Chronocidal

The last console generation I bought into was the PS3/360/Wii, and I think it's just going to stay that way. I might get a Switch II, just because Nintendo is still a rather unique perspective in the market. Playstation and XBox consoles at this point though are just glorified PCs with custom UIs, and very few games for either don't wind up being on PC later anyhow. I'm generally in no rush to play any game, so sticking to one platform to play everything makes much more sense, especially when my primary genre (flight simulation, with or without VR) is something that only exists on PCs to begin with.

Not quite 1/100, a lot of the HMRs come out closer to 1/90. I'd say this is about as close to perfect transformation as you can get at this scale. You will need to swap to fixed pose hands to hold the gun, and the landing gear struts snap into bays with opening doors. There are also a pair of swappable head antennas that stick out to the side further, but they included narrower ones that let you transform the head without any parts swapping. I think the only one closer to perfect transformation at this point was the VF-4, just because you don't technically need to swap the hands, since it was never supposed to hold a gunpod. I think Bandai just included one because Yamato/Arcadia did with theirs.

Or.. you know. His super parts from the original series that we've been waiting on for several years now. I don't think Bandai is going to attempt a series with this many characters again. The way merchandise gets pushed based on character popularity is completely at odds with a series like this where every minor schmuck gets their own paint scheme. We need to go back to brownie units.

It's going to be strange not seeing him pop up in seemingly everything. Agreed on the roles he took.. he didn't lead, and he didn't seem like he wanted to lead. But he had all kinds of quirky supporting roles in so many films and series, and you could tell he was enjoying himself. It's funny, one of the scenes I remember the most was his guest appearance on Frasier, and I didn't realize it was his first role on any sitcom. One of the interview clips shows him specifically calling that one out as well, since he had worked with Kelsey Grammer on stage in the past, and felt it was a great introduction to the genre, being able to reunite with an old friend. He is going to be sorely missed.

Yeah, agreed on the blue canopy. I'm tempted to swap out the yellow one on the Arcadia and just keep that canopy hidden forever in a battroid display. Fun fact though, you can actually hide away the head lasers on quite a few of the various designs. From what I remember, both the old VF-11 and the rest of the VF-19s are able to slip the center head laser down between the arms and under the shield, just like the crest on the Fire Valk. The 19S and 19P both have side lasers that don't collapse, and won't fit inside like the Fire Valk's, but the central ones all have a sliding hinge that lets them sink below the shield, and between the elbows. It even works with the Arcadia YF-19, but since that one doesn't use the shoulder flaps, and the shield is designed with the notch for the laser, it just winds up looking gappy.

Yeah, very much this. I've been wishing we had the Ba since day one of this line of products. I'm frankly amazed they even bothered to revisit this design at all, but I guess when they have an existing "functional" product, it's low effort cash to just spit more out of the molds in a new color of plastic. Still would have rather had the Elvis version, but I actually question whether Bandai would be capable of making that one without the plastic absolutely disintegrating if you looked at it funny. That swirly sort of pearlescent plastic is generally constructed from at least 50% explodium.

There was a little discussion about this when Bandai's DX came out with the same 102 on it, rather than the 607. I'm not sure where the 607 may have come from, maybe some obscure lineart? Hasegawa may have made it up, and Yamato may have copied them. It might be a Tenjin creation. There aren't any numbers printed on the VT-1 in DYRL either, except for a single frame. There's a close-up of some part of the valk in a flyby that gets zoomed in so close you can't even tell what part it's printed on, but there's a nice freeze-frame of a "102" text label in at least one frame. Edit: Found the post here:

Thanks for saving me the trouble of digging that up again, and helping me not sound like a broken record. I've been messing with my copy for a few days as well since I just got mine with a couple other items from HLJ, and agree on pretty much everything said. It really is a perfect little Yamato Mini-Me, with pretty much all of both the positives and negatives carried over. That long leading edge has bugged me ever since the first CAD teasers of the Yamato release. It really comes down to the proportions of the wing sections, and how wide they are relative to the fuselage. One of these days, I really want to experiment with making a wider wing glove that lessens the sweep angle of the LEX, and pushes it back further along the neck like the original HM. It's part of why I like the YF-19 layout so much, and the VF-19F/S are also a little better, just from not having the canards highlighting how far forward it extends. Interestingly, the new 1/100 HG kit plays an interesting compromise by having the LEX slightly curved, which I don't mind. I'm really curious to see where Bandai goes with their DX version, if it ever sees the light of day, but the initial teaser display seemed like it was leaning toward the long LEX again. Otherwise, all good points, and pretty much my same experience. The metal joints are all terribly stiff, and need some working back and forth and lube to function properly. The arm extensions also gave me a little trouble, taking what felt like excessive force before they would lock in the collapsed or extended position. The right hip definitely seems to be a problem spot. Mine was ridiculously resistant to rotation, and the two halves of the hip didn't quite line up as they should. I wound up taking both apart to loosen up, and in the process noticed that the tiny metal hook shapes that loop around the screw tunnel were both slightly bent. I was able to correct one, but the other snapped off as soon as I gave it any pressure. Not a problem though, the hip still screws together rightly around the joint, and the alignment is better now without the off-kilter hook. A few little differences I did notice were related to how the valk does or doesn't lock together in this scale. Bandai removed a lot of the smaller alignment tabs in the wing and leg areas, and the transformation is better for it, I think. It's also missing the torso lock in fighter mode from the crotch plate, but the metal hinge is stiff enough that it really doesn't need that mechanism to stay together. It's not nearly so overly-sensitive to things being out of alignment, and the legs and wings can just be pulled down without any massaging that you needed to do on the 1/60 versions. The shoulder locking tabs are still a little overly strong though, and it's worse in this version because instead of being a pinned hinge, the shoulder covers just snap on, rather than being on a pivot. You really just have to twist the legs out from under them, rather than popping the shoulders as the first step out of fighter mode. Happy to see the ankles are either "resolved" or just not an issue anymore. Whether that's due to a design change, or just the valk no longer weighing enough to make the ankles feel sloppy is up for grabs. Overall though, I'm really impressed at how close to perfect-transformation they got this one. I was really expecting more swapped parts for the head, but they managed to fit everything in, provided you just use the straight antennas, rather than the angled ones. Paint looks like a dead match for the Yamato, and the matching is very good, though I wish they'd gone a bit more golden and less lemon on the yellow parts. The tone used on the HG kit feels like a much better, warmer gold than pure yellow. Far as the gear are concerned, I haven't had the doors pop off of mine, but the rear gear have always been those sort of blocky constructs on the VF-19, so that's not something Bandai did. Now the wait begins for whether they decide to put out the other variants, and the rest of Sound Force. I'll probably grab a few of the Blazers if I can, and hopefully the P as well, since the parts are already engineered for the shoulder fins.

That's what I was wondering, I remember hearing that discussion once or twice with different Starscream releases. Amusing to me that he picked up on that and carried it over into those pins.

I have to ask, are the upside-down logos on his lapels just a coincidence, or a reference? XD

I can definitely get that. To me, it's probably just something about identifying the valks with the characters.. which requires the characters to actually be memorable, in and of themselves. It's an association thing. With these.. yeah, there was nothing memorable about the battles to identify any of the individual valks with. They all (motion) blurred together into a giant pile of mecha-scissoring.

Yeah, this one is something I refuse to even try and understand. I would almost feel guilty for it, but I want to send a letter to Arcadia and go, "Hey, you see the HMR? Just do that. Thanks."

Important to note that the kits do have limitations and are more fragile in general, but the 262 kit seems to be the best of the bunch for the most part, in terms of being what I would call "playable," at least compared with the VF-25s and VF-31s. There are a couple of fragile parts, but they can be reinforced. The kit's transformation just feels like it comes together better than the DX version... considering how difficult the hands are to work with on the DX, I'd almost say having removable hands on the kit is more of a benefit than a drawback.

I thought they were marketing them as individual XL-sized models, but I'd have to look again. Agreed that the designs don't interest me though. What I'd really like to see is them actually put a quarter-ass's worth of effort into an Enterprise refit. I never picked up the Eaglemoss ones because they were so terribly done. As much as I would love to pick up that Tomy Refit, I'm just afraid of disappointment, and finding space to put it. I've already got the build-a-ship TNG Enterprise kits clogging up closet space, and I'm entirely unsure of how to even start that monstrosity. The engineer in me wants to break out that whole kit, pull out all of the painted exterior panels from it, and then toss the entire internal framework and lighting kit in my spare parts bin, and go to work designing a completely new internal support structure and lightning system that would actually approach making half a lick of sense. It's just so obnoxiously engineered and nonsensical the way they built it. On the other hand, the practical side of me wants to just finish collecting the kits, never open any of them, and then sell the whole thing off once the prices climb, and spend some of the money to hunt down the Aoshima release.

Oh there is an entire pile of improvements I would bring over from the kit, given the option. The wings always just stuck with me as the worst, because of how sloppy they are with the draken mounts. The whole thing is just another case of Bandai's brain halves not speaking to each other.

That really is the dancing elephant in the room.. when was the last time Arcadia sold a VF-1 that wasn't a DYRL VF-1S? The last ones I got from them were the PF M&Ms and VE-1, which all happened over five years ago now. Can they just not even justify producing anything but those two specific VF-1S versions now? I might even bite at a PF version of either if they did them. They've done the PF YF-19, VF-0D and VF-4A in the interim, but those are where they started raising the "premium" in their PF releases to include weathering and panel lining, and I was just crossing my fingers they'd get around to the VT-1. I'm absolutely not expecting the ThreeZero releases to ever even attempt most of the schemes Yamato did back in the day though. Considering the Robotech branding, I'd be very surprised for them to even dip into the DYRL designs at all, which knocks strike packs off of the menu.

I'm not going to hold out hope that they made any improvements, but they'd do well to examine the 1/72 kit for how to simplify and improve the entire transformation. It's really bizarre that the plastic kit feels like it locks together more solidly than the DX version. Specifically the wings.. The DX relies entirely on the tabs in the outer wing portions to lock into the legs, which is why they needed the clear brackets for the drone boosters. In comparison, the snap kit's entire wing armature clicks into place against the leg, making the whole thing lock together like a brick.

I can't blame them for going back to the popular/simple releases to drum up business, but it feels like they're just stuck in limbo, unable to innovate due to some combination of competition and costs rising to make new molds out of reach.

I'm right there with you, but considering how many re-issues we've seen of the YF-19 since it released, I'm really thinking they just can't financially justify making the YF-21 in 1/48. I'll remain hopeful, especially considering the anniversary year, but I'm just not really expecting anything this far along.

I've actually been spoiled by some of the more detailed versions, since Hasegawa's are indented, and the HMR releases use those as notches to secure the hips. I'd forgotten the Yamato one was just painted on with no molding.

Since metallics usually require a dark basecoat, I wonder if they're coating the whole thing with a black filler primer to level out the texturing, and then buffing the topcoat. I'd be really surprised if the thing moves as well as the normal releases though, that much paint is going to wreak havoc with the tolerances.

I'm going to have to get my airbrush out and actually learn to use it, I've had it for years at this point. Looking beautiful! Always loved those bright oranges on aircraft.

Ah, I wasn't aware the rest of those adapters existed. The only ones this set had were the standard ones that would come with the VF-1s.

I do not own one of the original Yamato launch arms to compare it to, but this one is definitely weighted down with metal in the base, a solid metal mounting arm, and it's very sturdy. The ratchets are a little tough to move, and sound a bit harsh, but they're not going anywhere easily, so it's not what I'd call a bad thing. It also comes with all of the adapters, so you're good for any mode of display, including the removable nose escape pod (which one of the reviews I watched commented on, since they had to look up what it was). This thing doesn't skimp on accessories at all, the basic release comes with everything you'd find in a late-issue Yamato strike VF-1 bundle (minus the strike cannon), including the side covers, battroid ejection seat mount, and neck filler pieces. The transparent red fast pack covers are a pre-order bonus, while the launch arm stand is only included in the deluxe edition, for about $25 more, which feels like a bargain compared with what those stands sold for originally. Price-wise? It's almost exactly what I paid for an original release Yamato VF-1S strike bundle in 2008, so long as you ignore the currency shenanigans over the past fifteen years. I saw it had gone to sold out a day ago on ShowZ... and then went back up for pre-order last night. I might have just put in a pre-order for a third copy. If they're doing multiple production runs, I'll be interested to compare, and see if any of the little first run issues are fixed. As much as I liked the metallic paint on the KC 1/72 version, I'm really glad I went with this. The packaging is perfect, and the quality is extremely good for a KO, at half the price of the KC God of Flame.

If it exists on the PC, I'm certain there probably are ways to do it, but they won't be official. I don't know if you'd be able to spoof the game into downloading the Japanese content with a VPN or not, but if the game has a big enough audience, I'm sure someone somewhere will find a way to patch in the missing content.