Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan, we’ve been sent a toy from one of our favourite anime series, that of Aura Battle Dunbine to review. Specifically, the Robot Damashii Zwarth that’s on sale. In addition, to give the toy some context, we’ve also linked gameplay and anime footage of it in action at the end of the review.

Following on from the Layzner Mk2 announced recently, Bandai will also be releasing a Layzner with V-MAX parts early next year. This is a partial re-release of the original Layzner toy from 2007, just with a different set of armor to swap out. This is also a toy of the first Layzner and doesn’t have the parts to build the New Layzner seen towards the end of the show. The base also doesn’t talk or light up on this new version either. In addition to all this we recently finally received the final fansubbed episodes for the show. Whilst we don’t normally post fansub links, Layzner is somewhat special and we’re just happy more people can finally see this great series.

Following on from the Gundam Unicorn themed DLC for Gundam Side Stories we now have the second set released today on PSN. This includes some new VR missions as well as two new mobile suits; the Pezun Dowadge and the Efreet Nacht. We’re sorta meh on the former but the later is cool as we enjoyed Gundam Senki 0081. This could also mean we might get some 7th Gundam DLC too, which would be pretty nice. Talking of VR missions, the game is actually better without all the story stuff getting in the way. Much like the older PS2 Gundam games, the core gameplay on its own holds up much better than when it has to tell a story. This was true in Journey to Jaburo with the Tactics Battle setup, that later basically made up the backbone of the far better Lost War Chronicles. Without all the manky cutscenes to ruin the ambiance, Side Stories is actually really solid.

Last seen this year at an earlier Nintendo Direct and previously known as X, Nintendo has finally given us more information on the upcoming RPG Xenoblade Chronicles X for the Wii U. Delayed until 2015, Nintendo showed off a CG trailer during its E3 Digital Event on Tuesday, June 10, showcasing the game’s story origins with a gigantic war between two alien factions above Earth. Even though they attempt to thwart the alien attacks with their mechanized dolls, the humans eventually escape from Earth facing extinction and eventually crash land on a planet in another galaxy. The story feels very reminiscent of the Phantasy Star series and that is by no means a negative, providing the foundations of what players will be engrossing themselves with when they play. Later on in the day, Nintendo provided a 45 minute presentation of the game during its Treehouse Live event, showcasing gameplay systems that appear to be an evolution of the Xenoblade on the Wii. Granted we did not see any doll gameplay, we can only hope they provide more mecha goodness before E3 ends. Until then, check out the CG trailer and Treehouse Live gameplay presentation below!

This month Bandai Namco will be adding three more units into the Gundam Extreme Versus Maxi Boost roster. They are Blitz Gundam, Johnny Ridden’s Zaku II, and Lacus’ Infinite Justice. While we’ve seen Johnny Ridden’s Zaku II and Lacus’ Infinite Justice as Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost DLC, Blitz Gundam has not seen playable action in the Versus series since Gundam Seed Destiny Plus. Armed with the Mirage Colloid cloaking effect that appears to act like Deathscythe Hell Custom’s stealth system and an Aegis assist, it looks to be a rather interesting addition to the already stacked roster as a melee oriented 2000 cost unit. So be sure to check out the announcement vids for the characters below!

So since Gundam Side Stories launched it’s been getting pretty terrible user reviews. Now in Japan these tend to have more weight with fans, more so than press reviews in fact, but this also means that we’ve already seen some initial price cuts. Whilst this is not an official reduction, a 40% decrease in price is pretty massive. Admittedly this is for the standard edition of the game, as the limited edition is still at full price, but even then this is pretty serious. It’s likely this has happened because outlets like Amazon have excess stock they need to shift, as the user reviews have relegated the game to the online bargain bin. Whether this price cut will shift over to importers is unlikely though, at least for the interim. In terms of sales, the game has done sorta average (at around 80k in its first few days). In any case, we ‘re hoping Bandai Namco will learn from this episode and either give these games a bigger budget or focus the scope to use the budget they already have.

One of the biggest mistakes Gundam games make is when they try and put you in the shoes of a Newtype. It always ends up being disappointing as it is an impossible thing to get right. We’re not meant to be Newtypes, not yet anyway, and Gundam games should acknowledge this.

This is where the Blue Destiny trilogy came in. Released across three mini-games, they placed you as a grunt GM pilot on the front-lines. Not only that, you got it all via a faithfully claustrophobic first person cockpit view. Put simply, this approached nailed what the Gundam mythos was about in a way that hadn’t been done before. It’s also one of the best Gundam games ever made.

Now that our review for Gundam Side Stories is up, we wanted to add a few more bits that cover the narrative. The reason why these aren’t in the main review is that these are pretty hefty spoilers. Whilst we don’t really care about spoilers some people lose their shit, so this concession is for them. This is by no means comprehensive but more the parts we thought worth mentioning.

Some of the finest Gundam games ever made have been the “gaiden”, or side story, entries. These are on the whole admired by fans of the Gundam saga, as they place the player as grunts on the front lines. Understandably, when a collection such as Gundam Side Stories was announced many people were obviously overjoyed. As modern day remakes of these classic games would be a wonderful thing indeed.

It then transpired that these classic games wouldn’t actually be remade, instead they would use a new game setup and only be recreated in a narrative sense. Despite this obvious disappointment, the new game is actually rather good but the overall package is very patchy and inconsistent. As such this is one of the more challenging games we’ve had to review over the years.

After much wait Gundam Side Stories is released today in Japan. However, because we’re awesome we got a copy of the Limited Edition a day early (pictured above). So from playing about fifteen or so missions on the Slave Wraith side of Missing Link this is what we think of it thus far. In terms of controls and gameplay, it’s actually pretty great. It’s fluid and simple but with some nice weight to it. It feels like an amalgam of the old Blue Destiny games mixed with Lost War Chronicles and Zeonic Front. In terms of the latter, you have three units per team and you can switch mid-combat between them (like in Zeonic Front somewhat). These also act as your “lives”, as once one is taken out it has to recharge and you can switch to the others in the team. Once all units are down then that’s game over. Missions are short and simple but still quite varied. The game is quite focused as a whole, in that you don’t really have to customise the mobile suits or their load-out. You also have access to two weapons from the off, normally a machine gun and a bazooka/beam rifle but this varies from unit to unit. All this makes the controls and combat feel very direct and almost arcade like. The story and voice acting is also good and suitably interesting. All this aside though, this game looks really quite ugly in places. The majority of the cutsenes clearly weren’t done by an animator and the engine itself looks very dated indeed (worse than 0081 did in fact). The terrain especially looks like something from the PS2 era. We’re guessing this is because the budget was small and the content in the game as a whole is pretty massive (as they had to make seven games in one package). Once we’ve played it some more we’ll post our review but in the meantime it plays well but looks pretty disappointing. There are also some new gameplay videos, which we’ve linked below. You can buy the standard edition here.