Code Fairy - Tumblr Posts
Bamco is coming out with a single-player spin-off of Gundam Battle Operation 2 called Code Fairy, with a story focused on an all-female Zeon mobile suit unit that serves directly under Kycillia during the One Year War.
I was going to make a post ruminating on how weird it is (now that I have some proper context for UC Gundam) that you would have a story where your main characters are direct subordinates of the Zabis and- based on that picture- frame it like a coming of age/wistful memories of friendship story, but this tweet really summed up what I was going to say perfectly:
I kinda want to do a post about my feelings on Mobile Suit Gundam Code: Fairy, but I’m just gonna start off with the MS designs, since I’ve got a lot to say on those relative to everything else.
First up: the Earth Federation Forces
I do like the Black and White Riders. Of course, they’re pale rider variants (prototypes in-universe), but I think they do a good job of looking and acting good. They both continue in the theme of the early rider units being patterned after the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse, being pestilence (the white rider with a bow and crown) and famine (the black rider with a set of scales). Though I don’t really have a favourite of the two, (the white rider has a wonderfully Gundam-like face and the crown is gorgeous, while the black rider actually kinda nails the whole “tacticool” look with its faceplate and arms) I will admit that the black rider opens up a whole can of worms because it has an actual stealth system. Not like, just weapons suited for stealth or sloped armour to reduce visibility like the Efreet Nacht, a genuine cloaking field.
For context, those (to the best of my knowledge) just straight-up are not really a thing in Universal Century. Minovsky particles kinda nix most long-range weaponry, hence why mobile suits are a thing. If you want to be stealthy, you typically go the route of removing emissions (as the Efreet nacht does with its lack of heat weapons) or having camouflage to reduce the chances of visual detection. Spotters are a big thing in lots of UC works. So the Black Rider being able to just “*poof* invisible” is a really odd thing in context. I can only assume (in-universe) it wasn’t practical at all, or it only worked early on, and improvements in technology eventually made it infeasible.
Even putting that aside, they’re not perfect. Heat weaponry is…. Basically nonexistent on Federation suits, so it’s inclusion here is a little odd. But the main flaw with the suits is that they’re just not well utilised. They essentially function as expendable grunts for the main villain. They don’t even have named pilots. Furthermore, Rider units are kind of a big deal, being very rare and quite powerful. So this one random force just having them - even if they are former prototypes - is just kinda odd, and it’s never addressed why they have them.
Note: I am aware that the Manga has put a face to the pilot of the white rider. But that and the fact that the manga exists are literally the only facts I know, so I’m not counting it.
The GM Spartan’s then.
Honestly, they’re nice, but they’re not really my thing. I do love a lot of the Fukuchi Mobile Suit Station designs, but I honestly prefer the original artwork (below) to the design they went with here. It’s not bad, but it’s obviously taking just as much influence from the GM Sniper II (if not more) than it is from the original artwork. It’s not equipped with any specialist weaponry in-game however. The unit on the left is the RG version, customised by use of the Game’s villain, Renato Germi (I would spoiler-tag that, but it’s very obvious). I actually like this design, since it could’ve been a very effective use of visual storytelling - Gundam-style parts are higher-quality than regular ones, so could have been used to signify that Renato has friends in high places that can get him fancier equipment. Or it could’ve been used as an effective contrast to the other Gundam pilot in the game. However, unfortunately, neither opportunity was used. It does however, remain a nice design.
The Gundam Pixy/Pixie is, has and always will be, one of my favourite designs in Gundam. Granted, I have a lot of favourites (as I’ll get to later), but the Pixy is just wonderful. Something about a close-quarters focused, lightweight, light cost version of the RX-78-2 with a decent weapons loadout just appeals to me.
The problem with variations on your favourite designs is that you tend to be a lot harsher on them, since they’re trying to improve on perfection. The Gundam Pixy Lilith Aiden Custom is very very good. I wouldn’t say I prefer it to the original, and I do think it’s a smidge overarmed, but the design of the mech itself I think was handled very well. It’s easier to see when comparing them in-game, but the entire chest and head area has been remodelled and a small shield has been added to the arm. It’s really very well-done, giving the impression of adding armour to something that was originally lacking it. The fact that it makes it look slightly closer to the original art is a bonus in my book.
The original Pixy is armed with Vulcans, two beam daggers, then either a bullpup machinegun or two 90mm machine guns that look like Uzis. It’s a very light armament for a suit that specialises in getting in close. The Pixy LA is armed with Vulcans, two beam Sabers, a twin beam spear (shown in the above image), a rocket bazooka and a handheld beam gun. Two of those weapons are quite large and unwieldy, so I don’t really think such a machine can still be called lightweight. This is the first of a trend of taking established, specialised designs and making them more generalised, which I’m personally none too fond of.
I don’t really think it needed to be red, since honestly the pilot has very little in common with char, so it only serves as a “rival” unit.
And with all the unique Earth Federation units out of the way, let’s move on to our protagonists in Zeon in the next post, because I ran out of pictures.
And now we come to my feelings on Zeon’s mobile suit designs in Mobile suit Gundam Code:Fairy. After my feelings on the Federation’s MS were…… broadly positive, my opinions on Zeon are a tad more divisive.
First up, the Zaku II Sniper type. Honestly, I get it, you want a sniper unit, but you don’t want to deal with the Zaku I sniper type being unwieldy, so you make a new Zaku variant and give it a fancy rifle. Honestly, it’s just fine. No real strong feelings here.
The Zaku high mobility ground type Alma Stirner custom annoys me perhaps more than it should, because the more I look at it the more I think that a Gouf with a rifle would have been a better choice. My main quibble is that the standard version was one of the best mass-production ms of the entire war, being agile and exceptionally suited to combat on earth, in addition to retaining the regular Zaku’s wide range of armaments. So a fancy custom version of one of the best units available as the unit you start with….. it feels a little much. If you’d started with a regular Zaku then upgraded, then sure, that’d be fine. But knowing how good that suit likely is really makes it ring hollow when the plot tries to say that Alma’s outgrown it.
Right, right, enough complaining. What do I think of the design? I do like the basic High Mobility Ground Type, and Alma’s is essentially an up-armed version of it, being equipped with a heat sword, shotgun, missiles and Vulcans in addition to the normal armaments. I do very much like the Vulcan placement, and the missiles pleasingly evoke the Zaku Desert Type, but besides that it’s really just an ace custom unit with some different shoulders. It does do a good job in-game of being the close-combat specialist to the other two’s ranged firepower, but again, I think a Gouf with a rifle would have been similarly adequate.
I’ll probably cover the Zaku Half-Cannon if I ever do anything about the Zaku Cannon, but I honestly don’t have a whole lot of opinions on it, so I’m just gonna skip.
The Dom Gnomides. HATE. I usually find it difficult to express how much I dislike this design. The base unit being a Dom Tropical Test type? Fine, no problems there. But shackling a giant box to its back? The whole in-universe point of mobile suits is that they’re supposed to be agile units that fight at close range, where visual contact is key and the have to be able to dodge enemy fire. The Dom Gnomides can dodge fire about as well as a slug can dodge salt pellets. In-game, it’s difficult to identify incoming fire because the suits so massive it gets in the way. They took a Dom, a suit known for its high speed and mobility, and turned it into something that would struggle to outrun the Zock. But surely, that massive cannon must make up for it, right? Oh, you mean that massive cannon they obtained by
Grave Robbing?
The Dom Gnomides Pilot, Mira Brinkman, obtains the main cannon from the wreck of the Hidolfr, the mobile tank from Gundam Igloo.
In-game, they justify it with “well, at least we can give commander Sonnen (the pilot) a proper burial” but Mira’s primary concern is obviously the cannon. It’s just quite creepy, because at this point, they’re all sunshine and cheers about the whole thing “oh boy, let’s get a cannon for our suit and bury our fallen comrades along the way”, so knowing that in order to build this, they had to hose the remains of Commander Sonnen out of the Hidolfr just feels…… off? At odds with the tone? I know in war you should strive to recover equipment wherever you can, It’s just a massive tonal whiplash if you’ve actually watched igloo. The Dom Gnomides is armed with other weaponry, but honestly, they’re just fine.
The Efreet Jäger is the only one of the main three mobile suits to get a HG model, most likely because they’d already made a bunch of Efreet Variants. Honestly, it’s one of those rare models I would buy purposefully to mod. Paint some camouflage on there, maybe hook a ghille cloak or something over its shoulder, swap the odd weapon or two and I think it’d look really really good. The Efreet Line is another design series I’m very fond of, simply because the basic Efreet and Gouf are both designed to do the same thing, but approach it from different angles. Both are designed to be CQC suits par excellence, so are armed with heat swords, but whereas the Gouf fights more like a Gladiator, with its sword and shield it’s primary weapons, and then the Heat Rod and Vulcans to trip up the enemy; the Efreet fights more as a raider. Armed with two heat swords, trading defence for offence, and smoke discharges to temporarily blind the enemy to its movements- a fatal mistake in a sword fight. It’s typically also armed with a shotgun, for when something’s just out of range of the swords (though in GBO2, you can swap it out for a bazooka or Machine Gun). The Efreet Jäger is a sniper, unheard of in such a melee-focused line. This is essentially my only real criticism of it, another suit that is absolutely amazing at one thing being pigeonholed into yet another generalist. There are good sniping suits available, like the Zaku I Sniper, so an upgraded unit would fit very well. But instead they took a close-quarters unit and handed it a sniper rifle. I will fully admit that maybe something different for the line would be a good idea, but when it’s entire identity is built around one speciality, shifting to a different one just feels wrong.
The basic suit design is quite nice, the chests been modelled nicely and the asymmetry really plays up that this is a suit built for sniping and guerrilla tactics - asymmetrical warfare if you will. The rifle is gorgeous, and I like how it’s got grenades as part of it’s loadout. If I were to say the Efreet jäger is my least favourite Efreet, that’s more about the strength of the Efreet line as a whole than the weakness of the jäger on its own. I will say that, in game, the Efreet jäger is the best thing since sliced bread, purely on the strength of its sniper rifle having two settings. All my quibbles melt away after using it in-game, since you can just pop out of cover, nail an enemy with either single-shot, or explosive bust ammunition, then move on, with chaff and spotter abilities if you feel like playing support, and a heat kunai and shotgun if you need to fight up close.
Finally, we come to the Titania. It shares its name with the fairly obscure PMX-004 Titania designed by Paptimus Scirocco and is based on the absolutely fantastic Kämpfer (another of my all-time favourites). I do very much love the design, a little overarmed maybe (it’s got Vulcans, so I don’t really think it *needs* the arm gatling, and I consistently forget about the Beam Machinegun when using the Titania in game. GBO2’s decision to make it an optional weapon was, I think, a wise one), but the actual design of the mobile suit itself is wonderful. It’s slightly more heavily armoured than the original Kämpfer (so we’re told, anyway) and this is reflected in its remodelling, squaring off the Kämpfer’s smooth lines with blocky armour. The shoulders are just splendid, giving it a good silhouette along with the fuel tanks (which give the impression of wings). The choice to keep the original Kämpfer’s backpack was also a good one, since it effectively breaks up what could have been a rather boring back, and the extension of this design philosophy to the leg vents is also lovely to see. The legs appear to be slightly dainty, but none the less armoured for it, a design I appreciate. The head is gorgeous, it looks like it belongs one one of the Zabi’s royal Guard and evokes the design sensibilities of the Sleeves. Does it suit a Guerilla unit? No. Do I care particularly? Also no. All in all, it’s just a wonderful design variant on the Kämpfer.
However. The rationale behind its creation in-universe bothers me in the same manner that the Dom Gnomides does.
So, upon receiving the Kämpfer frame, unarmoured (and really missing a trick to tie it into the prototype Kämpfer, but whatever), the chief mechanic looked at it and decided “this design promotes recklessness, and is built for speed and power at the expense of armour”. Yes….? It’s an assault suit, designed to get in, cause as much damage as possible, then get out. Heck, the “E” in the Kämpfer’s model number is stated to stand for “Einhauen” - one strike in German. It’s not built for protracted combat, because it was never designed to be. So looking at the Kämpfer, a very specialised unit, and deciding that that specialisation is, itself, wrong is just kinda dumb. Like, they could have been sent the wrong materials, it could have only been intended to be used for one mission and Noisy Fairy managed to keep it running beyond that, it could have been an indication of how desperate Zeon was getting. Heck, the Kämpfer itself is stated to be one of multiple units built of the prototype Kämpfer each tuned for specialist uses, maybe they could simply use a different unit in the line? All of these options would have been better than “well it promotes recklessness and that’s BAAAAAD”
My other criticism is that it’s stated that they added extra thrusters to the design to offset all the extra weight of the armour and weapons (since the Titania doesn’t cast off its weapons like the original). Really now. You’re telling me you added “extra thrusters” to a unit that was already roughly 60% thruster by volume? I know it’s petty(ier) but it still bothers me.
However, none of this detracts from the fact that the Titania is a pretty sweet design, even if I do think I could’ve been integrated better (glances meaningfully in the direction of the Prototype Kämpfer).
I suppose I should finish off that ramble about Gundam Code Fairy, shouldn’t I?
Gundam Code Fairy is a Videogame billed as the single-player campaign to Gundam Battlefield operation 2. I’ll start with talking about the gameplay, since I want to take my time with the story and characters:
The (story) Gameplay’s….. fine. It’s not really as deep as GB02’s and it genuinely annoys me you can’t select different mobile suits for a level after you’ve beaten it, but there aren’t any real problems with the moment-to-moment gameplay. The skill system’s irritating, because you’ll always have the wrong skills in when fighting bosses, necessitating restarting the level. You can command your allies to target specific enemies which is helpful, but it’s really only used to call out snipers or blunt hordes, as opposed to actual tactics.
The other gameplay modes are fairly hollow, Simulations are mostly nice - a few missions to kill so many grunts are functional. I’d like to call out tank-hunting as quite enjoyable, and Hardcore as an exercise in utter pointlessness. The Cost Matches are just awful. To save me droning on - the AI’s crap, you win by kills and kills alone, you can’t even exploit the enemy by calling in artillery or blowing up the base, as those features aren’t in the game. Finally, in order to get rewards, you have to win the match with a certain number of kills. Win the match without those kills? Waste of your time. Lose the match after soloing the entire enemy team twice, because your AI partners kept getting shot? Waste of time. It is an exterior in frustration, where you just have to keep trying and praying for a quirk of the AI to cause them to lose and you to win.
In a nutshell, it’s a (very, very) hollow reproduction of GB02’s gameplay, with the tactical options replaced by mind-numbing gameplay, a bigger-stick philosophy and putting kills over objectives.
The characters, then.
The plot of Code Fairy concerns the exploits of the Noisy Fairy Squadron, a specialised all-female commando unit under Kycillia Zabi. The three pilots being Alma Stirner (centre left, the squad leader, and the player character), Mia Brinkman (middle right, Tech nerd and support) and Helena Hegel (centre right, Sniper). They are commanded by Killy Garret (middle left, a Zeon Ace canonised from Gundam’s very early side materials, who fought in the Battle of Loum) with Barbara Hahari (left) and Irmela Grubler (right) as further support (honestly, these two are essentially nothing characters, here to give the rest someone to bounce off of). The whole story is framed as a “coming of age” for the main 3 pilots. I am going to spoil the majority of the plot, but in a nutshell, it’s not very good, since the entire cast are a bunch of stock characters.
The main trio first. Alma’s fine, I don’t have any real problems with her. She’s supposedly a newtype, but she can’t use Psycommu, and honestly it feels like the story could have worked just as well if she was an Oldtype. Her arc is that she’s young and inexperienced, and she gets beaten (non-lethally) in a fight with an enemy Gundam, leading to issues with her self-worth. Alma’s struggled with her confidence as a leader and how her encounter with the enemy Gundam affected her are good, it’s just I feel like actual lasting consequences would have lent it more impact. As it is, she fights a strong enemy, and ceases being commander for a few missions. She still goes out and fights though. No Amuro “you can’t make me pilot the Gundam” thing here. It comes across as incredibly hypocritical, since she’s worried about being killed by the Gundam or her friends dying under her command, but not about the (literal) hundreds of Federation Grunts she mows down along the way? Oh, they were the enemy, it’s alright then. Alma’s essentially the fresh rookie that grows into the leader of her squad.
Helena Helgel is the only one of the three I would consider to have an actual arc. It’s not brilliant, but it’s there. She starts out the war as a sniper, and slowly comes around to adopting a more generalist fighting style when she finds that sniping doesn’t work for everything. And then she gets the Efreet Jäger, the best sniping suit in the game. Also, her “growth” is punctuated by her throwing away her sniper rifle. Like, actually throwing it away. A still-working and incredibly rare Zaku Sniper rifle. After they’ve literally been
Grave Robbing
For the equipment. As I said, it’s not brilliant, but it’s an arc. I honestly struggle to remember what her personality was, but I don’t remember disliking her particularly.
Mia Brinkman…… I kinda hate. I’m not really sure why, because it’s obvious that she’s the one I’m supposed to like, being the healer. Part of it could be that getting the Dom Gnomides (which I despise) is what counts as her arc. Part of it could be the
Grave Robbing
Or it could be that I don’t really like a lot of Gundam’s “nerd” characters, because they’re always so one-note, existing to ramble on about technical specs or identify the new enemy mobile suit, and having little else in the way of personality.What I do I know is that early on in the game your squad comes under attack by some GM’s. Mia goes “make sure to move in zig-zags to avoid their beam weapons” and then proceeds to not do that and is shot in the chest pretty much immediately. I laughed out loud and rewound the scene to watch it again, simply because the timing was so perfect. But it’s played as such a serious scene that it makes it funnier.
Killy Garret’s honestly just weird, because the game acts like she’s going to make this big dramatic choice at one point and she just… doesn’t. She’s just “the commander that wants her troops to succeed”. But she never really does anything other than be Mission Control. She even goes out in defence of California base, disappears at the end of the war and then sends Alma a letter years later. I assume it’s supposed to be a hook for her own adventures, but we’re given no real personality to go off of.
Now that I’ve rambled about the protagonists, what about the antagonists?
Lilith Aiden is the Gundam Pilot and at first is a screaming Berzerker maniac, because her family was killed in the colony drop. That’s….. actually a really good angle for Gundam to take. And how does she develop? Well, after nearly killing Alma, Barry Abbot (Lillith’s Mentor) points to the Black Dog Squadron, the villains of the piece and is all “don’t lose yourself to war, like those guys. Those guys are Wack.” So she doesn’t. Huh. Seems like a bit of wasted potential there.
And how about that Black Dog Squadron? It’s essentially an entire squadron of the Earth Federation forces dedicated to warcrimes. Like, actively. An entire division of giggling psychopaths with top-level mobile suits. ……..I’m really not sure how that would be in any way effective? Their leader, Renato Germi (who I would describe as Yazan Gable without the complexity) literally wastes valuable resources because he’s too kill-happy to think in the long term. It doesn’t make sense to me that anyone would sanction this squad unless they had an ulterior motive, and that seems to have been the idea at one point (Pale Rider Units, GM Spartan’s, Renato’s custom unit) but it just never comes up. There’s no actual depth to them as a force, so Gundam’s typical grey morality is completely upended. It makes the central conflict of the game feel incredibly dull.
Also, explicitly no named characters die. Like, call me crazy, but if I was going to make something about the horrors of war, something that involves a lot of death and killing, I would probably feature some of that death and killing. Maybe have a named character die at some point. Because throughout the story, Killy Garrett is depicted (privately) making a big deal about how horrible war is, and she doesn’t want the girls to be affected by it - but it never happens. And as the game goes on, it increasingly seems like she’s not worried about the death and tragedy inherent in war, but of being on the losing side. Which….. isn’t what Gundam’s about? Like, it’s difficult for the game to disguise the fact that it’s being written with the knowledge of Zeon’s defeat and of Operation Rubicon (the events of 0080). So much of what Killy says just foreshadows events to come in U.C. that it gets grating. Because instead of establishing her as someone who has a good read of the situation, it makes her sound like a character who read ahead in the script ahead of time and know how it all ends.
Come to think of it, Gundam’s whole “war is bad” aspect is kind of completely absent from Code Fairy. Yeah, Lillith has a good amount of rage towards Zeon, but that’s never actually resolved, she just…. Stops having it? Yeah, the Black Dog Squadron are horrible warmongers, but it’s so blatant that you feel that they’d just be going around making coats out of puppies in peacetime. Also the original series nailed this, so it irritates me that I have to point it out: Humanise the grunts. If I see a character, in gameplay, custscene whatever, as “Zeon Soldier F”. Then I know that he’s not gonna make it out of the scene. I don’t view him as a human, I view him as a plot device and it makes it meaningless when he dies. It’s just irritating, because it feels like the game expects us to understand these character, but it doesn’t actually bother to humanise any of them, so they’re all just cardboard cut-outs.
In fact, hopping back up to my earlier point about no named characters dying, while there are multiple bosses in this game, I’d like to talk about the second to last one, Renato Germi and the Black Dog Squadron, because it underlines the problem I have with the Black Dog Squadron as an entity. Noisy Fairy Squadron has a confrontation with the Black Dogs in the mountains, where they fight off waves of troops before being attacked by Renato Germi and the two Rider Units. It’s a pretty good boss fight, since it’s a three-on-three, with each unit having different weapons. Eventually a cutscene occurs of Renato getting Noisy Fairy on the ropes. So he has them, here, dead-to-rights, then turns to the rider pilot and says “hey, grab them and I’ll shoot you in the back, just to be sure we get them”. When they reply with the reasonable response of “no, just shoot them you idiot” he attacks them anyway, this enrages the pilot of the Black Rider, who proceeds to tackle him off a cliff. Cue explosion. Noisy Fairy wins, and retreat to California base for the final level. The final level is essentially Alma by herself holding off waves of enemies, with occasional fire support from your squad mates. It ends with a final confrontation with Lillith, and then ceasefire. And after that ceasefire, who should walk up but Renato Germi, who then attempts to kill Alma. So what exactly was the point of that entire boss fight earlier? I’m not going to sit here and say that every boss fight should end in a death, but there’s no point to Renato staying alive afterward.
Ian Greydon’s great thought. He’s another MSV pilot, known for piloting the Zaku Cannon, who shows up here. Yeah, he’s really just a mentor figure and he doesn’t do all that much. But I’ll admit I got a kick out of seeing him leading a team of Zaku Cannons. They only really use him sparingly, so he doesn’t outstay his welcome.
Honestly, the reason I like Gundam as a franchise is that all the elements blend together so well. You have giant robots, you have sci-fi, you have interesting villains and you have anti-war themes (there’s other stuff besides, but you get the picture). It all works because it all blends together. If you take one part of that out, then, yeah it still works, but it’s not nearly as appealing to me as the full thing, if that makes sense. Gundam Code Fairy is missing significant elements, and it doesn’t really bring anything to the table to replace them.
So, Gundam Battle Operation Code Fairy then. The story and gameplay’s fine, but the characters are just so very boring and the non-story content really isn’t worth it. I guess buy it if you really, really want to unlock the new MS (except the GM Spartans, Dom Gnomides and Rider Units) in GB02, but I can’t really recommend beyond that.
Note: This is Part 2 of a post on the Pale Rider Seies. Part 1 discusses the original Pale Rider and it’s design.
Before beginning though I would like to mention that, while the actual number of Gundam’s running around the One Year War is largely set in stone, the Pale Riders are pretty much always deniable assets, with much of the information destroyed or lost. As such, new models are introduced on a semi regular basis, with the White and Black Riders being the most recent to my knowledge.
So, how about those other Rider units, then?
The White Rider was the first (in-universe) machine manufactured under the Pale Rider Plan. It is not equipped with a HADES system, but is instead equipped with the earlier ZEUS system (oh… I see what you did there). Which instead of hijacking the pilot like HADES, instead acts as a sort of really good fire control system. This is also the reason for the crown and more Gundam-like face. The system has not yet been miniaturised, and thus extrudes from the head quite considerably. It is armed with the Prototype Shekinah, which houses a Gatling gun and High-output Beam Cannon. The Shekinah was found to work fine, but the High-Output beam cannon severely limited the suit’s ability to use other beam weapons (and was quite frankly overkill), so the output was ratcheted down in future iterations. Because of this, the White Rider is armed with a heat sabre, styled after a rapier, as opposed to any beam sabers. I’m genuinely not that sure what the “cloak” on its left arm is for. It could be extra armour, but I seem to recall reading it was cooling apparatus/balancing for the Beam Cannon at some point, so I’m not sure. I’ve chatted about it’s design in a post I did on Code Fairy little while back, but in a nutshell, I like. The Beam Cannon being styled like a bow and the crown on its head both evoke the Biblical White Rider Pestilence, who rides a white horse, dons a crown and carries a bow, which is pretty neat. It was given to the Federation’s Black Dog Team after testing, and deployed against Zeon’s Noisy Fairy.
Next up, the Red Rider (which has some lovely art of it, by the way). The Second unit produced (by process of elimination) and the one that basically nailed down what the design was going to be. It was built to collect data to fine-tune the final product and was supplied to the Aggressor Squadron. It is fitted with an ARES system (getting a theme here), which… is essentially a baby HADES system, just with a much higher chance of killing the pilot. Because of this, the cockpit is fitted with a heart resuscitation program called “rymm-va”. I have no idea how this passed health and safety, not to mention that if the pilot dies in the suit, Zeon forces could easily capture it and steal valuable federation secrets. Nice job guys. Anyway, the Red Rider is armed with the standard suite of Federation machine guns, a beam saber and two new weapons. One, a 100mm machine gun equipped with beam bayonets, and two, a shield that can unfold and become a Zweihänder (as seen in the upper right image). Which is honestly pretty dang cool. It is designed after - you guessed it - the Biblical Red Rider War, who rides a red horse and carries a sword.
Unit 3 of the Rider Plan is the Black Rider. It was built to test a variety of specialised equipment, now that the basic design was down. From the fact that most of it never shows up again, we can assume things didn’t go well (or the data wasn’t properly backed up). It is equipped with a Rail Cannon (identical to the type used by the GM Ground type from M-MSV), heat daggers, a grenades launcher, stun anchor (a sort of electric harpoon similar to weaponry found on the Gouf) and fitted with a unit known as a Steelyard. I’ve talked at length about it’s design and my opinions on the existence of the Steelyard in an earlier post about Code Fairy, but in a nutshell: actual cloaking just isn’t a thing in UC, so this unit having it is very odd. I do love the Black Rider’s design though. It nails that whole “Tacticool” style I see getting thrown about so much lately without falling into the easy trap of going overboard with it. The Steelyard unit itself is styled after a pair of scales - such as the ones used by the Biblical Black Rider Pestilence (to measure the rising cost of grain). It is also equipped with the THEMIS system, which is a weaker version of HADES that removes most of the drawbacks (to my knowledge). Like it’s sibling unit the White Rider, it was eventually handed off to the Black Dog Team after testing, where it was then deployed against Zeon’s Noisy Fairy, and destroyed while attempting to kill Renato Germi, commander of the Black Dog Team.
The last Pale Rider unit deployed during the One Year War was the Pale Rider Cavalry. It was essentially supposed to be the Pale Rider, tweaked and simplified for mass-production after the war as a next-gen mobile suit. It was eventually stolen by the (by this point rogue) Slave Wraith team, but was later damaged and abandoned. It was armed with the Shekinah, a composite weapon made up of a Beam Cannon, Gatling Gun and Missile launcher in order to save costs (essentially a composite of the G04 and G05’ primary weapons, built to look like the Heavy Gundam’s frame Launcher). Other than it existing and having a pretty sweet design, I don’t honestly know a whole lot about it.
But speaking of that pretty sweet design, let’s go over that, shall we? I honestly really like the more Gundam-style design here, with the extra detailing just being wonderful. The Shekinah is a really good integrated weapon, because whatever weapon you want to switch to is going to be aiming at the same target at the one you switched from, so it’s very quick. I do love the Heavy Gundam’s frame launcher anyway, so the Pale Rider Cavalry having one is also nice. The colours evoke the Blue Destiny Unit 3, which is a very advanced and very good mobile suit. It all works so very well together, I think.
The Pale Rider Dullahan was built and deployed in 0080. It is the wreckage of the above pale rider cavalry restored to a functioning state after it was damaged. Unfortunately, since a large amount of the records regarding the Pale Rider had been lost, it was reconstructed without the HADES system. It was armed with a Hyper Beam Rifle/Hyper Bazooka, Heat Lance (taken/spare from the G-line Project) and Guardian Shield (taken from the GM Guard Type). It would be deployed against remnants of Zeon’s Marchosias team, where it would be destroyed in combat against the Pale Rider (VG). It was named the Dullhan after the headless horseman, since it wasn’t equipped with the HADES system. I honestly don’t have a whole lot to say on this one.
What I have considerably more to say on is the Pale Rider DII. It’s a reproduction of the Pale Rider Cavalry, with the Pale Rider Dullahan filling in the parts they don’t have information for (so, again, no HADES System). It was deployed against Zeon Remnant forces (that would eventually become part of the AEUG) in UC 0084. The full story can be found in Anaheim Laboratory Log, but in essence, the Pale Rider DII deploys with some GM’s to take on Two Galbaldy Alpha High Mobility Customs along with a new mobile suit, the Dowas Custom (painted red). The Pale Rider DII gets wrecked (though not destroyed).
The Dowas Custom, while initially appearing to be little more than a supercharged Dom, is actually rather special. It is the first (in-universe) second-generation mobile suit, acting as a carrier for some of the early Axis Zeon’s best technologies, which will in turn be used to develop the Rick Dias, the AEUG’s first mobile suit. So the fact that the Pale Rider, arguably the Zenith of First-Generation Mobile suit tech, loses to it is wonderful. Why? Because it shows that the Pale Rider’s time is over, that a new generation of mobile suits is coming, far superior over what came before. It emphasises just what a big deal the second-gen suits are compared to their forebears, how different things are going to be compared to the One Year War. It’s the first victory of the early AEUG over the titans. I love how the DII is used here as a microcosm of the events surrounding it. (Also it makes me think of a beefed-up GM Quel, which is quite nice).
Last one now. The AMX-18 [HADES] Todesritter. An unapologetic fourth-gen mobile suit, it was built by Neo Zeon using parts from the original Pale Rider, and retains its pilot, Chloe Croce, in addition to the HADES system in its head. It’s armed with Vulcans, Machine cannons, beam sabers, beam guns and so much more. It’s main gun is a hyper Knuckle Buster taken from a Ga-Zowmn, it uses a shield from a Bawoo with built-in mega particle guns, it has the tri-blades used by the Dreissen, and of course Incoms taken from the Döven Wolf. In addition to all this, it has two sub-arms in its shoulders that are used in close-quarters to wield additional beam sabers, such as hyper beam sabers of a similar design to those wielded by the ZZ Gundam. It is a lot. It was deployed by Char’s Neo Zeon in UC 90, against some Glemy Faction remnants, and is piloted by former Marchosias team personnel. Honestly, I quite like it. It doesn’t feel overarmed, since fourth-gen mobile suits typically have a lot of armaments. If anything, I tend to look at it as Neo-Zeon’s answer to the ZZ Gundam. It looks like this big, operatic villain, the incom units looking like a cape and the pointy feet adding a lot to this impression. The built-up arms and obvious emphasis on its weaponry makes it feel like it’s about to turn to me sadly and say “well if that’s how you really think of me, *draws sword* then you and I are enemies”. It’s a very solid aesthetic, is what I’m trying to say. It’s a distinctly odd blend of old Earth Federation aesthetics and Neo Zeon ones, but it all works. I especially like the legs, though that might just be because they remind me of the Döven Wolf. (Also, as an aside, I really like a lot of mobile suits with High Heels, simply because they’re always animated to run so delightfully. The Todesritter having a very busy back adds to this significantly, it looks like it’s lugging around a small dress train, or indeed, a cape).
You know when you mention something, and it just kind of sticks with you for a bit?
Anyway, the YMS-18 Kämpfer Prototype was one of many new units designed and build by Zeon during the closing weeks of the One Year War, first appearing in the original model kit manual of the Kämpfer (below left, Green), then the design was updated for use in Zeonography (below right, Blue), which then went on to appear in Ecole Du Ciel.
The Kämpfer prototype was quickly developed into numerous different variations for different roles, of which we know of two at time of writing - the MS-18E Kämpfer, as seen in War in the Pocket (more on that later) and the MS-18F type, which has a whole sentence dedicated to its existence, from which we know it was armed mostly with Beam Weaponry.
Design-wise, I prefer the original design to Zeonography, mostly because I just find the green to be really nice, it’s an excellent distinguishing factor when compared to the original and it’s just a lovely colour in general. I like the more angular head and chest, since they help distinguish it from the streamlined regular Kämpfer (and also imply heavier armour to the critical areas, which the Cyclops team unit lacked). I also like how we’re not given a loadout for it - the original Kämpfer had a bunch of hardpoints and was designed to shed its armament to reduce dead weight, the only inbuilt weaponry being the beam sabers. The prototype Kämpfer being a unit that was built to be developed into other mission-focused designs means that this open-endedness is a benefit to the design team, since weaponry would be swapped out as needed. Zeonography just giving it a Light Machine Gun that was specifically developed for it feels like a step back from that elegance of design. (Note; prior to Zeonography it was typically depicted with the Kampfer/Efreet’s shotgun and/or the Rick Dom II bazooka’s. I’m more forgiving of that since they’re both used by a variety of suits, as opposed to being for the Kämpfer exclusively (plus the shotgun doesn’t look nearly as unwieldy as the LMG)).
The MS-18E Kämpfer was developed from the Prototype Kämpfer and was famously used by the Cyclops Team during Operation Rubicon (the attempt to capture or destroy the Federation’s new Gundam-type mobile suit, the NT-1 “Alex”, as shown in Gundam 0080). Notably, the E in its model number stands for “Einhauen”, meaning one strike in German, signifying its intended purpose - a high-speed assault mobile suit. Its role was to get in, destroy as much of the enemy materials as possible, then get out. To this end, it had numerous hardpoints for the mounting of weaponry which it would shed as each ran out of ammunition, minimising dead weight and allowing it to use its thrusters to their fullest - the reason that it incorporates so much projectile weaponry is so that the generator can be devoted almost entirely to the thrusters - the beam sabers being the one exception (and even then, there’s an illustration of a Kämpfer with a heat hawk). It was even designed to be easily assembled and disassembled in blocks, aiding its use by command teams behind enemy lines. It’s a very, very specialised suit and this is perhaps why I like it so much. However, this persistent focus on speed and offense came at a cost - it had very limited armour even in critical areas and it suffered from a short operational time due to how propellant-hungry its thrusters were, and due to its ammo-based fighting style. Perhaps appropriate for something built for speed, the Kämpfer’s pilot would need to use its arsenal to the fullest in order to destroy enemy targets before a counterattack could be mounted, lest the Kämpfer itself be overwhelmed.
Design-wise, gorgeous. Obviously. I don’t even really feel the need to explain why I like this one honestly, just look at it. Honestly 0080 in general is chock-full of winning designs, but the Kämpfer’s just emblematic. It’s blue, it’s smooth, it’s focused. It’s just an absolute stellar design from an already stellar design series.
The MS-18F Kämpfer High Mobility type is boring. It’s the Kämpfer with the shoulders and backpack of the Gerbera Tetra. I’ll admit this is boring fully because I dislike pretty much every officialised “kitbash” design that isn’t “we cobbled it together with what we had”. They’re just extremely dull to me, because they’re just parts from one suit slapped on another, with barely any effort made to actually integrate the two. Because two mobile suits made in different time periods by different companies would have absolutely no problems working together with near-zero modification. I see what they were going for, since both the Kämpfer and Gerbera Tetra are assault suits designed to get in, do damage, and get out, but the execution’s just so unappealing.
Right, enough grousing. The Kämpfer high mobility type is a customised variant of the aforementioned MS-18F, which was used by a Zeon remnant group (I don’t have a name here) based on the moon, and was piloted by Michelle Kano. It incorporates experimental cutting edge parts slated for the Gp04 Gerbera, part of the Gundam Development Project, and was deployed against the Engage Zero, the other super-secret prototype unit of the Gundam Development Project (or competing design, or extra unit. Honestly its precise relation to the project is unclear). The High Mobility Kämpfer is armed similarly to the Gelgoog Marine Commander Type, the only real exceptions being an optional long barrel for the beam rifle, and a unique set of chain mines with a long rectangular design, for more efficient storage.
(As an aside, I wonder why Zeon Remnant Groups and The Sleeves are considered Terrorists, but Axis Zeon and Char’s Rebellion aren’t.)
The MS-18NF Titania I already covered in my Code: Fairy Zeon MS post, which I’ll link to below. But in a nutshell; Standout Good Design, really good addition to the Kämpfer series, love the form and armour design. Nitpicks are that the in-universe rationale behind its creation is dumb, and I’m not sure where it’s getting the extra thrust from.
EDIT: I didn’t include the Titania in the aforementioned Kämpfer variants, since it’s a custom job by Noisy Fairy, who only received the base frame. (This js emphasised by its model number MS-18NF -> MS-18 Noisy Fairy)
Lastly, The Kämpfer Amazing is a Gunpla from Gundam Build Fighters, built by Allan Adams and PPSE for Meijin Kawaguchi (aka Tatsuya Yuuki), based on the original Kämpfer from 0080. Design-wise it’s an ever-so-slightly sleeker redesign of the original, with brand new weaponry, also designed by PPSE. A general theme with the Kämpfer Amazing is trading out ballistic weaponry for beam weapons, since it replaces basically all of the Kämpfer’s original weaponry with beam equivalents. It retains the beam sabers, but gains a set of beam pistols, which can mount into other parts to become beam rifles and it also gains a set of throwing knives. The small, fin-like protrusions on the main body are actually small heat blades. Finally, the Kämpfer Amazing mounts a set of Amazing Weapon Binders on its back (shown above), which both function as beam cannons and provide a place for two other weapons, which are decided prior to battle. Weaponry such as beam machine guns, a minigun, a rocket launcher or parts for the aforementioned beam rifles (Yeah, I know they’re all called “Amazing X”, but that’s not really as descriptive as I’d like).
I love the Kämpfer Amazing’s design. It’s ever so slightly behind the regular Kämpfer for me, but it’s still just amazing. I like how it’s only slightly sleeker, and the focus on rifles and exchanging weapons for the situation is nice. It really plays into how it moves, and I like how the beam weaponry’s effective but not excessively so. It’s built to have options, but the pilot’s what matters, the Kämpfer just lets them reach their fullest potential. It’s not just reliant on a superweapon or fancy system. But it’s just one of those designs that feels well constructed, and it’s kind of rad that it has all that weaponry but doesn’t feel like it’s too much. That said, it feels very much like how I imagine a MS-18F would be, which is a bit odd. I would also like to call out that I like how the Amazing Weapon Binders have additional thrusters - it provides an explanation for the weight offset, and is a neat way of adding additional thrusters to the design.
Hey, does anyone have any opinions on Gundam Ecole Du Ciel? I’m kind of toying with getting back into it after having bounced off the first time.
(I know the prototype Kämpfer’s in it, but that’s really the only thing of note I remember).