Super Robot Wars Alpha



In the year 179 of the New Western Calendar, the One Year War breaks out between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon, but is halted when an object crashes to Earth, landing on South Atalia Island. An investigative team from the "Extra-Over Technological Investigative Institute" discovers the object is an alien battleship with highly-advanced technology. Despite the warnings of Dr. Bian Zoldark, the Federation hides the evidence of intelligent alien life, and uses the time to increase their military power. Bian founds the Divine Crusaders to utilize the Extra-Over Technology found on the ship to devise weapons capable of protecting the Earth from alien forces, should the planet become embroiled in the conflict.

During this time, the economic troubles caused by the Federation's buildup sees the rise of many anti-Federation movements, such as the Neo Zeon, who had retreated to the asteroid Axis. In response, the Federation establishes special forces units, such as the Titans and OZ. Other forces, such as the Dinosaur Empire and Dr. Hell also threaten the Earth, but are pushed back by the teams of Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, and Raideen.

In the year 187, the battleship Excelion battles a force of STMCs (Space Terrible Monster Crowd), when they are suddenly attacked by another alien fleet, known as the Aerogaters...

Thus begins the four-part saga of Super Robot Wars Alpha, perhaps the best-known and most popular of all the Super Robot Wars games. It also holds to this distinction of introducing the awesome music of JAM Project into the franchise.

Tropes associated with the Alpha series:

 * Adaptational Badass: Shinji Ikari, after a good Bright Slap.
 * And the Fandom Rejoiced (The Virtual On units in Alpha 3. Banpresto even included their jump-cancel to quickly re-acquisition the enemy!)
 * After the End (In Alpha Gaiden, after scenario 9, no less than three of them have occured)
 * Apocalypse How (So many on so many levels. In Alpha 3, there's no less than three X-2 situations)
 * As well as an X-4 situation in the Bad End.
 * BFS (Sanger Zonvolt, among many, many others)
 * Badass (Every single playable pilot in the games is one. Yes, even Shinji Ikari)
 * Badass Crew (All the good guy factions, seperately)
 * Badass Army (Londo Bell, later renamed the "Alpha Numbers")
 * Behind the Black (This explanation is used in regards to Gundam SEED's rather sudden appearance in Alpha 3; it essentially amounts to "Oh, Coordinators and the PLANTs have always been there, they just didn't get involved in any of the stuff that happened in the last three wars.")
 * The second half of Brave Raideen's plot happens offscreen in-between Alpha Gaiden and Alpha 3 explaining Akira's absence in Alpha 2.
 * Big Bad
 * Alpha:
 * Alpha Gaiden:
 * Though it turns out the Final Boss is really
 * Alpha 2:
 * Alpha 3:
 * Bittersweet Ending (In Alpha 2, Earth's unsealed, )
 * Boss Rush
 * Alpha: Consists of fighting . If you beat them, . However, the player
 * Alpha 2: Excepting the ones that stayed dead from Alpha 1, basically every end-series boss from all of UC Gundam (and Kelly) shows up to help Char drop his damn asteroid..
 * Alpha 3: A fight with . Once they're defeated, . Ugh...
 * Not to mention that most of your units in that route are of the Real Robot type, so you're screwed damage-wise.
 * Boring but Practical: Gundam Sandrock and Gundam Deathscythe in Alpha Gaiden have only useless vulcan guns and their basic melee attack, so their fights tend to be the definition of "repetitive". However, these "melee" attacks have good reach, all-around good terrain rating, quite good non-beam damage and require neither ammo nor energy, making Sandrock and Deathscythe solid choices for most of the game.
 * Bonus point in that they gain quite a number of attack power with upgrades. An Awesome but Practical version of this tropes are the Great Mazinger or Mazinger Z. Both have the same kind of weapon but they also has Mazinpower and stronger attacks for dealing with stronger Mooks or Bosses. In general 4 range Post movement free weapons with 2500+ power are Boring but Practical.
 * Brainwashed and Crazy (
 * Of course, there are usual suspects from various anime series, plus some extras - for example, Katejina Loos is now this, while in the original she was simply crazy and evil for vague reasons.
 * Breakout Character : Sanger Zonvolt from Alpha Gaiden. And, if side materials are anything to go by, Tetsuya Tsurugi, which is a pretty good example in Alpha itself, going from normal not really important enough character in the first game, into one of the more developed and important character to the plot and backstory of Alpha Gaiden, and become Touma's main mentor(since he gaves him his training schedule to fit his role as Drill Sergeant Nasty) in Alpha 3
 * Calling Your Attacks
 * Canon Immigrant (Retsel Feinschmecker is a clearly Paper-Thin Disguise for Elzam Branstein, who appeared in Super Robot Wars Original Generation before his appearance in Alpha 2. Alpha 3 brings Ratsel's mecha from the second Original Generation game.)
 * Cloning Blues
 * This sums up a chunk of Cobray Gordon's route in Alpha 3.
 * Humongous Combining and/or Transforming Real and Super Robots
 * Crowning Music of Awesome: Trombe! from Alpha 3.
 * Crutch Character: The Mazingers in Alpha Gaiden. Read the page entry about them. The way that they play with this trope is complicated.
 * Demonic Spiders (Ghost X-9s. INSANELY high dodge rates makes them nigh untouchable to even the fastest Real Robots without the "Strike" Spirit Command. Thankfully, they don't show up much)
 * Well, ZAFT seems to enjoy fielding them in Alpha 3, but aside from their insanely high dodge rates, they don't hit as hard as they did in Alpha Gaiden, unless you're playing the first half of the Information High level.
 * Demoted to Extra: The Masou Kishin characters are pretty much forgotten about after Alpha Gaiden, at least until Super Robot Wars Original Generation. Ditto for Brain Powerd, until Super Robot Wars Judgement. And Crossbone Gundam? Nowhere in sight.
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? (The Angels and Mass Production type Evas,, Gym Ghingham's Turn X Gundam, The Emperor of Darkness, Don Zauser, King Darius, Baron Maximillian's Hyper Baronz, , The Z-Master, The 11 Lords of Sol, Emperor Ryuuma, Emperor Muge Zorbados, Geppernich, Eva Unit 01 fused with the Tree of Life (effectively GOD), )
 * Oddly enough, in the case of Eva Unit 01, it's one of the easiest bosses in the series's history, as it possesses only 140000 HP and one pathetically easy to dodge attack
 * Honorary mention goes to a man who, though he could not defeat Cthulhu, battled him to a standstill while on foot. We salute you Alberto the Shockwave
 * Difficulty Spike: From battling  onwards in Alpha Gaiden.
 * Dynamic Difficulty: In Alpha Gaiden, your ability to complete hidden objectives (usually winning before a time limit elapses or killing bosses who run away after their HP is down to certain amount, often slightly lower than the most powerful attack you should have by this stage normally does) decides whether you get easy, normal or hard versions of stages. Also, which secrets you can unlock and the ending route.
 * Elsewhere Fic: Alpha Gaiden features these after a fashion, with two separate manga stories detailing what happens to the people left behind when the Alpha Numbers get sent to the Bad Future. One centers on Relena and characters from series that were in Gaiden, while another centers on Shinji and Asuka and other characters whose series were in Alpha 1 but didn't return.
 * Evil Costume Switch
 * Face Heel Turn
 * Fan Translation - Done by Aeon Genesis for Alpha Gaiden. Still something of an Obvious Beta, as admitted by the creator, it is still playable from start to finish, despite some bugged text strings, and it is quite accurate to the original translation, even doing a Pragmatic Adaptation to keep a joke from Sentou Mecha Xabungle intact.
 * Fix Fic (Amongst other things, it fixes the many tragedies of the various Universal Century Gundam series and makes the Kill'Em All endings of Space Runaway Ideon and The End of Evangelion completely avoidable)
 * Fragile Speedster: Most of real robots, but particularly Macross' Valkyries, who will likely die in one, at most two hits, but have enormous dodge.
 * Gainaxing (Every female pilot except Ibis)
 * Game Breaker (In Alpha 2 and Alpha 3, proper planning and efficient use of skills and MAP weapons can result in mass enemy death. The SRX Altered Banpreios and, to a lesser extent, AS Alegrias of Alpha 3 stand out the most in this with post-movement MAP weapons. Also, because the Ideon in Alpha 3 no longer has its "berserk" mode at high Ide levels like its Super Robot Wars F counterpart, this translates into "Ideon Sword/Gun abuse")
 * Goddamn Bats (The STMC and the Buff Clan in Alpha 3)
 * Good Bad Bugs (The Phase-Shift Armor on your SEED Gundams in Alpha 3. It reduces damage from a lot more things than it says it does, including beams that aren't close enough to what would be a "beam" in gundam. Breast Fire counts in-game as a beam, PS Armor says it doesn't.)
 * Growing the Beard (The Alpha series as a whole marked the beginning of the complex plot weaving between series that's become iconic with SRW opposed to borderline Excuse Plot for an Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny between mecha it had been before.)
 * Hannibal Lecture (What many of the major villains of the Real Robot series will do when they are confronted. It never works)
 * Heel Face Turn (Too many to list, but the one that stands out is possibly the )
 * Hot-Blooded (And fucking how)
 * Lethal Joke Item (Alpha 1 has Tem Ray's Circuit. When you put it on any mech, its stats will be drastically reduced, the plus side is that the mech will cost only 10 credits to repair (in other words, the part turn it into another Boss Borot). If you want real menace, however, just put it on EVA-01 along with another part to lessen the penalty, then send Shinji on suicide attack. Paying only 10 instead of 40000, using Berserk EVA now sound like practical strategy. Also, you put it on EVA-00 then use Rei as suicide bomber.)
 * Loads and Loads of Characters (Alpha 3 has the largest cast in any SRW ever)
 * MacGuffin Girl
 * Macross Missile Massacre
 * Massive Multiplayer Crossover
 * Meaningful Name
 * More Dakka (Hyperion's Maneuver GrAMX)
 * Moral Event Horizon EVERYTHING Kashim King does in Alpha Gaiden. Of couse he
 * Name's the Same (Miwa Uzuki or Sakimori? Thank god the former can be referred as "Micchi"... )
 * Is Erika the Baam Princess or Sanshiro Tsuwabuki's girlfriend? And to think that both Erikas' love interest is voiced by Akira Kamiya...
 * When you're talking about Kid, are you talking about Kid Salsamille, the Crazy Awesome Gadgeteer Genius, or Jotaro "Blaster Kid" Kidou, one of the members of Team J9
 * They reference this in Alpha Gaiden by calling their prank the "Double Kid Special"
 * Nice Job Breaking It, Hero (Thanks for stopping the STMC in Alpha, only now the shockwave from the blast used to kill them is headed towards Earth and will destroy us all in Alpha Gaiden)
 * To be fair, that was the lesser of two evils, considering the STMC practically wins anything through sheer attrition
 * It Got Worse: turns out the STMC you fought in Alpha were only a small fraction of them. You have to fight their main force in Alpha 3.
 * Nintendo Hard: Alpha Gaiden.
 * Which itself is easy in comparison to getting Tifa and the G-Bits in the game. Scenario 15 alone will make you pull your hair out because of how many times you're going to reset your game in order to get those 6 kills in 3 turns with Garrod; the substantial power boost they give to the Double X makes them worth the effort.
 * 1 to 3 times, to figure out proper positioning and that the only real problem here is using up ammo for your rifle and not being able to make enough counterattacks to wipe them, so you need to used the beam saber as much as possible. The real issue with obtaining G-Bits is multiple events requirements each of which is easy miss unless you've read a guide and some of which are downright counterintuitive.
 * TURN. X. Read That One Level.
 * No Export for You: A very frustrating example as a translation of the Dreamcast version was in the works at some point (spurred on largely by the fact that it was ready for release at the height of Gundam Wing's popularity in America), but then contract disputes killed it stone dead regardless.
 * Non-Entity General: Only mention during final bonus mission in Alpha 3 and most likely just a joke. When someone mention Player and confuse Cobray, Ryusei explan that it's the strategist who keep watching them from that monitor.
 * Older and Wiser (The cast of the previous games in the sequels, especially noticable in the SRX team, Getter team, Evangelion pilots, and Gundam protagonists. A small portion of them have also become Shell Shocked Veterans, but this being SRW, they get over it.
 * Tetsuya is a REALLY good example of the latter.
 * Once Per Episode ( The Gundam GP-02A getting Gundamjacked and needed to be taken back)
 * Original Generation (Masou Kishin, Shin Super Robot Wars, Super Hero Sakusen, Super Robot Spirits and Super Robot Wars 4 characters reappear for the Alpha series. To wit:)
 * Alpha: Kusuha Mizuha, Brooklyn "Bullet" Luckfield, Tasuku Shinguji, Leona Garstein, Ryoto Hikawa, Rio Mei Long, Yuuki Jaggar, Ricarla "Carla" Borgnine, Mai Kobayashi and the Aerogaters
 * Alpha Gaiden: Sanger Zonvolt and the Machinery Children
 * Alpha 2: Arado Balanga, Seolla Schweizer, Ibis Douglas, Sleigh Presty, Tsugumi Takakura, Ratsel Feinschmecker and
 * Alpha 3: Touma Kanou, Minaki Tomine, Cobray Gordon, Selena Recital and the Balmar Empire
 * Pet the Dog (In Alpha 3, after beating the EVA 01's copy, Gendo Ikari tells his son he actually wanted to comfort him, but never had courage to open up. Before he dies, he finally tells Shinji he's glad to see his son grow into such a strong man)
 * Player Punch: You want Zeta Gundam's (very, very good) final attack in Alpha Gaiden?
 * The Power of Rock (Naturally, Macross 7, but also Mic Sounders of GaoGaiGar)
 * And who can forget good ol' JAM Project?
 * Alpha 3 takes it Up to Eleven by making "JAM Project is awesome" CANON
 * Recurring Boss (You'll be continually plagued by the Mycene Empire and the Dinosaur Empire until you blow them up for good in Alpha 2)
 * Also, Zeta Gundam's resident Psycho for Hire Yazan Gable holds the distinction of being the only enemy to show up in all four games and still live until he is finally Killed Off for Real in Alpha 3.
 * Dr. Hell is also one; he reappears in Alpha 2 and Alpha 3 as the Grand Marshall Of Hell
 * Shapiro Keats, who always survives that
 * While they are not quite as strong as true bosses, even in their final mechas, you'll have to re-fight Jerrid Mesa, Timp and Kid Hola for at least 5 times each, reflecting their status as persitent nemesises in original anime storylines.
 * Road Cone (In 2 and 3, parts of the story change between the various protagonists. What's more, each protagonist in 3 is linked to a set in 2 (except Kusuha's, due to the fact that the link is Shaped Like Itself). Selena's route is linked to Ibis', Touma's is linked to Sengar's and Cobrey's is linked to Arado's.)
 * Robeast (Mechanical Beasts, Warrior Beasts, Fossil Beasts, Slave Beasts, Beast Fighters, Mecha Soldiers, Haniwa Genjin, Mechasauruses, Zonder and the Angels)
 * The Scrappy (Katz Kobayashi remains as annoying as he is in Zeta Gundam. He even expresses racism similar to the Blue Cosmos in Alpha 3 (though Camille Bidan quickly corrects him). No surprises that he keeps getting labeled as "expendable" in various manga)
 * Secret Character
 * Alpha 1:
 * Alpha Gaiden:
 * Alpha 2:
 * Alpha 3:
 * Sequel Escalation
 * Shut UP, Hannibal (Uncountable, but the best one has got to be the . In fact, that entire scenario was one MASSIVE invoking of this trope, and a Crowning Moment of Awesome, seeing as how the Alpha Numbers are so Hot-Blooded, )
 * Spell My Name with an "S" (Is it or ?)
 * It's . It's Hebrew.
 * Suspicious Videogame Generosity : Stage 36 of Alpha Gaiden is noted by fans to be some of the most awesome point in the game. The game's Difficulty Spike also starts to go wild from that point onwards. Safe to say, theres a really good reason why that point is so awesome.
 * The Starscream: in Alpha rather famously puppeteers everyone, including his ostensible boss.  also pulls this off in Alpha 3, although the guy he usurped was only a mask for the real Big Bad in the first place.
 * Tear Jerker
 * That Man Is Dead ("The Sword of Magus is dead. I AM SANGER ZONVOLT, THE SWORD THAT SMITES EVIL!")
 * That One Boss:
 * Alpha Gaiden: Emperor Gore's Invincible Battleship Dai, Gym Ghingham's Turn X Gundam,
 * Alpha 2: Emperor Gore's Invincible Battleship Dai, Don Zauser, The Emperor of Darkness, Crux Dogatie's Divinidad, Char Aznable's Nightingale.
 * Alpha 3: The Sol Lords' Palparepa Plus/Prajna and Pia Decem Pit/Peak, Emperor Muge Zorbados, Geppernich, Rau Le Creuset's Providence Gundam, Doba Ajiba's Bairal Jin.
 * Theme Naming (Obvious, the Space Jews of the Ze Balmarian Empire. A much more subtle one is the theme naming of
 * The World Is Always Doomed
 * True Final Boss
 * Alpha Gaiden:
 * Villain Team-Up
 * Alpha 1
 * The Aerogaters, the Campbellians, the Bozanians, the Zanscare Empire, Paptimus Scirocco and Shapiro Keats.
 * To some extent, the Principality of Zeon and Dr. Hell
 * Alpha Gaiden
 * The Mycene Empire and the Dinosaur Empire.
 * The Frost Brothers and Gym Ghingham.
 * Alpha 2
 * Neo Zeon and the Jupiter Empire.
 * The Zonder and the Meganoids.
 * The Balmians, the Bozanians and the Dark Horror Army.
 * Alpha 3
 * The Campbellians, the Bozanians and the Muge Empire.
 * Wave Motion Gun
 * What Could Have Been (Quite a few, mostly revealed by Banpresto around the time of Alpha 3 and during the production of Super Robot Wars Z:)
 * Originally, Banpresto wanted GaoGaiGar from the start, with Alpha covering the first half of the series, Alpha 2 the second, and Alpha 3 covering FINAL (remember, Alpha Gaiden wasn't part of the original plan)
 * They also wanted to bring back Giant Robo in Alpha 3, with an original storyline where Big Fire tries to get his hands on Irui and ends up with the . Unfortunately, the death of creator Mitsuteru Yokoyama caused his estate to raise the licensing fee greatly, plans had to be abandoned
 * Hacking of the Alpha 3 disc revealed sprites for several machines from Gundam Sentinel, which would have been a natural follow-up to the Titans storyline from the previous games. Fans suspect it was removed when Gundam SEED was added (which Word of God said was pretty much a mandate from above based off of SEED's popularity)
 * The Gundam Sentinel sprites were Dummied Out from the Alpha 2 disk. It turns out that the 'mandate from above' was 'mandate from Word of God', as Terada was a huge fan of the show itself and put it in the moment he could.
 * Macross 7's songs were originally planned to be fully voiced and not just a line or two. Sadly, Word of God dropped that when he realized that licensing Fire Bomber's music is apparently more expensive than the entire Macross 7 series itself
 * What If (The Alpha series basically poses this, in regards to Bian being listened to instead of being ignored)
 * The Gundam Sentinel sprites were Dummied Out from the Alpha 2 disk. It turns out that the 'mandate from above' was 'mandate from Word of God', as Terada was a huge fan of the show itself and put it in the moment he could.
 * Macross 7's songs were originally planned to be fully voiced and not just a line or two. Sadly, Word of God dropped that when he realized that licensing Fire Bomber's music is apparently more expensive than the entire Macross 7 series itself
 * What If (The Alpha series basically poses this, in regards to Bian being listened to instead of being ignored)