Wonder Festival 2015 Winter has now come to end and it was a good one. Apart from the legion of amazing garage kit figures on show and on sale, the future commercial announcements were decent this time around. The mother of which being Fewture’s transformable EX Gohkin Garland (shown above) from the first Megazone 23. Now we’ve already been graced with toys of this from Yamato back in the day but they all had serious quality issues (the joints often shattered). This will be different though as most EX Gohkins use a lot of diecast and go through rigorous quality assurance. No word on a price or release date but we want this, really quite badly. Apart from the Garland, we had a lot of cool stuff on show from Sentinel and Megahouse. The former had the amazing Metamorforce Dancouga and also showed the prototype Black Wing too, so a Final Dancouga is an option again. The latter showed off the upcoming Orguss toy and it is utterly pristine and will be a definite purchase come its release in March. Arcadia also had a good Macross showing too this year.

If you want to check out some photos then feel free to go here, here, , here, here, here and here. We will also be doing an event report for Forbes in the next few days too, so keep an eye out for that.

Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan we’ve been sent the Metal Robot Damashii Hi-Nu Gundam as seen in the novel Beltorchika’s Children (one of the adaptations for Char’s Counterattack). In addition, we’ve also included some game footage of the mecha in action at the end of the review. This is a companion review to the original Robot Damashii figure.

For those that may remember, the boxset of Gundam Side Stories contained a limited edition RX-80PR Pale Rider HGUC kit. Well now you will be able to get the Heavy Equipment Version kit via the Bandai webshop this April. While the game had issues, mostly to do with its budget, the mecha design for the Pale Rider was pretty damn great. Another of the EXAM System-esque mobile suits it played a key role in the Missing Link narrative, with its own version of the HADES system causing havoc. Admittedly this kit is a webshop exclusive but it’s nice to see that the design hasn’t been forgotten at least.

As for the more sporadic updates to the site as of late, that’s entirely down to the quiet patch of mecha game releases we are currently experiencing. Much of this is to do with large publishers thinking console gaming was “dead” and have subsequently been playing catch up since the new consoles have been selling like crazy. Modern games take a few years to make, so hopefully this year will see some more interesting mecha game releases.

After Bandai’s reveal at a recent Macross toy event, we now have release details for their VF-19 Advance DX Chogokin. Specifically that it will be released next May and cost 24,840 yen. It will also come with the VF-25 style super packs, as it was very briefly seen using them towards the end of the second Macross Frontier movie. We will absolutely be picking this up come May but in the meantime check out our review of Arcadia’s YF-19 toy (which was pretty great).

We’ve been keeping an eye on the upcoming Soul of Chogokin Gaogaigar and even played with it at a few events. Despite being utterly massive it’s also simply gorgeous. Aimed at collectors, hence the nearly 35,000 yen price tag, it still retains that joyous core of being an unfettered toy. Partly due to its size and also the amount of diecast used, it is a very sturdy chogokin. It has to be too, as it reproduces the Final Fusion combination sequence from the show.

That in itself is utter mind bending madness, as the sequence was full on magic super robot territory in places. Thankfully, Bandai have produced an instructional video (shown below) to help owners handle the beast. Considering the price tag, that’s a very helpful gesture.

This monster will be released next weekend but you can also order it here. We’ll be picking one up and reviewing it accordingly, though not until the New Year most likely. In the meantime, be grateful of the fact that we are finally getting a toy that the King of Braves finally deserves.

Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan we’ve been sent the Riobot Tsugumori (Anime Version) from the anime adaptation of Knights of Sidonia (based on the manga of the same name). The manga being the latest work from the renowned Tsutomu Nihei. We also reviewed the manga version of this toy a while back as well and this review is a companion to that. As this is a slight departure from our usual toy reviews, as this mecha has yet to be featured in a game, there is no footage as to show the mecha in action.

Over at Joystiq they have an interview with Vince McMullin, a producer at Stompy Bot. If you remember, this was the studio that was making the new Heavy Gear Assault game for PC. Despite what they term as a crowdfunding “disaster”, though we think that’s a tad melodramatic in terms of analysis, it seems the game is still being made. So much so that we have some alpha build footage available (shown below).

Now this is using Unreal Engine 4 and I don’t want to be overly unkind, as this is an alpha build, but the game looks like total arse. Art fidelity aside, games like Project HON are clearly doing more functionally than this is. Even the already available Armored Core V and Verdict Day are more engaging than what this looks to be like.

We may be jumping the gun a bit but from what we’re seeing, it doesn’t look that great to play. Though we’ll reserve judgement until the game is finally released and hopefully by then they will have pushed the engine a bit more too.

Following on from the excellent Jigoku-hen released earlier this year, Bandai Namco announced Super Robot Wars Z 3 Tengoku-hen to be released on both PS3 and Vita next April. To accompany this announcement we’ve also been graced with a nice long promo video (shown below). In it we see new series like Gargantia and Gunbuster 2 are now included in the game’s roster but we are still blown away by how crazy nice the Zeta Gundam animations still are. Orguss is also back (as seen above) and that’s just great in and of itself really. The lack of Final Dancouga is somewhat saddening though.

In addition to the main game, for those that buy Tengoku-hen at launch they will also get a separate downloadable sidestory game called Rengoku-hen. This features characters from previous Super Robot Wars Z instalments over 15 unique missions. Most importantly of all, this won’t be available as a separate download at any point.

At a recent mini-show for Megahouse products, they revealed a bunch of lovely new toys. Most of these had been shown previously at places like WonFes but many of these were closer to final versions, so painted up and using the correct materials. One of this was the upcoming Variable Action Hi-Spec Orguss (shown above) from the anime of the same name. It looks frankly gorgeous and will transform across all four modes. Released next March it also costs an eye watering 35,000 yen. As it’s not an overly large figure, that’s a mighty big price tag. Regardless, we want one. Badly. If you want to check out the event, there is a nice gallery here.

What with the release of Gundam Breaker 2 only a few weeks away now, Bandai have rolled out an extended trailer. This time voiced, very enthusiastically, by Loran Cehack and Gym Ghingham. The video shows off just how big the game will be in terms of the number of mobile suits featured, as well as all the engine optimisations. It’s all looking very good indeed. The game is set for a December 18th release and you can pre-order it here.