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"Now, give me your orders, GF commander!"
G Red

Gotcha Force is a video game developed and published by Capcom that was released exclusively for the Nintendo GameCube in Japan on November 2, 2003, North America on December 3, 2003, and PAL regions on February 20, 2004. The premise is based loosely upon toy fights that children have and "gashapon"note , with gameplay derived heavily from Virtual-ON.

Kou has just moved to Safaritown, and on a starry night, he observes a meteor shower. It turns out that these aren't meteors, but toy-sized alien robots from another planet, called Gotcha Borgs. One in particular, G Red, finds Kou and explains that an evil force of these toy robots called the Death Force, led by the Galactic Emperor, is out to destroy Earth as they destroyed the Gotcha Borgs' home planet of Mega Borg, and the only hope for Earth is for kids to team up with the heroic robots and form the Gotcha Force.

One of the main draws towards this game is that you can build a small team of borgs that you can bring to any battle — when one borg goes down, the next in the squad takes its place. Moreover, borgs can also gain levels, increasing their durability and, for certain borgs, ammo capacity. Finally, another main draw to the game is that there are over 200 borgs to collect, each with their own fighting style, thus allowing for a great deal of diversity and strategy for teams (and if you have the resources, nothing prevents anyone from using multiple copies of the same borg).

The designs of the borgs are heavily Troperiffic, taking inspiration from a variety of sources and distilling all the delicious tropes into one package, ranging from ninjas, cowboys, samurai, knights, tanks, mecha infantry, transforming mecha, jet planes, dark monsters, tokusatsu heroes, dragons, and so much more!

In 2012, Capcom Japan decided to do a limited reprint of the game, even offering a "Special Selection" edition with an included art book. The announcement was met with equal parts confusion and joy, as while many fans were mystified as to what motivated Capcom to suddenly reissue such a niche title, just as many were happy to see Capcom acknowledge the property at all so long after its release.


This game has examples of:

  • Action Bomb: The Walking Bomb borg. There are two ICBM tanks which are effectively the same deal, since the explosions from their missiles are so large they almost always get caught in them as well.
  • Action Girl: Usagi tends to prefer Borgs of this style, possibly making her an example by extension. Based on how she dresses in the cast shot in the finale - she's the one in the basketball uniform - Orochi is this once the Galactic Emperor's mind control is finally broken.
  • Adults Are Useless: Specifically cited at one point - only kids who have bonded with Gotcha Borgs can save the world.
  • All There in the Manual: All of the characters have full names, although most only go by their personal names - the exceptions are Nekobe (Last-Name Basis), Met, Kitsune, and Orochi (Only Known by Their Nickname). Their full names are listen in the Japanese manual.
  • Amplifier Artifact: G Red's missing code. After he finds it, he becomes a bona-fide badass.
  • An Adventurer Is You: You can even customize your team to focus on one of these roles, such as an entire team of Mezzers.
  • An Ice Person: Anything with Ice or Blizzard in its name. The third wave of the fight against the Galactic Emperor has him become one as well.
  • Animated Armor: The Ghost and Elemental Knights.
  • Anti-Frustration Features: For those aiming for 100% Completion, the game thankfully doesn't require the player to actually use the various Combining Mecha forms to fill out the collection list. If the player manages to collect both components of the combining mecha, they get credit for having the combined form as well.
  • Arm Cannon: The arm-as-cannon variety is used by Death Borgs in lieu of actual guns. The arm-mounted cannon variety is also present on several other Borgs.
  • Armor-Piercing Attack: Two attack types can pierce through barriers, doing damage even if they don't destroy the barriers - drills and energy lances. The former are used by the aptly-named Drill Robot, and the latter are used by the Atlas series of borgs (Atlas Tank, Proto Atlas, and Atlas Robot). As the Galactic Emperor makes regular use of a barrier, they are by far the most effective against him in the final battle.
  • Attack Drone
    • Fortress Borg Antares has tiny "Alpha Wing" jet fighters.
    • Cyber Girl Super and Cyber Girl Hyper can sic floating floating lasers turrets on enemies for short period of time.
    • Demon Samurai sends forth a pair ghost-skulls that float above his shoulders to attack from a distance.
    • The Cyber Death Dragon has giant versions of the Cyber Girls drones. The Galactic Emperor also has similar drones to the "Alpha Wings".
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever:
    • The second-to-last story mission has the Borgs growing to the size of office buildings and duking it out.
    • Up to eleven: The last story mission has the Borgs growing to the size of continents to destroy the Galactic Emperor once and for all.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Dragon Borgs - incredible firepower, but slow as dirt and one of the biggest targets in the game. The 'impractical' part can be heavily reduced by tapping the jump button before firing their Breath Weapon, though. Also, in single-player, the Combining Mecha. Sure, they have a Deflector Shield, tons of health, immense firepower, and a rapidly charging Wave-Motion Gun. However, they only can be used if one of the components is used by the chosen partner, with the player using the other component, both components are out at the same time, and the player activates a Power Burst. Also, none of the partners will use one of the components outside of the level replay mode, which has a hard cap of 2200 GF energy (when the player has to use up nearly half of their allotment to bring along their component). A pair of human players with good communication can use them well in co-op mode, however.
  • Bare-Fisted Monk: The aptly-named Knuckle borg series. They are melee specialists that frequently have a quirk that keeps opponents from attacking effectively, like Tao Master's swords that act like an Attack Drone or a Jelly Diver's field that slows down all nearby foes.
  • Beam Spam: The Death Arc and the Sirius are capable of unleashing their entire arsenal at once on a single Borg. Is not as useful as would be expected, given that they're usually knocked back and given invulnerability after one or two shots hit—and now you're out of ammo.
    • Almost any borg with a projectile is capable of this during Power Burst.
  • Big Bad: The Galactic Emperor is the ruler of Death Force who aims to destroy Earth.
  • Big Damn Heroes: If you manage to beat him every time throughout the game, during a mission late in the game against the Death Force, Sho will appear midway though the battle to help and become an ally afterwards. Kou even notes how he seemed to take his time coming to help. Still manages to skirt being That One Level despite this, due to all the Cyber Ninjas and Beam Gunners, as well as the fact that it climaxes with a Combining Mecha.
  • Big Ol' Eyebrows: Kou is an... interesting example - they're each composed of what appears to be three very slim eyebrows.
  • BFG: Beam Gunner especially, whose second gun is so large he keeps it in Hammerspace.
  • BFS
    • Special mention goes to the Demon Samurai and Akuma Samurai, whose beam swords will extend as their allies are defeated (as one notorious side mission demonstrates with suicide bombers), eventually growing to ridiculous lengths. Presuming they live long enough and that enough enemies are available, they can have swords that easily extend beyond the length of the field.
    • Also, the Samurai Shogun, which has a charged slash that can literally hit everything that's directly in front of it.
    • Forget not the Metal Hero, the character who's charge, when activated in the air, will slash from the sky all the way into the ground, often OHKOing anything it hits. However, due to its activation time, it is not as accurate as the Samurai Shogun, but it does more damage.
    • Elemental Knight and Ghost Knight effectively are their BFS's - their bodies can even survive being hit by OHKO explosions if they're able to throw their sword out of the blast radius before hand.
  • Blessed with Suck: Any borg that has flight, be it be winged flight or rocket packs/boots. In theory, it offers great maneuverability, allows dodging in any direction, and it can be used to get places terrestrial borgs can't go. Not bad, right? The problem is that all flying borgs have a Sprint Meter to represent their flying, and they can't use it any further for anything if it runs out until they land. Granted, it replenishes fast once that happens, but if you're under heavy fire, that might not be time you have and you can't do fast dodges until then. Not only that, but the maneuverability only really helps if you can get somewhere where your foes can't hit you (so, for the most part, of limited usefulness outside of fights against a lot of knight borgs). On the flip side, non-flying borgs get unlimited air dodges while in midair. These allow much more rapid movement (either to dodge more attacks or to get somewhere you need to go fast), and a player can keep these up indefinitely. In general, all other factors being equal (which, admittedly, they frequently aren't), the non-flying borgs have the advantage.
  • Blow You Away: Wind Valkyrie and Tornado Valkyrie each have charge attacks that rely on wind powers to shove opponents where they want - Wind Valkyrie pushes them away, while Tornado Valkyrie just juggles them straight up.
  • Book Ends: G Red landing in Kou's hand. And if you haven't recruited Orochi or Sho, then the start of the final battle book ends with an early mission, with you fighting the Death Force alongside both Mana and Kakeru.
  • Boring, but Practical: Provided the player is skilled enough, low-tier borgs can be very effective, with most being mobile, and not costing much, and having attacks that can quickly reload.
  • Boss in Mook Clothing: Several high-tier borgs, such as the Dragon Borgs can appear randomly in battles later in the game.
  • Brain in a Jar: Galactic Emperor. And a brain the size of a small country, at that.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Orochi - If you beat her every time you fight her, she breaks free and joins you.
  • Bratty Half-Pint: Kotaro.
  • The Bully: Nekobe. While he never quite pulls a full Heel–Face Turn or becomes a total Jerk with a Heart of Gold, he still proves to be one of Kou's most loyal allies. Especially when going head to head with a planet-sized mech, where he enters after his other ally's borgs have been annihilated.
  • Butt-Monkey: Nekobe has shades of this - Kitsune is his only friend, and pretty much every interaction with any of the other partners (such as in "Training with..." missions) has the others generally dismissive of him. Also, he has perhaps the largest number of missions where he's the enemy commander when you factor in matches against him both pre- and post-Heel–Face Turn, so he's the GF Commander most likely to be shown losing.
  • Cartoon Bomb: Normal Ninja, Double Ninja, and Gatling Gunner throw bombs that look like these.
  • Chainsaw Good: The aptly-named Chainsaw Knight, though the Spinner Girl and the Barrier Girl appear to carry mini-chainsaw yo-yos.
  • Chest Blaster: The origin of G Red's charged beam. Also the Wave-Motion Gun of the four Combining Mecha named after The Four Gods.
  • Captain Obvious: Tsutomu. "This will hit!" Yeah, thanks for notifying me. Justified in that he has confidence issues - he's not talking to his partner, he's pep-talking himself.
  • Character Level: Up to level 10. Leveling-up increases HP and, in most cases, the maximum ammo of projectile attacks.
  • Charged Attack: About half of the borgs in the game have one; some have multiple. The most prominent one is the One-Hit KO that makes an Ultimate Cannon live up to its name; it takes roughly one minute to fully charge.
  • Chaste Hero: Kou, apparently. In an optional battle where he teams up with Usagi to fight Mana and Orochi, Usagi teases him being around three beautiful girls, which he just obliviously tells her to fight, much to her frustration.
  • Cherry Tapping: Pretty much the only reason to use Death Borgs, outside of being Cannon Fodder filler until you can afford something better.
  • Chrome Champion: Any silver-palette borg (designated with an "S"), which will be treated as being four levels above what it otherwise would have. After gold borgs, the most powerful and valuable alternate palette.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Yuji. "This was expected to happen from the point of cultural athropology!"
  • Color Character: G Red, G Black, Machine Red, Machine Blue, etc.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Most projectile attacks will be either blue or red depending on which side you're on. Averted with some attacks that have a constant color (flames are always red).
  • Colour-Coded Timestop: Grayscale. Chrono Samurai's charge attack does this. Be careful not to run headlong into any of the Negative Colour projectiles you may have frozen in mid-air.
  • Colossus Climb
  • Combining Mecha: Named after The Four Gods, no less. Naturally, they all have a Wave-Motion Gun.
  • Com Mons: Most subtypes of borg have at least one, often denoted as "Normal."
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: The AI's borgs almost always cost less than your own borgs, even if you are using the same borgs, allowing them to have a much larger team than you.
  • Crippling Overspecialization:
    • Many powers that would otherwise be completely overpowering are compensated by the borg in question having almost no ability outside of it. Copy Robot for example has no offense when it isn't using Power Copying, and there are several borgs it can't copy. Gatling Gunner has lots of power and an insane rate of fire, but it reloads slow and its only other offense are basically the same bombs as a Normal Ninja. Ultimate Cannon is capable of performing a One-Hit KO on pretty much anything in the game, but it literally takes a minute to fully charge and it has little offensive or defensive power while it does so.
    • Several of the other partners have this. In particular, Mana focuses so much on support that she has almost no offensive presence whatsoever (though this does mean she's the least likely to Kill Steal; see You Kill It, You Bought It as to why that's valuable), Nekobe's focus on slow melee specialists makes it comically easy to hang back and snipe him, and Yuji's Knuckle Borgs are also fairly reliant on close-to-mid-range combat (though not nearly as much as Nekobe's Knight Borgs), making them fairly simple targets as long as they're not allowed to close in much.
  • Crosshair Aware: There is a large and distinct crosshair on the stage that shows where an ICBM Tank is about to launch its namesake missile. While slower borgs may be out of luck when it launches, most can escape from the blast radius easily so long as they start leaving when the crosshair appears (unless they're stuck in place by something, like an Arrow Ninja's arrows).
  • Curtains Match the Window: Orochi's real hair and eye color is purple.
  • Cyber Cyclops: Most of the basic Death Borgs are distinct for their one overly large sinister red eye (the higher level ones tend to avert this by adding additional eyes where they don't belong). Claw Robots as well, though Kitsune's Isaac has two eyes instead of one.
  • Cyber Ninja: All of the ninja borgs have details that indicate that they're manufactured, but the one that most clearly fits is obviously Cyber Ninja, who shoots lasers, has Hard Light Fuuma Shuriken on its arms, and can cause damage with a series of tackles from multiple angles augmented by a Force Field.
  • Dark Action Girl: Orochi might downplay her femininity (and her gender is barely mentioned during play), but there's no question that she's the head asskicker for the bad guys for much of the plot. In fact, several fights against her are a Hopeless Boss Fight unless you're on a New Game Plus or severely over-level before you take her on.
  • Dark Is Evil: The majority of Orochi's borgs are dark in color and feature the more evil looking borg types such as the Dark Knight and the Demon Borgs.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: You can use any borgs you recruit, including the evil looking Demon Borgs and even the Death Force's very own borgs.
  • Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Even if you lose a level, you get experience and the chance to try again (except for certain missions which unlock features later on).
  • Death Ray: The Ultimate Cannon is a Wave-Motion Gun that sprays a massive one-hit kill beam that, well, kills things.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: All Kou needs to do to get people on his side is to beat them in battle. Some people take multiple beatings.
    • Played with in that most of the actual converting to ally missions are teaming up with said characters after whooping their asses a good couple of times.
  • Degraded Boss: Many bosses you fight early in the game can appear as mooks late in the game.
  • Deus ex Nukina: The ICBM Tank and Death ICBM can and will slaughter just about anything, occasionally including itself in the case of the former, and definitely including itself for the latter.
  • Disc-One Nuke: Get a Barrier Girl early, and watch the difficulty curve plummet.
  • Doppelgänger Attack: The Double Ninja's special ability.
  • Do Well, But Not Perfect: Only borgs participating in a level get experience at the end of the stage. If the player solos the entire stage with their first borg? Only the first one gets experience. Sometimes, if you're looking to beef up your ranks, the best move is let the last enemy borg knock out the current borg to let something else get the final hit.
  • The Dragon: Orochi to the Galactic Emperor.
  • Dramatic High Perching: Several missions have the first set of enemies spawn upon tall, thin objects for dramatic effect. The player's Borgs experience the same thing on occasion.
  • Drill Tank: The Beam Tank - the only tank that can also make melee strikes.
  • Dual Boss: Sapphire Knight and Ruby Knight (when scripted; battles that generate some of their Borgs randomly may feature one without the other).
    • Also missions that you fight the combining borgs are usually with two of them at the same time.
  • Dual Mode Unit: The transforming borgs. Victory King has three!
  • Duel Boss:
    • Subverted when Nekobe challenges Kou to a one-on-one fight, but soon calls in Kitsune for back-up.
    • Sho still plays this straight on occasion. Only a couple times does he bring a buddy.
    • You can also choose to go into most levels (except certain plot levels, usually "Training with..." levels) without a partner once you've cleared the game once.
  • Dual Wielding: A lot of borgs, but Imperial Knight and Dark Knight gladly take this one up to eleven by double Dual Wielding - they each have a pair of swords and a pair of shields.
  • Enemy Mine: Two instances. Teaming up with Sho to fight Orochi, and helping Tama to fight off Orochi after Tama doesn't succeed in fighting off the Gotcha Force.
  • Evil Knockoff: Many of the Death Borgs are these. For example, Death Borg Alpha is a weaker and less effective version of a Normal Ninja.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Nearly every Borg name.
  • Experience Points: The amount needed to level-up doesn't vary between levels, but it does vary between Borgs. Death Borgs level-up fastest.
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: Done in the ending to show that she's finally free of the Galactic Emperor's control, Orochi's hair changes from greenish to purple. She also takes it out of the bandanna that she wears throughout the game.
  • Eye Beams: Machine Red and G Black, among a couple others.
  • Eyes Do Not Belong There: The in-story reason for the increased power for certain Death Borg types is the transplant of several Death Eyes onto base Death Borgs. This can result in those large red eyes being placed in locations that aren't even remotely natural.
  • Fanservice: Shadow Girl and Killer Girl.
  • Fake Ultimate Mook: Fortress Borgs other than the Galactic Emperor.
  • Fat Bastard: Tama - overweight Jerkass who only sides with Kou because Kou protects him from Orochi. He never bothers trying to redeem himself; he merely acts less hostile and expects folks to like him for it.
  • Fem Bot: The Cyber Girls are the most obvious, but as they're all toy-sized robots, all female borgs are this.
  • Fighting from the Inside: Suggested to be happening with Orochi if Kou wins each of their matches. Enough personality comes out that Orochi is able to join Kou, although all of the effects are only broken in the ending.
  • Fire, Ice, Lightning: The design concept for the three (or six) most common Dragon Borgs.
  • Forced Transformation: Bug Witch can turn targets into Roaches, and Death Borg Omicron can turn targets into Death Eyes.
  • Fragile Speedster: The various Ninja, Girl, and Angel Borgs. They're all built for hit-and-run tactics, with small hit point pools but high mobility. Ninja borgs are more focused on melee strikes, while Girl and Angel borgs are more suited for ranged attacks.
  • Friendly Fireproof: Toyed with. While you and your allies aren't invincible to each others' attacks, they only do 1 damage per hit. This doesn't apply with the "near OHKO" attacks like ICBMs and Ultimate Cannon's Charge X.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: Given that circumstances eventually force the Gotcha Force to work together, it's understandable that several members are mostly just tolerated by the others. Nekobe and Tama in particular stand out - the former was The Bully until the problem with the Death Force revealed its full extent and his only friend was Kitsune, another bully. He only marginally tones down his arrogance and Jerkass behavior (while Kitsune more or less lets it drop). Tama only nominally makes a Heel–Face Turn because the Galactic Emperor orders Orochi to dispose of him, and his personality doesn't change at all, much to Kou's chagrin.
  • Fuuma Shuriken: The Shuriken Ninja, who has one mounted on his back, and actually uses it just like that. To a lesser extent, the Cyber Ninja has a pair of Hard Light shuriken about the size of his torso that can emerge from projectors on his arms.
  • Gatling Good: Gatling Gunner and Gatling Tank.
  • Goggles Do Nothing: Yuji. They're probably sunglasses, but either way, they always remain perched on his head.
  • Gold-Colored Superiority: The gold palette borgs (designated with a "G") are the rarest and strongest borgs, who effectively have an additional six levels above and beyond what they would otherwise have due to experience. If this is a Death Borg (which only gets two extra hit points per level), it'll have a little more staying power than usual. If this is a Dragon Borg (a whopping 20 extra hit points per level), and it's practically a Superboss. They (like all alternate palettes) cost the same to use as the base palette version if the player gets one, so possession of one can really swing a team's effectiveness.
  • Gotta Catch Them All: Over 200 Borgs, each of which have 5 alternate palettes (four of which have different stats).
  • The Gunslinger: Gun Borgs.
  • Hammerspace: Several Borgs switch between two weapons, sending whichever one they're not using to Hammerspace. Battle Girl and Claw Robot explicitly avert this trope - their missiles are stored in miniaturized form, and expand upon contact with air.
  • Harmless Freezing: There's a chance after being hit by any attack from An Ice Person that a borg will be encased in ice. However, being encased in ice does not do any additional damage, and the frozen borg can eventually break out. However, this isn't to say it's safe - a frozen borg can't do anything, and they are distinctly not subject to Mercy Invincibility (even if they otherwise would be) while encased in ice.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Kitsune, Nekobe, Yuji, Tama, and Met Eventually, it's possible to recruit Sho and Orochi as well, but the conditions to do so are nigh-impossible on the first run through the game. Arguably, Tetsuya as well - he shows interest early on in joining with Kou, but doesn't because Met doesn't want to at first.
  • Hello, [Insert Name Here]
  • Henshin Hero: Gold Hero and Metal Hero. Gold Hero has the advantage of his power attacks having no wind-up time, but the disadvantage of not being able to stay in his powered-up form.
  • Hitodama Light: The Demon Samurai borg has two floating skull ghost lights that can be used for attacks.
  • Hoist by Their Own Petard:
    • One level involves taking out a few Akuma Samurai while Death Bombs spawn in unlimited numbers - the Death Bombs attempt to kamikaze against the player while their souls power up the Akuma Samurai's swords (to the extent that they can literally melee the entire map if they survive long enough). There are two ways to abuse this - one, Death Bombs will also damage the Akuma Samurai, so Deadly Dodging can work. Two, a player can bring in their own Akuma Samurai or Demon Samurai, and they'll absorb the souls (and thus power up) any of the bombs that explode closer to the player, meaning the player can abuse the mechanic and similarly gain the ability to melee anything in the stage.
    • One level that's infamously easy to anyone who's played the game is the level where the player faces off against an onslaught of ICBM Tanks. Due to the fact that they won't move (note that they are capable of it; the ones in this level just won't) and the fact that their ICBMs are one of the few exceptions to friendly fire only performing Scratch Damage to itself/teammates, it's trivially easy for a player to move in, wait for the aiming crosshair to cover the enemy tank, then run away to a safe distance. In fact, they're so effective at this that it's actually pretty hard for a player to win by beating at least one, which is the only way of acquiring one for yourself.
  • Hollywood Magnetism: Both Magnet Robot (+) and Magnet Robot (-) have "magnetic" charge attacks that draw foes in (the positive model) or push them away (the negative model). However, only other Gotcha Borgs can be affected by their magnetic powers. Either Gotcha Borgs are the only things made of metal in the world, or they're using some strange form of magnetism yet to be discovered on Earth.
  • Hopeless Boss Fight: Subverted. Several fights with Sho and Orochi seem like this, especially during a first playthrough, but are actually possible to beat. Also if you manage to beat them every time you unlock them as partners later on.
  • Hot-Blooded: We Are Gotcha Force
    • G Red's enthusiastic "WHOOO!!"s during the Story Mode help.
    • Tetsuya and Kou also seem to have shades of this personality.
  • Hour of Power: Gold Hero can only stay in his transformed state for a limited amount of time. His base state has a very slow projectile and only average melee attacks, plus cannot stay in the air as long. Similarly, Planet Hero and Star Hero can transform into a larger, more powerful form, but it too will wear off and has to recharge. However, their non-powered forms are less vulnerable.
  • Hurricane Kick: Cyber Hero has one, being a Shotoclone.
  • Humans Are White: Tetsuya stands out because of the existence of this trope here.
  • I Let You Win: The first fight against Orochi.
  • Incredible Shrinking Man - Two Witch Borgs can do this to you (with a resultant loss of power). Inverted by two other Witch Borgs that can make their allies grow (and resultant increases in power).
  • Jack of All Stats: G Red, many Gun Borgs, many Samurai Borgs, and most of the larger Machine Borgs.
  • Joke Character: The Roach and Death Eye borgs, can pretty much get killed by anything and move slowly and have a terrible attack. The Bug Witch and Death Borg Omicron can turn others into these respectively.
  • Just You and Me and My GUARDS!: Early on, before the conflict with the Death Force kicks into high gear, Nekobe challenges Kou to a one-on-one fight after Kou interrupts his attempts at bullying one too many times. However, Nekobe sets it up so that his lackey Kitsune comes in to gang up on Kou. However, due to the way it's set up, it's clear that while this is the original plan, it more becomes Kitsune swooping in to bail Nekobe out when Kou proves much more than Nekobe can handle (particularly as Nekobe's borgs are all melee-focused to the point of Crippling Overspecialization).
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Most of the Musha borgs Dual Wield katanas. Neo G-Red also gets a pretty snazzy one.
  • Kiai: Sho's habit of screaming when he attacks.
  • Kill Sat: Several fortress borgs. Tama is fond of these. There is also a borg that is a literal satellite.
  • Killer Yoyo: Spinner Girl, naturally, and Barrier Girl has one as well. Proto Panther and Panther Robot use tires on beam-wires as mid-range attacks.
  • Kill It with Fire: Anything with Fire or Flame in its name.
  • Knight in Shining Armor: Almost all of the Knight Borgs, but their description especially emphasizes their honorable nature.
  • Laser Blade: Very common with the Machine Borgs, or the higher-tech Ninja/Musha/Knight borgs. The Sapphire and Ruby Knights play with this by using laser lances instead.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: Only comes up if you've won each time you fight, but Orochi is suffering this due to the Galactic Emperor's influence, and she makes a point to continue being called "Orochi" even after being freed due to this. Her real name is never said in the game; supplementary sources give it as Rin Nishikiori.
  • Law of Chromatic Superiority: Gold-palette borgs have more extra health than Silver-palette ones, which in turn have more extra health than Shadow-palette ones. Inverted with the Crystal-palette borgs, which have less health than their normal counterparts.
  • Level Grinding: Obviously, you can play more missions than necessary to gain experience for your Borgs (thought the benefits of doing so are only moderate), but you'll also gain more GF energy with each victory, allowing you to bring more and/or more expensive Borgs into battle (of which the benefits are significant).
  • Limit Break: Power Burst.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Plenty of borgs qualify, notably Star and Planet Hero, as well as Anubis and Blade Wing.
  • The Load:
    • Any level where you're forced to bring Kotaro along — his lack of experience means he's not only less skilled than your other partners, but can bring less borgs into battle, to boot. Fortunately, as long as you survive, you pass the level, and he's only a mandatory on a handful of them.
  • Losing Your Head: The Megaton Robot's primary attack is to throw its head (a massive spiked ball with a face) at enemies.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Most of the Knight Borgs carry a shield that can completely negate the damage from frontal attacks, though it's a bit of a crapshoot how often they'll actually intercept them. More potent is the shield that automatically hovers in front of the Combining Mecha named after The Four Gods - it's rather large and will negate most frontal attacks, necessitating side and rear attacks if there is to be any hope of defeating them.
  • Mad Bomber: The Remote Bomber and the Time Bomber. As they only take one hit point of damage from their own explosions, a viable strategy is to have them close with the enemy and deliberately drop bombs to hit everyone. Another involves using a bomb as a shield (which triggers the bomb, thus taking much less damage from the attack). Also the Ruby Knight, who built a bomb launcher into its shield and can use its bombs in a similar fashion.
  • Magic Skirt: Many Angel Borgs have very, very short skirts, but they never move. You can still peek under them in the status screen by swinging the camera directly under them. The Nurse Borgs' panties have a screwhead design on the bottom.
  • Magnet Hands: Nobody will ever lose their grip on a weapon unless they mean to, despite getting hit by bullets, swords bigger than they are, lasers, or NUKES. Both Magnet Robots have literal magnet hands.
  • The Medic: The Nurse Borgs. And by extension, Mana, since a great deal of her forces consist of Nurses and support borgs.
  • Mercy Invincibility: Getting knocked back by an attack lets a borg have a brief moment on invincibility when they hit the ground.
  • Me's a Crowd: Yuji during an event, inexplicably appears with two clones, only to be berated by Usagi for messing around.
  • Mid-Season Upgrade: Around the halfway point of the game, Kou raids a Death Force base where they find G-Red's missing data, upgrading him into Neo G-Red.
  • Mighty Glacier: The various Knight Borgs typically have strong defenses and high attack along with a plodding gait, and some of the Musha and Machine Borgs do as well. All the Fortress/Dragon borgs, which are typically the slowest borgs but with some of the strongest attacks to go with their huge bank of hit points.
  • Mind-Control Eyes: Not seen until the ending, even if you win all of the optional fights against her and she joins you, but Orochi bears these the whole game - her Red Eyes, Take Warning is due to the Galactic Emperor's influence. Her natural eye color is purple. She also has Mind Control Hair - her natural hair color is also purple (perhaps because Purple Is the New Black), but it's not seen until the ending as well, with a greenish-yellow in all appearances before then.
  • Mooks: The Death Borg units, which play like low-powered knockoffs of other Borg types. For example, the Death Borg Alpha series is a weaker version of the Ninja borgs, while the Death Borg Zeta series is a weaker version of the Samurai borgs. Mecha-Mooks, specifically. If the player gets access to them, they're cheaper to use than regular borgs of the appropriate type, but with less power and they get distinctly less out of levels than any other type.
  • More Dakka: Any borg with a high rate of fire, and anything under Power Burst.
  • Multi-Mook Melee: The "Defeat the Death Force Unit" missions.
  • The Musketeer: A large number of borgs have both a gun and a melee weapon, the use of which one depends on the distance between the borg and its target.
  • Mutual Kill: Almost guaranteed with the Walking Bomb or Death ICBM, and extremely common with the ICBM Tank.
  • My Little Panzer: The planet is going to be taken over - or saved - by toy-sized robots. And some of them ARE little panzers.
  • My Rules Are Not Your Rules: The borgs you're allowed to bring into a match are limited by the amount of GF energy you've accumulated so far. In battle, you see bars showing how much GF energy is remaining for both sides, depleting with each borg destroyed. However, the computer pays much less GF than the player does for any given borg - if the computer and the player have the same listed amount of GF energy, it's a guarantee that the computer will bring out 3 or 4 more borgs than a human could.
  • Named Weapons: Several of human partners' unique borgs:
    • Sasuke's katana, Tsunujimaru.
    • Vlad's sword, Shadow Bringer (it's two identical weapons referred to singularly).
    • Musashi's katanas, Furinmaru and Kazinmaru.
    • Billy's guns, Rhythm and Blues.
    • Non-partner example: Imperial Knight has his shield-swords Alpha and Omega, while Dark Knight has Sol and Star.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The Death Force are not subtle in their aims. For that matter, Orochi is not the name of a pleasant person. In fact, as revealed in Japanese sources, when she's free of the Galactic Emperor's Mind Control, she has the much more normal name of "Rin".
  • Nerf Arm: Any borg with the "C" designator, which are treated as being two levels lower than they actually are. They cost just as much to use as any other version of the same type of borg, too - the only thing keeping them from being a full-on Joke Character is that they're just as powerful as a regular version.
  • New Game Plus: You keep all your Borgs, your experience, G Red starts as Neo G Red at the beginning of the game, and rare Borgs appear more frequently. You actually get a new save file each time, denoting further levels of "plus-ness," up to a maximum of eight. Defeating additional playthroughs also nets you rarer and rarer Palette Swaps of G Red.
  • Never Say "Die": Played straight when talking about what happened to Sho's father, but also averted, what with the antagonists being called the Death Force and all.
    • The boss theme in the game is even called "Just Die Already".
  • Ninja: Naturally, the various Ninja borgs, who specialize in fast movement, dodging, and situational ranged attacks to set up strong melee strikes. Different ninjas specialize in various stereotypes of ninjas - the Shuriken Ninja specializes in using a Fuuma Shuriken, the Double Ninja attacks with a Doppelgänger Spin, the Acceleration Ninja is absurdly fast, and so on.
  • Nominal Importance: Each character has a signature borg, and for most of the cast, that signature borg is effectively a reskin of a common borg of the user's preferential type with a specific name and more power than the normal borg type. For example, Usagi's signature borg is Kei, who is a Battle Girl in a red outfit and a baseball cap, who starts with four levels above a normal base Battle Girl. There are two exceptions, both for plot reasons - Kou's partner, G Red, has a name, but he's a unique borg with no common counterpart (because Kou is the Player Character). Orochi switches from using a Dark Knight to a Demon Wing, but both of those are just Elite Mooks that can be encountered on their own - it's to show that Orochi is the one being commanded by a Gotcha Borg instead of being a commander in her own right.
  • No Ontological Inertia: If any of a Borg's projectiles are still in the air when it is defeated, said shots will disappear.
  • One-Hit Kill: Attacks that appear to do this really just deal more damage then most Borgs have HP; such attacks generally cover a very wide area. Such attacks also usually don't kill huge borgs (IE Fortresses and Dragons), but rather deal a large amount of damage.
  • Optional Party Member: Sho and Orochi. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to get one and not the other.
  • Orochi: Well, Orochi. She even hisses as part of her BattleBanter.
  • Otaku: Met is a military Otaku.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: The Vampire Knight (and Nekobe's Vlad) just constantly loses health (but can heal it with every successful melee hit).
  • Painfully Slow Projectile: Several of the more powerful projectiles, particularly from low-ranked borgs, move exceptionally slow. Generally, these are either powerful strikes whose speed is to make up for their power, an explosive that has a range wide enough to mitigate dodging, or are effectively a Ranged Emergency Weapon on a melee-focused borg.
  • Palette Swap: There are five palettes in addition to the base for each borg - with four of them granting different stats compared to the base model (the fifth is just a standard recolor). Every human character's partner borg is generally this as well, but with some slight change to their textures or model as well.
  • Player Mooks: Just about all the Borgs. Several of them have personalities and backstories, but those are pretty much relegated to the Gallery' description boxes.
  • Poisoned Weapon: Done only with the Poison and Venom Worm. All his melee attacks and shots cause the target to steadily lose health.
  • Poor, Predictable Rock: Each of the allies will, at one point or another, challenge Kou to a training match, and their preferences can be handled pretty easily due to this. Mana (who specializes in healers and stat affecters - Nurse and Witch borgs) and Kotaro (who specializes in slower ranged specialists, Gun borgs) are the easiest. Outside of the hidden characters Sho and Orochi, Kitsune is the least predictible (he specializes in the catch-all Machine borg category).
  • Power Copying: Not surprisingly, Copy Man has the power to copy whoever he hits with a charged attack for a limited time. However, it's all he can do - if he can't copy his opponent (either due to a shield, the opponent dodging, or the opponent being one of the ones he can't copy), he's just a mobile target.
  • The Power of Friendship: Pretty much the point of the entire games. Borgs need to be buddy-buddy with their Commanders, and the kids buddy-buddy with each other, in order to fight the friendless, hateful evil emperor.
  • Precision-Guided Boomerang: Bladed ones.
  • Protagonist Without a Past: Kou.
  • Quirky Miniboss Squad
    • Nekobe and Kitsune function as one early on, while Met and Tetsuya do this later on.
    • The Hero Borg Unit serves as a non-commander example.
  • Randomly Drops: Good luck getting the right piece of a multi-part borg. You'll need the luck of the gods if you ever hope to get an alternate-colored variant of a Borg that comes in three or even four parts. Fortunately, the more times you play through the game, the more common drops become. At plays 5 and above you'll be getting two or three borgs or data crystals per fight. Also helped by "Special Mode", where you can go back and replay any mission you've completed. With a force of six Death ICBMs.
  • Ranged Emergency Weapon: A good number of Knight, Samurai, Knuckle and other borgs are very powerful in close range, but have a slightly lackluster shot attack for use in a pinch. These attacks tend to have limited ammo, be easy to dodge, do relatively little damage, or recharge slowly.
    • Inverted with a good number of Gun, Girl, and other borgs that are ranged specialists, who frequently have a small melee weapon to defend themselves with if an opponent gets too close.
  • Razor Wind: Acceleration Ninja and Tornado Valkyrie.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: It's no coincidence that the standard appearance for a Death Borg is a head that only features one large (for its size) red eye. Orochi, as The Dragon, also has these. Though that's only due to mind control; her eyes are purple in the ending shot.
  • Reverse Grip: Normal Ninjas, Double Ninjas, and Sasuke.
  • The Rival: Sho. Earlier in the game, it's Nekobe.
  • Roboteching: The Anti-Air Lasers found on most Fortress Borgs.
  • Robot Girl: Most of the Girl borgs. The Cyber Girls are Fembots. (See above)
  • Rocket Jump: Anything with explosives can do it, although it's much better at crossing distances horizontally than vertically. Thanks to Scratch Damage, it's not even that risky (outside of rapidly flinging yourself into what might be a dangerous situation).
  • Save the Villain:
    • Tama, ending in his Heel–Face Turn.
    • Although only minor pests as opposed to full-on villains, this is also how Kou gets Nekobe and Kitsune to join/assist in an Enemy Mine scenario.
    • If you manage to beat Orochi every time you fight her, you do a couple of missions that you have to save her from the Death Force, before she joins you.
  • Scratch Damage: Most attacks only do one point of damage to allies or the user, regardless of the power of the borg in question. One counterintuitive tactic is to have a borg with some variety of solid projectile (like a bomb or missile) fire at an incoming attack - they'll be harmed by their own explosion, but only for one point of damage. This does not apply, however, to sources of damage so arbitrarily large that they count as an One-Hit KO - an ICBM Tank or an Ultimate Cannon that nails an ally with their respective signature attack is going to be short one ally.
  • Sentai: Showdown! Hero Borg Unit!!
  • Secret Character: Sho and Orochi, who if you manage to beat them every time you fight them, are unlocked as partners.
  • School Uniforms are the New Black: Nekobe.
  • Scoring Points: You're given a score-based evaluation of your performance after every fight. This is, of course, completely meaningless.
  • Shockwave Stomp: All of the terrestial Dragon borgs can do this if they walk, with the widest range being held by the Thunder Dragon and the Plasma Dragon.
  • Shoot the Medic First: Especially important in this game, because a single heal often restores a borg to full health, or very close to it. There is also no limit to healing other than the recharge time. You could of course keep them alive and intercept their healing attempts and get healed yourself, though this is a really hard thing to do.
  • Shorttank: Usagi.
  • Shout-Out: A LOT.
    • Met. He even wears a helmet, though not a construction one.
    • Orochi's victory pose is practically identical to one of Akuma's victory poses. All she needs is a "ten" (天) symbol on her back.
    • Cyber Hero's moveset is designed after Ryu's — right down to the win pose.
    • Planet Hero/Star Hero is clearly inspired by Ultraman.
    • Metal Hero is designed after the Metal Heroes, as if the name wasn't obvious enough.
    • G Red alone can do a Rider Kick, Shining Finger, and Breast Fire.
    • Victory Tank, Victory Jet, Panther Robot, Jet Eagle, and several other borgs share the same blocky design as the Transformers — along with the more obvious similarities.
    • Drill Robot looks more than a little similar to Drill Man.
    • The Cyber Girls' bodysuits share the same basic design and colorscheme as the Bubblegum Crisis girls.
    • Spinner Girl is an outlaw recruited into the Girl Borgs corps and uses a yo-yo. Sukeban Deka is a delinquent recruited to the law and uses a yo-yo.
    • The Hero Borg Unit missions put you against five enemies arranged and presented much like a Japanese hero squadron.
    • Acceleration Ninja is spiky, blue, fast, and attacks while moving.
    • Death Wing's method of throwing scythes is incredibly similar to the method often used by Death in Castlevania.
  • Signature Borg: Fittingly, each GF Commander has an ace that they bring out as their last line of defense, most of which are powered-up versions of basic borgs in their class that only appear in fights involving said GF Commander.
    • Kakeru's partner is a powered-up Normal Ninja called Sasuke.
    • Mana teams up with improved Angel Nurse named Nao.
    • Usagi partners up with Kei, a Battle Girl.
    • Tsutomu uses a souped-up Normal Tank named Panther.
    • Kitsune teams up with a Claw Robot named Isaac.
    • Nekoke is partners with a Vampire Knight named Vlad.
    • Met relies on Shijima, an Arrow Ninja. Somewhat subverted in that Met doesn't specialize in one or two types of borgs, but instead of a certain style (namely, support) of borgs.
    • Tetsuya always falls back on a Normal Samurai named Musashi.
    • Kotaro's partner is a beefed-up Normal Gunman named Billy.
    • Yuji partners with Jack, a Jelly Diver.
    • Tama uses Death Arc, a dark version of Sirius.
    • Sho's partner is Garuda, a Demon Wing.
    • The two exceptions to the general rule are main character Kou and enemy commander Orochi. While Kou is generally depicted as partnering with G Red, as the player, he's free to use whatever he has in whatever order he likes. Orochi technically has two signature borgs — Dark Knight when she's in the Galactic Emperor's good graces, and Death Wing when she's not. However, both can be encountered outside of fights with her.
  • Sinister Scythe: The Demon Borgs get very nasty looking ones. And can shoot more.
  • Sizeshifter: Star Hero and Planet Hero can temporarily become the size of the high-end Dragon borgs. They get a suitable increase in damage, but they become bigger targets as well.
  • Some Dexterity Required: A handful of Borgs have a Charged Attack on both the B and X buttons. Good luck with that.
  • Spectacular Spinning:
    • Pretty much every Borg with wings; their dash attacks are a corkscrew spin that does massive damage and effectively turns them into a drill.
    • Pop Honey inverts this trope to make everything worse — any Borgs hit by its "Mr. Reverse Bolt" will spin uncontrollably, minimally affecting movement, but make it effectively impossible to properly aim attacks. This can, however, have hilarious side effects when combined with destructive attacks that cover a wide area, namely Ultimate Cannon.
  • Spin Attack: Many dash attacks, particularly on Angel and Machine Borgs.
  • Spiritual Successor: To the Virtual-ON series, in many ways. Its direct relative is the Gundam Vs Series, also being made by Capcom. Any GF veteran will find many similarities in this footage, down to the position of the health bar, ammo meters, and the same camera effects when killing the final enemy.
  • Spy Catsuit: Several of the Girl Borgs get this.
  • Status Buff: Also the province of Angel and Witch Borgs.
  • Storm of Blades: The Tao Master can fling swords off of his back to dive down at enemies repeatedly.
  • Sucking-In Lines: All charge attacks.
  • Super Mode: Named "Power Burst", by utilizing The Power of Friendship, Commanders can give their Borgs instantly-reloading ammo, massive speed, and the capacity to deal much more damage. Also, if the appropriate components are in play, this will allow the Combining Mecha forms to come out.
  • Super Move Portrait Attack: Accompanies the aforementioned Super Mode.
  • Super-Speed: Inverted by Jelly Diver, Tar Diver, and Yuji's Jack - they can activate a field that makes any other borg (including allies) caught in it move in extreme slow motion - it even affects their falling speed.
  • Support Party Member: Mana, who uses several of the Wizard Borgs alongside her Nurse Borgs.
  • Sword Beam: Musha Borgs and Vampire Knight fire them when outside of melee range.
  • This Is a Drill:
    • Seven alone on the Drill Robot. Beam Tank has one as well, making it the only Tank Borg that can perform melee attacks.
    • Many Borgs will spin a melee weapon like a drill when dashing towards a foe. This results in satisfyingly large combos.
  • Throwing Your Shield Always Works: Normal Knights and Sword Knights can throw their shields to smack at foes staying out of their melee range. Just because it works, though, doesn't mean it works well - the damage is negligable, cannot be done rapidly, and removes the shield from being able to protect the knight.
  • Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Since the animating forces of the Ghost Knight and the Elemental Knight are in their swords, and only their armor can be targeted, throwing the sword works well towards getting them out of trouble from anything without a wide area of effect.
  • Time Bomb: The Time Bomber's specialty, of course.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Usagi and Mana have a bit of this dynamic respectively. The former fancying Action Girl Borgs while the later liking to use support based Borgs.
  • Too Dumb to Live: A CPU-controlled ICBM Tank will fire its signature attack on you the second it's able. A few problems with that, though. One, there's a conspicuous crosshair on the stage where the missile will land. Two, once designated, the missile will not veer course for anything. Three, the ICBM is one of the few attacks where allies receive full damage instead of Scratch Damage if they land. Four, the ICBM Tank itself has poor mobility. Consequently, when the computer brings one out, it's trivially easy to get close, wait for it to target an area that will include said ICBM tank, then run away and watch the opponent blow itself (and possibly other CPU allies) to dust.
  • Transforming Mecha: Several of the high-end Machine Borgs can change between a vehicle (or multiple vehicles) and an anthropomorphic robot. It's also possible to obtain non-transforming versions of each form, which cost less to use.
  • Wave-Motion Gun: Several borgs have incredibly powerful charge shots - most prominent being the Ultimate Cannon, which wipes out everything in front of it when it fires. Even if it does take a full minute to charge.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: The Galactic Emperor is particularly vulnerable to Drill Robots, which are fairly low-tier Borgs.
  • We Cannot Go On Without You: Specifically applies to the player's squad in general; it doesn't matter if all of your named borgs are done, but as long as you have even the merest Normal Ninja, your side can win.
  • You Have Failed Me: Orochi to Tama.
    • Later The Galactic Emperor to Orochi
  • You Killed My Father: Implied to be Sho's reason for considering all Gotcha Borgs his enemies.
  • You Kill It, You Bought It: What you can recruit is directly dependent on what you destroy - which means that if the opponent is using something you desperately want, you have to swoop in to make sure a partner doesn't bogart the kill.
  • You Will Not Evade Me:
    • The Arrow Ninja, which has the ability to anchor an opponent so that they can't move more than a very small distance from the anchor spot. One level combines them with Ultimate Cannons to make massive amounts of pain. Made even worse by the fact that a borg can be pinned by multiple arrows, limiting their movement range even further.
    • Several other borgs (Chainsaw Knight notable among them) can launch a claw at an opponent to bring them in close.
    • Magnet Robot + can pull in all borgs within a certain distance closer. Inverted with Magnet Robot -, who repels all borgs within a certain distance.
  • Zerg Rush: Several missions consist of you being overrun by a large number of cheap enemy units (made worse by the fact that the AI's units are cheaper than yours) against your generally 4-8 decent borgs.
    • While not being a straight example, Kakeru's force plays on this concept. His team consists mostly of several copies of the cheaper Normal Ninja and Double Ninja borgs, giving him a much larger number of borgs than other characters throughout the game.

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