Video Game / Tech Romancer

Fight! Kikaioh (or G. Kaiser in the American version)

MECHANICAL SELECT!

Tech Romancer, or Super Steel War Chronicle Kikaioh, is a 1998 Fighting Game that involves Humongous Mecha of various sorts. The game was produced by Capcom and the mecha were designed by Studio Nue. It its considered by many in being a Spiritual Successor to Cyber Bots: an earlier 1994 mecha fighting game that was also made by Capcom. Available from within the arcade machines and the Sega Dreamcast, the selection of fighters allow players to answer burning questions such as who would win in a fight between Mazinger Z and Ultraman, and the battle between a robot from Macross and a Gundam.

The story of Tech Romancer generally (each character's story mode is a little, or sometimes extremely different) deals with an intergalactic threat at the hands of Goldibus: a merciless Galactic Conqueror who has come to Earth in order to invade it with his loyal followers, conquer it, and enslave the human race with an emotionless iron fist. An unlikely group of heroes band together and join forces to fight against the threat of Goldibus, using their own unique mecha robots and all of them won't rest until Goldibus is defeated and the world is safe from the imminent danger.

Like most of Capcom's lesser-known fighting games (Star Gladiator, Rival Schools, Power Stone), Tech Romancer didn't make much of an impact from within its debut and that it had soon faded into obscurity, though throughout the later years, its characters have made cameo appearances from within later Capcom titles.

Has nothing to do with literal romance with technology, unless it's one of Rafaga/Simon's endings.

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This game contains examples of the following tropes:

• Action Bomb: Bolon, in one of its Specials.

• Anime Theme Song: Fight! Kikaioh!
• Beam-O-War: Happens whenever 2 opposing energy-based attacks meet, accompanied by furious button mashing.
• Belly Mouth: Goldibus' second form. Especially ironic since there's no mouth on his actual face.
• Berserk Mode: Ironically, Pulsion enters one for the duration of its Hero Mode.
• BFG: Dixen's Fixer Cannon stretches from its shoulder to its ankles, and swivels to position over its shoulder for firing.

• Bittersweet Ending: The best example is one of Rafaga/Simon's endings: he's in prison for disobeying orders and fighting the giant robot menace, and believes his love interest, an alien android, is dead. However, he finds out that an identical, yet younger version of the girl was found at the specific location of where she had supposedly died from.
• Brawler Lock: If two melee attacks connect, this occurs. Whoever mashes buttons more furiously will get a free hit.

• Char Clone: Shadow Red is a pretty obvious one; come on, they even got Shūichi Ikeda to do the voice!
• Chest Blaster: G. Kaiser's Heat Blazer, and its Wave-Motion Gun version, the Inferno Blazer.
• Clothing Damage: Aside from a damage gauge, most robots also have an armor gauge which starts at 100% and goes down with each physical hit. When the armor gauge drops to 0%, the robot is knocked away, and blocking attacks with your armor destroyed results in more Scratch Damage than usual.
• Colony Drop: Rafaga's Hero Mode summons a large satellite, and an extra move done during it causes it to fall.
• Composite Character — Pulsion is a blatant Ultraman Expy, but the mecha (character?) design, items, and super-mode are clearly from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
• Diving Kick: G. Kaiser, Diana-17, and Twinzam V Fire Formation can somehow suddenly change direction and speed while in mid-air to deliver a drop kick. Pulsion does the same, except it leads with a fist instead of its heel. Bolon actually hovers in mid-air, spinning, before it crashes into its opponent.
• Double Jump: Diana-17 and Pulsion do it the old-fashioned way; Dixen with its verniers can gain extra height or change direction in mid-jump.
• Downer Ending: Given the multiple story paths, a few are inevitable. G. Kaiser gets one in a possible path if you fail to defeat the last enemy in a short enough amount of time, Junpei (your character) fails to escape the castle and is presumed dead. But the cake has to go to Wise Duck: Arvin reappears at the rusted out remains of the Wise Duck 10 years later after the last battle. No one knows why the aliens attacked, the rest of the crew is dead, and Arvin pours out a bottle in memory of his team. And that's the happy ending...the sad ending reveals that Arvin was executed for trying to convince the crew not to kill an innocent little girl (and they weren't even going to anyway, they just needed to know if they could trust him), and the rest of the Story Mode was just a Dying Dream. And one of Kei's possible endings where in the specific ending she takes the path of a Messianic Archetype and tries to save humanity from their polluting ways, but decides to leave the Earth so that the humans could fend for themselves.
• Dragon Their Feet: In some story paths you might fight The Dragon after the final boss. Failure to win in a certain amount of time results in a bad ending.
• Energy Ball: Twinzam V Fire Formation charges one up and hurls it at the opponent to damage and knock it down simultaneously. Diana-17 does it from mid-air, with a larger ball that deals more damage.
• Epic Flail: Bolon's right arm is a wrecking ball with a Variable-Length Chain. More like cable, but...
• Flipping the Table: Bolon's Finishing Move.
• Genre Refugee: Polin is the most obvious, being a Magical Girl in a robot game, but the most blatant Super Robot or Real Robot pilots stand out in the story mode of the opposite genre. For example, Twinzam V's pilots, Sora and Daichi, stand out when they go toe to toe to gritty military pilots in their inexplicable mecha piloted by two young children.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: Gamda and Goldibus on Wise Duck's Route A. Thus far it had been a gritty war story using entirely the Real Robot characters, when suddenly aliens show up to derail their story of rebellion.
• Ground Pound: Twinzam V strikes the ground with a giant flathead screwdriver, and the resulting ground shockwave homes in on the enemy, damaging it and knocking it upwards. Wise Duck does the same with its right arm, and the resulting explosion acts as a high damage anti-air move, or a ring of force that stops anybody charging in.
• Heel–Face Turn: Pulsion was Goldibus's underling. And in Kai's storyline, you may make him Face–Heel Turn again.
• Henshin Hero: Pulsion, ala Ultraman. A member of an Earth defense special forces team in human form, and transforms into an alien giant to fight threats.
• I Am a Monster: Kai realizes he is not of this Earth in his story, and that he was originally a soldier of Goldibus. Afterwards, he can either continue to fight on behalf of humanity, or return to Goldibus' side.
• Improbable Weapon User: Bolon and Pollin. Bolon gets points for using a pot that randomly throws exploding circular objects, a giant toy hammer, and a train that tangles the opponent's footwork, and its Hero Mode summons a field of junk that aids in its attacks; Pollin for piloting a robot that is essentially a giant Improbable Weapon.
• Kill Sat: Rafaga's Hero Mode positions one over where Simon's fighting and fires every time it transforms, as long as the power up lasts. Executing the Satellite Crash move ends the effect prematurely.
• Limit Break: A Special bar starts at level 1, which allows players to stock up to 3 Specials. It is filled up by having your non-Special attacks, ranged or otherwise, hit an opponent.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Shadow Red (Mamoru Todoroki), Junpei's father in the G. Kaiser / Kikaioh story mode. See also Universal-Adaptor Cast
• Macross Missile Massacre: Rafaga's Final Attack involves him bombarding his opponent with missles. Fitting, considering Rafaga's inspiration.
• Marshmallow Hell: A scene in Pollin's storyline censored in the US version.
• Market-Based Title: Was originally titled Chouko Senki Kikaioh in Japan. "Kikaioh" was also G. Kaiser's original name.

• The Mole — Yale in Simon's storyline, though she does fall in love with him and eventually does a Heel–Face Turn.
• Multiple Endings: For some characters' Story Modes, decision trees play a part in which ending you get. For others, it's performance during a fight.
• No Final Boss for You: Very few of the story paths skip Goldibus altogether, or skip his hellishly hard second form.

• One-Hit Kill: Each robot has a move called a Final Attack that can only be performed when an opponent has lost the previous round and its damage gauge has hit 50% or more. If the first hit of a Final Attack is not blocked or dodged, the match ends in victory for the robot that threw the final attack.
• One-Winged Angel: Goldibus managed to knock you out once before you did him in? Uh-oh.
• Powerup: Lots of these, especially on stages with destroyable terrain. These range from limited-use weapons, to attack, speed, and defense bonuses, recovery items for health and armor, and the Hero Mode item, which does different things for each robot.
• Promotion to Parent: Sora takes care of her brother Daichi at the age of eleven.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Kai, if he decides to rejoin Goldibus.
• Robosexual: Simon Harvard with Yale, in one of his endings.
• Rule of Cool: The Final Attacks of most of the robots.
• Rule of Funny: Most of the robots' Finishing Moves involve Macross Missile Massacre, More Dakka, or a BFS. Bolon's is Death By Playing House.
• Secret Character: Palette Swaps of normal mecha with different pilots, plus Jin Saotome and Blodia.
• Shout-Out: The game literally runs on these. For one, Dr. Tatsumi strongly resembles Gendou Ikari.
  • G. Kaiser is a clear homage to MazingerZ, complete with a Rocket Punch, Chest Blaster, and Hot-Blooded hero.
  • Dixen pulls inspiration from Mobile Suit Gundam, in particular the Zeta Gundam and Nu Gundam. It's Final Attack is pulled straight from the iconic "Last Shooting"◊ scene of the original anime series. In addition, Halma's story mode is inspired by Gunbuster. Dixen's Enhanced Punch item might have been influenced by Blue Comet SPT Layzner's Knuckle Punch.
  • Pulsion is a mix of Ultraman / Ultraseven (moveset and story), the EVAs from Neon Genesis Evangelion (lanky design, berserk Super Mode), and Tekkaman Blade (weapons, Voltekka).
  • Rafaga is clearly a Variable Fighter from Robotech/Macross. It helps that Tech Romancer's mech designer is Shoji Kawamori, who designed the Variable Fighters in the first place.
  • Twinzam V gets its inspiration from the grandaddy of Combining Mecha, Getter Robo.
  • Diana-17 is based on an obscure mecha, ARIEL, with a dash of the non-mecha Cutey Honey (who was made by Mazinger Z's creator). Its control system is pulled from Jumborg Ace and/or Mobile Fighter G Gundam.
  • Wise Duck is mostly inspired by Macross' Destroids (especially the HWR-00-Mk II Monster), although it has some Armored Trooper VOTOMS elements such as its rollers and a Pile Bunker arm. Its pilot crew were inspired by the Cyclops Team from Mobile Suit Gundam 0080, and the horned red variant is an homage to Char's custom red mechas from Gundam.
  • Bolon is what would happen if Boss Borot was piloted by a Magical Girl.
  • Gourai is inspired by The Brave Fighter of Legend Da-Garn. It also draws inspiration from the red Ace Custom mecha of the Mobile Suit Gundam series. In Nakato's story, its pilot, Shadow Red, takes the role of the game's Char Clone (and even has the same VA as the original Char Aznable).
• SNK Boss: Goldibus
• Spin Attack: G. Kaiser's Final Attack, one of Gourai's Specials, Wise Duck's melee Special, Twinzam V Plasma Formation's Sonic Drop. Bolon also turns into a giant black ball to run the opponent down as one of its Supers.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: In Twinzam V's storyline, the overall path of the story switches between two main lines by which sibling is in control of the mecha when each match ends, up until a point where the story locks in on one kid's POV. It's entirely possible for the player to intentionally or accidentally shift the story's focus from one to the other at that one point.
• Story Branching: Every character, except for Halma and Shadow Red, has a match in their story mode that can determine how their story plays out, either by player choice or clearing the battle under certain conditions.
• Subordinate Excuse: The game hints that Amuritta has a crush on Simon.
• Super Mode: Each character can activate a "Hero Mode":
  • G. Kaiser's Hero Mode lets it fly freely through the air and perform supers without spending meter.
  • Dixen's Hero Mode outfits it with shoulder cannons that fire homing lasers.
  • Pulsion's Hero Mode drives it berserk, making it run on all fours and performing leading attacks.
  • Bolon's Hero Mode summons various debris that enhances its attacks.
  • Rafaga's Hero Mode summons a Kill Sat. A special command can make it execute a Colony Drop.
  • Diana-17's Hero Mode creates an anti-projectile barrier.
  • Wise Duck's Hero Mode gives its missiles homing capabilities.
  • Twinzam V's Hero Mode has different effects depending on its current configuration: Fire Configuration summons a meteor storm, while Plasma Formation creates a barrier of whirlwinds.
  • Gourai's Hero Mode inflicts damage that cannot be recovered.
  • Blodia's Hero Mode summons an Attack Drone.
• Super Prototype:
  • A certain route in Nakato's storyline will have Shadow Red appear in Dixen Experimental unit instead of Gourai. This Dixen has two eyes, grey paintjob and more powerful than standard version. And while it doesn't appear in game, there are also Mass Production Type Dixen◊
  • Shadow Red also appears in a red Ace Custom Wise Duck, which trades its mine laying ability with a hover dash move. We're not use if that move makes it go three times faster, though.
• Theme Naming: Simon Harvard? Meet Yale.
• This Is a Drill: Twinzam V's Plasma Formation sports a pair to attack from the air, on land, or from beneath the surface. Bolon's wrecking ball inexplicably turns into really big one as well.
• Transforming Mecha: Rafaga and Twinzam V.
• Universal-Adaptor Cast: The other characters are usually altered in some way to fit the theme of the player character's storyline in Story Mode. In Boron/Pollin's story, the Big Bad can be her father... or mother!
• Unwanted Harem: One of the subplots of Pollin's storyline has one of these form around Junpei, featuring most of the other female pilot characters. Not actually in the harem? His pissed off girlfriend.
  • Or Amuritta, who has no idea why Pollin beat her(mech) up.
  • Or Sora, who was too young to be with Junpei anyway, but also has no idea why Pollin beat her and Daichi(mech) up.
• Wave-Motion Gun: Dixen's Hyper Fixer Cannon and G. Kaiser's Inferno Blazer.
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: Can someone explain to us just how two ordinary preteens got their hands on a Combining Super Robot in the first place? See All Just a Dream above for explanation.

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"CRITICAL IMPACT!"