Sunday, May 25, 2008

My Two Cents on MG Force Impulse Gundam

I was thinking of discussing about this latest MG kit the moment its content was up on Dalong.net a few days ago. Not to sell it more, but to see if there's any new trick being installed by Bandai.

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New shoulder joint for the transformation, ^^ much simpler as compared to Destiny Gundam, and rely almost entirely on the 'clip' mechanism. No problem since the parts involved are made of hard ABS type plastic.

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Way simpler knee joint as well.

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Going back to using ball type joint for the waist? This is kind of strange, I thought Bandai abandoned such joint design for SEED/Destiny MGs with huge and heavy backpacks.
Is ball type joint strong enough to handle the Force Silhouette well?

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An extra hand included for holding the sword. Not a new thing, but a very thoughtful feature nonetheless.

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The optional part for the back allows Force Impulse to use all the other SEED/Destiny MGs' backpack (as seen in yesterday's posting)...

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...but Force Silhouette's design only permits Impulse to use it.
The first 'exclusive' backpack in the series ^^;

And of course, another important question Gunpla fans are asking after MG Force Impulse is, will Sword and Blast Impulse be released as well?

Let's see if there's any hint in MG Force Impulse Gundam:

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Perfect color distribution? ^^ Just change the color of each of these three runners and you'll get the different colors for Sword/Blast Impulse's main body.

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The optional part for the backpack is molded in blue, designed on the same runner as the Core Splendor's body. I wonder if the color would be changed as well for the Sword/Blast pack.

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Hints that the white parts for Force Silhouette are going to be omitted.

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The runner might be redesigned (minorly), and the blades of Impulse's "Folding Razor" anti-armor knifes might be reallocated onto another runner.

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Red parts for the shield and Core Splendor to be separated from the that of Force Silhouette.

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The parts around the Silhouette Flyer are going to be changed to Sword/Blast Silhouette's parts I believe?

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"Why does a single anti-ship sword being divided onto three different runners?"
So, it's pretty obvious that there are more parts being designed (the second "Excalibur").

So, if you ask me, I would say Sword/Blast Impulse is definitely going to come out some day. It's the 'commercial' purpose of its design, as well as it predecessor, Strike in the first place. One Gundam, different packs, multiple releases.

The real question is, are both packs going to be released in a single kit? Unlike Strike, where the Gundam is the same, Impulse's color changes for each pack. So, two sets of runners are going to be needed for Impulse in the two modes. That's definitely going to make the price to be quite expensive (around 7,000 Yen I think), not to mention the trouble of part swapping for the two modes as well.

So, they are going to be separated into two different releases then? That's my speculation, but then again, one has to take into consideration the popularity of each mode too, i.e. the lucrativeness of each. Sword Impulse is definitely the more popular one, and with "Excalibur" included in this MG, I'm quite confident that Sword Impulse has already being planned.

But what about Blast Impulse? It didn't receive the 1/100 scale treatment during SEED Destiny's airing time, it didn't even get a HG 1/144 scale release! Is Blast Impulse going to be left out (again) in the MG line as well?

I sure hope not ^^;

Lastly, some photos of a completed MG Force Impulse Gundam on Moeyo. Have a look at the combined anti-ship sword O_O

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The Grand Slam slasher in PG Strike is going to pale as compared to Excalibur O_O
Images from Moeyo.

Scans of MG Force Impulse and images of its runners edited from Dalong.net.