The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[M'Kyuun]

11 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I mean, I'm in for Decibel, but I guess you haven't seen this yet?

Ooooh! I had not seen those, but I'm totally down for a set. Where did you find these guys and are they available for PO yet? I've been on Showz and TFSafari all week and haven't seen them there.

 

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

Ooooh! I had not seen those, but I'm totally down for a set. Where did you find these guys and are they available for PO yet? I've been on Showz and TFSafari all week and haven't seen them there.

 

Dr Wu put them up on Weibo. They're not ready for pre-order yet. They might be available end of the year.

[Negotiator]

On 3/22/2024 at 12:16 PM, mikeszekely said:

After DK-43 comes DK-44, so... here's DK-44, the DNA upgrade kit for Studio Series Rise of the Beasts Optimus Prime.

I mentioned yesterday that the kit for Gamer Edition Optimus was mostly filler parts not replacement parts, and that was unusual for DNA.  Well, we're back to form with this kit.  Nothing is filler, really, and we're going to need our screwdrivers for this.  But before we go replacing parts, let's take a look at some of the stuff we don't need a screwdriver for.

Up first we have new swords and axes.  They're pretty close in design to the sword that came with Prime and the axe that came with Primal, but they have a nice coat of gunmetal paint with exposed translucent orange edges.  You also get two of each.  They don't feel super necessary, but they're nice to have if you wanted Prime dual-wielding, especially if you skipped Primal but still wanted Prime to have an axe (or two).  One thing to note, all four weapons don't have tabs.  Rather, they have a hole, and there are two long tabs that are separate pieces that can be used with either an axe or a sword.

The new weapons work pretty much exactly like the old ones.  Prime can hold the swords in his hands or use the small pegs on the bottoms to plug into his wrists.  The axes are only slightly different in that they have pommels on the bottom, and you have to remove them to slide the handle into Prime's hands.  The tabs that hold the pommels on aren't the same shape as the peg on the bottom of the Hasbro axe, so the DNA axes do not peg into Prime's wrists.  Using the included tab you can store the DNA weapons on Prime's back, either separately or by running the tab through the hole on two weapons at a time.

The replacement guns are a major upgrade over the dinky original (which was so small that I can't even find it right now).  Where the original was just the barrel and plugged into a peg on Prime's wrist, the DNA guns are molded more-accurately and cover over Prime's whole forearm.  They're not without faults, though.  If you looked carefully you might notice that they're not mirrored, there isn't a dedicated left arm cannon and right arm cannon.  There's simply two of the same cannon.  There are differences on the sides, and it really looks like it was designed for his right arm.  That said, I looked at the cannons for the ThreeZero DLX figure, and they're more symmetric.  Ultimately I think the DNA cannons are passable enough on either arm and you're unlikely to really notice unless he's dual wielding and you're really paying attention.  And the included blast effect parts fit into the barrels, although their small relative size and blue color makes it look like he's wearing squirt guns.

Like the melee weapons, the DNA cannon can be stored on Prime's back using a peg on the underside.  The thing is, even though Prime's back has two holes it can fit it the cannons are too big and the holes too close together for both cannons to fit on Prime's back at a time.

Alright, now it's time for surgery.  Begin by taking the flaps with the Autobot insignias and pulling them off Prime's shoulders.  Set them aside, you'll need them later.  Turn him over, remove the pair of screws on the back of the shoulders, and carefully pry them apart.

You're going to separate the arm into four parts- the front of the shoulder with the smokestack still attached, the back of the shoulder, the gray trapezoid, and the rest of the arm.  Keep the trapezoid and the rest of the arm, but you can ditch the front and back of the shoulder.

Open the DNA shoulders by removing the pair of screws on the back.  You'll find this red part in the front half; take it out and fit it onto the mushroom peg sticking out of Prime's torso as shown.

Now, you can fit the front half of the shoulder back over the red part.  Take Prime's arm and the gray trapezoid and fit it into the back half of the shoulder, then fit the two halves of the shoulder together and replace the screws.  Be sure to make sure the screws are nice and tight.  Take the flap with the Autobot insignia from the original shoulder and snap it into place on the front of the new shoulder.

Let's take a moment to figure out what we've accomplished here.  For starters, the new shoulders have painted smokestacks with rotating tips, so they can angle backwards like they do in the movie (although the rotation is a bit loose).  More importantly, though, we added a joint.  This gives Prime's shoulder lateral movement outside of the rotation, where the originals only had lateral movement inside of the rotation.  In other words, with the DNA shoulders Prime can now raise and spread his arms at the same time, addressing one of my biggest complaints with the figure.  DNA's red plastic is an excellent match for Hasbro's, and you'll notice that they used red plastic for the part on top of Prime's shoulder instead of gray, which is actually more movie accurate.

Moving down to the legs, lift Prime's shins so you have access to the blue calf parts.  Yank them off the pegs, and replace them with the DNA parts.

The immediate robot mode-benefit of doing this is pretty simple.  We replaced the stock tab and slot that hold his legs together for alt mode, because the original ones stuck out pretty far from the insides of his legs.  DNA's parts have hinges, allowing them to fold flat into the legs.  It's a minor aesthetic upgrade, and it does come at the cost of making his calves flat and taking away that more organic (and movie accurate) curve.  There's a reason for that, though, that we'll get to in a minute.

One last thing to replace here.  Pop his stock feet off the ball joints, and replace them with the feet in the kit.  The immediate benefit here is that instead of being a single solid part there are a pair of hinges in the DNA feet, allowing Prime to bend his toes up and down.  But there's an alt-mode reason for doing this.  It's probably worth noting here that unlike the GE Prime kit, this time the blue plastic is an excellent match for the stock plastic.

About that alt mode... from the front there's not a lot of difference.  The DNA shoulders transform basically the same as the stock ones.  The only differences is that you can swivel the tips of the smokestacks so that they're still correctly angled backward.  Plus, the red tops make for red roof.  Too bad we still have the stock gray flap Prime's head is on, eh?  The big difference is in the back.   Instead of folding Prime's shins up and leaving a huge honking mess stuffed against the back of the cab, DNA asks, "what if we just folded up his feet, like most other Prime toys?"  And so we tab his legs together using the new fold out tab and slot, we spin his feet around 180 degrees, and we use the double hinges to fold his toes flat against his heels.  And... yeah, the back of the truck is super obviously robot legs that don't look like the actual back of a truck... just like almost every other Optimus.  And it still looks a lot better than stock alt mode.  But this is also why the new calf parts are flat.  The stock ones spun around, but without moving Prime's shins there's no room for the DNA parts to rotate.  So they need to be flat to give him the clearance to still roll.

Now, you could simply stop there.  It's a bit gappy, but again no worse than the original.  But DNA did include a pair of these parts, which provide a few uses.  We can attach them by using the smaller inner slots and sticking them onto the tabs on Prime's shins.  Right away, it secures his legs a bit tighter and fills in the gap between his shins a bit.  But there's more!

This part provides storage for the DNA weapons in alt mode, using the tabs through a pair of weapons into the larger slots, and the peg on the cannon into the 5mm port closer to the cab.  The instructions even suggest that you can plug one cannon into the other, but I can't figure out how to do it securely.  But the fun doesn't stop there!

The other 5mm port on the blue part allows you to connect Prime to a trailer!  This is a feature that Earthrise, Volvo, Laser, and previous Studio Series Primes (including Bumblebee Optimus) had, but was sorely lacking from this figure as he came stock.  While you're technically free to use the Earthrise trailer, Laser Optimus' trailer, or Studio Series Dark of the Moon Prime's trailer, I'd argue he looks the most correct with an Earthrise trailer.  Besides, if you use the Earthrise trailer the use for the spare blue part comes into play.  You can attach it to a peg inside the trailer, allowing his new DNA weapons to ride inside.  With the upcoming Studio Series 86 Optimus potentially replacing Earthrise for a lot of people this could leave the old Earthrise trailer free to be reclaimed by ROTB Optimus anyway.

I guess there's one last part in the kit, but it's almost not worth mentioning.  There's a slug figure of Noah Diaz.  Sure, it's got more accurate proportions and better scale than the Studio Series Core-class figure, but it has zero articulation.  He's permanently stuck in the three-point Iron Man pose.  And for what?  You can stick one of the included effect parts into his back.  he can sort of ride on the back of Prime like that, but he doesn't actually lock into place anywhere.  Frankly, he's a waist of plastic.

I wouldn't say that this kit is perfect... like I said, Noah's a waste of plastic.  It'd have been nice if Prime's cannons were mirrored instead of duplicated.  Or, maybe just include one blaster, one axe, and one sword.  Ditch the blast effects.  Because this kit actually runs a bit more than the figure it upgrades.

That said, I'd highly recommend this kit anyway.  It addresses as best as could be the three main complaints I had with this figure.  The shoulders fix Prime's lateral articulation.  By moving the transformation from the shins to the feet they've cleaned up the absolute mess that was the stock alt mode.  And they made the figure compatible with trailers.  The fact that they also included a much better cannon, melee weapons with minor improvements (included an axe you had to buy a whole different figure to get stock), added toe articulation, and cleaned up the inner legs a bit is all icing on an already excellent cake.  Without the kit, ROTB Optimus was a good but seriously flawed figure.  With the kit, he's probably the best live-action movie Optimus Prime that Hasbro's released.

Somebody needs to mix all the different upgrades to make the perfect prime.  Still waiting for TW-1030 to arrive.  It’s too bad the shoulders weren’t fixed on that one.

[M'Kyuun]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Dr Wu put them up on Weibo. They're not ready for pre-order yet. They might be available end of the year.

Thanks, Mike. Welcome news, indeed. At least now I know so I can keep an eye out for them. Much appreciated.

[M'Kyuun]

I saw this in a thumbnail advert this morning and thought it was a new take on Shockwave. Turns out it's a Bandai Spirits kit called GIG R01Provedel Type-Rex 01. Wouldn't take much customizing to make him more Shockwave-y though. 

 

[26662]

5 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

I saw this in a thumbnail advert this morning and thought it was a new take on Shockwave. Turns out it's a Bandai Spirits kit called GIG R01Provedel Type-Rex 01. Wouldn't take much customizing to make him more Shockwave-y though. 

 

He’s got an impressive cock-pit.

[M'Kyuun]

7 hours ago, 26662 said:

He’s got an impressive cock-pit.

That he does.😄

[JB0]

On 4/29/2024 at 2:53 PM, 26662 said:

He’s got an impressive cock-pit.

Doin' his best Zone of Enders impression.

[26662]

2 hours ago, JB0 said:

Doin' his best Zone of Enders impression.

Hahaha!  I had to look that up.  You're not wrong!

[shazam]

 

[Spark-O-Matic]

I've got this big guy being shipped to me by snail mail. hopefully he makes it intact

Will update with photos once he arrives.

 

[mikeszekely]

On 4/18/2024 at 9:36 PM, mikeszekely said:

but I still need Dr. Wu's version of Slamdance.

EDIT: Found and ordered from TFSafari.

So about that...

Here, in the middle, we have Sword Dancer, Dr. Wu's take on Slamdance.  My first thought would be that the G1 toy used a darker gray- here it's light enough to mistaken for white, the way Streetwise often is.  His face is also a bright metallic pink, where the G1 toy was simple the same shade of red plastic used elsewhere.  To be clear, I think Dr. Wu did release Sword Dancer with a darker gray and an unpainted face, but I dragged my feet so long that I was happy enough to find any color available, and frankly, this is close enough.  Although, even if I had got the more accurate one, there's still a big difference in that Sword Dancer has gray hips and blue thighs, and the G1 toy was the other way around.  On the other hand, his torso is filled out a lot better and he seems less skinny than the G1 toy.  And he scales nicely with Dr. Wu's own version of Squawkbox, just a bit taller than Rewind.

The back view is a bit less put-together than the front, but to be fair, it's not worse than the G1 toy.  And to be totally fair, I should mention that the one flap dangling on the back of his head actually can be folded up, I just forgot to and didn't feel like reshooting these pictures.  Sorry!

I'm going to say that Sword Dancer comes with these three gun accessories.  You could argue that he actually comes with five; the missiles on the sides of his head are just pegged in and can come off.  In theory, though, they don't have be removed for transformation while the above three do.

Sword Dancer's head is on a ball joint, but due to the shape of it you're not really going to get tilt, just swivel, and even then there can be clearance issues.  His shoulders have hinges that give him over 90 degrees of lateral movement.  Those hinges are on ball joints, with the socket in his chest.  The ball joints give him shoulder swivels and forward butterfly joints.  His biceps and wrists swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees.  No waist swivel.  Ball-jointed hips go 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally.  And while he does have some swivel around the ball joints, he's got dedicated thigh swivels just above his knees, which bend 90 degrees.  His feet are on ball joints, with the socket in the leg instead of the foot.  This gives him tremendous upward foot tilt, but nothing really down.  It also provides an ankle pivot, but a fairly limited one.  Still, I'm not inclined to complain too much when it's all far more articulation than Hasbro gave to any of their cassettes, even the Studio Series Core-class ones.

Sword Dancer's hands don't have any way to hold accessories, but the finned guns plug into his forearms.

Meanwhile, the other gun has a tab on it that fits into a slot on either shoulder, then the barrel folds over the top of his shoulder.  This is fairly similar to how the G1 toy worked.

Speaking of how the G1 toy worked, Slamdance was the combined form of two other cassettes, Raindance (a jet) and Grand Slam (a tank).  And so, too, is Sword Dancer made up from Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank.  Here we're getting a bit more departure from the G1 toy.  Traveler Plane is probably the easier to get from legs to jet; bend the legs backward at the knee, then correctly the actual knee.  Slide his toes in, turn the feet 180 degrees, and fold them up onto the shins.  Turn his legs at the thigh swivels so that the feet are touching, then take the gray chest and swivel it 180 degrees so you can tab it onto his legs.  Then you just fold out the wings and stabilizers.  The two guns that were on Sword Dancer's arms plug into each other first, then they plug into the top of the jet. 

Patriot Tank isn't much more difficult.  Fold the bulk of his head over his face, then unfold a few flaps from it.  You have to twist a few joints in his arms to get the treads all lined up, then you use the ball joints to swing the arms in front of his chest, using one of the flaps from his head to tab everything together.  The shoulder cannon slides onto a tab to form the turret and barrel.  As I mentioned before, in theory the missiles on the sides of his head don't need to be removed for transformation.  In practice, though, they'll pop off the minute you start manipulating him, so it might be better to set them aside and put them back on when you're finished.

Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank have a bit more liberties taken than Sword Dancer.  Traveler Plane's gray hips mean the intakes are gray instead of blue, and he's got actual vertical stabilizers instead of raised edges on the chest piece.  The wings have a white stripe, and there's no cassette holes.  The lack of holes means that they're not available for the guns to plug into, so he can't carry one under each wing the way G1 Raindance can.  As for Patriot Tank, he's got visible, painted treads along the sides.  And where G1 Grand Slam had a raised section with his weapons piled on top of it haphazardly, Patriot Tank's raised section has the turret attached to the front and the missiles on the sides.  As @M'kyuun noted, their individual modes are better executed than the Dr. Wu Squawktalk and Beastbox, but I'd go one step further and suggest that they're a bit more coherent than the G1 toys as well.  Traveler Plane reminds me a bit of a Gundam Core Fighter, and Patriot Tank looks more like a tank than a pile of boxes with a bunch of guns on top.

Going from jet to tape is super easy for Traveler plane.  Put his feet back into their robot mode position, but leave the toes pushed in.  Instead, flip out some tabs on his heels.  Straighten his actual knees, fold in his wings, then make him do a split at the hips.  Swing the chest panel back around and it'll latch onto those heel tabs, then just fold the vertical stabs over the chest.  Patriot Tank isn't actually more difficult, you just have to take a bit more care to make sure you've lined everything up right.  Swing the arms back out to his sides and lift the turret back up halfway, so it's sitting above his face instead of behind it.  Rotate both arms 180 degrees at the ball joint.  Now, fold his entire head back, and his arms forward at the ball joint.  That'll give you the clearance you need to bend the arms 90 degrees at the shoulder hinges, then 90 degrees back at the ball joints.  If you did it right, the arms should tab into the guns on the sides of his head, most of the treads lined up on the side with his exposed face.

I don't know if there's much a point for me to mention that Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank's "tape" modes don't much resemble G1 Raindance and Grand Slam's.  To be fair, I don't think Hasbro's own Siege/Legacy/Studio Series tapes are going to pass for microcassettes, either.  The important thing is that, yes, either of them can fit into Kingdom/Studio Series Blaster or Twincast, though only one at a time, of course.

Dr Wu is definitely doing us a service here, releasing Siege/Legacy/Studio Series-compatible cassettes for Blaster and Soundwave that Hasbro seem unlikely to ever get to, especially since Slamdance and Squawbox weren't in the cartoon.  And Sword Dance is a pretty good value, too- he's made of two tapes, and cost only a little more than two of Hasbro's Studio Series tapes, and better articulation too boot.  And, as mentioned, Sword Dancer is a definite improvement over their Squawkbox.  If you want a complete set of tapes, I can definitely recommend Sword Dancer as a stand-in for Slamdance.  However, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that they feel a bit delicate compared to the official tapes, with a few annoying tolerance issues that I'd find unacceptable in larger, more expensive figures.  All-in-all, good enough that I'll definitely pick up Dr Wu's Slugfest and Overkill when they come out, but flawed enough that I'm more excited for the Doctor's other upcoming Micromaster-sized Transformers like Wheeljack, Cyclonus, Bumblebee, and Megatron.

[M'Kyuun]

12 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

So about that...

Here, in the middle, we have Sword Dancer, Dr. Wu's take on Slamdance.  My first thought would be that the G1 toy used a darker gray- here it's light enough to mistaken for white, the way Streetwise often is.  His face is also a bright metallic pink, where the G1 toy was simple the same shade of red plastic used elsewhere.  To be clear, I think Dr. Wu did release Sword Dancer with a darker gray and an unpainted face, but I dragged my feet so long that I was happy enough to find any color available, and frankly, this is close enough.  Although, even if I had got the more accurate one, there's still a big difference in that Sword Dancer has gray hips and blue thighs, and the G1 toy was the other way around.  On the other hand, his torso is filled out a lot better and he seems less skinny than the G1 toy.  And he scales nicely with Dr. Wu's own version of Squawkbox, just a bit taller than Rewind.

The back view is a bit less put-together than the front, but to be fair, it's not worse than the G1 toy.  And to be totally fair, I should mention that the one flap dangling on the back of his head actually can be folded up, I just forgot to and didn't feel like reshooting these pictures.  Sorry!

I'm going to say that Sword Dancer comes with these three gun accessories.  You could argue that he actually comes with five; the missiles on the sides of his head are just pegged in and can come off.  In theory, though, they don't have be removed for transformation while the above three do.

Sword Dancer's head is on a ball joint, but due to the shape of it you're not really going to get tilt, just swivel, and even then there can be clearance issues.  His shoulders have hinges that give him over 90 degrees of lateral movement.  Those hinges are on ball joints, with the socket in his chest.  The ball joints give him shoulder swivels and forward butterfly joints.  His biceps and wrists swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees.  No waist swivel.  Ball-jointed hips go 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally.  And while he does have some swivel around the ball joints, he's got dedicated thigh swivels just above his knees, which bend 90 degrees.  His feet are on ball joints, with the socket in the leg instead of the foot.  This gives him tremendous upward foot tilt, but nothing really down.  It also provides an ankle pivot, but a fairly limited one.  Still, I'm not inclined to complain too much when it's all far more articulation than Hasbro gave to any of their cassettes, even the Studio Series Core-class ones.

Sword Dancer's hands don't have any way to hold accessories, but the finned guns plug into his forearms.

Meanwhile, the other gun has a tab on it that fits into a slot on either shoulder, then the barrel folds over the top of his shoulder.  This is fairly similar to how the G1 toy worked.

Speaking of how the G1 toy worked, Slamdance was the combined form of two other cassettes, Raindance (a jet) and Grand Slam (a tank).  And so, too, is Sword Dancer made up from Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank.  Here we're getting a bit more departure from the G1 toy.  Traveler Plane is probably the easier to get from legs to jet; bend the legs backward at the knee, then correctly the actual knee.  Slide his toes in, turn the feet 180 degrees, and fold them up onto the shins.  Turn his legs at the thigh swivels so that the feet are touching, then take the gray chest and swivel it 180 degrees so you can tab it onto his legs.  Then you just fold out the wings and stabilizers.  The two guns that were on Sword Dancer's arms plug into each other first, then they plug into the top of the jet. 

Patriot Tank isn't much more difficult.  Fold the bulk of his head over his face, then unfold a few flaps from it.  You have to twist a few joints in his arms to get the treads all lined up, then you use the ball joints to swing the arms in front of his chest, using one of the flaps from his head to tab everything together.  The shoulder cannon slides onto a tab to form the turret and barrel.  As I mentioned before, in theory the missiles on the sides of his head don't need to be removed for transformation.  In practice, though, they'll pop off the minute you start manipulating him, so it might be better to set them aside and put them back on when you're finished.

Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank have a bit more liberties taken than Sword Dancer.  Traveler Plane's gray hips mean the intakes are gray instead of blue, and he's got actual vertical stabilizers instead of raised edges on the chest piece.  The wings have a white stripe, and there's no cassette holes.  The lack of holes means that they're not available for the guns to plug into, so he can't carry one under each wing the way G1 Raindance can.  As for Patriot Tank, he's got visible, painted treads along the sides.  And where G1 Grand Slam had a raised section with his weapons piled on top of it haphazardly, Patriot Tank's raised section has the turret attached to the front and the missiles on the sides.  As @M'kyuun noted, their individual modes are better executed than the Dr. Wu Squawktalk and Beastbox, but I'd go one step further and suggest that they're a bit more coherent than the G1 toys as well.  Traveler Plane reminds me a bit of a Gundam Core Fighter, and Patriot Tank looks more like a tank than a pile of boxes with a bunch of guns on top.

Going from jet to tape is super easy for Traveler plane.  Put his feet back into their robot mode position, but leave the toes pushed in.  Instead, flip out some tabs on his heels.  Straighten his actual knees, fold in his wings, then make him do a split at the hips.  Swing the chest panel back around and it'll latch onto those heel tabs, then just fold the vertical stabs over the chest.  Patriot Tank isn't actually more difficult, you just have to take a bit more care to make sure you've lined everything up right.  Swing the arms back out to his sides and lift the turret back up halfway, so it's sitting above his face instead of behind it.  Rotate both arms 180 degrees at the ball joint.  Now, fold his entire head back, and his arms forward at the ball joint.  That'll give you the clearance you need to bend the arms 90 degrees at the shoulder hinges, then 90 degrees back at the ball joints.  If you did it right, the arms should tab into the guns on the sides of his head, most of the treads lined up on the side with his exposed face.

I don't know if there's much a point for me to mention that Traveler Plane and Patriot Tank's "tape" modes don't much resemble G1 Raindance and Grand Slam's.  To be fair, I don't think Hasbro's own Siege/Legacy/Studio Series tapes are going to pass for microcassettes, either.  The important thing is that, yes, either of them can fit into Kingdom/Studio Series Blaster or Twincast, though only one at a time, of course.

Dr Wu is definitely doing us a service here, releasing Siege/Legacy/Studio Series-compatible cassettes for Blaster and Soundwave that Hasbro seem unlikely to ever get to, especially since Slamdance and Squawbox weren't in the cartoon.  And Sword Dance is a pretty good value, too- he's made of two tapes, and cost only a little more than two of Hasbro's Studio Series tapes, and better articulation too boot.  And, as mentioned, Sword Dancer is a definite improvement over their Squawkbox.  If you want a complete set of tapes, I can definitely recommend Sword Dancer as a stand-in for Slamdance.  However, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that they feel a bit delicate compared to the official tapes, with a few annoying tolerance issues that I'd find unacceptable in larger, more expensive figures.  All-in-all, good enough that I'll definitely pick up Dr Wu's Slugfest and Overkill when they come out, but flawed enough that I'm more excited for the Doctor's other upcoming Micromaster-sized Transformers like Wheeljack, Cyclonus, Bumblebee, and Megatron.

Nice review, Mike. 'Preciate the shout-out. As you and anyone who 's been reading my posts for a while knows, I'm a cassette bot fan. I love your wording: Dr. Wu is most certainly doing us a service, as most of these non-main character cassette bots wouldn't see the light of day under Hasbro, and moreover, not at the levels of articulation that Dr. Wu gives them. They're not perfect; most of them lack the reel holes that are the signature feature of a cassette as well as any cassette deco. However, they are rectangular wafers resembling the basic shape of a mini microcassette (since Hasbro made the stupid decision to make the Legacy cassettes smaller than the real-world scaled microcassettes from G1 and the MP line) that, as Mike demonstrated, can fit in either the most recent mainline Blaster's or Soundwave's chest cavities. Given their scales, and the fact that most of us generally keep our cassettes in their bot/vehicle modes, it's forgivable. Moreover, there's a dearth of options here, so for now it's Dr. Wu or bust if you desire to have these other cassette characters in your collection. For my money, they could certainly be worse (ahem Hasbro's official cassettes) so I'm glad that these exist and I vehemently hope that Dr. Wu will continue to work his way through all these peripheral cassette characters and eventually get to the core cast of Ravage, Rumble, Laserbeak, Frenzy, Buzzsaw, Ramhorn, Steeljaw, Rewind, and Eject. I will say, however, despite my criticism of Hasbro's cassettes thus far, Eject was done well and I hope the upcoming SS86 Steeljaw turns out well, too. Regardless, at this point I feel that Wu's would be superior to Hasbro's takes.

On the flip side, I've been collecting MMC's full-sized cassette bots and I've been pretty impressed with most of them (their condors were so-so, mostly b/c of the way the outer wings are overlapping panels that hold together via magnets). One of the coolest aspects of these figures is that the old chrome add-on weapons are generally integrated into the cassette mode either by transformation engineering or just tucking away seamlessly. Articulation is excellent, presentation in cassette mode holds true (they all have their requisite reels) although some are a little light on deco. The most recent release was their take on Steeljaw, which once again cemented MMC's reputation as masters of plastic origami at this scale. I'm hopeful for a Ramhorn to follow, and honestly, all the cassette figs from core to peripheral. The only drawback to these guys at this scale is the lack of a Soundwave or Blaster that can accommodate them in cassette mode, but that would require those figs to be larger than current MP scale. However, for what MMC brings to the table in the form of these detailed, transformable, highly-articulated versions of the old G1 cassette bots, which scale well with current MP figs in their bot modes, the lack of a similarly scaled Blaster or Soundwave is easily overlooked.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

On the flip side, I've been collecting MMC's full-sized cassette bots and I've been pretty impressed with most of them

It's funny, but as I was writing my review for Sword Dancer I kept imagining an MMC version of Slamdance and Squawkbox.  I think they'd be pretty epic, but their output has been pretty slow.  I think they only put out maybe three new molds in all of 2023.  Sadly, we're a long way from an MMC Slamdance... I know that they're still working on Ramhorn and Ratbat, but they seem pretty focused on their combiners right now.  And why not?  They seem to be pretty big hits for MMC, with Bruticus going through something like three runs.  And they're quite good!  But I digress.

1 hour ago, M'Kyuun said:

The most recent release was their take on Steeljaw, which once again cemented MMC's reputation as masters of plastic origami at this scale.

I really liked Steeljaw, but he's not the most recent.  Just last fall MMC released their take on Rewind and Eject.

[M'Kyuun]

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

It's funny, but as I was writing my review for Sword Dancer I kept imagining an MMC version of Slamdance and Squawkbox. 

That makes two of us. And from there it's easy to extrapolate to so many other cassettes. I want them all.

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

 I think they'd be pretty epic, but their output has been pretty slow.  I think they only put out maybe three new molds in all of 2023.  Sadly, we're a long way from an MMC Slamdance... I know that they're still working on Ramhorn and Ratbat, but they seem pretty focused on their combiners right now.  And why not?  They seem to be pretty big hits for MMC, with Bruticus going through something like three runs.  And they're quite good!  But I digress.

I was going to mention the snail's pace of MMC releases, but it got lost in the shuffle of my thoughts. But yeah, unfortunately their releases come at a trickle rather than a deluge, and as you mentioned, their success with combiners overshadows the cassettes, which I assume are probably seen more as novelties by comparison. I think the same for Dr. Wu comparing his mini-takes on the mainline characters and his mini-micro-cassettes. In either case if I was to hazard a guess on which are the more popular products, the cassettes would finish last. That sucks for cassette fans like me, but hopefully in the case of both companies they're seeing enough sales of their cassettes to warrant continuing production. 

Mentioning MMC's Bruticus, my favorite of the combiners, I put up a strong resistance to getting them, as I love the all-in-one direction they took and I thought they all turned out looking pretty good; Onslaught suffered the most IMO, but considering everything he has to do without the amelioration of add-on parts, he's more than acceptable. Moreover, if I did get the team, I have no idea where I would put them as I have so little space for stuff in my house. Eventually I want to install a decent sized building in my backyard for storage/shop/ and display, but I'll probably have to wait a year or two.

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I really liked Steeljaw, but he's not the most recent.  Just last fall MMC released their take on Rewind and Eject.

I stand corrected. I got my copies of Eject and Rewind well before my Steeljaw, as I had the version with chrome gold paint POed from showz for a long time and finally FOMO made me settle for the regular gold painted version instead. The time lapse between acquisitions owed to the disparity in my mind.

I wasn't aware that MMC was working on Ramhorn or Ratbat, but that's favorable news indeed. Perhaps we'll see at least one of them release this year. I'm still happy that they led with Ravage, my all-time favorite cassette. Still brilliant and still gives me the warm and fuzzies when I see him in my Detolf.