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Scyla

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  1. Scyla
    Gundam Fix Figuration Metal Composite Wing Gundam Zero Rebellion preorder at Anime Export (¥49980 pay now): https://www.anime-export.com/index.php?product=91302 [edit:] sold out (04/28/25)
  2. Scyla
    I wonder if the ML Ultra Magnus will be a white repaint of ML Prime, without the car carrier.
  3. Scyla
    I only applied three stickers: Curtesy of the Macross Mecha Manual: https://macross2.net/m3/macross7/vf-17s-nightmare.htm The rest of the stickers are hard to apply and look good since they are clear backed and have huge transparent areas of sticker material that need to be carefully trimmed (without damaging the marking) to make them look proper. It is a shame that Yamato didn’t even apply the base level markings. If you want to make it look stealthy, why even paint the yellow stripes.
  4. Scyla
    I would be interested in a ML Grimlock. But that means I would want the rest of the G1 Dinobots too and I don’t think this will happen.
  5. Scyla
    The text mentions that there will be more info released on 04/24/25. This could mean that preorders will start at that point (or the day after) or that infos about the release, including the preorder date, will be released at that day.
  6. Scyla
    I have it but it stays in Ultra Magnus mode. The white Prime has troubles standing on his feet (at least in a static A-pose) because the heels are not straight, they are slightly slanting upwards) and too short. The other thing that is annoying to me is that they painted small red rectangles on the inner robot’s forearms so there is a uniform Red torso in armored mode. It really sticks out in the white Prime mode and I don’t understand why they couldn’t engineer a flap to cover those areas and have a pristine look for the inner robot’s forearms (it is also absent from FansToys product photography). Other than that it is your standard FansToys fare: great sculpt, great paint, great materials, great silhouette, very accurate, nightmare transformation. He even has above standard articulation compared to the average FansToys piece. I think it is pretty great but I have it for the Ultra Magnus mode. While the Masterpiece one is fun to transform is has the standard low production values most Takara MPs have and has odd proportions and limited articulation.
  7. Scyla
    I would never transform the Metal Build Zeta Gundam. I think even if it came in Wave Rider mode I wouldn’t do it.
  8. Scyla
    Could you imagine how much better Pipes would have looked like if his chest detail was done this way?
  9. Scyla
    For me FansToys is really going too far with their super toon look. I think their Constructicons would look so much better with the old design approach with more surface detail and better proportions. I really miss the days of FansToys translucent plastic over silver greebles that looked so good. While I have Ghery (and Wright on the way) I think MMC will deliver the best Devastator package. While FT has the best combined mode and XTB the best robot/alt modes I think MMC will be the best overall. MMC also uses the all-in-one approach and usually takes great care of their engineering. That means their Devastator will probably be fun to handle too. I really hope Takara’s Style Gen MPG line will be a success and steer the MP line away from slavish toon worshipping so that the 3rd party companies will follow suit. I also think it is odd that FT follows a more integrated approach for their Devastator (but it is not an all-in-one). Again this is detrimental to the Constructicons as a whole. Wright would look a lot better if the backpack could collapse into the space where the block with the arm resides. Ghery and Wright could also much better proportions if all the structural parts of the combiner were reallocated to a Devastator frame. I’m also worried that the 3rd party companies won’t see all the Devastators to completion. From a toy manufacturing perspective the US market potentially being inaccessible due to tariffs must hurt those companies in some way.
  10. Scyla
    Thanks for the link. I will see if I can get one during the release for MSRP. I can still buy it for inflated prices afterwards.
  11. Scyla
    Thanks, I don’t think it will come back in stock since it was a pay now preorder I think but it is worth the try.
  12. Scyla
    Does anyone still have the product page for the Metal Build Zeta Gundam from Anime Export? I missed the preorder and trying to snipe one on release date but I lost the page because I had to clear my browser history.
  13. Scyla
    I‘m not surprised that the costs for game prices are going up. They have been around the $60 range for years (or even decades). And they have been getting cheaper instead of more expensive (if I remember correctly I paid roughly $75 in the EU for Majora‘s Mask when it was released in 2000). For some reason, despite inflation and exploding development costs, publishers decided to stick to the $60 price tag while developers tried to implement new schemes to offset the rising costs with micro transactions, additional service fees, day 1 DLC and life service games. Personally I would rather pay higher prices than dealing with those hidden fee schemes. But now that these fees are a accepted reality we will get both. Higher prices and additional fees. Yay Nintendo is probably also anticipating tariffs in the US which is why the prices are so high. If the tariffs don’t materialize, they will just cash in the offset as revenue. A win win situation.
  14. Scyla
    Don’t worry, I will buy the Nemesis Prime version when it eventually comes out. And I despise MP-49 (I love MP-10B though).
  15. Scyla
    But the required download is nothing new for Switch games no? Games like the Bio Shock collection or some of the Final Fantasy releases (like FFX/X2) required you to download game (or part of the game) if it was too big for the cartridge. I think it will be the same for some Switch 2 games if I understood the article correctly. I don’t think that this is a smart move by Nintendo given that one of the unique selling points of the Switch (1) was that you can have a physical game collection that you can just boot up like with video game consoles of old. At least to me. I guess there is always Limited Run Games if they plan to extend that practice to games that would fit on a cartridge.
  16. Scyla
    I yearn for a new Space Police 1 set too. I think the Mission Commander is a too big of a ship for a revamp. However, my favorite Lego Set of all time, the SP Striker might be a bit too small. What makes these sets so iconic too me are their elongated canopy glasses so Lego would have to make a new mold for it to capture their shape (and they did a bad job for the canopy of the Renegade too).
  17. Scyla
    If you liked Gundam Build Fighter (and Try) I think there is a good chance that you like G Gundam as well.
  18. Scyla
    It is interesting to see that Devastation Prime has the same problems as MPG Super Ginrai when it comes to painting red over blue. I‘ve been a vocal critic of the quality of Takara‘s MP and MGP collector focused lines. My main point is that they are not the same quality as other collector focused toy lines because the designers are also the ones designing the mainline toys thus they are designed with the same mindset behind them (which is not collector but rather toy focused). Similarly their production values are low because the same factories that produce the mainline toys are also manufacturing the MPG/MP toys with the exact same constraints that they have for things like Devastation Prime (like paint not being opaque enough, nub marks on prominent spots etc.). I think this is also the reason why we are seeing MPG-17 Style Gen convoy. Takara‘s engineers yearn to go back to a toy focused approach and not the collector focused one they had with MP-44. If you want to believe some of the commenters on the board that shall not be named MP-44 was too complex for their manufacturing resources (my reading: the Vietnam factories that also produce the cheaper toys). I don’t know if this will change with their dedicated T-Spark line (the Takara analog to Bandai‘s Tamashii Nations). While AM Rodimus seems to be a stellar product (from a Takara baseline, I didn’t buy it since I have the superior Flame Toys one). MPG seems to be plagued by the same issues as before (see MPG Raiden and Ginrai).
  19. Scyla
    To put your mind at ease Mike I think Hasbro did a reasonable good job with Slingshot‘s alt mode. I think the expectation towards Hasbro should be what is feasible design and what is just plain lazyness. For having a realistic alt-mode you almost never will have the budget for at Hasbro. Especially not for established character designs. The designer of Slingshot at least put effort into making it a Robot in Disguise, even if it is not a realistic Harrier. And I think with a different design goal you could make a fairly convincing Harrier jet out of it. Air Raid is just lazy to me. The fact that the arms don’t tuck in is just lazy design (same with Breakdown not being the right car shape but a slight retool of Wildrider). So good job on Slingshot unknown Hasbro engineer I guess.
  20. Scyla
    I don’t know, the Earthrise seeker is pretty bad. At least the version I have. The transformation is unimaginative, the proportions are wonky with that huge torso block and articulation is just ok. The alt-mode is frustrating since it is again a box with wings (at least the arms tuck away nicely) and while the fuselage looks somewhat like a F-15 the thrusters just throw off the look too much. And I don’t like how it feels like handling the toy. Maybe it’s just mine but the plastic used doesn’t feel nice. If the significantly retool the Earthrise one I could see it fitting in the 86 line but I think just a reissue of ER Starscream feels off to me. The Earthrise Seeker mold can definitely needs some improvements.
  21. Scyla
    Metal Build God Gundam at Anime Export (¥49980, pay now): https://www.anime-export.com/index.php?product=90320 [edit:] sold out now
  22. Scyla
    I hope the Studio Series 86 Seeker is a new mold. I don’t want to be overly negative but the Earthrise one is trash.
  23. Scyla
    I think one problem is the naming of the set. I think this set - albeit with less yellow highlights - would be a good homage to the Blacktron 1 theme as a whole if they just gave it a different name. Like the Pirates of Barracuda Bay and the Lion Knights Castle sets were homages to the first Lego Pirates line and the Lego castle sets of the 80s respectively. Wisely they were not named the Black Seas Barracuda (6285) and the King‘s Castle (6080) separating them from the original sets. The new El Dorado’s Fortress (10320) and Galaxy Explorer (10497) wore the exact names of the original sets and were faithful updates to these sets. For something that sports the name Lego Renegade this just falls short of expectations Another thing that made the design of the original so great is that you have a hard time grasping, what the ship actually looks like. The mostly black color, the asymmetrical design and the shape of the wings made it hard too read. The shape of the ship is obfuscated by its design which is quite fitting for an spy-organization like the Blacktrons. I remember, when I first saw a picture of the set (see attached image) I had a hard time understanding what it actually looks like. Only after looking up more pictures on the Internet and watching Jang‘s review of the set I understood how the set is assembled. Maybe that undefined nature of the ship is something that the Lego designer tried to rectify with the new one, missing the point completely. But maybe that is something that I‘m reading into the set.
  24. Scyla
    During the last recent double insider points promotion I bought the icons Renegade set. This set is frustratingly bad. Not from a build experience (which is good) but from a design perspective. Now that I have the set build myself I think I can narrow it down to three main points: 1. The color scheme: the original set was a black spaceship with yellow accents (like all of the Blacktron 1 line) but this is a black and yellow ship with red highlights. Way to much yellow and the gray on the fuel batteries makes it miss the mark. It makes the whole set too bright of a vehicle. When I think Blacktron I think black! Then the transparent lights on the front and the mechanism throw off the black-ness of the ship even more. 2. The buggy (and its integration): while the original set had a small rover the integration of the buggy makes the center mass of the ship look off. You have the obnoxious gap in front of it when mounted. The translucent canopy (through which you can see the pilot) and more of the yellow color. The original set (like many Blacktron 1 sets like the Alienator and the Invader) had that half a hexagon shape on top that connected them to the aesthetic of Blacktron (made out of two 3 x 3 x 6 Corner Wall pieces) which is missing here. That brings me to… 3. The silhouette: this is what makes this set not a homage to the original Renegade but a new spacecraft to me. It is all wrong. The shape of the canopy section too elongated (due to making it a two seater) the neck section connecting the cockpit to the main fuselage too wide (for the sake of integrating somewhat questionable landing gear). It needed to be two studs thinner. The engine section being in line with the cockpit/sensor part where they were closer to the center of the vessel on the original set. And the sensors being too un-greebly. The fact that the ship‘s tallest point isn’t the center section where the cargo bay is supposed to be. This is just sooo frustrating. Especially since the previous set, the Galaxy Explorer was so faithful to the original. And - to me - the Renegade is the ship were Lego had to get it right since it was limited to North America and not available elsewhere making it hard to come by on the aftermarket. If they want to have a bigger buggy included why not give as an extra shipping container in the set that completes the silhouette of this "iconic" vessel and tones down the yellow-ness of the color scheme. If they want to have landing gear why not a thinner design than these 3 x 3 plates that don’t store away completely when collapsed to be able to give us the swan neck proportions of the original. All the other parts like the engines being in the wrong position, the overabundance of yellow pieces and the wrong shape of the sensor array is something that could be changed without messing with the core of the spacecraft. It feels like the designer missed the assignment or tried to design a new spaceship with his own design proclivities in mind. Such a shame. I recognize I‘m probably extra salty but not having an original Renegade in my Classic Space collection is a gaping hole. And I needed this one to be good. But this set is trash and a waste of effort and resources: I give it an "F" for fail. I guess there is nothing else to do to pony up the $300 to import an original Renegade from Bricklink.
  25. Scyla
    Is anyone else here looking for preorder links of the Metal Build God Gundam?
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