Super Robot Wars D

Super Robot Wars Destiny is the fourth installment of Banpresto's Super Robot Wars franchise on the Game Boy Advance, preceded by Advance, Reversal and Original Generation. The series featured in Destiny is noted to be unique towards fans at the time (other than Super Robot Wars Judgment and Super Robot Wars K, as both involve the removal of traditional series), as uncommonly used series appear in the main plot, such as Megazone 23 and The Big O.

And now that Destiny is announced to be part of Super Robot Wars Original Generation, the game has not been forgotten and has returned in style.

Featured series (debuts in bold):

• The Big O (Season 1)
• Future Robo Daltanious
• Getter Robo Armageddon
• Six God Combination Godmars
• Macross 7
• Megazone 23 (Parts I and II)
• Mobile Suit Gundam Series
  • Zeta Gundam
  • Gundam ZZ
  • Chars Counterattack
  • Victory Gundam
  • Gundam Wing (TV series, not Endless Waltz)
• Mazinger Series
  • Mazinger Z
  • Great Mazinger
  • UFO Robo Grendizer

Destiny takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, prominently after the beginning of Getter Robo Armageddon, where a nuclear explosion wipes out the majority of humanity. While other factions are doing their own activities, they are shocked to discover the Earth is sealed, having disappeared from the face of the universe. The heroes must find out the reason behind the sealing and how to stop it. On the course of the journey, the player will engage against the antagonistic Ruina, a destructive race bent on seeing the rest of the universe in ruins.

Like prior games, Destiny gives players the choice of two protagonists: Joshua Radcliff or Cliana Rimskaya, with a selection of two original real or super robots. However, depending on who is the primary protagonist out of the two, it ultimately affects which Secret Character is recruitable for the player.

Also, Z and Z2 feature a large portion of D's roster- only Daltanious, Megazone23, Victory and ZZ Gundam aren't present, with the original Mazinger trio being left in the first. It's possibly only coincidence, but a remake of this game using Z2's engine is extremely possible.

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Tropes used in Super Robot Wars D include:

• Applied Phlebotinum (The protagonists' mecha run on it, and it's what allows either Glacies or Wintos to join up later, as well as justify why the Forte Gigas has the most EN in the game)
• Awesome McCoolname ("Forte Gigas" is exactly what you want your Humongous Mecha to be called)
• Cool Mask (Duke Fleed and Chronicle Asher)
• Cloning Blues (Kroppen is a clone of Emperor Harin, Kento's father, but he accuses Harin of being the clone. A radiation test verifies that Kroppen is the clone)
• Combining Mecha (Daltanius, Godmars, Getter Robo, Shin Getter Robo and Forte Gigas, combined from the protagonists' Super Robots Ganador and Strega)
• Composite Character (Emperor Zul in Destiny is a combination of the original Emperor Zul from the TV series (has his appearance and personality), Emperor Dolmen (due to the Kroppen cloning plot) and King Vega (he led the attack that destroyed Planet Fleed))
  • This is actually something that Zul would do, as he had several clones of himself within the TV series.
• Crapsack World (It already sucked from the get go, and the villains are hell bent on making it stay that way)
• Easily Forgiven (You can recruit Katejina Loos and instantly forgive every single thing of sheer depravity that she has done. Granted, several of her actions, such as killing members of the Shrike Team and Odelo, don't occur in Destiny. Chronicle gets the same treatment.)
• The Empire (The Gishin Empire and the Zanscare Empire)
• Darker and Edgier (When asked about what happened to most of the AEUG, Kamille Bidan's response is they were dead before the game started...and this is just in the first few scenarios...)
  • Zanscare's brutality is a large plot point early on during intermissions, including their habits of public executions. Amuro Ray and Bright Noah fail to stop Char Aznable's attempt at dropping Axis on Earth. Both of the Purus are dead (unlike the Gundam Evolve short that retconned Puru 2's demise). Destiny pretty much finds a way to make Universal Century more depressing, even when events are already concluded.
• Demonic Spiders (The Ruina and Zanscare Mooks. In-universe, the Invaders are considered this. The Megazone 23 Mooks don't fall under this only because they don't swarm)
• Demoted to Extra (Unless you meet the conditions to recruit her, Haman Karn won't appear in the storyline at all)
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu? (Gepelnitch, The Invaders, Emperor Zul and Perfectio.)
• Earn Your Happy Ending (Destiny makes it clear it's a Crapsack World from the get-go. It's up to the Blue Swear to fix that)
• Eldritch Abomination (Big Bad Perfectio, king of the Ruina Energy Beings from another dimension. Since Perfectio feeds on despair, the Ruina try to turn Earth into his cattle farm by sealing Earth in another dimension. While it's possible to destroy the Ruina, Perfectio's immortal and can only be stopped by sealing the gate to its home dimension)
• Enemy Mine (While Destiny includes antagonists from Gundam ZZ, Char's Counterattack and Gundam Wing, the situation at hand causes them to have the competence to ally with you all at the start since things are bad enough. Due to the Zanscare Empire attacking Earth, along with the Invaders and the Protodevlin, and the united alien forces of the villains from Daltanius, Godmars and Grendizer, your heroes quickly realize pretty much the only organizations out there that still have the sheer manpower to defend humanity are the Principality of Zeon and the Order of the Zodiac. Thankfully, Roger Smith takes care of the negotiations. This results in one of the first heroic roles for longstanding villains like CCA-era Char Aznable)
• Five-Bad Band (The Ruina:)
  • The Big Bad - Perfectio
  • The Dragon - Ignis
  • The Evil Genius - Contagio
  • The Brute - Aquila
  • The Dark Chick - Umbra (Rather fitting since her name is Latin for "shadow")
  • The Sixth Ranger Traitor - Glacies or Wintos (Depending on who the primary protagonist is; if certain conditions are met, they become recruitable)
  • The Sixth Ranger - Schwarzwald
• Fix Fic (At one point, Destiny follows the plot of Megazone 23 Parts I and II (putting the "Trash" gang on a bus), until Eve sends the entire Megazone to another dimension to keep ADAM from destroying everything)
  • Destiny also allows the player to gain back Kinryu, who was Killed Off for Real in the TV series. In addition, Junko Jenko and Odelo Heinrik do not die in Destiny, however, Oliver Inoue does still die, albeit through a different manner than in the series.
• Fragile Speedster (Most notably the Garland, as well as the Cosmo Crusher and the Valkyries)
• Galactic Conqueror (Emperor Zul)
• Game Breaking Bug (A primary reason why some gamers were ticked off about Destiny: the armor coding is so bugged that it nerfs super robots and their ability to tank)
  • This appears to be a case of the defense stat getting more emphasis than usual in damage calculations; in practice, high pilot defense plus high armor rating for mecha = tank.
  • On the flip side, this also turns the under-3-meter tall Garland into a Glass Cannon. A stiff breeze will probably kill it, but it can kill the stiff breeze - or get it to retreat.
• Gratuitous Latin, Theme Naming (All Ruina characters and mecha. There's actually a pretty good reason for this...)
• The Heartless (The Ruina, in the sense that they're powered by negative emotions of some sort or another)
• Heroic Sacrifice ( Trieze Kushrenada does this to defeat Perfectio)
• Humongous Combining and/or Transforming Real and Super Robots
• Mid-Season Upgrade (Destiny notably gives Amuro three of them in a single playthrough: he begins with the Re-GZ, then moves to his canon Nu Gundam. If certain requirements are met (Amuro gets 50 kills by a certain stage and you go on the Angel Halo route), the Nu Gundam HWS (Heavy Weapons System) is unlocked. Finally, the uber-powerful Hi-Nu Gundam is a mandatory upgrade for the finale levels of the game)
• Mythology Gag (Getter Robo in Destiny uses the exact same Open Get sequence from Super Robot Wars Impact (Getter 3/Shin Getter-3/Shin Poseidon, Getter 1/Shin Getter-1/Shin Dragon and Getter 2/Shin Getter-2/Shin Liger))
• New Game+ (All kill counts, customizations and cash carry over to the next playthrough. However, customizations are specific to a unit, so if you get a new or secret unit/character for the first time, it starts as a blank slate)
• Nintendo Hard (Variation: Haman will only join if you a) go on the Angel Halo route, b) launch Char, Kamille and Judau Ashta during a certain scenario (and they survive) and c) Char, Kamille and Judau's kill count total is 400 or more before a point in the game. The first two are easy. The last one? Basically impossible/impractical your first time through)
  • And just to twist the knife further, if you cheat and set those characters' kills to the appropriate amount, you still have to wait until you clear the game once before Haman can join you. Yes, that's right. Haman Karn is exclusively a New Game+ Secret Character.
• Physical God (Aside from Perfectio, Emperor Zul pulls some reality-warping bullshit on you to such a degree it was never matched until The Edel Bernal came along and one-upped him)
• Put on a Bus (Aside from the "Trash" gang, Emerald Force member Physica and Gamlin's custom VF-22, Dr. Hell, Baron Ashura, Count Brocken, the Mycenae Empire, Judau's friends and younger sister, and all members of the Shrike Team (except Junko) do not appear in Destiny)
  • For obvious reasons, Eve has a negligible presence once that storyline has been completed, but in her case - in about the best way possible.
• Redshirt Army (For once, not the basic grunts from a Gundam series, but the VF-11 Thunderbolt appears as well. There's also a Taurus squad that gets destroyed by the Shin Dragon)
  • In fact, if nameless Macross 7 OR OZ forces show up on your side at any given time, consider them already
• Sharing a Body (Cliana is actually two personalities - "Chris" and "Liana" - in one body. They work together surprisingly well, given the setting and plot, but really, it's not even the strangest thing in Destiny)
• Shut Up, Kirk (Emperor Zul gives one to Relena Peacecraft)
• Took a Level In Kindness (Chronicle and Katejina are much less bonkers and murderous in the game than they were in the series, to help suspend the disbelief that they'd be worth saving in the first place.))
• Unnecessarily Large Interior (The final scenario is a particularly egregious example: it takes place in an underground base at the South Pole. One of the battleships available for the mission is the Battle 7: a transforming Cool Starship that stands 1400 meters tall (about 200 meters short of a mile). It still has room to either fly or walk)
  • A scenario or two earlier tries to take this into account: the only battleship you can use in said level is the Ra Calium. However, you can still sortie the much larger Shin Dragon as one of your units.
• What If (Londo Bell failed to stop the Axis drop (and in fact seems to have not been formed in the first place due to OZ's coup d'etat) and got assimilated into Neo Zeon's forces? This is how Destiny starts out)
• You Killed My Father (Kouji Kabuto and Tetsuya Tsurugi want to defeat Ignis for making Dr. Kabuto sacrifice himself)
• Where It All Began (The final battlefield is located in the South Pole, where you first get to control Joshua and Cliana)
• Why Am I Ticking?: Takeru is connected to a bomb that can wipe out the Earth via his brainwaves stored in the Godmars itself; therefore, players unfamiliar with Godmars are likely to be surprised when they get a game over if Godmars is destroyed (although, if you've played any of the games featuring Space Runaway Ideon, you'll be quick to pick this little detail up). It doesn't help that Takeru's Gaia (initially) transforms into Godmars when it's severely damaged (i.e. HP bar is in the red), either. This little penalty also applies when you're in space and nowhere near a planet, too.