Super Robot Wars Z2

Super Robot Wars Z2 is a series of games for the Sony Playstation Portable. It is a sequel to the PS2 game Super Robot Wars Z, and is split into two games: Hakai-Hen (World Breaking Chapter) and Saisei-Hen (Regeneration Chapter).

Hakai-Hen primarily contains the events of the first season, while Saisei-Hen deals with the Black Rebellion, and the events of R2.

World Changes
The world of Super Robot Wars Z2 is actually composed of portions of several different worlds, forcibly merged together by phenomena known as Dimensional Quakes some twenty years before the start of the series/game. The Holy Britannian Empire found itself sharing most of North and South America with the Union of Solar Energy and Free Nations from Mobile Suit Gundam 00, and both nations merged into the Britannian Union, with Britannia's nobles clearly at the top, under Emperor Charles.

This world has two Japans, situated right next to each other. The "Outer" Japan is the one conquered by the Britannian Union and turned into Area 11, while the Japan between it and China, in the real-world location, is still free (and home to Super Robots such as Mazinger Z and Dai-Guard), with Britannia declining to attack it as well. Area 11 is also home to a number of refugees from the Astrageus Galaxy of Armored Trooper VOTOMS. The Brittanian Union often uses Astregean mercenaries to keep the peace in the Area 11 ghettos.

Saji Crossroad, Louise Halevy, and Relena Darlian are all students at Ashford Academy, the latter transferring at the beginning of the Hakai-Hen. This ultimately brings Setsuna F. Seiei, Heero Yuy, and Duo Maxwell. The latter two, along with Chirico Cuvie from VOTOMS, become involved in his rebellion early on.

Kallen Kōzuki takes advantage of the altered world by participating in a Mecha-fighting sport using her Knightmare Frame against Astragean Armored Troopers to improve her fighting skills. Her use of a KMF and her skills quickly earn her the nickname "Red Devil of the Elevens".

Crowe Broust
Crowe Broust is the first Original protagonist designed for Z2. Unusually for an Original Generation character, his history is rooted firmly in the universe of one of the game's series'. Crowe is a former Britannian soldier who was part of a team known as the Firebug Squad. The Firebug Squad was a type of False Flag Operation whose mission was to bring together rebellious elements in minor countries and rile them up to be crushed by the Union military. As such, they piloted machines different than the standard Knightmare Frames:a machine called the Axion. The Firebug Squad was involved in an experiment that saw the destruction of an entire town. Crowe managed to rescue the sole survivor and quit both the team and the Britannian military soon afterwards.

When the game starts Crowe is in Chicago, having inherited a 1,000,000G debt from his father. To pay it off, he signs on to test a machine called the Brasta (or Blaster), designed primarily to fight the Dimensional Beasts, creatures that haven been noted to appear during and after Dimensional quakes. Depending on the player's choices, he may also get involved in Lelouch's battles at certain moments early in the game.

Ester Elhaas
Ester Elhaas is the starting viewpoint character for Saise-Hen. She initially appears assisting Crowe while at the same time demanding that he eliminate the Dimensional Beasts, in particular a white-colored one fittingly nicknamed "Moby Dick", which she blames for the deaths of her family.

In truth, she was the only civilian survivor of the incident that caused Crowe to quite the military. In Saisei-Hen, she pilots the Brasta Es.

Storyline Split
Saisei-Hen has a hidden value known as "Zero Points" which are gained by taking certain route splits (branching parts in the storyline where the Original characters can choose which parts of the heroes' force they will travel with) or performing certain tasks in battle. If the player gains five or more by Mission 37, the course of Code Geass' storyline and Zero's destiny may take a major turn:


 * Shirley Fenette will be saved by Bajou Haran (Invincible Steel Man Daitarn 3) and Roger Smith (The Big O), regardless of the later decisions and the path of the story line.
 * After the Second Assault on Tokyo Settlement, the player may have the Black Knights choose to trust Lelouch despite Schneizel's outing of him as Zero. This choice is instrumental to what follows.
 * Lelouch does not forsake Rolo, who doesn't have to give his life saving him.
 * The Zero Requiem plan is never put into motion. As such, the major conflicts of Code Geass end after Schneizel el Britannia is defeated by ZEXIS at the Battle of Mt. Fuji.
 * Euphemia li Britannia survives, having been saved by Schneizel, who may have planned to reveal her at a later date. After the battle over Fuji, she reveals herself to stop Zero from using his Geass on Nunnally (Rolo uses his instead to get the Damocles' trigger from her).

If the Black Knights don't trust Lelouch, the Zero Requiem plan is put into motion, but after being stabbed by Suzaku, Lelouch is brought to the Celestial Being battleship Ptolemaios II and revived with their technology. Lelouch takes Suzaku's place and continues to be Zero for the rest of his life.

Characterisation Issues
Many elements of the game, the split storyline especially, due to it's nature, suffer from contradictory, unacceptable, and simply strange changes in the plot.

The ending of the first game, Hakai-hen, has the various groups that form ZEXIS split into their original groups and separate, despite the various enemies of many of those factions still existing, leading to the endings of Gundam 00 and Code Geass's first seasons. While Gundam 00's first ending is due to an ambush - previously repelled, but repeated again - the Code Geass ending is ultimately the Black Knights fighting the entire Britannian army stationed in Japan as part of the Black Rebellion, with a tiny fraction of the forces the player possessed beforehand, especially those groups closest to the Black Knights, like VOTOMs Chirico and the main characters from Gundam Wing, who were previously semi-official Black Knights members. With it being previously stated that the Black Knights would do this, and with the Gundam Wing characters claiming that Area 11 is no longer relevant to their objectives, it feels like an abandonment uncharacteristic of the comraderie that ZEXIS is shown to have. With the Black Knights being offended by what they see as Lelouch's betrayal as they are in canon, it's strange that there's no ill-will between the Black Knights and ZEXIS itself.

The Assault on the Geass Order is done with the full assistance of ZEXIS, but despite the entire organisation's presence, no one notices that Lelouch is proceeding to kill the various Geass cultists, even when V.V. escapes the facility and joins the battle. Such a situation should not be easily missed.

Tohdoh begins a friendly rivalry with, and great respect for, Gundam 00's Graham Aker, in his Mister Bushido identity, despite that a pilot of the Britannian Union proclaiming the philosophy of Bushido, after the destruction of Japan at his nation's hands, should be an extremely insulting situation, doubly so as a former member of the JLF.

Despite Zero being elected as the official head of ZEXIS - to tie his reappearance in with the reformation of ZEXIS, with true leadership being shared between various high-ranking officials of it's various groups - the decision by Ougi whether or not to execute Zero is only acted against by ZEXIS with a strong recommendation to request that they hear Zero out. Though this is disapproval for the canon route, it suffers from ZEXIS treating themselves as outsiders, despite the Black Knights being a ZEXIS subordinate group, as well as treating the Black Knights' desire to murder Zero (or offer him to Britannia, surely leading to his execution) comparatively lightly, as ZEXIS claims to support the Black Knights if Ougi decides to do so. This is either showing very little regard for Lelouch, or is an extremely passive-agressive solution.

Schneizel's actions suffer from strange irregularities with canon. Specifically, Schneizel decides to confront Lelouch along with Nunnally, without any armed guards, mounted turrets, or anti-Geass measures. In addition, the self-destruct that Schneizel was planning to use in canon when Lelouch infiltrates the Damocles is not mentioned, nor is Schneizel's willingness to die to kill Lelouch and bring peace from that method. Needless to say, Schneizel was captured without incident. It is suspected that it was done purely so that Lelouch was not forced to use Geass, which he had chosen to stop using, since the canon events would be impossible to survive without such a power, however, even if this is true, it is a poor rewrite for Schneizel to not use the options that we know he has, and had canonically used.

Following this, Nunnally is made Empress, despite many, many other children of Charles still being alive - specifically, according to Code Geass' canon, there are 86 more applicable heirs, minus those that were killed by Schneizel and Lelouch, and due to the plot of the game, that is only Clovis - and without Lelouch as the former Emperor, she cannot depend on being his closest relative to earn her the position. Ultimately, there is no reason for her to assume the position of Empress, unlike canon. In addition, despite authorizing and approving the use of the FLEIJA super-weapon on the Britannian-held Tokyo, a normally unforgivable act, Schneizel is permitted to return to his position of Prime Minster under Nunnally, without anything like Geass to restrain him.

Euphemia's death is contradictory, as she is certainly dead in the Zero Requiem route of the game, and the equivalent event in the previous game happened with no modification to the plot, with Euphemia clearly dying like in canon, with Suzaku present, and Lloyd and Cecile on-board the Avalon, and all three surely aware of Euphemia's body being moved. Similarly, Lelouch's survival in the Zero Requiem route suffers from his canonical death clearly happening as it was originally portrayed, and organ regeneration in Gundam 00 is said to take weeks for even a small organ, rendering it impossible to save Lelouch from the piercing of his heart before he dies and becomes impossible to revive, even before considering how long it would take to get Lelouch's body to the Ptolemaios II in the first place.

Ultimately, many of these decisions seem to have been made to minimise any storyline difficulties when writing the highly-foreshadowed sequel, regardless of the appropriateness of these actions in their context.