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mikeszekely

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  1. mikeszekely
    And now the second part of my Soul of Chogokin GX-71 review- Voltron. Again, I'm struck by the similarities in sculpt between the SoC and Playmates '84 Voltron. The biggest difference is in the proportions of the torso; SOC is a bit shorter and wider proportionally, and then partly for better animation accuracy and partly to keep the arms proportional the Red and Green lions' necks collapse. These improvements are for the better, IMHO. But as with the lions themselves, there's no mistaking the significantly higher quality on the SoC. The chromed diecast parts gleam under even minimal lighting. Voltron's ears, plus the gold on his chest and belt, are gold chrome. None of that unpainted gray plastic that's so abundant on the Playmate's is visible on the SoC- if it isn't chrome, it's silver paint. It's pretty heavy, weighing a little more unarmed than MP Ultra Magnus, but you don't even have to pick it up to know that it's heavy. It just looks heavy or dense, if that makes sense. There are a few more Voltron-specific accessories in this set we haven't talked about yet. There's a Spinning Laser Blade (aka the shield) and a handle for it, two Solar Combat Spears, an alternate "roaring" face, and (of course) the Blazing Sword. I included the Spinning Laser Blade and Blazing Sword from the Playmates version for comparison, and it's really no contest. The blades are chromed instead of unpainted gray plastic, with sharper details and a more refined sculpt. While both Spinning Laser Blades sport some gold paint, the SoC also has some metallic blue and red. As for the Blazing Sword, the Soc has red, silver, and gold paint. As for the blue, I'm not totally sure that it's paint, but it's at the very least a finish on the plastic. If that were all the accessories I'd say it'd be more than enough, but Bandai also included these parts to make a stand. They're molded a bit to look like the Castle of Lions, although I'm not sure that it's totally successful. There's also no paint on these pieces, but complaining about it after all the paint and chrome on everything else would be like a car dealer offering to throw in a branded jacket for buying a Ferrari and then complaining that the jacket is a windbreaker instead of leather. One thing I absolutely love is that Bandai included two name tags for the stand. One is the Golion logo, which makes sense since Bandai technically makes the Soul of Chogokin line for Japan. But, fully aware of the international popularity of Voltron and the willingness of fans to import figures like this, Bandai also included a tag with the Voltron logo. (And actually, if you bought yours from an American store, the Golion box comes with a Voltron slipcover over it.) My biggest complaint about the Playmates Voltron wasn't that the paint was kind of sloppy, or that it was covered in unpainted gray plastic. You get what you pay for, after all. My biggest complaint was that it had fairly limited articulation. I'm happy to say that while their are a few concessions to the fact that Voltron is made from five combining lions articulation generally isn't a problem for the SoC Voltron. It's head can turn about 45 degrees to the left or right (unfortunately up and down tilt is one of the aforementioned concessions). The shoulders rotate and can extend 90 degrees laterally, both on ratchets. And something I like is that there are sliders that lock the Black lion's legs in place, so Voltron's chest doesn't turn with the arms. As mentioned previously, the arms have bicep rotation above the elbow joints, and a second rotation below it should you need it. The elbow has a ratcheted hinge that, by itself, seems like it won't quite get you 90 degrees of bend. However, you can pull the forearms to reveal a second friction hinge, and combined you'll get over 90 degrees of elbow bend. Although the lions' necks collapse Voltron still has wrist rotation, and the lions' jaws open and close to allow Voltron to grab objects. Voltron's waist swivel is, unfortunately, fairly limited. However, you do get a modest ab crunch and even a little sideways bend. His hips are ratcheted forward a little under 90 degrees and backward about 45; do note that even though they're ratcheted they can't really hold up the weight of the diecast in his legs. And his hips can only go about 45 degrees laterally. This is good enough for some action stances, but don't expect Voltron to do a high kick or anything. Voltron's thighs swivel, and his ratcheted knees get a little under 90 degrees. The sideways bends in the Blue and Yellow lions make for modest ankle pivots, and if you need more your can turn the lion's heads. They also move up and down for foot tilt. Unlike the Playmates version you're not relying solely on the lion's legs for heel support, either, as there are little fold-out spurs on the lions' chests. As a result, Voltron is very stable. Voltron holds the Blazing Sword the same way as the lions hold their mouth blades; a tab on the handle goes into the roof of the lion's mouth. The additional joints that give the Black lion some spread and butterfly on its front legs also gives Voltron a slight butterfly joint as well. Between that and the elbows you can get the heads of the Red and Green lions to touch, although it's a little short of the "form Blazing Sword!" position. And although the lions have the limited ability to look left and right, a little more range would have been better for some sword-pointing poses. Voltron can hold the Spinning Laser Blade by plugging the tab on the handle into the roof of the lion's mouth, then plugging the Blade onto the handle. The top of the handle swivels, if necessary to get the pose you want. And of course Voltron holds the Solar Combat Spears exactly the same as the Blazing Sword or Spinning Laser Blade- insert the tabs on the handle into the roofs of the lions' mouths. Personally, although I'm sure I'll end up displaying Voltron with the Blazing Sword, I do really like the dual-wielding swords look. You'll notice, though, that one of them has a tab on the bottom. That tab fits into a slot on the other one, and calling the resulting double-bladed weapon a spear starts to make a little more sense. Now, while the SoC Voltron comes with just about every accessory you could possibly want, as a collector of 3P MP-style figures I often find that I'll display my figures posed on a shelf with one or two signature accessories while the rest end up in a box in the closet. It could easily have been the case here, where I'd pose Voltron with the Blazing Sword and have a box full of mouth blades and shoulder cannons in the back of my closet, but Bandai really went the extra mile with the castle-ish display stand. See, it's not for Voltron, it's for the accessories. You start by putting the spare face and Spinning Laser Blade on the base. The sides and "stairs" sit on the base. The Blue and Yellow lions' shoulder weapons and the Spinning Laser Blade's handle fit onto the sides of the stand. The Black, Red, and Green lions' shoulder weapons plug onto a tray that sides into notchest on the back of the stand, making a little shelf. Then the Solar Combat Spears and five mouth blades go up the stairs, leading to the the Blazing Sword on top. It stores essentially every accessory. Really, the only thing that it doesn't have storage for is the alternate name plate (which is mildly disappointing, since I think a spot on the underside could have been made to accommodate it). The stand actually has one more little treat. Remember I said the heads of the Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow lions popped off? That's not a loose ball joint or something, it's an intentional design to reference times in the show when Voltron would fire off a fist or foot. Now, if you pull out the shelf that the Black/Red/Green lions' shoulder weapons plug into and flip it over you'll find a quartet of circular pegs. These pegs fit into the lions' severed necks, and on the other side is a smaller peg hole. Those peg holes then let the heads fit onto a Tamashii Nations Act 4 clear display stand, allowing you to pose Voltron in a post-fire position. So, I don't collect Soul of Chogokin figures, or even very many non-Transformers figures. I can't tell you that the SoC Voltron is the best Voltron ever, because I know there are a lot of other Voltron toys that I don't have experience with. Some of them are bigger, some of them have better articulation. Some of them combine, some don't. And maybe one of them might tickle your fancy a bit better. What I can tell you is that this set delivers five solidly-built lions with good articulation that isn't compromised too much by the fact they transform. And they combine into a Voltron toy that's not so huge that it's hard to find a display space for, but not so small that it's lacking in shelf presence. It's got proportions that instantly recall the cartoon I loved to watch as a kid, with the diecast and chrome of the toys I had as a kid, but with the engineering and articulation of a modern toy designed for adult collectors. It's got all the accessories you could possibly want for both the lions and Voltron, plus it gives you a display-worthy place to put them all. So while I can't declare this the definitive Voltron toy, I can tell you that it feels like something special. I can tell you that it's an all-around excellent toy that's an excellent representation of a beloved childhood icon. I can say that, despite being one of the most expensive single pieces in my collection that it looks and feels like it's absolutely worth the asking price. And if you're a Voltron fan then I highly recommend this piece. In fact, I had a FOMO preorder on the GX-88 Soul of Chogokin Vehicle Voltron/Dairugger. I was recently thinking about cancelling it; $350 is a lot, and it's coming awfully close to the holidays. And I'm just not as strongly attached to Vehicle Voltron as I am to Lion Voltron. But now that I have GX-71 in hand all I can think about is how good GX-88 is going to look with it.
  2. mikeszekely
    I ended up with more photos for this than my last three Transformers reviews combined, so I'm going to break this up into two parts. So this is part one of my Soul of Chogokin GX-71 review: the Lions. Black Lion. With these guys in hand, it's interesting to see how similar the sculpt is on the Playmates '84 Lions. I wonder how much of that is because they're obviously both referencing the same source material, and how much of it was Playmates actively copying Bandai's sculpt? Regardless, you're not likely to mistake one for the other. Despite Bandai's lions being smaller they're significantly heavier. I didn't bother to put anything on a scale, but I'd venture that the Black Lion (maybe the Yellow or blue) are heavier alone than the entire Playmate's Voltron. I don't have any patented Cold Touch technique, but off hand I'd say that on Black the lower legs and feet, the hips and shoulders, and at least parts of the pelvis and chest are diecast. There's more paint on the SoC, and it's cleanly applied (unlike the Playmates). There's gold paint on the hips, ears, and eyes, silver paint on the waist, hips, and mouth (no white). Plus the lower legs are chrome. As a child of the '80s the mix of chrome and diecast is hitting all the right nostalgia notes. But more than that, the tasteful use of diecast and chrome combined with judicious use of neatly-applied paint gives this set a premium feel. Red Lion. Again, gold eyes, lots of silver paint, and chrome legs. Little black on the nose and collar, and metallic blue on the stripe on his back. Green Lion. Silver paint and chrome legs, gold eyes and the circles on his jaw. Black and red paint on his back. Red and Green have diecast legs and the base of their tails, as well as part of the joint in their waists. Blue lion. Chrome legs, gold eyes, some silver paint. I think the black is paint, too, except for the big circle in the middle of his torso, but the blue, red, and yellow seem like bare plastic except for a few spots like its butt flap and neck. Yellow Lion. Chome legs, lots of silver paint, and blue eyes. The black is painted, except of the circle in the middle of his torso. The red on his face is paint, but the red parts on his back are plastic. Blue and Yellow have diecast legs, and while they seem to be primarily blue/yellow plastic on the outside at least some of their inner workings are diecast. This set comes with a ton of accessories, so I'll try to break them down by lion. For starters, there's a sticker sheet with toy-style numbers to put on the lions. I had Voltron toys when I was a kid, so I'm sort of tempted, but even quality stickers feel like they'd cheapen the premium feel of these figures. As for the other accessories, the manual has names for them written out in English, but the English doesn't match the katakana. Differences between Voltron and Golion, maybe? For simplicity, I'll just use the printed English names. So for the Black Lion, we have the Black Lion Mouth Blade and a pair of Rotary Cannons. The mouth blade has notches that fit around the Black Lion's teeth, but no mechanism to lock it in. The rotary cannons simply plug into the ports on its shoulders. As far as articulation goes, it can rotate its head, look up and down, and open its jaws. It's shoulders rotate on ratchets, and some extending hinges allow you to splay them out or butterfly them in a bit. Its ratcheted elbows can bend about 45 degrees forward and, for whatever reason, over 90 degrees backward. Its front paws tilt up and down on ratchets, plus the front of the way is on a ball joint for some extra tilt or as ankle pivots. It has a very limited waist swivel, but it does have a bit of forward ab crunch and a little sideways waist tilt. Plus, part of its butt unlocks from the waist and can tilt further down. The tail is hinged at the base, then about halfway along its length is a ball joint. Its ratcheted hips can bend forward or backward, plus extend about 45 degrees laterally. Its thighs swivel, and its knees can bend a little forward and well over 90 degrees backward. Red and Green both come with their mouth blades. Then Red has Lava Cannon (top) and Plasma Flash Cannon (bottom), while Green has a Laser Cannon (top) and a Shooting Star (bottom). Note that the Red Lion's gear has round pegs, and the Green's has tabs. Both the mouth blades have tabs that fit into slots on the roofs of the lions' mouths. The other accessories fit onto their shoulders, using pegs and peg holes for Red and tabs and slots for Green. Red and Green have the same articulation, which is to say that their jaws open, their necks swivel, they can look up and down and tiny bit to the side. Their shoulders and hips rotate on what seem to be diecast balls going into plastic sockets. That gives them some ability to splay their legs as well. Elbows and knees are friction hinges that bend as much as you could want in the correct directions, and about 90 degrees in the wrong direction on the back legs. The feet tilt up and down on a friction hinge with a swivel to give them ankle pivots. Their tails have an up/down ratchet at the base, with a ball joint between the diecast and plastic parts. They have swivels on both sides of the silver section in the middle. Aside from using one as a waist swivel, this allows you to use the joint in the middle as an ab crunch, a back arch, or a sideways, serpentine bend. Blue and Yellow come with their mouth blades, then Blue comes with a Triple Barrel Mortar Cannon (top) and Shoulder Cannon (bottom). Yellow has Dual Shoulder Blockbuster Turrets (top) and a Radial Shotgun Shoulder Blaster (bottom). Once again, one lion has pegs and peg holes (Blue) while the other uses tabs and slots (Yellow). And just like the Red and Green, the mouth blades have tabs that fit into the roofs of the lions' mouths while their other accessories attach to their shoulders. The Blue and Yellow lions have hinged ball joints in their necks, so they can actually look up or to the sides better than the other three lions, plus a ratcheted joint (probably meant more for transformation) rotates their entire neck up on the torso. Unfortunately, they can't really look down. Their shoulders and hips rotate on friction joints, and hinges allow them to splay their legs. Their elbows and knees bend on ratchets, with a range similar to the Red and Green in the anatomically correct direction. Their front legs also bend nearly the whole way up the wrong way, too. Their feet bend up and down on friction hinges, and can swivel to provide ankle pivots. Their tails are hinged at the base, with a ball joint near the base. The round part of their torsos have a hinge to allow a slight bend to either side, and a ratcheted hinge allows you to arch their backs. For the most part, the articulation is good enough to get all five lions into sitting poses. The tails get in the way a little on the Red and Green. Black can't quite get its butt down low enough, so it looks a little like it's squatting to poop. All five lions have weapons in their mouths. For the Red and Green, the double-barreled guns are a separate piece that's hinged inside. For the other three the missiles you'll find in their mouths don't move. The cannon on the Yellow Lion's back can swivel up. Blue, Red, and Green all have hatches that open to reveal some kind of weapons inside. As lions, my complaints are very few, and it basically comes down to I wish they had a little more articulation in the necks and tails. Blue and Yellow can't look down enough, Red, Green, and Black can't look sideways enough. If you try to go too far the heads will pop off of every lion except the black. As for the tails, the lone ball joint in each of them doesn't offer much range. Oh, and I wish the Black Lion's wings didn't sit so far up from his back. But despite these minor quibbles these are by far the most articulate, highest quality lions I've handled. They marry the diecast and chrome of the '80s with modern toy engineering and aesthetics that carefully blend the old Bandai/Matchbox toys with the animation. I'm already prepared to say these are excellent toys, and I haven't even got to the combined mode.
  3. mikeszekely
    My GX-71 finally came. I'll write more later, but for now . After having Voltron in hand I kind of want the SoC Megazord, but I heard it's kind of floppy and not as good. Thoughts?
  4. mikeszekely
    Meant to have this up earlier, but most of my free time is coming in that two and a half hour window while my daughter is in pre-school, and that's only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Anyway, I'm wrapping up* my look at Fansproject's Dinobots with Cubrar, their Slag. As with their Sludge, Fansproject takes some liberties with the traditional Slag design. But while it left their Sludge sort of not looking enough like Sludge, I think Fansproject's design for Cubrar works pretty well. For starters, there's enough obviously-Slag elements to the design, like the dino-head hoodie and the dino-jaw bib. But I like the way Cubrar's dino-frill splits and lifts out of the way of his shoulders, and how the particular curves on his horns have them sitting less like back kibble and more like robot-mode horns. And I love how brutish his proportions are, something that's accentuated by using his dino-feet as his big stompy robot feet. Cubrar comes with the standard-fare sword, and two short-ish but surprisingly G1-ish guns. And he's got an axe. The axe is, of course, his Lost Exo Realm buddy, this time named Tekour. Tekour's very similar in engineering to Sludge's partner. He's got a neck swivel, hinged ball joints at the shoulder for rotation and tons of lateral movement, double-hinged elbows that curl all the way up, ball joints at the hips that can go 90 degrees forward and backward and 45 degrees laterally, ball joints at the knees for plenty of bend and faux thigh swivels, and that's it. He has a pair of axes of his own. Like Sludge's buddy, he's also got a massive handle sticking out of his back. It's not great, and like the others I'm going to toss him in a bag in the closet. But at least he actually looks like a pretty good weapon this time. As for Cubrar, his head is on a ball joint, but the articulation is limited by his dino-head hoodie. His shoulders are on big ball joints for rotation , and the ball socket even hinges out a little so he can get about 75 degrees of lateral movement. His biceps can swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed but still only good for about 90 degrees of bend. His wrists swivel, and his fingers are hinged at the base so his hands can open and close. Now, by design, Cubrar does have a waist swivel and an ab crunch. On my copy, both of those joints are crazy loose. You could spin his upper body like a top, and the ab crunch flops limply toward the ground. But, when properly transformed, is dino tail is actually pegged between his wings. With his tail in place, you can't really either the ab crunch and the waist swivel is very limited to the range of the ball joints in his tail. His hips are friction joints forward and backward, a little less than 90 degrees, and soft-ratcheted outward for 90 degrees. His thighs can swivel, and his ratcheted, double-jointed knees can bend 90 degrees. Most of his foot is fixed, but his dino-paw toes can bend up and down a little on ball joints, plus they can swivel as faux ankle pivots. He holds his sword and axe with no problems. The sword is a little snug, really. And you can peg his guns into the sides of his legs. He can, of course, also hold his guns, but like Sludge they're pretty loose in his grip. For more weapon storage that isn't his legs, he's got a pair of peg holes on his wings. One more thing he can do is a movie Lockdown-style gun face. Which is cool, but I think it's not necessarily intentional. The gun is actually meant to show in his mouth in dino mode, hiding his face in the process. It's kind of clever. Cubrar's dino mode is looking pretty good. I've always liked red horns on Slag, and Fansproject did his nose horn to match. His legs and feet are proportionally a little big, but they seem anatomically correct for a triceratops. Cubrar's got some dino articulation. His mouth can open, revealing the gun that covers his face. Although the frill is fixed, his dino head is on a double ball joint so he can look up, down, or sideways a bit as well as swivel at the neck. His front legs are his robot arms, so they have rotation at the shoulders, a bicep swivel, and an elbow that bends about 90 degrees both ways. Nothing really at his front feet. His rear legs have ball-jointed hips for rotation and a little spread. No thigh swivels. His knees bend forward and backward, albeit with a little less range than his elbows. His ankles can bend a bit, and the front of his rear paws are on ball joints for some extra up/down tilt and faux ankle pivots. His tail is segmented with a trio of ball joints, so he's got better tail articulation than most dinobot toys (but not as much as Planet X Grimlock's tail, or Fansproject Sludge's neck). There are peg holes on his dino hips that you can use for weapon storage. That kind of leaves one leftover, but I guess you can awkwardly stick it on his tail, where his wings peg in for robot mode. And like Sludge, you can take the humps on his back and spin them 180 to create a spot for Tekour to stand. He doesn't seem to lock in, though. ToyWorld's Slag is aesthetically more G1 than Cubrar, but again I kind of like what Fansproject did here, and I think Cubrar is on the whole a better figure than their Swoop or Sludge. My only real complaints are that his grip on his guns is too loose, and that locking up his tail restricts his waist swivel so much. Between this, ToyWorld, and (probably) Planet X you have a couple solid options for a Siege Slag. So my recommendation is to get whichever one you think you might like best. For me, Cubrar will do nicely. * "What about Snarl" you might be asking. Fansproject did eventually release, quite some time after these four, a version of Snarl called Pinchar. However, they must have made far, far fewer copies of Pinchar than they did the other four, because while I was able to find copies of these four for $40-$60 I cannot find a regular dinobot-red Pinchar at any retailer, on Ebay, or the BST boards of the forums I hang out at.
  5. mikeszekely
    My Chinese is a little rusty. It does sound like Hasbro's putting some pressure on them, which fits with what I've heard (mostly that the reason the Core Star video got pulled from Youtube is because Hasbro filed a DMCA complaint), but the way I read that is that they're putting Core Star on temporary hold, not cancelling it.
  6. mikeszekely
    Because some random guy in the internet said his friend heard this? That's like the modern version of "I heard from my uncle that works at Nintendo..." Every year there's a sky-is-falling, end-of-3P story going around. I'm not getting worked up over rumors and hearsay.
  7. mikeszekely
    I respect that, but I must confess that I don't really understand it. Don't get me wrong, I definitely want some degree of cartoon accuracy (for example, one of my biggest complaints with MP-10 was that it didn't really hide the wheels on Prime's legs), but it seems like a lot of the people in the TF fandom want their toys to look like walking screencaps. Personally, I don't think the animation was all that hot in the cartoon, and it was often riddled with errors. I personally like toys that look like they could be the real robot that the cartoon was based on. Kind of like how I prefer Gundam model kits that look like this: not like this: Regarding cabs, MP-10 has more molded rivets and what not, but I really like how much cleaner MS-01 is. It's not just that there are more seems on MP-10, but MP-10 just didn't fit together right in alt mode, so the seems have wider gaps.
  8. mikeszekely
    That sale I mentioned on Fansproject's Dinobots? I didn't stop at Grimlock and Swoop. This is Columpio, their version of Sludge. Hmm. Well, while I like the blue accents, I kind of feel like there's nothing about Columpio that really jumps out and says "this is Sludge!" (aside from the dino head and neck hanging off of his back). The head sculpt is kind of generic, and while it might just be my memory playing tricks on me in my mind Sludge is the bruiser of the group, and Columpio isn't particularly big. In fact, with the folded-up dino legs hanging off the sides of his lower legs he's looking a little bottom heavy. This is a case where ToyWorld's version compares favorably, or perhaps even a little better. Columpio comes with a rifle that doesn't particularly resemble his G1 gun or missile launcher, but it does have a cool bayonet. He's also got a sword that does more or less resemble his G1 weapon, and a... axe? Club? Some kind of weapon thingy. And that weapon thingy, like the one that came with their Grimlock, turns into a little dude named named Drepan. Drepan's head can swivel, his shoulders are on hinged ball joints for all the range you could possibly want, no biceps or wrists but he's got double-hinged elbows. No waist swivel, ball joints at the hips that go over 90 forward and back and just under 90 laterally, ball-jointed knees bend well over 90 degrees and act as thigh swivels, no ankle pivots but his toes can bend down. And he's got a cool little axe and shield of his own, and a brontosaurus battle mask that can cover his face. However, Drepan is a concept that worked better on paper than in the actual execution. In addition to having a pretty terrible weapon mode, he's got a huge handle sticking out of his back and leaving him prone to tipping backward. No, it doesn't come off, and no, it can't fold any flatter than that. Columpio can hold him, in either his default configuration or a slightly different sword-ish looking configuration. Speaking of Columpio, his own head is on a ball joint with limited up/down range but decent sideways tilt in addition to the usual rotation. His shoulders are big ball joints that rotate and move about 60 degrees laterally. However, since the sockets are in the torso he can't really raise his arm and move it laterally at the same time. His biceps swivel, and his elbows are actually double-jointed and can bend until his forearm collides with his shoulder. His wrists can swivel, and his fingers are molded as a solid piece hinged at the base knuckle like an MP carbot. His waist can swivel, and he's got a little bit of ab crunch/back bend. His hips are friction universal joints that can go a little under 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally. His thighs can swivel, and his knees are double-jointed, both of them ratchets, and can bend over 90 degrees. He technically doesn't have foot articulation, but the gold toes are on ball joints that can go up, down, or rotate to give him the appearance of standing flat-footed. The handles on Columpio's weapons are basically round pegs, and his hands are molded to hold them, but I'm going to have to say that he doesn't hold them super great. The tension in that knuckle pin is a little too weak to hold them tightly enough. Columpio doesn't have the hip storage that Grimlock and Swoop did, either. You can peg his weapons into his shoulders, though. There's also peg holes on the insides of his wings. Columpio's robot mode might be a little lacking, but I feel like he's making up for it in dino mode. You've got most of the hallmarks of Sludge's dino mode- gold head, gold robo-feeties sticking up from his chrome back, that sort of stuff. But, as with the others, I feel like Fansproject was trying to give a little more alt-mode realism, mostly in the legs and the narrower, less hump-backed body (although his tail is definitely way too short, but that's probably a constraint on a toy that still has to transform. The real star, though, is his articulation. Granted, his tail doesn't have any. His back legs aren't anything special, ball jointed at the hips for rotation and minimal spread, no thigh swivel or ankle pivot, but he can bend at the knee and hip. His front legs are his robot arms, with rotating shoulders and limited spread but now also with some butterfly motion. His elbows can bend, and his biceps can swivel. No front foot articulation. But then we get to his neck. There are six ball joints in his neck. Each one is capable of bending, slightly more toward the "spiked" side than in the other directions. But since they can all rotate, too, you wind up with fantastic range. He can arch his neck back and look straight up. He can bend down enough to bite something on the ground. Or he can bring his neck around 90 degrees to either side. Oh, yeah, and his jaw opens too. If you need weapon storage in dino mode you can peg his sword or gun into either his shoulders or hips. Plus, if you pull his robo feet out and spin them around 180 you'll open up a little spot for Drepan to sit in. Not that he's going to sit there. No, he's going in a baggie and into the closet. Recommending Columpio is a little tougher than recommending Fansproject's Grimlock or Swoop. As I noted, he doesn't have quite the same visual impact that Swoop and Grimlock did. Plus, some of the joints on him, like the knuckle pin, the waist swivel, and the ab crunch, are really too loose. And when you combine that with the fact that Columpio is facing tougher competition from ToyWorld than Grimlock or Swoop (to say nothing of Planet X, whom I may or may not pick up down the line) I can't honestly say that Columpio is your best choice for a Siege Sludge. What I can say, though, is that Columpio's alt mode does make up for a lot of his robot mode shortcomings. And if you're going to use Severo and Volar for your Siege Grimlock and Swoop the way I am then Columpio is arguably the best aesthetic match with those two.
  9. mikeszekely
    I guess BBTS got theirs early? Hasbro Pulse is still showing preorder with a release date of 10-1. I have mine preordered at Amazon, and Amazon is telling me 10-4 is the release date and I won't get it until 10-8. Either way, I'll review it here, and I'll probably compare it with DX9's Gabriel. So I'm not checking out Emgo's review right now, I wanna go in fresh.
  10. mikeszekely
    It was just a mix of a cold and jetlag, nothing serious. I've got a lingering cough, but I'm fine otherwise. When I reviewed XTB's Seaspray I looked at my other Seasprays (ToyWorld, Fans Toys, iGear, Maketoys, G1, Titans Return, Hunt for the Decepticons, and a poorly customized 2007 Storm Surge) and I realized I was missing one. Magic Square's Surfer! Sadly, Surfer is only available in a two-pack with Four Wheel Drive, their Legends-class Beachcomber. I think I've already established that Beachcomber is one of my least favorites, but if that's what it takes to add a Seaspray to my collection, so be it. Of all the Seasprays I have, the one that's been the closest in size to the G1 toy has been Maketoys'. That is, until Surfer came along. And wow, does Surfer ever make Maketoys' version look... dated. Surfer's got better proportions across the board. Now, he's probably not quite as G1 cartoony as, say, XTB's. He doesn't have the level of folding to minimize his feet, and while I dig the yellow bits on his chest as a reference to the toy's stickers I wish they'd left the black off his chest. Still, it's probably more cartoon accurate than anything else smaller than a Deluxe. I might not be a huge fan of Beachcomber, but Four Wheel drive is looking pretty good. He's even got the circles on his pelvis. The only thing he's really missing is the colored patch on his abs. And if you're wondering, yeah, I think this size works pretty good with New Age's Bumblebee. The duo comes with a pair of guns. One's like a pistol, the other looks more like a shotgun. The instructions don't indicate who gets what, but for some reason I feel like the pistol is Surfer's, and the shotgun is Four Wheel Drive's. Surfer's head is on a swivel, and that swivel is on a hinged plate for transformation. You can use it to make him look up or down a little. His shoulders are ball joints that rotate and extend 90 degrees. He's got bicep swivels, and his hinged elbows can bend about 60 degrees. His wrists can swivel. His waist can swivel. His hips are ball joints that can go 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally. His knees are ball joints that can bend slightly over 90 degrees and also pull double duty as thigh swivels. His feet can bend down due to his transformation, and dedicated hinges give him 90 degrees of ankle pivot. Four Wheel Drive's head can swivel, but it has no tilt. His shoulders are on ball joints in his torso, which allow them to rotate and extend laterally, but there's also a pin hinge in his shoulder. His elbows are double-jointed, with a pin hinge at the top and a ball joint at the bottom, so he can curl his arm up 180 degrees. The ball joint doubles as a bicep swivel. He's lacking a wrist swivel, but he does have a waist swivel. His hips are ball joints that can go 90 degrees forward and laterally, and a little under that backward. He has dedicated thigh swivels, and hinged knees that bend 90 degrees. His feet can't tilt up or down, but he's got ankle pivots that go well beyond what you'd actually need (something like 180 degrees). Either figure can hold either gun by stuffing the tiny peg handles into their tiny peg-hole fists. The fit is pretty tight. Surfer's alt mode is, at a glance, pretty good. Compared to the G1 toy it's a little lower and wider, but I can live with that. And Four Wheel Drive nails Beachcomber from the from most angles. But neither are perfect. The blue around the bottom of Surfer doesn't reach back far enough (or the white and yellow stick out the back too far). Plus there's a very visible gap between his thighs that goes the whole way through his alt mode. As for Four Wheel Drive, he's just missing some details like the seats, engine, and headlights. Forgivable, given his diminutive size and the fact that I don't really care about Beachcomber in the first place. Surfer's propellers can spin. Unlike the G1 toy, he lacks any wheels. For Wheel Drive does have wheels, and they do spin. He rolls pretty good, actually. Surfer's got peg holes on his robo-knees that you can use to plug in his gun. Or Four Wheel Drive's, since I can't really find a way to store his on his vehicle mode. I'd thought you could maybe use his visible fist holes, but his roll cage is in the way. Oh well, he's a pacifist anyway. Let Surfer dual wield. Surfer isn't perfect, but I think I'm a lot more forgiving of little flaws on a tiny Legends-class figure than I would be on an MP. And, despite his flaws, he's probably my second-favorite Seaspray that I own. Four Wheel drive is similarly flawed but still quite competent, and to be honest I see him as a pack-in bonus anyway. Like pretty much every other Magic Square figure I've looked at these guys get a recommend from me if you're into Legends figures.
  11. mikeszekely
    Just my two cents, but it was always a mistake on ToyWorld's part to scale their Prime with ThreeZero's. Not only did it put them in Hasbro's crosshairs, but I felt like they were marketing it to the wrong crowd. Like they were hoping to get people who were considering ThreeZero with "like ThreeZero but transforms!" Instead of the usual unlicensed 3P crowd who wanted it to scale with MP-10, MPM-04, or UT's Challenger. Or even ToyWorld's other movie stuff, which I think scales with Studio Series.
  12. mikeszekely
    Eknight sent me an invoice for GX-71. Finally! Can't wait until it gets here.
  13. mikeszekely
    I mentioned spending a ton on toys despite being on vacation in Beijing, and I wish I was kidding. Matter of fact, I was sick for a few days and resting, but I actually have more to review. So I'm going to get started with Fansproject's Volar, their version of Swoop. Yeah, I know, more Dinobots. At least it's not another Grimlock, right? Thing is, I still have ToyWorld's Dinobots, and while their versions of Snarl, Sludge, and Slag are passable enough for a Classics/Siege sort of collection their Swoop was terrible, closer to a boxy winged Soundwave than a decent Swoop. The Hasbro version is, perhaps, the best of the Dinobots they released but rather on the short side. Since I'd already concluded that the Fansproject Grimlock works pretty well for Siege I figured I might as well see if their Swoop was any good, too (especially when TF Source ran a sale that marked the Lost Exo Realm figures down to around $40 each). Well, with slender limbs and a waspish waist Volar definitely has some of that anime-inspired Fansproject style going on, but what I find interesting is that if you ignore the shape of the torso he's not that far off the mark from what Hasbro ultimately gave us, including the wings that fan out on swivels instead of unfolding on hinges. The size feels right, too. I think my biggest complaints are that I wish his waist was a little thicker and that his upper torso was less round, so that his chest and collar were more flush with the transformation joints connecting to his shoulders. Every version of Volar comes with the usual fair- sword with translucent red plastic, and missile launchers that double as guns. Due partially to availability and to the fact that I prefer my Swoops blue I didn't buy the regular version of Volar, though, who would have come with a little dude who turned into some kind of weapon like Grimlock's. Instead, he comes with a simple blue fellow, super generic, who is apparently meant to be an homage to the old Diaclone pilots. Little Blue doesn't actually have a name that I'm aware of, and he sits somewhere between a Maketoys Headmaster and Grimlock (and presumably the other LER) weapon guys in height. Considering that he doesn't have to make any concessions to any transformation Blue's articulation is pretty underwhelming. His head can swivel but has no tilt. His shoulders are ball joints that can rotate and extend about 45 degrees. No bicep or wrist swivels. His elbows are pinned and can only bend about 60 degrees. No waist swivel. His hips are ball joints that allow him to forward a little under 90 degrees, backward a little over 90 degrees, and laterally under 45 degrees. His thighs can swivel a little on the hips, but he lacks a dedicated thigh swivel. His knees can bend 90 degrees, and he has no foot articulation. We won't speak of him again. As for Volar, his head is on a ball joint with a little up, down, and sideways tilt to go with the usual rotation. His shoulders use a ball joint for rotation, but has a dedicated hinge for a little under 90 degrees of lateral movement and a soft-ratcheted transformation joint that gives him plenty of forward butterfly, so I'd have preferred if the ball joint were just a swivel. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel, and his fingers a pinned at the base so they can open and close like an MP carbot's. His waist can swivel, and there seems to be a ratcheted joint inside that allows for a backbend and an ab crunch. His hips are ratcheted universal joints that can get about 90 degrees forward and backward, but only about 45 degrees laterally. And that 45 degrees comes from just two clicks, so he suffers from poor ratchet spacing that causes him to either stand stock straight or in a dramatic A-stance. His thighs swivel. His knees are double-jointed, but you can still only get about 90 degrees of bend due to dino feet in his calves. His knees also have room to bend the wrong way without a way to really lock them in place. His feet can tilt up and down a bit, and the front of his foot can rotate to provide a faux ankle pivot. Volar can hold either his sword or his gun without any issues. The handle of the gun can also fold up, and pegs can be used to attach the guns to either the front or back of teh wings while another peg on the sword allows it to be worn on either hip. Volar's transformation is a bit unconventional, and the result is a little bit mixed. Granted, it's immensely better than the ToyWorld boombox with wings, feet, and a head. In fact, I do believe that Fansproject's intention was to create something a little closer to our modern understanding of a pteranodon. However, his robot shins make for unavoidably large dino thighs. In dino mode, Volar's head can tilt up about 45 degrees and down a fair bit. He can look to the side a little, but his throat lacks clearance and starts forcing his torso to split. His mouth can open. His wings can flap forward and backward on a soft-ratcheted hinge, but only from about 45 degrees backward to 45 degrees forward. Likewise, there's a ratcheted hinge at the "shoulder" to raise and lower the wing. It ranges from perpendicular to the body to about 45 degrees up. In both cases, the flapping and the raising, I wanted a bit more range, and in testing the limits I stressed some thin plastic and caused the wings to come off the joints. Not ideal. The wings can also rotate at the base, but that's more for transformation. Moving along, he's got swivels at the "elbow" and "wrist" on the wings that fan the wings out. Like other toys that have tried this articulation for wings going far enough will leave a gap between segments of wing. You shouldn't have to, though, as I think he's got a pretty impressive wingspan if you don't open them too far. You still have access to Volar's waist, backbend, and ab crunch. Hip and thigh articulation are a bit limited, due to being covered by his shins. His dino knee his hinged and can move both forward and backward, but his robot heel runs right through the middle and will often either poke through or hang out behind. His dino feet are on ball joints, which allows them to tilt up and down or swivel in such a manner as to give him dino ankle pivots. While you can use the peg holes on his wings for weapon storage, I think it actually works the best to put the gun/launchers into Volar's robot hands, so they sit along his back. There's also something like tabs on his robot forearms. Presumably they'd be a point to connect the weapon guy that comes with the standard edition of Volar, but they don't seem to work with Blue. The articulation in Volar's ab crunch, dino legs, and wings seems meant to put Volar into a quadrupedal stance akin to what a real pteranodon might have used while on land. Again, though, with the limits in articulation at the base of the wing, plus the limited ability to lift his dino "hands" and no wrist swivel, he just looks awkward to me. He looks better in flight, although I wish his head could look up more. Too bad Fansproject didn't include a flight stand. Volar's a tougher recommend than their Grimlock was. While I generally like Fansproject's aesthetic they made some choices here that I'm not sure panned out for either mode. Dino articulation, especially in the wings, feels a bit too limited, and the materials feel soft and fragile in spots. If I'd have bought Volar at full retail price back when he was first released I probably wouldn't have been happy. However, his flaws are a bit easier to take at $40, and in light of how bad other CHUG-sized Swoops are Volar might still be your best bet if you want Siege Dinobots. Just make sure you wait for a sale.
  14. mikeszekely
    I'd love to help, but I'm the guy who managed to spend $400 on TF toys when I wasn't even in the country.
  15. mikeszekely
    I don't think you're weird, I think you're in the majority. And I think you're right about his head and legs if you're going solely by the cartoon, which a lot of people are. Going solely by the cartoon doesn't work for me, though. I've consumed a lot of other Transformers media, and tend to prefer MPs that are closer to an ideal than strictly animation (like a modern RX-78 kit compared to the original '79 Gundam anime). Despotron isn't perfect (his legs are a little too chunky), but for me he's a lot closer than MP-36. But that's precisely why it's great to have all these options, we're free to go for the version that works the best for our own tastes.
  16. mikeszekely
    I did, and after this post I even re-read it. You lay out your case against the official and other KO's of MP-36, then expresses a concern you have regarding the THF KO. I didn't read anything in your post disqualifying Despotron (who, sure, is more expensive than THF's KO, but still hovering around $100 and still one of the less expensive options).
  17. mikeszekely
    Silver body with red inner legs, you say? But then, I've never been a fan of MP-36. Cartoon accurate or not, I think it's got a big head, skinny legs, and too high a waist.
  18. mikeszekely
    Not that I can see. Maybe impromptu clubs, although the fit is pretty loose. Also, just my two cents, but maybe the truck details look soft because of the close-in nature of my pictures? I mean, they're not as sharp as MP-10's, but not much worse than the larger Light of Freedom and better than TE-01, IMO.
  19. mikeszekely
    Thing is, it's not exactly Hasbro deciding where the line is. Trademark violation is over the line because it's the easiest prove in court. Likewise, companies that make KOs get shut down from time to time because it's fairly easy to prove that it's a counterfeit of their design, although China is apparently more tolerant of KOs that change the scale, and shutting down KO companies can be a waste of resources anyway because crushing one just causes another one to pop up. It's much harder for Hasbro to go after 3P, though. While Hasbro unquestioningly owns Optimus Prime, they don't own the concept of red and blue trucks that turn into robots. If the toy is an original design, even if it's obviously meant to be Optimus Prime, as long as the packaging doesn't including any trademark violations the burden of proof for an IP claim is much higher. And again, this is doubly so in China where most of these 3Ps operate, to the point that Hasbro might seriously be unable to stop them. They might be able to pressure US-based retailers like BBTS or TFSource to keep them from carrying 3P products, but buyers would likely still be able to buy from Chinese sources like eBay, Aliexpress, Taobao, or stores like TF-Direct and ShowZStore.
  20. mikeszekely
    So, yesterday in the official Transformers thread I reviewed Year of the Rooster Optimus Prime, aka Hybrid Style Convoy, and I concluded that "there are much better options for a Legends-size Optimus Prime at lower prices available today." And to illustrate that, here's a look at Magic Square's MSB-18 Light of Justice, which is basically a Legends-size version of their MS-01 Light of Freedom. Two things immediately jump out at me when I look at this figure with YotR/HS Prime. The first is that YotR/HS Prime actually looks like the more premium figure with diecast parts, chrome, translucent windows, and plenty of paint, while Light of Justice has minimal paint and is mostly that soft-colored nylon plastic Magic Square likes to use (apparently because it's extremely durable, so I guess there's that). The second thing, though, is that while it doesn't have that premium look, the actual sculpt and design of the figure is much more refined. In fact, the overall proportions and design are nearly identical to the MP-scaled MS-01. And that's really because, aside from a few simplifications, Light of Justice actually shares almost all of it's design and engineering with it's larger sibling. In robot mode, the most obvious of those simplifications are the front of the pelvis being a single piece with molded and painted yellow marks instead of translucent plastic, smokestacks that are separate pieces with less detail and no sliders, unarticulated hands, no chrome, and the windows on his chest are simply molded and painted instead of being separate translucent parts. He comes with more accessories than Light of Freedom, though. You do still get his iconic ion rifle and energon axe. To make up for the lack of articulated hands he comes with a pair of fully closed fists and a pair of pointing hands. He also comes with a pair of open hands. Now, the other two pairs are a right and left, both blue, but the last pair are both right hands, and one is white. You'll notice that they actually fit together, and I believe the white hand is actually for Magic Square's Legends-sized Ultra Magnus, so you can have Prime and Magnus shaking hands. You also get a trailer, Roller, and a small black part. I'm not 100% on this, but I think the black part is an adapter for Magic Square's Huffer, so he can pull the trailer. Finally, in the box Light of Justice doesn't have any smokestacks installed, so he comes with two pairs. One is a little shorter and has an angled tip, the other longer with a flat tip. I personally like the shorter, angled tip, and whichever you choose they simply tab into the sides of his shoulders. I'll note here that neither set seems to stay tabbed in very well. Although it forces me to commit to one set, I'm considering gluing mine in. Here's a quick comparison of the opened trailers and rollers, with YotR/HS Prime's on the left and and Magic Square's on the right. Magic Square's trailer is a little bigger and a bare gray plastic. There's unfortunately very little detail inside, and no room for storing Light of Justice's accessories. Plus the claw on the drone doesn't work. While Roller can carry Light of Justice's gun, the wheels don't swivel like YotR/HS, and it doesn't have the gas pump. YotR/HS Roller can carry Light of Justice's gun, and I thought about stashing LoJ's Roller and replacing it with YotR/HS before realizing that I'm probably going to stash the entire trailer and it ultimately didn't matter. Light of Justice's on a hinged swivel, so he can look up and down a reasonable amount and turn his head but he doesn't have any sideways tilt. His shoulders rotate and extend out from his torso to get about 60 degrees of lateral motion and a little backwards butterfly. His biceps swivel, and he's got a double-jointed elbow that curls almost all the way to his shoulder. His wrists are simply pegged on, and can swivel on their peg. He can swivel at the waist, and like his larger sibling he has a very good ab crunch but it breaks the sculpt. His hip skirts are hinged, although as noted the front is a single piece, to reveal ball-jointed hips that can move forward and backward about 60-75 degrees and laterally 90 degrees. His thighs swivel, and he's got double-jointed knees that bend about 60-75 degrees. His feet can tilt up and down a little, with some extra bend at the toes, plus he's got 90 degrees of ankle pivot. Either the default hands or the closed hands can hold his ion rifle. To swap hands, or to use his axe, you simply pull out the installed and and peg in a different hand/axe. Only the closed hands can remain attached for transformation, though. Oh, and I forgot to mention it with the accessories, but you can open his chest and there is a little Matrix in there. Unlike other larger versions there's nothing grabbing the Matrix or its handles. Instead, there's actually a little tab on the bottom of the Matrix that fits into a slot in Prime's chest. Due to how the inside of Prime's chest transforms into part of the truck's bumper though, you have to remove it and set it aside for transformation. OK, diecast and paint or not, YotR/HS Prime looked bad on its own in truck mode, but it looks absolutely terrible next to Light of Justice, because again Light of Justice is extremely similar to Light of Freedom. Again we have the simplified smokestacks, the solid windows, and the lack of chrome. The other major difference is that, due to the arm transformation being a little simplified, there's no cab doors and wing mirrors, so the spot where the side windows would be is just red. Very forgivable at this scale. I'm impressed that the leg transformation is actually the same as the larger version. The only minor difference is that you don't flip around the vents on his shins (which didn't seem to serve a point on the larger figure anyway). I was a little concerned that applying that sort of engineering to a figure this small might make him a little fiddly, but aside from the smokestacks falling out I really didn't have any issues. The trailer is a real case of one step forward, two steps back. The step forward, of course, is that he comes with a trailer. It helps complete the alt mode look, even if it'll sit in my closet while Light of Justice is in robot mode 90% of the time. It's a feature that's missing from the MP-scaled Light of Freedom, which isn't even compatible with MP-10's trailer. And sure, it might not have dedicated storage spots for accessories like YotR/HS, but there's nothing stopping you from tossing those hands, axe, smokestacks, and Matrix in the small plastic bag they came in inside the box and tossing that whole thing back into the trailer. Steps back, well, even though it comes with this figure and is for this figure it doesn't actually connect to Light of Justice. There's a small nub of a peg on the underside of the trailer, but nowhere to plug it into Light of Justice. You just kind of set it on and pretend. So, yeah, there are a few things I wish were different with this figure. And I don't have figures like Dutch, Sky Pillar, or Generation Toys' build-a-figure Prime to compare Light of Justice with, so it's possible that you might like one of them better. However, I said before when checked out Magic Square's Blaster and Sideswipe that I feel like Magic Square's Legends figures are like tiny MPs. Nothing exemplifies this better than taking their MP-esque Light of Freedom and scaling it down. Even with the few simplifications Magic Square had to do to pull that feat off you're still getting the same proportions, 99% of the aesthetic, and 90% of the articulation and engineering. If you're building a Legends-scale collection then this is a fantastic choice for Prime that I strongly recommend. And even if you're not, this mini masterpiece is a perfect bite-sized Prime for leaving on your desk at work.
  21. mikeszekely
    I thought that MP-10 was amazing when it first came out. It seemed so much more dynamic than MP-01, and I still prefer the blend of cartoon and real-world details over the super Sunbow thing that current MPs are doing (which is also why I like MS-01 more than TE-01, and both better than MP-44). That said, the design is a little dated. The use of flaps to cover most of the rear wheels without anything even attempting to cover the wheel wells bugged me long before the 2019's crop of new Primes, his articulation is a little limited, and he's got long gorilla arms. His rifle is a little small, too, due to the folding and stowing in the backpack gimmick. His alt mode is, perhaps, still the best of the bunch, although it doesn't fit together as neatly as MS-01's. I know you already have MS-01, and for people who already have MS-01 or TE-01 then I don't think you really need the vanilla MP-10. But I do think it's still good enough that, yes, it's worth checking out the variants like the SG version (although TE-01 is coming in SG colors). MS-01 is displayed with my MP Autobots, but I still have the Year of the Horse version in a detolf with various other random Optimus figures I've picked up.
  22. mikeszekely
    So, from mid August until Labor Day weekend I was in Beijing visiting my wife's family. We weren't doing anything touristy and I wasn't actively shopping for anything, but there's a mall near my in-laws' place (We-Life in English, 未来广场 in Chinese) with an indoor playground that we'd sometimes take our four year old to play at. Naturally there's toys for sale at the playground. With some vacation pocket money left over at the end of my time there I decided to splurge on Transformers Platinum Series Year of the Rooster Optimus Prime. To the best of my knowledge, Year of the Rooster Optimus is a totally unchanged Hasbro release of Hybrid Style Convoy, a toy first released in 2006, the same year as the original Classics Prime and a good five years before MP-10. As you can see from my comparison with New Age's Bumblebee, this version of Prime is basically Legends-size, and borrows heavily from MP-01 for aesthetics. He's full of diecast, silver paint, and even some chrome on the grill, smokestacks, and fuel tanks. I actually remember really wanting this thing back in the day. I guess back then a figure that looks basically like MP-01 in a sub-Deluxe size was an impressive feat, and if I'm being charitable I don't think YotR Prime looks too bad, especially given his size. That said, there are other options for a Prime at this scale, and I'm not sure this one has held up. Prime comes with his trailer, a flight stand shaped like the Autobot insignia, a jetpack, Roller and his little fuel hose, his ion blaster, his energon axe, and some alternate fists- open, semi-splayed right and left hands, a pointing right hand, a grasping left hand that's angled a bit for holding his rifle with two hands, and a pair of fists that look closed but have little notches in them. The notches are for posing him holding the Matrix. That's right, if you open up his chest there's a tiny Matrix inside. The trailer does what Optimus trailers do, for the most part. It opens up, and when you do geared teeth will push the supports out on the sides. The repair drone can unfurl, and there's the cutout in the top of the trailer so you can do that thing where the trailer is closed but the drone's on top. The drone's cockpit even opens, although there isn't really room for anything inside with the silver-painted molded detail, and it lacks the missiles of the G1 toy. Something I like about the trailer is that there's spots for Prime's rifle, axe, and even compartments for the extra hands. There's no place for the jetpack and stand, though, and curiously not really one for Roller. I mean, sure, you can set him in there, but there's nothing really to lock him onto and no way to launch him. Prime's head is on a ball joint with fairly limited range. His shoulders can rotate and extend laterally about 90 degrees, plus the joints can extend from his torso a bit and give him a bit of a forward and backward butterfly. His biceps swivel just above the elbows, which bend 90 degrees. His wrists are ball joints for rotation and a little but of tilt. I'll mention here that the ball joints are pretty tight, tight enough that I didn't feel comfortable pulling the hands off and changing them with other hands or the axe. His waist swivels, and because it's basically a ball joint he's got some sideways/backwards tilt and a very slight ab crunch. His hip skirts don't have hinges, so he can only move his hips about 75 degrees forward or backward and about 45 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his double-jointed knees get well beyond 90 degrees. His feet can tilt up and down, and he's got a somewhat limited ankle pivot. He can use the jetpack by sliding his arms through the straps and plugging it into his back. The stand has a little tab on it that fits into a slot on Prime's undercarriage. His ion blaster fits into his default fist, with a second handle further up that folds to the left or right like the RX-78 Gundam's for a two-handed grip. And, and I love that this is an actual feature, the smokestacks and fuel tanks can rotate 90 degrees to work as guns. There's even gatling barrels molded onto the fuel tanks. Now, these parts don't move on either of my reissue G1 Primes, but I distinctly remember the smokestacks on my G1 Ultra Magnus turning back in the day, and even though I don't recall Prime or Magnus doing it in the cartoon you better believe that my seven year old self was totally convinced they were shoulder guns. I guess, at the time, a tiny, well-articulated, (mostly) G1-accurate Prime that transformed at all was an impressive feat of engineering and we were just supposed to overlook the fact that this alt mode is trash. The windows overhang the grill and headlights, it's gappy, and Prime's legs don't collapse at all. I can't get the little tabs on Prime's arms to line up with their sockets, either, which isn't helping with the gaps. It's a mess, although it does sort of remind me of the old Classics Deluxe-class Prime that came in the two-pack with the green tank Megatron. As bad as the alt mode is, it does have rubber tires, which is pretty impressive. And it can pull the trailer. If you can't tell from looking at the truck mode, the robot mode is definitely the star of the show here. And again, I don't think it's bad. The paint and diecast give it a feel that reminds me heavily of old Gobots toys, and he's got pretty good articulation. However, the ball joint in his waist makes him feel a little floppy there, and the pieces with the truck headlights on his forearms that fold up over his fists are simply held on with tension. They have a tendency to pop off when you're manipulating him. And however impressive he was at the time, the MP-01 aesthetic feels a bit dated in 2019. Combine that with an awful, awful alt mode and a reduced price tag that's still around $75 (I actually paid ¥799, or about $112), and I really can't recommend him. There are much better options for a Legends-size Optimus Prime at lower prices available today.
  23. mikeszekely
    I'd asked Mike why he went with THF instead of IT because everything I'd heard about the KO Megatrons was that IT was the way to go. But I've personally zero interest in the MP-36 mold, so I don't have any opinions or insight to offer. However, Ben of Ben's Collectibles (or Ben's KOllectibles) has reviews for MagTen, THF, and IT.
  24. mikeszekely
    So all the usual US stores got theirs in, shipped 'em out, and BBTS is somehow selling extras at a significant markup, but I'm still waiting on eknight...
  25. mikeszekely
    Went to Walmart the other day, and I finally found a copy of Deluxe-class Siege Refraktor... and then today I got my Siege Refraktor Reconnaissance Team set delivered. I don't have any major aesthetic complaints, aside from the fact that he's a little hollow when viewed from behind. The size is right, and he's certainly cartoon accurate. In fact, I think I like the colors on him better than my Maketoys MP-scaled Reflector. The only other thing I'd point out is that the green doesn't quite fill his whole chest, due to how his transformation works, but that's pretty minor. Of course, in the cartoon there were three of them, and only one had the shutter tummy. And if you feel the need to buy three copies Hasbro's got you covered, as the shutter is removable- indeed, it has to be removed for transformation. The peg on the other side is smaller than 5mm, though, so you don't have a lot of other options. If you don't want to store them in the box there's a spot on his butt that you can plug the shutter into. Refraktor comes with an odd-looking gun and an odd-looking shield. We'll touch on why they're so odd in a bit. Refraktor's got pretty good articulation for a Hasbro Deluxe. His head can swivel and he can look up, but he can't really look down. Shoulders rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed and can curl nearly the whole way up. No wrist swivel. His waist can swivel. His hips can move forward, backward, or laterally on universal joints. His thighs swivel, and his knees can bend 90 degrees. His toes can point down, and he's got 90 degrees of ankle pivot. His gun has a 5mm handle as well as 5mm pegs on either side of the back of the gun. His shield has two 5mm pegs, one perpendicular to the shield for plugging into his arm or shoulder, and one parallel to the shield for holding in his hand. In addition to said hands, he's got 5mm peg holes on the outside of his shoulders, on the outside of his forearms, on his back on the outside of his shins, on the inside of his shins, and a pair on the underside of each foot. Aside from bot-mode hollowness, if there's one thing I'm going to ding Refraktor on it's his alt mode. Just like with Soundwave, it seems Hasbro's content to lay him down with his head and arms folded away and call it a "spaceship." His chest unfurls to hide his thighs a bit, his shield hides the gaps you uncovered when you moved his chest, and his gun is pinned between his toes, but it still seems like pretty lazy engineering. Partsforming is even involved, as you have to remove the shutter tummy to fold the chest down, then you relocate it to a peg hole that's revealed when you fold in his head. Fortunately, it's not your only option. While you could buy three retail copies of Refraktor for maximum cartoon accuracy, the easiest way to get three Refraktors is to order the Siege Reconnaissance Team set from Hasbro Pulse. This set is based on the G1 toy, though. While there aren't any changes to the mold, so they all have the same flat chest window and same bullet-shaped helmet and face, the trio come in different colors that help make it easier to tell which one is which. Specifically, the red one is Spectro, the one with gray arms and blue legs is Viewfinder, and the one with blue arms and white legs is Spyglass (and in my Siege head-canon the retail Refraktor is simply a fourth Refraktor team member named Reflector). Since they're toy-based the shutter on Viewfinder's tummy is black instead of silver. There are shutters for Spectro and Spyglass, too, but I have them on their butts. Like the retail Refraktor, the Recon Team comes with the odd-looking guns and shields, one for each member, done in black instead of silver like the shutters. As an added bonus, though, you get a camera flash, three bits of "armor," and a rubbery little Kremzeek. Kremzeek has little holes in his feet that fit over the tiny pegs used for effects parts on any Siege figure. Two of the armor bits fit onto Viewfinder's shoulders, and I love it. It really adds to the toy-style look and helps him feel a little more unique than just being Reflector except blue instead of purple. The camera flash has two pegs on it, and while the instructions show it pegging into Spyglass' shoulder I like having him hold it like another weapon. The last armor bit is for Spectro, but no matter where you put it on him it looks really awkward. Now, if you have three Refraktors, retail or the three in the Recon Team, you have another alt mode option. You can stick the three guns together and use one of the shutters to make a tripod, and the shields combine to form a telephoto lense. Then you can transform your Refraktors into cubes instead of "spaceships" and stick them together so the middle one is facing one way and the two on the ends face the other way to form a camera. The peg on the shutter lets you plug the tripod into the base, and the telephoto lense plugs into the belly of the middle bot. It will fit over the shutter if you left it on. As for the third shutter, I like to leave it on top of Spectro, pretending it's a shutter button. The advantage the Recon team has over three retail Refraktor, though, is the extra parts. Spyglass' flash plugs into one of his feet to become the camera's flash. Viewfinder's shoulder armor tabs together than slides over the top to become the camera's viewfinder. And Spectro's armor sort of makes that grip bump that a lot of SLR cameras seem to have, plus it's got some extra molded knobs that don't move or turn but do help sell the idea that this is a camera. Of course, because the Refraktor mold itself is unchanged the Recon Team is still perfectly capable of turning into a trio of "spaceships." Do note, though, that I couldn't find any way to stow Viewfinder's shoulder armor at all and no decent way to stow Spectro's camera kibble armor. Spyglass' flash can plug into one of the peg holes on the top of the ship, in front of the chest windows. I recommend Refraktor... in fact, I recommend three of them. And unless you're really a cartoon purist, I recommend the Recon Team over the retail figure. The extra pieces really help with the camera mode, and I like being able to tell the three apart from one another at a glance. Or maybe do like I did and grab the Recon Team and just one of the retail Refraktors. That way you have a cartoon-accurate one, but you have four uniquely-colored versions and you can still make one camera.
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