kajnrig

On 5/18/2023 at 12:51 PM, KOG Water Dragon said:

a bigger part of adult me can't get past the fact that these rounded hands on this kit clearly wouldn't fit inside the arms.

I've always reasoned away the rounded hands as being cushioned and/or ballooning material for softer handling of materials/people, that shrinks down around a mechanical skeleton when stored away in the arms.

I was lucky enough to get a Tomahawk and Defender from HLJ, but the Phalanx was and remains listed as Discontinued. I don't shop from HS as often as I used to, but thanks to this topic I was able to place an order yesterday for a Phalanx there. Fingers crossed it's truly in stock.

For what it's worth, the Defender seems to be the hardest of the three to get, but its Bandai(/Arii?) equivalent is the same scale and builds up... well, not nearly as well or easily, but it's a solid alternative is what I mean.

The tagline on top made me think it was a Star Wars movie, so imagine my surprise when pop rock started playing... Anyway, looks decent, but I can easily see the script being dumbed down so much it's nearly pointless.

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

So, a bunch of hours in and... yeah, TotK is good.  But probably not 10/10 good.

 

......

 

So, yeah, like I said.  It's a good game, but also kind of disappointing.  Maybe an 8 or 8.5, not a 10.  Not even as good as its predecessor.

Don't let the Nintendo fans hear you say that. They were getting all up in arms (like they always do, apparently) because someone deigned to give it a *gasp!* 8 out of 10. They got even more up in arms because someone gave it a *DOUBLE GASP!!!* 6 out of 10.

They're unironically arguing against video game emulation, too, now. And all because it may or may not hurt Lord Nintendo's bottom line. It's ridiculous.

Yep, it's a nice sizable kit, that's for sure. What scale are those Plamax kits you talked about? Are they 1/20 like their other Minimum Factory kits? Or IIRC they launched a line of larger-scale kits, like 1/8 or 1/7. I've been hoping and hoping that they scale those MinFact kits up, but alas... And given the cost of materials and production, they could probably bump it up to 1/4 and still sell for a nice profit. If only....

Yep, I concur. I expected it would be given a really cheap, no-effort effort, but it turned out to be just super solid all around. It's possibly one of my favorite movies of the year, and I really can't believe I said that.

To answer my own question, seems like it's as good as anyone can reasonably expect. Apparently the base emulator can only bump up the resolution, and mods are needed for higher framerates.

TotK players, have any of you heard how it performs on emulators? I have no interest in the game - got bored of BotW some hours in after beating one or two of the sacred beast "dungeons" - but I'm always curious about emulator performance, as they almost always manage to seriously crank up the resolution and framerate of Switch games and offer something of a glimpse into what future Nintendo hardware might be capable of.

It looks alright. I want to say it's a neat mix of SDFM and... Mospeada? Whatever the "second season" of Robotech was, I always forget... and makes me think this must be set between those two time periods.

But honestly I don't know Robotech continuity, so 🤷‍♂️

50 minutes ago, Big s said:

I honestly think the old school as you say “Analog” designs benefit more from this quick change approach. The 3D one’s already were designed for full transformation. I’m just glad the line is growing and hope to see a lot of great Macross designs. Hope they do non Valkyries as well eventually 

I do, too, just remarking that parts-forming still couldn't make the YF-19 look perfect in all three modes. It still had to prioritize one mode over the others just like the toys have to do - in this case, it emphasized battroid. It still remains the case that the only way to make an "accurate" YF-19 is to make three separate YF-19s, each in one of the three modes.

My hope is that since the YF-21 basically just covers up its limbs for fighter mode, it'll basically only swap the nose cone or so from mode to mode.

Ooh, this is unexpected but definitely appreciated. I hope it benefits a bit more from this parts-forming design than the YF-19 did, proportionally. With the sudden swerve into modern designs, I was sure they would abandon any more "analog" designs in favor of the 3D designs; I'm happy to be wrong.

7 hours ago, Seto Kaiba said:

G-Witch episode 17 is another pretty unremarkable story.

If anything, it's biggest problem is that you could describe it as Sunrise saying:

  Hide contents

• The whole business with the holder being the key to future control of the Benerit Group is rendered completely moot
• the team dual fought over control of it was completely meaningless.
• Even the system of dueling itself is at the brink of being abolished, now that it has no real point and almost everybody who participated has left the school.

 

I could have called this from the very beginning. I'm actually 25% certain I did. Something like "this whole ritualized duel system only works in a metaphorical setting, not as a literal, 'real-world' form of government."

The show seems to be doing well for itself, though, so maybe I'm just missing something (and/or I'm old). Aside from the few critics here, I see it praised week to week practically everywhere.

For anyone still searching, USAGundamstore have a 20% off coupon on all things Macross today. (EDIT: Duh me. Might be good to include coupon code, which is "M20".)

Brings DX VF-25G down to $224 + $10 CONUS shipping + $sales tax.

Brings HMR VF-0D down to $120 + $10 CONUS shipping + $sales tax.

Apparently Suzume is showing in theaters as a wide general release, not just a special event screening: 

I mention this because I saw it last night on something of a whim. I was actually looking at showtimes for Dungeons and Dragons (because I'd heard it was actually rather good), and then my niece saw it and wanted to go, so went we did.

As someone who's followed Makoto Shinkai's career from the very beginning, it's been interesting seeing how this talented but obviously flawed director has steadily improved his craft through the years. He's maintained his keen sense for beautiful visuals, and it's always a treat to see his and CoMix Wave's unique blend of digital art, CGI, and real-world photography in action. He has a real knack for drawing out and emphasizing the beautiful in something that might otherwise be seemingly mundane, like the handrails of a train or a cell phone's low battery alert. It's very photographic. It stands out amongst its contemporaries. (One of my nephews put on Seven Deadly Sins earlier today, and while it might be unfair to compare the two, my god was the comparison lopsided. Shot composition, colors, lines... Everything is just on another level.)

His storytelling ability has been much more hit and miss, and I was happy to see that - for the most part - this film is a rousing success in that regard. The setup is basic enough: Country girl Suzume Iwato is riding her bike to school one day when she passes by a stranger named Souta Munakata, who's looking for "ruins" in the vicinity, particularly a specific non-specific door. She tells him about an abandoned part of town that's as close to being "ruins" as one can get, one thing leads to another, she gets caught up in his affairs (which just so happen to be of a supernatural bent), and together, they travel across Japan looking for more "ruins" housing more "doors," learning about each other and themselves in the process. It's nothing we haven't seen before, but whereas in the past, Shinkai has had a tendency to over-rely on the aforementioned beautiful visuals to prop up character writing that felt contrived and artificial, Suzume feels like he's meeting characters where they are. The plot summary might give the impression of a romantic fantasy adventure, but the story is good about not conforming strictly to that mold if it doesn't benefit character study. Unfortunately, I feel like this new approach falters riiiiight near the end and he falls back into his old habits, but it's not enough to undo what the rest of the movie has built up.

I really enjoyed it, and will definitely get the Bluray when it releases same as I have most every other Shinkai media. The art is as great as it's ever been, the music is as good as it's ever been (Radwimps makes a return, though thankfully not nearly as heavily featured as they were in Your Name), and the storytelling backs it up, too. Cheers.

I do have to wonder, @Seto Kaiba, why not just drop the show? Surely you've seen enough to know you wouldn't like any more of it. I dropped off after... what, six episodes? and judging by everyone's opinions on it since then, I'm not missing anything particularly special. Are you just invested in seeing it through to completion now?

On 3/16/2023 at 12:28 PM, Rock said:

Is there anything hinting at the cockpit POV for the YF-29?

Whoops, dunno how I never saw this. There have been no updates on the cockpit - maybe it reuses one of the ADF designs?

Regardless, it has finally been completed! Links below:

Nexus Mods

ModDB

Sorry to update just to ask, but did Aoshima ever announce a release date for their VFG Koenig Monster?

IIRC, these are all updates carried over from the Armored VF-1 kit. The nose cone joint should see more utility here than on the Armored, where it was almost comical how the Armor parts completely negated the new rotation. The Armored kit also included the older (better-sculpted) hands, so I don't see that being any different here.

4 hours ago, SayuriUliana said:

this location in many of the VF-25's physical manifestations like the DX figures do not show any such engines at that location.

They're present on the 1/72 model kits by Bandai. Engineering them onto figures, to be easily assembled/painted/etc. by humans, is probably more costly than it's worth.

FYI, got my shipping notice from USAGS. I'd imagine other US stores are similarly getting their stock in and shipping out.

4 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

I just stumbled on this game while watching YouTube. Not sure if it was already posted here before. It has some cool vibe to it. Like a crossover between Kingdom Hearts and some Rhythm Games. I have a feeling that my son will like this. Too bad there's no PS5 version. It's only exclusive for X-Box. But can also be played on PC/Steam. The only old PC laptop that I have will probably won't be able to play this properly. Sometimes I'm thinking if I should buy X-Box on my next game console upgrade.  

It's gotten really good reception both critically and commercially. It came as a complete surprise, shadow-dropping onto stores like the same night it was announced or something, and everyone I keep up with has had a blast with it. It doesn't overstay its welcome, either, which is nice. I think a solid 6-10 hours for the main campaign? There have been a lot of comparisons of its humor to, say, Futurama and/or old-school Simpsons.

Glad to see stores getting these up earlier than before. I'm surprised they didn't foreshadow the next kit in the line the way they did before. I hope that's not a sign...

11 hours ago, jvmacross said:

Unfortunately, as a "parts-former" there really is no reason to have not been "anime accurate" in every mode...the Battroid mode to me is the most dissapointing...

The only way for something like the YF-19 to be an "anime accurate" partsformer would be to include three variants of so many parts that partsforming would be made redundant. Or they could do some serious origami on literally every part of every limb in order to lengthen/shorten/widen/thin out proportions. That would certainly be a sight to see...

That was not the news I expected coming into this thread. Sigh...

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Today begins Steam's Spring sale.  Lots of deals on games, sure, but I feel compelled to point out (what like two weeks after I bought one) that the Steam Deck itself is 10%.

10% off, to be clear, not 10%. Though how I wish...

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