YMMV / Super Robot Wars K

• Alternate Character Interpretation: The entire planet of Atreim - protagonist Mist Rex describes it as a peaceful utopia, but also states that despite 2000 years of peace, it had a defense force even larger than the Earth's, the implication said force is bigger than O.M.N.I. Enforcer and the Neo U.N. Army combined. Coupled with the fact that Mist was a rookie member of the Altreim defense force, yet mentioned he was quite used to riot suppression, it begs the question - was Atreim truly a utopia or was it a Nineteen Eighty-Four-esque police state?
• Awesome Music:
  • "Edax", the Leitmotif heard if players are fighting against the "Edax" generals and the Big Bad.
  • "Astral Burst", the music that plays during the final attack of the Mist's Mid-Season Upgrade.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Of the series debuts included, GUN×SWORD stands as the best received, owing to both its Game-Breaker-style Boring, but Practical units and its unique & quirky cast of characters. Despite GUN×SWORD being self-contained for one game until Super Robot Wars T, many players deemed the series a saving grace to this divisive title, who played K just for it or ended up watching the Anime thanks to its inclusion here.
• Fan Nickname: Now on its own page.
• Game-Breaker: See entries here
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Fafner in the Azure: Dead Aggressor is in this game with Overman King Gainer, which features an Exodus in its plot. The former's second season (released six years after this game) is called Exodus, but it's also Harsher in Hindsight because some characters who survived in the first season and Heaven and Earth were Killed Off for Real.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Part of the reason why Mist is a memetic punching bag is because he's unintentionally a massive jerk who rubs the fandom the wrong way that they preferred the villains. Though Edax is not that complex as a villain, fans don't have as many bad things to say compared to what they have to say for Mist.
• Memetic Mutation: Now with its own page.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • King Gainer defeating the Overdevil with the help of Gaiking.
  • After the fiasco with Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, Cagalli Yula Athla returns to piloting duties in K. Banpresto even makes her first scenario one that's awesome on principle - taking on the Festum in the outdated, under-powered Strike Rouge becomes a lot more badass when players realize the Festum can alter gravity, create black holes at will, read minds, and pretty much EVERY canon pilot from Fafner in the Azure: Dead Aggressor who had a chance against them had been genetically modified. If there was any enemy for Cagalli to take a swing at to show she hadn't lost anything, this was the one.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: A lot of problems fans had with the cast of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny are solved in this game:
  • Cagalli's Chickification is completely nullified, as she not only keeps the personality she had back in Gundam SEED, but also joins the heroes on the battlefield as soon as she meets up with them, and remains piloting for the entire game.
  • The Archangel team doesn't attack both sides of the conflict like in the show. Their debut has them helping the heroes and immediately joining them. In the following scenario, when they come across the Minerva battling some Orb soldiers, Kira only attacks Orb (non-fatally of course), the clear aggressors in this case, and then offers the Minerva a team-up to stop the massacre in Berlin, which only fails because the Minerva received orders to shoot down the Archangel.
  • Athrun's indecisiveness is gone, as he flatly refuses to fight his old companions and has no issues telling the Minerva crew he thinks fighting them is a mistake. Cagalli later mentions part of the reason he stayed with ZAFT after that was to investigate Durandal, so he isn't guilty of blind trust either.
  • Neo expresses a desire to become The Atoner even after his brainwashing is undone (but before he regains all of his memories), and he even gets to fight other members of Phantom Pain to show he is serious about it.
  • Yuuna Roma Seinan becomes less of an incompetent coward after being called out by Cagalli for his mistakes, to the point where he acknowledges his faults and steps aside when Cagalli forcibly takes command of Orb. He even gets to live through the Battle of Orb so he can show his Character Development.
  • Heine and Meer are Spared By Adaptation and given new, albeit small character arcs. Heine starts questioning his Just Following Orders mentality after seeing how far Durandal is willing to go, and may be convinced to pull a Heel–Face Turn during the climax of the Gundam SEED Destiny plot, depending on the actions of the player. Meer is allowed to recover from her Sanity Slippage and is asked by Lacus herself to keep singing in her name, as long as she does it for the sake of true peace.
• The Scrappy: Mist is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the most hated Super Robot Wars protagonist ever. He spends most of K complaining about how much better Altreim is than Earth, acts like a Jerkass to the cast over the party's character flaws (berating Goh Saruwatari for his women troubles, telling Van to get over his bride-to-be's death, insulting Kira's idealistic pacifism and denigrating inexperienced pilots like Gainer Sanga, Ruuji Familion, and Daiya Tsuwabuki). The ultimate expression of this is his reaction to the ending as "a fun party" (see Memetic Mutation) by completely glossing over the actions of Soushi Minashiro, who sacrificed himself to ultimately destroy the Eldritch Abomination Big Bad that was RESPONSIBLE FOR ALTREIM'S DESTRUCTION. Made worse when a lot of his attitude is Hypocritical, such as one ending putting him in a Love Triangle situation after insulting Goh for the very same reasons or some instances where he recklessly charges at Edax forces and gets his ass handed to him, after telling off other pilots for doing just that. There's a reason why Mist leads the Memetic Mutation entry for Super Robot Wars.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Zigzagged with the "Partner Battle" system: many players consider it useless when standard Mooks later in the game have access to "Combo Attack". Meanwhile, partnering two allied units prevents the use of "Combo Attack", further discouraging the system. However, those who do want to use the "Partner Battle" system find it does have some uses, such as always having mecha in range of each other to combine or easier access to Combination Attacks. Ultimately, it's a question of weighing the benefits of these vs. being able to use a "Combo Attack". These are largely the reasons why the system is revamped in Super Robot Wars L.
  • Following the release of Super Robot Wars Z, installments began standardizing many game-play mechanics, such as "evasion decay"^note As a unit is attacked, its evasion rate decreases every time it is targeted, raising the cost of "Spirit Commands" and balancing individual Will gains. The one gripe players have with K regarding standardization are terrain rankings on units: first, K goes with the idea that if a series is never set in space, it cannot have more than rank of "B" in space. This is fine until players realize Mazinger Z, who has never been in space, gets a rank of "A". This also extends to the Fafners, while the Dann of Thursday (who not only fought in space, but fought to a draw against the Saudade of Sunday, an "Armor" built for space combat within its own series) gets a measly "B". Secondly, despite the primary units from Godannar fighting often in water and the Fafners originating from an island, none of them have a better rank of "B" in water terrain (the exceptions are the Cosmo Diver, a dedicated underwater/space unit and one of the unlockable Fafner units).
  • Multiple series in K don't have many flight-capable machines, which causes problems when late-game Mooks all take to the skies. This would have been fine, provided the game gave players enough equippable parts allowing flight, but it doesn't.
• That One Level
  • Scenario 5 pits players against every named villain in the first half of Overman King Gainer, including Brunhilde, who in-series attacked friends and foes alike, yet in K only attacks the players' units. Fortunately, only Brunhilde needs to be destroyed, except it has 10000+ Hit Points (at Scenario 5, no less), and there are around 7-8 Fragile Speedster Flunky Bosses attacking the party at the same time. Fortunately, the scenario has easy Mooks to handle.
  • Scenario 6 kicks off the GUN×SWORD plot, only Van is attacked by a lot of Darius Empire Mooks. The player must ensure Van survives for two turns until the Daikuu Maryu appears to aid him, which is easier said than done.
  • Scenario 7 is a mix of the two before: it begins with the Dann of Thursday, the El Dora V (unfortunately, it's an EN guzzler), the Brownie and Mist being attacked by a bunch of King Gainer grunts and bosses (again). A few turns later, the rest of the party arrives, only enemies also get two tough bosses as reinforcements: Cynthia Lane and Ray Lundgren. Like Brunhilde in scenario 5, they only attack the party, despite neither of them being aligned with the Siberian Railroad.
  • Finally, scenario 8 is MORE Overman King Gainer bosses/Mooks, plus Cynthia again, and the Diablo of Monday. This scenario's slightly easier, but if players want the GUN×SWORD Secret Characters, Van must destroy the Diablo or they're lost. Fortunately, after all this hell, Scenario 9 is an easy Breather Level.
  • Any Virtual-ON-based scenarios: the first two are long and boring, set in corridors against Mooks with MAP weapons, while the last one is on an open field with more grunts and Elite Mooks with huge Hit Point pools and the "Combo Attack" pilot skill, allowing them to crush the player's support units.
    • Scratch that: let's just say any long corridor-based scenario is long and dull (we're looking at you, final Fafner scenario).
  • In one Mobile Suit Gundam SEED CE.73: Stargazer scenario, players must prevent any enemy unit from reaching a certain point IN SPACE. This sort of mission objective isn't a problem, except many series and their respective mecha in this game don't go into space from their home series, meaning they're stuck with a relatively low rank of "B" for terrain (see Scrappy Mechanic above). To emphasize, a Lightning Bruiser like the King Gainer can easily get hit and often miss in space.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Although Kira, Yzak, and Dearka are playable characters in a game that also features Mobile Suit Gundam SEED CE.73: Stargazer, they don't have much interactions with the Phantom Pain trio that pilot upgraded versions of their old mechas. This is in spite of Sven seemingly being interested in the "Ultimate Coordinator" in Kira's debuting scenario. The interactions between those two are demoted to pre-battle dialogue, and Kira's presence has no impact on Sven's character arc. Meanwhile, Yzak and Dearka join the heroes in the last scenario of the Cosmic Era Gundam plotline, which naturally precludes any rivalry between them and Phantom Pain. Not to mention that the Blu Duel and Verde Buster aren't even unlockable units to use.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: To the umpteenth degree for Mist - in a better written narrative, Mist's back-story as a Failure Knight who's trying to do better in a new world might make him a legitimate candidate of being a sympathetic hero that players can root for. Unfortunately, the way he runs his mouth without reading the situation throughout the course of the game gave Mist the most unintentional Jerkass personality - one that fails to endear any fans to him - without letting the story tell him the way he was intended to be, ultimately dropping him to The Scrappy status for good measure.

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