MacrossJunkie

I have to agree that the market may not be there to release a spartan and Yamato still be able to recoup the costs, much less make a profit out of it. Some people say to price it higher to make up the difference, but there's already a lot of people who feel that destroids are too expensive as it is and more who think that how much they are right now pretty much the max they would pay or at least are willing to pay but still feel they overpaid for what they're getting. Bumping the price up by another $10 or more would likely cause the number of spartans sold to drop drastically. Far more would be lost in lowered sales than the amount gained per unit. An interesting interview with Brad Wardell of Stardock came up recently and some of the talking points regarding game sales actually seems to pertain quite well here. Full interview here. A couple relevant snippets here: The relevant idea here is that if you charge too much, you won't get very much in units sold. What is different with the Spartan and macross toys in general from the video game market is that Yamato can't really charge much lower because unlike video games, the market for macross toys and especially something like the Spartan is much much smaller, so they probably wouldn't be able to make back the cost if they sold it for very low and every person with even a remote interest in the spartan or completionists bought one (maybe more than one for some people, but still).

If you use a color picker in a photo editing program, the colors, depending on the shading, range from a sea green to a dark green to a dark blue-green in some areas. In most areas I select, green is the dominant color with a higher value than blue or red.

While I thought the VF-2SS battroid looked decent enough, I'm not sure I ever liked the fighter mode that much. To tell the truth, I don't know why, but I actually liked the VF-XX design better. Also, am I the only person that thinks the metal siren is second only to the VA-3 Invader in ugliness? >.>

Ok, I'll bite. Madness? THIS...IS...A SPARTAN!!

Here's some screen caps of Gamlin's VF-22S in D7. Whether or not it officially is supposed to be a dark greenish color, it does seem to have it in the animation.

I find the MP seekers look really good in fighter mode while looking at them from the top or the side. They are also far more detailed in terms of panel lining and markings as you can even see the individual rivets on them. Where they start to fail is from the front, the intakes don't look right as it's just a solid piece covering most of where the intake should be and then part of the fan juts out below it. The cockpit detail is pretty much an after thought. Also, you can see the robot parts like the arms and hands and such from the bottom. But that's not too much the fault of the toy since Macross fighters were designed from the start to be transformable while the seekers had to be adapted from existing planes. Kawamori wanted to make those parts covered, but decided it took too much away from the robot mode. The landing gears are nothing to speak of as they are far worse than even the DX's. The null ray guns seem like they were just kind of done with far less care compared to the toy itself and the included missiles are cheesy. I think overall, the look of the valkyries when everything is considered is a much better toy and design. As someone else said, the robot's lower articulation is very low. This is due to the way they implemented the hip kibble. You can't spread the legs out as much as they should be able to unless you take the hip kibble off. I actually take mine off and reattach them to the legs themselves which also has the double benefit of allowing better articulation and also making the legs seem thicker. Problem is you have to use the stand because they can't stand up on their own that way. One nice thing though is that the seekers are exactly 1/60 scale so you could display them next to your 1/60 valks if you wanted to put a real world fighter in the same scale next to them.

There's barely enough room as it is to get the bay doors over the legs. Making the legs thicker would make the fighter mode fatter which ruins one of the best features of the YF-21/VF-22, its sexy sleekness. Actually, in person, the legs of the toy don't look so bad.

Wow! I never thought Yamato would be able to make the VF-22S. I definitely like the gray used here instead of the ugly dark green color that it should be. One of the few times I'm glad the color is different from the canon scheme. I'm not too convinced with the modified pod covers though. It kinda looks like someone cut some strips of styrene and glued them to the bay covers as they have no detail or anything and just don't look quite right in shape either. I hope it's just because they weren't done with the bay doors yet. Will be a must buy for me. Definitely hoping they include more appropriately colored stickers as well as use the same thinner sticker types that came with the destroids. Couldn't really care less about the YF-19 repaints unless they made some improvements to the mold like improving the fit of various parts and reducing the gullet size to about 75%-80% of current size (nothing as drastic as how the hasegawa models depicts it). It's just way too thick on the 19 from the profile view and even blocks the gunpod.

LIES! That's a Roy imposter. The real Roy would have beer missiles exclusively. He would first shoot one at himself to get himself respectably drunk if he wasn't already, then he would shoot them at his enemies so they wouldn't be at a disadvantage. After all, how can you fight without some booze?

Oh right, I remember those now. I only saw pics of them once from one of the toy shows. Did they eventually come out for sale in stores?

Did they say how much it would end up being if they used your coupon?

I think it would be neat to see an Enigma type paint scheme applied to the YF-21. Kind of like the ones done on the VF-1s in the past.

I guess the smallest transformable ones would be Bandai's high-comical joke machines? That the smallest that I can think of anyway that did some sort of transformation.

I'm not clear on what you mean as I don't have a 1/60 VF-1 yet. Are there gaping holes in those areas for the 1/60's fighter mode? EDIT: Nevermind, took a look at some pics of the 1/60 VF-1s and saw the holes in the back of the legs.

Awww, dangit. Oh well. Not a big surprise since the majority of Yamato's releases are practically the very last day or next to the last day possible. Its almost like places charging something plus 99 cents to make it seem a lot lower than it really is (like 19.99 instead of 20). I think Yamato should just decide on a month to release something and add a month to it and release it on the first of that month to make it seem like they are releasing things early

Yeah, I saw that and then I saw the price and thought wtf? The price of these stupid sets are even higher than the price of a 1/60 vf-1 or destroid and close to the price of an alto VF-25 as well... and that's not even considering the regular price. Even the 1/48 GBP armor cost me less than that when it first came out and you got a lot more for your money than what you get in these sets. I would have liked to get a ghost, but at those retarded prices, I can easily do without. It's too bad we can't even submit our RVF or 25G coupons for the discount.

I can't wait to see pics of the actual retail product. I'm really hoping they fixed the shield so that it's more level with the shoulder plates in fighter mode and doesn't leave such a big gap.

Is that color for the VE-1 correct? I had the impression that the main body was a gray sort of color rather than white-ish. The white kind of makes it look ugly, imo.

Have a look at page 2 for some suggestions others have posted regarding attaching the wing boosters. When done right, it shouldn't wiggle around at all. It may still be kind of weak, but you would be able to tell the difference regardless.

On top of possibly having more parts and stuff, the argument that Yamato won't be able to exploit this mold as much as the VF-1 and thus have to charge more for it seems to ring true as well. If you look at prices for the v2 1/60 VT-1, it is between $15-20 more expensive than your standard VF-1 + FAST packs, despite actually coming with less packed in. This is likely due in part to the new molds needed for the FAST packs which are unique to the VT-1. I'm actually amazed they didn't charge a bit more for the VF-1D since that uses a 2 seat cockpit that won't be used again in other designs since it is different from the VT-1 or VE-1 (which I'm sure Yamato will release eventually). But at least the majority of the other parts are re-used from the basic VF-1. Since there's far less repaints available to them and no variant heads for the VF-11, not to mention less popularity than the classic VF-1, Yamato likely just has to sell them at a higher price to justify making it in the first place.

Okay. Just making sure there wasn't anything else in this release. I want to get an Alto custom eventually when they finally fix the wings and hopefully the legs as well. I plan on displaying the full armored Ozma version in battroid so that stuff won't really bother me, but it would be nice to eventually have a VF-25 that I can display in fighter mode without needing to use super packs or armor to hide the deficiencies of the fighter mode or coloring.

Does that third group also suffer from a lot of indigestion?

I totally agree. It's just not the same when a VF can't transform. I also don't transform my valks very often, but it just feels complete with it having the ability to do so. I find it far more impressive and marvel at the engineering that has gone into a valk that can go from a fighter mode, that has nary a hint of robot parts and truly looks like a modern fighter, to a pretty awesome looking robot. All the neat things like the hidden heatshields, cockpit seats that turn for the different modes, and other twists and gimmicks that are used in getting it to go from one mode to the next are amazing. I mean, how many people have thought the heatshield for the coming VF-11B was a really awesome implementation and thought the toy was all the more cooler for it? To me, stuff like that adds a lot to the toy that things like the hasegawa models just don't compare to. Sure, those models look great, but if you look at them, they take liberties with the design to try to make the fighter or battroid look better because it doesn't have to transform and to me, it's not as impressive because they don't have to worry about the transformation process and having to have all the parts compatible between modes.

Man, that's not too far off. Hey Vermillion, it looks like you're going to have to change your sig to the next item on your wishlist With any luck, I hope Overdrive will be shipping them by Tuesday so that they arrive by Friday that week. Speaking of which, I'm not the only one having SSL errors trying to access the account page and stuff on that site, am I? Anyone able to get in contact with them and know what's going on?

Other than the extra holes in the backplate, there isn't supposed to be any improvements (like legs being higher in fighter or wings being more level) on the Alto re-release, right?