Soulgain

Soulgain (ソウルゲイン) is a fictional giant robot featured in the Super Robot Wars series. It has appeared as a playable unit in Super Robot Wars Advance and Super Robot Wars Original Generation Gaiden, but made unplayable in . However, the Soulgain returns as a brief, playable unit in the prologue scenarios of the Original Generation 2 portion of Super Robot Wars Original Generations. It's later made fully playable in Super Robot Wars Original Generation Gaiden.

Appearance

The Soulgain is a distinctly masculine robot. It is mostly blue, with silver highlights and gemstone-like protrusions on its body, colored in red or green. A distinctive feature is the facial armor for the jaw which protrudes upwards, earning it the moniker "Mustache Man". FMV movies of Original Generations also reveal that the Soulgain is actually a towering super robot, shrinking away Personal Troopers, in terms of height.

Technical And Historical

The Soulgain's model number is EG-X, which stands for Earthgain - eXperimental. As such, its design is said to be based on the Earthgain from Super Robot Wars 64. Most things about it are, as of now, still unknown, but its controls are registered so that only Shadow-Mirror officer, Axel Almer, can pilot it.

In the Advance timeline, it is selectable as a playable unit for Axel. In the Original Generation timeline, Axel jumped from the Shadow-Mirror universe into the Original Generation universe, but was thrown off from the intended coordinates, thereby ending up earlier in time in that universe than the rest of the Shadow-Mirror forces. It was first seen fighting the Aerogater invasion force during Operation SRW in Original Generation. Nickamed the "White Wraith" (in Atlus' localization, unlike the original Japanese "hige otoko" or "moustache man") by Gilliam Yeager, ultimately the Soulgain is overpowered and would be damaged during the fight, forcing Axel into hiding, until his allies finally arrived in Original Generation 2, allowing him to utilize his machine once again.

The Soulgain sports no visible weapons. It is a super robot built for taking and returning hits and can perform a variety of melee or martial art attacks, utilizing its fists, knees, and arm blades for maximum damage. Aside from being heavily armored, the Soulgain can repair damage to itself in combat, and can use its most powerful attacks repeatedly without worrying about its power supply. Coupled with its already tough armor and powerful attacks, this makes fighting the Soulgain very dangerous, under most circumstances. It is equipped with a "Direct Feedback System", a similar piece of technology like the Direct Motion Link System.

It is believed that the Soulgain is powered or controlled partly by the pilot's life force, capable of translating emotion to power output, in order to unleash its attacks. How the Shadow-Mirror acquired this technology is still unknown, although it is mentioned in Super Robot Wars Original Generations that the Tesla Leicht Institute were the ones who originally built the Soulgain.

The Soulgain was destroyed, during the Earth Federation Army's assault on the White Star, along with its pilot, however, the events of Original Generation Gaiden reveal that it was hauled away by the members of the Cry Wolves where it would be restored for the resurrected Axel to reclaim.

The Soulgain's attacks each pay reference to mythical beasts such as the Seiryuu, Genbu, Byakko, Suzaku, and Kirin."

;nihongo|Seiryurin|青龍鱗,| "Azure Dragon's Scale":The Soulgain puts its hands together to store energy, then pushes them outward, causing a surge of energy to streak towards the target, similar to a standard energy wave (i.e. Dragon Ball's Kamehameha technique). This is the variation seen in the Original Generation games. In Advance, the attack is fired from just one palm.

;nihongo|Genbu Gōdan|玄武剛弾,| "Black Tortoise's Iron Bullet":"The blades on the Soulgain's forearms slide into an attack position, and the forearms up to the elbows begin to spin. The arms are then launched towards the target, similar to the signature "Rocket Punch" delivered by Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger. One arm is launched in Advance, and both arms are used in the Original Generation games. In the PSP remake, Axel jokingly called it "Rocket Soul Punch" in reference of Mazinger Z's original Rocket Punch.

;nihongo|Byakko Kō|白虎咬,| "White Tiger's Bite":"The Soulgain rushes the enemy and hits it with lightning-fast punches. The Advance animation features two punches charged with energy, while the Original Generation 2 animation is a flurry of punches, and the Original Generations is the same, but ends off with a charged energy blast released at point-blank range.

;nihongo|Mai Suzaku|舞朱雀,| "Dancing Vermilion Bird":"The Advance version of this attack involves extending the arm blades, charging them with energy, and having the Soulgain dash at high speeds towards the target, attempting to slash it with its blades as it passes by. The Original Generation 2 attack has the Soulgain deliver rapid arm blade slashes, finishing the combo with a crushing knee drop at the enemy or a clean, vertical slice from one of its arm blades in the Original Generations.

;nihongo|Kirin|麒麟:"Axel shouts "Code Kirin!" and releases the limiter on the Soulgain, while inputting the code for this attack. The machine charges then pummels the target rapidly with its fists, followed with a knee thrust that sends the enemy flying, and finishes it with a vicious slashing uppercut with its arm blades. In Original Generations, the Soulgain uses its Seiryurin, in the form of energy balls, and lets loose a flurry of it at its enemy, while a large smoke cloud covers the unit. The Soulgain flies towards the cloud and mercilessly hammers away at the unit with melee attacks. The enemy is knocked out from the cloud and the Soulgain performs its Byakkou attack. With one final charge of its energy blades, the Soulgain extends them and slices the unit vertically in half, eventually exploding, as the Soulgain powers down from the attack."

Notes

In Advance, enemy Soulgains appear if you play the game as Lamia Loveless.

During its short, playable moment in Original Generations, Soulgain is unable to utilize the Mai Suzaku and Kirin attacks. However, when it returns as an enemy unit, these two attacks become available to use. This is generally credited to Axel's incomplete control of the machine, as six months pass from the time of the player's use to the introduction to him as an enemy.

A mecha resembling Soulgain called Arkgain appear in the spinoff game