Video Game / Super Robot Wars UX

Well...can't say we saw this coming.

Super Robot Wars UX is the first entry in the Super Robot Wars series for the Nintendo 3DS. It was released on March 14, 2013.

In a similar vein to the controversial announcement of Super Robot Wars Judgment, news about UX broke out barely even two weeks after the launch of the Second Super Robot Wars Original Generation. At the same time, the lineup for the game was under scrutiny like the cast listing for Super Robot Wars L:

• Mobile Suit Gundam 00: A Wakening Of The Trailblazer makes its debut in UX, which makes little sense without any build-up from Mobile Suit Gundam 00, especially when the Second Super Robot Wars Z duology fully adapted the storyline.
• Cyber Troopers Virtual-On: Fei-Yen HD not being a realistic entry, as it's merely Fei-Yen the Knight appearing as a Humongous Mecha-based Hatsune Miku. In fact, it's not even an actual series: Fei-Yen HD is just an action figure based on a piece of official artwork.
• Mazinkaiser SKL marks the first time Kouji Kabuto of Mazinger Z does not appear in a licensed-SRW (until Saisei-hen, Kouji has appeared in every non-Original Generation SRW). However, since Mazinkaiser SKL was the latest Mazinger title that ended before UX released, it becomes something special that the oldest SRW participant becomes the newest "newcomer" in a SRW title.
• Initial scans and the first promotional video revealed the same sprite-based visuals from the Nintendo DS SRWs, with players calling another instance of Lazy Artist, particularly returning series (though upon closer inspection, UX appears to have taken some visual cues from the Second Z, and isn't entirely sprites). Upon game release, players have noticed recurring titles from previous handheld SRWs got quite the makeover.

UX marks the first instance of a series that is an Animated Adaptation to a visual novel (Kishin Houkou Demonbane to Zanma Taisei Demonbane) and an actual Super-Deformed series. UX also includes voice acting; additionally, Namco Bandai has promised Downloadable Content via special campaign maps and a "Tsume Suparobo" mini-game, in the same vein as the puzzle-solving mini-games present in previous Nintendo SRWs.

Series included in UX are (debuting series are rendered in bold):

• Mobile Suit Gundam 00: A Wakening Of The Trailblazer
• Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny
• Kishin Houkou Demonbane
• Linebarrels of Iron (Debut of the original manga; voice acting courtesy of the anime adaptation's cast)
• Fafner in the Azure: Dead Aggressor
  • Heaven and Earth
• Aura Battler Dunbine
  • The Wings of Rean
• Macross Frontier
  • The False Songstress
  • The Wings of Goodbye
• Ninja Senshi Tobikage
• Heroman
• Dancougar Nova
• Cyber Troopers Virtual-On: Fei-Yen HD
• SD Gundam Sangokuden: Brave Battle Warriors
• Mazinkaiser SKL

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This game contains examples of the following:

• Accidental Misnaming: Richard calls Joey "Jonathan" once, Joey says "It's Joseph...".
• Ace Pilot: In a first for the usual mechanic in SRW, achieving "Ace" status requires a pilot to gain 100 kills; "Double Ace" is obtained at 200 kills. As for people who are Aces on their own, you have Graham Aker and Reiji Moritsugu for one, and Shinn Asuka is explicitly referred to in-game as an "ace pilot from the 2nd Alliance PLANT War."
• Adaptational Backstory Change: In UX, Iron Kaiser was summoned from another world by the Gravity Engine, with the implication that Mazinkaiser SKL also came from another world.
• Adaptational Villainy: UX takes two antagonists that weren't super threatening in their respective source materials and gives them at least one vile moment each to really earn them the hatred of the heroes:
  • Hazard Pasha goes past the point of no return when he turned the Kiba and Garan grunts into unwilling suicide bombers in an attempt to kill both the heroes and the Festum. This act did a good job of unnerving Magami.
  • To a lesser extent, Dr. Minami shows how evil he can be when he uses brainwashed Chimera (human-turned-Skrugg variants) as his pawns, all while they're clearly in pain. It's enough to cause Kaidou to call him a "piece of scum."
• Amnesiac Hero: According to Fei-Yen HD, she was in a dark area all alone until she heard a voice. Upon reaching it, she became "Miku". What triggered the transformation was the whole concert with Sheryl Nome, which made her excited when she heard the word "concert" & "song", but what reactivates her memory is an attack by the Vajra, which gave her the "shock treatment" necessary to bring her connection (while vague) with Miku. As a result, Grace o' Conner is targeting her as a potential nominee for her plans.
• And the Adventure Continues: In the ending, Kurou Daijuuji is working for Ruri Hadou, who has him investigating the recent blood monster incidents.
• All Your Colors Combined: Liu Bei, Cao Cao, and Sun Quan's + Lu Bu's Soul of Three Seasons Combination Attack and Four Sovereign Armour Attack.
• Arc Welding
  • The Machine Island was a research center for alternative energy sources established after World War II (tying into the plots of both Gundam 00 and The Wings of Rean). It produces an ore called Odyssite, which is critical to the Original story and has similar properties to Kilhacium, Fold Quartz, the Dragon Seal, and The Wings of Rean. It also had a Mir, part of which was used in Mark Elf's core.
  • Linebarrel is connected to Demonbane because the latter is also a "Machina" and the Katou Organization are hunting them down. More specifically, Linebarrel and Demonbane are titled "Deus Ex Machina", with the "Ex" meaning "Extra". Both stories' time loop events are interconnected in UX.
  • Scenario 24 is a mash of the starting battle from Sayonara no Tsubassa as well as the titular impact of Trailblazer, by mixing in the fact that the Galaxy refugee ships were at Jupiter. Fighting Vajra ships for the first time is only a tease to the real first appearance of the ELS. This also gives the chance for more interactions between Alto and Setsuna, and the final save coming from Tieria in the Raphael.
  • Fei-Yen's plot is tied in with Mazinkaiser SKL. She was found underneath Kiba's fortress and was later revealed to have been summoned there by the Gravity Engine. Once you go on a route split she has an encounter with Miku^* Note that in game she never mention Miku's name and gets her KYUNKYUN beam, then during SKL finale she goes super mode^* which is basically Fei-Yen's original Super Mode when Kiba shows up, and during Fafner TV finale, she gets her Morale boosting special command. So, In the Blue Sky is unlocked during Operation Azure.
  • The Tokyo inside the moon, which is where all the Humanoid Machinas come from, is also strikingly similar to Shou's Tokyo. Shou and the Dunbine characters are basically from a previous incarnation of the world. Later on we find out Juda's "view of future" are actually about what happened before, so at least part of the cast are also of the same origin.
  • It's eventually revealed that Mirisha is an iteration of Earth where the Humanoid Machina successfully evolved into humans. Planet Ladorio is also an iteration of Earth, and the actions of the ninja warriors in the present day turns out to be the source of Ladorio's ancient ninja legend.
  • The higher dimension that the Festum have been trying to reach by returning the universe to nothing is speculated to be the world beyond Yog-Sothoth's gate, where the Great Old Ones, who were described by Al as beings of nothingness, dwell.
  • The final stage reveals that due to Nya trapping the universe in a Klein bottle and forcing it to loop countless times, all the accumulated possibilities are threatening to destroy the universe for good. The final boss, Kali Yuga, is a system designed to prevent this from happening by returning all the possibilities to chaos, allowing another Yuga to begin.
• Arc Words:
  • "Gather at the beginning." Many of the cast heard it before they were warped to the UX world. Its meaning would become clear by the endgame. It refers to those who can hop across space and time.
  • "The spider at the center of the web" is also repeated a lot when the heroes are pondering about who or what is behind the events of the game. It represents the invisible enemy they believe is responsible for gathering people from so many different worlds together.
• Art Evolution: Banpresto improved Demonbane's Lemuria Impact animation◊ and polished it up to a greater degree.
• Artistic License – Geography: Even though Arkham City is located in Massachusetts according to the Mythos, it's moved to the west coast in this game to make crossovers with Heroman easier. The same goes for Innsmouth.
• Ascended Extra: Some people who don't fight in battles have been now given a role as tactician/cheerleader you can set for chapter's map.
• The Assimilator: The Festums' attacks have the "assimilation" effect, causing their target's morale to drop when a hit connects. If a unit's morale drops below 90 because of this, they are instantly killed regardless of how much health they have left. Kazuki can also do this to the Festums after he switches to Mark Sein, which can instantly assimilate almost any non-boss Festum with a single hit due to their low starting morale.
  • The ELS' "fusion" ability has a similar effect, though it works on energy rather than morale, making it especially deadly against battleship units.
• Attack Drone: 00 Qan[T]'s sword bits, Zabanya's holster bits and rifle bits, Harute's scissor bits. Luca's Ghosts Johan, Simon and Petro. Mark Zechs's Norn.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Final Boss, "Kali Yuga" is a Multi-Armed and Dangerous machine with a feminine appearance. She's the only unit in UX to be classified as 3L.
• Audience Participation Song: Since UX uses the the Macross Frontier movies rather than the TV series, the usual Seikan Hikou song is replaced with Seikan Hikou (Live In Alcatraz), complete with crowds cheering and Ranka Lee asking everyone to "kira~" with her.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Alto's Special Command "Dance of Wings"; the point you learn it at is so late in the game that there aren't enough enemies left that it works on for it to be useful.
• Background Music Override: Fei-Yen HD overrides the music with her songs when she attacks but unlike with previous games with licensed songs, Banpresto went the extra mile by having them be full vocal versions. Notably, this is the first time one of them, In The Blue Sky, is shown as having vocals at all!
• Back from the Dead: The Dunbine story for UX begins after the "Everybody Dies" Ending of the original. However only Shou, Marvel, Burn, and Shot Weapon return to life. The rest of the cast never reappear and are presumed still dead by Shou. This actually prompts a possible Heel–Face Turn from Burn, since all of his old allies (and thus his old cause) are gone anyway.
• Barrier Warrior: Joey acts as a 3000 damage AT Field for Heroman and gets to use his forcefield offensively during the Heroman Combination Attack.
• Beach Episode: Chapter 26 is this. But no official art.
• Berserk Button: When Gogorr trashes Heroman in the finale, Joey turns into his red Berserk Mode.
• Black Comedy Rape: Ryofu calls Yulianne shallow and says if she really wants proof of life that much he'll give it to her. Though he only yells "TAMASHIIIIIII" as usual and there's a golden flash; he didn't touch her, but did something else.
• Big Bad: Noble Dylan, or so it seemed. She's not really evil per se.
• Big Damn Heroes: The Tobikage appears whenever one of its crew gets hit below 50% HP, and will automatically combine with whoever's below 30% HP first, ship not inclusive in the combining. From past experience though, it's not recommended to allow it to run around......^{Reasons for that} For those who don't know, Tobikage was infamous for stealing kills (and thus EXP, cash and Secrets) from you when it's a NPC. In UX it lost its MAP weapon from Impact, but now it has the potential to strike four times a turn. Ranka Lee really feels the pain if you let him, too.
• Big Good: It's revealed in the final stage that Noble Dylan was this all along. She forced UX through countless trials to ensure that they grow strong enough to defeat Kali Yuga, even at the cost of her own life. This also makes her a good guy counterpart to Nya.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: The Sphinx-class appearing in the prologue and the one appearing in Chapter 13 both have mind reading level 4, making it nearly impossible for non-Fafner units to hit them without spirit commands. For comparison, even Idun and Misao only have mind reading level 3. To make matters worse, you have to defeat the former with Kazuki for a secret.
• Break Them by Talking: Done to the heroes by Deus Ex Machina during the Linebarrels finale, who pointed out that since humans inevitably lose their imagination when peace is achieved and self-destruct as a result, the heroes were essentially fighting to bring about the end of humankind. This drops everyone's morale by 30 (except the Death Caprice duo), making the fight against him much harder.
• Call-Back: During the prologue, Richard and Saya bail out Kazuki just as a Festum's about to assimilate him by using the Hell Stringer attack. Jump forward forty-two stages, and Agnes and Saya do the same once more as Kazuki's in trouble
• Calling Your Attacks: The usual, but there's the case where Cham Fau calls the attacks instead of Shou Zama.
• The Cameo: Isamu Alva Dyson makes a cameo◊ during the Multiple Macross Cannon attack. He doesn't do anything except pose and does not get a dialogue box. However, he yells, "Let's go, ya cuties! Yahoo!". Deceased Neil Dylandy appears to Setsuna in his mind in chapter 38, this does happen in the movie too.
• Central Theme: "Life" is the central theme of the entire game, with multiple important plot points relating to how death is a necessary part of life and multiple MacGuffins and Applied Phlebotinum all relating to life.
• Composite Character: The nameless president of the Earth Federation from Gundam 00 Awakening Of The Trailblazer also fulfills the same role as the unnamed president of the United States of America from Heroman.
• Continuity Cameo: UX crams in references to other entries in the Demonbane franchise aside from the anime.
  • One of the duels during Ruri's route in the original Visual Novel occurs in spite of the anime's basis on Al-Azif's route.
  • In the ending, Elder Gods Kurou and Al Azif appear to watch over their non-Elder God counterparts and talk about how they can leave their son Kuzaku Daijuuji to them, a reference to Kishin Hishou Demonbane.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: All bosses in UX get the "All-Canceller" ability, rendering them immune to Status Effects and Damage Increasing Debuffs and you can't even negate it with Direct Hit.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Ishigami, once he hops onto the Juda. He even blows off fog in his attack animation when he places Juda's sword on its shoulder.
• Cut Short: The plot of Linebarrels of Iron goes up to the Time Skip, except you destroy the Deus Ex Machina, instead.
• Dead Person Conversation: During the fight against Kali Yuga, all of the fallen characters, secret characters included if they were not unlocked, encourage everyone to fight for their sake.
• Demoted to Extra:
  • Descartes Shaman only appears during a MAP event.
  • Marvel (also Cham), Lunamaria, and Athrun did not get any new lines at all this game. Especially sad for Marvel since she barely has any recorded lines at all. Lunamaria also has no unique battle lines, while Athrun has a few reused ones from Z (lines for fighting humans and the final boss lines seen here).
  • Dimitri Magarov from Linebarrel appears only once to be trashed by three Jinrais in an event.
  • Mamoru if he survives, he can only be swapped with Hiroto as the pilot of Mark Funf. Even though they could just remodel the Mark Elf for Mamoru's use.
  • Vespasianus who only gets one event map appearance with his Deus Machina, though he is around in conversations.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: UX takes the concept to new heights, where the protagonists have to destroy the physical embodiment of the Hindu apocalypse.
• Earth All Along: The Tokyo inside the moon, which is where all the Humanoid Machinas come from, is also strikingly similar to Shou's Tokyo. Also, Mirisha and Ladorio are somehow Earth in the future.
• Eldritch Abomination: Nyarlathotep
• 11th-Hour Ranger: Master Therion is the strongest Secret Character in the game, with the best default stats (higher than Kurou's) and the same pilot skills from when he was an enemy unit. The Liber Legis has S ranks in every terrain, +300 attack power for all weapons, is immune to status effects and has an ability that grants a 35% chance of evading any attack. Finally, Therion has access to the "Soul" Spirit Command. No wonder you only get to use him on the final scenario. By optimising him over several playthroughs gives you enough power to defeat the final boss in two hits as seen here.
• Everyone Has Standards: This game does a good job of showing that Kaidou and Magami have lines they won't cross, as they react with horror and/or disgust at the atrocities that Hazard and Dr. Minami commit.
• Evil Knockoff: By the final scenarios, the Riot B is a mass-produced enemy unit.
• Fighting for a Homeland: After dealing some damage that Deus Ex Machina didn't ask for, Shou gets pumped and he says that while the Tokyo he once knew is gone, he isn't going to let the world that's become his home now end up being memorialized in such a dystopian fashion.
• Fix Fic: This refers mostly to the Mobile Suit Gundam 00 movie's story. During the story Graham can be saved from dying in combat. Likewise, Setsuna does not join ELS, meaning he will not be separated from the people he loves for five decades.
• Flaming Sword: The katanas wielded by the Aura Battlers from The Wings of Rean.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Whether intentional or coincidental, the game crashes if Kurou and Master Therion use the Shining Trapezohedron on each other. The entire plot of Demonbane is centered around Nyarlathotep attempting to get them to do this.
  • The four strongest warlords from SD Gundam Sangokuden all have their catchphrase in their Spirit Command list, to the point the game had to create the new Justice and Ideals spirits just to make it work. In fact, to complete his portrayal as more insecure than the others, Sun Quan can't even unlock his Courage command no matter his level until he gets some good Character Development.
  • Festum mind reading works on the SD Gundam units despite the fact that it was only suppoed to work on humans due to their genetic similarity caused by the super-ancient Mir, hinting at the fact that Mirisha is Earth All Along.
  • Whenever the Festum, the Vajra, and the ELS appear together, they never attack one another. Because they were able to recognize each other as non-hostile due to their similar Hive Mind nature.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Lord Byakhee is a Size L, while the Mark Sein and Mark Nicht are both Size M. While this is in-line with the designations given to most Deus Machina and Fafners respectively, it doesn't make sense in this instance, as the former is only 42.1 meters in height, yet is treated as being bigger than machines that are 45 meters tall.
  • Fei-Yen HD is a Size M unit, despite being said to be human-sized in the story. Though Original Virtuaroids can change between mecha-size and human-size, it's never explicitly stated that's the case for her in the story.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: Most of the UX plot stems from being trapped in a time loop (based on the Demonbane and Linebarrels of Iron storylines).
• Greater-Scope Villain: Nya. Her tempering with the universe ended up pushing it to the brink of destruction, causing Kali Yuga to intervene. As per canon, she was never dealt with directly, though the heroes do foil her plan.
• Guns Akimbo: Mazinkaiser SKL, Demonbane's Cthugha and Ithaqua. Zabanya uses Sniper Rifles Akimbo
• Guide Dangit: The secrets in this game are incredibly hard to figure out, even by SRW standards, since many of them either require using a specific Tactician on certain levels or a certain number of "de-facto" kills. The latter is especially frustrating, since kill numbers a character starts with and inherited kills from previous playthroughs do NOT count as "de-facto" kills, requiring you to calculate them manually.
• Healing Factor: All the SD Gundam units have HP regen due to being living beings. The Linebarrel Machinas also regenerate health, but unlike in L, they regenerate health every time they're hit in addition to the passive regen every turn.
• Heart Beat-Down: Fei-Yen HD
• Heroic Sacrifice: You lose many characters this way, but if their conditions are met, certain events will play out differently. For example, if you save Ishigami, Sakomizu and Lu Bu Tallgeese, then during stage 45 Ishigami will try to sacrifice himself to close the gate until Kira, Shinn and Athrun convince him not to go through with and destroy the moon Machina through the portal, instead. Meanwhile, Lu Bu Tallgeese, Liu Bei Gundam, Sun Quan Gundam and Cao Cao Gundam combine their powers to take out Hitomachina who are trying to stop you from destroying the gate with the strength of everyone combined.
• Hidden Agenda Villain: Shot Weapon works with Mishima to mess with the Vajra, but betrays him for the Galaxy people, but it turns out that he's just trying to find the truth behind the universe but screws up and winds up in the void.
• Homage: Orphes and Odyssea are one to the Hissatsu series, a Japanese Jidaigeki title, where assassins use a variety of weapons to kill criminals (garrotes, katanas, bombs, poison, etc). Lots of Richard's combat lines are also taken from that series; and don't even mention the BGM used during Hell Stringer or End of Rebirth.
• Hot Springs Episode: On Chapter 16 Japan side, the teams go to the hot springs in the hidden ninja village. Sakura from Fafner asks Sun Shangxiang from SD Gundam Sangokuden if she'll rust. No official art, oddly enough.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Master Therion, though only the first time. In-game you can beat him proper, but the event afterwards says otherwise.
• Idol Singer: Instead of using Mikhail Blanc and Klan Klang as her backing band in the Alcatraz scenario, Ranka uses her fellow idol singers Eida, Miu, Holly Jones and Fei-Yen.
• Inner Monologue: Soushi from Fafner does this for philosophical messages.
• Ironic Echo Cut: During the epilogue, Ozma Lee or Brera Stern tells Alto "Make up your mind and don't you dare give us some stupid shit like 'you're both my wings'". Right after Ozma's dialogue, the game cuts to a different setting where Joe is saying "YOU'RE BOTH MY WINGS".
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Hazard Pasha gets his just desserts on Scenario 49: End of the Invasion. It's so cathartic when you can personally kill him with Sakomizu, Mamoru, or Misao.
  • Unlike in canon, Hester Gallop gets backstabbed and killed by Shot Weapon.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Odyssea wields a glowing energy katana in the End of Rebirth attack.
• Large Ham: Sakomizu and Lu Bu Tallgeese.
• Last-Name Basis: In a first for a game featuring Gundam SEED Destiny, anytime somebody uses polite, formal speech with Shinn, they consistently refer to him as "Asuka-san."
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Damian, in Episode 12 where everyone is fighting in Byston Well, he analyzed how to call Tobikage and how it will forcefully fuse with one of Kurojishi, Hōraiō, and Bakuryū. Then in episode 30, he got suprised when Tobikage came by itself to face Zerokage while they haven’t even fulfilled the condition yet.
• Lethal Joke Character: Fei-Yen HD's final unlocked attack "In The Blue Sky Ver. HD" is basically a Status Buff to allied characters and debuff on enemies as a Special Command.
• Level Scaling: Enemies in chapters level scale -2 for mooks and +1 for bosses by either Arnie's level or the Event Deploy Main Character's. Though this seems to vary due to bugs.
• Lighter and Softer: UX may have some depressing and dark series like Fafner in the Azure and Demonbane, but it still manages to be quite fun. So much fun that even Setsuna who never laughs, laughs in the ending.
• Lightning Bruiser
  • Demonbane has one of the highest HP pools and armor value in the game, hits like a truck, and possesses the "Mirror of Nitocris" ability ^note  Grants a 30% chance to dodge all attacks.
  • Mazinkaiser SKL is one fast Super, having the highest Mobility out of all Supers even with no PU bonus from a partner. Has only slightly lower HP and Armor than Demonbane.
• Loophole Abuse: Meta-example; the only reason Banpresto was able to get a Vocaloid as a playable character in an SRW is by using a special action figure from Virtual On rather than using the character itself.
• Lost Technology: Fei-Yen HD is a relic discovered during the 28 years since the island had been isolated from the world by the gravity curtain that came up suddenly.
• Mana: Instead of the usual EN bar, all Deus Machina have an MP bar instead. It has a variety of quirks, such as scaling up through leveling skills rather than upgrades.
• Mana Drain:
  • The ELS absorbs EN with their attacks. In previous SRWs, if a unit runs out of EN, it cannot move; in UX, if EN is lowered to zero by ELS, it is assimilated which means it's automatically destroyed and there's even an assimilation animation just for it.
  • Ironically, the ELS cannot drain actual mana, so Demonbane is completely unaffected by their energy drain due to being powered by Magitek.
• Man Behind the Man: Hazard Pasha is responsible for 90% of the trouble you have with humans in the game and then some. He manipulates the government and media, depicting the heroes as terrorists, is then arrested but breaks out of prison and somehow manages to become the supreme commander of the UN forces and nukes the Festum, resulting in the events of Heaven and Earth. When Shinjirou Sakomizu attacks him, Mamoru protects the ship because it has nukes on it, but Hazard shoots both of them, hitting and killing Mamoru. He gives Rouri a nuke to drop on Tokyo, which leads to Sakomizu's death. He fires off nukes again during Operation Azure II, which kills off Kurusu. He turns the Mazinkaiser SKL villains into unwilling suicide bombers and helps Leon Mishima brainwash the Vajra. The reason for all this? To help villains from Tobikage conquer Earth and acquire the secret ninja power in the process...so he can use it himself to conquer the galaxy in his name. He basically doublecrossed EVERYONE he helped.
• Mid-Season Upgrade:
  • Subverted with the Orphes, but played straight with the Odyssea, where the Orphes combines with Saya Krueger's Lyrus.
  • Averted with Show, who is already in the Billbine by his first appearance, meaning his original unit, the Dunbine, has long since been passed down to Marvel.
  • Nanajin of The Wingsof Rean upgrades into Aka (Red) Nanajin.
  • Joe of Ninja Senshi Tobikage upgrades from Black Lion into the titular Tobikage.
  • Kazuki of Fafner in the Azure: Dead Aggressor upgrades from Mark Elf into Mark Sein.
  • Played with for Shinn from Gundam Seed Destiny: he starts out in the Destiny Gundam, but it gets heavily damaged in the prologue after he protected Kazuki from a Festum, forcing him to take back the Impulse Gundam from Lunamaria (who has to use a Gunner ZAKU Warrior painted in her custom color scheme in the meantime). However, he gets the Destiny back right before the middle point of the game.
  • Setsuna of Gundam 00 upgrades from 00 Raiser into the 00 Quanta.
  • Demonbane upgrades itself with Shantak and starts flying.
  • Alto from Macross Frontier upgrades into Durandal from Messiah.
  • Heroman upgrades into Strengthening Armour Heroman (he can purge off so it's more like an add-on).
  • Liu Bei from Gundam Sangokuden upgrades into his Shouretsutei form which is a transformation at either 140 Will or below 30% HP.
  • Mazinkaiser SKL upgrades into the Wing Cross form by combining with Wingle's wings at 120 Will.
• Mind Screwdriver: Luxe Sakomizu vanishes in the ending of The Wings of Rean, which is what happens in the original series with no information as to where she wound up; UX explains she returned to Byston Well.
• Nerf: The SP cost of Spirit Commands cost was increased due to the amount of Skills you can learn, so much that you need Ruri or Ranka as tactician to boost SP enough to cast the final Spirit Commands learned by sub-pilots.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Tiberius from Demonbane resurrects Skrugg into zombies, and they're space roaches.
• Non-Answer: Kaidou yells at Festum to ask him and Magami are they there, and Magami answers "We are Hell."
• Non-Standard Game Over: These happen when you fail Fafner missions, you get philosophical messages from Fafner people when this happens. Also if you fail to defeat Mark Nicht and Idun in 3 turns in chapter 39, you get to see Joe yell "Damn you Hazard!" some more.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The Riot X and the Riot pilots that only appear in the last two stages. Almost nothing is known about their origin other than the Riot X were presumably made by Noble Dylan in a previous cycle. Also, the pilots fight in complete silence, making it ambiguous whether or not they're even human.
• No Indoor Voice: Once Augustus is fought as a boss, pretty much all of his lines are yelled, which Fei Yen HD lampshades.
• Older and Wiser: While it's unknown exactly how long it's been since the end of the 2nd Alliance PLANT War in-universe, this game depicts Shinn Asuka as an experienced and level-headed mentor figure for the younger characters, in stark contrast to the brash, hot-headed attitude he's generally known for,^note About the only time he's been shown angry was when Kazuki ran away, and even then, it's made clear to be Anger Born of Worry marking this as the most mature portrayal of the character yet.
• Only Six Faces:
  • Super Robot Wars K had SEED Destiny and Fafner, while L traded in the latter for Linebarrels of Iron and all three anime feature character designs by Hisashi Hirai. Though the characters from these works returned for UX, Linebarrels was replaced with it's original manga version and as such has designs drawn by the manga's original artist Tomohiro Shimoguchi and has more varied faces.
  • In one case, Richard mixes up Shizuna for Izuna as the twins look the same, and Shouko laughs at all of them looking the same. Shizuna thinks the same about the Gundam-faces.
• Oh, Crap!: Soushi and Setsuna's reaction when a bunch of civilians become their battle tacticians.
• Original Generation
• Palette Swap: Brera's last attack in Battleroid form, is same as Luca's with just different colored ghosts.
• Put on a Bus:
  • Unlike the other cases where Gundam SEED Destiny was included, Lacus Clyne is conspicuously absent for the majority of UX's plot, though she appears past chapter 40 and she did help Arthun behind the scenes as shown in Scenario 22. Justified as she's now PLANT's chairlady. As of Mu, we have no clue.
  • Grandma Virginia and Teacher Collins also never appear after chapter 2.
  • Captain Shinobu Igarashi only makes two appearances in chapter 40 against Rouri and Kanamoto and in Chapter 43 Tatsumiyajima route to capture Jack Smith.
  • Rouri and Kanamoto. We can presume Rouri died when Asap shot him down and it's not certain if Kanamoto returned to Byston Well with his Shinden after the Wings Of Rean finale.
• The Power of Friendship/Set Bonus: Fafner units are way broken. Their Crossing system allows the Fafner models to be stronger as long as you deploy more of them. With 9 of them on the battlefield, aided with Continuous Target Negate from Soushi, they do so much damage without even the need to fear getting hit. One Crossing System Fafner is +3 to all stats, you can have 12 Crossing System Fafners on map.
• Precision F-Strike: Sometimes when Claudius takes a hit, he yells "Shiiiiit!"
• Redemption Equals Death: Nick from Heroman survives to the finale of his anime doing evil as a Skrugg thinking he can't return to normal, but Joey and everybody in UX tries to convince him there's still a chance he can. Unfortunately, he only survived long enough to be killed by the resurrected Gogorr.
• Redemption Promotion: Gameplay-wise, Master Therion is a pretty disappointing boss, having no health regen, no map weapon, and no double movement. If you recruit him, however, he becomes the most broken character in the entire game.
• Red Herring: In the intro, Noble Dylan's voice can be heard saying "Gather at the beginning", implying that she was was the one who called all the heroes and villains to the world of UX. However, Noble reveals in the final stage that the voices they heard were from their own past selves, whose spirit persisted despite the end of their universe.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: Kenichi Suzumura and Maaya Sakamoto were married during the development of Saisei-hen. In UX, Shinn and Lunamaria get an exclusive Combination Attack.
• Relationship Upgrade: Subverted with Asap and Luxe from Wings of Rean, they do not become lovers in UX, only Ship Tease.
• Rewatch Bonus: Playing through the game a second time, you can notice a lot of subtle hints at Saya's true nature. For example, she reacts with shock when Nya mentions "a doll imbued with human feelings" and when Garan mentions that both he and Magami were Erbsünde.
• Roaring Rampageof Revenge: Played for laughs by Jack Smith who is angry Kouichi drank his milk.
• Screw Destiny:
  • As usual, you can save the secret characters from their fates. Lampshaded by the name of the title BGM, Rebellion Against Fate.
  • The game's plot is to delay or stop the "Groundhog Day" Loop from destroying the universe.
• Secret Character
  • Master Therion and the Liber Legis is exclusive to the final scenario
  • Burn Bannings and the Zwauth Aura Battler
  • Shouko and the Mark Sechs, Michio Hino and the Mark Ein, Mamoru and the Mark Funf, Kurusu and the Mark Nicht
  • Graham Aker and the Brave Commander Test Type, Andrei Smirnov and Patrick Colasour with GN-XIVs (the latter two join together)
  • Skrugg!Will
  • Ishigami and the Juda
  • Brera Stern and the VF-27y Lucifer
  • Irubora and the Zerokage, Karen and the Skeleton
  • Luxe and the Gim Genen and King Sakomizu and the Oukaou
  • Lu Bu Tallgeese and Diaochan Qubeley
• Sequel Hook:
  • In the epilogue, Lostbarrel and Sawatari are still on the run and being fought by Skull Force.
  • Elder Gods Kurou and Al are going to entrust their son to regular Kurou and Al.
  • Nyarlathotep is still unfought.
  • Cao Cao's tactician Sima Yi's face portrait goes from pink to red and he begins facing to the right like an enemy.
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: Here's hoping you didn't dump all your starting money into the Riot-B right off the bat, since after stage 2, the plot switches to other characters and you won't get him back until stage 6.
• Something Person: Heroman
• Spared by the Adaptation: Par for the course for Super Robot Wars. Even Captain Scarlett, the hardass CO from the beginning of Mazinkaiser SKL survives through the game rather than dying off-screen. The only Plotline Deaths you can't avert are Zhao Yun from Brave Battle Warriors and original character Richard.
• Status Buff: 00 Quan[T]'s "Trans-AM Burst" ^note  At 140 Will, for the cost of 80 EN, increase all allies' stats by 20 and reduce all enemies' stats by 20 within range on the same turn. Deceive's "Nerve Crack" ^note  At 120 Will, for the cost of 30 EN, increase all allies' stats by 15 and reduce all enemies' stats by 15 within range on same turn, it's also Post-Movement. Fei Yen HD's "Emotional Wave IBS" ^note  At 130 Will increases stats of allies depending on Fei Yen's Songstress Unique Skill Level, also Post-Movement.
• Suddenly Voiced: Deus Ex Machina is manga-exclusive and has yet to even speak in said manga, but here, Tesshō Genda provides him a voice.
• Supporting Protagonist: In spite of not technically having a "canon" or a proper finale, Fei Yen HD typically plays an important role in a number of stages all the same, often obtaining new attacks or abilities along the way, capped off during the Fafner finale when she gains the Emotional Wave IBS.
• Swords Akimbo:
  • Liu Bei Gundam has the Dragon Fang Saber, Dragon Claw Saber, and Imperial Dragon Sword.
  • Linebarrel and Vardant (though Vardant wields up to four swords with two in each hand).
  • Titus's Deus Machina Ogre and it spawns two more arms with two swords as well.
• The Unfought:
  • Vespasianus was exterminated by Augustus like in the anime.
  • Emperor Annex Zaboom was betrayed by Hazard who commanded Vajra to suicide bomb themselves at his and Sharom's battleships.
  • Shot Weapon suicide bombed himself at Alto and the Vajra Queen.
• The Battle Didn't Count: Though this trope is common for SRW boss fights, the Sphinx-class Festum in the prologue is particularly bad. Depending on how well you do, it might take two gameplay kills and two cutscene kills just to take it out.
• Time Travel: The Macross Frontier crew seemingly came from the future, and late into the game, it's revealed that both the Ninja Senshi Tobikage characters and the SD Gundam characters came from the future. Richard's time travel experiment using Odyssite is also a key plot point.
  • In the final stage, however, Noble Dylan reveals that backwards time travel is impossible due to the past being immutable. Everyone who supposedly came from the future was actually from a past, destroyed iteration of the universe.
• Time Skip: Arc 3 is three months after Arc 2's finale that also concluded Wings of Rean. Because the Fafner characters switched to their Heaven and Earth^note Canonically set two years after the series's finale portraits, some of its characters seem like they had a growth spurt.
• Title Drop: UX stands for "Unknown Ex-Strikers," later renamed "Ultimate Cross." As a bonus, the Heroman series logo makes an appearance in Heroman's O-Spark attack (Dynamic Kill finish). Also in the ending, Holly calls their newest hit "SOMEDAY LIFE TOGETHER" which is the title of Arc 3.
• Token Evil Teammate: Miu Kujou, true to her potrayal in the source material, is notably the only teammate who disagrees with UX trying to make peace with the Festum and the Vajra and allying with the Katou Organization. She even comments that humanity is one step closer to activating the self-destruct switch after the battle with the Festum ended and suggests ignoring Hazard when he headed for the Vajra homeworld.
• True Companions: There are 3 notable cross-series friendships featured in UX:
  • Joey and Kurou form a tag team during their duo battles in Arkham City. Might also count as an Intergenerational Friendship, given that Joey is 13, while Kuro is somewhere in his 20s.
  • Setsuna and Alto, with the former eventually getting the latter set on the path of understanding.
  • Shinn and Kazuki. While Shinn acts as a general mentor figure for all of the non-adult Fafner pilots, his bond with Kazuki still stands out.
• Truer to the Text: This game's rendition of the Fafner TV series plotline is much more faithful to the source material than Super Robot Wars K's was.
• Unknown Rival: Doctor Minami considers Doctor West his greatest rival...except West has no idea who he is. It turns out Minami hates West because West doesn't know who he is.
• Useless Useful Spell: Some units grant rank A in space terrain as a bonus... But since there's literally no unit with a space terrain rank below A in this game, it does absolutely nothing.
• Verbal Tic: Elsa's "-robo"
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: In the chapter where Jin deploys with his first ever squad he leads. When you shoot them down, he casts Spirit Commands in anger and sorrow; Spirit, Strike and Hotblood and when the last subordinate is shot down, a sad music begins to play. You can leave them alone so this doesn't happen, but they die anyways when the Island detonates with the Fenrir.
• Villain Team-Up: UX is one of few games in the series to sparsely do this: aside from Lu Bu and Diaochan joining the Kato Organization, and Burn serving Garan, there's almost no long-term alliances between factions from different works.
• Violation of Common Sense: So you got one of the Ninja Robots damaged enough that you summoned Tobikage and run the risk of losing kills, money, and potentially secrets to it? Just get one of them damaged even more, to force him to fuse with it and get an even stronger machine out of it!
• We Have Become Complacent: As part of the Linebarrels of Iron plot, there is a self-destruct switch in the human gene that activates when humans lose their imagination, which ended up happening when they achieved artificial immortality through nanomachines. Trying to stop this from happening is what motivated every major faction in Linebarrels. Of course, the heroes reject the idea that peace equals death and vow to find a better way.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • Deus Ex Machina kept the time loop in place because of Kali Yuga
  "The very moment that Man loses his imagination, he is doomed."
  "It is unfortunate... but this is for the sake of protecting Earth from ... [Kali Yuga]."
  "I have conceived it. A method by which Man might be spared. We have chosen. This is the solution that we have devised."
  • In a loosely, similar vein, the original enemies and Jin (post Heel–Face Turn) also worked for the same goal.
• Whole-Plot Reference: A boy and a mostly-silent robot that can only grunt join in the fight against a shadowy criminal organization with a vast assortment deadly machines at their disposal in addition to the group's commanders possessing vast supernatural powers and being led by a mysterious, otherworldly blonde- or white-haired young man, and the crux of the villain's scheme is a massive, spherical floating fortress. This description applies to Joey and Heroman's involvement in the Demonbane just as well as it does for Daisaku and Giant Robo in their own story, allowing UX to skirt around copyright issues and provide some semblance of the Giant Robo plot in an SRW again.
• Wolverine Publicity: Averted for the first time. UX is the only licensed SRW to not feature Kouji Kabuto in any iteration. However, the addition of SKL means that a version of Mazinger still appears in every incarnation of a non-Original Generation SRW. That being said, UX also solidifies the Cosmic Era as the go-to Gundam continuity of choice for SRW portable Nintendo games.
• Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters:
  • At first, the Tobikage team are treated as hostile aliens partially because of their "terrorist" attack on Mars, which greatly affected the production line from there.
  • UX in the first arc becomes this, combined with Hero with Bad Publicity, despite them being the heroes. It doesn't help that some of the villains in the governments are ready to sell Earth to the invaders.

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