The upcoming Front Mission Evolved is powering up for a PR overdrive, as its release is imminent. To the extent that Double Helix’s studio head, Patrick Gilmore, has been interviewed over at Gamasutra. Gilmore is the head of the studio and not at the coal face so to speak but the corollary that he asserts regarding the supposed organic development of cinematic approaches in games is a tad spurious. As one of the main elements of his view is that the development tools themselves facilitate a natural cinematic evolution in terms of a game’s creation.

Spurious in the sense that it makes a lot of assumptions as to how games are made and that this progression is somehow insidiously natural, when really it’s an enormous amount of hard work on account of the people that have to make the game. After all, an improved toolset and pipeline often only help make the already existing set of tasks easier. They don’t necessarily make them miraculously cinematic.

Thankfully, the development team have produced a foil to this rather detached viewpoint in the form of a very interesting set of development diaries. Especially fascinating in their citing of the studio, Imaginary Friends, in relation to the game’s mecha design. Admittedly, we’re still somewhat cautious about Front Mission Evolved (as the gameplay videos were pretty underwhelming not to mention our hands on report being rather scathing) but there may be hope yet. As for a release date, Square Enix are still being cagey about that one but it’s supposedly scheduled for “Q2″ this year, so we’ll know more soon with any luck.

This is pretty amusing as Bandai have barely released their 1/100 scale VF Hi-Metal rendition of Nekki Basara’s Fire Valkyrie, only to have their major competitor – Yamato – lay the proverbial smackdown. Specifically, Yamato have announced on their blog that they will be releasing a 1/60 scale fully transformable Fire Valkyrie toy. This means it’s bigger and the specifics on the transformation indicate that there won’t be parts swapping either (which there is a bit on the legs of the Hi-Metal version). To make matters worse, Shoji Kawamori will be personally supervising this toy’s development.

No news on whether Yamato will release the Sound Booster parts though, something that Bandai is planning. In any case, it’s worth highlighting here that Yamato are technically far more adept at making transformable toys than Bandai are these days, so this announcement will definitely be making people at Bandai a bit uneasy. The Fire Valkyrie was also recently featured in both Macross Ace Frontier and Ultimate Frontier on the PSP.

Model kit maker Hasegawa has announced that they’ll be releasing a Guarayakha kit in the near future. This rather cute looking mecha is a VR from Virtual On Force (though it also appeared in Marz too). This VR is rather interesting in terms of the narrative, as it’s meant to contain the terrifying force that is Jaguarandi. Unfortunately, this plan backfires and it actually allows Jaguarandi to manifest itself more readily (killing the pilot when it does so). Jaguarandi was an enemy in the original Virtual On that was triggered if you took too long on the initial missions in the game, it was a very fast and powerful VR with the sole purpose of stealing as many credits from the player as possible by being a particularly brutal opponent. Jaguarandi was replaced by Ajim in Oratan but returned in Force and Marz.

The more observant of you will realise that this isn’t a Kotobukiya kit, as this is due to Hasegawa having the rights to Force as well as Marz. As such they’ve been producing kits from these games for a while now (with the Shirokis Temjin being our favourite). On the whole Hasegawa kits are more technical in their construction than the Kotobukiya efforts, not to mention requiring a far defter hand when it comes to painting the finished kit. Guarayakha will be released later this month for 3,200 yen and you can pre-order it here.

The much loved Border Break has received an update today, which specifically features the addition of a new “Enforcer” frame to the game. This new frame apparently sports improved capacity and booster power, making it a good all rounder. As with all unlocks in Border Break, the Enforcer parts will need to be earned and paid for (with real money too). In any case, it will be interesting to see if Kotobukiya render this design in kit form in the near future.

Over at Hobby Stock there is some nice photo coverage of the current Wonder Festival. Apart from cool stuff like an SD White Glint kit, Kotobukiya also announced their intent to make a kit of SAV-07-D Belgdor from the original Virtual On. Belgdor is an interesting design both functionally and aesthetically, as it was the most real robot VR in the game (as it used solid ammunition amongst other things). It was also one of the weaker units too but that didn’t stop the versus community from coming up with a variety of techniques to keep Belgdor competitive, with the usage of rowing being notable. Belgdor also received various updates in both Oratan and Force; from Grys-vok, to Stein-vok and finally the Vox series. No word on a release date or pricing as yet but like the other Kotobukiya kits it probably won’t be that expensive.

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In the recently released Sega Sammy Holdings fiscal reports Border Break seems to have made quite an impact. Now, we rather loved the arcade game in our review but it’s interesting to see that the game’s financial model hasn’t put punters off (something that we thought might be an issue). Instead it seems that the Japanese public have taken to Border Break very readily, to the extent that it’s topped the number of units sold. In any case, the fact that the has done so well only begs the inevitable question; when will a console port rear its multi-jointed mechanical head?

Thanks to Chazumaru for the heads up.

Over at the AmiAmi blog they’re covering the Tamashii Features event, which is basically an orgy of Robot Damashii toys all neatly arranged for the discerning mecha fan. Out of the many toys on display, the Yutaka Izubuchi designed RGM-79SP GM Sniper II caught our eye. Not only because it’s a lovely design but also due to its presence in the excellent Dreamcast game Rise from the Ashes. Thankfully, Bandai are producing both colour schemes of the mobile suit (as it originally appeared in Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket). No word on a release date as yet but the good news is that it won’t be prohibitively expensive. We’ve also included a video of the GM Sniper II in action from the Rise from the Ashes Premium Disc below…

Update: GA Graphic also have a nice report up for the Tamashii Features show.

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Resin kit maker Authorize have created a wonderful and fully transformable kit of Yoji Shinkawa’s design for the Vic Viper LEV from Anubis. Now, we’re not very big fans of the ZOE games but we still adore Shinkawa’s designwork for them (so this kit is very much welcomed).

It’s also worth clarifying that this is resin kit, which means it’s much more fragile than your average injection plastic efforts from either Bandai or Kotobukiya. You need to be a very experienced model kit builder in order to put this together. You can make your order at Tokyo Hunter, but move quickly as orders close tomorrow. The kit will be released on the 7th February for a very affordable 7000 yen and it’s a Wonder Festival 2010 Winter event exclusive.

Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan, we’ve been sent the Variable Action Zephyr from Hao Taikei Ryu Knight, a very successful anime series from the mid-90’s. The Zephyr was also recently featured in the quite excellent Super Robot Wars Neo. Interestingly, due to its already rather distorted proportions, the Zephyr wasn’t rendered in SD in Neo compared to many of the other featured mecha.

Due to the nature that this is a toy, all pictures shown are of the item out of the box. Click on to read more…

Over at Game Watch, they’ve covered off the extra parts that will be available in Last Raven Portable. Now, bear in mind that the original Last Raven had a parts list that was already very expansive so having even more parts to play with is almost always a good thing. In addition to the new parts, listed below, many of Last Raven’s features have been recreated with the limb destruction making a welcome come back not to mention the somewhat scary Pulverizers. In any case, the game is still scheduled for its March 4th release in Japan and if you haven’t already you can pre-order it here.

Extra Parts List »