At the outset of the game, the Dancougar crew (Shinobu Fujiwara, Masato Shibkibu, Sara Yuki, Ryo Shiba) encounter a robot named Habakiri and the Dancougar clashes with it in a head-to-head swipe. After a few seconds of midair pause, the Habakiri drops from the sky and crashes to the ground. Dancougar also suffers some damage and also plummets to terra. Both mechs recover however and the pilot of the Habakiri named Keiji Tachibana and his fellow rider Valentia Reanika befriend the Dancougar team and join forces. The first mission features a simple battle where the two robots battle squads of Zaku II mechs. The gameplay features automatic movement and fighting if one desires where the robots attack enemies on their own volition with minimal user input.

Jan Code: 4983164735963

View the back cover and screenshots on the main NCSX website.

» The title screen is pretty sparse but the following selections appear:

START / Begin a new game as a mech troop commander
LOAD / Resume a game from memory card save-data
TUTORIAL / Six main lessons (with subsections) which teach the controls and proper operating procedures
FREE BATTLE / Once some mechs are saved to memory card, battle them

» Upon starting a NEW GAME, you'll get to choose from four difficulty levels (Easy, Normal, Hard, and Terror) and then set the seven game modifier options before the prologue scrolls up on the screen against the backdrop of the Earth to the sound of marching music. Read up on the MU war and Tokyo from the RahXephon animated series and the "Anti Alien Assembly" that was created to combat the invaders. Next, clouds appear followed by the game title and the sound of rushing air. The camera takes in the flight of a ship and the appearance of a barrel-chested robot known as Dancougar. A conversation between two characters is shown on the top and bottom portions of the screen. There's no voice acting to accompany the dialogue, just a lot of urgent music.

» Dancougar stands there with its hawk-helmet and red eyes while there's communication flashes between Shinobu Fujiwara, Masato Shibkibu, Sara Yuki, Ryo Shiba, and others. Dancougar spots a sword-wielding mech named Habakiri in the sky above it which dives to attack. Dancougar gets ready with a defensive stance and rushes upwards. There's contact. In a dramatic pause, Dancougar stands still in midair and the Habakiri mech behind him eventually explodes and drops from the heavens. The back of Dancougar begins to fizzle with pink electricity however indicating that serious damage has been taken and it also falls from the sky. In the next scene, three columns of black smokes are rising from the grassy ground and the yellow Habakiri mech from earlier crashes to Earth. The pilot hatch opens up and the camera switches to a view of a kneeling Dancougar which is smoking from its hulking back. After a short conversation between the pilot of the downed mech named Keiji Tachibana and the crew of Dancougar, there is talk of an alliance.

» Afterwards, there's a series of training missions using Habakiri and Dancougar but they may be skipped over if you don't need any tutoring

» The first mission is a collaborative stint with Habakiri and Dancougar teaming up to battle Zaku troopers that arrive in squads of three. The two mechs under your control fight on their own AI after the attack command is chosen from the top menu. No user input is required and they'll attack anything in the local vicinity. If you wish to manually control them, it is possible to select specific attack commands from the menu instead of allowing them to attack in a helter skelter manner.

» Both of the mechs start off with 17000 HP which is designated by a blue gauge that appears directly over each mech on the battlefield. After defeating the six Zaku, you'll have to send both mechs over to the Checkpoint to trigger the next event where another trio of Zaku IIs drop onto the battlefield. Unless you want to change the commands of the mechs, you don't have to do anything and they'll spring into action on their own. After the three Zakus are destroyed, another three appear but once those are gone, the mission is over and you're ranked on your performance with a letter grade and a tally of time used and points earned. After a bit of banter and the introduction of a dark cabal, you'll get a chance to review the two pilots and two mechs and save your progress to memory card.

» To toggle between mechs on the battlefield, push up or down on the D-pad or the L-Analog thumstick. To zoom the camera in and out, tap on the R1 or R2 triggers. When the camera zooms in close on top of a mech, the sounds of it when running are clearly audible but when zoomed way outwards, there's no audible sound when the mech travels. The mech also changes into a colored marker to indicate its position on the world map. The Dual Shock thumbsticks are used to move the camera around the highlighted mech. To bring up the command menu during battle, press the "O" button.

» To move the units on a battlefield, a flag-on-yellow-grid cursor is planted atop a target location. Once designated, press the "O" button to activate the move and the unit will trudge on over in a trajectory that's indicated by a blue spotted line which is accompanied by the clanking of metal and the whine of gears. Whenever a unit is commanded to move, the pilot inside will intonate an acknowledge of the command and proceed accordingly. The movement phase can be a bit tiresome since the mechs take a bit of time to run over to each location. Units can be commanded individually so that they move once the command is given and any movement can be interrupted in midstream if redirection is required.

» Each memory card can hold 99 save slots.

This document is ©NCSX 2007. All rights reserved. No reproduction in whole or in part of this document may be made without express written consent of National Console Support, Inc.