Conclusion
It is always a brave move for someone to venture into a completely original design with no other franchise attached. The Frame Arms is one such thing. The good thing though is that it leaves lots of room for imagination for the designer and buyer alike.
The main focus of this set is Ryuurai Kai here, so let's start with it. At 1/72 scale (but about the same height as a 1/144 gundam model kit), Ryuurai's design definitely gives you the Heavy Lumbering Big Gun vibe. With the over size shields and leg anchor armors, it evolves pretty far out of the original Gourai series mold, so one would feel satisfied purchasing both this and one of the other Gourai series unit without much complain. As a toy line for customisation though, Ryuurai only gives you the option of mounting the heavy shields either on the shoulder or back of the forearm.
The included Parts for Gourai is therefore very welcomed. Essentially the same as the original Gourai in a snow mounter colour scheme, the extra parts gives you the option of caterpillar track legs, new shoulder armors, new head and a single new back mounted gun. It gives a cleaner styling with a more coherent colour scheme (but then again, Ryuurai's grey parts are probably there to emphasise the "Kai -modified-" in its name)
Since this is my first Frame Arm though, I will have to rant about the Frame itself here:
The basic frame is too fragile! The parts are not broken or anything, but pieces just wasn't really like to stay in place. Joints are actually separate "mini" assemblies to the body parts, and in general does hold the pose, but the moment you try to change it, the body part frames will fall out of the joint pieces!
I think in the end, once I found a perfect configuration I want from this set, I will glue everything in place (not the joints of course) and forget about customisation all together.
A very awesome kit to see in action. Too bad the video will not play for me.
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