Chronocidal

You know, I actually wondered why we don't see more transforming custom Hasegawas anymore. I mean, we've had so many more kits released now, you'd think there would be more people wanting to customize them. I mean.. customizing a 1/48 to transform might be a bit redundant, but I really want to see someone make a transforming 1/48 YF-19.

Oh, not saying I don't already. I'm just saying it's funny how a company as experienced with plastic models/toys/etc as Bandai could have such trouble molding a flat piece of plastic, when their competition has been at it for years now.

That actually would explain a lot about the wings, but I still can't exactly comprehend how Bandai has NEVER been able to make their wings flat. It's not exactly something other people can't clearly do...

Well.. ok. As much as I love Freespace2, I'm sick of that engine being the go-to for every single space combat game in recent existence. People have managed to do amazing things with it, but there are still a lot of things that you'll probably need a new engine to achieve. Mostly, I want full 3D cockpits. We've had those since 1998 in many games, most of which weren't anywhere as good as FS2. Also.. You know... For petes sake.. I WANT TO BE ABLE TO LAND MY SHIP MANUALLY. I honestly can't put into words how sick I am of "press X to enter the hangar/hyperspace" to end missions. That, and I'm tired of sims being limited to either space or atmosphere. Some games have tried to incorporate planetary and space flight, but it's only done very rarely. Last good version I remember was Wing Commander III, and even that had to rely on cutscenes for reentry. I'd love for someone to take up the challenge of building a seamless transition from spaceflight to atmospheric/surface attack missions.

Yeah, I noticed the lopsided wings on mine too, but it wasn't too pronounced. I kinda don't get it. How is there this much variation in quality? Are they making each one by hand?

So did Bandai and Hasegawa make some kind of crazy trade deal so they could tackle each other's Macross product realms? First the Hasegawa VF-25, now this. Hasegawa definitely has made dedicated battroid kits though, so I don't think that was ever a restriction on them.. maybe they just weren't allowed to make transforming kits? Could be they never wanted to try. I do hope that this kit gets a foot into the door to wedge it open, and they make a lot more of these, because I'd love to see more transforming kits like the VF-25, especially if they decide to tackle the more magical transformations like the YF/VF-19 and YF-21/VF-22. Not to mention all the other valks that have never even been seen as a 1/72 mass production kit, let alone one that transforms. I'll probably grab one or two of these, just to see what they're like. If they do manage to mold them with the same type of color division as the VF-25 kits, I hope they make a full series of them, since I wouldn't mind building a couple if I don't have to paint them (much). Honestly, I might not even bother painting them... I just love putting things together, and it's always fun to see how new iterations treat the transformation mechanisms of the VF-1. They won't be easy to paint or anything, and probably just as painful to build as the VF-25 kits, but I'm just interested in seeing how the design works at that scale. The question is, are they aiming to truly make a replacement for the classic 1/72 Bandai Perfect Variable VF-1 kit line? Or is this just a one-off anniversary thing that'll turn into a collector's item?

Doubtful, since you'll need to be able to realign the legs to apply the leg packs, and I doubt Hasegawa will make it easy to do. You might have individual leg pieces, but you'll need reworked knee joint at the very least. Suppose you could always mashup the two kits though, assuming they match up well enough. Either way.. I'll be looking forward to some quality decals on these, as well as landing gear that doesn't suck. Don't know how many I'll buy, since I've picked up so many of the Bandai kits (both 1/72 and 1/100 versions), but I'm interested to see what Hasegawa can do with this design. Enough with 1/72 though, where's my 1/48 version?

WIN. Although.. dangit. Now I want more so the scales match, and I already have 6 of the cheap 1/100 kits. Guess the bonus to this is that you could build the transforming kits permanently in battroid/gerwalk mode. Also.. hah.. I'd love to see the gear linkage required to synchronize the wing sweep on that one.

HOLY $#!%%!!!! Chris Roberts, I salute you. Not only have you personally revived my hopes that the awesomeness that was Wing Commander might someday return, but you did it while simultaneously throwing an absolutely massive middle finger toward the current game market. Bravo. Also, I wouldn't get my hopes up about a Frontier style sim, though I hope mods are able to happen. Roberts' sims have always been more a mix of Star Wars and atmospheric physics than realistic, thruster driven, newtonian pysics sims. That being said.. I'm so freaking psyched. What's actually funny... the ships look like they came straight out of Wing Commander. Inside and out. They've even got the classic gunsight-style center sensor display. But now they're fully 3D cockpits. Bottom line? I want WC remade in this engine. Start to finish, or at least 1-3. It almost looks like you could just patch in classic WC ships, and they'd fit right into the existing game, fighters, carriers, and all. The only concern I've got now is that this'll wind up being another game focused on online play. That in itself isn't exactly a terrible thing, but if it goes the route that Mechwarrior Online has, it'll nix any possibility of a larger epic single-player campaign. Even worse if it goes free-to-play, but runs on microtransactions, which will pretty much destroy any chance of anyone making mods for it. Granted.. given how successful MWO seems to be so far, it's still a step forward for the sim genre, and I'd LOVE to see a decent online space sim MMO. Black Prophecy was so beautiful, such a great physics engine, and had SO much potential, but it was entirely wasted on a design team who have no concept of how to design a usable control scheme (to say nothing for the rest of the bass-ackwards game design choices). Drawing sim-fans in with a control setup that allows full stick/throttle/rudder control assignments, and then making you unlock "maneuver skills" that require you to "double tap" the throttle, or push it to max and min simultaneously... yeah. No.

Ok, after looking a little closer, it might not even be as complicated as I originally thought to do a combined 1/48 Yamato/Hasegawa booster/stand. I thought the booster covered more of the legs, but it's just over the feet. The complicated part would be setting up the booster to accept the folded tail structure on the 1/48 Yammie. Once that's done though, you just mold it to fit up against the backplate, and surround the feet. You could support the entire thing by placing supports that extend under the backplate where the wings would fold into. To adapt it to the Hasegawa kit, you'd make a custom plug that would fill the hole for the tail section, and just glue the booster directly to the fuselage. You'd also need custom plugs for the feet to make sure the hasegawa legs fit snugly, and custom knee joints to drop the legs, since they haven't made a 1/48 super VF-1 kit yet. This actually works better, since you could design the custom knee joints to make sure you can align the kit's legs with the body, even if there's some positioning difference between the Hasegaway and the Yamato. Really, whether this would be possible or not depends on how close the kit is to the Yamato. Since the kit is much more adaptable, you'd want to build the booster with the Yamato in mind, and then adapt the kit to fit it. You're probably not going to ever bridge the gap between collectors and model builders, but this would give the maximum flexibility. You'd be able to sell the kit to builders who want a model, and to collectors who want a cool stand for their 1/48ths. You'd just need a couple extra filler parts to adapt it to the Hasegawa. The real trick would probably be making it so you could remove the Yamato valk. You might have to make the booster split in half so you could lift the top, drop the VF-1 into place, and set it back down to cover it.

Ok, so, update on this missing crotch plate. Got an email back from NY, after asking what options I have. I basically told them that I'm missing a piece, and since it's rather small, I'd rather order just the part instead of returning the entire item. Their reply was quite encouraging actually, and they've asked me for the product barcode, and part reference number to contact Bandai with, in order to request the spare part. So, now I might need some help from those of you who might know where to look. I don't have a "part reference number" per se, but what I do have is the part name, garnered from my Alto Super Pack set. The exact part name in Japanese is "本体股部" (whether the kanji will show up correctly here, I don't know), and according to an online translator, it roughly means "crotch body." Sounds about right. It's not called out at all in the normal instructions. If anyone here knows of a way I could potentially get a part reference number from Bandai, that'd be great, otherwise, I'm just going to reply to NY with the product code, and part name. It's at least worth a shot.

Here's a fun question.. could you make a booster that's adaptable to either the Yamato or Hasegawa? I'd have to research how the booster attaches to see how difficult that would be, but wouldn't you have to remove/replace a good portion of the Hasegawa kit before you could attach the booster? Let's assume any attachment for the Hasegawa would be a permanent addition. If you designed the booster to fit the 1/48 Yamato VF-1 as-is, you might be able to make it able to be attached/removed. Maybe. Again, I'm not sure if that would be possible, depending on how it has to attach. I'm not thinking of something you'd pick up and zoom around as much as I'm picturing the booster/rail as an elaborate display mounting that you could remove the valk from if you wanted. Now, to attach a Hasegawa kit to it, you'd just need a replacement piece that fills in where the Yamato would go. Since you're not going to be removing the valk, you just need a filler that will give you something to glue the kit pieces to. While the booster itself would be able to accommodate a 1/48 Yamato VF-1, you just need a dummy plug that covers the openings for the Yamato, and provides the sections of the kit that would need to be modified. It'll definitely be more complicated to do that way, and I'm really not sure how viable the concept of a removable Yamato display is, but I can probably draw up a quick sketch of what I'm thinking if anyone likes the idea.

K then, guess they just changed packaging standards on this one. One funny thing to note.. they actually made the gunpod bigger compared with the first version. It's not huge difference, maybe about half an inch, but I might be tempted to mod the old one to fit now. Actually, I'm tempted to try out the gun from my 1/72 kit, and see if it looks a little more reasonable in size when mounted. Going by the one shot I've seen so far (about 5:15 into episode 7, right as Ozma calls for Planet Dance formation) the gun should only reach from the hip clips on the plate behind the landing gear, to the back edge of the ankle collars. That makes this gun about an inch and a half too long. On the other hand, the gun from the kit looks dead on. Go figure. I wonder how difficult and expensive it would be to scale up the kit gun, and Shapeways it? Probably no way you'd get the same level of detail, but it'd be interesting to try.

There wasn't any red tape anywhere, just an abunance of yellowish tape holding down the cardboard over the styrofoam. Usually it's just a simple few pieces holding it, but this had tape wrapped all the way around the edge, and folded over the foam. Just my speculation about the QC inspection. The outer box wasn't double taped, so if someone did open it, it happened before they put it in the actual outer box.

Yeah, it's just not worth that much to me. If someone who has contacts in Japan wants to try and order a spare replacement from Bandai directly, I'd be happy to compensate them for the effort/shipping, but I'm not going to ship the whole thing back for something that small. Since I doubt Ozma will ever be out of his armor in battroid, maybe I'll just repaint his normal crotch plate blue.

So, I got some time on a business trip to read a good chunk of book 2, and yeah. The book makes the anime actually make a lot more sense. Anyhow.. yeah. I'd actually really love to see a full blown redo of the anime. There's enough material there to make a 20+ episode series. The biggest reason the anime is so incomprehensible is just how much explanation and internal thought process got cut out for all the characters.

With NY, probably not, I think someone said they don't deal directly with replacements. If they do, great, but I'm not holding my breath on it. They do say on their site that they will work with the production companies about problems though, so I'm going to contact them to find out. Really though. It's probably 10 cents worth of plastic. Unless I can get just that part shipped to me, the process to get a replacement will be approaching the value of the entire thing, so I don't see the point in bothering with it. I could probably make one via Shapeways in less time than it would take for me to ship it back, and have them ship me a new one. Now, if someone here has a way to contact Bandai's customer service directly, that'd be great. But again, the cost to ship is going to be far more than the part is worth. Basically, this is just one of those ways that everyone in rest of the world has been screwed over because of HG's nonsense. I'm just glad that when I finally did get personally screwed, it was something relatively minor.

Well I have to admit, for as many other possible issues that could have shown their ugly head, I'm glad it's something relatively simple, and hidden (except in battroid). I might be tempted to get the super packs now, just so the spare crotch I'm using doesn't look out of place. Well.. I should say more out of place.. considering the ones with super packs are unpainted anyway. I've got the one from my Alto packs as a placeholder now, just to keep the head held up in fighter mode. I think though, that the main reason for this is that it looks like I actually got one of the ones randomly pulled for QC inspection (ironic, isn't it?) The packaging had a bunch of extra tape on it, as if it had been opened and re-sealed, and it was actually mis-transformed in the box. Whoever was fiddling with it had left the gerwalk support hanging down between the arms instead of folding it up, and it was keeping the entire thing from locking properly. However left it like that probably knocked off the crotch piece and never noticed.

Picked mine up about an hour ago, and have to agree, they definitely tightened this one up a good amount. Not perfect, since of course, the right shoulder joint is alreadly mostly limp, but the wings aren't flopping around. Unfortunately... one more case of missing crotch plate. I noticed the head sitting too low in fighter, and didn't realize it until I pulled down the legs, but yeah. They just flat out forgot it. Of all the ones to forget it on too, this is the one I might actually pose in Battroid. If anyone has a way to acquire replacement parts directly, I'd greatly appreciate help with this one. I don't think NY deals in spares, but if someone who ordered from HLJ could request the part for me, that'd be amazing. Although, I'm not sure how HLJ deals with spare parts from Bandai. I'm open to anyone with ideas about this one, really. Otherwise, I might just steal the crotch plate from Alto or Ozma and repaint it, since those two mostly stay in fighter, or with armor.. or maybe even not, since I don't think the white plate from Alto would look bad anyway.

Hey, they at least got that right. But yeah, I dunno about the gray plastic then, that's just lame. Maybe it's because they just couldnt justify the waste to mold more parts in that color. Dunno about the canopy though. I'm under the impression that they actually are using tinted plastic like in the 1/100 kits, so I don't think there's any coating you would damage by polishing it.

I actually wouldn't really count on that unfortunately, since off the top of my head, I'm not sure if any of Ozma's parts were actually molded in that gray. I could be wrong, but it seemed like all the sections in that partiicular color were only painted. If that isn't the case then they have no excuse, but it probably would have been cheaper to paint the pieces than try to mix a second color of gray plastic, just for that release. In the VF-25G's case, blue and white are used a lot, so there's no extra expense involved in using white plastic. Or, you know, they might have just thrown out another production run of just the particular parts tree containing those pieces for the Alto, and recycled the excess parts. Makes me wonder what kind of shenanigans we'll have to deal with when Luca's comes out, since I'm pretty sure his is another mix of similar shades that will probably get painted instead of molded in color.

THIS. BUT: Only if it includes Sivil showing up with a rocket launcher, and trying to kill them, and a massive hovercar/valk chase scene, involving the most massive pileup of cannon fodder in history, led by Leon driving a space Volkswagen.

Even recast in clear, I don't think you'll ever fix the fact that those stands are just ridiculously massive The huge pedestal/stand for my UCS Lego Star Destroyer was less distracting than those black monstrosities.

I don't remember off the top of my head what the conversion at the time was, but I know I got mine for 16,000 yen, plus shipping. I pretty much preordered with NY from the day they had it, so I missed the price hikes. According to the tracking number it hit customs already, so I might have it by the end of this week. Edit: Whoa. Seriously.. I just checked the tracking number on the USPS site: I don't think I've ever seen a package get processed, and arrive in LA the same day. Granted, there's a big time change in there to help... but still.

Sorry, I shouldn't have found this funny, but it definitely made me laugh. For all the supposed "accuracy" of the way the painted it, they still used the wrong colors. I really do wonder about those dumb white landing gear doors though, and whether they're just an animaton error. It looks pointless to paint them that way, and I know there is production art of the VF-25G that has the entire underside of the nose white. It just looks so much better that way, I wish they'd never corrected that goof from the first version.