Shortly after the July 1997 release of the first Armored Core, From Software were quick to capitalise on the then new series’ initial success. So in December of the same year, a scant five months later, another Armored Core game was released with the subtitle of Project Phantasma. Following the player after the events of the first game and their unearthing of a sinister project within the Wednesday Corporation. It also featured much more overt characterisation, with the main antagonist by the name of Stinger being voiced by none other than Sho Hayami. However, despite the strong foundation of the previous game the painfully short development cycle did take its toll.

Over at GA Graphic they’ve uncovered that Kotobukiya are running a limited edition campaign for various Armored Core kit parts (molded in a gun metal colouring) as well as a clear version of Nineball Seraph. The campaign starts today and the items can only be acquired via their online shop. However, if you ask people like Tokyo Hunter to help out we’re sure they’ll be able to lend a hand. As a rule , Kotobukiya’s kits are normally excellent and each kit’s sculpt is often similarly exemplary.

It’s been reported that veteran director/producer Toshiro Tsuchida will be leaving Square Enix. Tsuchida is effectively the founding father for the Front Mission series. There have been rumours that Tsuchida was quite ill during the development of Final Fantasy XIII, so this departure may be in part due to that. In any case, we dutifully doff our cap to a man that has helped shaped mecha gaming to what it is today and wish him well. Thanks to Chazumaru for the heads up.

Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan, we’ve been sent the Robot Damashii L-Gaim Mk. 2 toy from Heavy Metal L-Gaim. To help give the toy some context we’ve also included some videos of it from the original anime and a few games it has been featured in over the years at the end of the review.

Courtesy of our good friends at HobbyLink Japan, we’ve been sent the 1/3000 scale SDF-1 Macross toy from Macross Do You Remember Love? as made by Yamato. It goes without saying that this is quite an important and iconic design to get given such an epic toy treatment, so we were understandably excited to get our hands on one. To help give the toy some context we’ve also included some videos of it from the original anime and a few games it has been featured in over the years at the end of the review.

For years OverClocked Remix, perhaps the most widely recognized fan-based community of game music remixers, has been releasing special collections (albums as they refer to them) that pay homage to a specific game. For the most part, the choice of subject matter has been on a bit of a safe side: Sonic, Castlevania, Final Fantasy, and the like. Hence why their most recent release, which is centered around Armored Core, is particularly noteworthy.

Most mecha games offer a pre-set ride of choice with a suitably fixed weapon load out to boot. Affording the opportunity to literally create your own mecha from disparate component parts, isn’t something that was widely available to gamers back in 1997.

This is where From Software saw an opportunity and after their King’s Field games on the PSone, they thought they had the technology to pull it off. However, to create cogent mecha designs that could be literally built from component parts would require a unique talent. That talent manifested itself in the increasingly versatile Shoji Kawamori, who created a slew of base designs in the knowledge they would be disassembled into disparate parts. Thus the original Armored Core was born.

The ongoing Tamashii Nation 2010 show has received various bits of coverage, with AkibaHobby’s being one of the most extensive. From the White Dingo GM Sniper Mk.II variant Robot Damashii shown above (still no release date though), to a veritable avalanche of Super Robot Wars OG toys, from the PTX-007-03C Weißritter, to the the R-Series (as in R-1, R-2 and R-3). The latter offers the potential for a chogokin SRX down the line (with some anime/engineering magic). In any case, this year’s show has had a lot of surprises.

Notable of which is the teaming up of Studio HalfEye and Bandai to make a new transformable Escaflowne chogokin, most probably based on the older and very expensive garage kit. Hopefully it will be better than the awful Yamato toy. Whilst it’s somewhat kept quiet, Escaflowne did receive a PSone game back in the day (but as you probably guessed it was a bit dire). Even the Ver.Ka Temjin made a showing too, as well as a brief presence from Dann of Thursday from Gun X Sword.

All said and done though and it is admittedly not in a mecha game at all, we’re also very excited about the announcement of the Gunship from Nausicaä in Bandai’s new Formania line. Put simply, it looks bloody amazing.

Along with a slew of other toy announcements today, Bandai have finally come clean on the fact they are indeed going to release Robot Damashii toys of both the L-Gaim Mk.I and Mk.II respectively. If you remember the Heavy Metal L-Gaim mecha, designed by the glam-rock-tastic Mamoru Nagano, topped the wishlist of fans for new Robot Damashii figures not that long ago.

Unsurprisingly, with such a classic Yoshiyuki Tomino real robot series it’s been featured in numerous games over the years. From a variety of Super Robot Wars titles to the more recent first two Another Century’s Episode games (not to mention Real Robots Final Attack, but we prefer to ignore that little “gem” if we can).

L-Gaim has also had quite an impressive toy history too, from lovely HCM figures to a very recent and utterly amazing Soul of Chogokin Spec toy. These new Robot Damashii figures will hopefully be a bit more affordable though. Currently there’s no word on whether the L-Gaim Mk.II toy will retain the transformation but it’s quite a simple sequence so it’s quite likely it will. Both toys will be release early next year in Japan and can be pre-ordered here and here. What with us being massive L-Gaim nerds, we’ve also linked the lovely openings from the series as well as a few game clips of the respective mecha in action below.

Update: GAGraphic has some nice shots from the current Tamashii Nation show.

One of the most terrifying opponents in From Software’s series of Armored Core games is the ultimate incarnation of Nineball, that of Nineball Seraph. First introduced as the final boss in Armored Core Master of Arena, it was one of the first transforming antagonists seen in the series. However when Seraph reappeared in Armored Core 2 Another Age, as a secret boss, this was when its reputation as a brutal opponent surfaced. Colloquially known as “jetboy” amongst the Western gaming throng, Seraph would obliterate almost everyone that tried to face it in combat.

It seems that Nineball Seraph has finally made it into the just released Another Century’s Episode R, though with a few minor modifications admittedly (with the shoulders being notable). This would be the first time, since the original Another Century’s Episode, that a From Software mecha made it into the series (as the last was a Cloudbreaker from the Xbox game Murakumo). Whether this is a playable unit remains to be seen though. In other news, the wonderful Hi-Nu Gundam has been confirmed as a secret unlock in the game as well, this would mark the unit’s current generation debut in an action game. In any case, we’ve linked the video of Seraph’s introduction below as well as its appearances in Armored Core.