As per the recent column on the official Japanese Oratan 5.66 site, it turns out that the game will be receiving a pretty decent price drop. From 1200 MS points to 800, however this is only from March 30th until April 6th (as it’s part of Microsoft’s Deal of the Week scheme apparently). At present this price drop is for the Japanese release only, the column also apologises for the lack of updates recently – which is rather sweet really.

Update: It’s been confirmed that the price drop for Oratan 5.66 will coming to the West as well.

Made by a nice chap called gevurah22, it features Char Aznable’s iconic red MS-06S Zaku II along with the English version of Char’s theme tune Char ga Kuru (or “Here comes Char”), which does hurt the ears somewhat. All within the cute confines of Little Big Planet no less. It even features some of the Blue Destiny mobile suits. Anyway, the video of it in action is linked below.

What do you get when you combine Halo’s number one star and a Zaku II? You get the custom job you see above, built upon a Master Grade Gundam Zaku II Ver. 1.0 kit. Via Figure.fm.

Despite the lovely Armored Core 5 artwork displayed in AC Chronicle Art Works there are also two interviews within the small book. One with series producer Toshifumi Nabeshima and another with two designers; Miki Masahiro and Satake Daisuke.

Nabeshima talks more about AC5’s change in functional approach, emphasising that the game will be more about tactics and using the geography of level rather than high-speed finger work. This harks back more to the original PSone games, especially the first, as many levels were set within city type environments and were more tactical as a consequence (the reduced size of the AC’s is also to do with this too apparently, as it would make it far easier to take cover). The other interesting element is that apparently you won’t just view your AC from behind and that you will have some form of camera control. Apart from that, the approach they’re taking is one of coarse realism and that you’ll have to “think” more in combat. The narrative will mirror this too apparently, as the characterisation won’t be simply friend or foe but instead more grounded and realistic. Again, like the older games, they’ve opted to keep the characters “faceless” so much of this will be inferred through dialogue and in-game text. This doesn’t really bode well for a Western release, as this kind of narrative has never been localised properly in terms of the series’ history.

As for the two designers, Masahiro worked on Chrome Hounds and is helming the main mechanical design of AC5 (as we suspected, as he is an internal designer). Whereas Satake is assisting him and comes from working on both Nexus and Ninebreaker (interestingly he designed the Mayfly head that adorns the new Nineball on the cover of Ninebreaker), they both also recently worked on Demon’s Souls. Over the years they’ve penned multiple designs for the Armored Core games as well, which helps to explain why Shoji Kawamori’s involvement was scaled back after Silent Line and why parts began to look more angular. They also talk a fair bit about how the realism in AC5 is dictating the design of the respective parts, citing a new revolver hand gun and vertical missile launcher. In any case, having a mecha desginer from Chrome Hounds and his assistant who contributed to Metal Wolf Chaos can only bode well for AC5, as those designs were truly exemplary and fit the new realistically grounded approach that seems to be the new direction for Armored Core as a whole.

This is one of those things you just don’t think will ever happen: Tail Concerto, a mecha platformer on the original PlayStation with a cult following, is apparently getting a sequel (of sorts) entitled Solarobo Sore Kara Coda E for the Nintendo DS (made by none other than CyberConnect2, the developers behind the .hack and recent Naruto games – not to mention being the team behind the original Tail Concerto).

The original Tail Concerto was extremely cute and what we know about Solarobo so far suggests that the game is going to be taking place in an equally cartoonish world, full of talking cats and dogs, so those of you expecting to go on a grimdark cyberpunk mecha adventure on your Nintendo DS might need to rein in your expectations a bit. However, the artwork and screenshots (kindly ignore the huge splash image there) we’ve seen are good enough for me to temporarily cast aside my general rule against Talking Humanoid Animals (Who Aren’t Also Ninjas).

While the cute look might turn some people off, the original Tail Concerto is generally well-regarded as a good, if a bit short and simple mecha game and I for one welcome different kinds of art styles within the mecha genre. If only because with different art styles come drastically different rule sets, which add vitality to the very specific genre of ‘mecha games’. Sometimes, playing as a bubble-shooting steambot mecha piloted by a canine cop is just what you need between bouts of emotionally-sensitive teenagers inexplicably in control of billion-dollar pieces of military hardware to keep the mind fresh.

A bunch of new screenshots for Front Mission Evolved have been going the rounds, coupled with the semi-updated dev diaries we clearly have a PR campaign in its latter stages on our hands. Admittedly, there are still no actual release dates as yet but with box shots getting previewed it’s obvious we have a release fairly imminent. Naturally, we’ll be the reviewing the game once its out – so keep an eye out for that. In any case, we’ve linked the other screenshots below and whilst they show the game has come along a fair bit, they still don’t look that amazing really. Anyway, see what you think.

The much loved full size Gundam that was displayed in Odaiba last Summer, will be getting an upgrade of sorts at its new home outside the JR Higashi-Shizuoka Station. Specifically in the form of a lit beam saber pointed into the ground. This will also be a time limited display as well, starting July 24th until January 11th of next year. After that, there is still a chance it could become a permanent fixture in Nagoya. The reasoning behind the move to this city, rather than Tokyo or Osaka let’s say, is because Nagoya TV funded the original Mobile Suit Gundam TV series (as well as many other mecha shows from the early to mid-80’s).

Update: To coincide with the new home of the full size Gundam, Bandai are releasing a new 1/144 kit of it on the same day. To make matters more bizarre, the full size Gundam is now officially being referred to as a 1/1 scale “Gunpla” – which conjures an image of the whole thing being built on sprues!

We meant to cover this earlier but over at the Raven Republic they have a very nice selection of shots from the AC Chronicle Art Works booklet that was packaged with Last Raven Portable in Japan. Within it are some early design sketches for the mecha we saw in the trailer. It’s interesting seeing this on a few counts, mostly because it looks as though the design-work has been handled internally (rather than by a named designer, such as Shoji Kawamori as per the original games) and it definitely shows the gritty aesthetic shift back to the series’ roots. Whoever is penning the base artwork for the game is clearly very talented but with a series like Armored Core that’s to be expected really.

Last Raven Portable also received its English trailer recently, via From Software’s YouTube channel. So it shows that a Western PSN release should be relatively soon.

Update: Raven Republic have found a full gallery of scans from AC Chronicle Art Works over at Armored Core Universe.

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.

Gundam Assault Survive has been released in Japan today. This is the successor of sorts to Artdink’s range of Gundam Battle games, with a few new elements from Dynasty Warriors thrown in for good measure. This is also the first Gundam game Artdink have made that branches out from the Universal Century timeline, as it features mecha from both SEED and 00.