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Credit: Kotobukiya, From Software

For anyone that played the first three Armored Core games on the original PlayStation, you will know that the name Nineball has a special significance. Considering we are still celebrating the 20th anniversary of this mecha game series, some very nice Nineball kits are getting re-released.

Nineball was introduced at the end of the first Armored Core and you had to fight him twice. An A.I. infused mecha, it also had all the abilities of Human Plus pilots, namely being able to fire its back-mounted grenade launcher whilst moving among other things.

By the time of Armored Core Master of Arena, Nineball was again the main villain and turned up in various missions. The finale had you fight him three times and then square off against his final incarnation, Nineball Seraph.

In the years since, both Nineball and Nineball Seraph have popped up in other games, from very memorably in Armored Core 2 Another Age to the somewhat underwhelming Another Century’s Episode R.

Within the narrative of the Armored Core games, the term Ninebreaker also had special significance and was a title given to Ravens that were good enough to beat the original Nineball. This was a title also bestowed upon people like Leos Klein in Armored Core 2 and was heavily inferred that he was meant to be the player from the original trilogy of games.

The term Ninebreaker did also eventually result in a game of the same name, that of Armored Core Ninebreaker. Where you naturally fought against an all-new Nineball in the final mission.

As with all early Armored Core, the mecha were designed by Shoji Kawamori and he talked about how he came up with the main functional concept for the series when I interviewed him a few years back.

When the design for Armored Core was requested to me, it was before the original PlayStation was launched. There were quite a lot of unknowns and there were ideas for separate parts, such as arms, feet and weapons and so on. These then had to be combined by the player on their own. However, if you allow a player to create their own mecha it makes it very hard to give it a sense of visual identity. Such as clearly differentiating from other mecha anime and games. I also thought that other games would follow suit when this was released. As I believed that this idea should differentiate this game from the rest of its competition, I proposed the concept of the “armored cores”. Meaning that the core block with cockpit and engine as well as the joint connectors for head, arm legs, weapons and so on. They adopted the proposal and called it Armored Core as a consequence.

When it comes to these kits, both are part of Kotobukiya’s Variable Infinity range, which means you can swap out parts just like in the games. The kit for Nineball Seraph was originally released back in 2008 and the standard Nineball in 2011, so the fact we are seeing them re-released is no doubt due to the fact we are still celebrating the belated 20th anniversary for the Armored Core series as a whole.

Both kits come highly recommended and the Nineball Seraph kit even transforms like it does in the games. Unlike Bandai kits though, these will need glue and paint to assemble. However, the detailing and sculpt are suitably pristine throughout.

If you want to pick up these kits, then HobbyLink Japan has them available for pre-order here and here. The standard Nineball costs 5,400 yen (or $48), whereas Nineball Seraph comes in at 7,800 yen (around $70). Both kits are re-released this February.

Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. I also manage Mecha Damashii and do toy reviews over at hobbylink.tv.

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