Crossbone Gundam X1 Full Cloth

Review sample provided by Bluefin. Available at Amazon.com now.

Several years ago I looked at the Robot Damashii Crossbone Gundam X-3 and at the time, I thought it was a pretty fantastic little toy. Since then, there have been a lot of changes and improvements to the Robot Damashii line and one of the most recent entries is the Crossbone Gundam Kai Full Cloth version. Now you may be asking yourself the question: Is it better than the original version?

Well, I’m still trying to decide on that myself.

Although the figure itself comes packaged with the Full Cloth system, let’s take a look at the base figure first since the armor is removable. The Crossbone Gundam Kai was a slight upgrade to the original X-1 suit which altered its appearance slightly while adding a few additional weapons.

The first thing that I noticed about this figure was just how much larger it was compared to the original Crossbone figures. The first figures were a bit more slender, with that slight bit of “anime” magic to its proportions and thickness. This figure however seems much more filled out and looks closer to what it would look like in lineart instead.

The details are sculpted well with pretty crisp paint, although my red chin had a little bit of paint splatter on it.

The articulation on the Crossbone Gundam is very good, but not overwhelming. The legs are on universal joints, but they do stop after about 50 degree of motion. Initially I was annoyed by this, but over time I was actually pleased that the joint stopped at a natural point of mechanical limitation.

The arms however, are just a little bit ridiculous with elbow joints that feature four different joints: two dedicated to the elbow curl, with two additional swivels located at the forearm and bicep. It seems excessive, but does allow for a very wide range of poses.

The thrusters on the back are also redesigned, with each one on a swivel joint, but in addition to that, the verniers themselves can also swivel as well. Although a tiny feature, it really goes a long way to helping those very specific poses where you may want the thrusters pointing in a uniform direction.

The Crossbone has a number of accessories, and some of them are even equipped on its person. However, the accessories are where I start to have a bit of a falling out with this toy.

The Crossbone’s Brand Markers are built into the forearm and can swivel forward for use. However, that’s all you can really do with them. Usually these could be used as either a beam shield or weapon, but no effect parts or clear parts are included to allow you to do this. So you can pull them forward, but that’s about all that can be accomplished with it.

Also included in the rear hip skirt armor is the Crossbone’s whip. The piece is pegged into the armor and can be easily removed and held.

… Unfortunately, you don’t get a whip piece or anything to swap it out with. So basically you just have a removable piece that doesn’t do anything.

The lower legs also how the knives hidden in the calves which is another signature Crossbone Gundam accessory.

But once again, only the handle is included. There’s a spot for a knife to be held, but no knife. Also this is a good time to note that the bottom of the Crossbone’s feet do not have the slot to allow you to peg the knife into its foot. Another bummer.

Let’s move onto some of the other accessories that the Crossbone comes with. Crossbone Gundam comes with a few alternate hands: holding hands, angled holding hands, one gun holding hand, and a pair of weapon specific hands.

Notice anything missing? No splayed hands. I never thought splayed hands were too essential for Robot Damashii releases, but their absence with this figure sticks out like a sore thumb, especially since the two sets of holding hands are near identical.

The Crossbone also has an alternate face for when it lets out heat. This is an alternate lower head that just uses the Crossbone Gundam upper head like a helmet. It works well and looks good, but something about it just looks not very intimidating to me.

A stand attachment piece is also included for use with any 3mm Tamashii or figma stand.

Much like the X-3, Crossbone Gundam comes with a Muramasa Sword. This weapon is a huge improvement over the original and easily one of the best parts of this set I think. The paint and sculpt are much tighter and its overall use is much more well thought out.

It can be held in either hand easily, and an alternate slot piece near the handle lets you peg it into either side of the skirt armor.

… Which unfortunately, brings me to yet another problem I have with this toy. Now this is one that is specifically a problem I only have, but the balljoint holding the left skirt armor for me is misshappen and does not hold the piece at all. At first I thought the joint was too thin or too thick so I tried super glue, floor polish, and even sanding it. Nothing worked. I tend to have really poor luck with Tamashii Nations products and odd stuff like this happening, but this is by far the most frustrating as this piece will just clink right off while I’m playing with the figure to the point where in some pictures here I just said screw it and left it off.

But moving on from that, the Muramasa sword is very nice and includes beam saber parts as well, which are much better looking than the original.

The tip can also be swapped out for another beam effect. This can be used for a full beam sword look, or can also be used as a beam rifle shot effect as well.

Speaking of rifle mode, the handle can be turned to the left to make it easier to hold in rifle mode, a feature that the original was sorely missing. This makes it much easier to use this as a long ranged weapon.

This sword is easily the best part of this figure, and really brings out the Obari in the design.

Also included is the peacock smasher. A ridiculous beam rifle designed to make everything in space die. It also reminds me a whole lot of the Power Blaster from Power Rangers. The side fins can swivel, and also the entire set of extra barrels can be removed to leave you with just a clean looking beam rifle.

It’s a simple but nice looking weapon that compliments the Muramasa sword well. I tend to leave the full Peacock Smasher mode for Full Cloth mode myself.

You can also store it on Crossbone’s hip, although personally I don’t ever use it .

The last accessory for the Crossbone is the entire Full Cloth system. This actually requires some assembly and for you to take some pieces off. First, the chest skull needs to be removed and those two tiny white covers need to be replaced. That’s easy enough.

The shoulder pads also need you to remove the tiny white covers as well, this is where the additional shoulder armor on top will peg in. In the process, you will probably end up removing the entire shoulderpad though.

There’s also a swap out collar piece in order to make Crossbone look like a scary vampire.

After you swap all of this out, Crossbone Gundam goes from being a ridiculous and badass pirate robot to a downright horrifying vampiric mobile suit. It looks impressive and drastically changes the silhouette in an effective way.

The arms are kind of limited in this mode though. Everything on the Full Cloth is balljointed with a wide range of motion, but everything tends to just crash into itself when you try moving parts around.

So it’s a very good thing that the Full Cloth has an alternate “Attack mode” as well. By removing some of the balljoints and pegging them into different locations, you can give Crossbone a very cool set of wings.

As far as displaying the Crossbone with the Full Cloth, this is usually the way I do it.

The Full Cloth has one more feature though, on top of its Full Cloth system. The two skulls are I-Field generators which can be used as shields. A set of blue bubble-like clear effect parts are included to let you do that. I’m not gonna lie, getting them on there is kind of tedious. But it does look pretty cool.

On top of that, you can also use those skull pieces as boxing gloves using those weird looking special hands. Although its not my preferred display choice, there is no denying just how freaking awesome this is.

And that’s Crossbone Gundam Kai in a nutshell. Do I like it? Yes, I like it a lot. It’s a very cool base figure that’s well articulated and fun to play with. Although fiddly, the Full Cloth armor is incredibly cool and well done. But so many tiny things otherwise drive me insane. The misshapen balljoint always ruins any fun I’m having, and makes me want to throw the thing. The absence of splayed hands seems like a bizarre choice and seems even more confusing given that two near identical sets of open hands are included. And to top that off, the Crossbone itself is missing a lot of weapons. On top of the knives and whip, there’s no Beam Zanber or or Buster Gun at all. I think the fact that a lot of these weapons have been announced as web exclusives only makes their absence even more annoying to me.

A lot of my problems with this toy are one-off issues, and have not happened on any other versions of this toy that I have at least heard of, so aside form that it’s a pretty fun toy. Just be aware of what you’re getting and what you’re not when you make a purchase.  

Review sample provided by Bluefin. Available at Amazon.com now.