HGMobile Suit Gundam: Try Age

Try Age Gundam

An AGE-1 in its Sunday best, dressed up with a cape and a sword too big for its own good.

MechaGrade Score

3.6/5

Try Age Gundam · 1/144 · 2020

GradeHG

Scale1/144

Released2020

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the AGE-1 Normal chassis given a costume change, and I mean that as a compliment.

It borrows the tooling from a suit I already like, layers on a cape, a beam cloak, and a stack of card-game accessories, and the result is a kit that looks far more special on the shelf than its arcade-tie-in origin suggests. It will never be anyone's favorite engineering showcase, but as a fun, accessory-stuffed HG for not much money, it earns its spot.

Best for: AGE fans and casual builders who want a dressed-up AGE-1 with a big cape and a bigger sword for cheap

The full review

What it is

Underneath the cape and the trim, this is the Gundam AGE-1 Normal chassis I already know, reused for a suit that started life as a card in the Try Age arcade game. Bandai kept the head, torso, and limb joints close to the original AGE-1 molding, then dressed it up with a beam cloak, a display cape, and a small mountain of Try Age card-game accessories: extra hands, a Tridod Rifle, a Triarm Sword, and the signature oversized Trislash Blade. Snapping it together feels familiar if you have built other AGE-line HGs, but the cape and cloak pieces genuinely change the silhouette, and the card-game flourishes give it more personality than a straight AGE-1 rebuild.

The catch

The Trislash Blade is the sticking point almost every builder brings up: it is large and heavy enough that the wrist and shoulder joints struggle to hold it up on their own, and the included stand support arm exists specifically to bail the pose out. Bandai leaned on stickers for the duct and armor color separation rather than molding it in, so the finish depends on how carefully you apply them. It was also a Bandai online shop exclusive, which means it is not sitting on shelves and pricing runs higher secondhand than a typical HG.

Who it's for

Grab this one if you already like the AGE-1 silhouette and want a version with more presence, more accessories, and a cape that actually reads well once it is on. It is a reasonable AGE-line pickup for anyone building a small AGE-1 variant lineup, since the joints and proportions will feel instantly familiar. Skip it if you specifically want a from-scratch engineering showcase or you dislike relying on stickers for color separation, and go in expecting to prop or reinforce the big sword rather than free-pose it straight out of the box.

The build story

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

If you have built an AGE-1 Normal or AGE-1 Titus before, the gate placement and part fit here will feel like coming home. It is a straightforward HG snap build across roughly a dozen runners, nothing fiddly or frustrating, with the cape and cloak pieces being the only genuinely new assembly steps to learn.

The skirt armor is built to pivot out of the way of the legs for deeper poses, and the thighs swing and rotate on their own pegs, so the base articulation is better than the plain-looking AGE-1 roots might suggest. The accessory count is where the value shows: two swords, a rifle, extra hands, and effect parts is a lot for an HG price point, even if the marquee Trislash Blade needs a support peg to pose confidently.

Lore & trivia

01The Try Age Gundam originated as a card in Gundam Try Age, a card-scanning arcade game jointly developed by Level-5 and Bandai Namco that ran from 2011 until its service ended in May 2021.
02The kit reuses the head, torso, and limb joint molds from the Gundam AGE-1 Normal, making it a reinforced, restyled variant of that base suit rather than a wholly new design.
03It was released in November 2020 as a Bandai Hobby Online Shop exclusive, tying it to the Gage-ing Builder model kit line that connected the arcade cards to physical Gunpla.