At last, we've managed to reach Aidoneus! Only took a good 10 episodes to get there since the Hagane left port. All across the Divine Crusaders headquarters, troops are scrambling about as the Hagane crosses the final defense line. The remaining forces make a futile attempt at stopping it, as its shielding protects it against light ammunition. Seeing that he's quickly running out of options, Adler decides to seek authorization from Bian to launch the Kurogane as a last-ditch measure.
Bian, meanwhile, is in a meeting with Maier von Branstein
, discussing their preparations for the upcoming battle. He's set up the UCC fleet for an assault on Geneva, where the EFA's headquarters is located, and will remain there for his encounter with the Hiryu. If we were playing the other story route we would be using the Hiryu instead of the Hagane and fighting Maier up there in space, but instead we'll be fighting Bian soon. They say their final goodbyes to each other, a bit regretful that here is where it ends.
MAIER: Yes...I bid you farewell, Bian.
BIAN: I will see you in Valhalla, my friend.
Well, that's certainly optimistic. Meanwhile, the Hagane is actually taking damage as they're not as good at surviving torpedo hits. Although the Tesla Drive has been hit, they keep going and start charging the Tronium Cannon during their ascent. They're taking water, but at least the cannon is charging rapidly. Adler is quick to notice the giant energy build-up in the Hagane's bow, and nearly shits a brick when he realizes they're gonna use the Tronium Cannon. Without hesitating for a moment, he orders all troops to take down the ship before it can fire.
Tenzan, Thomas and Adler himself are also joining the battle in their own units, with mixed feelings. Tenzan is excited as ever since he figures the Hagane is the final boss, while Thomas is wondering what the hell's going on as the Valsion and Granzon haven't deployed yet. However, suddenly he realizes what this is all about, and considers getting out of there while he still can. Even so, he still stays to fight for some reason.
Daitetsu indicates our final surfacing point on the map, and the level starts. Aidoneus actually looks kinda cool, but that's mostly because of Meteor 3 there on the left. The scattered enemies such as turrets and Lion V's still hurt a bit if they manage to hit one of my units, but they're easy pickings as they only have a few thousand HP each. I go straight for the main objective, which is advancing the Hagane to the surfacing point as quickly as possible, while avoiding any damage from these mooks.
For the most part, I can go right ahead, only momentarily stopped by a group of three submarines. These things, as usual, have 20000 HP each, and while not difficult, I hate wasting time on them. I just take out one and slip the rest of my units past them as they don't do enough damage to be worth the effort. The point we're supposed to go to, by the way, is at the far end of the gap on the bottom of the island. As soon as I start approaching the island, however, a group of Last Battalion mechs deploys along with the Kurogane. The Kurogane's not going to do anything yet, though, since it's supposed to wait for the Hagane to draw closer first.
The Last Battalion is a bit tougher, but nothing I can't handle. A bigger problem is that some of my units are now also in range of the Rhinoceros artillery, as well as Tenzan's Barrelion X. The artillery also has tons of HP so I'm gonna ignore it this time, and Tenzan's mech is the first in the game to feature HP regeneration. If I had an endless amount of time to spare, I'd actually fight them, believe me. Some of my weaker units have an advantage by progressing to the point by land, as submarine torpedoes are rendered ineffective this way. They still have long-range cannons, but I can deal with those.
If Tenzan attacks Ryusei at this point, there's more gloating from Tenzan how this is the final stage. Ryusei assures him this is not the case, and that Tenzan won't be his final enemy. These guys are leaning on the fourth wall so hard it's almost funny. Having Masaki fight Thomas, meanwhile, has Thomas make a statement about how this whole war is nothing but a farce, but you probably guessed that by now. Latooni, finally, gets some special lines when she attacks Adler. They're mostly about how she's going to kill him to protect the others, with Adler gloating that he knows everything about her down to her maneuvers, thoughts and fears. Latooni denies this, claiming she's become a different person through the people she's met.
[BGM Change: Ships Full of Hope]
The Hagane finally reaches the surfacing point, and readies the Tronium Cannon to obliterate this entire base in one shot. At this point, the characters also notice the Kurogane, as well as Adler's presence. This leads to another cutscene talking about his background as the founder of The School, and he greets Latooni as one of his former test subjects. Latooni, Garnet and Giado are instantly whipped into a frenzy upon seeing this old bastard again, while Adler himself doesn't particularly care beyond stating their fates have already been decided.
MASAKI: Don't tell us that we should prepare to die...that's too cliche.
ADLER: You're right...perhaps, I can let you live and brainwash you later...
Naturally, they're having none of this, but either way he says he won't let them sink the Kurogane. Bonus points for guessing my plan, I suppose. Latooni officially declares her vengeance against Adler, who once again doesn't care and gives Elzam — who is at the helm of the Kurogane — the order to attack. Right at this moment, the Hagane's Tronium Cannon is fully charged and ready to fire, prompting Elzam to take quick action. He revs up the drill on the Kurogane's bow and...wait, did this guy just seriously ram me with a friggin' carrier!? For that matter, who came up with this drill ship?
Anyway, its ramming attack succesfully knocks the Hagane off course at the exact moment it fires, sending this energy beam with the approximate strength of a nuke flying off to...elsewhere. The important thing is that not only it missed the base, the Hagane is now too badly damaged to move. No other choice than switching to plan B, which is entering the base ourselves and blowing it up from the inside. Now the major difficulty here, and I do hate this, is that every unit needs to reach the entry point intact, no exceptions. If even one of my units goes down, it's an instant game over.
First, however, I'm going to quickly take out the Kurogane for this map's Battle Mastery. The first obstacle is its energy barrier, so the best I can do is have Latooni energy drain him and make the Kurogane use its Impact Cannon as much as possible until its energy is depleted. After shuffling my units around a bit, I've forced it into using its cannon at every single turn, and one last Energy Taker brings it down to 0. Now's the time to start dealing real damage, which is mostly a task for the super robots. The real robots also do a bit of damage, but most of it comes from attacks like T-Link Knuckle, Darkness Slash and Akashic Buster. That Darkness Slash turned out particularly impressive, as I had used Valor beforehand and got it to deal more than 10000 damage in a single blow.
Possible thanks to this, I'm actually destroying this thing faster than expected. The only thing still bothering me is the swarm of Last Battalion mechs attacking my units left and right, but eventually the Kurogane is destroyed and I can turn to eliminating them. I got my Battle Mastery, now I just need to make it to the end of the level alive, which may be a trick in itself given that it's located smack dab in the middle of multiple Rhinoceros installations. I try to take the path with the least enemy units nearby, while having weaker units take cover in base buildings. These provide a decent defense bonus, though in case of emergency they can always rely on defense support from stronger units I placed next to them.
In a stroke of extreme luck, the AI doesn't consider attacking them and instead focuses most of its shelling on Aya, who is fairly decent at surviving this. Once everyone is gathered, I send them all into the base, ending the level. Shame I had to ignore all those boss mechs, I'm willing to bet they would've carried some awesome equipment. Oh well, I'll meet them again some other day.
All our units are now inside the base, and Bian and Shu are heading towards their mechs. Bian orders everyone except the Last Battalion to evacuate, even though his troops object out of loyalty to him. He gives Elzam the command over them, and goes to prepare for the final battle.
I invest whatever money I have gathered into giving Ryoto, Ryusei and Garnet some mech upgrades. I didn't give Garnet upgrades last time, but I figure she was lagging behind a bit, and the problem can be fixed by giving her a bit of extra mobility. Irm now also has the amount of PP I was hoping for, so I go to the training screen and give him the SP regeneration skill. It's the most expensive skill in the game, but totally worth it in my opinion.
