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Scyla

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Everything posted by Scyla

  1. Scyla
    Yes they could, but I think when they designed Superion they still had the mindset that you need to have a playable combiner if you just bought Silverbolt on its own (for $90!!!). You know for the kids that these are supposedly made for. I don’t know why that changed with Devastator but there were probably too many design constraints to make a full skeleton for him or the accepted that only people older than 40 are buying these toys. This is one of the reasons why I like 3rd party Transformers, they don’t have to take so many shortcuts. And soon I will have a Superion and Menasor from FansToys without many shortcuts.
  2. Scyla
    I got The Art of the Transformers book from Japan. It contains everything I wanted with the exception of the Darkwing and Dreadwind box art and any of the Euro G1 exclusives but why would it since it is focused on the Japanese releases. It is a bit sad that not every Transformer got a whole page for itself (some of the combiner teams fill half a page for 5 pieces of artwork), so if you are a fan of those you miss out. Love the Overlord artwork (and all the Powermasters). I really want a G1 vintage MiB Powermaster collection l, since those were the toys on shelves when I was a kid (those and Euro G1). I wonder if Legacy: The Art of Transformers Packaging contains the art for the Euro G1 toys (Predators and Turbomasters).
  3. Scyla
    They really should have found a way to inset the leg robots further into the frame but doing so might interfere with the knee joint. Or they probably starred by reusing the Menasor frame and couldn’t make it work in the allotted budget.
  4. Scyla
    Just saw that Basara Prime is €260 on the EU Hasbro Pulse site right now. I don’t know who would buy it for that price. While I remember seeing an add for Macross 7 on VHS but I don’t think it was ever released over here. I ordered mine from Anime Export for ¥18000 (about €106) even with shipping and import duties it will be under €150. With the recent insanity in Lego prices I feel like toy manufacturers are going crazy. Now true. The Yen is super weak at the moment, but still the Japanese price equal €136 buying power (€164 with tax). Where are the other €100?
  5. Scyla
    I think Lego has gone too far with the price hikes. $200 for the AT-ST is insane (and some of the other prices). I’m glad that I am almost done with my adult Lego collection. Yes, Lego was always expensive but this is not justifying any longer. What justifies the $200 price tag for 1500 pieces? It has just one Minifig, and I can’t spot many unique or big pieces on the set that would indicate a high material cost per piece. And the structure of the "turret" ist mostly hollow. They are pricing me out of buying Lego. Not because I can’t afford it but because I am not willing to pay these bonkers prices. I think after I found a solution for my missing UCS Imperial Shuttle I will go back and complete "my" classic Space collection and call it a day.
  6. Scyla
    Preorder for the Metal Build Evangelion - Evangelion Unit 01 30th Anniversary Ver. with Spear of Gaius at Anime Export (¥35200, pay now): https://www.anime-export.com/index.php?product=93972
  7. Scyla
    I’m still much more positive about the release I just wished they would have made a couple of different decisions (mostly the color and the design and inclusion of the trailer). I will still preorder it day one and I’m looking forward fiddling with it.
  8. Scyla
    I said it in the Transformers thread and I’m going to say it here. The color layout doesn’t work for me. Basara Prime looks neither like the VF-19 Kai nor like Optimus Prime. Keeping it in the VF-19 Kai color scheme would have helped. The trailer looks too much like Rodimus Prime and I can already hear people over at TFW bitch and moan about why this is not Hot Rodimus Prime. It also takes away too much from the main feature of the set: the Valkyrie. Of course Takara being Takara, thex weren’t able to paint the inside of the trailer in a neutral gray to make it less stand out when you place Basara Prime on it.
  9. Scyla
    I’m not a fan of the blue leg vents. They would have looked much better in a dark red. The trailer is also too garish and too much Hot Rod. A grayish-blur would be better I think. Like this it takes too much away from the center piece which is Basara Prime/VF-19 Kai.
  10. Scyla
    I don’t need a Mask collection, I don’t need, I don’t need a Mask collection, I don’t need…
  11. Scyla
    I’ve been thinking to myself that I am very envious of the Heat Boys Turtles collectors. In less than 2.5 years they got the four main turtles out and hopefully get out Shredder by the end of this month. Meanwhile my Gundam 00 team sits at 2/4 members after 12 years and my Gundam Wing team is at 2/5 after just 7 short years. I have no hope Bandai will ever get to release a GFFMC Heavy Arms Customs (Endless Walz ver.). Or god forbid a Epyon or Tallgeese. And I have the option to choose between 5 different yet obscure Gundam Seed flyers but not MB Skygrasper? I don’t understand Bandai Tamashii Nations release strategy. Sorry I should stop whining and go to bed.
  12. Scyla
    Have there been an announcement for the missing two Robot Masters from Mega Man 1? Jada did auch a good job with announcing and releasing the SF2 cast so I hope we get the rest of the Robot Masters too. May favorite were always the ones from Mega Man 4, especially Skull and Pharao Man. Hopefully we will get there someday.
  13. Scyla
    Thanks @M'Kyuun for the short review. The me the problem with Transformers that turn into jets is that they are designed as robots first. So if the robot-mode is your focus the designer is limited to what they can achieve, especially when they are designing a toy that is supposedly made for kids. The other way around is much easier and you can see it with this toy and you can see it with Kawamori’s Valkyrie designs where the fighter-mode has the top priority and the mecha mode is derived from it. If you large surface areas of your fighter like wings and tail fins just can form a cape or the whole engine area can form just the leg on it’s own you have a much easier time then trying to turn a block into a sleek fuselage. Is this jet an impressive engineering feat? Absolutely? Could Takara’s engineers do a better job designing sleeker airframes? I think so (and FansToys Maverick is proof you can do it). But it is not that Takara is not capable of doing it, they are just bound by different constraints.
  14. Scyla
    I already heard about it, but I don’t know when Pulsecon is or how to purchase any of the exclusives.
  15. Scyla
    I just wanted to vent my disappointment with the figure. Hot Toys specifically have been hyped as the pinnacle of toy collecting by so many people so I was super excited to finally experience one myself and then I was like: "Wait, this is it???" And yes I could sell it but I wanted to give my impressions for people who think about buying one to have a counter point to all the praise these figures get. If you love those style of figures this is great but they are ultimately not for me.
  16. Scyla
    I’ve got my first Hot Toys figure in, and before I give you my thoughts I have to preface them so you won’t get the wrong impression: I’m probably not the target audience for these figures. I enjoy the intricate mechanical design of - mostly mecha - toys. Even for 1/12 scale action figures I am more intrigued by what engineering solutions the designer came up with to enable articulation rather than the accuracy of the likeness. I enjoy the plastic and variety of materials, intricate details and, neatly done paint apps (and I dislike weathering): I actually like the toy nature of my collectibles. I also don’t like figures that are overly large since they tend to become very simple and lose some of the intricacy that I enjoy. Plus they get difficult to handle. 1ft/30cm is usually the upper limit I’m also not sure, if the figure in question - Hot Toys Darth Revan - is indicative of what makes these figures feel special; their face is hidden behind a mask and the rest of the figure has no intricate material mix (like pleather mixed with armor panels, etc) That being said… The Hot Toys Darth Revan is utter, utter trash! It feels like I paid top dollar for an oversized knock-off of the Star Wars Black Series Darth Revan (which I own too). There is no pizzazz, no glamour, no sophistication in this figure; it is just big and has lots of soft goods. But even those are badly done. The cowl is laughably bad, won’t sit proper no matter what. Even the other soft goods feel too light and don’t have the right thickness; something that Hot Toys supposedly solved a long time ago. The light saber blades are equally terrible (is it a licensing requirement that they are made out of translucent plastic rather than have something more intricate?). And according to some reviews this is one of the better (if not great) Hot Toys releases. If this is good/great what are the bad ones like? There are some figures where you only get the full experience of their quality once you have them in hand. Pictures are unable to capture all the details/intricacies and don’t transport the overall presence of the toy (like Metal Build or Kuro Kara Kuri). I was blown away when I took my first Metal Build out of the box. This figure caused the opposite reaction. It looks good in all the promo material (especially with the photoshopped effects applied) but - to me - feels atrocious in hand. Definable one of my bottom 5 purchases for my collection. I might (MIGHT) be convinced to buy a Bastila Shan if they make one, so I can have a two figure display and try to make them somehow look good on display. I assume Bastia would have a couple of features that make Hot Toys supposedly great: a more varied material mix, a realistic sculpted and painted head and skin, etc. But on its own, I don’t understand where all the hubbub for Hot Toys is coming from. It is probably not my cup of tea which is a shame since I was really excited to experience a Hot Toys figure myself.
  17. Scyla
    Brickvault released a new UCCS Imperial Shuttle instructions. I’m very tempted to buy the instructions and source the pieces via Bricklink especially since an UCS Imperial Shuttle is the last piece for my Lego Star Wars spaceship collection. Especially since this way I could try to switch all the white pieces to light bluish gray (since this is the color the shuttle should be in). Does anyone know how much effort it is to go through the part list they published and check if all the white pieces are available in gray and create my own list to source all the pieces? I also probably would change the tan highlights to dark bluish gray and introduce some trans-light blue pieces for the thrusters.
  18. Scyla
    I always thought the "no realistic toy guns" legislation is in place so that the police can be certain that if a perpetrator is holding something that looks like a gun is actually in possession of a weapon that can hurt them (and is not an innocent kid playing coos and crooks with his pals).
  19. Scyla
    Thanks, totally forgot about these.
  20. Scyla
    Besides the red Gundam 00 Seven Sword that never released and the other colors of the rainbow Gundam Astrays from Project Astray are there any other projects in the pipeline for the Metal Build line?
  21. Scyla
    Is the Gamecube already considered retro gaming? Probably the last Gamecube game I am going to buy for the collection.
  22. Scyla
    I saw the announcement of the Lego One Piece sets (non Brickheads) and they look absolutely amazing to me. Sadly I’m almost done with collecting Lego so they are not for me but at times like these I wished Lego was more the focus of my collection.
  23. Scyla
    So movie 10 will be the Second Order’s rise to power when they will use the Death Star Killer Base v3 to destroy the New New Republic? Rey has gone missing but a young and gifted person will find the Millennium Flacon (this time with a hexagon shaped radar dish)?
  24. Scyla
    It depends what you have. Some of the MMC figures are crazy expensive, like Commodus.
  25. Scyla
    Of course it is Nemesis Prime. That would be awesome but first I need to figure out how to cancel an order with Hasbro Pulse.
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