#gigabash

[tyrannodokuro]

GAMERA AND GODZILLA AND ULTRAMAN ARE GONNA BE IN A CONSOLE FIGHTING GAME FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER

NEVER KILL YOURSELF

[iamthekaijuking]

Gigabash Character Overview: Gaya Gigaman

Well Passion Republic Games has released another character DLC, which means it’s time for another round of Gigabash character overviews!

Gaya Gigaman is very similar to standard Gigaman, although the standard special attack has been changed. Instead of an anti-air attack useful for movement, pressing the button allows you to sacrifice a sliver of health in exchange for powering up your next attack, extending the animation and dealing more damage for a few of the moves. Charging your special (the Giga beam) while in the air allows you to hover, and when fully charged you can even strafe before unleashing it. His ultimate, the “Giga Bash”, also punts the enemy into space for an anime pummeling before getting kicked back down to earth.

I actually am unsure if competitively Gaya Gigaman is better than standard Gigaman, but he sure is cool.

Design

As an “improved” Gigaman there’s not much to say, other than he’s flashier, ripped, and has an ethereal cape.

The Gaya Gigaman design feels very much in line with some of the final or powered up forms of many New Generation Ultra Heros as opposed to the more showa/heisei look of his initial design.

Lore

So the Final Ascension DLC dropped some major bombshells, many of which I’ll go over in the next profile, but we do learn why Gigaman retired.

First thing’s first, it’s now 100% confirmed that Gigaman is a human that can become a Kaiju and his human identity is Sho. He is in fact a close family friend of the Otamas, and Kazuo and Megumi Otoma went to school in the San'ya District, near the Kawakuzu Orphanage. So I was off the mark in my prediction that Kazuo went to the orphanage as well.

We also know where he gets his powers from. Much like the ultras he’s based off of, Sho essentially borrows power from an alien entity who he’s fused with and talks to him in his head. It’s not known how this “contract” happened, but we do know that as a kid Sho called out the being, named Gaya, for being indecisive and passive in the face of crisis. Sho literally called him chicken.

@dappercritter pointed out that this guy’s design actually resembles the original Bemular design from the production of the original Ultraman, as well as bearing a striking resemblance to Garuda. The latter point will be expanded upon in the next profile.

Gigaman and Gaya are beings that run on giga energy, but their energy signature is slightly different from other kaiju and the giga core. The only other Kaiju with a similar signature is Kongkrete, which is implied to have been accidentally made by Gigaman as mentioned in its character overview. Although the new story mode shows that there’s actually multiple Kongkretes around the world lying dormant in cities.

As for Gigaman’s disappearance, the first level of the story actually shows us the 2012 incident mentioned in Balzarr’s character reports, and what happened that caused Gigaman to retire. In 2012 Rawa showed up in Tokyo near the OtamaTEC tower and Gigaman fought him. He defeated Rawa, or so he thought, because as he was posing for the camera Rawa recovered and pulled his self destruct move. The incident devastated a portion of Tokyo and is what claimed the life Megumi Otama, either directly or she died from injuries. Gigaman has always known the stakes, but him getting briefly distracted and losing a close friend really messed him up. So much so that he decided to retire. He also is now scared of Rawa.

So how has Sho been doing in the years since? Well…

Not good.

He showed up to help Yuuki and Thundatross briefly during 2020 when his apartment got ruined, saying it was a “one time thing” but then after that his story mode jumps to 2021 roughly after helping Thundatross defend the gigacrystal retrieved from Mt. Gorogong. Specifically they failed to keep Gorogong from it, meaning Dr. Reiner couldn’t go through with his plan to attack the Giga Core and instead plays Mission Control in the story. However, in Gigaman’s story Gorogong also failed to defeat Rawa, resulting in the dragon claiming the crystal for himself and gaining enough energy to start the “Ascension” by pulling a Ghidorah KOTM and letting out a roar heard across the world. This roar riles up the kaiju of earth and they all start fighting each other. The winners of the battle concentrate giga energy, making it easier for both Rawa and Balzarr to “collect”. Balzarr had been doing his thing in the background, ransacking the world’s gigacrystal storehouses and decimating all the super aegis teams.

Gigaman and Thundatross follow Rawa to China, but disengaged (and in Gigaman’s case got cold feet) to fight off the kaiju rampaging in the city below. Balzarr and Team R.O.J.A.K. show up, and after the golden lion is driven off the gang follow him and Rawa to the hollow earth entrance in the Yeti Sanctuary.

As the GTDI feared, both Balzarr and Rawa began fighting each other, but quickly it became a whirlwind and the two fused together into their “complete” form Zargorah, and they then proceed to basically kill Gigaman. During his “death” Gaya tells Sho that his power is waning and that Sho fulfilled his contract, and that Gaya has enough power left to help Sho escape. Sho decides that he’s done running away and decides to make a last stand, with him and Gaya coming back as Gaya Gigaman and defeating Zargorah and sacrificing himself to contain the world eater’s self destruct. The story ends hopeful, with Yuuki saying that Gigaman disappeared and come back once before and that he could do it again.

This was essentially a summary of Gigaman’s story mode, although I’ll be going over the major lore and implications in Zargorah’s overview.

[pbjam01]

Gamera vs Godzilla!

In celebration of Gamera getting into a fighting game at last (thank you GigaBash) and to finally be able to throw down with Godzilla!

Which titan do you stand with?

[cdgzilla]

If I could add two more Godzilla monsters in GigaBash, who would it be? I'd say Anguirus & Biollante.

[sir-pipebomb]

They ain't even got Mothra or Anguirus in there bro, they only have Godzilla's rogues gallery.

[ultimatebluedragonfan1]

My gigabash tier list

[mazinwraith]

I will never tire of Gigabash. It’s such a good game.

[trauma-pro]

I'm gonna be real, i didn't even care about Godzilla or any other kaijus before buying GigaBash, i just got it because it was the sponsor in a Matt McMuscles video and i was so taken aback by not seeing the usual mobile gacha piece of shit you'd see being sponsored by every other youtuber that i HAD to see what it was like for myself. Safe to say i'm very happy with this decision.

GigaBash is a mainly multiplayer-centered hack-n-slash where you're a big lizard monster that throws buildings at other equally big lizards. The movesets are decently varied for a hack-n-slash, with lots of interesting mechanics like special moves obtainable by kicking a big floating object in the sky a-la Smash Bros, giga forms that make you near invincible for a while, lazer beam QTEs that vaguely remind me of Dragonball and plenty of gimmicks unique to each character.

The initial roster isn't the largest, 10 if we include the free one that came with a semi-recent update, but given that this isn't a traditional fighting game it's a pretty easy sin to forgive, as the arenas, of which there is quite a lot, are just as much part of the gameplay as the characters, with vastly destructible environments, unique events, interactable objects and unique geometries. On top of that, there is an impressive lineup of DLC characters comprised of licensed kajus and original characters alike, bringing the total to over 20.

Given that this isn't a game made by the biggest team or anything, tue aesthetics aspect of Giga Bash is impressively well polished. All of the models are colorfoul and well animated, the arenas are full of details, the UI has lots of personality and both music and sound design are fantastic. The monsters created specifically for this game look either cool as fuck or wacky in the best of ways (my boy Gigaman first and foremost), and i can't speak for the accuracy of the licenced DLCs, but a ton of work seems to have been put into them as well.

The single player selection is a bit meager, but it does have some variety to it in what little it offers.

4 different story modes, short, with some unique gameplay, and all with lots of well drawn illustrations to narrate what's going on; an arcade mode that unfortunately doesn't have a proper final boss; a horde mode divided in 2 categories, and to cap it all off a bunch of relly fun minigames. A training mode exists too but this isn't exactly the kinda game you'd spend much time labbing in, if not to get the achievement.

Every non-dlc character has a bunch of unlockable colors, an extra costume, and there's also lore and concept arts for those who care (i do!).

This DOES sound like a lot, but playing all the extra modes by yourself kinda gets old fast unfortunately.

The biggest problem i have with GigaBash is pretty much just this, with the minigames and the horde it has some seriously good multiplayer content that is kept offline for seemingly no reason. I know you can play remotely with a friend if you want to, but what about if i just wanna woop some rando's ass? Most games you play in online games won't be against friends, realistically.

I suppose the developer's logic would be that they don't want to spread their niche playerbase too thin, but i'd say that's a mistake in the long term, plus if the game has a lot of modes many people will just choose to be assigned to any random game going on.

A shame... maybe there's still a chance that this mistake gets rectified, because GigaBash is an incredibly fun game to play on a mechanical level and having more stuff to do with it can't be anything but a big win. But if you're fine with just punching the lights out of other big dumb monsters in more traditional settings then this is the game for you, couldn't recommend it enough on fun factor alone.