Gundam Converge CORE 014 : FA-010A FAZZ

Spring 2018 was a little quiet on the Converge front. After volume 10 in March there was silence in April and then things were shook up a bit with two CORE exclusives for May. I always cringe a bit whenever I hear about a new CORE figure as it means paying more and getting less. And what exactly do I mean by that? Well, you are essentially spending more than you did for the figure that has been revamped and only rarely will you actually get something new out of the deal.

The Converge FAZZ is a bit of easy money for Bandai and FusionWorks. The Full Armor ZZ Gundam was recently released in February as your average EX figure with a price tag of roughly ¥2300. The CORE repainted version is a Bandai webshop exclusive and was also priced at ¥2300 which seems a bit low for a CORE release. However I ended up having to pay ¥4000 for mine already in June, so this thing seems set to become a rarity (isn't that the case for almost all Sentinel design by the way...).

The FAZZ component bags seem identical with the ones from the Full Armor ZZ Gundam on first sight. The graphics on the instruction sheet have been updated a bit but from what I can tell there are no major engineering changes here. The previous Full Armor ZZ figure gained some bad rep from quality and build issues but I don't know if anything has actually been done to remedy it on this figure.

I myself had some trouble with the older EX21 FAZZ figure in that it had a lot of paint smudges scattered over its body and some of the parts were more warped than I would have expected from Converge. My CORE FAZZ didn't suffer from any paint smudges and assembling the figure was relatively simple and straightforward, perhaps because I knew what to expect this time around.

Here we have the FAZZ armed with the double barrel beam rifle which plugs into a hole on the right arm. This arm is actually replaced with a different trigger-finger version which can hold the large Hyper Mega Cannon so it is not possible to combine the two weapons (as is cheekily done on the box front cover...).

Posing side by side with the Enhanced ΖΖ Gundam from Converge vol. 9. The FAZZ belongs to the older generation of Converge figures that come with transparent support pieces that clip to the ankles rather than with feet pegged to black bases.

Equipping the Hyper Mega Cannon requires a bit of assembly. An adapter must be replaced in the backpack and the back shield replaced with a different version which has a plug hole for the belt fed ammunition. You will have to place the arm in exactly the right position for everything to come together nicely. It works fairly well but I would definitely consider super gluing some of the parts because this thing will come apart.

And here we have the FAZZ standing next to the Converge EX21 Full Armor ZZ Gundam. As you can see the two are nearly identical. CORE figures often have special markings and paint apps but as can clearly be seen here the FAZZ has none of these things. This is a bit disappointing, not that it matters or detracts from the figure as such, but because it has been par for the CORE course for so long and it would have been nice to get something extra with this figure. The Gundam Collection 1/400 FAZZ figures for example, came with their unit numbers on the left shoulder (04, 05 and 06). I guess I should consider myself lucky in this regard; what if FW had made three different shoulder markings? You know I would have been forced to get three...

Here the Converge FAZZ poses with the Assault Kingdom FAZZ. Both are special colour versions of retail FA-010S Full Armor ZZ Gundams. The two figures have a lot in common although the Assault Kingdom figure can dual wield its weapons.

Overall, the CORE FAZZ figure is a great Converge figure but it will probably cost you a fair bit of money to obtain. The Gundam Sentinel mobile suit figure line has been growing rapidly in the past year or so, and there is no doubt that it will go down well with many Converge collectors. I will probably pick up a second unit myself, and display it with the beam rifle (EDIT: See the picture above...).