HGBuild Fighters

煌黒機動 Gundam Dryon III

Tryon 3's evil twin, in black and gold, and every bit as fun to combine and just as easy to break.

MechaGrade Score

3.1/5

煌黒機動 Gundam Dryon III · 1/144 · 2015

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2015

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is Tryon 3 wearing a villain costume, and I mean that as a compliment and a warning in the same breath.

I had a genuinely good time snapping the three Dryon units together into one suit, but this kit asks you to do most of its color work with stickers over solid black plastic, and that trade off is real. If you already like triple-combiner Gunpla and don't mind a sticker sheet doing the heavy lifting, this delivers a mobile suit you will not find anywhere else on a shelf.

Best for: Build Fighters fans who already love Tryon 3 and want its dark mirror-image rival for the shelf

The full review

What it is

Dryon III is Minato Sakai's Gunpla from Build Fighters Try, built from villains stealing Tryon 3's blueprints, and Bandai leaned into that by reusing the Tryon 3 mold in black plastic with gold accent stickers instead of Tryon's molded color. You get three separate suits, Riku Dryon, Umi Dryon, and Sora Dryon, each buildable and poseable on its own, that then partsform into one combined Gundam. Snapping the lion chest, the wing torso, and the falcon legs together into a single suit is a genuinely satisfying moment, and having three distinct silhouettes from one box is a novelty I appreciated the whole build.

The catch

The color is almost entirely sticker work. Every runner is black, so gold trim, eyes, and vents are all decals rather than molded plastic, which means the finished kit looks noticeably flatter than a same-era HG with proper color separation. The combination gimmick inherited from Tryon 3 also inherited its fragility, side armor pieces pop off when you extend the legs, partsforming between modes is fiddly and easy to get wrong on a first pass, and posing the fully combined Dryon III is limited by skirt armor that fights the leg joints. This was a limited P-Bandai release too, so secondhand prices run above a typical HG.

Who it's for

Grab this if you already own or love Tryon 3 and want the recolored rival suit to display next to it, or if triple-combination gimmicks are your thing and you don't mind babysitting a sticker sheet for an afternoon. Skip it if you want a kit that looks great with zero extra effort, or if you dislike stickers standing in for molded color, because that's the single biggest ding here. This isn't a kit I'd recommend as anyone's first Gunpla, it rewards someone who already knows the Build Fighters Try story and wants the matching set.

The build story

What the build is actually like, and the engineering worth knowing about.

The runners themselves clip and clean up like any standard HG, nothing unusual there, but the assembly is dominated by sticker placement rather than paint or molded color, since every part comes molded in flat black. Getting the gold accent stickers straight and aligned takes patience, and once you're past that stage the actual snap-together assembly of each individual Dryon unit goes quickly.

The engineering carried over from Tryon 3 is clever on paper, three creature-suits folding into chest, torso, and legs, and the head sits on a ball joint with arms that swing and rotate reasonably well. In practice the payoff is uneven: the side skirt armor catches against the torso and pops loose the moment you extend the legs for a wide pose, and full articulation in combined mode is compromised as a result. Weapon loadout carries over the Whisker Vulcans, Savage Fangs, Circle Wave, Marine Blade, and Feather Storm claws from the individual units, which is a genuinely generous accessory set for the price point.

Lore & trivia

01In the story, Gundam Dryon III was built by villains using stolen data from Tryon 3's plans, making it the stronger evil counterpart that ultimately self-destructs to save Tryon 3.
02The kit shares its core mold with the HGBF Gundam Tryon 3, but is molded entirely in black plastic and relies on gold stickers for its accent colors instead of color-separated plastic.
03It combines from three individual units, Riku Dryon (chest, lion motif), Umi Dryon (torso and wings), and Sora Dryon (legs, falcon motif), each independently poseable before combination.
04Originally released in August 2015 as a P-Bandai exclusive at 3,000 yen, it was reissued in February 2021 at 3,080 yen due to demand.