Mommar

When I was playing with mine last night I kept thinking somebody at Bandai looked at the Arcadia version and said, "you know what would make this harder..." and they all agreed with him. They don't work over the weekend

I can give quick impressions of Fighter mode now, I can't do a full review as I haven't transformed it at all yet. Positives first: It's a VF-19. I was wrong about the Broke-back look. Having it in hand there is a rather attractive cant upwards on the neck and it looks decent. A lot of the tampo looks really good. The method they used to make the intakes blend with the rest of the craft was a good idea (at least from the perspective of how fighter mode looks, I may not like it when it comes to function in the other two modes.) The undercarriage looks great. It looks very, very cool and screen accurate with all of the fancy super bits attached. The swing bar actually has a bit of a click and is easier to adjust the wings correct. The thigh joints are the typical Bandai and have a HUGE range of motion forward. Negatives.: A lot of the tampo looks oversized, is blotchy or is arranged on the plane at angles and in manners I wouldn't have chosen and can look very tacky and toylike. Also, they got down to where the front landing gear was and just kinda stopped applying tampo to the bottom of the plane. Oddly bare at the back given all of the other gawdy bits they put on. With all of the super bits on it's a fiddly, gappy mess. Getting said super bits on is one of the most frustrating experiences with a Valk I've ever had. The right wing root on my VF-19 droops horribly when the Boosters are attached. Oh, I forgot to mention that with the leg super parts attached the wing root only pegs in on the bottom and not the top, which both makes the entire thin less stable and looks terrible with the gap and tab just sticking out there. I never want to transform this thing from fighter because getting it all together with the super bits was absolutely not fun. Bandai over engineering the mechanism to attach the shield and the neck cover, you have this little bit of harness you have to feed the head laser through then you have to finagle the little tab bits at the top of the shield into place while the harness bangs around and gets in the way and won't fit down into the space where the neck gap is. Could have just had a piece that snaps to the back of the shield and unsnaps then snaps over the neck. Who would have thought of something so simple? The "dick-bend" gun is horrible but necessary because the gun normally angles so far down that even with landing gear extended it still jams into the ground. The issue isn't even that they tried to bend the gun around the belly of the plane... the gun gets NOWHERE CLOSE to the belly of the plane. At least on the arcadia version it's clear that the gun really cannot angle forward anymore without passing through the belly plate. On the Bandai one it's just way, way off. Personal Opinions: In terms of the look of the fighter I feel like the length nose/cockpit area seems undersized or unbalanced compared to the back side. I checked out the side profile of the Arcadia and the nose is a bit longer and wider and there seems to be a balanced look between the front and back that I personally prefer. While I like the more straightforward style of this VF-19 I still prefer the nose turned down a bit more on the Arcadia version. The belly plate and under carriage of this plane looks better than Arcadias. I feel like the shield/legs are too long in fighter mode. I've accidentally bumped the machanism for the canards and can say that I hate everything about it. Just the little way they flip up and down feels really flimsy and loose. I believe they are a candidate for floppiness. Also, the over-engineerd mechanism for flipping them around is ripe for breakage. The thigh joint moving so far coupled with Bandai's other ankles means that Gerwalk will be better for posing. That I can already tell without transforming it. That's it for now, I'll have to play with it more... oh yeah, and the rear landing gear look like a slightly tweaked VF-25 landing gear and I do not enjoy unfolding the front lading gear.

This is the first time I've ever had to ask this (because Bandai engineering is f.u.c.king retarded) but how are you supposed to get the small filler pieces on the calves to stay on and avoid the elbows AND line up the tab to get the leg back together in fighter? It just keeps on popping off or doesn't line up. Doesn't matter how many clicks to the thigh/knee, or how little/far I pull out the knee. Something or another doesn't line up or is prohibited and pops off. NM, I figured it out. That's the worst experience I've had with a Valk ever. Putting the leg parts on the 171 and folding it back into fighter was easier.

Because they aren't in the anime, either Frontier or Plus.

Oh good, I was hoping you could do that like on the Arcadia version. With wings splayed out so wide in Battroid looked positively stupid to me.

He really wants the job, huh?

Well my 19 from HLJ has passed through Anchorage and after threat of legal action Play-Asia officially cancelled my order (after I did it from their website three times) and credited back my credit card.

Wow, that is fast. I'm still waiting for an update on mine but it looks like it's still sitting in Japan.

Maybe the rivet tightening trick ChaoticYeti talked about on the Arcdia model works here as well? Nice to know that Bandai can still frakk up obvious details Arcadia missed as well.

Do the wings actually snap in place where they're supposed to or is it friction based like the Arcadia version?

It is interesting in how many ways Arcadia is looking into tweaking the 0A and S to be better than the D. Would be nice if they fixed the crap ankles though.

It's not just you, it has the same sort of problem the Yammie V.1 did. It makes the side view for fighter and Gerwalk look terrible.

I don't see what the problem is, it can actually be posed decently in Gerwalk unlike the Arcadia version. Aaaaaaaaaand there's the brokeback fighter look from the original Yammie.

Well HLJ and Play Asia have both charged me...

I think it's funny that this 1/60 is being judged against the 1/100. The modified one Nyankodevice posted pictures of is proof that the 1/100 kit was just as off and just as bad.

Well this really makes those Beth and Daryl scenes a bit more creepy. http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/the-walking-deads-norman-reedus-costar-emily-kinney-are-dating-2015176

Wow, that is impressive. Any idea what the resin version may cost? What was the final cost for the shapeways version?

We did see it, but several months ago they were the only people who still had the 19 for sale, because Bandai sucks at letting us buy things. Consequently once HLJ opened up orders again I attempted to cancel. Looks like Play-Asia isn't letting go.

That kit also has those awful pegs holding up the upper thrusters/stabilizers.

I'm not sure if they've ever shown it in official art somewhere but in the Master File books they do actually use that mode as a stow on the carriers... Oh wait, no, I just looked again and they actually only do it with the wing roots folded down and the wings folded like in when it's in Battroid mode. Back to hating, because it's a dumb mode. My biggest issue is that the wings never quite sit at the same angle because it's affected by where the metal bars are mounted and their length. On my 19 the metal bars are definitely not cut to the same length, and I've noticed in many other photos, that the they aren't cut correct on any of them so the wings are ever so slightly not symmetric on each side of the valk in fighter. Like Yeti said, tighten up the rivets. You really cannot remove the mechanism. It's mounted all the way into the root and would probably require breaking plastic to get at. Plus you would have to add a new mounting point someplace. I already did some exploratory work because i was curious how the mechanism worked and the part of the metal that's mounted to the wing root is tucked behind a big chunk of plastic, you can actually damage the plastic inside if you're too rough flipping that metal bar back and forth too.

Given I'm renting a beach house in Hawaii in less than ten weeks I really don't need the extra expense.

WEll it looks like despite deleting my order that Play Asia has decided to resurrect it. I might be stuck with two of these things... or two bills anyway.

I still need to give that a go. I don't really want to break it however, as I age it seems my mechanical inclinations are deteriorating.

I was dead set against the trained Raptor thing too, the communication issue never made sense to me given how many other animals can actually communicate with each other. Given that I now understand that this is like a completed theme park in the style Hammond had always envisioned the product placement stuff you mentioned seems pretty realistic given EVERY major sports arena on the planet is named for a company.

This is a fascinating combination of familiar, brilliant and wtf?