mikeszekely

Ok, you guys basically talked me into grabbing Super Metroid on my 3DS's Virtual Console. It's a darn shame the only GBA games on the 3DS were for the early adopters. I'd buy Fusion, Zero Mission, the Minish Cap, and the trio of GBA Castlevania games right now if I could.

I preordered at Amazon, so the mail guy just brought it a little bit ago. It's kind of funny, I like the potential of the Switch a lot, but I still only own three physical games and maybe three or four downloads. The only stuff I'm planning to pick up for it is Mario Odyssey and Fire Emblem Warriors. So I'm going to Shenzhen for a month, and decided to take my 3DS instead. Even made a list of games from its backlog to pick up and ensure that I have enough to play. For portability, I've taken the game cards out of their cases and got these Hori cases that hold 24 carts each. I've got room for 11 carts in the third case as of this posting. There's maybe four or five more I'm going to try to grab before my trip. When I get back to the States I'll probably order a fourth Hori case to store the games that are coming out after I leave and into next year.

I want the cash-grab ports. I'm baffled why they're turning up on the Vita instead.

Why not? I take my laptop when I go. While you're there you can't access stuff like Gmail and YouTube, and some stuff that does work like Yahoo is slow as dirt, but it's not like Chinese authorities install spyware on your computer when you go through customs.

I think someone said that the Bayverse MPs have a November street date. Which, if true, is possibly the most glaring example of why Hasbro should stop doing these exclusives with TRU. November is far too late to capitalize on any extra interest drummed up by the Lost Age in theaters, and gives everyone else way to much time to import the Takara versions instead.

I played Metroid as a kid in the NES, but I couldn't get into it. I think kid me wanted something more like Mega Man. I never played Metroid 2 or Super Metroid... I really liked Fusion and Zero Mission, though. So I have the 3DS Samus Returns preordered. In other news, Nintendo says they're making way more SNES Classics, then putting the NES Classic back into production next year.

It has one of those mushy d-pads that's like a circle with some directions carved into it. Makes playing games like Mega Man a bit of a pain. Well, that and the fact that I sold my original Shield (still have a Shield tablet and a Shield TV), and they're kind of pricey on the second hand market now.

I probably will have a laptop in the hotel, but I was thinking something more portable for the inevitable trains/buses/taxis. I actually had a PSP Go. It did work pretty well for some stuff. I'm looking for something a little more powerful that doesn't involve expensive proprietary or obsolete storage, though. One of the attractive things about the GPD XD is that it comes with a minimum of 32GB but can also take a microSD card up to 128GB.

Did you happen to notice if they had MPM-04 (the movie MP Prime)? They started showing up in stores, and I've been checking my local one from time to time, but I haven't seen it.

I wonder why people insist the Aerialbots have to be the same size as MP Starscream (even though, in actuality, the Aerialbots' alt modes aren't even in-scale with each other), but they're ok with Powerglide being an itty-bitty plane. Anyway, yeah, there's a good chance I'll get Zeta's Aerialbots. Not because I like the size (I actually don't; I prefer my combiners to be Warbotron/GT/TFM-sized), but because the only alternatives are still Combiner Wars or TFC.

Weaker than the Xbox One, sure. Do I expect every major 3P release on it? No I don't. But c'mon, if you can spend the resources on a Vita version, you can surely make a Switch version *cough cough Ys VII cough Secret of Mana remake cough*

I hope the Direct is just Reggie going "WTF, third parties? You'll make games for the Vita, and the Vita doesn't even have shelf space at Walmart, but not the Switch, even though retailers still can't keep them in stock six months after launch?" Seriously, there's been like three or four recent or upcoming releases that I'd love to play on Switch but they're only PC, PS4, and Vita.

So some stuff has been going on, and now it looks like I'm going to taking some extended trips abroad. Been stocking up on 3DS games, but fact that the only Castlevania game on the 3DS is Mirror of Fate had me digging out my older DS games... which in turn had me thinking about how many great GBA games there were. And that, my dear friends, has got me thinking I'd like a portable device for retro gaming. Perhaps something Android based? I was kind of eyeing up the GPD XD, but I figured I'd ask here if anyone else has any experience with it, or any alternatives to offer.

Upvote for you, then!

Don't sweat it, buddy. It's not like TFW here, there's not a lot of people using the upvote/downvote thing in general. And the ones that do... *shrugs*. I've got one (and just one) downvote for just about every review I post in the 3P thread.

The Dinobot's look pretty good, except maybe Grimlock. I mean, they're not great (where'd Grimlock's dino toes go?), but the other four are looking on-target considsering that they're Hasbro Deluxes, especially since they're also a combiner. Oh, and maybe the Leader-class Optimal Optimus with the smaller Optimals Primal. And, ok, I guess that Rippersnapper is pretty on, too. Jury's still out on Rodimus Prime; I need to see him from more angles. The cab is defintiely looking too long, like the Fansproject add-on over the Classics Hot Rod. Worse than MP-09. I actually am not at all into the Leader-class Optimus Prime/Orion Pax. I mean, the robot mode looks almost MP-10-esque from the front... but I have an MP-10, and he's not covered in gray panels from all the other angles. And while the smaller Orion Pax robot looks like the cartoon, well, I've always thought that cartoon Pax looks like butt. Worse than that, I feel cheated, because earlier leaks looked like the smaller robot was going to be Optimus/Ginrai and the larger robot was going to be be Powermaster Optimus/Super Ginrai. And yes, Hun-Grr looks awful. Not just his dragon mode, but also his backwards torso in rotbot mode.

I'm not a huge Beast Wars fan. I thought the show was fine, but I don't like the idea of robots that turn into realistic animals. I've never seen the Japanese anime sequels. That said, I've always kind of dug Lio Convoy. I've been tempted by Perfect Effect's Leonidas, but ultimately kept passing due to the reported fragility and the high-ish price tag. However, a company called NeoArt Toys, best (only?) known for doing a high-quality clone of Feral Rex, recently released a clone of Leonidas with supposedly improved quality at a much lower price. I bit. So, let me get this out of the way. Leonidas is, ostensibly, Lio Convoy, but he's not actually based off the of the cartoon the way that MP-36 is based off of the cartoon Optimus Primal. Rather, he appears to be at least somewhat based on a doujinshi called T-Beast 2 that featured a number of Tranformers characters (including G1 characters) with mechanical animal alt modes. If you're looking for a cartoon-accurate Lio Convoy this might not suit you. To be totally fair, he's not totally accurate to the doujinshi, either. However, I think the design is pretty cool. It's instantly recognizable as Lio Convoy, much more so than the Universe repaint of Cybertron Leobreaker, but the changes in the chest and the additional red on the torso make him a little more evokative of G1 Optimus than Lio Convoy already was. Besides that, Perfect Effect (and subsequently NeoArt) gave him a lot of little painted details that help highlight the more mechnical nature of the design, as well as give it a really premium look. In pictures like this one it looks pretty good, but in hand it looks amazing. I was a little surprised at the size; I thought he was a bit closer to MP-10 in height, but he's really a full head or so shorter (although there are tricks to squeeze some extra height out of you). Surprisingly, he's much closer in size to the Universe version, who was a Voyager, albeit a large one. All-in-all, though, I think that's ok. While I haven't watched the anime, I think Lio Convoy was supposed to be the same size as Optimus Primal. While Leonidas is shorer than MP-10, he'd still be taller than MP-32. Leonidas comes with a ton of accessories. We've got a stand. You can turn the top part around, and the base has additional slots, so if you have more than one version you can actually mount them on the same base. There's a pair of katanas, totally diecast with gunmetal and red paint, that fit into plastic and painted scabbards designed to look like rail guns. He's got two G1 Optimus-style ion rifles. The barrels can be extended a bit, and you can fold the handle it, rotate the butt, fold the trigger guard down into a scope, flip it over, and fold out a second handle. There's a red visor for the lio head, a bit of armor that plugs into the top of his pelvis, and a crossbow. Finally, we have a weapon that can be a whip or a spear that will form the lion tail. This piece is very articulated; those round joints between segments cans swivel on either side of the joint, and the joint itself rotates to angle the segments. This is one of the parts that broke on a lot of people's original PE versions. I haven't had an issue, and this is one of the things that NeoArt supposedly improved, but just in case NeoArt included some replacement segments. Oh, yeah, and if that wasn't enough, the tip of the tail/spear/whip can be removed and split in half to form two daggers. Although he has a veritable arsenal you can actually store everything on him. The tail folds up as show into the armor part, which again pegs into a spot at the top of his pelvis. The katanas in their scabbards fit onto the small pegs on the sides of the armor, and the two ion rifles have slots that fit into tabs on the back of the armor. The crossbow folds up and pegs into a hole on his back, between his shoulders, and the visor tabs into a small slot on the lion forehead (although I prefer the no-visor look). I don't recall what's up with the Matrix during the Beast Era. I do know that the original Lio Convoy toy's chest opened to reveal a molded-in Matrix-like spot. Likewise, Leonidas doesn't come with a removable Matrix to add to my burgeoning collection, but you can open his chest up to reveal a molded spot, painted with gold and a metallic blue, that definitely looks like a Matrix. Leonidas has a lot of articulation, but it feels more like some of the articulated humanoid Japanese figures than a Transformer. His head is on a ball joint where it connects to his neck, and then his neck is on another balljoint inside his torso. That gives him a little upward range, a fairly good amount of downward range, some lateral tilt, but also stuff like stretching his neck forward or leaning his head to the side. The lion bits over his shoulders are actually on ball joints at the ends of armatures connected to his back, and the armatures themselves have a large ratcheted hinge above a peg that connects to his back on another ball joint, allowing you to easily ove them out of the way. The shoulders themselves have what I think is a ball joint inside them that, by themselves, allow for swiveling and give you a little under 90 degrees of lateral movement. However, that ball joint is on a peg, and the other side of that peg is a large ball joint in the chest that also swivels, pushes the lateral movement up to the full 90 degrees, and gives him a bit of forward and backward butterfly motion. He's got bicep swivels, single-jointed elbows that still give you better than 90 degrees of bend, wrist swivels, and hands with a fixed thumb and all four fingers molded as one piece that can open and close on a pin at the base knuckles. The top of his torso is on a ball joint that can stretch up a bit, swivel a bit, and lean forward, backward, or to either side. His waist is yet another ball joint that also swivels and can lean forward. He can't swivel his torso 360 degrees like a lot of Transformers, but the combined ball joints give him a very natural range of motion, both in twisting and leaning/ab crunching. His hips are slightly hinged in the pelvis, so they can stretch downward a bit to give the thigh a little extra room to clear his waist armor, then extend out to ball joints in the hip itself. He can get over 90 degrees forward or backward, and somewhere between 45 and 90 laterally. The thighs swivel over the hip, which limits how much they can swivel but still allows for a fairly natural motion and doesn't interfere with the sculpt of the thigh. His knees are double-jointed, ratcheted on both ends, and get over 90 degrees. The red knee cap armor is on a slider, too, so you can adjust it to keep the joints covered. His ankles are yet more ball joints, capable of swiveling, tilting up and down a little, and inward quite a bit. The front half of the foot is connected to the back half by still another ball joint, giving him some extra up/down foot flex, and the other toes are connected to the middle toe on swivels. Plus the armor on teh top of his foot is ball-jointed too, so you can keep it close to the shin when his foot is neutral or bending downward or flex it outward when you bend his foot up. Despite the large number of friction joints, most of the joints feel really good. A few are a little tighter than I'd like, but the only loose joints are the front halves of his feet. Unfortunately, that can make him tricky to balance, as the joint will give without supporting any weight. It's possible to balance him on the back halves of his feet alone, though. Or, you can make use of the stand, which has two tabs that fit into two notches on his butt. His weapons don't have any kind of tabs or other gimmicks to help him hold them. You just fit them into his palms then close his fingers. His fingers do have something like a tab to ensure to help push the handle of the weapon evenly into his palm, but it's really the strength of his knuckle joint doing most of the work. Despite that, he holds the diecast katanas just fine. Same with the crossbow. He also holds the spear well, although I never tried it as a whip. Same goes for the daggers. The one weapon he didn't hold all that well was the ion rifles. I'm not really bothered by that, though. I'm not exactly sure what weapons Lio Convoy uses in the anime, but G1-ish ion rifles are like the least interesting thing Leonidas can hold. Leonidas "transforms" into a mecha lion that kind of reminds me of Zoids (especially with the visor piece). I use the word "transform" loosely because you're really just using the double-joints in his knee to get his legs in a more lion-like configuration, flipping his forearms around to (mostly) hide his bot hands and bring out his lion paws, manipulating the lion bits that were over his shoulders so they merge over his head, then standing him on all fours. Technically the instructions also have you rotate his chest panels to basically no effect and shrug the shoulders up, but if you shrug them up as much as the instructions suggest it looks very unnatural. Despite the overly-simple transformation it's arguably one of the better robot-lion formers I've seen. He's got the same shoulder, bicep elbow, hips, and feet. His knees use the same joints, but they're a little more limited if you want to keep them in lion-y positions. The ball joints in his waist and upper torso give the lion mode some twist and flext to put him in nice prowling poses. The tail, if you clipped it up properly, still has four of those balls active for a total of seven swivels and five bends. The front paws on hinged at the "wrist", and like the foot the outer toes are hinged to the inner toe. The lion jaw can open and close, and the various sections of his main are either hinged or ball-jointed so that you can fold them back or flare them out a little. The lion neck is really the weak point of this mode. It can swivel, look to either side, or look down a bit, but it's kind of limited due to both armatures that hold part of the lion head having to work in tandem. Move too much in any direction, especially upward, and the whole assembly starts to come out too far from the body to look natural. Even with everything collapsed as much as it can go you'll find that his robot head is clearly visible in the gaps from some angles. As with robot mode, you can get all of his weapons onto the lion mode. For starters, the butt armor stays in place with the tail. The ion rifles clip into the same spots, but now's a good time to point out at the parts where they clip onto fold out on a pair of ratcheting hinges. The crossbow plugs into the same spot as robot mode as well, but this time stays more or less unfolded. The katanas remain sheathed, but insteads of pegging them into the butt armor* you plug them scope side up onto the ends of the crossbow so the barrels of the sheath-guns point forward. They can even rotate on the pegs to aim up and down, and the pegs themselves are on swivels so they can be aimed closer together or wider apart. With all due respect to actual lions, this heavily-armored robo-lion looks way more intimidating and way more boss than anime Lio Convoy, although it may be a tad over the top. *Ok, technically you can leave the railgun-sheaths on the butt armor pegs, but putting them on the crossbow puts them further out to the side, away from his body, making it a little easier to clear his mane. If you want, you can actually transform him with all the accessories attached, since the crossbow can stay folded if you're not using it to hold the railguns. The railguns will be upside down, but that will put them up a little higher and able to clear the top of the mane. If you want to tone him down a little, as well as store some accessories you might not feel like using with him (as is the case with me), good news. Leonidas is built a bit like a Gundam model, in that some of his outer armor is just pegged together. While this works against him sometimes (the red parts of the shoulders like to pop off, and if you twist him too much at the upper torso joint it'll push the darker red parts off of his lats), it does mean that you can fairly easily remove the armatures that the ion rifles tab onto off of his butt armor. I don't plan on posing him holding the rifles, nor do I particularly want to store them on him in either mode. This way, I can store the armatures with the rifles in the box, and his butt armor will have a cleaner look. So here's the deal... Leonidas is not your typical Transformer, MP or otherwise. He just doesn't move the same way. The numerous ball joints, while holidng up so far, don't feel as robust as even your average friction hinges and swivels let alone ratchets more common on high-end Transfomers, official or otherwise. The movement of his joints isn't as fluid. And, like I said, some bits can pop off when you don't really want them too. Basically, he doesn't feel like a toy that you can really play with the way you can set a lot of other figures on your desk and mess with them. However, as long as you're careful with them the range of the joints, as well as joints you don't usually see like two ball joints in the torso or the neck that's ball-jointed in both the head and the chest, remind me of stuff like Figuarts or Figma. Add that to the sheer amount of sharply molded detail and the liberal use of paint and it becomes clear that Leonidas is meant to be more like those figures- a gorgeous thing you pose then put on display then go for long periods without touching it. Generally speaking, I don't have a problem with those sorts of figures, but to me the allure of Transformers is that they transform. The reason why everybody else isn't making Transformers like this is because Transformers, more than other toys, are begging to be messed with. And I think that reinforces my decision to have passed on the original Perfect Effect version of this toy. $150 feels worth it for a figure like Op Ex that I can mess with and transform to my heart's content, but not for a figure destinted to be left alone on a shelf, no matter how much paint or how many accessories it comes with. The NeoArt version, though, comes in under $100 (I got mine for around $91 at TF-Direct). He's still more display piece than toy, but at that price I'd say if you like the design he's worth it as a display piece. One side note: Perfect Effect did a repaint of Leonidas called Xerxes in black and red. Neoart also copied that version if you prefer it. Or, if you want a version you can't get from Perfect Effect, NeoArt did an Evangelion version of Leonidas. One other side note: Around the same time the NeoArt clone was released, Perfect Effect came out with a new version of Leonidas called Origin Leonidas. This version comes with an extra big sword, and has a remolded chest and head as well as some altered paint apps to make him look a little closer to the anime. Did Perfect Effect release it to try to lure people back, away from the NeoArt version? I couldn't say... but I can tell you that NeoArt plans to clone that version now, too.

I partly wanted a gun for Fans Hobby's Scourge, since he didn't come with out. I like the idea of having a bunch of MP Primes. I like the deco. And I kind of just wanted more trucks. Here's Fans Hobby's Gunfighter II, their version of G2 Laser Optimus Prime. Fans Hobby's deco is very faithful to the US version of Laser Convoy, with red and black paint on the faux chest windshield and some molded and painted detail on his shoulders meant to be evokative of the stickers on the original toy. He's got the same red his knees , molded detail on his hips and thighs that are very close to the original toy, same blue feet and faux ab grill, and even some molded detail on his lats where the original toy had screws. How you feel about the deco will largely depend on how you feel about the orignal toy's deco, since Gunfighter is very close; personally, I dig the early '90s color scheme that's a bit garish but not as crazy as some of the other G2 toys. Size-wise, I already compared Archenemy (the Scourge version of this toy) to MP-10, so this time I have him with a Hasbro Deluxe and Voyager who were also inspired by Laser Optimus. Thankfully, Gunfighter comes with a few more accessories than Archenemy. We do have another sword, identical except the blade is a light translucent blue instead of red (it look kind of purple in pictures, but in hand it's definitely blue). We also have two guns in black with red details. One is modeled after his trusty ion rifle. The other I suppose is meant to be like the gun that came with Laser Optimus. I mean, it's got two barrels, but that's about where the similarity ends. Once again, he doesn't come with a trailer (nor is he compatible with MP-10's), but supposedly Fans Hobby is planning to release versions of the trailer separately for both Archenemy and Gunfighter. This being an Optimus Prime and not Scourge, Gunfighter comes with one other accessory. His chest panels can open up (Archenemy's can't), and inside is a diecast Matrix. It pops right out. Fans Hobby molded a loop onto it, in case you wanted to put it on a chain and wear it yourself. Aside from that, though, it's probably one of the nicer Matrices I've got in my expanding collection. Gunfighter's articulation is identical to Archenemy's. His head is on a hinge swivel. He can look up probably about 30 degrees and rotate his head, but that's it. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, but the angle of the truck kibble can cause his shoulders to get caught up on his backpack. A friction hinge inside his shoulder armor can move his arm laterally a little less than 90 degrees, but the armor itself can swivel inward a bit to get him just past 90 degrees, and ratcheted transformation joints can let you manipulate the shoulders even higher. Like MP-10, the arms also can slide outward from his torso a little to give you a little extra clearance. He has a bicep swivel a just above his elbow, which is a single-jointed friction hinge that does go past 90 degrees. His wrists can swivel. His thumb is fixed and his fingers are pinned at the base knuckle. The index finger is separate, with an addition hinged knuckle, while the other three are a single molded piece. Although his index finger can move independently and has a little extra articulation, he can't open any of his fingers very far so he can't even manage MP-10's droopy pointing. He has a small ab crunch, and his waist can swivel. His hips are ratcheted in every direction, and whichever way they move they get more than 45 degrees but less than 90. His thighs swivel just below the hips. His knees are double-jointed, both ratchets, and he can get some pretty deep bends before his calves start banging his thighs. His feet can point down a little, nothing really upward, with incredible 90 degree inward ankle tilts. Plus, his heels and toes can wiggle slightly up or, due to transformation, bend very far down. All-in-all it's pretty good, especially considering the bulk on his shoulders and back. He can hold his guns and swords by sliding the back of the weapon, which has a little notch, into a groove on his palm. The double-barreled gun is a little loose, but the other two weapons are fine. He has the same flip out peg holes on the backs of his shoulders that you can use to store his weapons. The sword plugs in just like Archenemy's, and the guns plug in by folding up the handle to reveal a little peg. It can be a little tough to get the guns to peg in, because the peg holes want to rotate back in. I'd complain more, but I don't plan on storing any of his weapons. He can hold his G1-style gun and sword, and Archenemy is getting the double-barreled affair. The alt mode is, again, pretty faithful to Laser Optimus. The top of the cab is taller and missing the horns, silver fuel cans instead of red, and the step up to the cab sticks out kind of far and has the silver plating on the side instead of the top, but everything else is right. That includes the abrupt way the red transitions to black. I mean, I know it's accurate, and I know we make fun of the Bayverse design for the flames, but take a look the the Reveal the Shield toy. You can't honestly deny that the flames make for a more interesting, more logical transition from red to black. He does unfortunately still have the weird gap in the molding of his grill, and I do still wish his feet had another hinge to fold in more for transformation. His feet sticking out the back are especially out of place now that they're blue vs Archenemy's black. He does still roll, and his tires are still rubber. It could just be my copy, but the legs tab together pretty loosely and have a tendency to come apart. On the flip side, I found his arms easier to get into place and tab together than Archenemy's. Oh, and while I still can't figure out where you'd stow his sword in truck mode, the holes that let you store his weapons on his shoulders in bot mode allow you to mount his guns on his hood in truck mode. I have mixed feelings about Gunfighter. He takes one of the best Transformers toys of the G1/G2 era and updates it with better articulation and a size and aesthetics that make it more of a match with MP-10. It's a solid, well-made, well-painted figure. It's cheaper than Archenemy, despite having more accessories, and cheaper than similar toys like Op Ex or the various trailer-less MP-10 repaints. On the other hand, the engineering and transformation is very simple (the Deluxe Reveal the Shield version is more complicated). Accurate, yes, but I've already noted more they could have done with the feet. I feel like maybe there was a more clever solution to the arms/fuel tank part of the transformation too, that could have left the truck a bit tidier. The other thing is, while I do like the deco, I never owned the original toy, and to my knowledge he's never appeared in fiction like this. I mean, even if Robots in Disguise was pretty bad, I still watched it. I still have a connection with Scourge that I'm lacking with Laser Optimus. So do I recommend him? That entirely depends on whether or not you think you need a Masterpiece Laser Optimus Prime in your collection. If you do, then go for it. Gunfighter's a competent toy, and I don't see anyone else rushing to do a Laser Optimus. If you don't, then you can probably pass; he's competent, but lacks the kind of "wow" that would make him an interesting one-off figure.

And wrapping up ToyWorld's Coneheads, this is Requiem, their Dirge. Starting to notice a trend yet? He's using black instead of the dark gray that the official MP uses. That's toy-accurate, and you could argue that the dark gray of the cartoon was meant to be black. I guess the real question is why is his face just silver? I don't think that's either toy or 'toon-accurate. It's another goofy ToyWorld face, too. He's got some detail on his knees and feet that looks like it's meant to be the sticker details from the toy, but it's just painted gold instead of red (or purple if you want cartoon knees). So again, it's not 100% cartoon-accurate, it's not 100% toy-accurate, but it works ok. You should know what to expect with the accessories by now; screw hole covers, two weapons, and two of the bases we talked about in Combustor's review. Articulation is, once again, identical to the other two. And sadly he's pulling the same missile firing gimmick that Combustor has, with the same hair pin trigger built into the part you peg onto his arm so you're pretty much guaranteed to accidentally fire and lose the missiles. They are just as easy to take apart if you want to remove the spring, though. And jet mode. Just like the other ToyWorld Coneheads he skips the extra black on his fuselage that was seen in the cartoon and goes for a toy-style blue fuselage with tampoed details on the intakes mimicking the stickers of the G1-toy. He's got the stripes on the wings, but rather then run along vertically near the fuselage they run perpendicular to the leading edge of the wings. I don't think it looks bad, per se, but it's not accurate. Honestly, though, I think I like it better. Requiem's got just the one peg hole on under the wing for his weapons. If you want to put them closer to the body, like I would, you can't because there's some kind of weird thing there that looks kind of like Thrust's VTOL bits, sans rotor. I have zero clue what it's doing there, since it's not something that was on either the cartoon, the G1 toy, or seriously any other toy of Dirge ever. They don't seem to be easily removable, either. Odditities aside, he's got the rest of the stuff the other's do; some diecast, opening cockpit, landing gear with springs, sits on base. And that's that. So I'll conclude with a summary that applies to all three: friction joints are a tad too loose (but not Hasbro floppy), could use a heel spur, could use more articulation where the weapon mounts on his arm, could use weapons that cartoon style and/or don't have the missile gimmick. Too big and not Sunbow enough for some people's tastes. And yet, great articulation that includes a waist swivel and a bot mode that locks together solidly make this arguably the best Seeker mold you can get, I'm satisfied that my MP Conehead needs are being adequately met and would need for another version to be significantly better to get me to trade up, and for that reason I still recommend him and his mold-mates. I think he's a good toy at the regular asking price, and better if you can find a bargain like I did.

My KO Lambor's head swivel is a little loose, and he doesn't hold his gun that well... but wasn't the gun thing an issue for the Takara version? I don't have one to compare; I originally wasn't going to do MPs and just got Lambor for size comparisons. And as long as we're comparing stuff... how about I compare ToyWorld's Assault, their version of Thrust, to DX9's Tyrant? To the top of his conehead, he's actually slightly taller. His face (which isn't a very good sculpt, IMHO) puts him more or less even. This again raises the question of whether or not the ToyWorld Seekers are too big. Of course, that's a call you have to make for yourself, but I don't see myself investing in another MP-style Thrust any time soon. Aesthetically, His forearms, thighs, and hips are all black, like the G1 toy, but his face is silver (which I guess is closer to the lighter gray of the cartoon). I'm fine with these colors. The gray panels on his hips are cartoon-colored. The triangles on his feet are sort of like the G1 toy's in that they're red triangles, and they point to his toes, but like their Ramjet there's no silver background. The gold on his knees is neither toy nor cartoon. But I think the aesthetic detail that's going to be the most noticeable is that his wings aren't on his his hips or legs, but folded around and on his back like the Generations or iGear versions. Maybe the Sunbow purists will balk at that, but personally I prefer it this way. I think it looks neater and less awkward. Assault's accessories are par for the ToyWorld course. We've got the tracking device that was only a thing for IDW Ramjet, now in Thrust colors, the same screwhole covers, and his null ray/arm missiles. They don't strike me as particularly toy or 'toon-accurate, but I like them for being visually distinct from the season 1 Seekers' null rays. Articulation is identical to Combustor, as the only difference in the molds are the wings, faces, and weapons. Aside from the somewhat limited options for posing his weapons I've got no major complaints. The waist swivel alone puts him ahead of the MP-11 mold. Does a size comparison with space artillery help? Anyway, the jet mode is more in keeping with the toy, with the painted detail on top of the intakes and the stripes being somewhat reminicent of the cartoon's stickers, and the fuselage being red instead of partially black. The wings are also dark gray, which matches both the cartoon and the toy. The horizontal stabilizers seem a bit longer than the cartoon, and the VTOL bits have some extra intake-looking details molded on the leading edge. The stripes, while at least present vs the cartoon, are red and silver and not as dynamic as the red and gold of the G1 toy. Once again, you have options for plugging the weapons into the bottom. There's two holes in a row on the wings, and if you're feeling extra saucy a hole on each horizontal stabilizer. My main complaint here is that the aftward holes on the wings, which would be my preferred choice, are slightly larger than the ones in front. That means that the weapons secure solidly in the foreward holes, which leave the missiles sticking far further forward that I'd like, are nice and snug, but if you use the aftward holes they're loose and tend to fall out. Not much else to say about jet mode. Still has landing gear and a cockpit that opens, still works with the stand. If you blow on the VTOL rotors they'll spin quite nicely. Oh, and unlike Combustor's weapons, Assault's don't have firing missiles. Hooray! The conclusion here is basically the same thing I said about Combustor. He's going to be too big and not Sunbow enough for a lot of collectors. He could have benefitted from some ratchets, because the friction joints are a little looser than I'd like. He could have used a heel spur. But if you can get past those issues, you have a version of Thrust that locks together solidly and has much better articulation than the official in robot mode. ToyWorld's Seeker mold isn't perfect, but it's the best Seeker mold on the market right now. For that reason, I'm giving it a recommend.

I really think that's a very reasonable response, and I tried to emphasize that in my reviews. I really do prefer FT's Bombshell and Kickback (but BC's Shrapnel), but I really think anyone looking for Insecticons right now just grab BC's, because the FT ones I like better really aren't so much better than they're worth the time and money you'll spend tracking down a copy of Forager that's just going to break anyway. ...yeah, mine broke after I wrote the review and went to put him back in bug mode. It's not the clasp on the shoulder, but when you transform him there's a joint that rotates to invert the robot arm with the bug legs. The joint is pretty thin, and basically instead of turning it just sheared off under very minimal force. I glued it back, but before I mess with him any more I'm going to try to find another thin piece of plastic I can reinforce it with. Anyway... how about another review? I know I said I really just need the Seekers to complete my Season 1 Decepticons, but somehow I ended up with Season 2 Seekers. Tonight, let's look at Combustor, ToyWorld's version of Ramjet. The first thing you're likely to notice when handling Combustor, or any of the ToyWorld Seekers, is that they're pretty big. I don't have any of the MP-11 molds, but I do have an MP-03-based Walmart Skywarp, and Combustor towers over him. For a lot of collectors, that in and of itself is an immediate deal breaker. Others have suggested that the MP-03/11 molds are too small, because apparently the scale chart is gospel when it suits people but tossed aside when it doesn't. Still other people are fine with the MP-03/MP-11 size for the season 1 Seekers, but suggest that maybe the season 2 Seekers are could be bigger. Aesthetically, rather than go full cartoon/toy/OX for Combustor's design, ToyWorld seems to have blended influences with a bit of their own unique style. Black arms? Toy. Arrow-shaped marks on his feet? Toy, but the black behind them is a bit cartoon. Red on his knees? Toy, but missing the yellow. The black in his shins is more cartoon than toy, as is the white on his torso. His weapons are generally toy-shaped, but the red on tips as well as on his hip armor and the bottom of his pecs is totally new. His leg wings have the engines that the cartoon eschewed, but they lack the sticker details on the robot-front side that the toy had. The markings on the inside of inakes flanking his head is also neither toy nor cartoon. (Note: I have him slightly mistransformed, and I didn't really catch it until I was done taking photos, but the panels in the jet intakes on his shoulders should be pushed in.) For accessories, Combustor comes with the toy-style "cluster bombs" you already saw. An interesting point about them is that they red tips are spring-loaded missiles, and the trigger is actually the part that with the peg that fits into his shoulders. You're probably going to find yourself accidentally firing them many times until you remove the spring, which you can easily do without tools. Simply pull the front and rear sections off, them gently pry apart the two halves of the middle. That will let you remove the trigger so you can take the spring off, then put it all back together. The tips will still slide out when the trigger is inadvertently activated, but they won't go flying across the room. Also included is a bag fo screw hole covers for the side of the fuselage, and a box thing. The box thing can open, and it's apparently a tracking device. More on that in a minute. There's also this toy base, with a flight stand and some of these clips. This is the only time I'm going to mention them, but each ToyWorld Seeker comes with two complete bases, and they're designed so they can be fit together in a variety of ways, using the clips to help secure them, to make a larger display. Combustor's head is on a ball joint, and in addition to swiveling he can get a little up/down/lateral tilt. Down is limited to where his chin starts to dip behind his nosecone chest, up is sort of limited by how his face transforms. His shoulders can rotate, and panels on the sides of his shoulders move out of the way so that he can move them laterally 90 degrees. He's got bicep and wrist swivels, and double-jointed elbows that curl until his forearms and shoulders start to meet. His thumb is mounted on a ball joint, while each finger is individually-articulated with a hinge at the base knuckle and one additional hinge at the mid-knuckle. He's got a waist swivel, a rarity for a Seeker, and although he doesn't really have true thigh swivels he does have swivels just above the knees. His hips are kind of interesting. The skirt armor is hinged so it can move out of the way, and the hip itself can do 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally (none of which are ratchets, and the friction on the lateral motion is a tad loose). However, there's an additional hinge in his thigh, just below the hip joint, that can give him 90 degrees of forward motion without moving the skirt or engaging the hip, or the two joints can combine to give Combustor a chest-high kick. His knees are double-jointed and can get well beyond 90 degrees. The front half of his feet are on ball joints, so he can get some up, down, inward, or outward ankle tilt, as well as ankle swivels. The back half of his feet are just the engine nozzles, which seem to be ball jointed but are much tighter than Walmart Skywarp. His wings are hinged, so you can leave them out like in the cartoon or fold them back. His cluster bombs have pegs that fit into peg holes on his shoulders, which is kind of disappointing. I didn't necessarily need the crazy armature that MP-11 has that moves the null rays from jet mode to bot mode without removing them, but even MP-03 and the iGear Raptors had the null rays on a rotating part that could move them from the sides of his arms to the front. At least the peg hole is on a hinged panel so you can splay his cluster bombs out. Alternatively, I don't think he looks too bad with Walmart Skywarp's null rays, but I might check Shapeways to see if someone made something specific to him. Another interesting thing to note is that while his hands do have individually-articulated fingers, his palm is cut like a 5mm peg hole. If you have any MP-sized guns that just use a 5mm peg instead of the now-common gun-tabs and palm-slots, like the rifle that came with TFC's Ironwill, Combustor will hold it quite securely. As for the tracking device, he can hold it, but not super securely, using the strength of finger joints. The tracking device itself seems to be pulled from the IDW comic Spotlight: Ramjet, which is basically teh only IDW thing about him. For as big as Combustor is in robot mode, he's fairly similar in size to the MP-03 (and I assume the MP-11) mold. The stripes one the wings and the painted detail on top of the intakes seem to be based somewhat on the G1 toy. The stripes on his vertical stabilizers are silver and blue, like the toy, but thinner and more subdued. The underside cleans up fairly well; when you know what you're looking at you can see what's what, but I don't think any parts are super obvious robot parts. He's got landing gear; the front landing gear is in the base of the nosecone and the rear are at the base of his shins. All the landing gear rolls, and they actually have springs in them that make them a kind of a chore to deploy and stow. Combustor has peg holes in two different spots on the underside of his wing to store his cluster bombs. Combustor's cockpit can open, but the nosecone doesn't open to reveal the radar inside the way MP-03 (and I think MP-11) does. All four engine nozzles move on what seem to be tight ball joints. You can mount him on the flight stand, but the way I perched him here is actually incorrect. There's no obvious peg hole on the underside of the jet, so I took to sticking the peg from the flight stand into one of the shoulder holes, then laying him at an angle over the stand. Turns out there's a spring-loaded square panel on his crotch, similar to the one on MP Sideswipe's roof. It's easy to miss because it just looks like molded detail. So here's the thing about Combustor, and it's basically the thing about all of the ToyWorld Coneheads. They're bigger than MP-03/MP-11, and they're not cartoon-accurate, which is going to turn a lot of people off. But that's kind of a shame, because while I haven't handled the iGear MP-style Coneheads or the various KBB/Yes Model/BB7 "improved" MP-11 KOs, ToyWorld has crafted the best Seeker toy I've handled. The transformation is somewhat similar to MP-03/MP-11, but most of the differences make for a toy that has better articulation and locks together very solidly. Plus, his neck isn't way above his shoulders the way the offical MPs are, and he's got a waist swivel. In all of those matters he's a much better choice than the official. As for the size, well, I'm one of those people for whom the robot size isn't a big deal (in my head, as Megatron's 2nd-in-command and constant usurper, Starscream and the other Seekers should be at least as big as Soundwave, no matter what the scale chart says), and the jet size is close enough that I think he can get away with it. He doesn't have any ratchets, and like I said I wish some of the friction joints were tighter, and I wish he came with cartoon-style null rays as an option, but for now this is the Seeker mold to beat. In fact, if ToyWorld were planning to do the Season 1 Seekers I'd seriously consider them, although I've got Maketoys version of Starscream on preorder. I think the $120 price at most US retailers is on the high side of fair for this guy (especially since he comes with the bases), and I'd recommend him. If you were lucky enough to get him during TFSource's customer appreciation sale, though, I suspect you'll be very happy with your purchase.

I think Legendary Defender just started airing in Japan. Not sure what the licensing situation is, but if the show does well I could see them doing an SoC. The OG one seems to have sold well, since it's totally sold out (on that topic, how are SoC with reissues?). Oh, speaking of SoC, did you guys see that Playmates is doing an OG Voltron? I'm sure it'll be all plastic and crappy paint, but it appears to be heavily based on the SoC Voltron. I missed getting the SoC, and the aftermarket prices are pretty ridiculous, so I preordered a set at BBTS. $40 for the black lion, $90 for the other four.

Red and green. Notice how both are missing the black on their torsos, and green is missing the silver trim. You can also see how bare the sword is. The shield came out looking just like a smaller version of the one that came with the 18-inches 16-inches (sorry, I was off by two inches) black green lion. Again, I don't know if the missing paint is why the Target pack is cheaper than the $99 5-pack I see advertised elsewhere, or if the individually-packaged lions have them (although pictures of the packaged individual lions on Walmart's website seem to indicate that they are also missing paint). Blue and Yellow. Blue actually came out pretty nice. Yellow's really just missing some red trim here and there. Black can't fold up his ears, he can't open his mouth without showing Voltron's face, and there's no hinges where the base of the wings connect to his back. From this angle, though, he's got extra silver paint on the thrusters on his wings and silver on his back, which actually makes him more show-accurate than his larger coutnerpart in those regards. You can also see that the side of the wings opposite the painted thruster is hollow. Combined up, you can see the black lion is also missing some red on his chest and gold on his collar. You can also see that the 8" guy can't splay his wings like the 16" guy due to the lack of hinges, but otherwise articulation is nigh identical: the black parts of his shoudlers rotate, lateral motion is handled by the connectors on the green and red lions, no waist articulation, bicep and wrist swivels, limited elbows, 45 degrees of hip spread, 90 degrees forward/backward on the hips, thigh swivels, double-jointed knees, very slight ankle tilts. If anything, the 8" guy has a little more range in the neck, although he still can't turn his head. Transformation and combining is identical, although the yellow and blue lions don't have the button release that the larger ones do when you're taking them apart. Speaking of taking them apart, the instructions helpfully tell you to rotate the arms 90 degrees forward, then pull/bend them across his chest to detatch them; a trick that wasn't in the larger guy's instructions, but one that Playmates directed people to do (I think peaugh did a video about it). I'm pleased to report that you don't need to use nearly as much force. Quick size comparison (FYI, that's Fans Hobby's Archenemy, and he's about the same size as MP-10 to the head). I've seen some people complaining that the individual diecast lions are retailing for nearly as much as the larger ones did, and how preorders for the complete set cost nearly as much as the larger one did, and how Playmates is stupid and the larger one is a better value. I have to believe, though, that the diecast used in the smaller one cost quite a bit more than the crappy plastic in the larger one. I also believe that bigger isn't necessarily better; the 16" guy takes up a lot of room, enough that he's basically been in a closest for most of the time I've owned him because I'm running out of display space and I'm using what I have for Transformers. The 16" version always felt like a waste of a little over $100 to me, but for 30% less the 8" one feels like a better buy even though he's 50% of the size, missing some details, and missing the hinges on the wings and the folding ears. Techically the electronics, too, but I didn't care for those in the first place. If he were made out of the same plastic as the larger guy I might have more of an issue with the price, but the diecast really makes him ok in my book.

I was at Target today, with a $10 gift card from buying diapers and a $5 coupon from getting my flu shot. I saw the diecast lions, and I thought about picking them up. They were even on sale, at $15 a pop. But they only had three, and $15 per limb plus who knows how much for the black lion had me a little wary. It wasn't that long ago that I reviewed the 18" version and concluded that it had sloppy paint, cheap plastic, stupid gimmicks, and limited articulation and expressed my regret that I didn't just put that money toward the Chogokin Voltron (that's now impossible to find at a reasonable price... sigh). The I noticed that there's an apparently Target-exclusive boxed set for $70, and my gift cards and coupons brought it down to a very reasonable $55. I don't know if I'll do a full review again, but here's some quick thoughts. -He's lacking some paint. I'd have to go back to the store and look if that's compared to the individually-packaged diecast lions or if they're like that too. Stuff like the black on the red and green lions' torsos, the silver trim on green lion, the red trim on yellow lion's back, the red marks on the black lion's chest, and the blue "glow" on red and green's cheeks, and anything on the sword but the blade. -No electronics in the black lion, no opening cockpits with the little sleds, and no individual lion weapons. Just five lions, a sword, and a shield. -Engineering is very similar, for better or worse. The lions transform the same way. They connect the same way. Red and green still have spring-loaded jaws. Their folded-up hind legs still interfere with Voltron's elbow joints (only this time there isn't clearance enough to push them much to the side). Voltron still doesn't have a waist swivel. His ankle tilts don't have quite the same range, and his wings don't have hinges (which is, in my opinion, his biggest flaw), but the black lion gains a little neck articulation (Voltron still can't turn his head, though). Somewhat irritatingly, the ears don't fold in for lion mode. -Paint still got out of the lines in a few spots, but it's not noticeably thin anywhere like it was on the 18" version. -I'm not one of those people that always thinks diecast is great, but in this case Playmate's plastic was so bad on the 18" version that it really does make the 8" one feel a lot better. I think the bottom line for me, for the most part, is that I'm willing to forgive a bit more in an 8" toy that runs $70 (or in my case $55) than I am an 18" toy that ran me $100, especially when the $70 one has diecast and the $100 one has really cheap plastic. I see the 18" version as a big toy that takes up too much space and was too expensive for how cheaply it seemed to be made and how poor the articulation was, while the 8" one is seems like a more reasonably-priced figure that can live on a desk. So despite being very similar in design, I regret buying the 18" one but I'm pretty satisfied with the 8" one.

And speaking of Forager, here he is: FansToys' take on Kickback. I've seen other reviews for Forager, and to be honest the reviewers seemd to struggle with him, and I've heard stories of the clasps on his wings breaking. At that time, in my head, I was ready to write Forager off as being too fiddly and delicate. I remember even thinking at the time if BadCube's Kickbutt would look ok with FT's Grenadier and Mercenary. In hand, while they're both recognizably Kickback, Forager's slightly longer legs, thinner arms, thinner waist, and wider chest a much better proportionally. The painted details on his feet, knees, and left breast are closer to the G1 stickers (not applied on mine). You can't see from this front-on angle, but his torso is also thinner front-to-back. On aesthetics alone, Kickbutt is good but Forager is pretty much spot on. Indeed, my one and only aesthetic complaint is that his translucent chest seems a bit darker than the BadCube ones, or even compared to Grenadier and Mercenary. It's less amber and more orange, I think. Forager comes with another trio of translucent purple energon cubes, his weapon done up in chrome (but, sorry JB0, still doesn't fit around his fist), an alternate solid yellow chest plate, another screwdriver for swapping the chest plate, and a replacement antenna for Grenadier. Forager's head is on a swivel so he can turn his head, but he can't really look up or down. That's because, due to his transformation, his face is on one hinge and the back of his head is on another. You can only tilt his head back a little bit before his head and face aren't aligned anymore. His shoulders can rotate, and a hinge lets them extend laterally over 90 degrees. He has bicep and wrist swivels, double-jointed elbows that curl all the way up, and hands like the other FT Insecticons or the MP cars. He has a waist swivel and thigh swivels. His hips can go 90 degrees forward and backward, and a little less than 90 degrees laterally. His knees are double-jointed and he can bend them until the insect legs in his calves meet the back of his thighs. His toes can fold down a little, mostly for transformation, and the purple part is on a hinge for over 90 degrees of ankle tilt. One big advantage he has over Kickbutt, aside from hinges and swivels instead of ball joints, is that his wings have hinges that you can use to splay them out a bit. It's something that wasn't necessary to have a perfectly good, perfectly accurate Kickback, but really helps him to look more dynamic when you're posing him. As with the other FT Insecticons, Forager's gun has tabs on the handle that fit into slots in his palm. Once again, it fits pretty loosely, and it's mostly the tension of this close hand holding the gun in place. His chest does open, but there's nothing but molded detail behind it. But one thing I want to point out is that, yes, he's got some bug legs showing on his back, and technically Kickbutt doesn't. But, Forager's legs are still much, much tidier than the other FT bugs, and frankly a pretty small price to pay to not have a torso as thick as Kickbutt's. Grasshopper mode. His rear legs seem a bit longer than Kickbutt's, which I don't feet particularly strongly about. What I do feel strongly about his how his torso is, again, much thinner top to bottom and slightly wider between the wings. The proportions feel better. The shoulders and front four bug legs also look more proportionally accurate. Like Kickbutt and the Generations/Titans Return Kickback, Forager seems to have picked up a little non-G1 abdomen, but it's slightly less obtrusive. Getting to this mode wasn't as fiddly as the reviews I watched made it out to be. Indeed, I think he's actually easier to transform than Kickbutt, as long as you know what you're doing. Just be extremely careful of with the rings that connect his wings to his shoulders. They have clasps on them to open and close them so his back can open up and rotate the shoulders around so his bug legs and his bot arms can switch places. Hold the wings near the hinge at the base when you rotate, be aware of when the clasps should be opened and closed, be aware that the wings really can't rotate 360 degrees, make sure that everything is aligned properly before you pull open his back, and be mindful that the claps don't get caught on anything when they're opened. The only other sticking point of the transformation is getting this bug face out. The instructions should you do this by folding back the helmet part of his head, folding his robot face flat so he'd be looking at the top of is head, unfolding the bug face from flat against the top of the inside of his head, then closing it back up. The problem is that it seems like there's no way to do that without working a small, thin tool under the bug face, which is sure to scratch the silver paint. What the instructions don't tell you, however, is that the back of his head can open and fold down, giving you room to stick a little finger behind the bug face and push it out with ease. Like Kickbutt, Forager's gun pegs onto his abdomen for storage. The hinges on his wings allow for some flapping instead of just angling them up or down like the G1 toy or Kickbutt. His front four bug legs have a swivel that can rotate them out away from the body, and three hinges on each leg. His rear legs use his robot hips, then a hinge where the purple connects to he black in his "knee" and another hinge at his bug ankles. Worth mentioning again, without making a value call for or against it, but Forager's got a lot of diecast and weighs significantly more than Kickbutt. Forager turned out to be a very interesting case, at least for me. I could sort of tell, even before I had them in hand, that I liked FT's Grenadier better BC's Hypno, but I liked BC's Claymore better than BC's Mercenary. After actually getting them in hand, it was pretty close but my expectations turned out to be correct. Meanwhile, I fully expected that Kickbutt would be a better Kickback in hand than Forager, despite Forager being somewhat better on an aesthetic level, and in that case I turned out to be totally wrong. With Bombshell and Shrapnel, despite my preferences I could tell you specific things I liked better on the FansToys' version and things I liked better on the BadCube version, but I find myself concluding that Forager is pretty much better all around than Kickbutt. Needless to say, if you're on the hunt for a good Kickback figure Forager is definitely the one I'd recommend as the best. The problem, though, is actually finding one. I can't find a retail store that has him in stock. I can only find two on the whole of ebay, one in China and one in Australia, both with price + shipping at or above US $200, and FansToys has stated they currently have no plans to reissue him. I know people who have decided to sell their copies of Grenadier and Mercenary and buying the BadCube bugs, despite really preferring the FansToys ones, just because they can't get a copy of Forager. I feel supremely fortunate to have bought Forager and Mercenary together from a TFW2005 member for $150 shipped... and as reasonable as that is, that's still $6 more than I paid BBTS for all three BadCube bugs (including their $4 flat rate shipping). So ultimately, I'm recommending FT for Kickback and Bombshell, but BadCube for Shrapnel, or FansToys for all three if you insist that your Insecticons come from the same company. But that's only if you're willing to pay more, and you can even find all three. If you want to save money and avoid some headaches, the BadCube ones are still a good alternative. For now, anyway. Although MMC keeps pushing the release date back their version of the Insecticons are also due out this year, and I'll try to get a look at them and review them for you when they come out.