Chronocidal

Holy cow, seriously? I have never been happier to see a web exclusive item in my life. Yeah, if orders allow it, I'm grabbing three. But is that the date for the orders to open, or a date when they'll show a prototype?

YES. YESSSSS. I need at least two of these. That design is just so pretty. Does that say the preorder opens on July 25, or is that a preview date? Wonder if they modified the gunpod for Isamu like in the game? He had a bayonet added to the standard YF-29 gunpod.

Ick, I had the same thing happen with the VF-27. I got concerned about it, so I went back and manually cancelled one, and that seems to have worked, but that's a lousy way to deal with website glitches. Hopefully they'll be able to fix it.

Yeah, seriously, everyone relax. That's the cad drawing. The VF-19S had that same exact color canopy in the cad, and their prototype pics all show a clear canopy. Everything they have so far (besides the prototype photospread) is the cad model with minimal markings. The only markings on there are the ones done via natural dividing lines in parts, which is why the tails and panel between the canards are colored, but the wing stripes aren't there yet.

Hehe, I picked up a bunch of the idolmaster kits a while back because they were on clearance discount. Figured the savings was worth a few extra coats of paint to cover the neon plastic.

To be fair, I think Yamato's gunpods have always been a bit small, but it never bothered me. The head thing is a bit ridiculous though. Most of the pics are plenty high-res to see what people are disliking. The shoddy alignment, the wonky proportions, plus those ducking fugly knee joints that have been an eyesore since the first prototype pics surfaced. And that's before you even look at the redesigned super packs. As far as the nose goes, the sliced off nose tip isn't the problem, it's the entire shape as a whole that's off. It's perfectly possible to match side and top profiles of a shape, but still be a completely different shape. I don't think it's as bad as the early prototypes were, and it's not terrible, but the shape of that nose has entirely different profile curves than pretty much every VF-1 ever made. I could go into details about exactly how it's different, but I'm thinking in terms of how you would duplicate the shape in a 3D modeling program, and it gets complicated. Whether it matches the lineart or not, I just find this interpretation ugly. Really, most of the problems are pretty minor, but it's just the overall combination of weirdness that kills it for me. For all the ingenuity that went into some features, there are other bits that I just can't comprehend how anyone could think they would be a good idea.

That entire idiotic leg design is the problem. There is no freaking reason they needed some overcomplicated interlock mechanism in the leg. It just made it a royal pain in the backside to rotate the legs, because the interlocks are so stupidly twitchy. All they had to do was make a decently sturdy rotating joint for the lower leg to twist on, but noooooooo.... I was honestly wondering how long it would be til someone snapped a leg off due to that stupid mess.

If you've got a good gamepad, there's been very stable and capable emulators for the N64 for a long time now, they're worth checking out. Not quite the same without that original 3-pronged controller, but it feeds the itch nicely in a pinch.

It wasn't the nose sticking too far ahead, it was the plane nosing over into the ground because the feet couldn't bend far enough to place the legs far enough forward to put them under the center of gravity. The stand mount on the VF-19 was worthless though. By far, the least sturdy attachment point of any Yammie to date. Fighter mode was far too back-heavy for the clip to stay attached on mine, and even for gerwalk with the legs flipped forward, the stand mount was still too far forward of the balance point for the thing to not topple off backwards.

Judging by the assembly pics, there's no thigh swivel for gerwalk stance. The VF-25s never had it either. Whatever actual splay you get in the legs is probably either due to joint froppyness, or maybe those funky thigh pivots actually flex inward, and allow the toes to look like they're pivoting outward. The entire leg just looks like a pile of ass in gerwalk, because they cut the leg for the hinges in entirely the wrong place. Since they cut the lower thigh section so short, there's no upper leg in gerwalk at all. Either they made the upper thigh too long, the lower leg too long, or both, and the middle section of the leg is just nonexistent.

I think we've only seen one or two cases of it, and I believe one was dropped off a shelf to cause the damage in the first place. I wouldn't say it's wide-spread at all, but it's something that can happen if the right pressure is applied. The VF-19's nose is just much easier to detach than the YF-19's, and the plastic is also a higher quality.

Fighter may look incredibly froppy, but it's still miles ahead of that gerwalk. There's just no way to make those knees look good.

Eh, I dunno if the removable covers are actually worth it. Those blocky upper edges on the intakes really look like they would disrupt the airflow. But meh, that's kind of a minor thing compared with all the other things they got right. Might be an easy fix if you just add some material to extend the upper lip. Anyway though, no offense to those who like the DN and BoP schemes, but those were just incredibly lazy palette swaps that wound up painting a bunch of panels nonsense colors. Screw that noise, I want the freaking originals this time. They gave us those Supernova logos on the VF-19 sheets, so I see absolutely no reason why they shouldn't just go for the full scheme this time.

Looks awesome for the overwhelming majority of hints, but those upper intake lips look way too blocky to me....probably. so it can have the removable covers. Also, fast packs are already mounted in one pic.

Funny, exchange rates must have tweaked overnight, NY is listed $1 cheaper than it was when I went to sleep.

Yeah, actually, I chose eco-registered, and it came out $10 cheaper than CD Japan (which I already paid for ). Chose not to pre-pay for NY this time though, so I'll just pay this one off down the road. That makes 2 for me, which will probably be plenty. By the way, NY will let you order more than one, so keep that in mind if you want more.

Back up at NY for same price!

NY Appears to be out of stock again, HLJ still not up.

Not sure hot HLJ will do it, the only time in recent history that they put up a DX for sale on the same night was for the VF-27 renewal, and that was outta thin air. Also, the quote system seems to be goofing up lately.

Eh, I won't be at all surprised if the RVF/CF-171 situation repeats come release time. I think people have eventually learned not to buy the scalper priced stuff, so hopefully we'll be hit by a wave of cancelled sales, and be able to get them cheap-ish at release. I'm going to keep on HLJ and post here if they go up though, at least for a while. Don't have work in the morning, so I'm free to browse for a while still.

It must have jumped back and forth due to either cancellations or confirming stock or something.

Oh now that's weird, CDJapan let me order one now.. they were telling me it was out a minute ago.

CDJapan is definitely out, can't check out there.

I'm just camping hlj for the moment, but if they don't go up, I'll just wait for the inevitable release period fire sale.

I don't think any amount of modeling skill can make those knees look good. The alignment issues are hopefully fixable though. It just looks like it might take even more fiddling than the VF-25s.