Requiem For Vengeance - Tumblr Posts

Oh hey, another Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance trailer. Knew I should’ve staggered talking about the Full Armour stuff.

Anyway, given that I’m fresh out of RX-78’s to talk about (at least until we get some more information on the RX-78 Gundam Ex), I’ll have to do something drastic - actually discussing the trailer itself.

Gotta say, it is nice that we can finally get a good look at the mobile suits themselves now that they’ve got models. Regular, non-special Zaku II’s look nice, I’ll be interested in seeing how the proportions stack up. Also, those Gouf Custom’s near the end? Gorgeous. Really hope we get a HG of those (though I’m personally hoping for some unique accessories). I really, really hope we see Doms in this since they’re going to look absolutely beautiful.

I briefly misread the “11 months into the war” bit at the start as just 1 month into the war, and I had to go back and double-check. If it’s 11 months in then that basically allows for all kinds of great tech in place, and it also means that Zeon’s fortunes are going to change very quickly. Depending on precisely when it’s set, it’s either just before or after the Battle of Odessa, which is usually said to be the big turnaround of the entire war, and the beginning of the end for Zeon on Earth.

Character designs look good, I keep seeing the main character (I think it’s Illiya or Elise or something) as Nimona though, but that’s probably just me. It’s really interesting how much like a game it looks, it reminds me a lot of Gundam Igloo, but time will tell if it’s got that series’ charm.

“It’s the Red Wolves! They took out three fleets at Loum!” - The Battle of Loum is one of those things in Gundam where absolutely none of the information we are given about it matches up, so maybe take this with a grain of salt. I should note that Loum is the fight which made Char famous, as he was able to take out five ships single-handedly. The Black Tri-Stars also achieved great fame with their capture of General Revil. There are numerous other noted Zeon aces who made their name at Loum (or during the Earth drop operation), so there’s no harm in the Red Wolves being another. However, three fleets feels a bit implausible.

EDIT: Apparently this is a translation flub, and the intended line was “they took out three ships at Loum”, which makes sense.

(It’s likely emblematic how early UC was typically rather “realistic” with its numbers - a tally of three ships would be very respectable for any ace, and the title of ace itself was awarded after five kills - it sounds low, but speaks to how deadly these fights really were. But as time passes, it’s not unusual to see these numbers exaggerated in fiction. The absolute top aces of the One Year War have just under 200 kills, which would be on par with real-life fighter aces from the Second World War, which gundam’s aces draw heavily from).

Lastly, based on the general tone of the trailer, I’ll assume it’ll be shooting for a grittier take on the one year war a lá Gundam Thunderbolt, so it’ll be interesting to see how that all goes.

Hoo boy, it was a mistake to play Ace Combat 7 before watching this.

I could probably just leave it there honestly. But I’m going to explain this.

Quick review of Ace Combat 7 - it’s not great. I really enjoyed Ace Combat - Assault Horizon when I was younger, so I bought 7 a little while after it came out and I just found it lacking. Half the missions seem to have you more at risk from environmental dangers than actual enemies, plane selection’s rather lacking unless you grind up some of the few enjoyable missions to unlock new ones (the lightning II is particularly guilty of this) and I was forced to rely on dlc planes for a good chunk of the game (there’s only three dedicated ground attack planes in the base game, all of which need to be bought, one of which is terrible). I will say that the base attack missions - get a certain amount of score within a time limit - were absolutely wonderful, some of my favourite missions in the game (especially the Snider’s Top mission), but because they’re also the easiest way to grind up currency, you have to play them over and over and over again, so the appeal wanes somewhat.

And the story…. Okay. Why are Erusea and Osea at war? Anyone know? Because I sure don’t. Yeah, I’m sure it’s explained in some backstory or other, but I would really like someone to just mention it. Because literally all the intercepted chatter is whatever the opposite of humanising is, because none of them express anything except a hatred for the enemy and a desire to attack them. So why are we fighting? Ace Combat’s cutscenes seem to think that they’re incredibly mature and weighty, but all they seem to be is people just staring at the sky and saying “what does it mean….. to fly” “what does it mean…… to fight”. Forgive me if I’m used to more than that.

I will say though, I actually really like how your wing-mates in 777 “spare” squadron are characterised (Mage Squadron just kinda sucks, moreso that you just never see them again after mission 3), I honestly wish we had more time with them because they’re just such a treat to listen to and fight alongside, since they very much don’t want to be here and are quick to remind us of that (I’m genuinely toying with plucking High Roller for use in Lancer). Also the voice cast is genuinely excellent, any fan of Persona 5 will feel right at home here, and it also led to the absolute wonderful feeling of assaulting an enemy base, and going “Lelouch Vi Brittania, is that you!?”.

Anyway, why did I feel the need to bring it up before talking about the new Gundam: Requiem for Vengeance trailer? Because it feels like it’s around the same ballpark. If I didn’t already know *why* the Federation and Zeon were at war, it’d feel like the whole independence thing would be swept under the rug.

“Why do we fight?” “Because those are our orders” - hey, wouldn’t it be more interesting to characterise someone as actually a true believer in spacenoid independence? Wouldn’t it be interesting to have them talk about what spacenoid independence actually means to them? Wouldn’t it be interesting to engage with the propaganda told to the population of Side 3 to motivate them to war? Wouldn’t that be relevant to an audience living in a world where the media is all-pervasive, and “alternative facts” are rife? Oh, the main character doesn’t believe in Newtypes and has a “Well, you gotta do what you gotta do” attitude to proceedings? Alright then. It just feels like a missed opportunity. Were I feeling especially uncharitable I might even call it cowardly.

To be honest, I think the main thing that’s bothering me here is just the line delivery for the Pink-Haired Character and the Doctor - they’re just so flat, and their lines are just blindingly obvious. “The Federation’s new mobile suit. This could turn the tide of the war” - it’s not foreshadowing if you just state what’s going to happen. “The Feds you save will just come back and kill my people, Doc!” - yeah, but you’re under the Antarctic Treaty, governing the treatment of POWs in wartime. Leaving them to die would likely constitute a war crime (I know Zeon’s got a lot of those, but still). It just feels like baby’s first moral dilemma. Also when Iria Sorari’s giving an explanation on newtypes, she just sounds bored, like she’s reading from a cue card. Y’know, it’s only one of the central precepts to the war for independence, don’t sound too passionate or anything.

Lastly - and I’m aware these are super nit-picky - when the Zaku slashes the shell in the last part of the trailer, it should have just flown off and penetrated anyway. It doesn’t lose all momentum just because you cut it in two. Also, I get that Japanese-to-English is never gonna be a 1:1 translation or anything. But Gundam’s had a bunch of series translated prior that can act as a cheat-sheet for pronunciation and finer details, so it’s really annoying to catch slip-ups here.

Right, now that’s all the negativity done with, what did I actually like?

Mobile suit designs are still top-notch, I really like the Gouf Custom and Guntank designs (it’s an Igloo-style Assault Guntank) in the new trailer, and I really like the new GM design - it feels like it extrapolated out what a GM based on the new Gundam would look like, and also remembered that the Federation’s mobile suits were derived from captured Zaku’s, hence the visor resembling a monoeye - it’s a really good way to take the design is what I’m getting at, and I fully expect we’ll see a model of it. However, it is just very odd seeing the more modern Zaku design side-by-side with the older Gouf Custom and Guntank designs. They had to model them anyway for the new engine, so why not go the extra mile and give us a greebled Gouf Custom or Guntank? (Yeah I know it’ll be a cost thing, and you *could* argue that a more “modern” Guntank would be the Assault Guntank, but come on) I really liked seeing the new Zaku I design also, I just don’t have an awful lot to say on it - it’s nice.

I do expect that we’ll get models of the new Zaku I and GM, but I couldn’t say on the Gouf Custom or Assault Guntank.

EDIT: Okay, so I posted this and had two immediate realisations:

Iris’s Zaku appears to have been repaired in several scenes in the trailer, so it’s likely it’ll get trashed at some point (there may also be another kit of it).

The reason the Gouf Custom hasn’t been given the greebling treatment like nearly every other mobile suit is likely so they can just make a coulor variant of its existing high grade kit, rather than having to make entirely new runners (plus they’d likely feel compelled to completely update the internals too, which would be rather expensive). It’s likely that the new Zaku II (boy I wish this thing had a proper name) will be at least partially based on the most recent Zaku II hg kit internally, again as a cost-saving measure (and a practical one too, come to think of it).