This feels like a story DLC

Price : RM 22.00* (USD $5.12*)

*price upon purchase at the time, it’s subject to change.

Hello and good morning to all my readers! I hope that you all are having an awesome Wednesday morning. I decided to do another of these Brief reviews! Again, I do need to take a break from writing Let’s talk Gunpla segments for this week, and just take the time to sit and just have fun writing!

This week, however, I decided to go and check out these ‘OPTION SET’ DLC kits from the highly acclaimed Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans series. To those that have been following me here knows that I don’t like how most of the Iron Blooded Orphans Mobile suits are in this series.

However, the same thing can’t be said for their kits though. Building Iron Blooded Orphans kits are a joy to make, though most of them looked….well look at it:

Then again there are kits like this;

Well not all of them kits had a look a mother would love, some of do look quite good….ish. Still, it’s still not as good as the other series. As well unlike most of the other series, the weapons and the equipment’s that were used doesn’t seem to feel powerful or in any way effective. Maybe the anime doesn’t really don’t make an excellent job in portraying the kind of effect these weapons had but it really doesn’t look all that effective.

But damn, the Iron Blooded Orphan’s story is good.

Anyways, coming back to the original topic, I remembered looking at the HG Barbatos and wondered why Bandai can release the kit so cheaply. It was a strange thing since they are selling the kits at a lower price as compared the normal HG kits and they were awfully new as well. At the time, I did see option kits being planned for, as ever being a naïve little shit that I am I thought it was like how they treat the Builder Parts. It is all optional because it was sold as additional extras, it wasn’t made to be a necessary item.

Not until I bought the kit, then I realized how necessary it was to get the bloody option kits. It was a complete kit but I feel they deliberately left out the 300mm smoothbore cannon so we would buy the option kit. Though I would admit, the good thing about the option kit is that you are technically buying it for the other 3 kits as well (if you want to buy the HG Graze or the HG Schwalbe Graze) but still this should be included with the kits, it shouldn’t be something that we must buy to get more of. As well the option parts should be something of an extra stuff that if people wanted to make but build custom kits by adding in the optional parts.

In many ways, this option parts remind me of the DLC problem that we have in gaming. I feel like Bandai is forcing us down a very depressing path in where I can see a future where we need to buy an option leg for a kit that we already bought full price for.

That would be fucking bullshit.

Regardless, I got this kit for the sake of the review, and to give my barbatos that smoothbore cannon to complete it. I’m happy to report even though this is a total ripoff, it is still a joy to make. Though if I were to compare to the builder parts, it is lacking in so many areas but since this is marketed as an HG kit (unlike the builder parts, that kit was marketed as both an HG and RG extension) I guess I could give it some slack on that matter. When I was unboxing it I wasn’t how I expected it to be (it was technically an HG kit at least some color would be nice), it wasn’t color coordinated for the most part Though from the box you never seem to get the idea that all of them is not colored. Though it wasn’t a big issue, I do mind the fact that all of them is uncoloured when it was advertised being colored (There is a possibility that it was told in Japanese, still I would appreciate that some information of that was given) is bullshit. Then again having it uncoloured it’s not the worst thing. They do give this kit stickers, but then I figure with the rest of it being so off colored I came to a point of asking what’s the fucking point.

Coming back to the actual build, it is a pretty solid kit, with no major fitting issues, and I must say they all looked awesome! As I attach the completed smoothbore cannon, I was expecting some issues but surprisingly everything worked well. As well having it attached with the cannon didn’t hamper with the kits balance. I would be lying if I said that wasn’t my biggest concern since the barbatos feet are really on the flimsy side. It’s good to see that adding the long cannon didn’t hamper with its balance. As well they gave the small unpainted mobile worker unit with this option kit, that is a cool addition to this.

Yes, I did have fun making this one, but still, I can’t bring myself to justify this option kit’s existence. I kept on thinking that they should’ve included all of this in the base kit itself. Why gate this off from them? If their justification is to keep the price of the kit down on the cheaper side to drive more people in picking up a gunpla, I would say that is a bullshit reason because adding this in wouldn’t increase the price of it not too much.

Again, if I were to compare it to the builder parts, this feels lacking in a lot of sense. Though the builder parts are semi built, but you can feel that this was made to be an addition NOT as something that you must add in to enhance your experience. It was so unlike the option parts, in which is made to be a necessary addition if you want your kit to feel complete.

Like I said at the start of this article, the option set 1 feels like a story DLC from a game. That was taken off from the base game so they can make more money from you. Whilst the builder parts feel like an expansion from the original game. It itself is made to be a complete experience.

I really hope that Bandai won’t turn this as a reoccurring thing. Stop it Bandai, we don’t need gunplas to be like your games. We don’t need your DLC culture here. Let’s just end this thing here kay? No need to get this further then it must. I know you might enjoy it, but stop with fucking us in the ass with your big dildo kay?

It wasn’t that fun, you aren’t all that good with it. Please.

Oh, I don’t recommend getting this, though its good but I don’t think you guys should go out of your way to get this to be honest. Save up and buy something else your money would be better spent and not buying this would encourage Bandai not to continue with this stupid practice. Let’s make sure that Bandai never gates any parts from us ever again.

Anyways, that’s all with my brief review of the HG Iron Blooded Arms Mobile Suit Option Parts 1 & CGS Mobile Worker Unboxing and review. I do hope you guys enjoy this one. As ever Let’s Talk Gunpla Segment will be back next week and I will have a new unboxing coming this weekend! It’s going to be from the Gundam Seed Destiny series and one that I am looking forward to going back to!

Do look forward to that!

As ever I do look forward to what you think of this kit and your own opinions on the matter! I do hope that you’ll guys have an awesome day ahead and as well an awesome week!

I’ll see you guys on this Sunday! 😀