MSiA ZGMF-X31S Abyss Gundam

Height: 11cm to top of head.

Articulation: 28 points plus 10. Ball jointed neck; 6 points in each arm, plus 8 points in shoulder binders for transformation - double jointed shoulder, pre-elbow swivel, double jointed elbow, ball joint wrist; Ball jointed waist, plus 2 ball joints in backpack; 7 points in each leg - ball joint hip, triple jointed knee, double jointed ankle, hinged foot.

Accessories: Beam Lance, separates into pole, blade, beam blade, and Mobile Armor mount; Extra hands x2

Colors: Molded dark blue, sky blue, white, black, and grey, plus opaque and clear pink; Painted sky blue, dark blue, white, grey, black, yellow, purple, and pink.

Release Data: Released December 21st in Japan at a price of ¥1500. This item is still in production as of this review (February 6th, 2005).

Gallery: 10 images.

Author: ExVee

The Figure

Okay, to be honest, I always found this to be the least appealing design, visually, of the five Gundam types in Gundam SEED Destiny. That wasn't exactly helped by the seeming limitation on what battlefields it could show optimal performance in. In fact, the Mobile Armor mode never even appeared until the weekend I wrote this review, which is when Phase 16 aired in Japan.

Anyway, I was actually somewhat surprised when I got the MSiAs of the stolen machines, and Abyss turned out to show the best balance of being a good toy and having a transformation gimmick, and it's the one I keep coming back to and fiddling with over the others. But maybe I'm giving a little too much away before really getting into it.

Oh, right. Limited areas of use. Unlike the Earth Alliance's GAT-X series from Gundam SEED, ZAFT's current round of ZGMF-X designs focus on giving an environmental advantage, possibly as dedicated commander units rather than squad-based tactical roles. In this scheme, Abyss is designed to excel in marine combat, transforming into a vaguely submarine-like Mobile Armor mode, and possessing a variety of beam and projectile weapons for combat in and out of the water, plus a beam lance with both physical and energy blades for close combat. This would be just fine, except that so far, Abyss has only gone out in space and inside Armory One. Neither location containing any body of water for Abyss to really show its stuff. I hope it gets at least one focus battle in the correct environment before it's inevitably blown up. Oh well...

The Head

It has a pretty stylized helmet look going on, much more than anything from Destiny has so far. I think it adds a needed touch of additional personality. The design does have a drawback, since the back extends pretty low, and effectively negates any ability to tilt the head back. otherwise, it has a full range of movement, lots of room to point down, and turn 360 degrees.

The Torso

Pretty average size. Not bulked up like Saber, but not as slight as Impulse. The waist joint is a version of the newer ball joint waist Destiny has been using, and gives a fair range of lateral movement. The joint is fairly tight, and will hold its position well, and the torso and skirt designs allow 360 degrees of rotation.

The main feature is the backpack. An immobile piece glued to the back, with a pair of cannons attached with restricted ball joints. Though I'm not sure if they're supposed to, they can be used to some extent in MS mode, though you have to play with how the shoulder parts are positioned to have the backpack cannons positioned in any meaningful way.

The skirt is minimalist, without front panels, and a small rear plate. The side panels are ball jointed and move easily, giving plenty of room for the legs to move around.

The Arms

Attached to the shoulders are the bulk of the Mobile Armor mode. They're connected to the tiny shoulder armor by an arm jointed at both ends with a hinge and swivel. Even so, only the swivel on the shoulder end seems to want to move. It took near-excessive force and a pair of pliers to get the opposite swivel to move at all, and it still won't move easily even after that.

These parts can interfere with posing, and I think would have been better served to have a longer arm with a hinge in the middle to fold to a shorter length for the MA mode. As it is, you have to be conscious of how the sub-hull pieces will react in a particular pose and plan around them. At the lower end of each piece are a pair of barrels for the shell firing cannons. These are soft plastic and will be prone to warping, so be careful there. On the inside of the pieces are two flat panels, hinged at one end, with three tiny molded beam cannons. These panels are meant to fold into the hull pieces when "at rest".

The MA parts can be swung around to bring the beam cannons to an offensive use position, at which point the panels are supposed to be pulled forward, flush with the edges of the hull halves. This is a little hard, especially if you have large fingers. But you can usually hook your fingernail on one of the upper beam cannons and pull it where it needs to go. Otherwise, you could put something think behind it and carefully push it into place.

The arms themselves are pretty typical. Standard joints, though their function is limited somewhat because of the giant objects hanging off the shoulders, plus the rounded design of the forearms seems to make the elbow joints a bit more restricted than they should be.

The Legs And Feet

Because of the minimal skirt armor, kneeling is pretty easy, though the ankles are constructed a bit oddly and it ends up making the kneel look a bit forced, sadly. Good range on the hip ball joints - the tops of the legs are rounded, which adds some extra room in the sockets for the legs to rotate a little. The knees are the triple joints, which are becoming typical on Destiny figures, and while they do add that extra little bit of poseability to the legs, they also make it a bit harder to move the joint you really want to move. It sometimes seems like more effort than it needs to be to do exactly what you want with the legs.

The ankles are double jointed, and have extreme range of motion. Backwards. The design of the ankle prevents the feet from going any farther forward than is necessary to stand up, and limits the sideways mobility. It doesn't even seem to be a compromise for the sake of the MA mode, instead seeming to be a style choice, perhaps to make it appear like a sealed, water-tight joint. The feet are hinged, though there's no benefit to this except for the Mobile Armor.

Mobile Armor Mode

This is one you're not gonna look at except from the side, front, and maybe bottom. I mean, you can't expect much from the two small hull pieces that hang from the shoulders. These seem to just be intended to make a forward end that can move through the water better than a Mobile Suit, as there's no coverage for the top or bottom. It's kinda like if a Gundam caught a submarine, cut out the middle and back end, and started wearing it as SCUBA equipment. And it really looks like a complete Mobile Suit letting itself be pulled around by the remains of a sub. It's really stupid.

Of course, the figure can't really be faulted for this. It has to follow the established design. In which case, it's quite the success. It looks just like the original design. The transformation is almost entirely self contained, with only the hands needing to be removed to complete the transformation. On my Abyss, the "dome" on top is slightly crooked, so the hull pieces can't join together perfectly, but I have no reason to believe this condition exists outside of my figure.

There's a spot on the bottom where the lance can attach, by way of a special connector piece, so at least it's another case where it can carry all its parts, with the usual exception of the hands.

This Mobile Armor doesn't impress me at all, but I have to admit they did a perfectly good job of replicating it here, so I have to give them credit for that.

Sculpt and articulation get 7/10

Accessories

-MX-RQB516 Beam Lance

The only non-hand accessory this comes with.This breaks down into four pieces, plus the connector part that fits over the pole. The connector is not a part of the lance design, but I leave it on all the time anyway. It doesn't really look out of place, and it saves me from taking the lance apart frequently. One of the parts is the beam blade. Molded in clear pink, and flexible like old beam sabres, but it's short enough that the flexibility isn't a problem. Even without the beam blade, such as when stored in MA mode, there's a physical blade present. Not that it'd be of much use in MA mode either way, but it makes it look cooler. This attaches very securely to the slot on the ventral side of the MA mode, no worry of it falling out.

-Extra Hands

Abyss only comes with a set of regular open hands, for holding the Bunchanumbers Beam Lance. The hands switch easily, but stay on snugly. The hands are opened to hold the shaft of the lance securely.

Accessories get 7/10

Closing Remarks

At ¥1500, this is the worst money value of the trio. With the simplest transformation and fewest accessories, I feel this could have easily been a ¥1200 toy. The figure itself is adequate, and quite playable, and though it's the best of the three stolen Gundams, it's far from the best of Destiny.

Unless you have a specific love for the design, I'd suggest passing on it for any price above $15. I'm going to have to give this a rating of Could Have Been Better.

-ExVeeBrawn, 02/06/2005