We don't get to see our chosen protagonist just yet, though. The game opens with a little prologue level that identifies the current year as 179 S.E. (Space Era) and our current location as an outer sector of Pluto. By this time, mankind has finally reached the point where they're ready to explore space beyond the solar system, but of course it's never that easy.
When we join the Hiryu, which is the name of the ship present in this scene, stuff is exploding and alarms are ringing. The ship's commanding officer and executive officer, Daitetsu Minase
and Sean Webley respectively, discuss the damage they're sustaining. They've lost a large chunk of the ship, and all of their main cannons are disabled. They have one mech out there, the Giganscudo, but it's completely surrounded by enemies. (As an aside, this is a valid ingame tactic to stop just about any enemy.)
Daitetsu is racking his brains over how he could possibly win this battle, but Sean advises him to retreat: they're outnumbered, they barely have any functioning weapons and the enemy probably has a carrier nearby. The two speculate that these unknown enemies must be aliens. Unless their own troops just turned against them and started piloting unknown mechs, this seems like an obvious conclusion. At this point, their ship can hardly take any more damage, so Daitetsu grudgingly retreats while swearing vengeance against these unknown foes.
At this point, the story fast-forward a few years. In the vicinity of Earth, a mech is being field-tested in space. The pilot, major Elzam von Branstein, is going through the standard test protocol and is very pleased with the performance of his customized Gespenst Mk II. One of the people present, Kirk Hamill, would really like to see what Elzam is capable of in a combat situation, especially since Elzam's a member of both the UCC * and the Aggressors * . Kirk himself is not part of the military, but is the R&D director of Mao Industries, one of the leading mech manufacturers.
As if by his command, a bunch of unknown objects suddenly pop out of nowhere. Elzam, fearless as ever, goes straight ahead to make contact with it. He figures that if the mechs are not one of theirs or the Earth Federation's, he has to identify it. One of his opponents takes the initiative, however, and accelerates to ramming speed in Elzam's direction. He switches to combat mode, but a UCC mook notes that they have not been given permission to engage in combat. He replies that he is already engaged in combat, and even when said mook notes his lack of weapons he is unfazed.
ELZAM: This mech has arms, does it not?
The mook thinks this is absurd, and asks Kirk to stop Elzam. Kirk denies his request, noting that this is the perfect chance to demonstrate the relevance of Personal Troopers to the top brass.
ELZAM: Now, my trusty Trombe...charge!
At this point, the actual gameplay begins. This is mostly a warmup level, and there's no way I could fail if I tried. As we are given one unit to control with only one attack, gameplay isn't all that interesting yet, so I'll be using this level to give a pictorial overview of the combat system in this game. This is mostly in case you're interested in gameplay mechanics, otherwise you can skip ahead a few paragraphs.This is what the entire level looks like, mostly empty space with a handful of enemy mooks. To distinguish units, they are color-coded: playable units are blue, enemy units are red, and NPC units/allies are yellow. When I select Elzam, I am given a couple of options. I can move him, check his status or use one of his spirit commands. Spirit commands are basically temporary buffs that vary per pilot, which I'll get to in a moment. When I select the "move" option, his current movement range is shown. Not enough to reach the enemy yet, and I've no interest in waiting a turn before we can get to the action. Here is where spirit commands come in handy. As shown, Elzam is capable of using three of them, costing varying amounts of spirit points. Focus boosts his hit/evade by 30% for one turn, Sense allows him to dodge one enemy attack while making his own attack a guaranteed hit, and Accel boosts a single movement by 3 spaces. Guess which one we're interested in. So I spend 4 SP on Accel, and my possible movement has noticeably increased to ass-kicking range. As for the spirit points, they're completely refilled at the start of each mission. There are a few other means of restoring them in the middle of a mission, but I don't have any of them yet.
Anyway, now that I'm in range, I get the option to attack. This mech only has one attack, but it'll do. There is a lot of relevant information on this screen, so I'll try to give a brief explanation of all these stats. First of all, there's the name of the attack, simply named "Attack" in this case. Next to it are the base damage, the attack range and the hit chance modifier. This is a free attack in the sense that it costs no energy or ammunition, and has no will requirement. Will is a stat that determines a lot of things, but goes back to a base level after each mission. While the most straightforward of increasing your will is killing enemies, things like getting hit also increase it, oddly enough. It's a crucial factor in calculating how much damage you deal, and a mech's best attacks generally don't become usable until the pilot has reached a certain will threshold.
This particular attack also does not require the pilot to have learned a particular skill. Skills are either upgraded in combat, or bought with pilot points — also something I'll get to later. The attack's effectiveness in the air is just plain bad, reasonable in water, and good on the ground and in space. What luck that we happen to be in space, then. Lastly, in the lower right-hand corner, the attack type and critical hit modifier is displayed. If an attack results in a critical hit, the damage dealt is increased by 50%.
With most of the exposition out of the way, we can finally get to attacking this thing. You're always given a summary of what you're about to do, and can confirm it if you're satisfied with it, or cancel your intended action. My chance of hitting this thing is 100%, this thing's chance of hitting me is 1%. Counterattacks are guaranteed in this game, by the way: every time a unit attacks, it results in a counterattack from the defending party unless the defending party is destroyed first. Or if the defending party has invested in a first-strike skill, but that aside.
Elzam expresses his surprise before initiating combat that these seem to be bug-shaped mechs, although this makes it almost certain they’re aliens. The combat animation plays out, and the enemy mech is pummeled 90% to death. Since this is my only currently playable unit, I end my turn.
Whatever enemies are in range attack me in vain with their lasers, and the mech I was fighting still hasn't had enough. It charges at me once again, and I finish it off on the counterattack. I am informed of my reward for doing so: $1500, 3 experience points and 1 pilot point. Not a whole lot of experience, but this is to be expected as Elzam vastly outlevels any of these things. One after another, I charge at these fools and finish them off within a mere five turns.
As the last one of them is defeated I am informed I have earned a Battle Mastery. Battle Masteries are earned by fulfilling a hidden objective in each level, which in this case was killing all enemies within 5 turns. The amount of BMs you have at any given time in the story controls the game's dynamic difficulty and what content we'll eventually get to see. As I have stated I'll be playing Hard mode, I'll be gathering all of them — or at the very least, most of them.
Another one of these things appears, and Elzam says he'll capture this one alive so that Dr. Bian of the EOTI can investigate it. We'll get an explanation of all that in a moment. Apparently, Bian had previously predicted "visitors" of this kind, and Elzam wonders if these were the ones he was talking about. We now see the intermission screen, but we can do much yet apart from saving our game. Soon we'll be able to buy upgrades and train pilots here.
