Team Phantom Tiger: Let's Play Zoids Legacy! Chapter 1A

Terminal's having a bit of a hard time bringing us future installments of MusouQuest, but in lieu of the continued adventures of RICARDO SLICKFIRE, INTERPRETIVE DESPERADO, he's whipped up THIS thing with the assistance of some semi-familiar faces from Kamen Rider: Hour of the Void and Ride Alone Complex.

The area within a 30-mile radius of this post is now a Zoids Legacy Let's Play! Combatants and spectators only beyond this point!

Well, here we go. Zoids Legacy. Good gameplay, and possibly the most hilarious translation ever. I am your host, Wyll Ascher, and with me is the lovely Aelita Schaeffer, our resident gearhead and Zoids geek. Why Zoids Legacy, you ask?
Because the game is obscure, and the horror of its translation must be shown to the world. Also because giant robot animals are awesome. On a more technical front, Zoids Legacy is a JRPG that... I've heard it described as "Pokemon with Zoids", but that's not entirely accurate either. We'll be explaining as we go, so don't worry about a thing.
Your exits are here, here, and here. Enjoy the complementary pink lemonade.

This guy is the main character of the previous game, Zoids Saga - Zoids Saga II is the Japanese name of Zoids Legacy. Because apparently princes roll around in Gustavs. Oh, couldn't really show it with these screenshots, but there are earthquakes going on.

I'm... sure you do.

I'm not... Aelita, what is "Athle" even meant to be romanized as?

"Atory" is the Japanese name.

Thought it would be "Arthur" or something... as you can tell, the translation is amazing.

More earthquakes, this time with the Chaotic Century cast and some of Fiona's fruity Ancient-Zoidian powers.

"Screech". Yes, they actually wrote out sound effects instead of... well, anyway. This scene actually bugs the hell out of me. We have Leena and her Gunsniper...

Bit and his Liger Zero... and a Zaber Fang AT. The pilot has no lines, so we don't know who it is, but nobody in the Blitz Team ever piloted a Zaber Fang AT.

Running theory: alternate universe New Century/ZERO where Leon never left the Blitz Team.

I love how he's called "Judgeman". And also, he actually has a 'cry' rather than saying "screech".

Exposition exposition expositi-

... Aelita. Why are we in a Gustav?

I think our attempted LP just took a turn for the realistic.

I blame your wonky codebody.

Whatever. I'm driving.

Fine. Let's check out that town just up ahead.

*snicker* you look good Wyll.

... damnit. Whatever.

This is a weapons store, as the honking great gun implies.

A 'Zoids' battle?

Uh, thanks, but I wasn't asking about that as much as your terrible grammar...

Which earthquake?

I think the townsperson rubbed off on you.

Oh, right.

Guess this is a bar. Seems like a good place to get information...

Milk? Really?

Probably kiddifying things.

Well, I-

*drag*

Now that's what I like to hear.

Damnit!

Oh cool.

I know right? Back outside.

Uh, yeah. Thanks for that. We'll explain that later.

What he's not explaining is that repairs are free; it's only resurrecting a destroyed Zoid that costs money.

Yeah, well... Aelita, d'you have a map?

As it happens... *R Button*

Yeah, townsperson dude, that might have to do with your town being in the ass-end of nowhere.

It's like Pallet Town.

This is a Zoids Institute, apparently the only place in town that can afford real construction costs.

And this is an item shop.

Admit it, you're here to check out the chick at the counter.

CA Ion S(mall) is essentially a potion. React(ivation) U.(nit) recovers you from Freeze (temporarily stunned), and Shockwav(e) - inordinately expensive at 3200g a pop - cures Freeze, Confusion (comes up rarely; makes the victim act randomly in combat), and Pilot Down (midway in occurrence between the other two; temporarily preventing the pilot's stats from factoring into the Zoid's).

Doo-dee-doo!

This is in the NE corner of town.

MEANWHILE, back at the Zoids Institute, we get a rundown on how to use Deck Commands.

Data Gather 1 improves the chance of you acquiring the ZiData of an enemy Zoid if you win on the turn that it's used, and Supplier - which we acquired earlier - doubles our received cash under those same circumstances.

ZiData is used with Zoid Cores to create new Zoids, and so on.

Why are you asking me?

And what the hell is this!?

tl;dr: Zoid Fetus.

...Zoid Fetus.

Yeah. This is, in all its 16-bit color glory, what a Zoid Core looks like before it's had weapons and armor and junk grown and/or grafted onto it.

Yeah, I think I'm just gonna stick with them being pretty little lines in my inventory.

This is the menu you'll use the most. Zoids Repair lets you resurrect destroyed Zoids, Zoids Development is for making new Zoids (and CAU Development for making Change Armour Units for Zoids like the Liger Zero), Customization allows you to alter the stats of a Zoid - improving it's armor, the energy it gains back next turn, and it's colour, and so on - and Zoids Sale lets you trade Zoids for cash.

This is in the weapons shop. It serves no purpose, but it looks cool.

Stuff like this is *all over* the game. Pretty sure this would be a loading bay for all the scaled-up attaching-things-to-Zoids that goes on as you select stuff in menus.

It's amazing the things people leave lying around in chests. Here's what I wanna know, though.

Hm?

This is scaled for a Zoid to use. How is it just lying around in a few feet of chest?

It's best not to think about it.

Good for you.

And this is the kind of thing you can buy at the weapons shop. This page is all guns of one type or another: AT is it's damage value, HR is hit rate, TG (Target) is where it hits (on a 2x3 field) - S (single) hits one target, N (next) for 1x2 (up/down adjacent), W (wide) for 1x3 (one column), V (vector) for 2x1 (one row), B (block) for 2x2, and A hits everything - EP is what it costs to fire it, and WP is how heavy it is.

The row below that is anything special about the weapon - for example, the Particle Gun is a P-type, or Particle, weapon. This isn't a good demonstration, but some weapons have additional features like "Anti-Air", which are written in blue below the weapon-type line.

These ones down here are kind of like accessories. We already have an Armor Plus, and a Turbocharger is an active item that increases your speed - sadly that doesn't make it very good - but the MicroSensor is a passive boost to "SR", which factors into both your hit rate and where you appear in the round initiative order.

And since the Saberlion has an inaccurate special attack, I'll buy the MicroSensor.

This is the main menu, which is mostly self explanatory.

The Saberlion which we seem to have fallen into the cockpit of. HP is kind of obvious. EP is the Zoid's maximum "EP", which is used to launch attacks, and GEP is how much EP it regenerates every turn.

SP is speed, which has to do with your evasion rate and where you fit into the round initiative; MM is mobility, which boosts evasion, and IV is your Initiative, a flat addition of SP to SR.

DF is your defense, kind of obviously, and AM is your armour, which lowers the rate of critical hits against you.

Crits simply ignore the target's defense - you deal whatever your weapon's raw damage value is.

And the higher your DCP, the less likely it is for an attack's status effect to hit you. This is important, because the Freeze status can be caused at random by any attack.

SR, as discussed above, affects your hit rate and your initiative. CLV is a measure of the raw skill needed to pilot a Zoid; stronger Zoids have a higher CLV. If a pilot's level meets or exceeds the Zoid's CLV, their Correction Factors will factor in just fine, otherwise they'll be multiplied by whatever fraction of the CLV their level is (i.e. a Level 13 pilot in a Zoid with a CLV of 15 will only apply 13/15ths of their pilot stats).

Some pilots - like me - have sheer talent with certain types of Zoids. In my case, Liger and Tiger types (this Saberlion is the former) - adding ten levels to my base level for the purposes of qualifying to pilot that kind of Zoid.

TP (Training Points) is kind of like a Zoid's own level: it gets stronger the more you use it - 1% per 2 TP earned and 1 TP earned per time it's fielded to a maximum of 200 TP/+100% of the "raw data" stats, to be exact. CP is how much it can carry without getting overweighted - some Zoids are extremely good at this, mostly larger and more saurian Zoids or ones that lack many fixed weapons.

And lastly, size determines how easy it is to get hit and how you can place your Zoids in formation. XL Zoids can only have S Zoids to either side of them, for example, not to mention only being usable in the middle row.

And... this is me. Orgd is for Organoids (for those lucky few who have 'em), and the "Type" is how your stat growth is set. You can change this between several premade schedules and even set it up to your own whims, but Almighty makes you adequate at everything, which suits me fine.

This next page over is skills acquired.

This is the change equipment page. Most Zoids have four slots - two "A" (Assist) and two "OA" (Offense/Assist) slots. You can put anything in an "OA" slot, but only 'accessories', like the Armor Plus and MicroSensor, in 'A' slots.

Some Zoids have overhead OA slots either in addition to the flank slots or in lieu of them, and an unlucky few have A slots only. In the meantime, note that our Saberlion's new toy only has a 1-1N range - while it can hit two targets at once (one next to another), it can only fire one column ahead of the Zoid itself. If the Laser Machinegun is equipped to something occupying the back row, it'll be unusable due to the only things in the next column being front-row allies.

Weapons with 1-2 and 2-3 ranges have similar problems, while those with V, B, and A trajectories ALWAYS have a 1-3 range and can hit from anywhere on the field. Also the latter fact is mere coincidence as far as acquiring and playing this game is concerned.

This is where you organize your battle formation. Keeping in mind the way weapons hit is the key to victory, but eventually you will be at a full squad of six people.

In the event of all Zoids in the front row being defeated, at the top of the round, all Zoids in the back row will be moved to the front row.

And... here is our Saberlion as it appears in the Database. God, the ZiData text compression sucks. Basically, this thing was designed for urban combat, which is why its blade is on its forehead as opposed to the Blade Liger's side-blades, and why it's so small.

Its armour is also quite good for a mobile Zoid. Generally good all-around.

Right, I think we're done here. That one townsperson dude with the grammatical issues said there was a fight or something going on in the next town over?

Gotta go north around the mountains; there's no way through below that.

We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.

It's not dark, and we're not.

Damnit Aelita, just... shut up and drive.

...

Bandits?

More likely wild Zoids. You're so sure of yourself, get out there and beat them up.

*Sigh* yes ma'am.

One of the best things about combat in this game is that you can completely reformat your team and what deck commands you have set at the start of every battle - perfect if you're set up for one thing and something else pounces on you.

"Start a Combat" starts the round, while "Commands" lets you cast a Deck Command before you begin.

No surprises to anyone, we win initiative. "Waiting" causes your Zoid to regen an amount of EP equal to it's GEP, effectively giving you twice as much EP that turn, at the cost of not being able to attack. The other two are self-explanatory.

D-pad cycles through your weapons. The Saberlion has a ton of fixed weapons and a small stature, which is why it can't carry heavy external weapons. In this instance, though, for the first turn, I'll use its Smoke Generator - a flat +30 to my evasion right.