So this display kit came in last week and someone had to build it, and since this suit was my favorite MG kit I’ve built, why not me?

I applaud this HG in many areas and strongly condemn it in others. I’ll start with the negatives so I end on a high note.

For starters, I don’t feel they got the proportion quite right. The MG had bulk but good ratios as well. The HG feels like it’s all legs, especially as far as width goes, and even more so without the weapons.

My biggest gripe is the machine gun grip. WHAT were they thinking when they designed this? Rather than make the hand able to articulate down so the stock can rest on the upper arm, they made it only able to be held at this incredibly awkward angle. There’s absolutely no way for this to look natural being held with one hand. I would honestly prefer those awful polycap hands from the US releases to this.

Not only that, the angle puts such strain on the arm parts that this line starts to come apart. If you’re going to build this to display, definitely use putty or glue and paint it to get ride of that problem.

Lastly, while that weapon holder device is cool, it has one GLARING problem: It’s molded so tight that if you try to slide it on over the 573 decal on the bottom of the shield, it actually peels the sticker off. That happened to me even after I applied it as tightly as I possibly could.

Now onto the positives! The shoulder decal is easy to apply with little to no wrinkles. I only had some cause I was applying it while having a conversation :-p Also, that weapon holder is cool, that one big issue aside.

On the topic of decals, there were a lot for an HG. Aside from the traditional foil stickers for the big things, there was a sheet of transparent RG-esque ones.

Good news that makes me not immediately shoot this down to a 6 for the awful weapon grips: It looks great with either weapon like this. Natural and badass, this is the only way to display it.

While it doesn’t stand up to the stellar quality of the MG version—even simply in reference to its respective line—this is still one of the nicer HG kits I’ve built. Decals for details and the general badass look are what make the issues forgivable.

Unless I’m forgetting that time Roux Louka and Shinn Asuka teamed up with Domon to beat Kou Uraki and the other evil forces of the Dark Gundam…

Here’s the latest of the recent models I’ve been building and another in the RG line, the standard Zaku II!

You’ve all heard my opinions on standard Zaku IIs before, so I’ll spare you that. However, I was pleasantly surprised by this build—despite its fair share of flaws.

I’ll go through the flaws first:

1, all the tabs for the weapons only face right, so they can only be held easily and naturally in the right hand. I’m not sure why they made it this way; they didn’t even include any kind of pre-cast grip left hand. I ended up cutting off the tab on the Heat Hawk so it could be held in either hand, but it’s still shaky.

Clearly you can overcome this problem, but it’s an inconvenience that could have been easily fixed.

2. (no pictures for this) there are a good many pieces that are cast way too close to gates, and I was unable to remove them even with narrow sidecutters without leaving big marks on the surface. This is especially problematic in the smaller pieces.

3. While the legs are an engineering masterpiece compared to almost every other Zaku kit, there is a huge problem with articulation at the hips. That front skirt almost always pops off when you bend the leg at all, and the side one flipped off consistently also. That problem has been less since I painted, but it’s still a pain in the ass that I’m considering gluing it.

Those two (pretty glaring) things aside, this is a really nice kit. The shoulders articulate to a level comparable with the Nu Gundam Ver. Ka, so you never have trouble with cross-body weapon aiming.

They also include a TON of options for customization, like numbers 0-9 and about 10 different military ranking stripes for both the shield and the arm.

The articulation is also excellent, as armor parts slide apart on both the upper legs and biceps, allowing for a full range of motion.

That being said, don’t expect this to kneel in any way other than INCREDIBLY AWKWARDLY.

One other small gripe is that it’s hard to get him to stand flat because of how stubby his feet are. That problem is easily overcome though.

So ultimately, a very solid kit for its early release order in a new line. I didn’t go all out with the decals because I wanted the classic look for a display piece I’ll be doing with these two :-)

After playing all the DW:G games and even the latest Extreme Vs., replaying Gundam Side Story for Dreamcast really sheds light on what the franchise needs and will sadly never again get. Here’s why this was the best Gundam game to ever exist:

Unique Material:

Sure, this happens during the infamous One Year War, but it’s nothing you heard a single thing about in any series. Counteroffensives in Australia?? What genius came up with that?? Give that man a raise.

Coherence:

I don’t think this element exists in a single title to come after this gem. Journey to Jaburo might have come closest just because it adhered to the classic Gundam storyline, but that game’s lousy [everything else] made it a moot point.

In Side Story, there’s actually relevance to everything you do, and it’s all in actual places with ACTUAL strategic significance! The Alice Springs area is in the center of the continent, so it WOULD be shielded from the drop and WOULD be valuable. Adelaide is a southern coastal port city and WOULD be valuable for delivering supplies, particularly if Sydney had been destroyed. To top it off, Red Possum, White Dingo, and Wombat groups all operate in AUSTRALIA!

I have never seen so much sense made in a single Gundam game since then, or in all the Gundam games combined.

Gravity:

This game made Gundam real. A lot of Gundam “fans” just like the spectacular giant robot fights a la 00 and Unicorn (and Wing at the time this game released), but this brought it around to what it really is: a human conflict. In every one of those “cannon fodder” suits, there’s an actual soldier, and this is the only Gundam game to ever put any kind of emphasis on that.

Not only that, you’re not the hero of the war in the famous Gundam, you’re a small special forces group with only THREE GMs at your disposal at any time. That reminds me:

THIS GAME MADE GMS COOL!

The GMs in this game are BADASS! You know the next thing to make that true? Unicorn, but 1.) those aren’t “GM”s and 2.) THAT CAME OUT ALMOST 15 YEARS LATER! Here, they managed to make them feel like actual weapons instead of obstacles and useless junk like they are in EVERY SINGLE Gundam release before and since. I felt like a champ taking down Zaku Cannons in close combat with my RGM-79, much more so than I ever do mowing down literally thousands of Zakus in Dynasty Warriors Gundam.

By the same token, you also are made to feel genuinely threatened by the tougher units. No other game has delivered the true feeling pilots would get like this one; starting a mission with a sonar sweep and then scanning your map to find one MS-07B red dot actually makes you rethink what you were going to do and plan for the increased threat. A Gouf should be threatening, but it never really feels like one is anymore.

Simulation:

It’s really hard to convey the weight and power of a machine like a mobile suit from a third person point of view, which has been the downfall of literally every other release. All the PS2 titles made it feel like your Gundam was floating, and all the Extreme Vs. titles have the same pitfall. By putting you in the cockpit and making you feel the weight and sway of each step, jump, and boost, you’re really doing justice to the concept in a way you simply can’t from over the shoulder.

Sum Up:

I guess I’m just growing sadder and sadder that Gundam games will never reach their full potential. With current-gen hardware, we could have a truly spectacular Gundam game based on the ground concepts of Rise From the Ashes. I can’t even imagine what could be done with an expansive look at the entire One Year War from this point of view, but sadly, we’ll never get to see that lived out.