If you ask me which Gundam games is the most unique, i would say MS Saga. Out of all Gundam Games that Bandai have released on PS2, This game is really makes itself different compared to others both good and bad. MS Saga is a classic turn based RPG with Gundam Theme where you pilot MS from multiple Gundam series fighting against generic bad guys. I have played this Games few years ago which i was halfway through the game but somehow i left the game unfinished. Last week i started playing MS Saga again and i still find the story and character design are terrible as always. However the gameplay is still pretty good and one of the few Gundam games that you can mix and match MS parts creating your own style of MS. This game also offer pretty hardcore difficulty since the enemies are really strong and makes you have to grind at some point. Currently i just got Hyaku Shiki and probably will get the Zeta Gundam really soon. I already got Marasai and this is what i can get closest to my Karaba version of Marasai.
From the recent Wonderfest this week, Kotobukiya announced several new lineups for their Muv-luv kits. First EF-2000 is finally confirmed to be released for next year along with Su-37 Terminator. Finally the Russian TSF get a Plamo treatment which adds more variety of Kotobukiya's lineup and if things go well probably more Russian TSF will be coming up(Berkut anyone?). Though i don't i will be getting the SU-37 since painting the kit would be a pain due to camo scheme. But i think will probably get the Typhoon since i get some good plans for it. Seeing the trends of the recent Muv-luv kit released by Koto, probably we will see more TSF featured in Total Eclipse released as a kit (perhaps ACTV or F-22 will be coming up?).
Also the 1/144 Muvluv lineup that Koto introduced is getting F-15E Strike Eagle which is unexpected, probably Kotobukiya decided to pull this move as it is less risky compared to releasing the kit in 1/100 scale due to lower cost. Takemikazuchi also get another variant as well, this time it is Type 00-A as a Japan Exclusive mail order stuff released same price as other Takemikazuchi and scheduled on november this year. The kit featured some extra parts that replicate the scene in Kashgar Hive where Ayamine in her heavily damaged Type 00-A ripped off a Grappler class head as a sign of not giving up the fight against BETA despite her TSF condition. Hopefully there will be more TSF kits released by Koto and i am still waiting for my YF-23.
For some reason after a year playing Gihren's greed i decided to play the game again, this time i use the infamous leader of Principality of Zeon with 240 IQ who is no other than Gihren Zabi. Just like Revil's campaign, Gihren's conquest of earth took few days to finish as the reins of all Zeon army is in your hand. Overall Gihren's route is more easier compared to Revil's as you won't face any nasty Mobile Armors like Big Zam or Braw Bro. Compared to EFSF, Zeon starts with much lower resources but arguably better tech tree as they get MS earlier than EFSF. Most of my base capture operation is quite a breeze except when i try to capture New Yark which is the 2nd base i capture. I didn't manage to capture the base fast enough as my Zaku II F and Zaku 1 are poor anti air units and Feddies 2 range bombers called Deep Rogs are slaughtering them and took 20 turns just to capture this base while others took 3 to 5 turns. One Advice for early game is that you try to make as much as anti air unit as possible from Dopps to Zaku II J with Magella as the majority force you will face early on are mostly Air units.
In this playthrough, i try to make Gihren as lawful as possible as i don't use Solar Ray or dropping colonies to earth(which is actually quite useful). I also managed to avoid Garma's death and make Ramba Ral succeed in capturing White Base by sending him Doms. This playthrough also makes me appreciate Zeon's MS more as i understand roles of MS Igloo units or why the weird Acquy Variants are created in the first place and also didn't expect Zaku comes in so many flavors(though most of them are pretty useless). Compared to EFSF, i find Zeon's Grunt and MA are far more superior as they are more powerful despite more costly. Also instead of Mass producing Gelgoogs, i decided to Mass Produce Gyan instead which proved to be really a beast in melee(i can have my revenge on GM Striker!) and High mobility Gyan variants are probably my favorite Zeon MS.
For Zeon's MS, there are couple of recommendations for some units to be mass produced as they are probably some of the better units for Zeon.
-Zaku Cannon
-Dom Cannon(once you get this you can replace your Zaku Cannon)
-Hildolfr(even in late game it still provide some nice artilery support)
-Rick Dom II(just use this unit as the your main backbone units on space)
-Desert Zaku(best Zaku Variant early on since it is able to scan and not totally helpless against air units)
-Any Zeon's MA(they are pretty much monsters)
-High Mobility Gyan(Any Feddy suits try to melee this guy will feel really sorry)
Recently i also managed to finish Garma's playthrough and unlike what i think, i didn't get his new life Zeon scenario in this game which would have been really awesome since Garma with ponytail is the best Zabi. Hopefully in the next installment of Gihren no Yabou we get that scenario again along with Zeta Gundam stuff.
Now, now! after Kaiyodo starting to craft some MH Merchandises, now it is Good Smile Company who is joining the party with their Nendoroids. As the first release, they decided to release Lagiacrus Blademaster which is the armor made from the flagship monster of MH Tri in Wii. The Figure will be released on November this year with price of 3600 yen. It seems Nintendo got some involvement with this release considering it is also a good timing to advertise MH4 for 3DS. But actually this is not the first time that Lagia Armor figure have been sculpted since Volks have released a limited figure for it as well. This is probably a good get for MH fans especially if you got the MH Monster Gashapon to pit the figure against. By the way Renne from Sora no Kiseki series also get full nendoroid treatment where it just got the petit version early this year.
Barely any WIP but anyway i just write a blog post to show my current progress of my MG Marasai. As you can see i almost finished the paint job of Marasai which i got the beam machine gun and the shield left to paint. If things went smoothly probably i can finish working on this kit before 23rd of this month which is the deadline of the GAF group build. As i said before the color scheme that i use for Marasai is for Karaba faction which you can figure out which MS color scheme based on.
While my backlog haven't got cleared yet, i decided to work on my MG Marasai as a part of GAF group build. In this group build i am going to repaint the Marasai as a part of the Group build requirement where i need to paint Marasai with other faction's color scheme other than original. In my case i will be painting Marasai in Karaba color scheme which is the Major opposing faction of Titans on Earth and the color scheme will resemble to one of the MS that Karaba uses. MG Marasai is really good kit in my opinion, while it has some minor problem with articulation, the inner frame quality is much better now. For the Group Build, i will be including Ballute System and LED which is the leftover from my Hyaku Shiki and 00 Designer's version lineup. The LED really makes the MG Marasai much better by several levels because the LED is used really well for this kit.
After Revoltech Rathalos announced few months ago and released recently, Kaiyodo decide to do follow-up of their Revoltech for Monster Hunter series. This time we get the Hunter action figure which is Rathalos Blademaster. The action figure will be released on September this year with 3200 price tag and Just like Rathalos, there will be also Azure version of the Rathalos Armor released in limited run. This version of Rathalos Blademaster is from MH Tri series which got pretty good skill in MHP3 where the armor gives you 50% chance of landing critical hit on enemies weakspot when it comes in a set. The action figure also comes with Rathalos Great Sword and SnS which are MH Tri version as well. I won't be getting this action figure since the Azure version is running out already though hopefully there will be more Hunter Action figure coming up. While i loved to see Lao Shan, Kushala or Teostra armor to get a cut, i think the newer MH armor will be prioritized first in which i will be gladly to get Rathian or Agnator armor.
Hmm in this month i think i managed to hoard pretty rare stuff compared to my past loots. I managed to get Vardant Toy by Megahouse and Armor Plus Tekkaman Rapier from Mandarake relatively cheap. Last time i also saw another spare Vardant and Brave Gohkin Linebarrel which is only 3500 yen though probably they are gone already. I also got Gespenst Mk-II and LBX Odin from Amiami which makes my backlog doesn't get any better though i will probably able to build the LBX relatively fast. If you are looking for Japanese hobby rare stuff, check Mandarake first before deciding to find it elsewhere
Well the 2nd episode is certainly way more satisfying than the first Episode and my expression is just looks like F-14D above. The Total Eclipse anime is more like Muvluv series now because DESPAIR is joining the ride! Basically the 2nd episode shows how terrible BETA are for newcomers to the series where majority of the BETA strains are having really fun party on Kyoto. The BETA and TSF animation are pretty good despite being 3D animation. As expected Yui's friend are all dead in this episode each killed by different strains and the last 2 deaths are probably the most gruesome ones. They don't really put much good fight considering it is their first live battle but it is still a disappointment because they are Royal Guards. It is such a waste that they got to pilot Zuikaku, they should just be given Gekishin instead. Anyway for those who have read Muvluv Alternative, there are some nice cameos in this episode and hopefully there will be more coming up. I didn't expect Type 00-R is already finished by Siege of Kyoto though definitely it is not Ikaruga who pilots it since he used Zuikaku at that time and the Type 00-R animation is one of the main feature of this episode. The 2nd episode makes me resolved to watch Total Eclipse all the way through because i particularly want to see how this anime will end.
Aquarion EVOL has finished recently and around the same time, Bandai also announced release of Super Robot Chogokin for EVOL. The SRC will be released around October this year with 4800 yen price tag just like Solar Aquarion. Aquarion Evol is the main form of Aquarion mainly used by Amata in the series thus it is closely resemble to Solar Aquarion of the prequel. In terms of look, EVOL probably looks slightly cooler though it lacks arsenal compared to Solar Aquarion. So far i have only watched up to 18 episodes of Aquarion Evol and probably need to catch up soon to confirm whether the ending is really disappointing or not.
Genghis Khan is perhaps one of the Historical figure that i really admire thanks to Age of Empire series which i think portraits his exploits really well(Mangudai is awesome unit!). Therefore recently i decided to watch a movie adaptation about Genghis Khan's life called Mongol. Probably you will only watch this Film if you either like history or happen to be Genghis Khan fanboy. Mongol mostly tells about early life of Temujin and his eventual ascension as ruler of Mongol, Genghis Khan. My thought about this movie is rather mixed, The battle in the movie is really lacking because it doesn't really feel like a Mongolian Warfare at all since the majority of the fighters in the battle are Foot Soldiers rather than Horse Archers which are supposed to be the backbone of Mongol Army(i suppose it is due to budget constraints). On the other hand the movie flesh out really well the sources of Genghis Khan's "Yassa Code" which become the Mongolian Empire code of Law stated by the ruler himself. I also didn't expect the Great Khan have his life really hard before he unite Mongol as in the movie he became a Slave at a point of his love. In short if you expect great battles from this movie, you will probably disappointed(like me) since most of the Major Exploits of the Genghis Khan happen in later part of his life which the movie doesn't cover. However the movie tries to shows that even the Great Khan who conquer half of Asia continent have lots of hardships before he become a conqueror.
