Over the weekend Bandai held their latest Tamashii Nations event in Akihabara. We went along to check it out and it was quite an eventful one. From all the new Robot Damashii figures on display to all manner of new chogokin Bandai are really going all out on capturing the classic mecha crowd. While they also have a lot of new very nice Star Wars and Avengers figures on the way, which is definitely a good thing for their business and the fans, the sheer love being poured into the older anime series from years gone by is really great to see.

From Zeta Gundam, to L-Gaim and Dunbine the Robot Damashii line is taking no prisoners. We also have a new line of classic Macross toys to look forward to in the form of the Hi-Metal R range. This is a reboot of the Hi-Metal toys from a few years back, that in turn was an update to a classic line of toys from the 80s. These new toys also include the Zentraedi and Destroids too and they look magnificent.

We also got to play with the upcoming Robot Damashii Penelope and it was amazing. The sculpt and detailing is incredible and the articulation is incredibly good as well. Thankfully we already have the Markings Plus version on order. To see more about the event then check out the photos here.

Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan we’ve been sent the Robot Damashii Dunbine and Robot Damashii Drumlo from the classic 80’s mecha anime Aura Battler Dunbine. While the Dunbine is an updated re-release from 2012, the Drumlo is a brand new release in Bandai’s ongoing and thoroughly excellent aura battler Robot Damashii range. We’ve also included some anime and game footage at the end of the review.

Back in 2009, during the last days of the PS2, we saw the first game in the Z series made digital flesh. It was quite the departure from the previous Alpha series and also boasted an all new 2D animation engine. It was also a pretty damn fantastic game, that used focus groups of three units to offset the formations of enemy attackers.

Not long after that the PSP saw host to the second part of the Z series, in the form of Hakai-hen and Saisei-hen. These were more streamlined and dropped the formation approach for single units while still retaining some lovely animation. Then last year we received the first part to the third instalment, called Jigoku-hen it was split across PS3 and Vita with cross save functionality enabled. Taking a middle approach with having each group comprising of two units, it sat neatly between the first game and its portable offspring. That made sense as it was both a console and a portable game. It also looked incredible.

So now after six years we have reached the end of the road with the Z series and Tengoku-hen doesn’t disappoint.

So the next Super Robot Wars game to be announced has the suffix of BX and it will be released again on the 3DS. The last game on the system, in the form of UX, was really solid and so I am glad to see another game on the way. The big surprise is that this entry will feature both Giant Gorg and Panzer World Galient in the series roster. That’s pretty damn fantastic really. The game will be released on August 20th for 6,640 yen and a promo video for the game will go up tomorrow. It’s currently 80% complete in terms of development. For those that are curious as to what the units are in the shadow above, one fan did a nice bit of detective work.

In a rather bizarre way, Bandai Namco have announced Gundam Battle Operation Next for PS4 and PS3. This is indeed the follow up sequel to the previous Gundam Battle Operation game on PS3, that was the first foray into freemium for the series. This is also the much touted PS4 Gundam game that was previewed a good while back, so the fact it turned out to be this is a tad…disappointing. The good news is that this new game seems to follow the Gundam Breaker and Gundam Extreme Versus approach in terms of the high-speed team based action. The game has currently started its beta on the Japanese PSN as of today and will continue running until this Sunday. So jump in while you can and check it out, hopefully it won’t be utterly terrible!

Kotobukiya have announced an all new kit from their Armored Core Verdict Day range, that of the massive tank AC the Matsukaze mdl.2. Released in August it will cost around 18,8000 yen. That’s a lot for a kit but it’s really bloody massive. The only catch is that this appears to be an online shop only purchase, which is a shame. The other slightly odd thing is that this actually looks a lot like the tank AC seen in the original intro for Armored Core V, so we’re a bit stumped as to why it is included in the Verdict Day range. In any case it’s nice to see Kotobukiya supporting the Armored Core series with more kits, they always do a fine job.

Update: It looks like the kit won’t be a webshop exclusive after all, you can pre-order it here.

Now this is a toy that’s been a long time in coming. Previewed way back in 2011, it now looks like we’ll be finally getting a Riobot Anubis. Following on from Sentinel’s thoroughly excellent Riobot Jehuty it does however cost a bit more. Quite a lot more actually. Clocking in at around 22,000 yen, it will cost nearly double that of Jehuty. There is a good reason for this price hike though, compared to Jehuty this figure is clearly massive and a lot more complex.　Still, that’s a lot of money for a range of toys that doesn’t tend to have much in the way of diecast (bar the lovely Blodia) but the spec of this toy does sound like it might be more diecast heavy. So that too might help in the way of explaining the increased price. In any case, this lovely looking Riobot Anubis will be released in October of this year. Prepare your wallets!

In a wonderful case of Steel Battalion infused nerdiness, David Shuff has made a real life cockpit for the game. It has all manner of cockpit type features from flashing lights to that nice claustrophobic feel. We have yet to review this classic game for the site but we included it in our top ten mecha games of all time list recently in case you’re curious. Naturally we have also played the game to completion too. That aside, there are some wonderful videos of the cockpit in action below.

In the latest Japanese chart results Super Robot Wars Z 3 Tengoku-hen has come out top. Clocking in around 230,000 sales between the PS3 and Vita versions it has even outsold games like Bloodborne, which was released a few weeks ago. Considering that these only represent a few days sales for Tengok-hen, that’s pretty good going already. We also picked up both versions of the game ourselves and a review will be forthcoming once we’re done with it. Thus far it’s a lot like Jigoku-hen and we’re liking it a lot. If you haven’t picked your copy up already then you totally should.

The upcoming port of the classic MegaDrive shoot-em-up Assault Suit Leynos has had its release delayed until December this year, with a demo apparently available sometime in June. We’ve also been given some new game footage and this time in HD. To be honest, the game doesn’t look all that great but this is Dracue and they did the decent Gunhound games. We’re cautiously hopeful that this game will be good and hopefully the extended development time will help facilitate that.