Colored character borgs?

[nsn]

Aside from the G-Red variations you get for completing the game, can these be obtained normally? If not, gold versions of their non-character forms have more health in a couple cases. A golden Anubis wing actually has 10 more hp than Garuda does for example. I don't know if all their reload speeds etc are the same though, and there's still stuff like Sasuke's spinning attack, which is probably worth the five less hp he has than a golden normal ninja.

Strangely Billy instead has five has more health than a golden revolver gunman though, since he gets a 50 HP bonus like Garuda does despite gaining only 5 hp per level rather than of 10.

[yuurei]

Some people swear they have or have seen parts of rare versions of partner borgs, and I remember getting a Sasuke part or something once I think maybe, but if it is possible it's so exceptionally rare it's basically unproven. You can make them with the glitch though, i made a gold Billy while i was experimenting with it.

[njayhuang]

I've heard they can only be rare colored if their commander isn't present at the start of the battle, which happens in exactly 2 battles in the game: the Nekobe "duel" at the beginning of the game where Kitsune ambushes you, and the Serenity Street battle during the second Death Force wave where Sho joins your team halfway through the battle. Practically, that means a colored Isaac is the only borg you can get without hacking.

IIRC the theory goes that commanders are hard-coded to not spawn any colored borgs. But the check happens at the start of the battle, so if they join partway through the battle their borgs are spawned like normal, which comes with a small chance to be colored.

Now I don't know if that's actually true, but I know someone here has a picture of a silver Isaac data crystal (pretty sure you can't 20th force glitch data crystals?). And I do have pictures of encountering an allied black Garuda from that exact Serenity Street mission.

Doesn't prove that theory correct, but it also doesn't disprove it

[Stove]

Basically what njay said. From what we can gather, a check happens at the start of each match to ensure that the first borg is its normal variant, a check that exists likely so that people don't see a match start with a rare borg and assume it's the norm, if I had to guess. Since commanders are one entity, if a commander shows up at the start of the match its entire force should be guaranteed to be normal variants. However, there are some exceptions, namely the "Showdown with Nekobe" where Kitsune shows up late as a surprise, and Retake Serenity Street which njay also mentioned, applying to Sho as your ally.

As a result, yes, the only legitimately obtainable rare partner borgs are G Red, Neo G Red, and Isaac. (And Dark Knight and Death Wing, if you count them.) There aren't any outliers to this that we've ever had either. Three separate members on the forums over the years have had rare Isaac crystals. I had a clear one on an old file, I believe Cryzor had a silver one, and after this was brought to another member's attention (that member being Death Eye), he decided to grind that mission for a short while and obtained a rare Isaac crystal as well. No other rare partner borg crystals have been seen.

Also, none of the partner borgs have alternate colors except for G-Red (except for Dark Knight if you count it). Even if you glitch or hack them in, the borg will just have the default color scheme. However, all of them do have the other colors programmed in.