Macross Δ (Delta) - announcement thread

[VF-15 Banshee]

I can see why they picked her. She's got my thumbs up. (y) (check the link to hear Minori Suzuki singing Do You Remember Love)

[Graham]

I have a crazy theory, which I hope I'm wrong about. Oh boy, do I hope I'm wrong about!

A few pages back (page 60 on this thread) there was a video of the VF-31/Monster Hunter X game cross-over, which showed a character (monster?) in the game (sorry, I'm not into those cutesy type of games so I don't know the correct terminology), wearing armor based on the VF-31 and carrying a melee weapon, that looked like some type of extendable spear.

Now what if that melee weapon is actually in the Macross Delta anime, carried by the VF-31 and stored in the VF-31's weapon pod I guess.

Now bear with me here. What if the reason the VF-31's carry a large melee weapon is because the Sv-262 Draken III pilots.......Aerial Knights of the flatulent kingdom or whatever they are called, also carry large melee weapons..............and what we have been assuming to be a large gunpod on the underside of the Sv-262 Draken III is actually a large sword, they are "Knights" after all..........groan....urghh!!!!!

I for one like Macross style missile and gunpod based combat and DO NOT want it devolving into Gundam-ish melee combat! NOT COOL IMO!

An occasional bit of melee combat in Macross is fine, such as Isamu with his bayonet in episode 1 of Macross Plus or Ozma with his Knife against the Vajura, but I DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT want to see every combat in Macross Delta devolving into Gundam style sword vs sword/spear/axe type melee combat, just because it may appeal to a certain segment of the mecha fan base.

When one has long range missiles, cannons and beam weapons and transforming jets with insane maneuverability and incredible thrust-to-weight ratio, there should seldom be the need to engage in melee combat.

I guess what I'm saying is I'm just scared and worried about mecha combat in Macross Delta going the Gundam route (I'm not a fan of Gundam).

I want to see some cool aerial dogfights. If I wanted to see giant robots hack at each other every episode with lightsabers beam sabers, I'd watch Gundam.

Graham

[spanner]

Graham, after mulling over your theory for a few moments it begins to scare me somewhat! Geez I hope you are indeed wrong about it! hehe!

Edited November 26, 2015 by spanner76

[Scyla]

I think the images of the SV-262 clearly show some sort of gun-pod on the underside of the plane:

(More images in the SV-262 thread in the toy section)

Also the silhouette of the VF-31 shown in the trailer looks more like a Valkyrie holding a gun than a Valkyrie holding a sword.

Since Kawamori said he wants to focus more on Valkyrie vs. Valkyrie action doesn't rule out the possibility of elaborate melee fights. However due to the fact that 2/3 modes of a Variable Fighter are hi-speed/hi-maneuverability modes doesn't fit in with hand to hand combat whereas a Gundam is more or less a giant suit of armor so melee combat seems are more natural fit for Gundams.

[Graham]

That could well be a sheath for the sword in the Sv-262 fighter mode underside pic

If I'm right, I'm gonna be like so much "I told you all so"....Mwahahaha

[Graham]

And again referring to the Monster Hunter X video on page 60 of this thread, the VF-31 in that video has some sort of possibly extendable spear or grabber, not a sword, which could be confused as a gunnpod in silhouette.

[Mr March]

I don't necessarily want Macross Delta (or all Macross) to be melee-focused either, but I have to say the lack of hand-to-hand combat in the Macross universe has always worked AGAINST the fiction, not for it.

The whole point of a robot Battroid mode is the environment manipulation. Walk, run, jump, climb, lift, carry, etc. You want it to do everything a regular soldier can do, including hand-to-hand combat. Which is why soldiers are trained how to box, takedown and incapcitate. Jet fighters, helicopters and other weapon delivery platforms do not do (nor need to do) any of this. I'm sure folks can imagine many other uses for Battroids, as can I. But none of those "reasons" have any practical place within the context of a Macross anime, in which the overwhelming majority of mecha scenes are action and battle. Which is why critics of mecha often complain about suspending their disbelief to imagine giant robot war machines. Why spend the money and resources to develop such a complex, expensive robot just so it can shoot a missile or fire a gun the same as any tank, jet fighter or helicopter can already accomplish for a fraction of the cost, time and effort?

I very much appreciate when Macross at least includes some aspects of melee combat in most productions because it makes so little sense to feature giant robots without it. The Macross valkyries need to be punching, kicking, wrestling, bayoneting or batoning giant Zentradi, powered armor suits, Protodeviln or Vajra in melee battle. Otherwise, there's no point in a valkyrie transforming into a giant robot.

Edited November 26, 2015 by Mr March

[Einherjar]

Some people do not need melee weapons these days.

Wish I could find a gif from SDFTV of the grunt Valk punching a Zentradi in Battroid mode.

Edited November 26, 2015 by Einherjar

[JB0]

Shining finger? Is that you?

[Gubaba]

I'm okay with hand-to-hand combat in Macross.

[VF-15 Banshee]

And it's not like Kawamori hasn't designed Valks with melee weapons before.

And following the Gundam trend ever since Macross Plus of having the characters fly prototypes or limited production models.

[spanner]

I'm okay with hand-to-hand combat in Macross.

Yeah but isn't Britai a little out of scale in this pic? I thought Valk's were meant to be around 25% taller than a Zentradi?

Edited November 26, 2015 by spanner76

[Mr March]

According to the animation and the official trivia, Britai is supposed to be significantly taller than other Zentradi. So the scale is pretty much bang on.

I made a chart for the M3 which is mostly accurate.

[Mazinger]

IIRC, Bretai was bred larger than your standard issue, valk fodder Zentran male. There's more than a few pics out there showing the height difference between him an other Zentran.

Edit: And Mr March delivers seconds before my post!

Edited November 26, 2015 by Mazinger

[VF5SS]

I want to see some cool aerial dogfights. If I wanted to see giant robots hack at each other every episode with lightsabers beam sabers, I'd watch Gundam.

Graham

Terry Bogard's Fire Knuckle is cool tho.

QCB + C ' -' b

[Dio]

I don't necessarily want Macross Delta (or all Macross) to be melee-focused either, but I have to say the lack of hand-to-hand combat in the Macross universe has always worked AGAINST the fiction, not for it.

Very eloquently stated. The melee scenes in M+ were great for drama, because it showed on just how many levels the pilots wanted to defeat one another. The fights between Max and Millia in the original series were successively more personal as well. Frontier mixed and matched, and while the melee combat was not personal, it served dramatically to make the big scary bugs seem bigger and scarier.

Compared to something like Escaflowne, where melee is more "period appropriate" to the show, Macross has way too much background in ranged combat to change the focus away from it. Itano Circuses and Wave-Motion Tuning Forks have consistently been mingled with closer combat to support the story/cinematography, and it doesn't seem like a formula worth short-changing.

Now, if it goes the direction of melee weapons shooting energy waves at each other, unless Basara himself is at the controls I will have a hard time watching this series.

[McFly!!]

@Graham: I thought that too, the first time I saw the pic. Promptly chalked it up as a monster hunter thing and erased the memory of it. XD

then again, aside from britai's steel pipe, there are those clubbing destroids...

@Dio: I'm with you, man... If they shoot 'energy waves' by whipping a polearm, I'll... I'll... Fast forward it... Or close my eyes... Who am I kidding? I'll probably still watch it, then mock it later lol

[JB0]

@Graham: I thought that too, the first time I saw the pic. Promptly chalked it up as a monster hunter thing and erased the memory of it. XD

then again, aside from britai's steel pipe, there are those clubbing destroids...

The Spartans also have shoulder missile racks, and a few guns in their chest.

Though it's still definitely optimized for close-quarters combat. Ain't got half the guns the Tomahawk carried.

[Graham]

One of the reasons I think that the melee weapon from the Monster Hunter X video may actually be in Macross Delta, is that in the video, the head, suit and weapon are all labelled with the prefix "Nyalkyrie", i.e. "Nyalkrie Suit", "Nyalkrie Head", "Nyalkrie Weapon".

The head and suit (armor) are obviously from the VF-31, so it makes sense that by extension the weapon will likely be too.

Graham

[VF-15 Banshee]

I think you may be making meters out of microns here, Graham.

[Karaoke Ninja]

One of the reasons I think that the melee weapon from the Monster Hunter X video may actually be in Macross Delta, is that in the video, the head, suit and weapon are all labelled with the prefix "Nyalkyrie", i.e. "Nyalkrie Suit", "Nyalkrie Head", "Nyalkrie Weapon".

The head and suit (armor) are obviously from the VF-31, so it makes sense that by extension the weapon will likely be too.

Graham

As someone that actually plays Monster Hunter I can say you're getting worked up over nothing. Felynes can't carry ranged weapons with the exception of bombs and boomerangs so they're typically equipped with a staff, sword, or hammer type weapon. I'm almost 100% sure this was just a made up weapon for the game to fit the Felyne's play style. They obviously took some liberties with the VF-31 design since the wings are folded outward and look nothing like the actual VF-31.

[Scyla]

However since the rest of the armor is inspired by the VF-31 design I wonder where the design cues for the weapon stem from.

[edit:] I see Grahams allegiance lies with the Dark Side.

[edit2:] I just got the idea that maybe the Nyalkyrie Weapon design gave us a glimpse into what the VF-31 gun-pod will look like. This could be an indication that the VF-31 weapon will split up similar to the YF-29/YF-30 gun-pod.

Edited November 27, 2015 by Scyla

[JB0]

Also possible they decided to use a shield as the speartip, because it looked right.

[Ganbare]

Uhm, no news from macross screening?

[Tochiro]

The screening on Dec 26?

[Mommar]

The screening isn't until December 26th. Only a few days before the actual broadcast.

[MisaForever]

I guess what I'm saying is I'm just scared and worried about mecha combat in Macross Delta going the Gundam route (I'm not a fan of Gundam).

That's right!! I don't want any GUN DAM Gundam in my Macross.

Edited December 3, 2015 by MisaForever

[sharky]

I wouldn't mind some scenes where, perhaps, they run out of ammo and have to resort to some melee weapons combat. But, I agree this should not be the typical scenario. Maybe something sprinkled in here and there.

[Einherjar]

Seriously Graham? It's Monster Hunter, you need BFEverything just to survive the game. And cats.

If you want something more realistic, try Dragon's Dogma, Monster Hunter's grimdark little brother, also from Capcom.

Edited December 1, 2015 by Einherjar

[Chronocidal]

One thing they did hit upon in the original series was the struggle to operate ship hardware built for giants. Even if they never got into a melee situation, having something to stand in for a Zentraedi-sized operator could be a fairly important thing.

Or would you rather have to put down "Sorry sir, the mission failed because we couldn't reach the doorknob" on a mission report?

The actual control systems in a valk have always seemed clumsy at best to me, for any type of physical interaction though. Probably the best you could hope for is that the systems operate like the controls in a typical video game, using pilot-cued targeting and heavily context dependent controls to determine appropriate physical responses to the environment.

Or maybe if you get into a combat situation, a standard console gamepad controller pops out of the console, and the computers go into "melee mode," where you just press button combos like a fighting game? I don't know if I want to imagine what a fighting game would be like from a first-person viewpoint though.

Edited December 2, 2015 by Chronocidal

[Valkyrie Driver]

Melee combat would be secondary to ranged combat in battroids, much as it is with infantry. You want to close with and destroy the enemy, but you also need to be able to resist in close combat as well, that's why we teach combatives. I think though you'd find valk pilots with a very infantry like mindset. Do damage, disengage, and get back to your tools. It seems to me that with few exceptions that's pretty much how melee is treated in Macross, which is a very realistic view of combat.

[NZEOD]

More Yukikaze/Stealth/Top Gun, less Gundam/Power Rangers please

Knifing a tank like they do in Heavy Gear is one thing... Dancing duelists with Power Ranger swords is just too far into the Lameside of the force.

Edited December 3, 2015 by NZEOD

[VF-15 Banshee]

Oh for crap's sake, would you guys stop with the monster hunter thing? Meters out of microns here.

[frothymug]

Or maybe if you get into a combat situation, a standard console gamepad controller pops out of the console, and the computers go into "melee mode," where you just press button combos like a fighting game? I don't know if I want to imagine what a fighting game would be like from a first-person viewpoint though.

Sounds like Megas XLR. Loved that show.

[JB0]

Or maybe if you get into a combat situation, a standard console gamepad controller pops out of the console, and the computers go into "melee mode," where you just press button combos like a fighting game? I don't know if I want to imagine what a fighting game would be like from a first-person viewpoint though.

Bushido Blade had a first-person option.