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Video Game / SD Gundam G Generation

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Go ahead, make their tiny, adorable day.

A power needed for battle... people call this, "Gundam".

A series of Turn-Based Strategy games developed by Tom Create based on the immensely popular Gundam franchise. G Generation (G Gen for short) has its roots in the myriad SRPG titles made for the Super Famicom in the early to mid-1990s. Most of these games played fast and loose with the rules, but G Gen marked the start of a more serious turn, bringing pilots into the equation and expanding the player's options vastly as time went on.

The games follows a very traditional SRPG gameplay set in place by Fire Emblem and that other robot-oriented strategy series, but mixed with its own squad system. The squad system is based around a unit which leads a squadron of 4 mechs; so long as the other 3 mechs are within the squad leader's command aura (and starting from Zero) they can gang up on a target using support-attacks (so long as their weapons are within range of the target) and can in turn support-defend on the enemy's turn. Also added since Zero, pilots are given Bonus Steps when they successfully kill an enemy, allowing them additional turns. Although a unit can gain unlimited Bonus Steps in Zero and F, Neo limited the amount of potential turns by a character's level, increasing every 10 levels. As a result, battles are often based on careful positioning to take advantage of bonus steps via exploiting the 4-mech support attacks to guarantee a kill for each squad member.

Other mechanics include "evolving" mechs from one unit to their next successor (example: GM -> GM-II -> GM-III, Shining Gundam -> God Gundam, etc). Depending on the game, some mechs have very long and complicated evolution trees, and one can "evolve" a lowly GM all the way up to a Jamesgun, representing nearly 75 years worth of in-universe development.

In general, G Gen games fall into one of two categories:

  • Historical games (developed by Tom Create) focus on re-creating the events of the Gundam animations, with the player controlling the heroes as well as a group of Original Generation characters, and usually rewarding faithfulness to the source material with bonus Experience Points or CG movies of the event in question. The Historical games tend to be released on consoles and focus on more realistic battles.
  • Crossover games (developed by Vanguard) put all the characters together into a common setting and unites them against an overarching threat, sometimes an Original Generation villain and sometimes an established Gundam villain who lives longer and gets better toys than his animated counterpart. Crossover games tend to be released on handheld systems and feature squad-based battles, "magic" (in the form of ID Commands), and special attacks.

The G Gen F/mostly historic or non-merging series includes:

And the "G Gen Gather Beat"/"Mono Eye" Canon Welding series are:

  • SD Gundam G Generation Gather Beat (2000, Wonderswan): The first Crossover game, introducing the familiar elements (three-unit squads, ID Commands, convincing enemies, etc), it could also transfer data to F and viceversa via an IR sensor compatible with the Pocketstation and was even the first game to offer DLC in the way of Units, Pilots and Parts.
  • SD Gundam G Generation Gather Beat 2 (2001, Wonderswan Color) : The second Wonderswan game, now in color and with pre-rendered sprites, notable for the fact that the whole latter part of the main story was made as now-inaccesible DLC.
  • SD Gundam G Generation Mono-Eye Gundams (2002, Wonderswan Color): The first Crossover game with its own Original Generation characters and plotline, and subsequently one of the more popular G Gen games. The Strike Gundam is included as a bonus.
  • SD Gundam G Generation Advance (2003, Gameboy Advance): Effectively an Updated Re-release of Gather Beat, Advance adds in characters and MS from Gundam SEED and makes it the star of the show.
  • SD Gundam G Generation DS (2005, Nintendo DS): In a sense an Updated Re-release of Mono-Eye Gundams, despite the fact that it has new original characters and story elements. Includes characters and MS from Gundam SEED Destiny as a bonus.
  • SD Gundam G Generation Cross Drive (2007, Nintendo DS): A new effort at merging canons, employing new control systems and characters from other than the Mono-Eye canon. Those new control systems which relied on the system's touch screen weren't very popular.

Any tropes relating to the original characters for the G Generation characters are placed here.

Compare Super Robot Wars, which uses the same general concept as the Crossover games, but includes more than just Gundam.

The official site is here.

SD Gundam G Generation provides examples of:

  • Ace Custom: In the Historical games, Ace Customs are created by putting a character into the basic version of an MS of which they have a custom model (for example, putting Char in an F-Type Zaku II turns it into his personal S-Type). This is the only way to obtain these units without cheating.
    • Overworld allows you to produce data on them so anyone can use them mainly by combining mechs (a mech matching the Ace's customizations and the original mech)
    • Certain mobile suits have squad leader/commander variants that can be used by slotting the base unit into a squad leader's MS slot. These commander variants generally have slightly better stats than their regular counterparts, but some of them, such as the GN-XIV, have a different weapon loadout than the regular version. In the case of the aforementioned GN-XIV, it gets a long-barrel beam rifle, which has an extra tile of maximum range compared to the regular beam rifle. Certain Dispatch missions in Cross Rays will actually drop commander variants, allowing the player to obtain more of these mobile suits without the need to place them in the appropriate pilot slot.
  • Actor Allusion: Cross Rays introduced a number of these:
    • Ribbons, when piloting a Gundam, will say "None are more skilled with Gundams than I!", an almost direct quote to one of Amuro's famous lines.
    • Azee, when piloting a Strike Gundam variant, will comment that the mobile suit feels "strangely familiar". She shares the same VA as Reiji from Gundam Build Fighters, who pilots the Build Strike Gundam.
    • Not limited to Cross Rays: Yzak almost always has something funny to say when using Shining Finger/God Finger.
  • Adaptational Badass:
    • The GP00 Blossom, one of the most dubiously canon mobile suits within the UC, makes its fourth appearance in this series. Unlike every past interpretation of its plot, the Blossom has no flaws this time around (besides perhaps its "average" defense) and is a direct upgrade to any GP-series mech, even coming with an EWAC aura that boosts hit-rate. Helps that the Blossom proper is a Super Prototype and was supposed to work, but always came out on the bottom one way or another thanks to unforeseen issues in design.
    • The player is able to invoke this trope should they so choose as it is entirely possible to put various Bridge Bunnies and Non-Action Guy's in the pilot seat of the various machines and have them kick just as much ass as the trained pilots.
  • Adapted Out: Advance butchers the hell out of Gundam SEED with Kira, Athrun, Murrue, Mu, Natarle, Andrew, Rau and Cagalli the only characters around and mecha being relegated to the Strike, Strike Rouge, GINN, BuCUE, Aegis and the Freedom. Athrun keeps the Aegis the entire time and Rau pilots his own Freedom Gundam. As well, Natarle doesn't captain the Dominion, but the so-called Fake Archangel.
  • Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Inverted in Cross Rays' version of Gundam SEED. While Flay loses her father and gets angry at Lacus for existing as a Coordinator, her manipulation of Kira is heavily downplayed. As well, as Yzak doesn't shoot down the lifeboat holding the Orb refugees (the game does away with the refugees outside of the Heliopolis kids), Kira remains level-headed, though Mirialla notes that he seems a little more focused than usual. As a result of these Sai's own angst is erased as his breakup with Flay is a less sordid affair and more "Wait, when did this happen?" for him.
  • Adaptational Wimp:
    • The Dark History Turn A serves as the True Final Boss for Genesis. However, its enemy stats are utterly pathetic — despite being the watermark of absolute power in the Gundam multiverse, it spawns with only 26400 HP and can easily go up in flames with any well-trained team. While it still has access to two of the most powerful weapon technologies in both lore and gameplaynote  at breakneck efficiency and speed, if your team gets the first strike on it (which you probably will), it's going down like a pile of bricks.
    • Story-wise in Cross Rays, Cagalli's entire storyline between the Desert Dawn and her return to Orb is completely left out, thus she never pilots a Skygrasper and only suits up at the very end.
    • Also in Cross Rays and unlike in the show, Shino's last shot at Rustal's flagship isn't diverted at the last second before firing by Julieta throwing the Reginlaze's sword at the Galaxy Cannon. Instead, he outright misses the shot on his own.
  • Airborne Artillery:
    • The Wing Gundam Zero Custom naturally comes with flight ability and extremely long range Twin Buster Rifles that allow it to perform this role. Its major weak points include how much energy the Buster Rifles need to fire (depending on the game, it isn't unusual for it to only be able to fire 3 shots before having to refuel), as well as the fact it's often one of the more more expensive Mobile Suits to manufacture. The energy issue can be resolved via equipped items and upgrades, but in games where enemies have anti-beam defenses (e.g. machines from Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans all inherently have anti-beam coating) its usefulness takes a nosedive.
  • All Your Powers Combined: The Devil Gundam Junior takes the Grand Master Gundam's role of combining the powers of the Four Heavenly Kings and condenses it into a much more compact and convenient package, along with an MA mode which can be used to start up melee attacks.
  • Alpha Strike: The entries using the NEO engine (NEO, SEED, and Generation of C.E) give every unit a "Burst Attack", which has the unit attack with every weapon it has available, with long range weapons first, and melee attacks last. The ZAKU Warrior for example, as depicted in Generation of C.E, will open up with its Cattus recoiless rifle, then toss it aside and fire its beam assault rifle multiple times, before putting the rifle away to draw its beam tomahawk and charge in for a melee strike.
  • Amazing Technicolor Battlefield: As you continue to beat down the lunar cocoons and the UC mobile suits controlled by System ∀-99 in the secret last stage of Genesis, the Turn A inside continuously unleashes more and more of the Moonlight Butterfly, causing the battlefield to become washed in a fountain of mottled colors and space dust.
  • Ambidextrous Sprite: Used in all games except for the three that use the NEO engine.
    • It's subverted in Wars and all the games using its engine.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack: Some attacks are capable of partially bypassing or outright ignoring active (eg. Beam shieldsnote  and special defense abilities) or passive (eg. I-fields, Phase-Shift armor, etc.) defenses. Later games also give pilots the ability to ignore some of an enemy unit's "Defense" stat when attacking them, as well as grant the "Piercing" tag to certain attacksnote .
  • Art Evolution: Many original characters went through this trope. The first big one is in Zero, since character portrait in the first game is very small and none of the original character has cut-in, you can say that it's Zero that established their design. The second time is in Spirits, notable example is Maria Owens, who was around since the first game, but only become popular among fandom with younger and cuter design in Spirits (most visible change is the new design's lack of lipstick).
  • Artistic License – Physics: The Devil Gundam Junior is a Spider Tank first and a Gundam second, and it's not even a close second. Despite this, three of them deploys on stage D-EX in Overworld if you complete one of the challenges without any hassle, even though all EX stages take place in space. Granted, it does have some semblance of an MA form, but it's never used for direct movement, only as a battering ram. Counts as Gameplay and Story Segregation as original units only deploy during EX stages, and putting the Devil Junior anywhere else would go south due to its unique ability to control opponents with its MAP attack.
  • The Alleged Car: Carry Base, the Clop-class training crusier issued to players in the F series. It is a lot weaker than real Clop-class cruisers from Char's Counterattack, but its stats are fairly well-rounded and it's able to deploy on both space and surface maps.
  • Anachronism Stew: Despite allegedly being developed from Gundam Alex, the Netix can be developed into an MP Nu, and most certainly looks like it'd fit the bill.note  Downplayed in that development trees sometimes go out on stretches to make themselves long enough for gameplay purposes, and the Netix's actual purpose was to be a proxy for psycommu research, which would put it squarely into the Zeta era.
    • The Gundam Mk. IV, despite being built between Zeta and Sentinel, has many of the characteristics of a mobile suit built during the Unicorn era.
  • Ascended Extra: Some of the Crossover games take canon villains and beef them up into the Big Bad who threatens the Gundamverse. DS does this to Gihren Zabi (no mean shakes, considering what he is in canon) along with Paptimus Scirocco (again, no mean shakes, but he ursurps power from Jamitov and Bask very early and lead the Titans for the large bulk of the game), but the a better example would probably be 08th MS Team villain Ginias Sahalin, who is the Big Bad of a couple of games despite being little more than a Mad Scientist who's literally off his meds in his home series.
    • On the hero side there's Kukuruz Doan, the Anti-Villain from First Gundam's Lost Episode; in Advance, he gets his own G Gundam-style Super Mode, complete with his Zaku II turning gold.
    • The "G Gen army" from F series are extras because they does not change the outcome of historical battles, but you command them.
  • Ascended Meme:
  • Attack Its Weak Point: Battleships take damage from attacks on any grid square they occupy, but Pinpoint Attacks that target a designated square (the bridge or other vital point) do much more damage.
  • Attract Mode: In Cross Rays, the title screen will automatically play battle animations for units from whatever series the player started last. Idling on the story select screen will also do the same for the currently-highlighted series, with the addition of sound effects and a text scroll briefly summarizing the story's synopsis.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: The Sisquiede in Cross Rays, both the preorder bonus and the free DLC version. It looks cool, is extremely cheap given its stats, has a long range attack that partially ignores defense, has an I-field that drastically reduces damage from incoming ranged beam attacks for free, and is by far the most powerful unit you will be able to make at the start of the game. However, it is crippled by its extremely high energy usage that is only partially mitigated by putting it in a raid group (which gives innate energy regeneration) and said long range attack is the only one the MS has with more than 1 range until you raise its pilot's morale to "super high" (and it's a beam attack, making it useless in any stage with beam-resistant enemies such as the Iron-Blooded Orphans stages). It also is the only unit until the release of the (much more useful) DLC units that you cannot develop into something else, which gives players less incentive to use it over units that will develop into something more powerful. By the time you have and/or have trained pilots to fully utilize the Sisquiede's odd attacks, there will be suits that are far more flexible and outright better to use.
  • Bait-and-Switch Credits: The opening cinematic for Cross Rays is supposed to depict only the series that have their stories represented in-game as scenarios, but briefly shows the Astray Out Frame gazing in shock at the Testament Gundam; Destiny Astray does not have any playable scenarios in-game, only the original Astray and X Astray. Likewise, the Tallgeese Flugel has a brief shot showing off, even though the stages for Wing use the TV designs.
  • Bootstrapped Theme: The BGM that G Generation creates for non-animated series such as Gundam Sentinel and Crossbone Gundam usually wind up becoming their themes in all Gundam-related games, including Super Robot Wars and the Gundam Vs Series.
  • Boring, but Practical: Shields. It might not seem much but the ability to block and reduce damage from attacks that can't be dodged or countered can determine your survival.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Any accessory that is labeled as "personality changing" in the F series. Try putting them on your units and see your characters become either depressed or hyped.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: Put Gym in the God Gundam / Burning Gundam and he will deliver this line:
    "There's no such thing as going too far in G-Gen!"
  • Break the Cutie: Not that big of a surprise for many but in G Generation DS... Well, see this cute, kind, happy and strong-willed girl here? That's Haman. THAT HAMAN.
    • "Personality changing" chips for everyone! Nuff said.
  • Bridge Bunnies: You can assign operators to battleship. How good the character perform as operator is depend on their "communication" secondary stats. In addition to the bridge bunnies from other series, Ra Mira Luna, Ricole Chuart and Pamela Smith - the Mission Control characters from Zero, F and Neo - will embrace this trope whenever they are recruitable.
    • World and Overworld have certain stats match the bridge positionnote  and characters who mainly fit a specific role has its associated stat as their only good one. Genesis has separate mobile suit pilot and battleship bridge stats for each character.
  • Broad Strokes: The entries which adapt canon series often do this, combining elements from different versions of the same series, such as manga adaptation and novelization. The most notable example was the Blue Destiny adaptation, which combined elements from the original game trilogy, the unfinished manga adaptation, and the novelization.
  • Calling Your Attacks: See under Developer's Foresight; just about every major character gets at least one special attack quote. Hell, even Trowa Barton gets one for the Shining Finger.
  • Char Clone: Pretty much all the Char Clones are here. Overworld gave us the G-Gen Original Char Clone by the name of Code Phoenix, pilot of the crimson Master Phoenix, grand-daddy of the Phoenix Gundam.
  • Character Development: The standard group of original characters came into existence as little more than seat-fillers. Later games started giving them more distinct personalities and roles in relation to one another; for example, Mark Gilder, the most common pilot of the Phoenix Gundam, seems to be becoming The Hero amongst the G Gen originals.
    • On top of this, the characters have their own preferred suits and have unique Combination Attack animations when piloting them. For example, Sheld Foley is the designated pilot for the GP00 Blossom, and can perform a Combination Attack with Maria Owens, who prefers the GP04 Gerbera.note 
  • Character Exaggeration: Especially in crossover titles.
    • In Wars, World and Overworld, carried over from Super Robot Wars Z but to a less severe extent than in that game series, Lunamaria Hawke and her accuracy. Thanks to an incident in Gundam SEED Destiny where she cleanly misses hitting a battleship with a beam rifle, her shooting accuracy and melee accuracy stats are on par with those of the G Gundam cast; you know, the guys who favor fisticuffs and martial arts over shooting things down with guns?
  • Clown-Car Base: Even the smallest battleship can carry a full mobile suit complement, including XL or XXL units. The White Ark only has a 2x1 footprint in Overworld, but it can deploy up to three XXL (or five XL) mobile armors that are each bigger than their mothership or nine conventional mobile suits.
  • Compressed Adaptation: Understandably, most series adaptations only cover the most iconic episodes, as covering entire series would be too impractical. However, the adaptation of 08th MS Team in Spirits and Genesis takes the cake, covering the entire 12-episode OVA in two stages, with the first stage alone containing elements from episode 1 to 6.
  • Continuity Drift: Trans-Am 00 Raiser suffers this in its animations on World. Most of the times when someone attacks it, the animation played is that of it entering in quantization, however, the enemy STILL hits it as if he stood still there.
    • Also, whenever it executes the actual Quantization trick to evade enemy beam shots, it always appears with the GN Sword III, even when it's supposed to be equipped with the pair of GN Sword II.
    • This is part of a trend of the unit evading (in sometimes a flashy way) only to get hit.
  • Crippling Overspecialization:
    • Whoo, boy, the poor Ez-8. In Gather Beat and its GBA remake, Shiro launches the (land-only) Ez-8 into space to confront Ghinias and the Apsalus III and gets his ass kicked. After it's rescued, Doctor J upgrades it for space combat and later develops two possible upgrades. The Heavy Armed Custom version arms him with a Salamis Cannon for a powerful beam weapon, but that means he moves slower and is stuck with a machine gun. The High Mobility Custom makes him faster, but since all of that power is fixed onto the thrusters, the suit's too fast for normal pilots and the best weapon it can use is a modified beam spray gun.
    • Any unit that has only physical or beam attacks. There are multiple series who have stages which are filled with enemies who either resist or are flat-out immune to one of those two attack types, making units who specialize in those attacks next-to or completely useless against those enemies as anything more than meat shields.
  • Cutting Off the Branches: Generation of C.E. Famously, upon the game's release, the staff claimed that one of the endings was the originally intended ending for the Destiny TV series, but refused to elaborate. Ultimately, however, none of the endings were even close to how Destiny actually ended.
  • Defend Command: Only units with a shield equipped can Defend, but everyone can Evade to reduce enemy hit rate by one third. In addition, some units have special defense commands that nullify or greatly reduce damage from certain attack types (usually shooting or beam), such as the Virgo's Planet Defensor, Crossbone Gundam's Anti-Beam Coating Mantle, or Nu Gundam's Fin Funnel Barrier. Unlike some other strategy RPG series, enemies automatically defend or evade when unable to counterattack.
  • Demoted to Extra:
    • Because the games obviously can't include everything, something inevitably has to be removed in the end. Generation of C.E. is an interesting example; it was released around episode 39 of Gundam SEED Destiny, and so only covers the MS up to Strike Freedom, meaning Infinite Justice, the Akatsuki, and DOM Trooper aren't included. For that matter, neither is the Legend Gundam, despite the fact that it did appear before S-Freedom.
    • Genesis and Cross Rays have numerous series and their units listed on their rosters, but lack story involvement due to time and storage constraints. Additionally, they are often liable to have their individual unit lists severely abridged; for example, Astray R lacks the Astray Turn Red, the Actaeon Projectnote , and the GOUF Galactica.
  • Developer's Foresight: Following installments like Wars and World, any character can be put into any MS. As a result, the characters get a truly staggering number of vocalized lines that they wouldn't normally say.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The true final stage of Genesis has the player's team assassinating the full power Turn A Gundam like it's nothing, while wiping the floor with about a dozen other Gundams and custom mobile suits that are being controlled by the Black History itself. It should be noted, however, that this version of the Turn A is rather weak as a final boss, and near the end it becomes so desperate it summons MSVs and obscure mobile suits instead of mainstream units.
  • Disc-One Nuke: In nearly all the games, proper planning and Level Grinding can allow you to obtain outrageously powerful units like the ∀ Gundam and Hi-Nu Gundam very, very early. Especially in Wars and World, due to the Master system, which allows you to start with a gimped version of a main character unit, which, with a few levels, can be easily turned into a proper version of the same unit (or even a powered-up version, in the case of Turn-A). And from Spirits on, you can very easily get the Phoenix Gundam in less than an hour of gameplay. Cross Rays goes completely nuts with this and gives you two Phoenix Gundams at the very start and just need a bit of level grinding to gain access to its Limiter Unlock form.
    • In Portable, there's the Gigantic and the Windam Nuclear Striker, which literally equip nuclear weapons and are accessible within the first 2-5 hours of playing.
    • The Over Impact feature in Over World allows you get the chance to capture at least one of your former allied Guest-Star Party Member mobile suits. 9 times out of 10, it's a Gundam-type MS. So you can get some good Gundams very early in the game. (In the first 3 of the A-block missions alone, you can get the Strike, GP-01, and Impulse Gundams.)
  • Doomed by Canon: The key criticism for Crossdrive is this, as most plots and character deaths play out the way they do in the anime (with the exception of the 0080 plot) with no way of averting them.
    • In order to set up the Amuro-Char rivalry, there has been no way of saving Lalah Sune in the crossover games.
  • Early-Bird Cameo:
    • Typically a new series will have few key MS in G Gen before it makes its full debut in the next game (see: Strike and Aegis in Neo, 00-Raiser in Wars, G-Self and Barbatos Lupus in Genesis). A special case of this occurs in Mono-Eye Gundams, where you can actually obtain an early design version of the Aile Strike Gundam (but see Guide Dang It! for more details}.
    • The appearances of the Gundam Dantalion and Testament Gundam as outlined in 11th-Hour Ranger below precede their official debuts in terms of original media release order; Testament Gundam's appearance also precedes its debut in the Cosmic Era timeline in-universe.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: G Gen Zero makes some AU characters such as George de Sand and Quatre Winner into Newtypes, presumably to explain things like the former's use of Attack Drones and the latter's "Space Heart".
  • 11th-Hour Ranger:
    • In a villainous example exclusive to the interpretation of events in Cross Rays, if the secret conditions for the last stage of Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans is fulfilled, Gundam Dantalion will be deployed alongside the rest of Gjallarhorn to assist them in thwarting Tekkadan's last stand.
    • Another example for the villains in Cross Rays, fulfulling the conditions for the last stage of X Astray will deploy the Testament Gundam with the rest of ZAFT's forces sent to assault the ship that was initially housing Canard Pars and Prayer Reverie before the stage's beginning.
  • Evil Counterpart: One of the G Gen originals is the Zanspine, effectively Zanscare's answer to the Victory 2 Gundam, complete with three crimson Wings of Light.
  • Eviler than Thou: The original Devil Gundam Jr., a spawn of the Devil Gundam that goes so high in Evolutionary Levels that it lives on after the destruction of the Devil Gundam. Devil Gundam is (maybe) an Omnicidal Maniac, but that's because its program was corrupted. Devil Gundam Jr. is outright malice, as it wants to enslave humanity and dominate the world.
  • Extra Turn: The Bonus Step mechanic, which allows characters to take an extra action after shooting down an enemy. Certain skills and parts can increase the number of times this can activate in one turn.
  • Face–Heel Turn: Obviously this occurs in Historical games, but in some of the Crossover games you can lose the use of characters like Char and Shinn if you don't take the right steps to keep them on your side.
    • The Over Impact feature on World Tour stages in Overworld allows you, if you succeed in meeting the turn limit requirement, to turn all NPC allies currently on the map against you. Explained in the narrative by the Generation System going haywire and causing something akin to a Hate Plague to the allies.
  • Fighting Clown: Haro, Psycolo Gundam and Psyco Haro may have a comical look, but they're alway among the best units.
  • Fix Fic: The crossover games allow you to save much of the sympathetic characters who died in canon such as Bernie Wiseman, the Purus and Four Murasame and some routes even allow you to save characters that Super Robot Wars has yet to allow you to recruit such as Cima Garahau and both the Druggie and Extended Trios (of which Stella is the only recruitable one in Super Robot Wars). Averted with Crossdrive as all the plots play out the way they did in anime with no way to avert them.
  • Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon: XXL-size Mobile Armors (e.g., the GP-03 Dendrobium, or the Strike Freedom with METEOR unit) and Battleships typically have as their most powerful weapon a large beam cannon that can only fire forwards in a narrow band. They also have to be manually turned to aim their weapons, unlike smaller units that automatically turn to face their targets.
  • Flanderization: In-universe, this is what Over Impact in Overworld does to induce a Hate Plague, exaggerating each character's specific reason to fight until it becomes bloodlust. For example:
    • Flit Asuno becomes a massive elitist and displays some of the flaws of his older self.
    • Setsuna begins targeting his allies as part of Celestial Being's directive (that is, "extermination of armed conflict through force.")
    • Heero Yuy declares the entire battlefield as full of enemies. Including you.
    • And of course, many characters with pacifistic or initially-reluctant personalities throw away those attributes in favor of exterminating everything, either for the greater good or to put an end to the fighting.
  • Game-Breaking Bug: The release day of Cross Rays saw players gawking in utter shock as everyone was doing 10x damage, which meant that the first stages of Gundam Wing and Gundam SEED were almost Unintentionally Unwinnable because the Ares and GINN were suddenly doing over 100,000 points of damage! This was swiftly patched out on day 1.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation: Any mobile suit or mobile armor can be piloted by anyone. That includes those that are canonically controlled by some kind of AI and don't have room for any kind of pilot such as Virgo or Hashmal.
  • Goroawase Number: The default cost, initial stats and the base damage and EN cost of Haro's and Psycho Haro's strongest attack all have the number 86 in them, which naturally stands for "haro".
  • Guide Dang It!: In Mono-Eye Gundams, you can find the Strike Gundam if and only if you move one specific MS onto one specific square of one specific map in one specific battle.
    • Also, getting the Secret Ending in Special Mode, which requires levelling Amuro, Kamille, Judau, Kincaid and Garrod to max level, and successfully unlocking all of their Hyper Modes through their respective events, all in one single run.
    • Recruiting the Turn X in DS' Rival Route, which is available for 9 characters note , and involves levelling the person you want to at least Level 30 before having him/her defeat Gym on the second-to-last stage. There is otherwise no indication at all in-game that this is even possible in the first place.
  • Happy Ending Override: In Cross Rays, ELS/post-Time Skip Setsuna's lines implies he comes from a version of A Wakening of the Trailblazer's events where rather than global peace being reached by AD 2364, the world descended back into war and rendered Aeolia Scheinberg's plans completely pointless.
  • Heel–Face Turn: G Gen lets you recruit characters that even Super Robot Wars has never let you use, like Cima Garahau, the Druggies and all 3 Extended from SEED and Destiny.
    • It could be argued Cima is the main character of DS.
  • Heroes Unlimited: Most character can pilot a mobile suit and fight, even ones like Actual Pacifist Relena Peacecraft. That being said, Wars introduced limitations to character roles and you can't see Dr. J kicking ass in a mobile suit or commanding spaceships anymore.
    • Games from World onwards allow you to do this, though this doesn't mean said character would be any good (though in those games you can also spend ludicrous amounts of credits on those characters to train them to be combat capable, if you want...). As a rule of thumb for World and Overworld, characters better suited for battleship support roles tend to be unvoiced.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: In Advance, Mu la Flaga will sacrifice himself to kill Rau le Creuset (as per the manga adaptation of Gundam SEED) if you don't take the proper steps. Note, this also costs you the Freedom Gundam, since Rau is piloting it in his final battle.
  • I Am Legion: Crosses with Meaningful Name. In DS, the clone pilots are actually named Legion; this includes The Rival Norma Legio and protagonist Dee Trier.
  • Inconsistent Dub: Apparent in the English localization of Cross Rays. While the G Gundam mobile suits go by their English dub names where applicable, Gundam Wing G-Unit appears unaltered, and not by its English title of Last Outpost.
  • Infinity +1 Sword: The Phoenix Gundam, which is generally considered to be on par with the Turn A and Turn X, and is effectively an All Your Powers Combined Gundam with weapons and abilities cribbed from every universe. It gets toned down in recent games since it can be obtained early, but it's still a good unit.
    • Later games have a "True Power" version that's even stronger, and while a good unit, it doesn't compare against the absolute best of the Gundam universe.
    • World introduces the Halpas Gundam, which is related to it and is basically a superior version of it, though in that game and Overworld, you can't make one of your own until you beat the game.
  • Item Crafting: Both formats of games allow you to make mobile suits in different ways. Console games let you combine two machines together to produce a new one, typically with a degree of logic behind the combonote . Handheld games let you combine items with MS to make new ones, and they can also be scrapped for parts.
  • Killed Off for Real: In historical games, should a mobile suit get shot down, you lose the suit and all of its upgrades, thus you need to buy and/or level up the suit to get it completely back.
  • Later-Installment Weirdness: Genesis and Cross Rays could be considered this by definition as the "historical" aspect of the series is cranked up to eleven, containing very long stretches of dialogue and barring your own team from deploying for extensive periods of time. It could, however, be argued in Genesis that your team represents the Turn A Gundam prelude, as there would seemingly be no other way to save the Earth during that period.
    • The Psycoro Gundam, a recurring original unit. A Visual Pun on the pronunciation of "psyco" versus "saikoro" (dice), it's essentially the Psyco Gundam's head grafted to a giant die. Turns out the shape of dice make decent weapon platforms — the "one" side has an entire mega beam cannon stuffed inside it, and opposite that is a bunch of missile pods. Oh, and stat-wise, it's an upgrade to the Psyco Haro, and occupies less space.
  • Limited Move Arsenal: In early games, each machine is limited to four moves. The portable games sometimes change things up slightly by having MAP Weapons be on a completely separate list, although they never go over six. This is followed by Spirits which upped the number to six, but still reserve last two slots for MAP only. It's Wars that finally feature units with more than four regular moves.
  • Love Dodecahedron: Mono-Eye Gundams is driven by one. Sieg loves Sera, who loves him back. Ein has a psycho crush on Sera, and undergoes a Face–Heel Turn so he can kidnap and brainwash her. Mian, The Captain's daughter, has a Precocious Crush on Sieg, which upgrades in the seven-year gap between the One Year War and the Gryps Conflict.
  • Love Redeems: In the Char's Counterattack bonus missions for DS, one can convince Char to not drop Axis and rejoin the team by having Haman Karn (provided you recruited her) convince Char when his Sazabi's HP is lowered significantly. It helps they are presented as having more of a relationship, rather than a one-sided attraction as in the anime.
  • Magikarp Power: The crossover games are pretty much made of this trope. Invest enough time in Level Grinding any character or MS, and they will be able to completely murder most enemies you encounter.
  • Mana Burn: The MAP Attack version of the Turn A and Turn X Gundams' Moonlight Butterfly drains the EN of almost every single unit on the map, friend or foe, to zero; units parked in a battleship when the attack is used are spared the drain and so can sortie with full EN to bash some foes without fear of counterattacks.
  • Merchandise-Driven: G Generation F used Card Codes to let you unlock new MS and ships. How do you get Card Codes? Why, they're included in every G Generation model kit and Collectible Card Game pack, of course!
    • 3D tried to do something similar with the system's AR scanner; how well that worked isn't known.
  • Mid-Season Upgrade: Both formats allow you to upgrade your mecha in a number of different ways. Historical games let you turn a sufficiently leveled MS into a related one Example , or combine the plans for two different MS to produce a new one Example . Crossover games use a system akin to Item Crafting, where you apply a special parts to an MS to change it Example , and you can subsequently scrap an MS to break it down into parts.
  • Mirror Match: In World, Stage Final-02 features eight Neuro Copies, which take the form of units you have onboard your battleship. If you're very unlucky, you will fight eight copies of the 00-Qan[T], Crossbone X1 Full-Cloth, Balbados or Turn-A (Black History ver) you've brought along.
    • You can use it as your advantage though, by using only a few strong unit while the rest are piloting Mook units. And these copies have fixed stats while yours can usually outperform them... Unless you're playing in Hell World.
    • Activiating Core Impact from the World Core stages in Over World will also create copies from your unit, literally. (That is, all stats of the copies will be the same as your original units being copied.) Pray none of your best units' clones end up by your motherships.
    • Being hit by those ELS during the EX stage of D route in Over World will result in your unit being copied. They retain their original stats as ELS, which slightly mitigates the punishment getting hit entails, for the stage's first two mission objectives demand that you kill a number of ELS before they can copy your units, which outright require one-shotting a whole fleet of 'em with squad support attacks because counterattacks count as hits. Did we mention they completely heal when transforming?
      • Entirely Inverted in the last stage of the 00 Movie in Cross Rays, where the ELS will transform into either Mimetic GN-XIVs or Volgas after hitting any unit (rather than outright copy the target unit), and the Secret conditions are actually to destroy 20 ELS after they have transformed; The stage gives you 8 of those at the start, meaning you have to let your or your NPC units get hit 12 more times to fulfill the condition, within 3 turns.note 
  • Mook Promotion: Happens on occasion; for example, Advance takes Alex and Muller, a pair of asshole pilots from Gundam Wing who only lasted one episode before getting karmic justice at Zechs' hands, and turns them into recurring antagonists, even giving them Mercurius and Vayeate.
  • Multiple Endings: 'Mono-Eye Gundams'' has three endings: One where Mian sacrifices herself to save Sera, one where Sera kills herself in a moment of clarity, and the Golden Ending where you save Sera without anyone dying.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: If you fail to convince Athrun in Advance, he realizes that he's been helping the bad guys all along and pulls a suicide run against Dozle Zabi.
  • Mythology Gag: Several, as expected of a game franchise such as this. To list a few:
    • General:
      • When using Funnel-type weapons, some characters will comment that their Funnels "aren't just for show", even in games that don't feature the UC entries at all. If they use the Fin Funnels specifically, that reference is almost certain to come up.
      • Characters that share voice actors will often invoke Actor Allusion when interacting with or piloting a suit related to that other character, often by borrowing or referencing one of their famous quotes. Less commonly, their suits will reference the other's attacks or animation in some form. Ribbons Almark referencing Amuro Ray is the quintessential example of this.
      • True to the anime and lore, using the Turn X's Fusion Destruction Manipulator will trigger the characters' quotes for when they use the Shining Finger, including Domon.
      • Characters who had tragic experiences with mechs featuring mind-screwing systems will often feature quotes that sympathize and/or draw from said experiences when facing against other characters in similar circumstances.
      • Similarly, characters with experience with AI technology and AI-controlled mechs will have quotes drawing from those experiences when facing the likes of Mobile Dolls or the Calamity Era's Mobile Armors.
      • Characters with rivalries against a Char Clone in their series, when facing against another Char Clone, will often bring up comparisons and similarities with unamusement, often treating it as though it is an in-universe fad amidst those sort of pilots.
    • Cross Rays:
      • Performing the Darkness Finger with certain characters will have them quote Master Asia's "That's why you're such a fool!!" from his final fight with Domon.
      • Placing Master Asia in the God Gundam will have him reminisce of the Yamato Gundam from the Mobile Fighter G Gundam: 7th Fight manga. Performing the God Finger will have him turn it into the Shakunetsu Sunshine Finger.
      • Similarly, placing Heero in the God Gundam instead has Heero remarking that he is "already familiar with Toho Fuhai-ryu martial arts", referencing Heero forming a team with Master Asia and Jerid in his Original Mode story in Dynasty Warriors: Gundam.
      • Having Domon and Master Asia perform their Finger or Sekiha Tenkyoken attacks together in a Team Attack will have the two individually do the "These Hands of Ours are burning red!" chant that originated from their combination attacks in the Super Robot Wars games.
      • Certain characters, when performing the God Finger or Sekiha Tenkyoken, declare their love out loud or comment how one is supposed to do just that when using said Gundam, referencing Domon's love confession to Rain in the last episode of G Gundam.
      • 00 Gundam Seven Sword/G's Trans-Am animation, particularly once the 00 closes into its opponent, directly references the finishing blows from the Gundam Exia to the Alvatore in Gundam 00 Season 1.
      • Cherudim SAGA's Trans-Am animation takes its first couple of segments from its GBF variant featured in Gundam Build Fighters Battlogue's episode 4.
      • Tallgeese II reproduces two of Treize's signature poses with its Beam Saber attack at its end - which one depends on whether it landed the attack on the opponent or not.
      • Placing the A Wakening of the Trailblazer version of Graham Aker in one of Setsuna's Gundams will have him refer to it as the Graham Gundam, himself as a Gundam Meister, as well as changing his Trans-Am line to "Grans-Ham" - the three lines referencing his time piloting the Exia Repair IV in the live drama performance Mobile Suit Gundam 00 Festival 10 "Re:vision".
      • The G-Self Atmospheric Pack's beam saber attack directly references the RX-78-2 Gundam's first slicing of a Zaku back at the original show.
      • Claire Heathrow's quotes for piloting the God or Master Gundams will reference the Jigen Haoh Ryu school, which is the Martial Arts school that the Domon-lookalike created and taught to Gundam Build Fighters Try protagonist Sekai.
  • Nerf:
    • The Bonus Step mechanic. In Zero and F, one unit can have unlimited Bonus Steps as long as it can kill something. Meaning that one unit with really high attack power can keep on killing as long as there is an enemy nearby, and it still has enough EN. And if the unit also has high movement and long range weapon, it may even wipe the whole map clean in a single turn. Since Neo, the Bonus Step is limited by the character's level. Overworld goes a step further and limits steps to 9 at lv99 (in earlier games an pilot at that level could have INFINITE steps), and Cross Rays then flat out limits every character to only 2 Bonus Steps regardless of their level, discounting Character Abilities and/or Skills.
    • In Zero, all the Mobile Fighters' attacks doesn't cost EN. Combine that with unlimited Bonus Steps above, you shouldn't be surprised that they use EN like every other unit since F.
    • Overworld did away with multi-hitting single target attacks. This was likely due to the fact that 6x Missile attacks on a single enemy did an inexplicably high amount of damage compared to its single-hitting peers. note 
    • With the Gundam Double X with G-Falcon able to hit and kill up to 3 foes per Bonus Step like a monster truck with its Twin Satellite Cannon in Wars, World and Overworld, subsequent games nerfed multi-target attacks: Super Hero Generation decreases a unit's maximum Bonus Steps per player phase by one if it manages to kill at least one enemy with a multi-target attack, and Genesis has these attacks available only to battleships, which cannot obtain Bonus Steps under any circumstance, and has their power divided by the number of attacked targets. Cross Rays then takes this even further by making multi-targeting only available via Warship or Raid Link-Up Attacks, which costs 30EN, is usable once per turn, and limits the number that can be targeted by the number of friendly units already sortied in that group.
    • This happens to a typical sneak peak unit/character when it becomes regularly obtainable in the next game. The Qan[T] in World had attacks with lower EN costs and easily spammable bits; in Overworld some of the costs have increased and the bits attack have a MP cost.
    • GN Fields were nerfed in Cross Rays by reducing their defense capabilities to only attacks below a certain threshold and forcing them to activate even if it won't block an incoming attack. Previously, this enabled any units equipped with the functionality to No-Sell most if not all attacks at the comparatively low cost of not fighting back right away.
    • The Quantum Burst was originally an ability that could heal all allied suits across the whole map allowing for some pretty reckless plays. It's range was eventually massively gutted in Cross Rays, greatly limiting it's use — not to mention that (as a final nail in the coffin) it is specifically banned outright in Inferno difficulty with the release of the Expansion Set.
    • The Phoenix Gundam, in spite of being the Series Mascot, constantly loses some facet of its strength with each game. As of Cross Rays, it no longer has any meaningful interactions in Item Crafting, is rather weak compared to other units even at full throttle, and has had its lore changed to remove its extraterrestrial origins.
  • New Game Plus: In SEED, completing "SEED Mode" will allow players to begin "Historical" with all SEED-based characters unlocked, a hefty chunk of money and the five G-Weapons (Strike, Aegis, Buster, Blitz and Duel) ready to use.
  • No Campaign for the Wicked: Averted in DS, which has a Villain Route where you take control of the Titans, OZ, and OMNI Enforcer among others. And you unlock it by following the original Gundam novel and killing Amuro Ray at A Baoa Qu. It's a double subversion as most of this force does a Heel–Face Turn against their leaders and if you have the right character, you can cause the three that didn't to do so and end up being able to work well in the same squad. And the leader? Cima. This doesn't begin to describe the surprising changes in it.
    • The first part of DS would count as unlike many games of this series and SRW, you play as Char/Zeon and taking on scenarios from that perspective. Thus you get to join routing Feddie forces with other Zeon aces.
  • No Kill like Overkill: A hilarious variation happens in G Generation Advance. If you were able to recruit Garrod from one of the Extra Stages, he'll be able to rescue Tiffa when she shows up with the Gundam X, take over the Mobile Suit and blow away the Frost Brothers. Then, the Frost Brothers come back again, this time for Kamille to lose himself with his Newtype powers and Domon to help him, allowing him to destroy them again with the Hyper Beam Saber.
  • Oh, Crap!: On DS: Muruta Azrael, Devil Gundam.
    • World or Overworld, if you get do a bonus objective in one of the last stages, you get to fight the Black History Turn A as an extra enemy. It's a version with two very powerful attacks with stats that make the Full Power Turn A seem like the original.
    • World has a minor one when Patrick Cossair appears with supercharged morale (allowing him to land super crits) right off the bat. It is offset by the fact that he's in a mook suit and landing a hit is enough to snap him out of it.
    • Overworld's prologue scene has a major one when Setsuna goes to communicate with the ELS like in the movie, only for Over Impact to trigger due to the amount of overlapping Gundam timelines, causing Flit to suddenly shoot Setsuna, while Domon and Amuro turn unresponsively violent. This forces Setsuna back, and has to hold a last stand against his former allies and the ELS with Banagher.
  • Original Generation: Handled a bit differently. Historical games have a pool of established original characters who make up the bulk of the player's forces (since famous characters like Amuro and Char can only be rented for one stage at a time note ). There are also a number of original MS, which will filter back into the mainstream once in a blue moon. Crossover games tend to stick more closely to the Super Robot Wars model, though occasionally canon villains like Gihren Zabi will be the Big Bad, just with better toys and longer life expectancy.
    • Many of the original units that assimilate into canon are usually Sailor Earth-type designs, consisting of missing links like the Mk. IV, or hypothetical developmental pathways like the Netix, a (very) heavily modified Gundam Alex meant for Zeon's research.
    • Wars also play with this. The thing doesn't get mentioned until EX missions, which are unlocked after you have clear at least a third of the game. And you actually see it only for the last two missions, yet it turn out that the Generation System is what control every events in this game.
    • Overworld actually invokes this trope by the presence of World Core stages, explaining the Original Characters trying to hack into the Generation System.
  • Pre-Rendered Graphics: Surprisingly enough, despite the massive number of suits and a large number of different camera angles used in the attack animations that show them off from every angle, every MS in Cross Rays is actually a sprite with a few static viewing angles and intricately crafted attack animations that pull off a very convincing illusion of making them look like 3D models: this allows a large number of them to be displayed at the same time during Link Attacks without slowing the game down, although this comes at the cost of a noticeabily large total filesize. This is averted with battleships, which are actual 3D models.
  • Recursive Canon: G Gen uses this rather strangely, claiming that Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team was turned into a TV series in the UC 0090s (with input from Michel) and the space-use variants of Shiro's Gundam Ez 8 exist because the writers extended the fictional story beyond what happened in the real world.
  • Retcon: The Phoenix Gundam was always described as coming from beyond the solar system, and can be combined with literally anything in the games' Item Crafting system. World explains both of these aspects by saying that the Phoenix contains ELS cells with data on every MS ever made.
  • Sequence Breaking: Overworld's progression of unit discovery is built in such a way that Model Suit Gunpla Builders Beginning G units, of which the Beginning 30 is superior to the full-power Phoenix Gundam, are meant for the endgame, acquired by capturing and registering the Super Zaku F2000 that appears in front of Boris Schauer in the D-rank stages. However, Level Grinding an Acguy can be done very early on to create a Beargguy, from which all other units in the series can be registered and built from. You can also trade a unit for the Beginning 30 or Forever at around level 18, but that'd be far more tedious than just developing and registering the machines yourself.
  • Serial Escalation: Some of the games, particularly F and World, include a truly staggering number of series, characters, and mecha. F in particular claimed to have over 1,000 playable machines, though in truth Bandai did cheat a little note .
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong: In DS, the entire Turn A cast travels back in time in the hopes of preventing the Dark History...except for Gym and his cronies, who want to set it off even earlier.
    • Timeline-Altering MacGuffin: Because of this, Gihren Zabi gets his hands on future technology, which lets him produce the Centurio series of MS, essentially Mass Production Turns, complete with Moonlight Butterfly Funnels.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: In the final battle against the Titans in Overworld, one of the darkest scenes of the early UC, an unintentional example may occur if the first secret is triggered, causing "My Proud! My Play!" to suddenly kick in as Boris sorties in the Forever Gundam and an unusually large Neuro army.
  • Spared by the Adaptation: Genesis does this a few times, which is unusual since it's a Historical type game.
  • Super Prototype/Unseen Prototype: A lot of the G Gen originals are prototypes that were rejected or never built, like the Gundam Aquarius, Epyon's Mobile Doll-busting brother.
    • Mono-Eye Gundams revolves around a trio of Zeon prototype Gundams that were never built until the designs fell into Titan hands.
    • The dubiously canon GP00 Blossom, precursor to the four GP-series suits, makes its appearance in this series and has no problem lugging around the heavy weaponry (which Gundam Wars stated resulted in it self-terminating) attached to it. It also has superior base stats to the other suits and is thus unlikely to ever suffer the other two explanations as to why the Blossom is practically erased from the record of the UCnote .
  • Super Title 64 Advance:
    • DS is an obvious case.
    • As per its title screen, the Switch port of Genesis is officially named SD Gundam G Generation Genesis for Nintendo Switch.
  • Tactical Superweapon Unit: In general, as in the source material Mobile Armours often act as super units, though how "super" they can be sometimes depends on what special abilities they have in-game. For example, in SD Gundam G Generation F, I-fields make units completely immune to Beam 1 attacks (e.g. beam rifles, beam spray guns, beam machine guns) while halving damage from Beam 2 attacks (e.g. beam cannons, mega particle cannons), so the likes of Byg Zam, Neue Zeil and Psyco Gundam Mk-II can laugh off most beam attacks. In later games like SD Gundam G Generation Genesis, I-fields merely reduce beam attack damage and so the aforementioned trio don't feel quite as powerful.
    • Even with the above caveat, some Mobile Armours are so effective that they can easily trivialise much of the game when sufficiently built up. For example, Neo Zeong from SD Gundam G Generation Genesis has tons of health, plenty of firepower, has the special ability to prevent enemy attacks beyond a certain range, and can be purged to reveal a Sinanju at full health.
    • The Psycho Gundam Mk-II has the I-field to help with defense, comes with a range of weapons (from beam cannons to beam sabers) and becomes more powerful when piloted by a powerful Newtype (which increases both the range of and damage done by Psycommu weapons), making it a reliably useful though expensive unit in any game where it appears.
    • The Full Power Gundam Phoenix is a deliberately overpowered Mobile Suit that has a healing factor thanks to Nanoskin, has I-fields (depending on the game), comes equipped with weapons that allow it to fight at any range (with the Feather Funnels becoming more powerful and far-reaching the higher the pilot's Awakening stat) and has both decent health and armour in addition to high evasion and movement. The Phoenix Gundam that players will normally start with can be evolved into the Full Powered version, but that is often a long, tough slog since the Phoenix can quickly be outstripped by many protagonist units. However, it's generally worth it. Trying to purchase a brand-new one is often incredibly expensive, though.
  • A Taste of Power: The opening stage of World starts you out with the entire Celestial Being team circa Second Season, Unicorn Gundam (NT-D Mode), Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice, and pits you against Mr. Bushido, Ali-Al Saachez and Full Frontal.
    • To a lesser degree, the opening stage of Overworld pits the 00 Qan[T], Unicorn Gundam, Nu Gundam, God Gundam and Gundam AGE-1 against some ELS. Then the Over Impact turns the last three against you; good thing you only need to take out one to end the stage.
  • The Theme Park Version: Crossover games will typically pare each series down to its barest elements, but the Alternate Universes get it worse. For example, Gundam Wing is usually nothing more than Heero, Relena, Zechs, Noin, and the relevant MS; Gundam X likewise gets stripped down to Garrod, Tiffa, the Frosts, and their Gundams.
  • True Final Boss: The more recent games have included Nintendo Hard extra bosses you fight at the very end; in Spirits, it's the full-powered version of the Turn A Gundam - which is considered to be one of the most powerful Humongous Mecha ever.
    • Wars introduces the O Gundam, a stupid-powerful version of the 0 Gundam, complete with an AI that sounds remarkably like Ribbons note .
    • World introduces the Barbatos (not that one), a peacockish mobile suit (despite its MS mode face, it is not counted as a Gundam) with stats roughly equal to Black History Turn A. Its first act in the 2nd final stage? Curb stomping Aprodia's Hapalas Gundam.
    • 3DS features Ribbons again as the final boss, beginning with an overpowered version of the Reborns Gundam, and then the ELS unit called "Nemesis R.A." who attacks with a massive spawn of GN Fangs and Funnels.
    • Genesis features the Black History ∀ Gundam again. This time, it is trying to invade Earth and use the Moonlight Butterfly to wipe it clean of technology (and quite possibly terminate the UC during the CCA/Hathaway's Flash era), and is backed up by an entire army of UC mechs across space and time. During the fight, all enemies are encased in cocoons equivalent to a small battleship which must be broken to reveal the unit inside. The Black History Turn A is covered in two to insure its advance towards Earth.
      • Triggering all of the secrets will save the Earth, but throws up a different foe to face: The G-Self Perfect Pack.
    • Cross Rays takes things deep into Formula-Breaking Episode territory, with the final fight taking place in a nondescript volcanic ruin and pitting the player against the Star Build Strike, Wing Fenice Rinascita, 00 Sky, and Galbady Rebake, after which Knight Superior Dragon appears to challenge the heroes.
    • Marathon Boss: The O Gundam in Wars is just the last part of a 28 Phase fight against the Generation System's security program, which has the player fight against 27 main character Gundam units in chronological order, starting with Amuro Ray's Gundam and ending with Setsuna's Gundam Exia.
  • Ultimate Universe: The historical games tend to mash several episodes into a single mission. Overworld eventually deconstructs this, where introducing another universe or time period into the stage puts stress on the Generation System, eventually triggering Over Impact and converting all allied characters that aren't on your team into hyper-violent freaks.
  • You Can't Fight Fate: In Wars EX Mission 1, Aguile Delaz try to destroy the Generation System with a Colony Drop. He realized as Cima about to shoot him, just like in the series, that even his act is under control of the Generation System.

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