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M'Kyuun

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Everything posted by M'Kyuun

  1. As someone with a foot in both worlds, I agree. These aren't too terribly priced, especially for an anime that's even more niche than Macross. Too, compared to the ever-rising costs of Transformers, the crazy secondary market costs of the Sentinel Legioss toys, and the exorbitant cost of the upcoming Pose+ Legioss (which I've got POed), these toys look absolutely right in the realm of comfortable affordability. It's great to see the Legioss getting so much love, as I've always found it to be a cool design. While not everything that Toyrise is doing appeals 100% to me, I think it's great that they're doing their own variants, as it's a foregone conclusion that they'll eventually get around to the Eta, Iota, and Zeta. Moreover, the hard lean towards easy playability make these appealing options in addition to their prices respective to other Mospeada toys. I wish TT and Toyrise every success. FWIW, BBTS is already sold out of their Omega preorders. That was quick.
  2. 😄 Congrats. I've been finding any number of current figs since last year, so distribution must be improving, or my store's doing a better job of ordering. Anyway, I had Brawl on PO through Hasbro Pulse, but I found him twice at retail, passing the first time and grabbing him the second. Alas, I canxed my PO with Pulse otherwise I'd have gladly offered up the copy. I wish you every success in your hunt! FWIW, I think Brawl is, thus far, the best of the Hasbro Combaticons. He may be unseated by Onslaught, which looks to be an excellent figure, even if they did fudge him to make the truck and trailer two separate parts so as to indulge in their beloved frame system. Still, the execution overall looks good to me. I do wish, however, that Vortex and Blast-Off actually formed the arms themselves instead of just being accoutrement on the frame arms. The frame just renders the figs as superfluous as combiners and I'm not really a fan of that approach. At least the leg bots on Bruticus are doing some partial duty despite having some framework there as well. but I look at both my Iron Factory KO Bruticus and my excellent legends scaled Magic Square Bruticus and wonder what could have been had Takara put in the effort.
  3. I must confesss I'm only aware of R-Type via few mentions of it, on these boards, generally in the context of LEGO MOCs. However, I do find the aesthetics of the ships alluring, and there's a nostalgic quality to them that tells me I've seen them before, but I was never aware of their origins until recent years. I congratulate you on your acquisition, however, and for R-Type fans, it's nice to know there'll be plenty of options for those seeking out toys and models.
  4. So with all the wing variations they're doing, I wonder how that'll impact potential Tread connectivity? No skin in the game (yet) but I thought it a logical question.
  5. No kidding. How much longer before we see a Bumblebee and Megatron? And then reiteration after reiteration of just those same four characters.
  6. Astrotrain just does not look like a leader-quality toy, certainly not one worth $60. I'm guessing that's the proper config for his chesticles after some debate on TFW. That bot mode looks unfinished and the shuttle mode is burdened by a great deal of unsightly kibble along its flanks as well as some odd cowcatcher-like protrusion under the nose. The train mode is the only improvement, and while it still doesn't look even as good or believable as the G1 toy's, it's the best thing this toy has going for it. I was anticipating this figure the most out of all the new SS86 announcements, and I'm pretty disappointed. Shockwave was my other anticipatory figure, and he's basically the Siege toy minus all the surface detail. I prefer said detail so it looks like I'll be skipping this fig, too. I already have versions of Wheeljack, Sunstreaker, and Snarl that I like, so it looks like Skywarp is the only fig from this wave I'll be picking up. So bummed about Astrotrain, though. â˜šī¸
  7. Very much appreciated. It's rare that we folks on this side of the pond get to see displays at these huge WF conventions in real time and with an English-speaking narrator, no less. Enjoyed the walkthrough. What's with all the R-type stuff? Anniversary or just riding a popularity high? Modest Macross showing. I really wish Arcadia had a booth with some new valk designs and their VF-3000 ready to go with a near release date. Perchance to dream, alas.
  8. I'll second The Beast in Me for a watch. Excellent all-around.
  9. Regarding the Glaugs, I kinda figured. Probably Experten's work. Funny they only showed the Alpha in Soldier mode. Tough to get a good idea what fighter will look like when the wings are generally obscured by the arms. The hosts' awkward handling of the toys didn't help. Honestly, initially I thought it was going to be a low-vis version, and that piqued my curiosity. I'm not really feeling the huge shoulder cannons, though. If I end up going in on one of these, it'll most likely be the Omega, as I like it the best of the three. I do like like the color scheme of the AWACS one, though. It's a bit goofy with those huge canards and the huge lance, but its uniqueness is its charm.
  10. Some goodies there. I'll add Dishonored to the list. In light of how well Fallout has been done, I'd love to see either a Deus Ex or Halflife series with the same rigorous attention to detail. I think Starcraft would end up being a Starship Troopers clone, but a Command and Conquer:Tiberian Sun series could be cheesy good fun.
  11. The most interesting things in these pics are the Variable Glaugs. I wonder who's making them and whether they're just garage kits, like Experten's, or actual wide-release toys? The VG has been high on my toy want list for a long time.
  12. I don't own an MP Blaster, and I've been fine with that as he just never carried the same importance as Soundwave, but oh man do I want that Steeljaw. Hopefully they'll make Ramhorn, Eject, and Rewind for him as well and sell the cassettes as either two or four packs.
  13. Ironically, I have the old Robotech: Battlecry game for PS2, and I enjoyed playing that game, even if they kinda overwhelmed you with incoming fire at times. Don't even get me started on the damnable Cat's Eye escort mission. Grrrr! But I really loved the overall format and controlling your VF-1 was intuitive, even for a non-talented gamer like me. Moreover, they imparted different abilities to each mode, which made them all seem purposeful, especially GERWALK, which I've always decried as a mid-step in the transformation. I'd love a similarly executed Macross game covering every entry in the long-running saga with a reluctant partnership with HG to get SDF:M in there too for Western release.
  14. Oh my, poor Astrotrain. he's only slightly better than the previous version. at least the locomotive looks much improved, but what's with all the nasty kibble along his flanks and the weird cowcatcher-ish extension under the nose in shuttle mode? When the G1 toy did it better, there's something fundamentally wrong. His bot mode, too, which looked great inn the previous release, looks like ass this time around, and still would look a kibbly mess with the chest panels folded down. C'mon Takara and Hasbro, Mech Fans Toys, a legends scale toy maker made this: Why can't you guys manage at least this at a leader scale budget? I don't think DNA can clean that mess up, either, at least not without some serious part replacements. I so do wish some of these third parties would start making CHUG/SS86 scaled stuff when the official toys are this bad. Disappointing, to say the least. Shockwave is a bit disappointing, too. FFS, why can't they just do a space ray gun?!- pretty sure nobody's gonna think that's a real gun being pointed at them. And if someone's dumb enough to point it at a cop or a gun-happy redneck in the dark, they kinda deserve to get plinked. Megatron's Walther is understandable, but Shockwave's groovy purple space gun should get an easy pass. If Hasbro's wondering why TF sales are declining, perhaps they should re-evaluate some of these things before deciding to release them. Out of all these, Skywarp will likely be my only purchase.
  15. I wonder if that's the way they'll go: it was already a $600+ toy years ago when prices were lower; then again, he commands a hefty tag on the secondary, so Hasbro probably sees opportunity there. Guess we'll see. AFAIK, no other titan class figs beyond Bayverse Grimlock have been announced, so if it is indeed a titan class, they kept that from leaking. Kinda glad now that I supported the Haslab, as the figure has appreciated nicely. It has presence, but I hate the laziness of the engineering and all the plates hanging off his legs and back, especially when Studio Cell was able to integrate all that planet kibble into the bot mode rather seamlessly. That Evangelion crossover is a weird one, but I guess mashing those two highly popular IPs together makes sense from a marketing view. I'm not too plussed by it, and I'm an Evangelion fan, especially for Eva Unit 01. I wish, instead, they'd made a Unit One that can transform into maybe a jet or something. That's the sort of crossover that would interest me. Just like the VF-19, mashing an anime mecha with a version of Optimus Prime, or any established character for that matter, just doesn't really grab me. The Overgear stuff looks cool. Again, I'm not really persuaded to the buying point, but I'm curious to see what else they do in the line if these initial toys sell well.
  16. Opposite situation: Haslab Unicron arrived as a ball (just like in the movie!) and I turned him into a robot, and thus he has remained. I've never attempted to transform him back and I'm not sure I want to.
  17. Glad to hear you're warm and cozy once again. Hopefully the source of the water can be found and remedied lest your furnace woes continue. I do indeed marvel at MMC's ingenuity and talent when it comes to engineering these things. In a number of ways, be it full-scaled intricately designed cassettes or all-in-one combiners, MMC is doing things that no other company is even attempting and doing it with the sort of style that would make Jazz happy. 😉 I have all of MMC's main character cassettes except Frenzy (the red one) and IMHO their weakest efforts were the condors, which are still pretty good. I wish they'd found a different solution for the wings, but we're here to talk about Forte (Ramhorn). Honestly, I can't recall if I've even ever seen the Sunbow episode(s) that he was in ; for me, it was always about the fact that a cassette turns into a cool red rhino. Even the G1 toy, which I have sitting on my desk as I type, managed to evince an organic shape reminiscent of the actual animal, moreso even than MMC's take, which is exaggerated to more closely resemble the animation. Nevertheless, I absolutely love how he looks. Side note, out of curiosity, I decided to actually look at real rhinos to see how the G1 toy and MMC's takes compare. I figured MMC had it in the bag with that prominent shoulder hump and descending line down the back, but in fact, most of the pics I saw show the shoulder and pelvic humps at about the same height with a gentle curve between, which is how the G1 toy presents. The animation tended to omit the pelvic hump, putting emphasis on the shoulder. It looks cool, even if it's not perfectly accurate to the actual animal or the G1 toy by comparison. Credit where due, Takashi Matsuda, the designer of most, if not all, the G1 cassettes, deserves a shout-out for creating one of the coolest gimmicks in all of Micro-change, which went on to become a major part of the first wave of Transformers toys. Most of his animal designs do a great job of copying the salient features of the animals they portray, an impressive feat given the small, thin wafer template he had to work with. I'm forever a fan. I'm also a long-time fan of MMC, most notably of Alex Kubalsky, who designed all the MMC cassettes, and Jesslyn B. for her sculpt work. Again, credit where due. Beyond the upscaling, MMC's two greatest achievements with this line are giving more thickness to the bodies of the quadrupeds allowing for more realistic shaping and stability, and the inclusion of the weapons in the transformation. No partsforming here. Kubalsky, when he worked at Takara, was the first designer to give greater dimensionality to a cassette with the 2009 Universe Classics 2.0 Hound and Ravage. Ravage's jet packs were also part of his sculpt, albeit unpainted, too small, and misplaced above the hips instead of sitting outside of them. Still, it was step forward in design and I appreciate it. IMHO, it's still better than MP Ravage which fared the poorest among the MP cassettes, alas. This was a radical rethink of how a cassette could be designed, and it seems he's dialed it to 11 since becoming part of MMC. I wholeheartedly agree that the scaling of these, at least in bot mode, is far more complimentary overall to the MP line. Moreover, their sophisticated transformations, the excellent sculpt work, the high level of articulation, and other features/ details all reach what we've come to expect from MP standards. It is slightly lamentable that no oversized Soundwave or Blaster figures exist in which to place these guys (they'd be huge comparatively), but that's ok. I'm glad we still have the micro-cassettes and folks like KFC and Fans Toys, as well as Takara themselves still making "MP" level cassettes at the original micro-, or mini-cassette scale. I'm equal opportunity- I'll take all the transforming cassettes you can give me regardless of the scale. Funny that they wrapped the instructions around the case. Jaguar's, I recall, came folded around the cassette like the liners of the old 80s and 90s cassettes. it was yet another cool feature. Guess maybe there were issues doing that? IDK. Very, very much surprised that Toyhax did no labels for either Tempo (Steeljaw) or Forte. These things are beggaring for old 80s styled cassette livery and Toyhax never seems to let an opportunity like this slip away without an overabundance of stickers to complete the look of your toy and charge more money in the process. I'd be down for sets for both- still waiting.... I'm also wowed with every one of these cassette releases. MMC's engineering prowess is understated, IMHO. I don't own a MP scaled Blaster, so I don't have one to stand next to the cassettes. I've no room for a MP Blaster in my Detolf anyway, so I guess it works out. I'm also anticipating their Ratbat. I hope it's better than the condors. I have high hopes it'll be another impressive addition to the line. As I said in my mini-review, I hope they go on to do the rest of the cassettes as well at this scale and level of engineering. I'm in for all of them (except the drone, which is a boring design amongst the rest). Great review, Mike!
  18. Interesting, and it'd have to be a titan class fig to do it any sort of justice. Thus far, the only titan that's been announced is Bayformers Grimlock. I have the Haslab, and it does the job for me, although, in hindsight, I think I should have gone with the Studio Cell figure instead. It's not as big, but its transformation is far, far more elegant and integrated whereas the Haslab just has huge stacks of panels on his legs and back. If indeed a Studio Series Unicron is coming, I figure it'll be a scaled-down version of the Haslab.
  19. Yep, saw the post. A little enigmatic, but it has something to do with the '86 Movie. Guess we'll find out in 72 hours. Instagram
  20. Well, currently on HP's YT channel, they're doing a Marvel fanstream. However, on Mark Maher's Insta, he posted yesterday that today is Transformers Tuesday. Since there's no stream, I'm assuming that means more preorders? He doesn't specify, and I can't find any clarity either on the TFW boards or on the apropos Instagram accounts. Guess I'll keep an eye on Pulse for POs.
  21. Curious if Hasbro's going to have a fanstream leading up to NY Toy Fair this weekend? Takara's doing their own this Friday at 3PM PDT, from what I understand.
  22. That's generous praise, and I thank you. Toy reviews are decidedly not my, ahem, forte, which is why I both appreciate and wait for @mikeszekely's far more skillful efforts. In this case, it's a figure I really wanted to gush over, and in the absence of anyone else posting their thoughts, I figured I'd take the opportunity. I'm glad you liked the review, @tekering. Hopefully, Mike will get his up this week upon getting his furnace fixed. Concerning the Netflix show, I agree on all points. I loved the animation, how well it captured the look of the toys, the used and abused look of everything. That was a defining element of that show that made it stand above so many others, not to mention it was primarily G1 with some Beast Wars thrown in. The voice acting, for me, is what killed the experience. It made no sense to me, either, as Rooster Teeth have done a good job with story, dialog, and voice acting over the years with RWBY and Gen:Lock, a mecha series that I wish had gotten a second season. Anyway, it's a shame they didn't hire A-list voice talent, especially any of the original VAs, to reprise the roles and really deliver a premium Transformers experience. Not sure if it was Netflix or RT that made the VA choices, but they were wrong in the worst way possible, more's the pity. So, I have to shamefacedly admit that I've not read the comics, at least most of them, and I've no excuse as Mike, out of the sheer kindness of his heart and at his own expense, burned all the comics onto discs and sent them to me. They're on my PC even as I speak, but I often forget about them (threads like this remind me, and I feel guilty). Ironically, I'm a reader, at least of books. For some reason, though, I never got into comics or manga, even having read and enjoyed some graphic novels and having had a temporary Iron Man comic subscription in my early twenties thanks to a very generous friend (I still have them in a box...somewhere). I don't know why the medium never struck a chord with me, as it's exactly the sort of nerd fare that enthralls me. I can't explain it myself. I didn't mind the story they were telling in the Netflix show so much as the gawd-awful line deliveries. Every time certain characters talked, it was cringe-inducing and I have to wonder how any voice director could have thought it was good. It just takes you out of the enjoyment of the show. Well, that's lovely on both companies' parts. 😒 Not at all surprised by Harmony Gold's detestable actions, but it's dismaying that a company that made a defining cartoon that has had influence on my life so profoundly engaged in the same sort of shady shenanigans. Since they had overall responsibility for the final product, Sunbow deserves a kick in the balls for all the inconsistencies, gaffs, et al that plagued the G1 show. However, as much as I detest its influence on the look of the toys currently, especially in the legends and MP realms but slowly creeping into main line, I won't fault them entirely for the simplification of the animation. It was the way things were done, for the most part, they had no foresight into a future forty-plus years on to see the popularity of the brand still flourishing, nor could they have predicted the influence the animation would eventually have on the toys themselves, an ironic reversal of how the G1 animation was based on the toys. It's simply a product of its time and we can only lament that fact and engage in pleasant what-ifs.
  23. I can sympathize with your furnace woes, as we had a similar issue with ours a few years back also during a particularly cold snap. Fortunately, we learned that our gas fireplace and a couple strategically placed space heaters could ably keep the house toasty while we waited for the day when the repair company had some techs free to send out. I forget what the point of failure was now, but they fixed it. I do believe they replaced a component, although I don't think it was as major as what you're suspecting. I don't remember now. Anyway, I hope they're able to affect a successful repair and get you warm and cozy again. I figured you'd likely go in on Forte as well, and I was waiting for you to review him. In the absence of yours, I wanted to gush a bit about him. Once you've got the furnace fixed, I look forward to your far more polished review, as I'm sure does everyone else. We're of a similar mind, you and me. I might swoosh a plane, be it a transforming toy or a LEGO set (or MOC), but I don't really play with my toys insofar as mock battles or anything. I barely did that as a kid, let alone as an adult. I do find, as time passes ever more swiftly, that I'm far less inclined to even want to transform my toys anymore, as I'm less patient, more easily frustrated, and more apt to break stuff. So, I just leave a lot of my stuff alone unless I just get an itch to want to take a crack at it after so much time has passed. Fortunately, Youtube is our friend in that regard, and one can find a transformation guide or a review on just about everything to ease the process and alleviate the propensity towards breakage. From your POV, I can understand liking non-transformable Transformers if only for their more 'accurate' aesthetics and pose-ability minus the concessions and fuss of transformation. I fear I did just what you advised I don't do. I was under the impression, mistaken obviously, that Sunbow was responsible for the animation rather than a handful of subcontracted animation studios. Guess I should have read the credits a little more assiduously. I shall take that lesson into mind from now on when I levy criticism of the old toon. I don't hate the toon, and whatever opinion folks may have of Floro Dery, I understand why he did what he did with the designs insofar as simplifying them for animation, but he also 'fixed' characters like the van brothers whose Diaclone toys just didn't fit with the rest of the bots. I like to imagine what if CG had been far more advanced at the time, the old Sunbow toon a judicious mix of cell-animation and CG, and the highly detailed character models and their transformations were far more consistently depicted in the animation. It would, in the end, have been a completely different show animation-wise, and perhaps we wouldn't be fussing over "toon-accuracy" as a difference between toys with surface details and those with flat, nigh-featureless surfaces. It's fun to think about.
  24. Admittedly, they look good. However, I retain a rather vehement prejudice against Transformers that don't transform, as, in my mind, it's rather like a pitcher who, for whatever reason, can't throw, to employ a simple analogy. I remind myself that it's a big fandom with many niches to fill, and if they bring you joy, then mission accomplished (and to hell with my bias). I do get a chuckle over your "Sunbow accuracy" statement, however, when the toon is notorious for its blatant and constant inconsistencies. For off-brand transforming toys, those don't look half bad. I see a lot of limb recycling, not unlike a certain company in Rhode Island is wont to do ad nauseum. I was waiting to see if anyone else was going to post a review, but since I haven't seen anyone post any pics here, I'll do the honors. I'm not a practiced reviewer like @mikeszekely, so I beg some forbearance, if you please. I love cassette bots; they're essentially wafers, but I've always been captivated by the ingenuity of turning those little rectangles into robotic dudes, animals, and vehicles, some even combining to form mini-gestalts. While they filled a minimal minion role to the larger cassette player bots, there has always been an inherently cool factor that Takara took the time and effort to make those cassettes transform as well as the larger bots when they didn't have to, at least not to the degree that they did. After all, they could have just formed guns, or some sort of computer gear for them, but no, they turned into articulated animals and robots, even if the articulation was minimal. The point was made, though, and the Sunbow toon utilized those designs to great effect, giving them unforgettable scenes, personalities, and dialogue to really make an impression. One of the more under-utilized was Ramhorn, an Autobot cassette that transforms into a rhinoceros (not sure if they were going for a particular species thereof). However, I've long had a soft spot for the red rhino and I was quite pleased when MMC announced their upscaled take a number of years ago. The wait is over, and without further ado, here's RMX-13 Forte: Cassette mode. As with all of MMC's RMX versions, they reimagined Forte, or Ramhorn as I'll call him henceforth, as a full-sized cassette, which offers more real estate in which they can work their engineering magic to far greater effect than the old micro-cassettes of the 80s toys. Notably, Ramhorn is completely bare of any cassette livery, unlike the G1 toys, and in one respect, it looks nice for his rhino mode, but IMHO, there just seems to be something lost in not having that deco. Anyway, he's neither the best nor the worst cassette mode I've seen, although the obvious head in the center and the legs on the upper surface spoil the illusion somewhat. The backside shares a similar fate as the front, especially with his golden weapons immediately catching the eye. Still, it's a close facsimile, and rather impressive considering the rhinoceros that unfolds out of this wafer. The bot mode: I kinda wish they'd given his toenails a light greyish paintjob to pick them out, but they didn't. Still, I think, overall, he's phenomenal. He's my second favorite of their cassettes next to Jaguar (Ravage), perhaps only due to Ravage's being my favorite of all the cassettes. Articulation wise, his head is on a ball joint with little clearance which can rotate minimally left to right (you can see the extent in the next pic), up and down, and rotate longitudinally 360 degrees if you want to reenact that iconic scene from The Exorcist with him. His neck can also rotate up and down through approx 10 degrees of arc; it's not much, but better than nothing. His mouth can open and close. His ears are on ball joints as well and can be rotated independently. His hips and shoulders are on stiff double hinges which allow for some nice height adjustments of the legs when posing. It's an excellent addition, as they could have just put them on ball joints with minimal clearance, but they put in the extra effort, and it makes posing him that much more of a treat. The shoulders can rotate through about 30 degrees of arc fore and aft in-line before the edges of the body stop them. More forward movement can be achieved if the legs are spread, although it looks awkward. All four legs can do the full Van Damme, to borrow a reference. I've never seen a pic of a real rhino doing the splits, but if that's your fancy, this guy can do it. The front and aft forelegs can also rotate through a 90+ arc on nicely tensioned rivet joints. The feet are mounted on ball pegs which offer a great range of movement fore, aft, as well as tilt. There's a tension hinge just behind his shoulder humps that allows his entire rear end to rotate back and up in a nice arc for a slightly more aggressive stance. It also helps to elongate the body somewhat so he doesn't look as scrunched in profile. The above pic shows the extent of head rotation to the side. I wish that ball joint could extend out of the neck a little for addition rotation, but it's fine. MMC did a nice job of trying to fill, or at least obscure, the hollow space between his side panels. You can still see through the gaps but given the nature of his alt mode and transformation, it's forgivable, especially for how well the final rhino mode turned out. I forgot to mention that the tail can be raised and lowered. although it has no side-to-side movement. His weapon packs are also mounted on hinges, and the lower two pics illustrate the full extremities of their ranges, a nice feature that, once again, MMC didn't have to do but it's appreciated. Here he is with two other third party Ramhorns: Fans Toys's version in the middle with KFC's most recent take on the right. Until I had MMC's in-hand, I felt that KFC's was the definitive version of this guy, and really, if we're only looking at micro-cassette scale, he is, IMHO. I had high hopes for the Fans Toys' version, but it left me feeling a little disappointed. Regardless, it's ultimately an unfair comparison given the amount of real estate MMC had to work with compared to the micro-cassette scaled figures. I just thought it'd make for an interesting pic. Here he is with MMC's other quadruped cassette bots: Considering that Jaguar was their first model in this series and released nine years ago, I think he still holds up marvelously well compared with his more recent Autobot compatriots. That said, I think Forte (Ramhorn) looks excellent next to Tempo (Steeljaw), and Jaguar (Ravage). These figures exemplify the term "masterpiece" in terms of their engineering and aesthetics. For now, MMC owns this market exclusively, and I hope they continue to expend the roster of cassettes. I, for one, would love to see their takes on Ratbat (of which I believe a prototype has been shown), Sugfest, Overkill, Squawk Talk and Beast Box, Grand Slam and Raindance, Dile and Zaur, Graphy and Noise. Except for the drone, which sucks comparatively, I'll take all the cassettes MMC is willing to make, and I hope they do continue. So, that's my mini review of MMC's RMX-13 Forte, yet another excellent addition to the line. I'd be remiss if I didn't say I absolutely love him and, without any reservations, I highly recommend him.
  25. For my tastes, Transformers, and transforming toys in general, appeal from all aspects, not just one in particular, which is why the FT offerings just aren't appealing to me. MMC grabs my attention, as I'm a longtime fan of their products (more of my 3P MP collection are MMC toys than any other) and I'm enamored by their all-in-one engineering, which is the pinnacle of what I desire in a combiner, but also on the merits of the aesthetics of both the bot and vehicle modes. IMHO, they're knocking it out of the park, even if the toon look isn't my particular fancy. It is, however, the trend, alas, and I grudgingly accept it. That said, while it's a close race, I think I'm even more taken by X-Transbots' Constructicons. Every figure that they've released thus far has been beautifully executed. There's a part of me that would love to replace, or accompany my old ToyWorld Devastator, and if I had to choose between XTB and MMC, I'd have a hard time making that choice. I'm very reluctantly passing on these, as I simply don't have space for another MP scaled combiner, but we as fans have some impressive options before us. The only actual bummer is that they're not all designed to work universally with one another, as being able to pick and choose from amongst the three companies' toys based on preferences would be grand. However, we're still spoiled for choice and that's a good thing. Ultimately, I'm an articulation fan, and I'd probably go with MMC just for the cumulative number of boxes they check.
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