Dragon Momoko MG Testament Gundam Review

The Testament Gundam, a very obscure design from the Gundam SEED Astray manga series. Developed by ZAFT but stolen by the Earth Alliance, this suit was awesome with it's ability to hijack the computers of nearby MS, making this thing quite a fearsome foe on the battlefield. Due to this obscurity however, not a lot of people knew about it, and the best Bandai did was make a Robot Spirits figure and forgot about it. Eventually, a user on Reddit gave some design requests to one of Dragon Momoko's staff on the sub, which gave birth to this beast of a kit. When this kit was announced, I wasn't even aware of this MS's existence, but once I did, I heavily anticipated Dragon Momoko's release of it, and hoped the finished kit was just as good as it looked.

Box:

On the box, you get DM's typical white background with hexagons, with a painted, decaled build of the Testament on the box. Due to obvious reasons, this kit is officially just known as the "Testament" instead of the "Testament Gundam", as the word Gundam is owned by Bandai. Also do your best to ignore the small "engrish" around the text for this kit.

Parts:

In the box you get 4 red runners, one being a runner for the handguards...

...5 brown frame runners with have a bit of a glitter effect injected into the plastic...

...4 injection silver runners, 2 which are duplicates...

...3 maroon runners...

...a clear green runner, a black runner, a yellow runner, and finally a clear pink beam saber runner.

You also get a brown hand runner, and an awful, awful poseable hand runner. The hands on that runner are not molded well, and have a lot of flash and imperfections. I will talk more about these hands later.

You of course also get a pair of polycap runners, one much larger than the other.

And of course, you get the foil sticker sheet and waterslide sheet. Please note that all the foils except for the eyes are optional, and honestly I don't recommend using them because they missed a few extra stickers when they made the sheet, plus they don't look all that great, so stick to the plastic.

Manual:

The manual for the kit is your average DM type manual.

You get stats and info of the MS.

...as well as a page and a a half of parts count. No painting guide here, sorry!

Inner Frame

The inner frame on this kit is quite nice. Despite how it might seem, the only real non frame parts here are the standard feet and the upper arm armor. The maroon legs and silver chest can still be considered frame parts due to how they're used. The frame itself is sturdy, and frankly it looks decent too. Although it's also very simple and full of pegs, not a lot of mechanical detail to be found on this thing's frame.

Frame Poseability:

Head is on a balljoint that has good range in looking around, the neck however helps a lot in looking up.

But not so much down, but as you can see, it's not needed.

The arm swings forward pretty much perfectly.

The shoulder goes up extremely far.

Arm swivels, and goes about 170˚ on just a single joint.

Safe to say the double joint for the frame makes a perfect 180˚.

Wrists are also on a hinge, while the hands are on a ball joint.

There is a swivel at the waist.

There is a bit of side to side movement right in the rib area.

A massive abcrunch due to a joint at the bottom.

The ankles have a decent spread, and the thigh movement accommodates it well.

Leg bends a perfect 180˚ with a floating knee.

There is also a sliding armor panel at the thigh.

The knee is actually on this fun barbell shaped mechanism, and it's quite satisfying to do.

Ankles go forward quite far and quite back.

And the toe is perfect.

Completed Product:

The kit completed and I gotta say I really dig this kit. As a third party redesign, it's not completely faithful to the Testament in canon, and design liberties have obviously been taken, still i'm a huge fan of what DM has done to the Testament Gundam. The bulkier proportions appeal immensely to me, and I adore the panel lines all around the kit. As it is a third party kit, you might be wondering about QC, and IMO it's fine. Fitting is tight for the most part, that also benefits the kit with stronger joints and sturdier build, just be sure to follow the instructions and not miss any parts. Some parts like the fins on the back and the v-fin are loose though, and the head outright will not fit together OOB, so it's safe to say that glue will be a requirement for this kit. Still otherwise, flash is minimal, molding imperfections are few, and overall i'd say the kit is very well done for non-Bandai standards.

Articulation:

Unlike the frame, head poseability is extremely hindered due to the collar and the head armor, it's always colliding and is thus a lot more limited.

Again due to the design, shoulder upwards movement is also greatly limited.

However the arm isn't as hindered, and goes forward really well.

Swivel and elbow are still perfect, zero problems.

Abcrunch is not as insane but is still fine.

Waist swivel is hindered due to the skirting, so it's not perfect, and the spread is limited a bit by the ankles but still works fine for posing.

Upwards kick is a lot more hindered due to the front skirts, trying to go further pops them off so don't bother. Knee bend is fantastic though, so you need a base for full use of it.

Toe also bends quite nicely.

Accessories:

Testament Gundam comes with more than a decent amount of stuff, lets go through it all.

First of all you get the open hands beam saber hands, and "gun holding" hands. The open and beam saber hands work fine, however the gun holding hands are the ones with trouble. Basically, this kit just plain out reuses the 2.0 DM hands, and due to this, the hands are not accustomed to the unique grips of any of the kit's weapons. Modding will be required for the fixed posed hands if you want to use them, which is a huge disappointment.

What about the poseable hands you might ask? Well, if you didn't know, DM's poseable hands are garbage. They are extremely easy to break due to the way they're molded, since they're pre-molded on the runner, DM's lower QC does not work well here. Even the balljoints don't really fit with each other, let alone the fingers and runner. The flash gets in the way of the joints as well, making them even easier to break. The lack of working hands OOB detriments the kit a lot, and it's safe to say I broke them while building them. So for this review, I had to buy HobbyBase's Mechanical Hands at 1/100, which fit surprisingly well with 1/100 Gunpla. You'll be seeing those for a majority of the rest of the review.

The beam saber handles are stored on the side skirts.

You plug the beam saber effect parts into them and they work like a charm.

Then you get my favorite of the Testament's weapons, it's four pistols.

The standard beam handguns act how they should once you get hands that work with them, they're nice.

But what I really love are the custom handguns. These things are revolvers with an armor schneider on the end. They hav a semi-working barrel, it s rotate, but only a bit, does not go 360˚ which is a shame, but in the end it's pointless. It does however have a full rotation at the barrel, meaning you can switch from beam shots to physical shots and vice versa. Not only that, but it does flip open, meaning you can do some reloading shots.

Very nice weapons in my opinion.

Can put them in both melee and shooting poses.

Finally is arguably the Testament's main weapon, the Trikeros Kai. It's a shield with a beam gun, claws, and some blades at the end. It has a few hollow parts like said claws and the yellow blades, but overall it's quite cool.

It does pose a bit, the sides move on balljoints and each individual claw moves.

It's an awesome gauntlet-like weapon once you get hands that work with it.

You also get these respective clips to store two of the pistols on the shield. You only get two clips however, so you can't store two of the same pistol on the shield, a big shame IMO.

You just store them there and they look cool.

Finally, you get the Divine Striker Pack that the Testament uses.

There are teeth on the end that do move, and it's also worth mentioning the teeth do not sit parallel, and the instructions are a little incorrect here. You want to have the longer hinge joint on the top side, so the teeth on the top should be kinda on an overbite.

It plugs into the Testament's Striker pack connection via an adaptor, due to this adaptor, it does work with official Bandai kits that use Striker packs. The connection is a bit far from the body but it's not too bad.

When that's done, you get the Divine Testament, and while it doesn't look super impressive now, it's just in it's deactive mode.

Spread it's wings out like it should, and then it just gives the Testament more presence, and the black looks really awesome, perfectly complementing the red and maroon IMO.

Fun shooting time.

The Divine Striker pack itself has joints in it, a swivel on the connection for to the back and striker, a hinge on one end, as well as two hinges on the other.

It can make this thing look way too awesome.

You also get two adaptors that allow you to connect it to an action base. The clip one is extremely hard to remove mind you, so don't expect it to come of easy if at all.

Size Comparison:

The Testament is as tall as your average MG, if not a teensy bit taller.

Verdict:

The Testament is an obscure design with no official plastic representation asides from a Robot Spirits. Not a lot of recognition was given to it until DM gave it the popularity boom it needed with their MG release. Now it's one of my favorite MS designs, and having this kit greatly satisfies me as a new Testament fan. Yes it has issues like the QC issues, the head requires glue as it just doesn't fit right when done and god forbid those awful, awful hands, but if you're looking for a kit of the Testament, this third party kit does not disappoint. Yes fitting is tight, but it also makes the kit more stable and lets it hold poses better than a Bandai kit does. Speaking of which, poseability is awesome, asides from the head and front skirts, this thing has a lot of articulation and it can hit some nice poses with it's strong joints. The surface detailing on this kit is superb, lots of panel lines and bits that make the kit look amazing once you simply line it, and of course, the bulkier redesign gives a more sleeker and more intimidating presence than the normal Testament. Overall if you don't mind third party kits, and are interested in picking this up, absolutely do so, all Testament fans that want one on their shelf should definitely consider this kit. 

Pros:

- Accessories are very plentiful, look great, and work mostly fine. The custom handguns have a lot of neat gimmicks. (!)

- Frame articulation is essentially perfect. Overall poseability is pretty good, if a little hindered in small areas, action base fixes mostly everything.

- Lots of panel details, simply line it and this kit looks awesome OOB. 

- Little actual sticker use is needed, only eyes are compulsory, everything else is optional.

Cons:

- Pre-molded weapon holding hands don't work OOB and the poseable hands are way too fragile to use. (!)

- Head does not fit without glue. (!)

- A few loose parts like the fins on the back.

Neutral: 

- Fitting is very tight and hard to separate, but also gives a more solid and stiffer kit that holds poses well.