HGUniversal Century

RX-80PR Pale Rider (Space Type)

A frankenstein prototype that hands you a Giant Gatling and says have fun with it.

MechaGrade Score

3.6/5

Pale Rider (Space Type) · 1/144 · 2017

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2017

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is a kit built for people who like their mobile suits a little weird and a lot armed.

The Pale Rider is a patchwork design, EXAM system parts bolted to GM Sniper legs bolted to RX-78 backpack hardware, and somehow it reads as a coherent, mean looking machine once it is together. The Giant Gatling alone makes this worth grabbing. Just go in knowing the mold is a few years old and it shows in a couple of spots.

Best for: One Year War completionists and anyone who wants an oversized gatling gun in 1/144 without spending MG money

The full review

What it is

The Space Type reuses the 2015 Ground Heavy Equipment Type frame and dresses it for orbital combat, which means you get a simpler shield, cleaner thruster housings, and a loadout built around firepower rather than terrain armor. I like that Bandai did not just repaint the ground kit and call it done. The proportions read differently in space trim, leaner through the torso, and the double ball jointed ankles give it a stance that holds up under the weight of that gatling. Because it shares tooling with the ground version, the box quietly includes the full parts run for the 90mm Bullpup Machine Gun too, so you end up with more hardware on the runners than the price tag suggests.

The catch

The mold's age catches up with you in the finish. Chest vents, thruster rims, and a good chunk of the shield markings are handled with stickers rather than molded color, and if you skip them the kit looks unfinished in a way a newer HG would not. Mold lines on the head, shoulders, and legs need real sanding attention if you want a clean build, this is not a shake and bake kit. The wrist ball joints are the weak link functionally, they loosen fast and struggle to keep a firm grip on the heavier weapons, especially once the Giant Gatling's ammo drum is hanging off the hand. The rear skirt is a single fixed piece too, so backward leg movement is more limited than the leg engineering elsewhere suggests it should be.

Who it's for

Buy this if you already like Universal Century side stories and want a kit that feels like a genuine oddball rather than another RX-78 repaint, or if the idea of a chunky beam-drum gatling gun in your display case sounds appealing. It rewards people willing to do a little seam and mold line cleanup and maybe a wrist joint tighten with tape or glue. Skip it if you want a fuss free out of box build, or if you are chasing crisp molded color panel lines, because you will be reaching for the sticker sheet and a hobby knife more than once here. Newer HG lines do the color separation job better for the same money.

The build story

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

This is an older HGUC mold reissued in space trim, and it builds like one. Gate placement leaves visible marks around the head, shoulder, and leg joints that ask for sanding if you care about a clean finish, and a fair amount of the surface color comes from two sticker sheets, one gray toned for standard mode and one yellow for HADES mode, rather than from the plastic itself. None of it is a dealbreaker but it is a step back from what a current HG delivers out of the box.

Where the engineering earns its keep is the pose range. The double ball jointed ankles spread wide and hold weight without tipping, and the double jointed elbows let the arms fold in tight for a nearly 180 degree bend, which matters a lot once you are trying to brace a two handed grip on the Giant Gatling. The weapon loadout is the real value driver here, Hyper Beam Rifle, twin beam sabers with pink blade effects, the space shield, the Giant Gatling, plus the complete bonus parts for the 90mm Bullpup Machine Gun riding along from the ground version tooling.

Lore & trivia

01The Pale Rider first appeared in the mobile game and manga Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story: Missing Link, where only four units were ever built before high production costs killed mass production plans.
02Its design is a deliberate patchwork: the EXAM system lineage comes from the Blue Destiny series, the leg thrusters are borrowed from the RGM-79SP GM Sniper II, and the backpack and weapons trace back to RX-78-4 and RX-78-5, other Gundam units from the same One Year War side story.
03A mysterious operative named Grave later acquired the RX-80 to host the HADES system, an EXAM derivative that boosts pilot reaction time at the cost of gradual memory loss, and turns the visor red and the exhaust vents yellow when it triggers.