Super Robot Wars K/YMMV

• Crowning Moment of Awesome (King Gainer defeating the Overdevil with the help of the Gaiking)
  • After the fiasco with SEED Destiny, Cagalli returns to piloting in K. Banpresto decided to make her first mission one that's simply plain awesome on principle: taking on the Festum in an outdated, underpowered Strike Rouge becomes a lot more badass when you realize those things can alter gravity, create black holes at will, read your mind, and pretty much EVERY canon pilot 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)
• Crowning Music of Awesome (EDAX, the song played if the player is fighting against any Edax general and the Big Bad)
  • Let alone Astral Burst, the music that plays during the original's Mid-Season Upgrade's final attacks
• Game Breaker (Interestingly, you get a LOT of them, such as the SEED Destiny Gundams, Dann, both Jeegs, King Gainer, Gaiking, etc. Unfortunately, given the game's difficulty, this still means most levels are uphill battles)
  • Parts-wise, the Orgone Cloud, which grants a level 3 barrier, double-image ability, ignore terrain penalties and a level 1 energy recovery. You can only get one by either inserting a Super Robot Wars Judgment cartridge or through the shop on your 5th playthrough, and boy, is it worth the hassle of getting it.
  • The Multicombo system in K is a Game Breaker in general. With the combo skill at level 3, it lets any unit attack up to six enemies at once while bypass enemy support defense entirely. They are essentially short range MAP attacks, except without all the usual drawbacks of a MAP weapon like low ammo or reduced experience gain or allies not getting any will gains from your kills, so you are free to spam them to your heart's content right from the first turn.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap (SEED Destiny: not only is Kira more reasonable (and doesn't attack your team on sight, but agrees to join them) and Cagalli's Chickification completely nullified, but the game goes out of its way to make Yuuna Roma Seinan a bit less of a coward and more caring towards Cagalli, to the point where he acknowledges his faults and steps aside when Cagalli forcibly takes command of Orb. Yuuna actually manages to LIVE through everything, on top of this.)
  • The same can't really be said for the ZAFT characters, though (with the exception of Athrun and maybe Heine Westenfluss)
• The Scrappy: Mist Rex is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, THE most hated Super Robot Wars protagonist ever (and the second-most hated character period, just after Lee Linjun (or third, after Wilhelm von Juergen). He spends most of the game complaining about how much better than Earth his homeworld is, and he acts like an asshole to the anime characters over their character flaws (berating Go 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, Ryuji, and Daiya). The ultimate expression of this is his reaction to the ending as a fun adventure, completely glossing over Soushi's death. Who, mind you, sacrificed himself to ultimately destroy the Eldritch Abomination that was RESPONSIBLE FOR MIST'S HOME WORLD GETTING DESTROYED. Made worse by the fact that a lot of his attitude is hypocritical, such as one ending putting him in a harem situation after insulting Go for the very same, or some instances where he recklessly charges at Edax forces and gets his ass handed to him...after berating other people for doing just that. Japan has a fandom meme involving photoshoping Mist and his mecha into later SRW games to screw with other fans.
• Scrappy Mechanic (Many players consider the Partner Battle System to be useless, especially later on in the game when many standard mooks have access to the Combo Attack. Partnering two units also prevents either from using Combo Attacks, further discouraging its use)
  • Those who do want to try the Partner Battle System will find it does have some uses, such as always having mechs in range of each other to combine or use Combination Attacks. It's a question of weighing up the benefits of these vs. being able to use a Combo Attack)
• That One Level (K has several of these:)
  • First, there's scenarios 5 to 8, "Those Four Levels": Scenario 5 pits you against EVERY SINGLE NAMED BAD GUY IN THE FIRST HALF OF OVERMAN KING GAINER, included Brunhilde, that in series attacked friends and foes alike, yet here only attacks you. Fortunately, to beat the level you just need to kill Brunhilde... except it has 10000+ HP (At Stage 5 it's pretty good, mind), and you've got like 7-8 Fragile Speedster bosses attacking you at the same time as well. At least the Mooks are easy. Mission 6 has the beginning of Gun X Sword, only Van is being attacked by a lot of Darius Empire Mooks instead. You basically have to survive for two turns until the Daiku Maryu crew shows up to aid him, which is easier said than done. Mission 7 is a mix of the two before: It starts with Dann of Thursday, plus El Dora V (that guzzles EN like crazy), Brownie and the Original Generation main character being attacked by a bunch of Overman King Gainer mooks and bosses (again). Again, you have to endure a few turns until the other heroes shpw up, only the enemies also get two tough bosses as reinforcements: OKG's Cynthia Lane and GXS's Ray. And like Brunhilde above, neither of them were with the Siberian Railroad, but on their own team, yet here, they only attack you again. Finally, Mission 8 is MORE Gainer bosses/mooks, PLUS Cynthia again, plus GXS's Diablo of Monday. This one is slighty easier, but if you want the GXS secret characters, kill Diablo with Van or they're Lost Forever. Fortunately, after this hell, the next mission is a very easy Breather Level playing the beginning of Zoids Genesis, only with more Darius Empire mooks showing up chasing Zoids's Kotona Elegance so there's an excuse to get her without Garaga and Ron showing up as well.
  • And besides that, there's all the Virtual On missions (The first two are long, boring missions set in corridors against mooks with Map Attacks, the last one is on an open field with more Mooks like that AND Elite Mooks with huge HP supplies AND the Attack Combo skill that allows them to crush your support units)) and the one playing Gundam SEED Stargazer (A "don't let the bad guys get to this point" mission... IN SPACE. On a game where everyone who doesn't goes into space in-series has a B as its Terrain Rating for... well, space, and terrains matter A LOT. See: King Gainer getting hit easily and missing often.) Ouch.
  • Scratch that, let's just say that any long corridor level (I'm looking at you, final Fafner mission) is long and dull.
• They Wasted A Perfectly Good Appearance (Despite Godannar's "proper" SRW debut, units like the Goddinner, Genesister and Volspinner do not make an appearance, let alone even be mentioned in K)
  • Their pilots do make appearances in some cutscenes though; just not their machines
  • Don't forget Koutetsu Jeeg's various frames. One of them had drill legs!
  • Despite the changes to its storyline, SEED Destiny still got the short end of the stick in several areas. So what if the Minerva's Captain Talia Gladys dies in the game? Let the players use it instead of the Archangel, for a change
  • Also, Sky Buster Gaiking doesn't appear, despite the individual forms appearing as Combination Attacks
  • K marks the first time the actual Virtual ON MARZ storyline debuts (since the cast treated their Alpha 3 appearance as a kind of "bonus level" from their world), yet you only get to control 4 of the 9 MARZ characters that are heroes and/or help the player on certain stages)
• Tough Act to Follow: Between the various issues and the fact that K followed the fan-favorite W, this was inevitable.