Game 13 - Macross: Eien no Love Song (Stages 1-10)

Macross: Eternal Love Song (マクロス　永遠のラブソング)
Release Date: 12/4/1992
System: PC Engine
Developer: Masaya Games
Publisher: Nihon Computer

Another game from Masaya. This one is developed by both Masaya and Big West. After Studio Nue did the original Macross, Big West followed it up with Macross II and a few games (including this one), before Nue returned to Macross production with Macross Plus. So this is a non-canonical game.

I have been streaming the stages for this game, so I'm going to link the videos and then just briefly summarize them -- in the future I will probably only stream once for each game, to introduce it, and then just blog post the rest. But let me know what you think I should do.

 (The microphone audio starts off too low, but I fix it within the first 8 minutes or so).

Stage 1

After an opening scene that just summarizes the original Macross, we start with two main characters -- Kiryuu and Letradi, who are test pilots for new Valkyries. Of course Zentradi attack and we have to take them on.

The Valkyries can change into three forms, just like in the show.

• The plane fighters, which have the best movement but crappy stats in everything else (even dodge, which is odd)
• The Gerwalks, which have medium stats and do not take movement penalty for terrain, and get terrain bonuses
• The Batroids, which have the best stats, and are affected by terrain for both movement and the stat bonus.

The game does a pretty good job of making the various forms useful. The fighter is definitely the least useful form, but it's sometimes necessary when you have to move far. It can't be relied on at all for combat, though.

The first stage is easy as long as you go to Batroid form and sit on the base.

Stage 2

Kiryuu and Letradi are now part of an actual squad, and they have to go after some Zentradi. They try the Minmay Attack (song) but it doesn't work.

This is a tough stage! Our squad is very small, there aren't many NPCs, and there are a fair number of enemies. I actually thought this was one of the hardest stages of the first 14. Beating the ship will finish the stage. I used the mothership a lot.

Stage 3

Qwamzin from the original Macross is back, on the enemy side, although he's not the commander. They're trying to use the Minmay Attack to take over the galaxy, and have developed a defense.

This stage is much easier than the last one. Meltrandi appear and help you out with some of the Zentradi.

This game takes from Langrisser the idea of changing classes on level up, although in this case it's changing to different types of units. This makes a huge difference. 

Stage 4

One interesting aspect of this game is that you often have a lot of NPCs on the stage, and they aren't completely useless. They often soften up or even kill some of the units before you get there. Not a hard stage.

Stage 5

In this stage there's a time limit, but it's extremely generous. I had no trouble beating it in the time given. We also meet the Meltrandi pilot Misty, who is occupying the role of Milia from the original Macross (she's the one on the cover image).

Stage 6

Misty enters the battlefield for the first time here. She's tough, and I had to restart once because I moved my guys forward too aggressively. I was not able to beat her -- I had to rely on NPCs, unfortunately.

Stage 7

Vs. Meltrandi. Once again there are a lot of fairly useful NPCs, and we also start getting some grunt units that actually stay with the team and can level up. Misty goes into the human towns to spy, so we know what that means.

Stage 8

I actually got a game over in this stage because I took the Prometheus too far forward and got it killed by a bunch of enemies who all attacked it together.

This stage has a lot of useful NPCs but they can't all die or it's game over, so this is somewhat tricky -- what makes it doable is that the goal is just to beat the enemy commander's ship, which can be done before everyone dies even if you hang back at the beginning and let the enemies come to you.

After this stage I started getting the chooseable upgrades. Usually there's one unit with a short range weapon and then missiles or grenades (so you have to go back to the ship a lot to resupply) and the other one with a beam weapon that lasts longer.

Stage 9

Misty and Kiryu have a date.

I was afraid this would be a hard mission because you lose if enemies enter the city, but it takes them a long time to get there and I don't think it's a big concern.

Stage 10 

This is not a hard stage because the NPCs are so effective. I actually restarted once to try to get XP from Misty for my own guys, but I couldn't do it on the second try either.

So far the game's not bad for 1992; it compares favorably with the Super Robot Wars games that were out around this time (at least SRW 2).