MGUniversal Century

F90II-I Gundam F90II I-Type

A Formula Project oddball that turns a whole flight shield into the coolest part of the build.

MechaGrade Score

4.1/5

Gundam F90II I-Type · 1/100 · 2020

GradeMG

Scale1/100

Released2020

Runnersn/a

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The verdict

This is the F90II base suit married to its Intercept mission pack in one box, and the pairing is what makes it worth tracking down.

The flight shield doubling as a sub-flight system is the standout idea here, it is not just a shield, it is a whole secondary silhouette for the kit. I came away impressed with how much of a distinct mobile suit this feels like next to the more famous Universal Century names. The catch is that it never got a wide release, so finding one takes patience.

Best for: F90 completionists and MG builders who want a distinctive Formula Project variant with a real transformation gimmick

The full review

What it is

The I-Type is one of the mission packs Bandai designed alongside the original Gundam F90, and this MG folds the base F90II suit and the full Intercept pack into a single kit. The headline feature is the flight shield, a big slab of armor that unfolds into a sub-flight system so the suit can ride it like a surfboard, backed up by leg-mounted booster packs with visible propellant tanks and an exclusive beam lancer melee weapon. Building it feels like assembling two kits worth of ideas at once, and the end result has a silhouette unlike anything else on my shelf. The base F90II frame underneath is clean MG engineering, and the mission pack parts snap onto it without fighting the suit's proportions.

The catch

This was a Premium Bandai release, so it never sat on regular retail shelves, and by the time you find one the price on the secondary market is well above a standard MG. Bandai used water transfer decals rather than a big sticker sheet for the panel markings, which pays off in a cleaner finish but adds real time to the build if you want it to look right. The flight shield is a large, somewhat delicate assembly, and getting it to sit naturally either mounted or in flight mode takes some fiddling the first time through. None of this is a build-quality flaw, it is the cost of an exclusive kit with an ambitious extra gimmick.

Who it's for

Grab this one if you already like the F90 project and want the Intercept variant specifically for that flight shield transformation, or if you are chasing a complete F90/F90II mission pack collection. It also rewards anyone who enjoys decal work and wants a kit that looks a step more finished than the average sticker-sheet MG. Skip it if you are hunting for an easy weekend build or want something you can buy new without hunting eBay and Mercari listings, since availability and price are the real barriers here rather than anything about the engineering.

The build story

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

The core F90II frame goes together the way you would expect from a modern MG, tight part fit, sensible gate placement, and cleanup that stays reasonable if you take your time with the smaller frame joints. Where the build changes pace is the I-Type mission pack, which adds its own runners for the flight shield, leg boosters, and beam lancer, so you are effectively building a second accessory kit on top of the suit itself.

Articulation holds up well thanks to the standard MG inner frame, and the added leg boosters do not get in the way of hip or knee movement in practice. Color separation leans on the water transfer decals for its finer markings rather than molded plastic alone, and the payoff is a crisper finish once they are down. The beam lancer and flight shield give the kit a loadout that looks nothing like a standard beam rifle and shield combo, which is most of the appeal for anyone already invested in the F90 lineup.

Lore & trivia

01The Gundam F90 line was designed by Kunio Okawara as an original Gunpla concept in 1990, built around swappable 'mission packs' rather than a single anime appearance
02The I-Type, short for Intercept Type, was developed alongside the F90II and pairs a large flight shield sub-flight system with an exclusive beam lancer melee weapon
03This MG was a Premium Bandai exclusive first released in July 2020 as part of Bandai's ongoing project to bring every F90/F90II mission pack to Master Grade
04The kit includes a dedicated display stand built specifically to hold the flight shield in its deployed sub-flight configuration