The current Wonder Festival coverage has recently surfaced and there is a veritable panoply of mecha gaming related kits that have been displayed. From the the wonderful Kotobukiya stall showing the first Nineball from the original Armored Core games as well as the Sobrero from Armored Core For Answer. In addition, their Jehuty kit also finally reared its head too. However, the most impressive kits shown are from PLUM’s stall with the suspected Valken kit shown as well as an amazingly intricate Cloudbreaker 01 from Murakumo, the latter was originally shown at this year’s Winter event.
At the recent Tamashii Festival a few curious shots of Armored Core V figures have surfaced. These are specifically Super Robot Chogokin figures, which is a tad incongruous as AC’s are very much at the real robot end of the spectrum. Either way, the fact that Bandai Namco are handling the international publishing means we’ll finally get some decent Armored Core toys. For those that may remember, Kaiyodo did a line of toys back in the day for AC2 and AC2AA (of which most of them were utterly woeful). Now that Bandai have stepped in we are genuinely expecting something pretty damn special. No word on pricing or whether the toys will be customisable but the Super Robot Chogokin toys are pretty affordable. We’re assuming the toys will be released alongside the game in Japan this October.
This year’s Tamashii Festival happened over the weekend in Akihabara and a slew of places have covered it, from GA Graphic to Gigazine (with the salient reports of diecast toys and Gundam being of note). As always, we love these events as they show off recent as well as forthcoming toy releases from Bandai. We especially love the fact that the Alteisen was this year’s poster boy for the show (shown above). So it’s still very much apparent that mecha gaming and their toys are still very much intertwined.
Whilst this was sort of announced already at the end of May, Kotobukiya have finally revealed some pictures of their forthcoming Jehuty kit from Anubis (shown above). This is not to be confused with the recently released Revoltech or the forthcoming Riobot figure, as these are both toys. The new Jehuty kit will be 18cm tall with, what looks like at least, impressive articulation. As with all Kotobukiya kits, the sculpt is also clearly excellent. No word on a release date or price as yet but it’s clear that something is happening to the series to warrant all this new merchandising, especially as we’ll be getting HD remixes of the games soon as well.
Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan, we’ve been sent the 1/18 DMZ-02 Strikedog with Ypsilon toy from Armored Trooper VOTOMS that’s currently on sale. To help give the toy some context we’ve also included some videos of it from the original anime and a few games it has been featured in over the years at the end of the review.
If you remember, we reviewed the Composite Ver. Ka Temjin a while back. It was suitably awesome but maybe a little pricey for some. Well, pricey it is no longer. HobbyLink Japan are featuring the toy in their current sale at a whopping 60% off the normal retail price (coming in at 1,920 yen). It goes without saying that this a fantastic bargain but they only have a finite number in stock, so if you want yours then you better move quickly!
After a bit of a wait, we’ve finally got our hands on the limited release Robot Damashii toy for the White Dingo GM Sniper II, as originally seen in the Dreamcast game Rise from the Ashes. Whilst we’ve already reviewed the standard GM Sniper II toy, this variant is very much a gaming specific mobile suit. As such, whilst the toy is pretty much functionally identical, the context of it is something we wanted to cover in more detail. Especially, as the White Dingo team themselves in effect birthed a specific development studio within Bandai Namco games. Naturally, we’ve also included a variety of gameplay videos at the end of the review to give the toy some context.
Despite our functional dislike of the Zone of the Enders series, we’ve always admired the designs that Yoji Shinkawa penned for the games. As such, we felt compelled to purchase the recently released Revoltech Jehuty toy. It’s clear from the off that the team at Kaiyodo were obvious fans of the series, as this toy has had a lot of love poured into it. In addition, to give the toy some context, we’ve included some gameplay videos of Jehuty in action from the first game at the end of the review.
Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan, we’ve been sent the 1/35 AS-5E3 Leynos kit from Assault Suit Leynos. Our review is also of the kit in its unpainted form, followed by painted pictures after. In addition, to help give the kit some context, we’ve also included some video footage of it from the original MegaDrive game at the end of the review.
The next in the Composite Ver Ka toy line will be the wonderful Cybuster from Super Robot Wars. Unlike the other Ver Ka figures, this one lacks the overt decals and seems to keep more traditional proportions. Whether the Super Robot Chogokin toy of the Cybuster will still surface after this remains to be seen however. The Ver Ka Cybuster is planned for a Jully release at 5,800 yen and You can preorder the toy here.
