Why is gundam leaning toward the "godly" type?

[winter45]

Originally Posted by neutralizer

Red coat level skills are probably not required of green coats when they're expected to fight the normal troops of the EAF. From the beginning of SEED, you can tell that the green coats completely dominate the mobile armors of the EAF. Only when you start fighting the heroes is when the green coats start looking ineffective in comparison.

Hmm... Normally soldiers/pilots are trained to to be effective regardless of the oposition equipment or skills. Normally they get *trained* in peace time so in time of war they will have the knowlegde and skills to fight their oppositions. What i saw where mindless zombies that couldnt even use their equipment.

Its only if an operation requires *specialists* then they get specific personnal to achieve that military's goals. But you can train any trooper/pilot to fight a head on, up in your face fights.

Regardless.. What happened to the green coats being co-ordinators? They are supposed to have faster reflexes, quicker learning skills.. you know the better than the naturals. What happened to their supposingly superior skills? Well i didnt see any

Originally Posted by neutralizer

I saw 08th MS Team. That's more ground combat where the terrain is suitable for cover.

In SEED, most of the fights occur in mid-air or in space. Where is there cover in the middle of space in mid-air? Even the few ground combat ones like say the battle with BuCUES in the desert, it's the desert. It's barren. There is no cover for them to even use if they want.

Wrecks drfiting in space, rocks and Asteroids. Theres 2 examples that could be used in space. Sand dunes? i did see a few in that episode.

But regardless i didnt see much skill in grunts generally and yes there were a few occasions where grunts did have skills but it doesnt explain what happened to the rest of the 99%.

But i think ive explained my views and dont need to go further. But this is my opinion, you can agree to disagree with me

[Eidolon Sniper]

In SEED, anything new >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> outdated models, whether MS or Gundams...

Spoiler for for those who didn't watch SEED you are warned:

1. In the Desert Arc, Kira was shown to have been almost overwhelmed by the BuCUES, but he bounced right back and owned them right away after modifying the specs of his OS for the Strike to be able to handle desert terrain.

2. Cagalli's personal suit was the Strike Rouge...how come Orb forgot to upgrade the suit of its own Head Representative?? It being outdated should not always be compared to or brought up whatever the specs the new suit has against it or whenever the plot calls for it; it should always be dependent on the pilot's skills...>.>;; I think this was what Hamachi was griping about.

The Athrun and Kira debate should start right about here.

I also watched Zeta, and for most of the time, the main protagonist Gundam always gets grunt owned in some way or other. It was done in a way that said the reason why the protagonist lost = the plot called for it, so that he could become invincible later. The CE Gundams...

[Dan the Man]

I agree in that Gundams in the later episodes of Destiny are rediculously overpowered. The grunt pilots might as well just sit back and watch the main characters duel it out, otherwise they're dead.

As or the overpowered Gundams in Wing, I think that's because of such a large technology gap between the Gundams and OZ suits. At first, the 5 Gundam scientists made Wing Zero, which was way, WAY too powerful. So, they dumb it down to the Tallgeese, which is still way too expensive and unsafe for the average schmuck pilot. Then, it's dumbed down even more into the Leo, which we all know could be taken down with a slingshot. It's basically taking a Ferrari and downgrading it to a Pinto. That, combined with the Zero technology which was advanced over 20 years to the start of the series, compared to the Leo which didn't advance at all, and you've got 5 suits which will kill anything and everything in their sights.

I personally like the idea of the Gundam being just another unit in a grander military force. Sure, it's better, but just by enough to get the main character through the story alive. The battles which put the character's life in serious danger make for a more compelling fight, and a more memorable one. The last few fights in 08th MS Team are a great example of this. A lot of it is one on one, but the battle is so desperate, so close to the wire that either pilot could win. Shiro doesn't just turn on his God Mode cheat to destroy every enemy on the field, he honestly struggles, and just barely manages to pull through. I'll take a fight like that over a clearly one sided Destiny battle anyday, though, that's just my opinion...

[neutralizer]

Originally Posted by winter45

Hmm... Normally soldiers/pilots are trained to to be effective regardless of the oposition equipment or skills. Normally they get *trained* in peace time so in time of war they will have the knowlegde and skills to fight their oppositions. What i saw where mindless zombies that couldnt even use their equipment.

Its only if an operation requires *specialists* then they get specific personnal to achieve that military's goals. But you can train any trooper/pilot to fight a head on, up in your face fights.

Regardless.. What happened to the green coats being co-ordinators? They are supposed to have faster reflexes, quicker learning skills.. you know the better than the naturals. What happened to their supposingly superior skills? Well i didnt see any

Beginning of SEED, the invasion of Heliopolis, the green coats were pretty damn effective against the EAFs mobile armors.

But yes, I still do agree that a gundam taking out like 25 line suits at the same time is a bit ridiculous. The amount of crossfire from that many suits should make it impossible for even the best gundam pilot to dodge.

Originally Posted by winter45

Wrecks drfiting in space, rocks and Asteroids. Theres 2 examples that could be used in space. Sand dunes? i did see a few in that episode.

But regardless i didnt see much skill in grunts generally and yes there were a few occasions where grunts did have skills but it doesnt explain what happened to the rest of the 99%.

But i think ive explained my views and dont need to go further. But this is my opinion, you can agree to disagree with me

Are we talking about the same space? Space is barren. The chance of even running into anything else is astronomically low. There would be no wrecks to hide behind except for freshly created ones.

Also, last I checked, there are no asteroids in orbit around the Earth.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Yet Again, here are my power tiers for the CE and AW:

Main Character In Gundam>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Main Character In MS>Side Character In Gundam>>>>Side Character In MS>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>No Name In MS (Unless we mean Trowa)

[HurricaneHige]

Are we talking about the same space? Space is barren. The chance of even running into anything else is astronomically low. There would be no wrecks to hide behind except for freshly created ones.

Also, last I checked, there are no asteroids in orbit around the Earth.

are u serious....u r comparing OUR space with GUNDAM's space?? am i reading this right? How many episode have u seen random shipwreck floating around in space? its everywhere....have u forgotten about how Judo surprised haman in ZZ? hiding behind a rock! U cant use real life logic to anime, it will never make sense, i thought that was the golden rule of anime >_>


back to the topic, godly gundams are unneeded in gundam, the reason we love gundam for the closeness to realistic war situation in space, not some superobot that can take 1000 by himself >_>

[neutralizer]

Originally Posted by HurricaneHige

are u serious....u r comparing OUR space with GUNDAM's space?? am i reading this right? How many episode have u seen random shipwreck floating around in space? its everywhere....have u forgotten about how Judo surprised haman in ZZ? hiding behind a rock! U cant use real life logic to anime, it will never make sense, i thought that was the golden rule of anime >_>


back to the topic, godly gundams are unneeded in gundam, the reason we love gundam for the closeness to realistic war situation in space, not some superobot that can take 1000 by himself >_>

I don't recall any random shipwrecks unless it was in a debris field. Open space battles never had any wrecks or cover to hide behind. I'm basing this off the series that I've seen (GW, GW: EW, SEED, SEED Destiny).

[Dan the Man]

Originally Posted by neutralizer

I don't recall any random shipwrecks unless it was in a debris field. Open space battles never had any wrecks or cover to hide behind. I'm basing this off the series that I've seen (GW, GW: EW, SEED, SEED Destiny).

True, space is pretty barren in those series, but througout the UC stories, debris is everywhere. Whenever something blows apart, the debris flies in every-which direction, making it possible that from all the space casualties of the One Year War, you could have desbris all over the place. Also, around the time of ZZ Gundam, there seem to be a hell of a lot of asteroids around. I doubt those are there naturally, but I would be wiling to assume that the could've been gathered for mining purposes, or they could be bits of larger asteroids, like Solomon, or A Baoa Qu which might've chipped off throughout the numerous battles and attacks they've gone through.

Now, in reality, I don't know how many asteroids there are around the Earth, and it's Lagrange Points, but I do know that around the Earth itself, there are thousands of natual and artificial sattelites orbiting the planet, which could mean that debris from Gundam-style battles could fall into Earth's gravitational pull, and could gather in this area of space junk, making a huge debris field with ample cover for a resourceful MS pilot.

[Terrestrial Dream]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

And they still ended making no impact. Not a whole lot has changed in this sense.


I really don't like the super-Gundam style of combat choreography, but the line units have always existed to make the heroes look good. There's no real way to avoid this when the central conceit of the entire franchise is that the outcome of major wars hinge on the actions of a few individuals.


Why? And why does the reason that a mobile suit is given the super-Gundam treatment important?


It'd be great if we saw more of this in Gundam 00.

They did make some impact like the last operation in Zeta Gundam and compare to Destiny (which is what I am doing) they were lot more useful. I know that the hero always have to be good but come on in Destiny Minerva or Archangel would fight enemies that outnumber them 10 to 1, that is just over doing it. They should try to be more realistic like Zeta where there were few unnamed grunt in AEUG that were fighting along side with aces. In original the battle for Solomon couldn't have been achieved without grunts, of course Amuro did play huge role but White Base alone would not be able to win whole battle by themselves. Now in Destiny Eternal and Archangel was able to take down almost all of ZAFT and ZAFT had GENESIS. In Destiny grunts seems to make zero difference, funny that in Seed that did make somewhat difference.

[neutralizer]

Originally Posted by Dan the Man

Now, in reality, I don't know how many asteroids there are around the Earth, and it's Lagrange Points, but I do know that around the Earth itself, there are thousands of natual and artificial sattelites orbiting the planet, which could mean that debris from Gundam-style battles could fall into Earth's gravitational pull, and could gather in this area of space junk, making a huge debris field with ample cover for a resourceful MS pilot.

There aren't any asteriods in Earth's orbit. Even if there are a lot of debris, they would be so distributed around Earth's orbit that the chances of running into debris large enough to provide cover are still astronomically small.

[Dan the Man]

Originally Posted by neutralizer

There aren't any asteriods in Earth's orbit. Even if there are a lot of debris, they would be so distributed around Earth's orbit that the chances of running into debris large enough to provide cover are still astronomically small.

Alright, there aren't any now, but UC stories use asteroids pulled from the belt past Mars for resource mining, and draw a lot of them in to the Earth Sphere for convenience, including asteroids like the Luna's, A Baoa Qu, and Solomon. Solomon, in particular, withstood numerous explosions, Mobile Suit, Mobile Armor, large weapons from warships, and eventually a nuclear explosion, that could reasonably throw large chunks of rock out into space. But then again, that's a pretty extreme scenario, but it could happen. Another reason as to the asteroids and other space rocks is that they were put there by the series creators. KInda like this...

"What can make this battle more interesting...?"

"Well, what if he flies behind a big rock, and does a surprise attack?"

"... Yeah, sure, just have him fly behind a big rock."

They're just there because they're there.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by HurricaneHige

U cant use real life logic to anime, it will never make sense, i thought that was the golden rule of anime >_>

It isn't. However, you're quite correct that there are tons of obstacles in UC space battles (particularly in Zeta and ZZ).

Originally Posted by HurricaneHige

back to the topic, godly gundams are unneeded in gundam, the reason we love gundam for the closeness to realistic war situation in space, not some superobot that can take 1000 by himself >_>

Doesn't "U cant use real life logic to anime" directly contradict "the reason we love gundam for the closeness to realistic war situation in space"?

Originally Posted by Dan the Man

Now, in reality, I don't know how many asteroids there are around the Earth, and it's Lagrange Points, but I do know that around the Earth itself, there are thousands of natual and artificial sattelites orbiting the planet, which could mean that debris from Gundam-style battles could fall into Earth's gravitational pull, and could gather in this area of space junk, making a huge debris field with ample cover for a resourceful MS pilot.

There aren't a whole lot. While there may be several bodies at the L4 and L5 points, they'd be spread out and far from one another. The Lagrange points cover a very large volume of space, and any asteroids within are likely to be quite small. The dense debris fields present in some UC battlefields are entirely a work of fiction.

Originally Posted by hyperlion

They did make some impact like the last operation in Zeta Gundam and compare to Destiny (which is what I am doing) they were lot more useful. I know that the hero always have to be good but come on in Destiny Minerva or Archangel would fight enemies that outnumber them 10 to 1, that is just over doing it. They should try to be more realistic like Zeta where there were few unnamed grunt in AEUG that were fighting along side with aces.

In Zeta? If I remember correctly, the final battle just came down to Scirocco making an idiot of himself. The AEUG line forces made just about no impact there - they just sort of disappeared at the critical moment.

And let's not forget that the standard of the main character squashing lots of line units began when a certain pilot killed "nine Rick Doms in five minutes".

Originally Posted by hyperlion

In original the battle for Solomon couldn't have been achieved without grunts, of course Amuro did play huge role but White Base alone would not be able to win whole battle by themselves. Now in Destiny Eternal and Archangel was able to take down almost all of ZAFT and ZAFT had GENESIS. In Destiny grunts seems to make zero difference, funny that in Seed that did make somewhat difference.

All of ZAFT? Durandal only mobilized a relatively small portion of ZAFT's forces (the ones that he could trust) against Lacus. And even a part of that force outright turned on him. Moreover, Lacus was joined by an Orb fleet, the survivors of the OMNI fleet and renegade ZAFT elements. While they were outnumbered, it was hardly Eternal and Archangel by themselves.

Having said that, it'd still be nice if they actually gave more screen time to the line forces. It's too bad that this runs counter to most depictions of mecha combat.

Originally Posted by neutralizer

There aren't any asteriods in Earth's orbit. Even if there are a lot of debris, they would be so distributed around Earth's orbit that the chances of running into debris large enough to provide cover are still astronomically small.

Correct. Despite what many people may say, the UC Gundam TV shows aren't really any more realistic than the other Gundam TV shows. The difference is that they tend to be better at convincing viewers into thinking that they're more realistic.

[Terrestrial Dream]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

In Zeta? If I remember correctly, the final battle just came down to Scirocco making an idiot of himself. The AEUG line forces made just about no impact there - they just sort of disappeared at the critical moment.

And let's not forget that the standard of the main character squashing lots of line units began when a certain pilot killed "nine Rick Doms in five minutes".


All of ZAFT? Durandal only mobilized a relatively small portion of ZAFT's forces (the ones that he could trust) against Lacus. And even a part of that force outright turned on him. Moreover, Lacus was joined by an Orb fleet, the survivors of the OMNI fleet and renegade ZAFT elements. While they were outnumbered, it was hardly Eternal and Archangel by themselves.

.

I was talking about taking over colony laser and where they used it to wipe out remaining Titan members. At that point even Scrirocco knew that he was screwed. Of course I remember Amuro taking out nine Doms, but compare to Kira taking down 20+ Gouf and Zaku in few minutes that was more believable. Was Orb forces there? as I think about it the last battle I don't really remember much, all I remember was Kira beam spamming everyone .

[4Tran]

Spoiler for Zeta:

I found the capture of the colony laser to be so uninteresting that I can't even really recall how they did it. It was certainly given no more importance than the way the Orb regular troops managed to repel the mobile suit portion of the ZAFT invasion in Destiny.

And if I recall correctly, Scirocco had a great chance to smash up the colony laser, Hyaku Shiki, and the Quebeley but he somehow became all stupid and abandoned that plan. I suppose that he did so in order to look at Haman (or something like that ).

Originally Posted by hyperlion

Of course I remember Amuro taking out nine Doms, but compare to Kira taking down 20+ Gouf and Zaku in few minutes that was more believable.

Given the effective parity between the RX-78 and Rick Doms, and the relative disparity between Strike Freedom and its foes, neither is particularly realistic. Then again, this comparison isn't really important since my point was to show the origin of this style of combat choreography.

Originally Posted by hyperlion

Was Orb forces there? as I think about it the last battle I don't really remember much, all I remember was Kira beam spamming everyone .

You also missed a bunch of EA ships getting waxed by REQUIEM.

[Demongod86]

4Tran, the requiem never fired again after Djibril fired it. That was the Neo-Genesis that took out the EA ships.

As for overpowered vs. not, I beg to differ about GW's...in the battle of Sanc Kingdom, Heero's wing gets pretty beat up by the virgos IIRC until he exchanged it for Epyon. Also, most of the GW gundams were not that great. Wing only had 3 shots until it was another saber and gun bot, deathscythe just had scythe and guns, heavyarms when it was done spamming was a sitting duck, and wufei's/quatre's gundams were so ridiculously inefficient against masses of units. Frankly, if it wasn't for Zechs in Epyon taking down Barge in one slice or the Wing Zero (and this is the real culprit) just obliterating everything no matter who piloted it, we wouldn't remember the Wing Gundams as the overpowered monsters they were. And for the record, in EW, all the gundams except the Altron were pretty roughed up, although the Wing Zero for no good reasons (stupid Heero decided to spare Wufei instead of obliterating him).

In SEED, the gundams also were not invincible:

In the battle of Orb, despite having Freedom AND Justice, there were simply too many grunts to hold off.

The Chaos gundam got shot down by THREE grunts.

And those nine grunts at the battle of Heaven's Base did quite a number on the ZAFT forces before Shinn cut them down quite nicely.

And it isn't so much the freedom gundam is overpowered as it is the goddess powering it. Compare the amount of Lacus Dust coming from Freedom in episode 13, 23, 26, 28, 32, 34, 39, 43, 49, and 50. When Freedom is out of Lacus Dust, it's not that amazing.

Oh, and for the record, the Freedom lacks one really important Superweapon:

A wing-zero type cannon of the apocalypse.

[asaqe]

Nah, his beams of smiting fufills the word of the pink princess...

[Phantom-Takaya]

Well, I'll agree that the Gundams in the more recent shows tend to be godlier than their ancestors. From what I see, SEED tends to have godlier Gundams and mobile suits than Wing. The only thing Wing seems to have in comparison is the beam rifles.

But, that's not what I'm posting about. SEED obviously have had some scenes where it showed some sensibility and fairness. I believe Wing had it's moments as well. One of those scenes were when they were tricked into killing the pacifist leaders. They were overwhelmed and they had to retreat in the process. There were other times where the soldiers showed some competence and the main characters would reach their limits and struggle, but just like the other Gundam shows, it didn't happen as much for entertainment purposes.

[neutralizer]

Originally Posted by Phantom-Takaya

Well, I'll agree that the Gundams in the more recent shows tend to be godlier than their ancestors. From what I see, SEED tends to have godlier Gundams and mobile suits than Wing. The only thing Wing seems to have in comparison is the beam rifles.

But, that's not what I'm posting about. SEED obviously have had some scenes where it showed some sensibility and fairness. I believe Wing had it's moments as well. One of those scenes were when they were tricked into killing the pacifist leaders. They were overwhelmed and they had to retreat in the process. There were other times where the soldiers showed some competence and the main characters would reach their limits and struggle, but just like the other Gundam shows, it didn't happen as much for entertainment purposes.

No, I don't think so. AC Gundams are definitely way more powerful than CE Gundams.

First of all, AC Gundams have unlimited power. That's a bit godly to begin with since CE Gundams are limited in the duration that they can fight. Secondly, AC Gundams are made of Gundanium alloy, which the pilots use to just sit there, tank enemy fire, and laugh back at them. At least, the CE Gundam pilots are forced to dodge each shot to avoid lose parts of their Gundam.

[Hamachi]

The very idea of numerous gundams all having mass destructing weapons is unrealistic, fake and too "super robot-ish".

And gundams shouldn't fly unless they transform into MA (Psyco) or wave fighter like Zeta.

I don't see why they don't make new series on realistic gundams anymore.

More of my rants...

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Hamachi

The very idea of numerous gundams all having mass destructing weapons is unrealistic, fake and too "super robot-ish".

And gundams shouldn't fly unless it transfers into MA or wave fighter like Zeta.

I don't see why they don't make new series on realistic gundams anymore.

More of my rants...

I sympathize with you. I think it's just the way anime goes. Ever watched Naruto? I'll admit to having watched into the 100's before stopping. In the first few fights, it seemed so witty and creative, I was floored. As the series dragged on, it became less about innovate use of abilities and more about one force overpowering the other.

Admittedly, the only Gundam series I've seen has been Gundam Seed (and I'm midway through Destiny). While I wouldn't say that Seed involved a lot of "wow, that's so clever" moments (if it had any at all), it certainly achieved the escalation-of-power status that Naruto and countless other anime series fell into. Even though I'd prefer it if we could watch something where scenarios played out with relatively even power and innovative tactics rather than just one side overpowering another with newer technology, it's still relatively enjoyable to watch.