Ah, good ol’ Crossbone Gundam. Totally badass and armed to the teeth.
Crossbone X-1 is an awesome design, but if it weren’t for my current play-through of Super Robot Wars Alpha 2, I probably never would have bit on this kit. Part of that is due to the lack of kits to use with it: the only other Crossbone kits are the Full Cloth X-1, and Harrison’s F91! You’d think the X-2 and X-3 would be an easy enough variants but well, sometimes Bandai just likes to completely skip out on the easy ones and make stupid stuff like Full Cloth! Oh well.
Keep in mind that I didn’t bother to assemble some of the X-1 Kai parts simply because I’m not that into that version of the design.
A lot of this kit, while cool in terms of presentation, is flawed from a design standpoint. I spoke before of the issues with the joints, and they’re even more noticeable on the completed kit. The arms function rather well without any polycaps, but the legs kind of suffer. You see, the big draw of polycaps were the extra “give” they allow the plastic, which meant that both making AND holding poses was easier. Removing that makes the kit feel stiff, and not in the right way. Sure, the joints themselves don’t feel like they’ll break since they’re still the modern-style Master Grade joints, but it still doesn’t feel… right.
The Core Fighter is VERY cool, but it’s where I started to get a little lazy on this kit. The Core Fighter along has about SEVENTY DECALS. Yes, seventy. Seven zero. Since it’s integral to the overall appearance of the suit, I’m not going to be displaying this thing on its own. I got pretty lazy with the decals on the boosters and just put on the most noticeable ones. Damn you, Katoki, and your love for over-decaling your designs.
But of course, the most important part about Crossbone is its weapons. This suit really is armed to the teeth.
First up, the buster gun. This is a pirate-style flintlock pistol. I made the handle brown to give it a more pirate-like look. But as cool as it looks, it’s way too big for the kit’s small hands and just getting it into the hands causes the fingers and thumbs to pop off. It still looks cool, though…
The Beam Zamber is my favorite of all the weapons because holy crap, it’s a cutlass! Honestly I can’t think of any faults with this. It’s a cutlass for a robot, how cool is that?
Both weapons combine to form the Zambuster, a very cool beam rifle. There’s a lot of part moving done for this, but thankfully no actually part-swapping. I quite like it.
The little “shields” under the arms are actually crazy punch-y beam weapons! I think these are the Brand Markers? I love them. They’re about as absurd as I would’ve liked.
Two knives are stored behind the legs, with removable blades. Pretty simple, right? Well, you can also put the blades in the bottom of the feet!! GEEZ. That’s ridiculous. Too bad this thing won’t fit on an action base, otherwise I’d be showing them off in a much more interesting way.
The skirt armor has two weapons, one of which is a claw on a chain called the Scissor Anchor. I have no idea what this is used for. The other is a whip-like weapon, but that’s used for X-1 Kai so I don’t have those accessories assembled. Sorry guys.
The suit also has a cape… but it’s pretty bad. I could barely get it on, and honestly, it doesn’t even look very good. Let us not speak of it.
In spite of some flaws I do recommend this kit, but just make sure to not go in expecting the levels of engineering we know these days. Crossbone is an awesome suit, and a welcome addition to any shelf. If you’re ever at FPNYC, it’s certainly one I’d suggest requesting!