In an interested move, Banpresto have announced a new PSP downloadable entry to the Super Robot Wars canon. Called Super Robot Wars Operation Extend, the game will be broken up into eight parts. The first part will cost 500 yen with the subsequent parts costing 1000 yen each. Buying all of them together will cost 6,480 yen. No word on a starting release date but all eight parts are expected over the course of this year. The actual game itself though is based upon Super Robot Wars NEO and will have similar map based commands (rather than the traditional grid system). In addition, the battle animations will be a stylised 3D with a few 2D elements thrown in. The roster will also be pretty sizable with lots of great 80’s real robot shows in the mix. In short, we’re looking forward to this but having it released like this will take a bit of getting used to.

The mighty GX-9901-DX Gundam Double X from Gundam X will be getting the Robot Damashii treatment this July. Sold for around 4,800 yen, the toy looks to be pretty beefy and featuring all the necessary gimmicks you’d expect. No word yet on the GS-9900 G-Falcon but it has been previewed already, so it will likely end up as a web shop exclusive. Anyway, considering the original series was cancelled mid-run it’s nice to finally have a decent toy for the Double X on the way.

What with a Metal Build Gundam Exia recently being released, Bandai haven’t missed a trick and have announced a Metal Build 00 Raiser as a web shop exclusive. This is shrewd as this toy already existed in two parts; the Metal Build 00 Gundam Seven Sword and Metal Build 0 Raiser (with the latter again being a web shop exclusive). Combining the two sets produced the mighty GN-0000+GNR-010 00 Raiser. This version, despite being a little cheaper than the previous sets combined, will also have all manner of new bespoke decals as created by Kanetake Ebikawa, who was one of the main mecha designers on Gundam 00. We’re actually big fans of the new Metal Build toys as well as the 00 Raiser, so we’re pretty tempted to snap this puppy up once it is released in August.

Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan we’ve been sent the Robot Damashii Nu Gundam and Robot Damashii Sazabi as seen in the climactic film Char’s Counterattack. In addition, we’ve also included some game and anime footage of the mecha in action at the end of the review.

Following the success of Armored Core Reprises, the internal From Software band called FreQuency (as headed by Kota Hoshino) will be doing another Armored Core remix album. Called Sunrise, the first track to be premiered is that of “Vanishing” (as shown below). Released as a physical copy at the end of the week in Japan and then digitally next week, it’s clear that we’ll be seeing and hearing more of FreQuency in the future. There’s also an excellent fan made Armored Core tribute album called The Answer if you’re at all curious.

So the much loved Blodia from Cyberbots will be getting a rather lovely looking toy, from Sentinel’s increasingly amazing Riobot line. We’ve covered this before but now we have some very nice pictures of the toy in question. As an aside, Sentinel’s Tumblr is worth bookmarking too. Despite the different player colours, which is a nice touch, the paint scheme on the figure looks very nice indeed and it also appears that the toy will have some manner of diecast (this being a good thing obviously). Still no word on a release date or price but it’s nice to know that Sentinel haven’t forgotten about the Blodia.

There’s currently some interesting stuff going on at the Tamashii Nations Akiba Showroom, as we have the release of Battle Robot Damashii around the corner. Apart from showing all manner of new toys, with the lovely Robot Damashii RX-105 Xi Gundam above being notable, the really cool stuff is the AR elements of the exhibit. For this you need an iOS device and this app. Seeing Ideon pop into existence looks to be pretty cool. AmiAmi has a nice update on all this too.

As was hinted at a while back, the mighty RX-105 Xi Gundam will indeed be getting the Robot Damashii treatment. Pre-orders start today and it is also a Bandai premium online shop purchase. Coming in at 10,500 yen it’s probably one of the most expensive Robot Damashii toys yet made. There is good reason for this though, the toy is utterly huge. It’s being done to scale with the other Gundam mobile suits and at 26m in the original novels, that practically dwarfs the original RX-78-2 Gundam (that’s just a meagre 18m). To put this into perspective, the mobile armor PMX-000 Messala from Zeta Gundam has a lower head height (23m) than the Xi Gundam. There are some nice comparison shots of the new toy too and it shows the scale difference off very nicely. Apart from the height, this will also be part of the Ka Signature splinter brand. So it’s going to have Hajime Katoki handle the the modelling and finish. The Xi Gundam was also recently added to Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost as well as a DLC pack for the current Gundam Extreme Versus. In any case, it’s one of our favourite Moriki Yasuhiro designs so we’ll be getting this for sure.

In a slightly weird move, Bandai will be releasing a toy of a mecha called GunGreat Nations which in turn may apparently be a boss in the upcoming Battle Robot Damashii. Utilising parts of Bandai’s Tamashii logo, it also seems to be a design intended to be emblematic of Bandai’s toy mecha dominion. If we’re honest we think it looks bloody ugly but it is at least a lot better than this Disney monstrosity Bandai have concocted. Oh to have that as a boss in the game, then at least we could cleave its disgusting figure in twain with a well placed aura sword strike. No word on a price or release date for the above GunGreat Nations toy, nor which toyline it will be part of.

As the new Super Robot Chogokin Gurren Lagann hits the shelves in Japan, Bandai have announced a limited edition Anti Gurren Lagann to be released in June for 6,000 yen. This was a special boss unit that appeared towards the end of Saisei-hen (shown in a video below), so this is yet again another unique progeny from the Super Robot Wars saga (much like our beloved Final Dancouga). Whilst this does indeed look lovely, it will only be available for purchase in Japan through Bandai’s premium online store.