4gamer continues the cavalcade of Solatorobo screenshots and art, this time covering more of the game’s main city and more of the main robot, Dahak’s different forms. The Type S, for instance, looks suitably hot-blooded in its promotional art (pictured) for the brawler the screenshots show it to be, and I can’t not love the robot form where both arms become shields. The red form with the stretchy, birdlike arms uses them not only for picking up objects and throwing them but also for grabbing missiles and redirecting them back at their launchers mid-flight, which is probably both physically impossible and totally badass.

The different forms of the Dahak seem to fit well into Solatorobo’s game design, which has thus far shown a propensity towards experimentation with different game concepts. We know that there are both 2D and 3D platforming stages, some of which are also played on foot at times, but we’ve also seen a fishing for battleships minigame, 3D flight areas, and revealed in this new batch of screenshots, a 3D flight racing game (which seems to have different mechanics from the other 3D flight areas).

Fitting into all this talk of different robotic forms and different stages is the reveal that the Dahak seems to also be customizable with a set of chips laid into a gridlike pattern; it looks like there is the possibility for a little bit of fine-tuning the Dahak as well, if a bunch of awesome junkmech forms and a technorgasmic transformation leave you wanting more.

Another Century’s Episode R has finally been released in Japan today. There have been multiple game videos shown already (with one linked below), as it seems that some shops broke the street date. From the rather cool custom soundtracks option, that allows you to use music at specific points in gameplay, to the more worrying use of motion controls it seems that the game has managed to keep a few surprises in store. The most unfortunate of these though has to be the complete removal/changing of the boost system that was used in the last three games. Naturally, we’ll be reviewing the game soon but in the meantime you can import it here.

The upcoming and curious Blu-Ray hybrid game addition Macross Trial Frontier has been given a decent amount of screen time in the lead up to its release at the beginning of October. Around the 2:18 mark, the gameplay footage kicks in and to anyone that’s played the recent PSP games it will all look pretty familiar (though far shinier admittedly). This isn’t exactly a surprise, as this development was telegraphed somewhat when the hybrid pack was announced. Still, it’s nice to see that Artdink have made their mark on contemporary gaming at least in terms of this game’s functional heritage. Whether they were part of the development for this port remains to be seen but considering the striking similarity I can only surmise that someone at Artdink was involved at some point.

Over at Comiket, Takara Tomy have unveiled the next set of Video Game Robotics gashapon that were meant for a June release (that are now scheduled for December instead). In total, the series will contain four mecha from four different games. They are the PDF-802 X-4+ from Power Dolls 2, a PC turnbased strategy game with mecha designed by none other than Hajime Katoki. Followed by the HIGH-MACS 12 from the original Gungriffon and then the V-MH GLORY from the super rare Metal Slader Glory adventure game on the Famicom (later ported to the Super Famicom). The last mecha, of the four, is apparently a new blast runner from the upcoming Border Break Air Burst. However, all this may sound and look wonderful but the last set of gashapon in the range were pretty awful and they cost 700 yen a piece, these new toys cost 400 yen each. Considering the poor quality of the previous set, reducing the price for the new one doesn’t exactly bode well really.

Up at the PlatinumGames official blog, there’s a post from the lead background designer of Vanquish, talking about the influence of Gundam’s space colonies on their game’s visual design. We’ve talked about this obvious influence before but in particular his comment about the team being mainly of “Gundam age” is very interesting. Most of them grew up with this shared cultural experience of Mobile Suit Gundam and other mecha series spawned from the Real Robot explosion that followed in its wake, and this affects Japanese video game development to this day, just as Western video game developers share their own cultural experiences, such as Star Wars and Dungeons & Dragons.

Japanese video games can do very well in the West, but much of the time the peculiar differences that Japanese games can have from Western ones is ignored in the press or simply passed off as “Japan is weird”, without exploring the particular background these differences came from, rather treating game development as if it exists in a vacuum. It’s good to see these differences explained, and this in particular is a good example of the scale of influence the mecha animation genre has had in Japanese video game development.

Over at Gundam.info they’ve released a flash based full 3D photo viewer of the full scale Gundam in Shizuoka. As you can see, we’ve linked it above as well. The four buttons along the bottom, from left to right, allow you to choose the various views of the Gundam (either full body day, fully body night or torso day) as well as move around it from left to right. The final button opens the viewer in full screen mode, which we’ve deactivated here (as it didn’t agree with our blog setup for some reason). In any case, it’s nice to see the Gundam from all angles finally.

Just in case you forgot the game still existed over the course of a week, the well-oiled Solatorobo PR machine continues to chug on, with more screenshots and concept art over at 4Gamer. It seems our canine hero can transform into a shirtless bishonen that is sure to drive the fangirls wild, but more importantly it seems the mecha itself responds to the change, becoming a bit more upright, but strangely also developing glowing green claws. So when he’s a dog, the mecha is a bird, and when he’s a human, it has claws. An unusual approach to mecha henkei, anyway.

4Gamer have again got a nice new selection of screenshots for the upcoming Front Mission Evolved. It’s clear that the PR campaign is in its last desperate throes, as the game is released in September. From more angry characters, minus gratuitous bewbs, and surprisingly large mecha (though somewhat meagre when compared to Armored Core For Answer’s Arms Forts) there’s definitely lots of interesting and shiny content to peruse though.

In the latter half of September, Yahoo will be releasing an augmented reality app for iPhone 3GS and 4 users that will allow visitors to the full sized Gundam in Shizuoka to see a companion MS-06S Zaku II in Char’s colours alongside it. Whether this will also make their phones run three times faster remains to be seen.

Andriasang put up a gallery of new pictures for the Game Formerly Known as Solarobo, but Now Known as Solatorobo, including a few pieces of absolutely beautiful mechanical art. It has that “alternate history/steampunk” look to it that was very common in anime as I was growing up, but eventually seemed to get replaced with cleaner and more modern designs, and I’m glad to see this sort of imaginative work back.

Game Watch Impress has an article with much of the same screenshots and mechanical works featured, plus a few extra details if you can read Japanese or are willing to wade through a machine translated version of it. Most of the details in the article are about gameplay elements we’ve seen in action before, but it’s good to know that “dog-man in a bird-robot fishing for battleships” is still a planned feature.

Speaking of things we’ve already seen, the small gameplay videos that were released were edited into a much prettier single movie, complete with gorgeous backgrounds and music. The wide variety of game modes, and the sheer charm of the graphics they’ve been able to squeeze out of the lowly Nintendo DS, have gradually changed my outlook on this game from being a mere curiosity to being a “must have!” title, simply because there isn’t and won’t be anything quite like it. The industry as a whole seems afraid to innovate in 3D action games and platformers, preferring to use proven-successful genre formulas or licensed characters to carry these games, but these fellows are doing something amazing with Solatorobo. Here’s to hoping that the game does indeed get released outside of Japan.

A preview video has also been released, mostly showing off the game’s cast of characters, who are still animal people and not robots like we would prefer: