Kit Review

Straight build

Size comparison with a cigarette pack

Size comparison with HGUC / MG

Upper body

Head

The gun barrel right in the center of the chest is the highlight.

Back and backpack section

Weapons

Legs

The detail on the back of the legs is pretty intricate.

Amored Core CR-C90U3 - Weapon-holding hands and standard fist hands set. The hands follow the basic Armored Core-style config

Weapon-holding hands and standard fist hands set.
The hands follow the basic Armored Core-style configuration.

Leftover parts.

The arms bend quite a lot, but the legs only fold to less than 90 degrees.

Amored Core CR-C90U3 - On the other hand, the shoulder forward/backward and up/down range of motion is better than other Armo

On the other hand, the shoulder forward/backward and up/down range of motion is better than other Armored Core kits.

Amored Core CR-C90U3 - Tried to pull off a deep squat pose, but the thighs are too short and the calves too long, so it just

Tried to pull off a deep squat pose, but...
The thighs are too short and the calves too long, so it just doesn't come together.

A kneeling pose is also impossible for the same reason.

Amored Core CR-C90U3 - Shooting pose (1/4)

Amored Core CR-C90U3 - Shooting pose (2/4)

Shooting pose

Amored Core CR-C90U3 - Attack pose using the left arm's laser sword (1/4)

Amored Core CR-C90U3 - Attack pose using the left arm's laser sword (2/4)

Attack pose using the left arm's laser sword

Amored Core CR-C90U3 - Chest missile intercept laser firing pose (1/4)

Amored Core CR-C90U3 - Chest missile intercept laser firing pose (2/4)

Chest missile intercept laser firing pose

Amored Core CR-C90U3 - Together with the previous release, Gaia. They're both in the Armored Core series, but the kit constru

Together with the previous release, Gaia.
They're both in the Armored Core series, but the kit construction and overall style are quite different.

The second entry in Kotobukiya's Armored Core series is the Crest CR-C90U3. You can just call it "Crest" for short, though that's not actually a unique name for this unit — there are actually quite a few Crest variants out there. Since this kit can be considered the standard base form of the Crest line, I'll just refer to it as "Crest" throughout.

With the previous release Gaia, the small parts and complex breakdown made for a pretty high assembly difficulty, and the joints felt a little iffy in places. The Crest CR-C90U3, however, is an improvement over Gaia in a number of ways. For starters, the molded colors come out in a relatively stable black-and-white tone, and the parts are generally sized and numbered in a way that makes building easier. In particular, the overall balance and joint strength are outstanding — on par with Bandai kits.

With Gaia, posing could feel a bit shaky overall due to polycap and structural issues, but with the Crest CR-C90U3 you can strike action poses with almost no instability. The trade-off is that leg articulation is slightly worse than Gaia's, and structurally the thighs are too short relative to the calves, so high-difficulty poses like a full kneeling squat are out of the question. That said, the stability in action poses is so good that the overall quality feels higher.

It's a step up from Gaia, sure, but the overall assembly is still pretty complex — as you'd expect from a Kotobukiya Armored Core kit — and there are quite a few spots that feel risky to leave without glue. The fact that you really need to glue certain stress-bearing and unstable areas remains an unchanged series tradition (if you can call it that :-)).

All things considered, this kit stands out as one of the better-quality releases even among the many Armored Core kits that followed, and it's one I'd recommend to anyone taking their first crack at an Armored Core kit. Getting to the finish line with a Kotobukiya kit can be a long and bumpy road, but there's a real thrill in seeing that compact, finely detailed result once it's done. Either way, it's one of the closest Kotobukiya kits to Bandai quality, and if the design appeals to you, it's definitely worth giving it a shot.

For reference, like the Gaia and Selena, a revised version of this kit was later released with updated polycaps and box art — but since the first-edition quality is already pretty solid, the difference isn't all that significant. (This review is based on the first edition.)

Armored Core Crest CR-C90U3 | 2006. 6 | ¥2,800

AIThis page was translated by Claude Sonnet.