"Legs are just for show; the higher-ups don't understand that."
Most Humongous Mecha are quite similar to humans (really big metal humans that is) or the occasional supernatural being like a centaur or an animal like a lion. This is a given in many mecha genres and makes a certain amount of sense as most of the time humans or Space Elves are piloting them.
These Mecha do not do that. Instead of, say, a Transforming Mecha that transforms between a humanoid and a spaceship, these vehicles sacrifice some of the human silhouette, leading to vestigial or altogether missing legs, in order to fly in space.
On the ground a hover mecha would be much like a Hover Tank, except with arms and possibly a torso, and a head. In the air they might resemble a helicopter (or a harrier jet) with arms.
See also: Tank-Tread Mecha, Walking Tank, Spider Tank, Chicken Walker, Hover Bot, Hover Skates, Hover Tank, and Fog Feet.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In Code Geass, Jeremiah Gottwald is given a modded Knightmare called the Giga Fortress Siegfried, which has no arms or legs but instead packs a whole load of guns. Its head is the only thing separating it from a Hover Tank. It's later rebuilt as an extension for a modded Sutherland, making it also a Meta Mecha.
- Gundam:
- Char Aznable's final mecha in Mobile Suit Gundam is the MSN-02 Zeong (pictured above). It was only 80% complete at the time and had thrusters where the legs were meant to go, but Char used it anyway because it was a space battle and thus legs weren't really important. The Mobile Suit Variation design series included a design for a "Perfect Zeong" with legs.
- The OZ-07MS Tragos from Gundam Wing is a grunt-level mobile suit that can be built into a hover unit and is typically used for fire support. Though in some areas, they are fitted with legs and used as frontline units.
- The Febral from After War Gundam X is an Expy of the Zeong; in place of legs it has a flower-like bud that contains its Attack Drones.
Comic Books
- Supergirl: The giant robot Matrix-Prime was originally made for flying only, having rocket tubes instead of legs. The criminal Brains later equipped it with legs.
- In Superman, Kryptonian service robots such as Kelex lack legs and hover in place. Since their minimalist, vaguely insectoid structure doesn't seem to have room for anything that might provide lift, it's not clear how they do so.
Film — Animation
- Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and following series feature the Yokian an alien race of human sized egg shaped hover mecha with ooze monster brain in jar chicken kaiju worshipers.
Film — Live-Action
- The robot Maximilian from the old 1970's sci fi move The Black Hole.
Literature
- The "tanks" in the New Kashubia Series levitate on magnetic bars and usually have arms as part of their Mecha Expansion Packs.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons adventure S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. The police robots
◊ aboard the ship have no legs and move via Anti-Gravity units. They had a built-in laser pistol, grenade launcher, paralysis pistol and tractor/pressor beams.
- Classic Traveller
- Book 8 Robots. It was possible to build a robot with no legs that moved using Anti-Gravity and had weapons.
- Merchants & Merchandise by Paranoia Press. The AIR Security Robot SR-15FG has no legs: it moves by Anti-Gravity propulsion. It has a RAM grenade launcher and a FGMP-15 fusion gun.
- Warhammer 40,000 has the Necron Destroyers, which replace the legs of a Necron Immortal or Necron Lord with a hovering platform and arm them with heavier weapons.
- They also use Tomb Spyders, floating mechanical spiders.
Video Games
- Some Humongous Mecha Simulation Games like Armored Core and Front Mission have this as one option of locomotion.
- The Flybot type in BaseWars for the NES.
- An unnamed hovering mech appears as the seventh opponent in Brawl Royale.
- Chrome Hounds and M.A.V. Modular Assault Vehicle (a Fan Sequel) feature wheeled, tracked, and hover (as in, skirted hovercraft) "legs" for the Humongous Mecha, which offer different advantages over legs - Hover and wheeled propulsion is very fast but fragile compared to the bipedal (in both man-walker and Chicken Walker form) and quadrupedal legs, while tracked is very durable but cannot carry quite as much weight as a quadrupedal.
- Doom Eternal features a Cyborg variant in the Doom Hunters. They're big demons of the Super Heavy rank that move around on hovering "sleds" where their legs were; battles against them involve destroying the sled so the organic upper body will be more vulnerable.
- The first miniboss of Einhänder is one of these, and is appropriately enough named Greif (German for Griffin), possibly due to being half robot and half hovership in the same way a griffin is half lion and half eagle.
- The Praetorian boss from Epic Battle Fantasy 4.
- The YAT-99 enemies from Final Fantasy X are floating gun platforms, paired with armless robots that use kicks.
- Kashiwagi, the first of Impact's opponents in Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon.
- E-101 Beta after his upgrade.
- Robots in Space Rangers 2's planetary battles can be put on an "acroplane"-type chassis, resulting in this.
- Spacelords has Aneska's mech as this trope.
- Some of the enemies and bosses from Gunbird and the Strikers 1945.
- Many mecha in Super Robot Wars. Also, any unit equipped with the "Tesla Drive" part in Super Robot Wars: Original Generation will hover, as the In-Universe explanation states the Tesla Drive allows flight and hovering capabilities.
- The Alt Eisen Riese in Original Generation plays with this. The Riese becomes so heavy after tuning it into a Mid-Season Upgrade the mechanical designer discovers it couldn't take a step, let alone move. To remedy this, a Tesla Drive is installed; while it normally allows flight, the Riese's weight is so significant, it can only hover off the ground.
Western Animation
- One of the few examples of a crossover between Hover Mecha and Transforming Mecha would be the Aero Drones and their general, Jetstorm, of the Transformers series Beast Machines. Obsidian and his Copter Drones, from the same series, would be another. Of course, in this case, they don't have pilots, with Jetstorm and Obsidian being Mechanical Lifeforms and the drones being, well, drones.
- In My Life as a Teenage Robot a villain named "The Lancer" pilots a human sized suit of armor that floats without legs.
