In a strange move, another design from the end of Armored Core VI that most players haven’t seen is getting a Robot Damashii toy.
The design is based on the Steel Haze Ortus, which Rusty piloted in the penultimate missions of Armored Core VI.
It’s also a beautiful design. Longtime Gundam mecha designer Takayuki Yanase crafted this sleek and complex mecha, which perfectly suits Rusty’s high-speed combat style. Yanase also started out his career at FromSoftware, so it was nice to see him return to do designs for them again.
However, like the SOL 644 and HAL 826 toy releases, which were also both bosses from the end of the game, the Ortus is something that most players won’t have seen.
This is because, according to the achievements for Armored Core VI, only about 30% of players reached the end of the game.
To be honest, this is a weird strategy from Bandai Spirits and not overly consistent with other mecha properties they handle.
Normally, toys of the title mecha from the show are made for general release, with the later designs ending up as Premium Bandai items.
This is typical for Gundam, Macross, and pretty much everything else Bandai Spirits handles, so changing that is definitely odd.
To give some real-world context to this, both of the previous Armored Core VI Robot Damashii releases are still widely available across Tokyo. This is also normally a bad sign, as popular designs sell out almost straight away. The fact these haven’t is because most people probably don’t know or recognize what they are.
That said, I did pick up the Robot Damashii HAL 826 toy, and it is magnificent. The sculpt and detailing are some of the best I’ve seen in a long while. Despite not being a Metal Robot Damashii release, the joints also use many diecast parts.
Similarly, this new Ortus toy looks amazing, and I will definitely buy one when it goes on sale in Japan this July. Priced at 19,800 yen (or around $125) it’s also the most expensive release to date for the Armored Core VI Robot Damashii toys.
Armored Core VI is available to play on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC. Feel free to check out my review as well.
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