Crossbone Gundam X-3

Review by Dkun

Crossbone Gundam was always an enigma for me as a child. When our household was still running on a dial-up connection in the mid-nineties, I managed to find a website filled with line art and design sketches of different mobile suits from all the different series. However, there was always one that was missing. Even though there was a series called Crossbone Gundam that I had never heard of listed everywhere, I could never find a picture of what it looked like! Of course my eight year old brain began to imagine what the Crossbone Gundam could have looked like, and it eventually led to some very silly pirate-styled Gundam designs in my head. Well, I don't think I was too far off the mark. The Crossbone Gundam X-3 comes in a very nice square box. It's clean, with a nice view of the figure inside. The back also has some nice action-ey pictures to show you all this figure is able to do.

Once out of the box, the X-3 has quite a large tray of accessories. Included in the box is also an instruction sheet, in case you don't know how to pose or play with a Robot Damashii.

After pulling the Crossbone Gundam out of the packaging, you do need to attach the four signature thrusters. They each clip on easily and securely.

The first time I pulled the X-3 out of the packaging, I was very pleased by his outline. It's a very pleasant Gundam design that has a nice balance between bulk and sleekness. The color scheme is just as pleasing. Although the X-3 still follows the traditional Gundam color scheme of white, blue, red, and a hint of yellow, the X-3 features an incredibly pleasant shade of royal blue that covers most of the upper body.

There are some slight paint smudges. The details of the front vulcans located in the Crossbone logo's eyes are a bit messy, and there is a light paint scuff on one of the legs. However, they are both very tiny details that can only be noticed upon extremely close examination.

The articulation on the X-3 is incredibly nice. The knees and arms are all double jointed. The shoulders sit on a nice free ball joint, and the ankle ball joint has a very wide range of motion for a nice variety of poses.

There's one joint in particular that absolutely blew me away. Above the waist joint, there's an additional limited double joint that allows you to do this:

I've been a Gundam fan for pretty much my whole life, and it's never once occurred to me that there should be a joint there. It is an incredible treat. The X-3 comes with three different pairs of hands. One splayed pair of hands, a set of closed fists, and two open hands for holding weapons. They all plug into a ball joint with an additional swivel. It's a bit of a small ball joint and can be a bit of a task to get it to stay, but once it's on there, it's pretty snug.

The Crossbone mobile suits all feature a gimmick where there are a few panels that can be exposed to let out heat. The knee pads have a really nice set of vent details, and there is an entirely separate head to show the head with the face plate down. It's a very striking and demonic design that fits with the rest of the mobile suit and makes it seem much more menacing.

The Crossbone X-3 has a number of features to make it stand out from the other two Crossbone Gundam units. One of these is the I-Field generators. The small blue panels on the forearms can pull out slightly, and a splayed hand can mimic the gimmick of the X-3 emitting a beam shield that allows this unit to deflect beam weaponry. I'm not sure how many people will want to do it, but you can do it if you want, and having the option there is nice.

However, between the moving faceplate, the back wings, and those splayed hands, it looks oddly... familiar...

It must just be in my head. The Crossbone Gundam was designed primarily with melee combat in mind, and that is reflective of his arsenal of weapons. The X-3 has the standard two beam sabers. Unfortunately there isn't anywhere to store the sabers when they are not in use.

The X-3 also has two smaller knives as well. The mobile suit is actually equipped with four of these: two in the feet and the others in the back calves. You can actually remove two handles in the calves to mimic this effect.

You can also plug these knives into the bottom of the feet. This is a really cool feature, but unfortunately it's not very useful if you don't have a Tamashii Stage stand to help with it. Although once propped up on a stand, it's incredibly awesome.

To continue with the pirate theme of this mobile suit, Crossbone Gundam is equipped with a blunderbuss styled beam rifle, and a beam cutlass as well. Both of these weapons can be stored on the side skirt, and can also be combined into a larger beam rifle as well.

All of the Crossbone Gundam units were equipped with these standard weapons. However, the X-3 was given one signature weapon that really makes this set, and I think it may very well be one of the most ludicrous weapons ever made in Gundam, the Muramasa Blaster. The Muramasa Blaster is a giant sword that can also be held as a beam rifle. However, in addition to that is has FOURTEEN beams sabers on its blade, and the beam rifle can even be concentrated into a giant beam saber.

This is a very large, striking sword that is quite large next to the Crossbone itself. The paint and details are minimal, but get the job done. Unfortunately, the back side left the Crossbone logo is unpainted in order to make room for the peg to plug the Blaster into the side skirt.

This weapon is what makes this set stand out from the X-1 and X-2 release. There are so many different options for the Muramasa Blaster. You can hold it as a beam rifle, or just use it as a regular metal sword as well. Once the beam effect parts are added, things get awesome very fast. All of the beam effect parts are incredibly sharp and I'm amazed I haven't drawn blood yet because of them.

The size of the giant beam saber is twice that of the actual Blaster itself. It's unwieldy in a wonderful super robot sort of way. The Muramasa ends up becoming so heavy that the Crossbone Gundam actually has trouble holding it. I don't see anything wrong with this though, and I think it's awesome.

Despite being a Gundam fan, I had yet to actually get into the Robot Damashii line from Bandai. I found myself often looking over the figures and thinking they looked nice, but I was often a bit hesitant on jumping the gun. However, after messing with the X-3, I am convinced this is a dead solid toy line.