Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0

Oh god yea, I agree! The last great flight sim I played on PC was Jane's F-15. Good times.

Star Trek blew Terminator away. Terminator did not live up the hype that I felt when I saw the initial trailers. Terminator was just alright, don't go out of your way to watch it, and I'm not buying the DVD. I enjoyed Wolverine, TF2 ROTF, and G.I. Joe more.

This was elaborated upon years back at Botcon. The designers have the skill level required to design an awesome gestalt but the challenge isn't that, it's to convince retailers that having 4 different limbs in waves plus a leader in a bigger size class is a good marketing decision. Sure guys like us think it's a good idea and want this to happen but retailers are different. Add to that, the energon gestalts were said to be late or last minute decisions(which played a part in the limbs being repaints of one another). I remember it had something to do with cost and feasibility. Add to that, Magnaboss and Tripredacus in Beast Wars came in gift sets so there is no worry about one limb being a shelf warmer; in Energon, unless you bought the Takara releases, you were buying each component separately. In any case I found the gestalts to be disappointing. I'd rather have different limbs and more stability but retain full articulation. Devastator and Superion in Energon were unstable in gestalt mode and not easy to stand. The individual limb components were awesome on their own in vehicle and robot modes, but combined mode, surprisingly, was the most disappointing. If I could go back in time, I would have skipped Armada and Energon save for Unicron, and bought more Cybertron figures(Armada and Energon filled me with buyer's regret, but Cyberton was a very satisfying line...Cybertron Prime is one of my all time favorite Optimus Prime figures). RID was awesome, wish I bought the train brothers. I admire the movie lines a great deal, because they share something in common with Beast Wars; a huge mass market toyline that retains full articulation(except for Leader Megatron in ROTF) in robot mode with a good variety of characters to choose from. The balance of complexity, articulation and sculpting sold me on the lines. I love the automorph gimmick, prefer it over mech-alive and felt that the transformations developed for the movieline were pretty satisfying. Classics and Animated are great too, Animated is a line that I will sorely miss, same goes for the show. The incorporation of automorph was a neat touch, and the fact that the animated styalization was retained WITH full articulation on nearly all of the figures sold me on the line. This is something that Hasbro knocked the ball of out of the park with. Classics is like the G3 I always wanted; a modern line of Transformers figures with the G1 characters we grew up with. That's because they weren't supposed to look like the animation models(paintjobs aside) verbatim. They are supposed to be modernized versions of the G1 characters. Now if Haskaraomy were to make a G1 accurate, fully articulated line of Transformers WITH diecast as a wide ranged(meaning not a line with very few releases) line, I'd be more than happy to purchase them. I think that's ultimately what all G1 adult fans want eventually. Henkei has a lot of modernized G1 designs, and I admire them a great deal, but a G1 recreated line with modern technology would satisfy me a great deal. I mean come on, who DIDN'T want their G1 Prime to have full articulation and look the way he was on the cartoon but still retain the same level of detail as the toy?

How tall/long would the VF-25 be in battroid/fighter modes in 1/48 scale?

Agreed

Looks beautiful even with no armor attachments, and the 1D head suprisingly looks great on it.

That's not bad considering you get the ladder, Wedge, and a droid. Luke's Dagobah X Wing from 2006 came with Luke, a swamp monster, and molded foliage for $44.99. Also it's not as bad as the ARC-170/Clone Wars Y-Wing that are being sold at Target for $65, and worse at TRU where they are being sold for $80. When? I remember the regular price being $30 for the Red Leader X Wing w/Red Leader at TRU.

How durable/sturdy is it? If it's like the recent 1/60 releases I will be one happy camper. Looks great! Have a feeling the VE-1 will be the most liked this year though.

Get one a YF-21 or VF-22.

If it is based off a completely redesigned DX VF-25, yes.

Yeah but neither type of of fan wants something to break unintentionally.

They are an ambitious company tarnished by suspect quality control. Their designs have incorporated more durability, but it seems that with every improvement/advancement, something wrong tends to come up. Both the 1/60 YF-21 and SV-51 Nora had predominantly breakage-free releases, bear in mind these are quite complex toys, but the simpler, 1/60 V2 VF-1 had it's share of breakages early on. It's been rectified now, but I'm surprised that the potential breakages were not caught onto before release, during play testing. Aside that Yamato has been on a better streak compared to recent years. The main thing holding buyers back from the VF-11B isn't the quality control but the price. The V2 VF-1 is the best modern VF-1 toy in my opinion, more toyetic yet retains a lot of detail, you can definitely feel the difference between it and the 1/48. Both are great toys but the V2 1/60 feels better to handle. I don't care about the priest collar, the toy looks great as is to me. If anything, Yamato is a company that outdoes themselves every few years. Compare the v2 1/60 to the v1 and there is a HUGE difference. Even compared to the 1/48 the v2 sports come superior qualities.

Finally found the Concept Anakin...only 1....best Anakin figure I've got so far, I dig the look, an homage to Luke from ROTJ. I would have preferred if he was in this costume during ROTS.

VF-84 F-14A a year before Final Countdown

Pics?

Confirmed high viz for this bird, specifically the one seen from Final Countdown.

So the thing broke because it fell? That's an unfortunate accident, there are breakages I give constructive criticism for, but a fall is an accident.

Blubbering? Also $85 is closer to 100 than it is to $200, you're paying up either way for the model or toy, you're just paying more for the toy.

Hey how durable are the Triad Toy figure bodies? I saw the Shirokage figure and am thinking about buying it. Interesting back story too.

Speaking of which, I think his energy drink is discontinued...I can't find it anymore and it was actually good.

I think the next releases are VF-171, followed by VF-171EX Alto/Luca, then VF-17S/D, VF-11, then VF-1.

I think the diecast is used within the torso, you can see a bar that looks like it slides out near the "spine" of the battroid in the mid transformation pic. Hmm, I thought the option parts were to enable double jointed knee movement, but better proportions work for me too! I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see a completely redesigned, perfect transformation VF-25 series next spring/summer. Bandai seems to be taking constructive criticism into account, and while we have seen some improvements in the DX line, we have seen quicker advancements in the VF100's, comparatively speaking. For example, complaints were made about the short 25S neck in the DX line and it's rectified(albeit not with the preferred option) with the neck extension joint. With the VF100's, the amount of high parts swapping was the primary complaint, and the Fire Valkyrie is certainly a far more significant improvement with regards to transformation.

It's the battroid mode for me, of all the VF/YF-19 toys I've seen, this is the closest to the anime that I've seen, arguably closer to matching the anime version than the Revoltech YF-19. The fighter is sleek while the battroid is thick and chunky like the anime.

Oh god...I want to see a Blazer Valkyrie! That valk calls to me for some reason...and maybe it's just me, but I get a YF-23 vibe from it too!

Hey man, thanks a lot for the reply! Very informative/useful. Hmm..I wonder if it is easy to carve a replacement tab out of the ABS sprues that the model comes with.