with the Solo Ship and half are with Battle 7. The Solo Ship route deals with a bit more of the Ideon story before converging for some GaoGaiGar Final stuff, while the Battle 7 route deals with some of the Nagahama Trilogy stuff (Combattler, Voltes, and Daimos) before also converging for GaoGaiGar Final bits. Note that while I'm calling them the Solo Ship and Battle 7 routes (since that's how the game phrases the question), there's not really any Macross 7 storyline to speak of on the Battle 7 route. Here's who goes where (note that it describes them in reverse order in the game text). Solo Ship - The Solo Ship, Archangel, and Ra Kaillum, as well as the EVAs, the GaoGaiGar characters, the various mobile suits, Daitarn 3, Ideon, the Getter team, and Raideen. Battle 7 - The Gaiking battleship and Battle 7, as well as the Gunbuster characters, the Mazinger team, Jeeg, Combatter V, Voltes V, Daimos, the Gaiking characters, Goshogun, Dancougar, the various Valkyries, and the Virtualroids. The Solo Ship route is the top option, and the Battle 7 route is on the bottom. *** Route Split *** Solo Ship Route Stage 38 Skill Point: (second part) Clear the map in 7 turns - You've got some Buff Clan enemies to fight first. Engaging the black blocky enemy unit will result in it using a MAP weapon on Ideon (and anyone in the way). Defeat as many enemies as you feel like defeating; your objective is the enemy battleship. Once you defeat it, your units will pile into your ships and Bess will flee with the aid of the DS Drive. - The second part of the stage has you fighting on the surface of a planet. This is what the skill point applies to. Try to meet the enemy over the city not only because of the defensive boosts from the buildings, but because there are reinforcements that are going to be coming from the east. The Solo Ship is stuck where it is. - The Ideon will launch on player turn 2. - Once you defeat the existing enemies, the reinforcements will appear. To clear the map, you just have to defeat the rear-most Ganga Rube (the purple Buff Clan unit with two brown units in its platoon, as opposed to the other platoons which have the smaller green units). However, feel free to defeat whoever you want before doing so. - Once you defeat the Ganga Rube, there will be some events, culminating in Cosmo unleashing the Ideon Gun, and the stage will end. Solo Ship Route Stage 39 Skill Point: Defeat all Buff Clan platoons in 8 turns, saving the Gabro Zan for last. - The Gabro Zan is the long tube battleship; destroying it will end the stage. At first glance this seems pretty easy, but the horrible space debris everywhere means that everyone has a 15% dodge/defend bonus, and loses 10% of their EN every turn. Movement is also restricted. This makes it a little harder to do what you need to do, but you've still got 8 turns, so you should be okay. Note that Ryoma and crew are in Getter Dragon rather than Shin Getter. - On enemy turn 1 and player turn 2, there will be some talking, but nothing that effects the battle yet. - On player turn 3, some Balmar troops will show up. They're a ways away and have nothing to do with the skill point, so only go after them if you're confident you can beat them and still meet the skill point requirement. If you do decide to fight them, let them come to you. - On player turn 4, Cosmo will launch in the Ideon, with Gije in the B module. This will prompt a Buff Clan unit to launch and MAP you. Ryoma will try to stop it with Dragon, but will get beaten down. However, Shin Getter will launch and after a bit of sentimentality, it will be time for SHIN SHIIIINE SPAAAAAAAAAAKU. After this, get back to destroying the Buff Clan. Once you destroy the Gabro Zan, the stage ends. Solo Ship Route Stage 40 Skill Point: Destroy all enemies in 6 turns - You start off up against some Buff Clan units, and you start at 80 morale because something freaky is going on. The GaoGaiGar units and Rei start at normal morale. Also, all units starting at the lowered morale start with half their SP. - At the start of player turn 2, and every subsequent player turn after that, everyone except those immune to the effect will lose 10 morale and a small amount of SP (it's either a small percentage or a flat 5). This can make things pretty rough (among other things, it's a good argument for leaving Shinji out of the battle, since he's pretty flimsy without his AT Fields and you don't need the Beast messing with you). - The second part of the stage features Gai against some random enemies and should pose little difficulty. Battle 7 Route Stage 38 Skill Point: Destroy all enemies in 6 turns - A completely unremarkable skill point; no reinforcements or complicating events. Battle 7 Route Stage 39 Skill Point: Defeat Hainel and Richter in 7 turns. Defeat Richter before defeating Hainel. - Hainel is riding the skull battleship, while Richter is in the battleship topped by a red triangle, right next to Hainel at the start. - After you defeat enough enemies, some Balmar enemies show up to annoy you. Pick them off if you want before taking out Hainel and Richter. - Beating Richter will cause Hainel to move next to him (to save him from, you know, dying in the vacuum of space). Defeating Hainel after this will cause him to come out in another unit. You'll need to beat this one too. (You can use Voltes V to have a conversation with Hainel at this point, but I don't believe it affects anything). - After you beat Hainel for the second time, some events will end the stage (fun fact, that I learned during the playthrough where I recorded this stage: Isamu's Valkyrie is more expensive to repair than Gaiking). Battle 7 Route Stage 40 Skill Point: Defeat Palparepa Pras in 7 turns - This is somewhat similar to the second part of the Solo Ship's route 40; you've got Gai up against a bunch of enemies (although more in this case). You shouldn't have too much trouble. - The Alpha Numbers will show up on player turn 3. Everyone starts at half their normal SP. Palparepa will come out at this point, with Invincibility cast (so peel that off with a weak attack). - Defeating Palparepa will cause an event that ends with Gai getting destroyed and some more enemies coming out. - You'll get a morale/SP down effect on every player turn after the turn the Alpha Numbers show up. Stage 41 Skill Point: Defeat GaoFaiGar by turn 7 - The choice here is important for getting Gije later (choose the first choice), but doesn't effect anything at the moment; no matter what you choose, more events will happen and J will show up to bring you to the real battle (this choice also has nothing to do with getting the Ideon ending or not). - For this first bit you're going to be fighting a lot of enemies. When you defeat a certain number, more reinforcements will appear in the northeastern part of the map. This will keep happening as you defeat more and more enemies, but they'll always appear in the same place, so you'll want to send some units over to the west side to defeat those units, then start working those units over to the eastern side to converge on the area with the reinforcements. What makes this difficult at first is the fact that you will, like in the last battle, start off at lowered morale (50, this time) and half SP, except for certain characters (Jeeg, Rei, Basara, and J). Fortunately there's no morale-lowering effect for this battle, so you can use the enemies to build up your morale, which you'll want to do for the next part. - On player turn 6, GaoFaiGar will show up, and since Gai is under the control of the Machine Kings, you'll have to fight him. Note that I'm unsure if the skill point means that you have to defeat him before turn 7, or by the end of turn 7, but in any case, defeating him in turn 6 will meet the requirement, and end the stage. Stage 42 Skill Point: Defeat all enemies in 7 turns - Very straight-forward; it's an all-out brawl against the Machine Kings and, for some reason, SEED units. - Defeat the battleship with J if possible, as you need to do this to get Renais as a sub-pilot. It will then transform and regen HP. Defeat the battleship again (it is not necessary to beat it with J the second time) and J will unleash the J Phoenix if he beat it the first time. - Defeat Palparepa and he'll come back in a stronger form, which you'll also need to beat. - Once you beat everyone, you'll move to the second part of the stage. You've got 4 turns to get Genesic GaoGaiGar to the green square behind the enemies. Defeating the enemies is futile apart from the cash and XP they give, as destroying enough of the regular enemies will bring reinforcements, and defeating the bosses will just cause them to respawn. You're also down a bit of HP and EN. That said, 4 turns should be plenty of time, since he can make it in 2 with Accelerate if no one gets in his way. - After the stage ends, things split off again into main character-specific stages. Touma Stage 43 Skill Point: Defeat Baran in 5 turns - You've fought Baran and his Bemidoban many times by now, so you should be able to pick him out. He'll head for you, so either wait him out or meet him in the middle. Ace and his Devarium, as well as Spectra and Calico, are here as well. - Defeating Baran will cause both him and Touma to leave the map. Hazal will come out in his Vyclone, and Ryuusei will charge him and get beaten back. Now you have to either destroy Hazal's Vyclone, or destroy the enemy battleship. - Once you defeat either Hazal or the battleship, Hazal will strike Ryuusei down with all of his hatred and you'll move on to the second part of the stage. - Another one-on-one duel with Baran. Beating him will, as usual, cause an event battle which, unsurprisingly, Touma will lose. Touma Stage 44 Skill Point: Destroy the Vyclone within 5 turns - You saw the Vyclone last stage, but if you forgot, it's the one nearest to the Crossgate. You've dealt with everything else that's on this stage before. The various boss characters will start moving toward you on enemy turn 2, so feel free to finish dealing with the grunts without feeling like you have to rush over to the Vyclone. - As in all of these stages, once you take out the Vyclone Ryuusei charges it, Ace comes out and combines his Devarium with the Vyclone, and Hazal goes nuts and charges the battleships. The deciding factor here is, of course, Touma, who gives Hazal a Jinrai in the face for his trouble. Afterwards, Banpreios shows up, as well as Zengar and Retsuel, and Ruria joins Touma's platoon. You've got to take down the Vyclone again, which is easier to do if you target Ace's Devarium, which is in the same platoon, first. - Damaging Hazal enough will cause Baran to come out and join up with Touma's platoon for the remainder of the stage. - After this stage, the routes split again. Kusuha Stage 43 Kusuha Stage 44 Cobray Stage 43 Skill Point: Destroy the Bemidoban in 5 turns - This should seem familiar. Pound on grunts (or abuse the Totsugeki Love Heart MAP) and head towards Baran Doban. Unfortunately, he hits high morale fairly quickly, which means his Guard activates and makes him obnoxious to deal with, so Exhaust or do whatever to get through that. Try not to have moved Ryuusei on the turn you finally deal with the Bemidoban. - Once you destroy the Bemidoban, it leaves the battlefield and there are some events. Afterwards, you'll end up with Ryuusei near the newly-arrived Vyclone and enemy battleship. Your objective is to destroy either one of them. - The second part of the stage is an old-fashioned rival duel between Calico and Cobray. Once you beat him, the stage will end. Cobray Stage 44 Skill Point: Destroy the Vyclone within 3 turns of its arrival - You start out having to destroy all enemies, with no knowledge of the skill point, so do whatever preparations you need to do and get to it. - Once you defeat enough enemies the Vyclone appears near the Crossgate. Get on back there and defeat him. You'll probably want to ignore Son Ganlong unless you feel you can take both him and the Vyclone out within the time limit (you'll have a chance to get him afterwards if you don't deal with him now). - Destroying the Vyclone triggers a hell of a lot of events; once they've ended, you'll have to destroy the Vyclone again, this time without a time limit and with new reinforcements, in the form of the returning Cobray, Ryuusei in Banpreios with his Psychic Power back, Restuel and Zengar, and Ruria. Destroy whoever you want to before you destroy the Vyclone (although you'll probably need to deal with Ace's Devarium before you defeat the Vyclone, since Ace will support defend Hazal). Defeating the Vyclone will end the stage. - The routes split after this mission, so save and head to the next route split section. Selena Stage 43 Selena Stage 44 *** Route Split *** This one's a bit different from the previous route split choices, as it goes 4 ways instead of two. One fourth of the Alpha Numbers decides to search for Irui on Earth, which has them go through more Jeeg storyline and some Dancougar stuff. Another fourth goes after ZAFT and does some SEED storyline as well as a bit of EVA. These two routes join up for a final mission that finishes off the Dancougar storyline. A third group follows the next bit of Macross 7 storyline, while the fourth group heads off to the planet Boazan to deal with the final part of the Combattler/Voltes/Daimos storyline, as well as some Ideon to wrap up. Those two routes join up for a combined Macross 7/Ideon mission, with some Gunbuster thrown in. As far as secrets go, the SEED/EVA route contains a requirement you'll have to fulfill to get the upgrade parts for Shinji's EVA, while the Macross 7 route contains requirements for the Macross 7 Emerald Force Valkyries (alledgedly; I've gotten them not only on the Nagahama route when it met up with the Macross 7 route, but by taking one of the Earth routes as well), and either space route can be taken to fulfill another requirement for having Gije survive. It's best to check a dedicated secrets guide for everything; the point is that there's no one best route to take to get secrets like there was for some of the other route splits. Here's who goes on what route if you swing that way. Irui Search Route - The Gaiking battleship, as well as the Gaiking characters, the Mazinger team, the Getter team, Jeeg, and Dancougar. SEED/EVA Route - The Ra Kaillum and Archangel, as well as the mobile suits and the EVA units. Macross 7 Route - Battle 7, and the Valkyries, the Gunbuster characters, Daitarn 3, and Goshogun. Nagahama Route - The Solo Ship, as well as Ideon, the GaoGaiGar characters, the Virtualroids, Combattler V, Voltes V, Daimos, and Raideen. Here's how the choices work. Top, Top - Irui Search Route Top, Bottom - SEED/EVA Route Bottom, Top - Macross 7 Route Bottom, Bottom - Nagahama Route Each route has three missions, followed by one mission where they join up with the units who went to that general area for a fourth mission (Irui and SEED/EVA join for their mission, Macross 7 and Nagahama join for theirs). After that the routes join up again. *** Route Split *** Irui Search Route Stage 45 Irui Search Route Stage 46 Irui Search Route Stage 47 SEED/EVA Route Stage 45 Skill Point: Destroy all enemies in 5 turns - ZAFT units to start. Very straight-forward. Note that when you shoot down the ZAFT units, they retreat rather than blow up. - Once you defeat the ZAFT units and gain the skill point, an Angel shows up. Have Shinji shoot it down if you want his extra parts. Once you defeat it, some events will happen and the stage will end. SEED/EVA Route Stage 46 Skill Point: Destroy the Dominion (the Dominion will flee if it is reduced below 20000 HP) - You start with the Eternal, which is probably the worst battleship in the game, against a bunch of ZAFT troops and no idea about the skill point. I suggest using Bartfield's Accelerate and high-tailing it across the map. - The Alpha Numbers will show up on player turn 3 and you'll deploy, but the skill point still won't be evident. Start blasting the ZAFT troops. - After defeating most of the ZAFT troops, the remainder will be blown to space dust and the Blue Cosmos-controlled Federation troops will show up. Now they have Ghosts. The skill point becomes clear at this point. You should be able to dish out 20K with judicious use of Soul and support attacks. - Defeating Calamity, Raider, or Forbidden will cause whichever one you defeated to use Guts. After some events, Kira and Asran will get their Meteors and they, the three enemy Gundams, and the Eternal will end up a bit away from the battle. SEED EVA Route Stage 47 Skill Point: Destroy Calamity, Forbidden, and Raider before Frey reaches the Dominion. - You start out against the Federation this time. Move forward and start attacking. - On enemy turn 2, ZAFT will show up. - When Yzak or Rau attack or are attacked, there will be an event where Yzak, Rau, Muu, Kira, and Deakka head inside the colony. After a bit of talking, and a lot of moving around on all sides, you'll find out the skill point. It should make sense. Now's the time to take on the three enemy Gundams. - Once you accomplish the skill point objective (or, I assume, Frey reaches the Dominion), Kira will get whomped in an event battle, the Federation forces and Rau will leave, as well as Kira, and your objective will change to destroying the Vesalius, which will end the stage. - A note on Duel; I don't believe defeating him on this stage effects getting him later, as he says the same thing regardless of whether you shoot him down before destroying the Vesalius or leave him alone. - The two 'earth' routes (the Irui Search and this SEED/EVA routes) will combine for a joint Earth Route Stage 48. Macross 7 Route Stage 45 Macross 7 Route Stage 46 Macross 7 Route Stage 47 Nagahama Route Stage 45 Skill Point: Destroy all other enemies before you destroy the Zaltan - The Zaltan is at the very north edge of the screen. The complication for this stage is the planetary defense system, represented by the white squares. Every turn it will move northward; I assume bad things happen if you're caught in it. Anyway, push forward as best you can. Once you get up to the platoons with 3 enemies in them, a decently-upgraded Solo Ship with Iron Wall and Lock-On can do wonders through counter-attacking. - Defeating the Zaltan will cause it to blunder into the planetary defense system, and the stage will end. Nagahama Route Stage 46 Skill Point: Clear the map in 10 turns, destroying all enemies in the process - Lots of screaming to start, then the Alpha Numbers show up. To start, you've got just Combattler V, who can't move, against Voltes V and Daimos (although you've deployed your forces, you can't do anything with them). There's no winning condition at this point, and you lose if you destroy either Voltes V or Daimos. So just hang out, defend or dodge when they attack you, and wait. - On player turn 4, there are some events, and Hainel shows up to join up with you (temporarily). The enemies are out now, so start blowing them up. The winning condition is to defeat Archemedes, but destroy the other enemies before you do that; he's in the blue and yellow four-pointed battleship in the northeast corner. Note that the skill point needs to be done by turn 10, not 10 turns from this event, but this should still be plenty of time. - When you defeat the Bramble, Archemedes will come out in one of those fish things. Destroy this too to see the Nagahama Special unleashed. More enemies will come out; your winning condition is now to defeat Janera, who's in the four-headed dragon thing in the center of the enemies. Defeat all the others before her, however. The stage ends once you defeat her. Nagahama Route Stage 47 Skill Point: (fifth (!) part) Defeat the 2 Gataman Zans before defeating the Gabro Zan. - I think of this one as the gauntlet. It has many parts, of which this is only the first. You start off against some Buff Clan, all of which you need to defeat in 3 turns, or you'll lose. You don't need to pace yourself, as such, so go all out with whatever MAP or ALL weapons you have (I recommend Ryuusei's Telekinesis Missile, which really should have been named the Problem Solver). - For the second part, you've got pretty much the same thing, except the Buff Clan units are slightly stronger. Once again, you need to beat them in 3 turns or you'll lose. You're down a small amount of HP, EN, and SP, although ammo is replenished. - The third part is...wait for it...more Buff Clan. Again, they're tougher, and again, you're down a bit more HP, EN, and SP, but this time you only have 2 turns. - You're down to half HP, EN, and 40% SP, and you've only got 2 turns to take out the Buff Clan for the fourth part of the stage. An in-battle save is probably a good idea for this one, in case you screw something up. - I believe you're at 60% HP, EN, and SP for part 5, although I didn't really bother doing the exact math. The Gataman Zans are the lighter brown, two-pronged battleships in the rear; the Gabro Zan is the longer, darker brown battleship. You'll lose the stage if you don't destroy the Gabro Zan before turn 7 starts, so you've got to get through the enemies in time to destroy the Gataman Zans and then the Gabro Zan. - Thankfully, defeating the Gabro Zan ends the stage once and for all. This route now joins up with the Macross 7 route for a final Space Route Stage 48. Earth Route Stage 48 Skill Point: Defeat all enemies 6 turns from Muge Solbados' arrival. Defeat Muge Solbados last. - First, you have to deal with the three enemy bosses. The westernmost one, Marbette, is in the northern battleship. Desgaya is in the center group, and is in the red and green unit. Gildorome is in the eastern group in the purple and grey unit. You'll want to go for Gildorome as fast as possible; you'll see why in a second. - On player turn 2, you'll get hit with some nasty energy and some of your units will become enemies; I believe this is completely random, although at three times through the stage I've had the main character turn into an enemy all three times. Regardless, this is why you want to kill Gildorome, as he's the one responsible for it. Once you defeat him, everything goes back to normal. - Damaging Desgaya enough will cause him to use Guts+, Invincibility, Vigor, Hot Blood, and Lock-On. Get rid of these in the usual manner and take him out again. - Once you defeat all three Dancougar bosses, Muge Solbados and a bunch of other super robot archenemies arrive. This part is going to be rough, as you have to rip through the other bosses before you take on Muge Solbados (he's the centermost one, with purple and red headgear). Defeating him ends the stage regardless of whether you've beaten everyone else or not. - The routes all meet up here for an extended stretch. Space Route Stage 48 Skill Point - Defeat Gabigra (Gabigra will retreat at below 12000 HP). - You're up against the Protodeviln to start. Gabigra isn't around yet. At some point, Gabil will combine with Grabil to form Gabigra, as per the anime. I think this happens when one or the other is defeated, but I am a bad FAQ writer and wasn't paying attention while my Telekinesis Missile was wreaking havoc, so it could be that I either destroyed Gabil with it or just destroyed enough enemies. Regardless, there you go. Gabigra is a Protodeviln like any other, which means you'll either want to Exhaust him to get rid of his Protodeviln status or use Basara to deal the finishing blow. Note that the winning condition for the stage is to defeat either Goram or Zomdo, the two new enemies that also show up during the Gabigra combination event. They are also Protodevilns, unsurprisingly. - Defeating Gabigra causes him to...be defeated. Defeating either Goram or Zomdo causes an event with Basara. Goram and Zomdo retreat, Sibil seemingly kills Basara by sucking his Spiritia, the STMC show up, and the Solo Ship picks up Basara. Then Ideon launches. Now, here's the bit; Gije's going to eat it later in this stage, but apparently it's possible to get him back, and one of the steps for doing so is having the IDE gauge at level 5 by the time the stage ends. The easiest way to do this is to slap on Iron Wall and dive into the STMC with Ideon. Move everyone else northwest, as there are reinforcements that are going to show up there. Or, if you don't care about Gije, which you may well not, do whatever; you've got the skill point already. - The reinforcements are the Buff Clan, and they'll show up on the following player turn. Your objective is now to destroy the Gabro Zan, which is the long, brown battleship (this is why leaving Ideon alone to tank the STMC works, since you don't actually have to destroy them to clear the stage). - Once you destroy the Gabro Zan, it rams Ideon, which takes off and destroys the planet or moon or whatever, and the stage ends. - The routes all meet up here. Stage 49 Skill Point: (first part) Destroy Gabigra - If you want to recruit Gabil, deploy Gamlin in some fashion. - For the first part of the stage, you need to get Battle 7 to the white square in 5 turns. Complicating this is the skill point. Gabigra is the combined Gabil/Grabil, and is the only monster-looking enemy on the battlefield when you start. He's a Protodeviln, so only songs are going to do full damage to him unless you spam Exhaust on him. Further complicating the skill point itself is that if you want to recruit Gabil after this stage, you need to destroy Gabigra with Gamlin. Anyway, keep this all in mind as you battle the grunts and battleships. - On player turn 3, Goram and Zomdo show up. They're more Protodeviln enemies, in case you've been skipping the Macross 7 missions. If you really need cash or XP and you think you can take them before the time limit is up, feel free. Defeating all enemies or getting Battle 7 to the indicated square takes you to the second part of the stage. - The second part is similar to the first. You need to get Battle 7 to the white square, although you've got 6 turns to do it in this time. Start heading towards it, clearing a path with your other units. I recommend not fighting the 'boss' enemies, as they're more trouble than they're worth and you're going to have a bigger target shortly. If you want to recruit Gabil, don't destroy him during this stage (he's back in his bastardized Valkyrie for this stage). - (As a side note, I've had Shinji get shot down more times on this stage than on all other stages combined, due to the fact that the enemies love to focus on him with their morale-lowering attacks, rendering his AT Fields useless. He's not unusable on this stage, but be careful with him, as you don't need the Beast messing with you on top of everything else. Also, as a fun but useless fact, I don't think I've ever finished this stage on the same day I started it). - On player turn 3, the enemy mothership shows up on the white square. It's going to hang out there and not move, so you're going to have to destroy it before you can move Battle 7 onto it. As long as you keep pounding away at it, it shouldn't pose a problem; its mainly a pain because of its massive amount of HP. Avoid blowing your entire SP reserve on it since you'll have more to do after it's destroyed. - Once you destroy the ship and get Battle 7 to the square, it's event time. Max, and subsequently Millia, launch to defend Mylene, and Exedore lets a couple Macross Cannon shots loose on Gepelnitch. This will, of course, not work, so Mylene and Gamlin, if you deployed him, will head into Battle 7 to try and wake up Basara while Ray holds off Gepelnitch. This is what you were saving your mojo for. Gepelnitch is a Protodeviln like any other, except he's got a huge amount of HP. Unfortunately he's got Morale Up (Damage) which makes keeping him below 100 tough. - Once you do about 50000 damage, he'll heal it, absorb Goram and Zomdo if they're around, and then Gabil will combine with Grabil (or just show up if you shot him down, I believe) and confront Gepelnitch, then leave. "Do You Remember Love?" starts playing and everyone gets boosted to max morale, whatever that might happen to be. Time to open it up again. - After doing enough damage, Basara wakes up and heads out. After some more talking, everyone gets Hot Blood and recovers 50 SP. Attacking Gepelnitch with Basara at this point, apart from doing full damage, will cause another event; Sibil shows up, joins up with Fire Bomber, and does a combined Try Again on Gepelnitch for some more damage. At this point, with free Hot Blood and max morale, you shouldn't have too much of a problem taking off the rest of Gepelnitch's HP. Stage 50 Skill Point: Defeat the Helmoze in 5 turns - At the start of the battle, your forces will get hit by the light coming from the giant orb. Every platoon hit by this will be reduced to 1/2 current HP; I believe who gets hit is random. From now on this light will hit random platoons at the beginning of every enemy turn (including the first one, so you're hit with a double whammy right out of the gate). The objective should be pretty clear, as you've tangled with the Helmoze before. The flashing square isn't something you have to get to, it's what you have to attack to disable the damaging light. Do this if you want to, although you don't have to do it to clear the stage. - The event at the beginning of enemy turn 1 is just the Alpha Numbers commenting on what I just mentioned about the enemy globe. - Once you defeat the Helmoze, the Zufield deploys, as well as the Jumora and the Bemidoban. You only need to defeat the Zufield to end the stage. Defeating Baran Doban will cause him to use Guts, but then he'll come to his senses and retreat. Stage 51 Skill Point: (second part) Destroy Providence Gundam - As the stage begins, you...can't do anything because you're not there. It's just the ZAFT and Federation forces for the first turn. On the second turn, you'll show up. Deploy Deakka some fashion if you care about getting Yzak. The Federation will launch a bunch of nuclear missiles; you have to stop them from getting to the white line at the end of the map, or it's game over. They can be destroyed through straight-up damage; also, if they are attacked and they hit with a melee attack, they'll explode. Hopefully the ZAFT units will take out a few in this way, but you'll have to be doing the bulk of the work yourself. Avoid Yzak for the moment, but otherwise cut loose on anyone who attacks you. My personal favorite method of dealing with the missiles is getting Ryuusei to 120 morale, then using Awaken and Resupply to get 2 Telekinesis Missile MAP attacks, which clears things out nicely. - Once you destroy the missiles, more events happen. More Federation troops come out, Kira, Asran, Cagalli, and Lacus SEED, and you'll have your new, two-fold mission objective. First, you have to get Asran's unit to the white, flashing square. Second, you have to destroy the Dominion. - If you want Yzak, have Deakka attack his platoon. He doesn't need to do damage to Yzak or even attack Yzak (in writing this I tested by attacking one of Yzak's back-up units, which triggered this as normal). Once he does, Yzak will become a friendly unit. Even if you didn't fulfill all the requirements for recruiting him, he'll still join for this battle as long as you do it this way. Yzak and Deakka need to stay alive until the battle ends for Yzak to join you. - At some point, Rau will launch in the Providence by the white flashing square; this can happen either after you move Asran too near the square or on an enemy turn (it's either turn 4 or the turn after you defeat all the missiles). - Things can get a bit hairy with regards to events, as Rau can come back after a defeat after events are triggered or just when he feels like it, and since you need to accomplish both objectives to win things can go differently depending on what you do first. Destroy who you want, and accomplish the stage goals when you're ready to move on to the second part. (A note: Muu will block the Dominion's final attack in an event after you destroy it. Don't worry, he's not dead, although you won't be able to use him in the next part of the stage and you'll have to put him back into Strike during the intermission). - For the second part of the stage, you have to destroy the white square in 4 turns. You can only attack it from the front, and this is further complicated by the skill point. Similarly, from Providence's starting position, you can only attack him from the 'front' as he's blocked somewhat by the reactor (the only time line of sight really seems to matter in SRW). What you want to do is lure him out, but since he has an enormous range, you don't want to go too far from your starting position. Consider the line Asran and Kira are on to be safe. Anyway, you don't need to defeat the grunts for morale, as you carry over your morale gains from the first part of the stage, so wait for Rau to come out, blast him, then blast the reactor. You start a bit down on HP, SP and EN. - On player turn 2, if you recruited Yzak successfully, he'll show up in Duel. Stage 52 Skill Point: Keep Asuka alive for 2 turns - Putting 2 Haros on Asuka will make getting this skill point a lot easier. - You start with the three EVAs against an Angel. This one will actually ignore you and head east across the screen, so don't bother trying to move up to it. Instead, move forward so that you're in its path and take potshots as it goes by. - Once you defeat the Angel, Rei will leave, some mass-produced EVAs will show up, and Asuka will toss Shinji aside. You now have to keep her alive for 2 turns if you want the skill point, which is why you wanted to put some Haros on her. Don't bother with seishin other than Intuition, and flee to the east or west. Dodge or defend against the attacks and hope. - Whether Asuka lives or is destroyed, the result is the same; she'll be taken out by the mass-produced EVAs, the Alpha Numbers will show up to pick up Shinji and Asuka, and you'll launch against the enemies. Try not to use too many of your resources on the mass-produced EVAs. - Things go completely nuts after you defeat the mass-produced EVAs. Your goal after everything settles down is to defeat Shinji's EVA. Defeating the mass-produced EVAs at this point is pointless, because they'll just respawn, so dodge or defend when they attack you. - Doing enough damage to Shinji's EVA will make things go even more nuts (and hard to see), and you'll end up with a 5-turn deadline. Once you defeat his EVA, you'll move on to the second part of the stage. - You'll start with Shinji against a horde of mass-produced EVAs and the nutso EVA from the first part of the stage, this time with a dummy plug. If you're confident of Shinji's abilities, you could move him forward to take on the horde, but I always move him back as far as he can go. The big ol' EVA will head towards him twice, and the mass-produced EVAs will stay put. This is perfect, because on the second turn, the Alpha Numbers will show up, as well as Kaworu in Rei's EVA. At this point, defeating the crazy EVA will end the stage. I assume you can destroy the mass-produced EVAs as well, but I'm usually sick of this stage at this point. Stage 53 Skill Point: Destroy 230 units in 7 turns - Note that you'll get some extra units, mostly UC stuff, after the intermission and before the battle, so make whatever changes to your lineup getting those units entails. - Welcome to the intro movie. You start off against some Buff Clan units, although there aren't nearly 230 of them, which indicates that there are going to be some reinforcements. Start taking them out, sending your heavy hitters at their battleships and taking out the grunts with the rest of your troops. - Once you destroy enough Buff Clan units, the STMC bugs will show up, and Calico and Spectra will make off with Irui. This is where you're getting your kill count from. The STMC and Buff Clan will both go after each other and you; the difference is that once the Buff Clan is gone, it's gone, whereas the STMC will keep coming back once you get them down to 6 units remaining. It's time to abuse ALL and MAP attacks. You'll want to send out some strong units to destroy the outer battleships, since the reinforcement units all appear in the same spot near the Crossgate. You can check on how many units you've destroyed in the 5th Command menu option; it's the first number. - The stage won't end until turn 8 when, regardless of how many enemies you've destroyed, the Alpha Numbers will get sick of the never-ending onslaught and head into the Crossgate. You won't get the skill point until you actually hit turn 8. Stage 54 Skill Point: Destroy the 2 Helmoze before you clear the stage. Clear the stage in 10 turns. - 10 turns seems like a lot, but we've got a lot to do. Ryuusei (actually Viletta) should be Accelerating every turn at this point and moving as far as possible towards one of the globes; it really doesn't matter which one. The Helmoze this time are red and blue, but otherwise they're the same as the Helmoze you've fought on previous stages. - On the enemy's first turn, the three globes will glow, similar to the one in stage 50, and light will strike squares at random. This is good, as it's entirely possible that the squares it strikes will be unoccupied. If they do hit someone, they'll be reduced to half their current hit points. The SRX team will realize that Aya is in one of the three globes, and you'll have a new goal. The correct square is random; sometimes it's in the first one you check, sometimes the second, and sometimes you have to check all three. Anyway, with Accelerate, Banpreios should be able to get between squares fairly quickly while the rest of your units deal with the Balmar enemies. - It's possible to clear the map of enemies, even the Helmoze, before you find Aya, especially if you have to search all three squares. If this happens, gather in the southeast, between the two nearest globes in that direction. - Once you find the right square, a bunch of events happen. When they're over, your new objective is to defeat the Jumora. You've got Ruria and Baran on your side, and Aya as a new SRX sub-pilot. Defeat the 2 Helmoze if you haven't already, then take out the Jumora. - Once you take out the Jumora, there will be some events and everyone except Baran will leave the battlefield. Baran will go off on his own, but he will be stopped by Zengar (or Touma if you're playing his route). You'll have to defeat him in single combat, which should be no problem by now. After you beat him, he'll join you. Stage 55 Skill Point: Defeat the 2 Zufields in 6 turns - Your objective is to defeat all the enemies, so move forward and do so, making sure to head for the Zufields as soon as you can. You've dealt with Zufields before, so you should recognize them. - Once you defeat both of them, the Gebel Guneden will appear, and you'll have to defeat it. Doing so ends this part of the stage. - For the second part, you're up against more Balmar enemies. You'll have to clear them all out. Defeating either Calico or Spectra will cause the other to use Vigor, Hot Blood, Lock-On, Flash, and Concentrate. If you don't finish off the Devariums around Ace's Vyclone before you finish him off, they'll be destroyed when he is. - Once you defeat everyone, you'll get to fight Gebel Guneden again. Stage 56 Skill Point: (second part) Clear the map in 7 turns - The first part has you facing off against Buff Clan ships; your objective is to destroy the Dorowa Zan, which is the darker colored battleship, in 5 turns; you'll lose if you hit turn 6. - Destroying the Dorowa Zan takes you to the second part of the stage, where you face off against more Buff Clan. Your first goal is to get the Solo Ship to the main enemy battleship, but once you get near enough to it with anyone, an event will occur and you'll get a new goal; get a unit to the white square. Doing this ends the stage. You can either bust through the enemy lines, or just use Awaken and Anticipation to get someone there in one turn. The STMC will also show up at some point. - The choice at the end of this stage is fairly important; choosing the first option is a requisite for getting the Ideon Ending (i.e. the Bad Ending). You can't get it on your first playthrough, however, so don't worry about it unless you're replaying. If you don't want to blow up the universe, choose the second option. If you choose the first option on a replay, you'll go to an alternate stage 57; if you choose the second, or you're on a first playthrough, you'll go to the route split and proceed normally. *** Route Split *** The last route split is only for two missions. The Ideon Route takes you through the last bits of the Ideon storyline (except everyone survives) while the Gunbuster Route takes you through, oddly, the Gunbuster storyline. Note that if you're getting the Ideon Ending, you won't go to the route split choice, and instead will go directly to the Ideon Ending stage. Secret hoarders should know that you'll need to go on the Ideon route to get Gije, while there are no secrets that I can think of that depend on the Gunbuster route. Here's who goes on what route. Ideon Route - The Solo Ship, Eternal, Archangel, and Ra Kaillum, as well as Ideon, the various mobile suits, Daitarn 3, the Getter team, Combattler V, Voltes V, and Daimos. Gunbuster Route - Battle 7 and the Gaiking ship, as well as the Valkyries, the Gunbuster characters, the EVAs, the Mazinger team, Jeeg, Raideen, Goshogun, the Gaiking characters, Dancougar, the GaoGaiGar characters, and the Virtualroids. As I said, this is only for two missions. *** Route Split *** Ideon Route Stage 57 Skill Point: (second part) Defeat all enemies in 6 turns - You start with some Buff Clan enemies, and no knowledge of the skill point. This should be nothing you're not already used to dealing with. - Once you defeat enough of them, more show up, in the northwest near where you started. A white square will appear, and you'll have a mission objective; get the Solo Ship to the white square. You can also destroy all the enemies if you feel like it. Either way, you'll move on to the next part of the stage. - Oddly, you've got 16 platoons here as opposed to 15 in the first part. This is what the skill point applies to; you're surrounded by Buff Clan, and you've got 6 turns to destroy them if you want the skill point (if you just want to beat the stage regularly, you've got 7 turns, but keep in mind that you lose if it goes to turn 8). Divide your forces however you like and have at it; most of them will converge on your forces, but the battleships will stay put for a couple turns, so you'll probably want to have some units head there at the very least. - Once you defeat enough enemies, there will be an event where Sheryl tries to hold Ruu hostage to Ideon and get its power to rise. I don't think this effects anything unless you've satisfied the conditions for getting Gije back, in which case he'll show up to save Sheryl and Ruu in a Ganga Rube. - The stage ends once all the enemies are defeated. Ideon Route Stage 58 Skill Point: (second part) Destroy the Bairal Jin in 6 turns - You've got a bunch of Buff Clan ships, unsurprisingly. The mission objective is to destroy the Bairal Jin, which is the large green ship at the rear of the enemy formation. Feel free to destroy whatever you want on the way. - On player turn 2, some STMC will appear in the southeast corner. Ignore them or deal with them as you like. - Once you either do enough damage to the Bairal Jin, or destroy enough of the Buff Clan platoons, you'll get a preview of the Buff Clan's big ol' space...whatever, and you'll move on to the second part. - Welcome to the Buff Clan's big ol' space whatever. Hopefully you haven't forgotten what the Bairal Jin is already, because you need to get to it and destroy it. There are also some STMC complicating matters. In an unexpected twist, these STMC are finite, meaning you can destroy them without fear of them spawning reinforcements. You'll be down on HP (which I didn't notice until turn 3, hilariously enough). The stage will end with an event once you destroy the Bairal Jin. The routes will join back up at this point. Gunbuster Route Stage 57 Skill Point: Destroy the enemy in 7 turns - You start with the Eltorium against the STMC. You won't be going it alone for the whole stage, but you will be going it alone for now, so cast whatever seishin you feel are necessary and either hold your ground or retreat. - On turn 4, the Alpha Numbers show up. At this point you won't have too much longer to wear down the hit points of the larger STMC battleships, so send your heavy hitters against them as soon as possible and leave your less-powerful units to clear out the bugs. Gunbuster Route Stage 58 Skill Point: Clear the map without any Buff Clan units being destroyed. - The skill point isn't active yet, so feel free to destroy the Buff Clan units you start out against. This is going to be somewhat like Earth Route stage 31, where you'll need to make a bunch of preparations that won't make sense until later, but bear with me. First, take note of the southwest and northwest corners. That's where you're going to need people before you finish dealing with the Buff Clan (who will retreat once you defeat enough of them). Splitting into thirds works; one third will engage the Buff Clan from the front, another will work around into the southwest corner, and the third will head down to the northwest. Note who has your MAP weapons and move them accordingly. - Once you destroy enough Buff Clan platoons, they'll retreat, and more Buff Clan will show up. However, STMC will show up in the southwest and destroy a number of the Buff Clan, whereupon the Alpha Numbers will resolve to destroy the STMC and protect the Buff Clan. The skill point is now active, so you may want to make an in-battle save. At this point you have to hope you're a more tempting target than the Buff Clan. Keep moving your other force to the northwest, as there will be reinforcements showing up there as well. If you've gotten into the right area, the STMC should mostly focus on you; if any STMC attack the Buff Clan and the Buff Clan survives, kill off those STMC first on your turn. This is where I like to throw out a couple Telekinesis Missiles from Banpreios. - The reinforcements will show up in the northwest once you defeat enough of the initial STMC. Hopefully you've got characters in place to distract them; now it's just a matter of plugging away at them until they're gone. - The Buff Clan will leave once the STMC are gone, and the stage will end. Stage 59 Skill Point: (second part) Defeat all enemies in 5 turns - For the first part of the stage, you need to hold out until turn 11 without any of the STMC getting onto the white square. You can do this in a couple of ways. The first, which is my preferred method, is to box the square in with your platoons and battleships. Disturbance is a must. Destroying enough units will cause reinforcements to show up. However, you can destroy all the green bugs and leave the battleships without triggering reinforcements, so go ahead and do this to make things less annoying. As a variant for this method, you can just destroy whoever you feel like and let the reinforcements come anyway. Alternately, you can go out and take the fight to the enemy, which is riskier. However you do it, you'll move on to the second part of the stage once the time limit elapses. - You're pitted against the STMC again, and once again you need to protect a white square. This time, however, there are no reinforcements to contend with. You'll need to hit them with everything you've got in order to get the skill point. Movement is limited on this map, similar to asteroid field areas. You'll be down some HP and EN, but not SP. Something that makes it very easy to deal with the larger enemies is getting your main character into position to do their finishers by turn 2, then getting other characters next to them on turns 2 and 3, and unleashing support attack finishers on turns 4 and 5 (obviously aided by Resupply). - Once you defeat enough STMC, there will be an event where the various supporting characters will tell the Alpha Numbers not to give up, and the IDE gauge will max. Final Stage - There's not much to say here. There's no skill point involved; if you got 57+ skill points and used less than 420 turns by this point, you'll get the Good Ending stage, otherwise you'll get the Normal Ending. Both stages are functionally similar, with the Good Ending stage having more and stronger enemies. 5: What's Finished? The guide is incomplete at the moment. Although I've played through every stage by this point, I wasn't taking notes on my first times through them, so I'm only completing write-ups for stages as I replay, and this takes time. Here's what's done so far. All of Touma and Cobray's character-specific stages (1-2, 6-12, 34-35, and 43-44). Part of Selena's character-specific stages (1-2 and 6-12). All combined stages (3-5, 13-18, 24-29, 36-37, 41-42, 49-56, and 59). All of the first, second, third, and fifth route splits (19-23, 30-33, 38-40, and 57-58). Part of the fourth route split. The SEED/EVA split and the Nagahama split are finished (45-47) as are both versions of stage 48. This leaves the remainder of Selena's stages, as well as all of Kusuha's stages and the Irui Search and Macross 7 routes for stages 45-47. My priority at this point is finishing this Selena run, which will give me her stages. While doing this, I'm going to keep a separate save and play through both of the unfinished routes on the fourth route split. I'll try to get this done as soon as possible, as I know the Macross 7 route has some confusing skill points if you don't know what's going on. After that, I'll grit my teeth and get Kusuha's stages done. 6: Miscellaneous The GameFAQs message board provided some information that prevented me from going completely crazy with my first couple runs with the game (notably on the second Earth route and Macross 7 route near the end). So kudos all around. Copyright 2005 to Jake Olbert (CaptainRat) This guide may not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission, with the exception of GameFAQs. Use of this guide on any other web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their respective trademark and copyright holders.