mikeszekely

I'm hoping to build a new PC myself this year, now that the GTX 1100-series looks like it's finally coming. I'll replace my 970 with an 1170, and my third-gen i7 with... whatever they're on now.

Sorry to hear about Rouge, though. Anyways... I'm surprised no one asked me what was in the big box. I'll tell you now, though. It's Gabriel, DX9's Omega Supreme. Fun fact... even though I was poor as a kid, one year I ended up with Omega Supreme for Christmas (I think it might have actually come from my uncle), and I didn't actually care for him. For one, even though he had some prominent episodes in the show it bugged me that only the rocket part of his alt mode seemed like it got any use. As for the toy, it was blocky, it had poor articulation, and was way too much partsforming for a five year old. Mostly, as I was super interested in space as a kid, I played with the rocket, but mostly ignored the rest of him. So even though I'd decided I was going to build a G1 MP-style collection, and even though Omega was a prominent character, I wasn't particularly interested in an MP Omega Supreme when FansToys announced theirs. Then DX9 came along and announced that they were also doing Omega, and under $300. That's not exactly cheap, but it's also seemed sort of affordable for a robot this size. He is, in fact, taller than Constructor, who was the reigning champ for biggest bot in my collection. And Gabe does it without being six smaller robots combined! Aesthetically, I think he's spot on, too. There's enough molded detail to keep him from looking too plain, but overall he's extremely cartoon-accurate. If I may be so bold, I think he looks better than FansToys' Omega, especially in the hips. I'm trying to find something about his looks to criticize, but honestly DX9 nailed this one. And to think, I was prepared to settle with my Platinum Edition Omega Supreme... Gabriel doesn't come with much in the way of accessories, which kind of makes sense because G1 Omega didn't either. I guess he's made of out his accessories. Anyway, you do get an alternate, open-mouthed face to replace to stock stoic one, but Omega is kind of a stoic character so I'm good with the default. You also get a sticker sheet, but the instructions don't indicate where they're intended to go. You have to pull up on it, but Gabe's head is on a hinged swivel so he can look up and down a little in addition to turning his head. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and can move laterally 90 degrees on ratchets. He's got ratcheted bicep swivels, and ratcheted elbows that bend 90 degrees. He actually does have a ratcheted wrist swivel on his claw hand, and the claws themselves have ratcheted hinges at the base and in the middle for opening and closing. His waist can swivel. His hip skirts are hinged and can move out of the way so that his hips can move forward, backward, or laterally 90 degrees on ratchets. His thighs can swivel. His knees can bend 90 degrees on ratchets, revealing big pistons inside. And (although my picture doesn't really illustrate it well) he's got some pretty extreme ankle pivots. The tolerances of his joints are mostly pretty good. His shoulders had some trouble bearing the weight of Platinum Omega, but I think he'll have no trouble with most figures. The outward motion on his hips and his elbows feel a little too tight, but the rest of his joints feel fine. But what's really nice is that there's basically no play between detents. Gabriel isn't moving unless you want him too, which I understand was kind of a problem with FansToys' where some play in the hips had him leaning. Despite the adequate range and strong ratcheting joints I found posing him to be something of a chore. Basically, while the scale seems to fit with official scale chart when you line him up with MP-10, practically it's just too big. At some point, I think you're better off having MP-quality figures of big guys like Omega that are 6-8" shorter and displaying them on a different shelf than, say, a carbot, and just saying that the shelves are in different scales. But I digress. Gabriel has red LEDs, both in the barrel of his cannon and the rocket exhaust in his claw-palm. The shield around his face can open. This would be how you'd pop out his face to swap them if you're so inclined. Was opening something the G1 toy could do? I can't recall. Speaking of opening, you can open Gabriel's crotch. I have no idea why, as it's not necessary for transformation. I guess you could stow something in there. Weirdly, there's even some molded detail in there. Normally I'd talk about the alt mode now, but Omega breaks up into so many pieces that I think we'll tackle them one at a time. First off, as is the case with the G1 toy, his head and midsection turns into a tank. He's got lovely molded treads, but they're just for show. He does have some rolling wheels underneath, though. There's a gimmick for spinning Gabe's face around to reveal some computer consoles, and it's nice that his face isn't showing in this mode. His turret can rotate, and both the main cannon and the two side cannons can swivel up and down. Aesthetically he could have used a little more yellow to be toy-accurate on the sides, or a little less to be cartoon-accurate, so I think the amount he has is a fair compromise. He definitely needed more red on the turret around the cannon, though, and if I'm being picky it would have been nice if that barrel could have been extended. Mostly, though, I think he's fine. He's a big tank, too. Here's a quick size comparison with Year of the Horse Optimus/MP-10. The next part, my favorite as a kid, is the rocket. There's not a lot going on here. He does have a door that can open and fold out into a ramp, but the way his biceps and elbows collapse inside means there's not really any room for stuff in the rocket. Also, the two arms are actually mirrored, minus the hands, so the top half of the rocket also has a door and a ramp, but it unfolds toward the rocket's nose. One thing DX9 didn't do, maybe because of the LEDs, is make the barrel collapsible. I think, ultimately, it doesn't matter, but it would have made for improved cartoon accuracy. Size-wise, it's a tall rocket. I positioned the claws open for aesthetic reasons, and it's taller than Phoenix's head and roughly even with his backpack. Closing the claws inward would make the rocket taller still. Like the G1 toy, the rest of the Gabe becomes the base. The basics are actually pretty similar to the G1 toy, with the the legs and wings forming the track and his back and shoulders forming the middle of the base, with his shins forming little ramps. The main difference is that there's less partsforming involved, since his legs transform instead of flying apart. There are a few other differences, mostly related to making a great robot mode, that do make the base a bit less cartoon accurate. His thighs make up the base of the base, so to speak, instead of his feet. That leaves his toes pointing out from the outside of the track instead of in on the inside. Also, because his shoulders and forearms don't make the side guns on the tank they fold into the cavity left by the tank torso. As a result the they fill in the space under those yellow hooks that go over his torso, so they can really be positioned like gantry around the rocket. That right there would be my biggest alt mode complaint, but who's going to display an MP Omega in alt mode? Who even has the space? Because, if you thought he was a big robot, he's pretty enormous in alt mode. I mean, I thought the combined "battle train" mode of Platinum Omega was pretty long, but Gabriel is longer than that by a good deal and wider to boot. By my measuring he's roughly three and a half feet long at his longest point, which is longer than my daughter is tall. Naturally you can put the rocket with the base and put the tank on the track. It looks about as good as the G1 toy, but the tank isn't motorized. Now, the big question... do I recommend Gabriel? A better question might be "do you really want an MP-style Omega Supreme that scales with MP-10?" I think Gabriel's size will appeal to some people, sure, but I think it could be problematic for others. Whether you keep him in robot mode or in base mode he's going to take up a lot of space. That said, if you decide that you really do need an MP Omega, I believe that Gabriel is the one to get. The Weijiang one seems pretty cool, and is the cheapest, but its definitely the least accurate in both robot and alt mode. Meanwhile, while I think FansToys' looks better in alt mode, I think Gabriel looks better in robot mode. Besides, like so many of FT's recent releases their Omega just seems frustrating to transform. Gabriel's pretty simple; the hardest thing about him is just how unwieldy it is trying to manipulate something as large as he is. Oh, one other thing- if you follow other Transformers-related forums, you may have read something along the lines of Gabriel being one of the biggest QC disasters in the history of the hobby. Now, I don't mean to make light of people who have had issues, but it seems some or possibly even the majority of issues can be traced back to a leak at the factory causing issues like mold, paint damage, rusted screws, and rusted or otherwise seized ratchets. However, by the time Gabriel started showing up at US retailers it seems like the majority are fine. Mine certainly seems fine. But if you're concerned about it, you might want to order with a store like The Chosen Prime or Toy Dojo who are willing to open it up and inspect it before sending it to you, or a store like TFSource that you can trust to repair or replace it without charging you to ship it back.

Got a giant box and a tiny box today. Let's talk about the tiny one! Inside was Crackup, X-Transbots' MP-style Breakdown. Credit where credit is due, X-Transbots has been doing a pretty good job of capturing the cartoon appearance in a lot of their recent figures, and Crackup here is no exception. The colors are nearly perfect; I'd argue that the white paint should have been gray or silver, and although the peach-tinged off-white color of most of the plastic seems to be a very close match to the original G1 toy I personally would have preferred the off-white to a peachless color closer to the Combiner Wars version. The blue is spot on, both in color and in the molded detail on his chest. From dead on that means his shins look fine (ignore all my pictures; I missed a fold out flap until I started tying this), but from the outside some of the car doors are showing, and the inside has a cutout that lets you see some off-white inside. But he's got the lines on his pelvis (with painted-in panel lines!), the rectangles with circles on his knees (probably could have also used some of that panel lining), the wheels on the insides of his calves, the wheels for shoulders, and cartoon-accurate lavender eyes. At some point in development XTB even put the spoiler on a swivel so that it would hang off of his back in the cartoon-accurate direction. I think the elephant in the room, though, is size. See, as far as I know none of the Season 2 combiners were on an official scale chart, either as individuals or in combined mode. This means fans are left to make their own inferences based on different cartoon appearances, alt modes, and their rival combiners. For the Stunticons, a lot of people feel like they turn into cars, so being the size of an Autobot car makes sense. In that case, Crackup fits the bill just fine. However, there's another camp that figures that since the Stunticons regularly fight the Aerialbots that they should be equal to them in size (and these people seem to think that the Aerialbots should be Seeker-sized since they're jets; no one ever seems to suggest that the Aerialbots just be carbot-sized). As you can see, Crackup's quite a bit smaller than Zeta's Aerialbots, and I think it's a safe bet that FansToys' Aerialbots will also be bigger than carbots. Personally I'm in the "Stunticons should be carbot-sized" camp (how else would the Autobot impersonate them in "Masquerade" without mass-shifting?), so I'm fine with Crackup's size. Just know that if you're in the "Stunticons should be Aerialbot and Seeker-sized" camp that DX9 got that covered. Crackup doesn't come with much in the way of accessories, but if most of the combined-mode stuff is going to come with their Motormaster I guess you don't need a lot. You've got a cartoon-accurate gun for him, an alternate face with a less-defined nose and mouth and more-defined cheeks but the same stoic expression, and a small screwdriver necessary for face-swapping. You also get instructions... now, I don't usually mention the instructions or collector's card, and pretty much everything I've bought was at least supposed to have instructions, but Crackup's instructions are something special. See, on the one hand it's a booklet with lots of steps that have text and pictures, so I want to give them props for that. But, the booklet is smaller than the ones that used to come with NES games, and with six picture-steps to a page each one is roughly the size of a (US) postage stamp. You're probably going to see this booklet bigger in my photo on your browser than it actually is in person. So the instructions aren't super helpful, and it's very easy to miss steps. I already mentioned that I missed folding out a panel on the front of his shins in every one of my pictures for this review. If you want some YouTubers another step I see missed a lot is that there are two triangular pieces inside his back that you fold out to fill in the sides of his torso. At least I didn't miss those! Crackup's articulation is pretty good. His head is on a hinged swivel so he can look up about 15 degrees, down about 30, and turn his head, but no sideways tilt. His shoulder rotate, although a little care must be taken to keep them from getting caught on his backpack, and they can move laterally 90 degrees on soft ratchets There's only three clicks between 0 and 90, but you do have some friction between the detents. His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed and get you basically 180 degrees. His wrists can swivel, and his hands are basically the same as an MP carbot with all his fingers molded together as one piece on a hinge at the base knuckle. His waist can swivel, and he's got about 45 degrees of ab crunch. His hips move forward 90 degrees, with his skirts hinging out of the way, and backward almost 90. He's got soft ratchets for lateral movement, this time giving you 8 clicks from 0 to 90 degrees. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His whole foot doesn't bend up or down at the ankle, but his toes or his heel can bend down if you need it. He's also got about 45 degrees of ankle pivot. He uses the standard MP method of using tabs on the handle of his gun to fit slots in his palm. They work fine and he holds his gun with no issues. Crackup's alt mode isn't quite as cartoon-accurate as his robot mode, but that's OK with me. I mean, it's closer than the Combiner Wars version and way closer than TFM's, right? Actually, most of the deviation from the cartoon comes from things that give the alt mode more actual Countach details; Countach rims, black vents, black around the door handle, black around the window seems, the small lights in front of the front fender, lights on the grill, an empty shield where a Lamborghini bade should be, etc. Frankly, I prefer a more realistic Countach alt mode than the simplified cartoon model, so I think Crackup looks great. That said, there are some places around the windows where paint on the clear plastic doesn't quite match the peachy off-white plastic. Of course, the question a lot of people are going to have is, "How does he look with other MP Lambos?" And I'd say he looks pretty good. Compared with Red Alert he's minutely longer and ever so slightly narrower at the back end, but not by enough that I think too many people will be bothered (especially compared to DX9's which looks to be 20-30% larger). He's even got his exhausts on low-hanging leg panels with a gap between them, just like the Sideswipe/Red Alert mold. Crackup's tires are rubber, but he rolls kind of poorly due to minimal clearance with some panels on his underside and the ground, and minimal clearance between his wheels and fenders. You can plug the handle of the gun into a square-shaped hole on his rear for alt-mode weapon storage. Interestingly, there's a hinge where the handle connects to the gun, allowing it to fold backward. That serves no purpose in either robot or car mode. I wonder, then, if it'll have something to do with the combined mode? I'm going to level with you guys, I'm not sold on the idea of a cartoon-accurate 49 cm "MP" Menasor the way X-Transbots is doing him, where you can basically make Menasor out of Motormaster alone and the cars just stick to his calves and shoulders. But to undercut a KO (that actually beat Crackup to the market) XTB decided to price him at just $40, and since Breakdown's my favorite Stunticon I figured I'd roll the dice on at least him. I gotta tell you, this is probably the best figure KFC/XTB has released. The materials are good, the engineering is good, the aesthetic is excellent, the articulation is good. This is a figure that XTB could have charged $80 for and I'd tell you it was worth it, so at $40 he's a no-brainer. He's a great figure on his own merits. The only thing I'd caution you about is that combined mode is up-in-the-air still, and we have no idea how much XTB is going to want for the other four. But if you're cool with Breakdown and just Breakdown, then Crackup's highly recommended.

I think, for me at least, this was the big difference between Rogue One and Solo. Solo honed in on a few details mentioned in the original trilogy that didn't really need any further explanation, then over-explained them. It wasn't bad the way TLJ was, it was just kind of boring. Rogue One started with a simple given, that the Rebels had stolen the plans for the Death Star, and managed to make an entertaining story explaining not just how that happened but why the Death Star had that vulnerability in the first place.

A lot of those were like "holy crap, I never noticed that before, but that's totally what that song is!" A couple had me thinking it was a stretch, though. Like "Dr Feelgood" from the Castlevania Bloodlines music... not hearing it.

That's not exactly a high hurdle to clear. "Solo: better than two and a half hours of the good guys running slowly away from the bad guys and unnecessary side quests that make the situation worse yet could have been avoided if the people in charge would have just told everyone what the plan was instead of engaging in a pissing contest because Rian Johnson was more preoccupied with tearing down the setup from the last movie than establishing anything to take its place." Anyway... I just came back from seeing Solo, and yes, I agree that it was better than The Last Jedi. It wasn't a bad movie... ...but it wasn't really a good movie, either. I've got plenty of complaints, and they can mostly be summed up as nothing of consequence really happened in the movie because all it did was over-explain a bunch of stuff we didn't need explained.

Except the PS2 one doesn't have 7 and 8, and doesn't play on PC it Switch (I'm planning to pick up the Switch version at launch, then to PC version on a Steam sale). Also, I think they'll only be separate releases if you go digital.

In a way, the waist is sort of cartoon-accurate. The problem is that Hellion's pelvis is too small. But I think that's a "smaller" problem than than Toro's backpack. But, like @Tking22 says, it's good to have options. We're really living in a golden age where we get multiple versions of a lot of characters and we can decide on an individual basis which figure best meets our individual subjective criteria. Plus 3P QC has gotten to a point where we can complain about things like engineering or face sculpts but it's getting less common to buy a figure with truly terrible quality. I know a lot of people were giving Gabriel some grief because a leak at the factory caused some water damage on some of the first batch, but by now I'm definitely hearing a lot more people getting copies with no problems so hopefully that was an isolated incident.

It's not really about cartoon accuracy or trying to match chibi vehicles with other chibi vehicles (although my MP Bumblebee is ToyWorld's Bii). It goes back to what I said earlier about thinking Cliff was a kei car for so long. Today, I can rationally understand that Cliffjumper came from a choro-q car based on a Porsche, but to me he never actually was a Porsche, so Hellion looks more "correct" to me. Same as Bii looks more correct to me while the official us too long and too narrow. As for the other mini bots, Richthofen is fine (and certainly not looking like an actual A-10, Brawny needs bigger fenders, Huff seems fine to me, Klaatu has a bit of a backpack and some kibble around his elbows but I think he's fine, and neither Seaspray I have really gets him (but I'm pulling for Neptune). I don't have any other MP-style minibots, but I'd be fine picking up Arkose for Beachcomber and Grump for Gears if I could still find them. So it's really just Windcharger left (I'm not sure my collection needs some of the repaints/remolds like Hubcap, Outback, or Pipes). I'd buy Boost to cross him off my list, but I'd rather someone else do one with big wheels and the cartoon-style front end (and a bigger robot mode head).

The worst thing for me isn't the lack of local storage, it's ISP data caps. A buddy of mine only gets around 100GB a month, so if he buys one if the bigger games that might be all he can play for a month.

The Pokemon Twitter account used the words "core series RPG." I suppose they could consider Mystery Dungeon a core series, but the implication seems to be that it's the next game of the red/green/gold/silver/etc lineage.

Hellion's semi-chibi alt is a selling point to me. Until well into adulthood I assumed Cliff turned into some kind of '80s-era Japanese kei car. I think MMC put enough detail in it that it fits in fine. Besides, while I do play with my toys from time to time they're mostly displayed in robot mode, and Toro's backpack is a huge strike against it there. Then there's this picture, which could be the money shot that seals the deal in favor of Hellion for me.

That's odd. Where I live USPS is the reliable choice. I was at the end of a UPS route, and the driver(s) had a bad habit of inputting that a delivery attempt was made and ducking out early without ever actually driving to my house and actually making a delivery attempt, so they left a sour taste in my mouth. As for FedEx, they're just incompetent as they're never on time and more than once I had to call them to ask them where my stuff was when I saw the tracking was updated to "delivered" but I hadn't received anything (including the time they delivered a $2000 Razer laptop I'd ordered to my neighbor's house and left it on his door step even though a signature was required for that delivery). As far as the brick and mortar thing goes, where'd you shop? I see online that it's listed as "not sold in store" at most Targets (although the one in Rio Rancho might have a copy), but Walmart and Gamestop both look like they're carrying stock in the Albuquerque area.

What the hell is this, 1989? Who buys games at brick and mortar stores when you get 20% off and release-day delivery when you preorder with Amazon Prime? *Disclaimer- I'm just playing off your words, and while I do preorder some games from Amazon for just the reason stated I also buy games from brick and mortar stores, especially Target, and I do get that not everyone subscribes to Prime (especially after the price hike).

The word is that you use a joycon to throw Pokeballs, and it borrows heavily from Pokemon Go (aka the mobile game I deleted off my phone after two days because there are no friggin' Pokemon out here in suburbia). Apparently you can even transfer Pokemon caught in Go to the Let's Go games via Bluetooth. Plus they found a way to jam in multiplayer, because Nintendo has to justify charging for that now. No, friends, this is not the Pokemon game we were waiting for. On the plus side, the next proper Pokemon game is supposed to be coming to Switch next year. In the mean time I'll just play Mega Man.

I boot from a 256GB SSD, have a 1TB WD Black drive just for my games, and a 3TB WD Green drive for storage. I even copied the \Documents, \Pictures, \Downloads, \Music, and \Videos folders from C:\Users\Mike to E:\ and pointed Windows libraries to them instead of the defaults. There's also a 5GB Seagate USB 3.0 external drive on my desktop for archival purposes.

And MegaMan and Bass, the five classic Mega Man Gameboy games, both Mega Man Xtremes, the Power Fighters and The Power Battle, Battle and Chase, and (dare I dream) an English port of Super Adventure Rockman. But not Mega Man Soccer. Oh, and maybe port the old DS Mega Man Zero collection to Switch/PC.

I try to be as objective as I can and review each figure individually on its own merits, but FansToys has always been overrated to me. Quakewave gets a lot of respect from me for basically being the first 3P MP figure, their Dinobots seem pretty cool (but I ultimately decided to go with Gigapower), and then it was kind of downhill from there as they've made toys that look good in neutral poses on a shelf but aren't particularly fun to mess with. As others have noted, yeah, there's definitely a crowd that FansToys' approach appeals to, but other companies like Maketoys, Generation Toy, and Fans Hobby are making toys that look nearly as good but are much more dynamic and have transformations that don't suck all the fun out of the room. I've already picked Maketoys over FansToys on Hound and Reflector and I've got no regrets in either case. Of all the FansToys figures I have picked up I'd say Sovereign and Phoenix are the only ones I truly love, and of those Sovereign still has a pain-in-the-rear transformation and Phoenix has limited articulation. When I handle those two I can at least see how FansToys built their reputation, but after stuff like Koot, Rouge (pains with horrible engineering), Apache (horrible engineering and limited articulation), Tesla (brittle plastic, no paint or diecast, phoned-in alt mode), and Spindrift (not hard but still over-engineered, robot mode doesn't capture the character) I don't think they'd crack my top 5 3P companies right now.

Well, this figure came out quite awhile ago, and he's pretty much sold out everywhere (I lucked out and bought one from a guy who decided that it was too big for his shelf space). So, you either probably already have it or can't get it if you don't. Nevertheless, this is Phoenix, FansToys' version of a Masterpiece Skyfire/Jetfire. Phoenix is a big fella, for sure. From what I can tell, he's a full head taller than DaCa Toys' Kronos, the only other arguably MP Skyfire. He utterly dwarfs the only other 3P Skyfire I have, Mechaform's Sky Guardian, who himself is a little taller to the head than MP-10. He is roughly eye-to-eye with TFC's Poseidon, and just a tad shorter than GT's Gravity Builder, and those guys are combiners. Now, how you feel about Phoenix's size probably depends on which episodes you're remembering. Personally, I'd have liked if he were a little shorter, like about the size Kronos was. I mean, I remember him big, but Optimus to the red line above his cockpit is closer to what I remember (and what a lot of screenshots from a quick Google search show) than Optimus to the top of the notch at the bottom of his cockpit. That said, if you go by the Sunbow scale chart (especially if you believe the chart supersedes the wildly-inconsistent animation) then Phoenix is about the correct size. Regardless of his size, FansToys definitely did a great job capturing Skyfire's look from the cartoon. Pretty much all the detail in the cartoon, like the squares on his toes, the lines on his ankles, the trapezoidal bits on his shins, the triangles on his hips, and some of the little mechanical bits on his chest are all present and accounted for, although FT has a tendency to paint some of the details were simply white in the cartoon. Then again, if they didn't, we'd be looking at a very plain, very white robot. The headsculpt is perfect, with sharply-defined cheeks and a gunmetal color outlining his face. Unlike pretty much every other toy meant to be Skyfire/Jetfire Phoenix's wings don't even protrude too far out from his back, and he's even got the pointy bits on his forearms just below his elbows. Honestly, I think the worst thing I can say about him aesthetically is that he maybe looks too heroic. On the animation mode the vents on his torso were almost the whole way down to his hips, but on Phoenix they're part of his chest, with segmented lats between them and his hips. I can't honestly say that bothers me, though. Phoenix doesn't come with much in the way of accessories. You've got a cartoon-accurate double-barreled rifle. In the little baggie are light-piped eyes, in case you prefer light piping to the gorgeous metallic blue painted eyes (and if you do you're a monster), as well as a replacement chest piece. The idea there seems to be that you can put an Autobot emblem on one and a Decepticon emblem on the other, in case you want to re-enact the scene where he switches sides in episode "Fire in the Sky." Lastly, he comes with part of a stand, which seems like an incredibly cheap move for a toy that carried a $220 price tag at US retailers. According to the instructions, the piece of a stand can be used with the stand that comes with Sovereign, whom I just happen to have. You have to remove the screws (marked above with arrows), pull the top part that clips around Sovereign's crotch out, pop the part the comes with Phoenix in, then screw it all back together. For a $220 Masterpiece-style toy from a company with FansToys' reputation I've gotta be honest, Phoenix's articulation is fairly limited. His head is on a hinged swivel so he can turn it, look down a little, and look up maybe 30 degrees. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and he can move them laterally about 90 degrees on another ratchet. His biceps swivel. His elbow is a single hinge but it does curl all the way around to about 180 degrees, and the pointy bit on the front of his forearm cleverly folds into his forearm as you do so, and it pops back out when you straighten his elbow. His wrists are actually on ball joints, so not only do they swivel but they can actually bend upward. As for his fingers, each finger is individually-articulated, and KFC/XTB should pay attention to how FansToys does it. The base of the thumb is a ball joint, so it can rotate as well as fold over the palm. The thumb has two additional pinned knuckle hinges. Each finger has a pin hinge at the base, middle, and finger tip knuckles. Plus, each finger has pinned hinge just in front of the base knuckle, but going through top-to-bottom instead of side-to-side. This additional hinge allows the fingers to splay a bit. The result is that his fingers have all have a very natural, very complete range of motion but no loose, flimsy ball joints or finger segments that pop off. Unfortunately, things start to go downhill at the waist. As designed, with everything tabbed in properly, he doesn't have a waist swivel. If you untab the hips like you're about to transform them you do unlock a little bit of waist swivel, but his backpack still stops you from doing more than turning maybe 5 degrees, so I'm not inclined to count it. Speaking of hips, even with the skid of his hip armor hinging out the side he can still only get about 60 degrees laterally on some squeaky friction joints. Forward and backward motion is ratcheted, but to only about 45 degrees forward and 30 backward. His hips can swivel about 30 degrees at the top of the thigh, but if you need more there's another (squeaky) swivel below the knee. The knees themselves are ratcheted and bend 90 degrees. His feet can tilt up just a little and down a good deal on a soft ratchet, and his ankles can pivot but only slightly. That last bit's a shame because the pivot joint is capable of a lot more, but the armor around his ankle hinders it. All FansToys had to do was put a hinge in the armor so it could bend out and he'd have a lot more useful pivot. Phoenix's gun has tabs on the handle that, like most MP-style figures, fit into slots on his palms. What's nice, though, is that Phoenix has the finger articulation to properly wrap his fingers and thumb around the handle while slipping his index finger up into the trigger guard. The gun stays in his hand pretty securely, so no complaints there. Phoenix transforms from a big robot to a huge jet. Without a ruler or measuring tap handy I'd venture that his wing span is probably about the same as his length from nose to rear. And if you set Phoenix so he's standing on his rear (something he does with no problem) a Gigapower dinobot like Graviter will only come up to the panel for the faction symbol. As big as he is, though, MP Soundwave is too big to lay on his nose, and you won't be posing MP Ratchet on his wing. I have to give FansToys some serious kudos, too, because Phoenix uses a lot of simple yet clever engineering. His thrusters get longer, his backpack gets wider, his wings get longer (both side-to-side and front-to-back). The resulting jet is more solid, more cohesive, and more cartoon-accurate than either Kronos or Sky Guardian, yet the transformation is fairly easy, intuitive, and fun... pretty much the exact opposite of all FT's subsequent releases. Pretty much the only negative I can come up with is that the indented section on the front of his backpack isn't screen-accurate and that his nose is a little too long, but both of those things are pretty small potatoes. I'd have also maybe liked some paint for the intakes on the side of his nose, but given that's the underside of his wrists in robot mode I can't fault FT for erring on the side of robot mode accuracy. Due to transformation the wings are variable; in all my pictures they're swept back as far as they go, but you can just as easily have them straight out to the sides or even sweep them forward. A little yellow paint on the tips marks his position lights (although technically the one on his left wing should be red and the one in the above picture on his right wing should be green). The cockpit can open, and there are two molded chrome seats inside (the second canopy on his backpack doesn't open). He's got working landing gear, complete with rolling wheels. You can peg Phoenix's gun to the inside of his right leg while he's in jet mode. It's not symmetrical, and the barrels jut out the back instead of pointing forward like a VF-1's gunpod. It kind of feels like an afterthought, but at least there is some sort of weapon storage for alt mode. One thing I find curious is that his thrusters are on his backpack and that his feet fold up tight. This is, I believe, cartoon-accurate. However, he has thrusters in his heels. These thrusters are apparently just a nice little detail for robot mode. In jet mode, a diecast bar unfolds from the nose and tabs into the top of his robot crotch. This diecast bar has a slit in it. If you swapped out the top of the stand that comes with Sovereign with the part that comes with Phoenix, the fin on to top fits into the slit on the diecast bar, allowing Phoenix to set securely on the stand. This only works with jet mode, though; if there's a way to put him on the stand in robot mode I haven't found it. At this point you can probably figure out that I don't think Phoenix is a perfect figure. His articulation is fairly limited, I think FansToys was cheap to only give you part of a stand instead of a whole stand, and this is the least paint I've seen on a FansToys figure since Tesla. That said, Skyfire is a big scientist with a big backpack in the cartoon, so I'd argue that more dynamic poses aren't necessarily in character, and expressive hands kind of make up for it the lack of articulation from the waist down. And I do happen to own Sovereign, whom I think needs a stand a lot less than Phoenix does. As for the lack of paint, well, he's mostly made of white plastic, but it's not like his colors are wrong. And then we have to consider his positives. Paint or not, he's got excellent aesthetics in both modes. The materials are good, and the joint tolerances are perfect (even if some of the friction joints are a little squeaky). The engineering is smart and effective yet simple and intuitive, so transforming him is easy and fun. After buying figures like Rouge and Spindrift (and passing of stuff like Koot and Apache) I give FansToys a hard time, accusing them of using a ton of paint and diecast to create a premium feel that masks the fact that they're often over-engineered and not particularly fun to mess with. I was seriously wondering why so many people seem to hold FansToys up as the gold standard for 3P toys. Even Sovereign, whom I think nails Galvatron's robot look in a brick of a figure with gorgeous purple paint and has enough articulation for some really fantastic poses is still a chore to transform. Now, I imagine when people are talking about how great FansToys is they're probably thinking of toys like Phoenix. Now, I don't own every FansToys release- in fact, without Quakewave or their Dinobots a case could probably be made that I've skipped some of their best releases. However, of the FT figures that I do have (Phoenix, the Insecticons, Spindrift, Tesla, Sovereign, Lupus, and Rouge) I think Phoenix is unequivocally the best. Highly recommended.

I mean, I can understand and respect that position, but while I do transform my toys from time to time they're primarily displayed in bot mode in my house. The only exceptions are dinobots and insecticons.

I picked it up, but haven't started it because I'd played it already in the 3DS. To be honest, I kind of thought FE Warriors was better, despite not knowing who any if the characters are.

Downbeat's alt mode isn't perfect, but he's a good example of what I mean when I say I generally prefer sacrifices in alt mode for a better bot mode. Downbeat nails the robot mode for me, enough that the issues with his car mode are worthwhile sacrifices. Coolsville/Jazzy has a gorgeous car mode, but the robot mode isn't working for me.

People think Meteor's smirking face looks goofy, even though it's the spitting image of the "wanna bet?" face Starscream makes when he tosses Megatron out of Astrotrain in the movie.

Must everything on CN be drawn in the same style as Steven Universe now?

Even though you can categorize both as "superhero movies," it's really more of an apples and oranges thing. Infinity War is the payoff Marvel's spent the last decade building to, and Deadpool 2 is the action comedy sequel to the action comedy Deadpool. I will say, though, that I think Deadpool 2 was better than the first Deadpool. Does that help?