There’s a quick update over at Famitsu for the upcoming Super Robot Wars UX. Featuring Mazinkaiser SKL (pictured above) as well as Tobikage, the game does look pretty dated compared to the recent PSP offerings. We’ll still be getting this obviously, along with the limited edition 3DS too most likely, but we do feel that Banpresto are milking the GBA/DS tech and assets a bit far here.

The rather fascinating RahXephon is getting, what looks to be, a lovely rendition in toy form. Released this May for 12,600 yen, the price is a little on the high side. That said, the previous Variable Action Hi-Spec entries have had substantial price drops shortly after release. RahXephon was an interesting series though, conceived and directed by veteran mecha design Yutaka Izubuchi it had a wonderful aesthetic and premise. Though the latter was very much inspired by the original Raideen, which also had a similar titular mecha something that Super Robot Wars MX and Scramble Commander the 2nd emphasized with both Raideen and RahXephon bro-fisting their way to victory. Talking of games, the less said about the PS2 game the better really. Anyway, this looks to be a great toy of a really great design so on that front we’re happy at least.

In the mad rush towards the end of last year, we neglected to mention that the excellent Carnage Heart EXA had been picked up by Natsume for a digital release in the West via PSN. No details on when this will happen (except “early 2013”) or how much it will cost but this is still resoundingly good news. Especially as EXA was received very well in Japan when it was released back in 2010 and it’s just nice to see Artdink’s classic mecha series still trundling on.

Famitsu has a piece on the forthcoming Gundam Breaker game. Explaining how you can kitbash mobile suits together, as killing enemies drops their model parts which you can then use later. Despite showing all manner of in-game shots, we also get to see some of the arenas now too. The interesting omission in all of this is the fact that the Vita version is no longer mentioned, leaving only the PS3 game. However, the official site still lists both platforms. In any case, we still have no word one when this will be released (bar sometime this year) nor how much it will cost. That aside, the game has an interesting premise and we’re definitely curious about it still.

Looks like the recent 1.02 patch for the PS3 version of Gundam Extreme Versus has a bit more to offer. GN-007+GNR-101A Archer Arios from Gundam 00 and GAT-X105E+AQM/E-X09S Strike Noir Gundam from Gundam Seed Stargazer have been announced as the fifth DLC pack to be released on January 10th for 500 yen each. Archer Arios will be a 1000 cost unit while Strike Noir will be a 2500 cost unit, just like its Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost iteration. Archer Arios was recently revealed as a new suit to come to Full Boost a few weeks ago, so it is nice to see it coming to the home version. It was a little disappointing to see Arios not be as agile as its anime iteration, but it still looks well rounded with Archer never far behind. As for Strike Noir, players have been clamoring for it to be DLC since it Full Boost was first announced. It will definitely be a welcome addition to the already diverse cast of mobile suits with its acrobatic manoeuvres.

Also, if you purchase these suits before February 10th, you’ll get a pack of energy capsules for Mobile Suit Gundam: Battle Operation. Make sure to check out the DLC video announcement below!

Over at Famitsu we have a bunch of new things revealed for the upcoming Macross 30. From in-game shots of the YF-30 in all three modes (shown above) that make it look more like a fighter-bomber with a dedicated missile pod array, to all manner of detail on the Sub-Quests. These are the open world missions you can undertake, which range from item collection to killing lots of things dead. If we’re honest, these don’t sound overly interesting. What does sound interesting though are the controls, which will have two modes; the classic PSP setup and a new one that allows for more precise aiming. To the extent it almost sounds like they have a dual analogue control setup for battroid mode. This might explain the slower gameplay, as manual look based combat definitely has an upper threshold of game speed before it just becomes impossible. Games like Armored Core get around this by having a weapon lock-on that helps with doing the finer enemy tracking for you. Following on from that there will also be an option to have your difficulty automatically adjusted to how you play, though you can still pick the fixed difficulties too thankfully. There’s also some stuff about the limited edition variable fighter skins, though these look utterly dire so the less said about them the better.

Whilst it’s been a tad quiet on the Battle Robot Damashii front, we now have a new trailer (shown below). Almost entirely gameplay footage it looks like a cross between From Software’s Another Century’s Episode Portable and a slew of Artdink’s Macross and Gundam games. As we suspected, the mecha haven’t retained their anime scales but have instead been treated in the same way the Robot Damashii toys have. In addition, the footage primarily shows a lot of quite rigid melee combat. To be fair this is more likely down to the editing, as the Gundam Extreme Versus trailers offer suffer the same fate (maybe Bamco should get another trailer guy?). Finally, the trailer hints that a lot more shows will be included along with the ones that have already been announced. Let the guessing games begin!

For those that saw the reveal of the Hatsune Mike Fei-Yen in the upcoming Super Robot Wars UX announcement and thought this was done without the consent of the team behind Virtual On, then you were very wrong. So wrong in fact that Juro Watari, the father of Virtual On, openly welcomed Miku and even wrote her lines to be used in UX (apparently she’ll sing too). Personally, we think this is a resoundingly good thing and half hope that the next proper Virtual On game gets the Miku treatment too. In addition, there’s a new advert for the game (shown below). Don’t forget the game will be released on March 14th and you can pre-order it here, though you’ll need a Japanese 3DS to play the game as all 3DS games are region locked (thanks a fucking bunch Nintendo for that one!).

Albeit brief, we now have a new advert for Macross 30 (shown below). It only shows a few more seconds of gameplay and emphasises how smooth the game appears to be running. Not to mention that we’ll obviously be getting a lot of new animated footage for the game. Hopefully that will mean some kind of high fiving from Basara and the other classic Macross characters. Don’t forget you can pre-order it here

Over the past few years, realising that the current generation has decayed due to excessive functional standardisation, we’ve had a few “classics” resurrected into HD to stem the tide of mediocrity. Whilst many of these games were originally rather noteworthy, their updated HD versions have often been very disappointing. This is mainly down to the fact that these ports are in fact outsourced in their entirety.

The worst offender thus far has been that of Konami, with a variety of HD re-releases suffering from all manner of grievous problems (many of which the original games never suffered from). So what has happened to the Zone of the Enders HD edition then? Well, firstly it was ported by High Voltage Software (not internally by Konami, as we were led to believe) and they’ve done a pretty poor job. Now, we’ve never thought the Zone of the Enders games were bad but they are functionally flawed. Though the issue here is entirely down to the fidelity of the port itself.