For the Armored Core inclined, this is quite an important kit. If only for the fact that it defined and adorned the original Armored Core 3 Silent Line’s box cover – a game we rate as being the best Armored Core game of all time (something the recent PSP port really fails to live up to). Not only did this design equip the lethal Karasawa laser rifle but also the highly controversial stealth extensions (which were banned in all Japanese tournaments in case you were wondering). Despite sharing the same core as the updated Nineball, this is an all new kit. Like with all the Kotobukiya kits, all the parts are interchangeable from other mecha in the same range and the sculpt is superlatively good as well. This kit is out in August and will be charged at the very reasonable price of 4,725 yen. Here’s the original game’s opening and it features the above design quite prominently too.

America has finally received a game from the long-running Sakura Wars series. It may have taken a decade or so longer than the fans had anticipated, but I’ve got a copy of the PS2 Premium Edition in my grubby little paws right now, and can confirm that, yes, this this release has actually happened, after years of false hope, wild rumors, and constant delays.

We’ve written about this game before, but for those of you who haven’t been playing along at home during the thirteen-year wait to see one of these games in English, here’s the short version: Sakura Wars is a strategy RPG series that started out on the Saturn and was one of the few landmark titles that Sega was able to develop for their ailing competitor to the original Sony PlayStation, and quickly grew to popularity in Japan because of its (then) unique combination of sexy, steampunk robots and sexy, talkative women, with game mechanics that rewarded the player for their ability to chat up girls with better units to use in the strategy RPG portion of the game. While it did well enough to get live theater performances in Japan, anime hadn’t yet hit any sort of popularity in America and at the time no one was willing to take the chance on what would be an incredibly niche product.

Times have changed, though, and Nippon Ichi’s American branch announced they were bringing over Sakura Wars 5 as Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love on both the PlayStation 2 and the Wii, and unlike all the other false starts over the years, I have physical evidence that the game is out in my native language. After all these years, it’s finally here.. While our younger audience probably fails to appreciate why Sakura Wars’ strategy RPG gameplay paired with visual-novel style focus on relationships was so shocking to gamers on this side of the Pacific back in the nineties, old men like myself (23 years old) remember when both strategy RPGs and dating sims were extremely niche genres, never mind a game containing both. Seeing a game in the series make it to market not only fulfills a personal dream of mine, it also shows how cosmopolitan the video game marketplace has become. So what are you waiting for? Grab either the PlayStation 2 or Wii versions now!

Expect us to review this at some point in the future, although given the site’s nature, we’ll probably have more to say about the pretty robots than the pretty girls.

This has been going the rounds as of late, as it seems that a live action Gaiking is in production. The teaser trailer shows that, much like Michael Bay’s recent Transformers films, this Gaiking remake is massively over detailing its designs. The reasoning behind this is obviously because some muppet thinks that this makes the mecha look more realistic; the problem is that they picked Gaiking.

Gaiking is a super robot with MASSIVE horns on its head and a giant mouth in its chest. I mean, honestly, it’s hardly a realistic place to start. Yet going to all that realistic detail in the cockpit and all the visual kibble adorning the mecha’s body is utterly missing the point. At least with the recent animated sequel a few years back they managed to at least get the tone right. This just looks very silly, simply because it’s taking itself desperately seriously. Super robots are meant to be preposterous fun, making them realistic just makes it all very dull.

Gaiking was also one of the mecha mecha in the Shogun Warriors toys/comics line. These were basically a means to sell totally disparate Japanese mecha toys from separate series all under one line back in the late 70s and early 80s (a bit like a super robot version of Robotech). The only heartwarming thought about all this is that Go Nagai might get to finally see some Gaiking royalties if this is actually made.

The original Gaiking and its recent sequel have also been featured in numerous Super Robot Wars games over the years. Our personal favourites are Super Robot Wars Alpha 3 and Super Robot Wars K. Both games come highly recommended.

Thanks to Plastic Pals for the heads up.

A very entrepreneurial Japanese modeller, by the name of ostraking, has managed to inject a selection of lights into the various Kotobukiya and Hasegawa Virtual On model kits. From the Type 94 Temjin from Fragmentary Passage, based off the MBV-04-G Temjin kit from Kotobukiya, to the HBV-502H8 Raiden from Oratan (also from the Kotobukiya line). What’s impressive about these is that much of the surface light sources in the games aren’t easily backlit in a real world kit, this is especially true of the Fei-Yen from Force that has very flat skirt sections – something ostraking has handled with great skill.

Bandai have announced a new range of toys helmed by Hajime Katoki, hence the “Ver. Ka” suffix (as that stands for “Version Katoki”). The first in the line is the Lancelot Albion from the second season of Code Geass. Admittedly, there was a Robot Damashii variant of this design already but it seems that this version will be bigger and far more detailed.

As far as games are concerned, both the original Lancelot and the Albion upgrade were only really featured in the somewhat lacklustre Code Geass adventure games that were released on the PSP, PS2 and DS. The mecha haven’t been given an action game as yet nor featured in something like Super Robot Wars.

The mecha design in Code Geass was actually penned by the gaming luminary Yasuda Akira, or “Akiman” as he is more affectionately known. So having his work re-touched by another gaming mecha designer, in the form of Katoki, might be a little strange for him maybe (though Katoki is admittedly respected by other artists, despite his somewhat frosty demeanour). The next Ver. Ka toy in this new line will be the indomitable Gurren Lagann, which is briefly previewed at the bottom of the page linked above.

In any case, this new Albion toy will be available in June for 5040 yen and you can pre-order it here.

Thanks to our friends over at ACO, I’ve happened to stumble upon this neat Armored Core 3 Silent Line animation from around the game’s release back in 2003. It’s created by Mist Crown – a rather talented Japanese flash animator. Enjoy!