One of the coolest parts of the Destiny Gundam is easily its weapons. While most of the designs towards the end of Destiny felt like total rehashes (seriously, is Legend Gundam even any different from Providence Gundam?) or rehashes of rehashes (I’m looking at you, Strike Freedom), the Destiny Gundam honestly felt like a breath of fresh air, even if its signature move was stolen from the V2 Gundam (much like how Impulse’s gimmick was ripped off from the Victory Gundam). The Destiny Gundam managed to take an idea from SEED’s universe, and do something different with it, even if it didn’t exactly make much sense.
For some reason or another, Destiny incorporates the two long and short range Striker packs into its design. This would make sense if this were one of the suits stolen and used by ZAFT in the first SEED, or an OMNI suit, so why this unit has them kinda confuses me. But really? The execution works out pretty well.
In the launcher department, we have the “Palma Fioncia” beam cannon. This thing is huge. It’s meant to be held in the suit’s left hand. It folds up for storage on one of the slots on the backpack, and has a mechanism that lets the handle and “scope” pop out. It actually folds up pretty nicely. The only problem I have is the little red piece on the end, which likes to pop off when I move it out. I’ll just glue that in place.
The first of the sword weapons we have is the colossal Arondight anti-ship sword. I always loved the concept of the anti-ship swords in SEED, even if they look like giant potato peelers. I mean, come on, if you’ve ever played a Gundam video game the best strategy for killing ships is to charge at them with your melee weapons. Like the launcher, this one folds up and stores on the back, but it’s a bit trickier here. You’ll really need to play with the bendiness of the blade to get it to fit in properly. The sword also has a special hand for it to be held in, which is good because I doubt the regular hands would be able to do so.
In addition to the Sword Strike’s giant sword, it also has two beam boomerangs mounted on the shoulders, with small and large beams. I’ll get to these in greater detail when I cover the Extreme Blast parts.
Like any hero Gundam, Destiny has your typical beam rifle and shield. There’s nothing of note here, aside from the gun being able to store on the suit’s rear and the shield extending for some reason. Along with those, it comes with a Second UC-style Beam Shield like some of the other suits in Destiny, which mounts on the hand for some odd reason. It’s a little odd for a mobile suit, but it does kind of remind me of the Jackals’ shields from Halo, which I guess is pretty cool. It manages to stay in place pretty well and isn’t nearly as finicky as F91’s.
All right, well, I can say for certain that the weapons on this kit are definitely one of the biggest draws, but you can get those on either version. We still have one more part to go until the Destiny Gundam is all covered, and hopefully I should have my decals by the start of next week so we can be all done as soon as possible. As always, remember to stop by FPNYC for all your Gunpla needs!
