The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[Scyla]

Nice review @mikeszekely interesting reading your thoughts about a toy originally released 2008-ish.

Yes, they really felt super high-quality back in the day (I think I got my first copy around 2017-ish) bin ut the world moved on with merciless speed.

Regarding the toy itself, I have no idea who this is for. I assume it is exclusively for Transformers fans, so why not go all the way and remove the Jolly Rodgers and U.N.SPACY logos and lean hard into the G1 Jetfire toy.

I think you had one chance to release this before Hasbro‘s lawyers shot your operation down so go all the way.

I can’t imagine that this will make a Transformers fan happy as a "Masterpiece" G1 toy Jetfire, once the initial endorphin rush is gone.

 

 

[M'Kyuun]

22 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I feel a little weird doing this review... I feel pretty comfortable asserting that I'm pretty knowledgeable about Transformers, both from a fiction/lore POV and regarding Hasbro's output since at least the mid-2000s.  But, while I enjoy Macross and have watched all the shows, I see myself as more of a layman when it comes to the franchise, and I'm just now dipping my toes into the realm of Macross toys.  So here I am with Fugu Toys FG-01 Autobot Air Guardian Jetfire, a toy that I'm approaching as something like a Missing Link Jefire, prepared to review it as a Transformer because that's what it is to me.  I have no other experience with this mold.  And yet, I'm sure a lot of you will recognize this as a KO of Valkyrie Factory's own KO of Arcadia's VF-1S Super Valkyrie, and are likely far more intimately familiar with it than I am.

I'm going to do something a little different than normal, and I'm first going to point out the box.  Because, boy, is Fugu brazen!  They've designed the box to be as close to the original G1 toy as possible.  The artwork is ripped straight from the original, and uses all the same names and logos.  Fugu just removed the barcode, added a "Fugu FG-01" after the "Autobot Air Guardian Jetfire," replaced the product photos, removed the Hasbro and Tatsunoko marks, and stripped all the faction symbols from the art.  Which is why, despite some stores advertising this figure as "God of Flame," I'm not sure that's actually correct.  The box and instructions just say "Autobot Air Guardian Jetfire."  It seems to me that the God of Flame moniker is suggesting that this is actually a KO of the KitzConcept God of Flame, which was also an attempt to do the Jetfire colors but on a different toy.  But, like I said, this isn't a KO KitzConcept, it's a KO of a KO of an Arcadia.  Well... unless Fugu actually is Valkyrie Factory, just flying this one off under a different label in case Hasbro shuts it down.  Because that box is practically daring Hasbro to shut it down.

But I digress.  I think, given that Fugu is working from a different base, they did an alright job capturing Jetfire's deco on the Arcadia VF-1.  The red and black on the chest, shoulders, cockpit area, and leg fins, the red on the thighs, etc, are broadly correct.  He's missing some of the other sticker details from the Jetfire toy, though, like on the toes, while other stickers have been replaced with more typical Macross-style markings, like the mechanical details on the original Jetfire's legs being replaced with a black stripe and "U. N. Spacy" markings.  There's also the black heat shield with the Jolly Rodger, a carryover from the Arcadia toy but not something that's part of the original Jetfire.  If you like, though, it seems like it's fairly trivial to pop the heat shield right off the slider if you want the exposed cockpit that the original Jetfire has.

Like I said, I'm sure a lot of you are more familiar with this mold than I am, but for me it was interesting to see how thin it is.  I know that G1 Jetfire was basically the old Takatoku VF-1S, and I know that those old Takatokus are often referred to as "Chunky Monkeys," but Fugu's Jetfire (and, I suppose, the Yamato/Arcadia VF-1), kind of show off how much anime magic was actually going into giving the VF-1 sleek proportions in fighter mode but heroic proportions in Battroid mode.  Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about it.  I mean, from a Macross perspective, the fighter mode is super important and a thinner Battroid is probably just more realistic.  As Jetfire, the toy I remember as a kid, though, I think that chunkiness is almost part of the character.  Despite watching Robotech as a kid (but I'm a Macross purist now, I swear!) I don't think I ever even made the association between Jetfire and the VF-1 at the time.

Like the original Jetfire, Fugu Jetfire comes with a lot of accessories.  More, even.  Sure, he's got the red plastic to decode the tech specs on the the back, the gunpod, armor parts for the back of the arms, back of the legs, sides of the legs, a pair of boosters, and a part to connect the boosters to his back, like the original Jetfire.  But you also get four black boxes with missiles molded in them, four racks of smaller missiles, two big missiles, two sets of paired big missiles, a translucent pilot, a chair, two neck fillers, two torso fillers, replacement TV-style fists, two gun-holding right hands (one TV, one DYRL), two open left hands (one TV, one DYRL), and a trio of stand adapters.  The stand adapters are probably more useful if you got the Deluxe edition, which comes with a stand.  Sadly, I did not.

I should also point out that, unlike the original Jetfire, Fugu Jetfire's boosters and leg armors can come off (because that's how Arcadia's do).  There's some really nice painted details inside.  And on that note, my copy of Fugu Jetfire came with translucent red replacement covers, which could be a nice way of showing off that inner detail without having them naked.  That said, I think the translucent parts were a preorder/first run bonus, so I can't promise that every copy will come with them.

Jetfire's articulation is... ok?  I mean, by modern Transformers standards it's not the best, but I guess it's kind of on par with what Hasbro did with Missing Link Convoy and it's definitely improved over the original Jetfire.  His head swivels, no sideways tilt, and it sits on a pair of hinges so you can get some extreme upward and downward tilt, depending on how much you're willing to break the sculpt.  Weirdly, the top of his head and face also hinges, revealing an odd double-chin underneath.  The head lasers can swivel.  His shoulders are on scary tight ball joints- I actually recommend sliding the outer covers off, opening up the shoulders and putting some silicone oil on the balls, and/or loosening the screws on the backs.  Once they're safe to move they'll rotate and can move laterally maybe 60 degrees, if I'm being generous.  Also, something I'm not used to, the shoulders are on flaps due to how he transforms.  These flaps don't actually lock into anything, which kind of gives him butterfly joints.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows are technically double-jointed and should curl nearly 90 degrees.  Should, because on my copy (and, it seems, most/all copies) the left arm has a tight but usable upper joint, but the right arm is, "oh crap this is going to break!" tight and I can't use it.  The stock hands can swivel, as well as bend up/down, with a solid thumb hinged at the base to move from along side the hand to over the palm, and fingers molded into curves but hinged at the base to open and close, with the index finger a separate part from the other three, which are molded together.  No waist swivel.  The hips are on ball joints.  In theory, they could move forward and backward to ridiculous degrees, but in practice their forward/backward movement is all but eliminated by bumping into his wings.  Fortunately, you can use a special hinge below the intakes (for Gerwalk mode) to get nearly 90 degrees forward.  Going back to the ball joints, they allow the hips to move about 45 degrees laterally, and you can also swivel the thighs around the ball joints for some thigh swivel.  There are dedicated swivels, though, just above the knees, which bend a bit under 90 degrees.  His feet are ratcheted, and when fully slid out (which you technically do for Gerwalk, but you can fudge for robot/Battroid) have some up/down tilt.  However, they don't really pivot.  There's some wiggle in the foot itself that suggests the ankles could pivot in theory, they simply don't have the clearance at the bottom of the leg.  

Jetfire's pegs are simply pegged into his wrists and are easy to swap.  If you used one of the fixed-pose hands the cutout in the grip is just the right size for the gunpod's hand to fit snuggly inside.  If you use the stock hands, though, you'll need to line the slot in the handle with the tab on the inside of the palm.  The slot in the gunpod's handle has another use, though.  When you collapse most of the handle and the barrel you're left with a bit sticking out.  That bit allows the slot to grab onto tabs on the outside of Jetfire's arm.  While, yes, carrying the gunpod on the arm like that is something we see Valkyries do in Macross, it's important to note that it's also something the original G1 toy could do, although it required the use of a clip.

Partsforming is a bit of a dirty word in the Transformers community, but I understand that it's pretty standard when it comes to Macross toys?  I would say on Jetfire they're really optional, but from some angles you can look straight through the torso if you don't use them.  So, for starters, there's a pair of white torso fillers.  These slide up into the gap between his chest and back, with rods at the top that snap into the c-clips behind Jetfire's shoulders.

As for the gap behind Jetfire's head, you have to options.  First is this piece that clips right in, with the rounded protrusion pointing toward his back.  This piece, you'll note, has little molded closed doors on it.

There's a second neck filler that has open doors on it, with a slot in the middle.  You can take the chair and plug it into the slot, and sit the pilot figure in the chair, to recreate that scene in the cartoon where they exit the Battroid this way.  Not that it really makes sense for a sentient robot to have to do this...

With Jetfire originally being a Macross toy, of course he does Gerwalk mode.  I'm not really going to talk about it much, though, because for a Cybertronian it's less of a deliberate mode and more a midpoint in the transformation.  In Fugu's case, a necessary midpoint.  Unlike the original toy, you have to move the arms out of the way to give the swing bar enough clearance to move the hips to the nose, but you also can't move the arms unless you use the hinges behind the intakes to move the legs down to their Gerwalk position.

 

The rest of the transformation is direct enough, since I guess there's only so many ways to transform a VF-1.  The swing bar actually unlocks from the back of the nose (after moving a flap out of the way, and be sure to move the hinged fillers into place before closing that flap up so you don't have holes in the sides of the nose bulges.  A door opens on the back for the head to swivel and then fit through so it ends up under the fuselage.  The chest rocks up away from the cockpit, and the heatshield slides inside, then as it comes back down you need to line up slots in it with the marker lights on his back.  Note that going from Battroid to fighter is simple enough, but going from fighter to battroid is super tight the first time you do it and you'll probably have to use more force than you really fell comfortable with.  With the fuselage mostly done, you can bring the swing bar back into the same c-clips you stuck the torso filler bits into, tabbing the backs of the intakes into the underside of the chest as you do so.  Fold the hands into the forearms, then they fold in but also swing around on sliders to so that the shoulders are touching, then the legs can be brought back along side them.  Use the double hinge to bring the tail into place, fold the heels and toes together, and shove the feet up into the legs.  When all is said and done, credit where it's due, the fighter mode is a lot more solid than the G1 toy (or rather, the Takatoku), which seems to rely more on friction from the toy's joints.

In a vacuum, aside from the chibi nose, I don't think the G1 toy/Takatoku looks too bad, but side-by-side with Fugu/Arcadia it's apparent how chunky the older toy really is.  Fugu is a much nicer fighter mode marred only by the fact that Fugu choice to use the UN Spacy kite on the sides of the fuselage and left wing, the black stripe and "U.N. SPACY" on the sides of the legs instead of the mechanical detail stickers, "001" on the right wing, and Jolly Rodgers on the horizontal stabilizers.  On the flip side, though, you've got nice details like translucent landing lights on the wings, painted marker lights on the wing tips, and caution marks near the intakes.  You can see the nozzles molded deep in the feet, and you can remove the intake covers to reveal painted intake fans if you like (though they're in stupid tight, and I broke a little tab off the one I removed).

One other thing that's a nice little touch... in the black around the canopy, where the pilot's name is printed, Fugu put "Air Guardian Jetfire."

They're not spring-loaded and full of diecast the way the original Jetfire's were, but Fugu Jetfire does have landing gear in both legs and under the nose.  The doors are a bit of a paint to open, but once the landing gear is out you'll find rubber tires on rolling wheels, and the nose gear can swivel and has a hinged launch bar.

Fighter mode is where I think you're going to get the most use out of your included accessories.  The canopy opens to reveal a detailed cockpit interior.  You can set the pilot figure into the seat.  Again, this is something that probably makes a lot more sense when it's an actual Arcadia Macross toy, but I think Fugu making the pilot out of clear plastic is a nice touch, like the pilot is just a hologram.  The various missiles and missile pods have small pegs in them that fit into little raised holes under the wings.  To my taste it required a little more force than I'd have liked, but on the flip side they're not going to come out accidentally.  As for the gunpod, the indents with the tabs on the outsides of his forearms where me stuck the gunpod in Battroid mode are mirrored on the insides of his arms, so you just sort of sandwich the gunpod's handle between them and squeeze so that the tabs grab into the slot on the handle.

Now, going off the box art alone, it's not really Jetfire until he's got his FAST packs on.  Disconnect his legs from his tail, and fold the tail up like you would for Gerwalk/Battroid.  Attach the boosters to the connector, then slide the connector into the gap between the tail and his back.  When it's in far enough tabs on the boosters will fit into slots on the tail, securing everything in place.  The arm armor has clips with slots that fit over the same indented tabs we used for attaching the gunpod.  As for the legs, the calf armor has a hook and a tab that fit into slots on the back of the leg.  Just make sure that the tabs on the sides of the calf armor are pointing outward, because you'll plug the side-of-the-leg armor into those tabs.

With the leg armor installed you'll have to bend the knee and Gerwalk joints a little, but the leg armor has slots that fit into tabs inside Jetfire's back to lock them into place, so once again everything feels nice and solid.  A downside of moving the legs, though, means that the landing gear in them is lower, so the fighter is slanting toward the nose.

This time, the "U.N. SPACY" on the leg armor doesn't bother me as much.  I mean, it's still not accurate, but the black stripe it's printed on is.  However, Fugu went with the DYRL-style Jolly Rodger on the boosters.  I really wish they'd have just left it plain black, then I could stick an Autobot insignia on it (and the nose) and call it a day.

Canopy still opens, you still have access to the landing gear, and you can still attach missiles/missile pods to the undersides of the wings.  You can also still carry the gunpod on the underside of the fighter, because the arm armor has it's own intended tabs, same as the arms themselves.

The extra bulk he gains from the FAST packs helps fill him out and make him feel more like Jetfire to me.  Unfortunately, I don't think you can transform him without all the armor on.  The stuff on the arms and legs, sure, but I found it necessary to remove the boosters and their clip so I could move the tail to open the door that allows his head to pass through.

Jetfire's also a little back-heavy with all his gear on.  The play between clicks in the ratchets in his feet can leave him leaning a bit.  The simplest solution is put him into a more dynamic pose, with his legs turned outward a bit.

Finally, here's how Fugu Jetfire looks with Siege Jetfire and Earthrise Starscream.  And... huh.  Y'know, I've always thought Siege Jetfire is a rather too big.  Might not be exactly scale chart-accurate, but Fugu's Jetfire is about exactly the height I think Siege Jetfire should have been.  Turns out a 1/60 VF-1 is probably too small for an MP collection, but pretty great for Classics/Generations/WFC/Legacy one*.

*Unless you're one of those alt-mode scale guys... then the VF-1 being smaller than an MP Starscream's F-15 mode makes sense.

I have to say, this has been an eye-opening experience for me.  Jet Transformers are often ridiculed for being boxes of robot bits stuffed under a plane that transforms into a robot with 90% of the plane on its back.  And, I mean, that's fair, but I think it's a lot harder to turn an animation-accurate robot into a jet on a Voyager-class budget than it is to design a jet first and work into a robot that you're going to sell for $100+.  But now I'm also seeing that Valkyries do make compromises and do benefit from anime magic, they just priortized the fighter mode and made the compromises to the Battroid.  

What's more, Macross toys have traditionally seemed expensive to me, and I know some collectors have said that they have a more premium collector feel compared to Hasbro's Transformers.  And yet, Fugu's Jetfire (and by extension, an Arcadia VF-1) has worse articulation than most modern Transformers, thinner plastic (that, IMHO, doesn't feel as good to handle), ball-jointed hips on scary thin rods, ball-jointed shoulders, and partsforming filler.  I gotta say, if this is "premium collector" stuff, I honestly prefer the mass-market kids stuff.  To be fair, some of it, like the plastic quality, could be due to his being a KO and not a genuine Arcadia, and the overly-tight shoulders and elbows and the excessive force required to separate the chest from the back are almost definitely due to it being a KO.  Still, I can't help but wonder what a Takara-made VF-1 might be like.

Don't get the wrong impression, though.  I like Fugu's Air Guardian Jetfire quite a lot, and I think for the $125-ish I paid that he's a tremendous value.  With the licensing issues involved a more modern Valkyrie toy with a close-enough paint job is likely the closest we're going to get to a Missing Link Jetfire.  So, if you're a Macross fan that happens to like this deco, or a Transformers fan who wants a more toy-accurate Jetfire, and certainly if you're both, this is a toy I can comfortably recommend.

I enjoyed your thoughts, Mike, knowing that you're far more invested in Transformers than Macross. Regarding your thoughts of the Yamato VF-1 2.0 as a collector's piece, when it originally came out circa 2008, it was revolutionary relative to all other VF-1 toys, including their own previous attempt. At the time, its articulation was next-level- double jointed elbows hadn't really made much of an appearance on transforming toys yet. It may seem a little dated by current standards, but that's because it is dated. Regardless, I still have a warm spot in my heart for it (I own at least four copies of Yamato/Arcadia 1/60 VF-1s) and I've long thought that it would be the perfect toy to convert into Jetfire. I got my wish, and aside from some of the paint details being wrong or omitted for a proper G1 Jetfire homage, I'm still really pleased with how it turned out. I ordered a copy last night, in fact, so it won't be long before I have him in hand. Personally, from a scale POV, I think he works better with CHUG, as his jet mode would actually be properly proportionate compared to general car modes. I wish vehicle scale had been prioritized from the beginning over bot scale, but that's a horse that has long since skeletonized. Anyway, as @Chronocidal mentioned, I'm sure Toyhax will have our backs with some proper decals to make our Fugu Jetfire even more Jetfirey.

Digressing, I mentioned yesterday that Newage, one of the most notable 3P legends scale TF toy makers currently, intends to release a CHUG scaled G1 Megatron that turns into a gun as an option over the upcoming SS86 Megatron which is going to have a tank alt mode. I had pondered whether or not they were just going to upscale their legends fig or build a new fig from scratch, and it seems they chose the latter direction. While I admit I think the thighs look a bit too thick and I'm not the craziest about seeing his trigger in his inner thighs, overall, I think it's a commendable effort and I far prefer a proper G1 Megs that turns into a gun over one that turns into a tank. A tank makes more sense; it's an argument I won't refute b/c it's absolutely true, but the fact remains that in the OG toyline, show and '86 film, Megatron transformed into a Walther P38 pistol, and by the Matrix, that's what I want for my CHUG collection. And so, I've already POed this guy. I really, really wish Magic Square would follow suit and just upscale their amazing legends fig, but at this point any option is a good one and Newage can be counted on for good engineering, materials, and paint. Looking forward to having him in hand, a long-awaited dream come true.

One caveat: it would seem Newage designed him to scale with ER Prime, as SS86 Prime stands noticeably taller. I love my ER Prime fig, so I can live with it.

[mikeszekely]

11 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

Regarding your thoughts of the Yamato VF-1 2.0 as a collector's piece, when it originally came out circa 2008, it was revolutionary relative to all other VF-1 toys, including their own previous attempt. At the time, its articulation was next-level- double jointed elbows hadn't really made much of an appearance on transforming toys yet. It may seem a little dated by current standards, but that's because it is dated.

I'd give it a pass for being dated if it weren't still apparently the gold standard for VF-1 toys.  Like I said, I like it a lot, but I kind of want to see someone else take a crack at it.  Was kind of hoping ThreeZero might pull that off, but reviews of the VF-1J make it seem like more of a lateral move.

It might sound a bit heretical to the Macross-first crowd, but I think I'm ok with some liberties being taken with the fighter mode to make a better Battroid.  Not the kind of goofy proportions that Unix Square is doing, just better joints (hinges and swivels, no ball joints) and sturdier plastic that isn't so thin in spots.

25 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

While I admit I think the thighs look a bit too thick and I'm not the craziest about seeing his trigger in his inner thighs

I don't mind the thicker thighs.  While I agree that I'm not really digging the visible trigger on the inner thighs, I do have to admit it's kind of a clever way to thicken his thighs up.  Back's cleaner than the Legends version, but the tradeoff seems to be very visible hinges in the bottom of the chest and all over his forearms.  Not digging the blueish face.  Still, not a lot of options for CHUG-scale Megatrons that turn into a gun.  Maybe I'll preorder one...

27 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

One caveat: it would seem Newage designed him to scale with ER Prime, as SS86 Prime stands noticeably taller.

Swing and a miss, NewAge.  Now'd be a good time for Magic Square to swoop in and each NA's lunch on this.  Heck, I'd settle for a fourth party to do an upscale KO of Magic Square's.

[M'Kyuun]

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I'd give it a pass for being dated if it weren't still apparently the gold standard for VF-1 toys.  Like I said, I like it a lot, but I kind of want to see someone else take a crack at it.  Was kind of hoping ThreeZero might pull that off, but reviews of the VF-1J make it seem like more of a lateral move.

Have you seen Bandai's 1/48 take? I don't own one myself so I can't speak from experience, but it represents a newer take on the old design. It still maintains the thin battroid proportions, however, but I think that just works for the design overall. The toon, like most, tended to exaggerate proportions from mode to mode. Personally, I like it and still love the look of my YamArcadia VF-1s as well.

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

It might sound a bit heretical to the Macross-first crowd, but I think I'm ok with some liberties being taken with the fighter mode to make a better Battroid.  Not the kind of goofy proportions that Unix Square is doing, just better joints (hinges and swivels, no ball joints) and sturdier plastic that isn't so thin in spots.

You're right- it's heretical. 😄 That fighter mode is gorgeous, even today after so many other valks. I wouldn't want to mess with it beyond the super deformed stuff, which has its own charm.  I even own an SD Max version from Kitz Concept. 

9 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

  Still, not a lot of options for CHUG-scale Megatrons that turn into a gun.  Maybe I'll preorder one...

Exactly. I wouldn't hesitate, as there's no guarantee that magic Square will follow suit, although....

9 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Now'd be a good time for Magic Square to swoop in and each NA's lunch on this.  Heck, I'd settle for a fourth party to do an upscale KO of Magic Square's.

You couldn't be more correct and the time more opportune. Moreover, I think Magic Square has crafted the absolutely best transformable G1 Megatron in existence thus far.  He's clean with great sculpting, has a transformation that follows the G1 toy's schema (arms form the back part of the slide, chest forms the slide, legs form the handle), excellent articulation, great proportions. The only knock I can really find against it is that his trigger gives the illusion that he has a little tail. For everything else that's done so incredibly right, I can live with it. I want this in CHUG and MP scales so vehemently. I hope they see what Newage is doing and don't just meet them, but exceed them with an upscaled version to match the SS86 Prime fig.  Honestly, if I had my druthers, I'd take Magic Square's current OP fig upscaled to SS86 scale as well, as I feel they have the best OP fig in existence currently. It's more accurate and better articulated than even SS86 and I'd ecstatically welcome CHUG scaled figs of their OP and Megs for my collection. 

[Scyla]

I think the gold standard for the VF-1 is the Bandai perfect transformation 1/72 scale model kit! It has an accurate leg delivery mechanism and innovative articulation design. Something that even the 1/48th scale DX Chogokin VF-1 couldn‘t pull off.

To the design talk I would like to add that Valkyries are first and foremost fighter jets while the Battroid-mode is the secondary (or even tertiary) mode.

Even in the fiction the Battroid-mode is not the true self of the vessel I feel. Plus, it is not a living being rather a functional machine. So to me it makes sense if it doesn’t have human like articulation. It needs to hold and manipulate its Gunpod (and rescue idols) and point the legs in directions to maneuver appropriately.

Historically, transforming versions always put more emphasis on the Fighter-Mode. If the toy designers differentiate from that approach (like the recent DX YF-21) it is usually a big  kerfuffle among the fan base.

Valkyries have canonical transformation schemes built in which Kawamori took great care into designing, so toy engineers can’t differentiate too much from this scheme.

The comparison between Transformers where the primary mode is the robot mode (i.e an alien life form) is not really apt. That said, I do wish the Valkyrie manufacturers would come up with a way to engineer more (i.e. 90 degrees) outward hip movement without violating the design principles.

On the other side Transformers could do so much better than a box on the underside of the jet. Legacy Deeadwing (with all its flaws) shows that it is even possible on a mass market budget.

The best Transformers jet ever to me is FT Maverick, especially being a Concorde. What drags the toy down is the wrong nosecone design and the weird conformable fuel tanks on the upper side of the wing roots. Both mishaps have nothing to do with the robot transformation itself and could have easily been avoided.

Honorable mentions: Prime First Edition Starscream and Titan‘s Return Triggerhappy.

 

 

[mikeszekely]

I don't disagree that Fighter is main mode for a Valkyrie, but I think you guys might be thinking that I'm thinking of more drastic changes than I'm actually suggesting.  I'm thinking more like using a mushroom swivel in a thicker swing bar for the hips, and shortening the intakes a bit so that the entire leg has the clearance to swivel without hitting the wing.  Then a hinge inside the intake could move everything from the Gerwalk joint down laterally 90 degrees, but a compromise would likely have to be a cutout on the side of the intake for the hinge to pass through.  The hinge could still be flush with the intake when in fighter mode, but you'd still have the seams.  Another change I'd propose is attaching the slider for the feet to the inner side of the leg (or eliminating it entirely; the chunky monkeys didn't have sliders), and putting a hinge right around the vernier so the inside of the lower leg can bend out with the foot for greater ankle pivot (something I'll note that ThreeZero actually did do).  I'd probably also suggest putting tabs on the shoulder joints to lock them into the chest, adding some kind of tab/slot/hook to secure the tail to the back in Battroid mode (that's a little more robust than Arcadia's), and maybe some flaps that can fold out from the panels that connect the chest to the back over the shoulders that can fill in the space behind the head without partsforming.

[Chronocidal]

5 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I don't disagree that Fighter is main mode for a Valkyrie, but I think you guys might be thinking that I'm thinking of more drastic changes than I'm actually suggesting.  I'm thinking more like using a mushroom swivel in a thicker swing bar for the hips, and shortening the intakes a bit so that the entire leg has the clearance to swivel without hitting the wing.  Then a hinge inside the intake could move everything from the Gerwalk joint down laterally 90 degrees, but a compromise would likely have to be a cutout on the side of the intake for the hinge to pass through.  The hinge could still be flush with the intake when in fighter mode, but you'd still have the seams.  Another change I'd propose is attaching the slider for the feet to the inner side of the leg (or eliminating it entirely; the chunky monkeys didn't have sliders), and putting a hinge right around the vernier so the inside of the lower leg can bend out with the foot for greater ankle pivot (something I'll note that ThreeZero actually did do).  I'd probably also suggest putting tabs on the shoulder joints to lock them into the chest, adding some kind of tab/slot/hook to secure the tail to the back in Battroid mode (that's a little more robust than Arcadia's), and maybe some flaps that can fold out from the panels that connect the chest to the back over the shoulders that can fill in the space behind the head without partsforming.

Just in a general sense, I think the Bandai DX does about half of those specific things, which the ThreeZero entry mimics for the most part, as well as adding that inner ankle panel you mention.  Bandai did add some coverage for the empty spaces from the top of battroid by adding a filler panel to the hatch that opens to let the head through, and added that specific outward joint at the hips, though it doesn't have as much range as you might hope.  I'm not sure there's actually enough room in the intake to put a full 90-degree lateral extension. while still maintaining the other 90-degree bend for gerwalk mode.

Getting the hips to clear the wings is probably a pipedream without somehow shortening them, but I'd be curious what you mean for the hip bar and mushroom swivel.  Some of what you mentioned might actually be closer to how the HMR VF-1s do the hips, since they forego the thin hip bar for a larger bracket that mounts behind the nose and clips around it, and they do include a smaller clip-on set of wings for battroid to get them out of the way, but the HMR releases accept a fair amount of parts-swapping.

Not sure a really good way to lock the backpack has ever been developed though, short of how the backpack booster mounts lock it in place by presence alone.  A more robust backpack hinge with solid detents would probably be a good start.

You might enjoy some of the tweaks ThreeZero made to the design, since it seems more focused on making a solid battroid figure.  My comments were pretty harsh on it, but I got soured a bit by some paint damage and having to heavily modify the arm sliders out of the box to transform the toy at all.

Have to agree with your earlier thought though, I'd be really curious to see how Takara would approach the subject.

On another subject entirely, I've always wondered if someone could manage some kind of insane collapsing panel origami to give Megatron legs that were a good size in robot mode, but collapsed down to make the grip of the pistol not look like some kind of double-wide magazine customization.

Edited September 15 by Chronocidal

[M'Kyuun]

3 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

Have to agree with your earlier thought though, I'd be really curious to see how Takara would approach the subject.

Well, when this is their latest F-15 alt for a masterpiece entry, I have little faith in them. 

That said, MP-03 had a far more accurate F-15 mode thanks to Kawamori's inputs. The bot mode suffered, but the F-15 looked good, which illuminates the variances in philosophy between Kawamori's  Macross and Takara's Transformers designs. Diaclone, too, which Kawamori had a hand in designing, also had a heavier focus on the vehicle modes, as originally, they were conceived of as vehicles that turn into robots instead of the other way around. The Top Gun crossover, Maverick, borrowing a bit from the VF-1, is another notable entry as well as the Generations deluxe Scourge which was inspired by the Boeing X-48 blended wing concept. The latter is one of my all-time favorite aircraft alt modes and my favorite version of Scourge. I also like the recent Dreadwing Prime homage, which also borrows a little from Macross design, burying the arms within the fighter mode and using the legs to form the fuselage and engines. Animated's Lugnut, even with his toony proportions, and the inspired excellent main line voyager figure in 2010 are rare examples of Takara's producing incredible non-fighter aircraft that hide the robot mode exceptionally well. 2010 was a good year for retro Transformer plane designs, as we also got the P-38 Lightning inspired Highbrow. And let's not forget 2009's RotF's Ransack, a WWI biplane that, at scout class, was really well done and would fly circles, pun intended, around anything in the current core class.

Kudos to Fans Toys , as, to wit, theirs is the only version of Silverbolt that utilizes the Concorde's long fuselage to form the robot instead of consolidating the entirety of the robot into a giant block that's carried by a Concorde fuselage which ends up folding onto blocko'bot's back with no other contribution to transformation. I've long become disenchanted with Superion toys, as they almost all end up following the frustrating old formula of blocky bots with plane parts tacked on or blocky bots underslung under an anemic aircraft fuselage that has virtually no contribution to the bot mode. I give credit to FT for trying to break the formula, but there's still a lot of bot kibble under the wings and their Concorde's side profile looks too short and too fat. perhaps it's the camera angle, but while the top-down pics look alright, that side pic does it no favors.

 Due to their faithfulness to the 80s toys, Fans Toys' take on Skydive finds its F-16 mode also suffering from the need to contain a blocky bot. 

As an aircraft fan and an Air Force retiree who's been around military planes and helicopters throughout his career, I have a jaundiced eye when it comes to transforming aircraft, especially fighters, which have purposefully sleek aerodynamic shapes that are often tossed asunder to favor blocky robot modes. The number of decent aircraft modes created by Takara over the last 40 years is quite small relative to the number of aircraft alt-moded bots they's produced. I tend to gravitate more to Macross, as Kawamori has oft demonstrated his ability to maintain a sleek realistic looking aircraft mode, especially fighters, and yet coax beautiful robot modes out of them. Notable mention to TFC toys for their designs as well as Touch Toys' recent releases. Chinese toy developers, who've long dominated the third-party Transformers market, have established themselves as masters of the genre and these two companies (or is it the same company having undergone a name change?) are proving that a sleek fighter need not be a blocky bot or vice-versa. The fact that they are using licensed military aircraft and producing incredibly realistic and accurate versions of them that transform into interesting and fully articulated robots is nothing short of commendable. Directly or indirectly, I really don't want to support the CCP, but I'd be remiss if I didn't say I was incredibly tempted by these amazing toys. Touch Toys has a transforming Chinese Y-20 cargo plane coming out soon, and I'm very tempted, as cargo planes are far rarer as transforming toys than fighters, for reasons that I think are obvious, and having an affinity for cargo planes, I'm definitely tempted.

And just as a qualifier, this is a transforming cargo plane I built from LEGO about ten years ago. I endeavor to hold myself to the same standards I hold to other transforming toy makers, a task made more difficult due to the limitations of the medium.

I'm critical of transforming plane makers, but I hold myself to the same, if not more scathing, criticism. However, as much as I complain, I'm not totally jaded: there are, as I have enumerated, any number of transforming aircraft designs that are good to great, exceptional even, and I like to point to some of those as counterpoints to my own criticism. I want and wish for better transforming aircraft and it's always a pleasant surprise when something like Has/Tak's Lugnut (both versions) or Touch Toys' Carefray (the Chinese version of the American F-35) comes out and gives hope that good-looking planes without robot kibble spoiling the appearance are still produced from time to time. I wish they got the same love and care as most carformers, but I guess the rarity of the good ones just makes them all the more special and enjoyable.

[mikeszekely]

8 hours ago, Chronocidal said:

You might enjoy some of the tweaks ThreeZero made to the design, since it seems more focused on making a solid battroid figure.  My comments were pretty harsh on it, but I got soured a bit by some paint damage and having to heavily modify the arm sliders out of the box to transform the toy at all.

I hope so.  I preordered the Roy version... I've got that Valkyrie fever, it seems.😆

3 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Well, when this is their latest F-15 alt for a masterpiece entry, I have little faith in them. 

 

That said, MP-03 had a far more accurate F-15 mode thanks to Kawamori's inputs. The bot mode suffered, but the F-15 looked good, which illuminates the variances in philosophy between Kawamori's  Macross and Takara's Transformers designs.

I don't think that's entirely fair, because I think it has less to do with Kawamori vs Takara and a lot more to do with what Macross fans want vs what Transformers fans want.  Macross fans want the fighter mode.  Skinny limbs, limited articulation, partsforming, whatever it takes to nail the fighter mode.  Transformers fans, on the other hand, prioritize the bot mode.  Heck, the majority (of which I'm not a part) not only prioritize the bot mode, they want that bot mode to be Sunbow accurate down to the animation errors.  And frankly, it's a lot easier to nail a jet when you start with the Fighter and work backwards to Battroid than it is to take Sunbow's art, which didn't even particularly resemble the toys in the first season, and figure out how to make a vehicle out of it.

3 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

The Top Gun crossover, Maverick, borrowing a bit from the VF-1, is another notable entry as well

It came out a lot like a Valkyrie, yeah... nice jet mode, skinny bot mode.  But, like I said, Maverick had the luxury of starting with the plane and working backwards to bot mode.

So we know Takara can make a solid jetformer, when they start with the jet mode.  Which I think they'd do if they every did a Valkyrie.

[M'Kyuun]

40 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

I don't think that's entirely fair, because I think it has less to do with Kawamori vs Takara and a lot more to do with what Macross fans want vs what Transformers fans want.  Macross fans want the fighter mode.  Skinny limbs, limited articulation, partsforming, whatever it takes to nail the fighter mode.  Transformers fans, on the other hand, prioritize the bot mode.  Heck, the majority (of which I'm not a part) not only prioritize the bot mode, they want that bot mode to be Sunbow accurate down to the animation errors.  And frankly, it's a lot easier to nail a jet when you start with the Fighter and work backwards to Battroid than it is to take Sunbow's art, which didn't even particularly resemble the toys in the first season, and figure out how to make a vehicle out of it.

There's no contest that a large contingent of Macross fans prioritize the fighter mode. I'm not one of those, as I display all my valks in battroid. It's bit of an irony considering my interest in planes, but no less true. That said, I love the satisfaction of transforming a valk and having a realistic looking jet in my hand with retractable gear, an opening canopy, and sometimes even moving wings or flight controls. It's a feeling I seldom get from transforming a Transformers jet. I'm in the minority of Macross collectors to be sure, but I doubt I'm the only one who enjoys that aspect of collecting the high-end Macross toys. As to articulation, the only real limitation that most valks have is with hip abduction, or "the Van Damme" as Skullface likes to call it. Still, the valks I own can do a decent spread for a suitable A-stance for posing. I can't do the splits myself, and I've never put any of my Transformers capable of it in such a pose so it's less important to me than having a full range in the arms, a feature the majority of my Macross collection enjoys. Most valks, too, have limited or no waist swivel due to how they transform. Again, it's never really bothered me. I appreciate it when they can, but before waist swivel and then ab crunch became popular wants among Transformers fans, neither seemed that important to me personally. I also eschew partsforming, a necessity among many of the High Metal toys, which is one of the reasons I don't collect that line. Although some valks have swappable accessories and weapons, none of the valks in my collection require partsforming to achieve any of the three modes. That'll change soon, however, when I receive my copy of Bandai's DX YF-21, and believe me, I'm not at all happy about the partsforming aspects of the toy, especially for the price. But, I prefer the battroid proportions over the Yamato's and that was the deciding factor.

As a Transformers fan since the beginning, I differ from the crowd who want absolute 'Sunbow accuracy', an oxymoron if ever there was one. I was a fan of the Hasui approach, marrying aspects of both toon and toy into the best amalgamation to represent the character. I like details, textures, greebles and mechanical bits; after all, these are robots so those things are apropos. I think Has/Tak are doing a good job in this vein with the current mainline and SS86 figs, although sometimes they lean one way or the other and I find myself wishing they'd taken a different approach but overall, I'm pretty pleased. Magic Square and Newage have certainly leaned hard into the Sunbow look, although they still manage to throw some G1 toy details in here and there. So far as taking an alt mode like a fighter or a ground vehicle, I can attest from my own experience designing transforming mecha with LEGO that I always start with the alt mode and work towards the bot mode. I'm inclined to think, however, that Takara may take a different approach, at least where jetformers are concerned, as they so rarely even incorporate the arms into the jet and generally, the jet bits, especially forward fuselages, are undersized or otherwise disproportionate. Whatever their approach, more often than not I'm left with a feeling of frustration and disenchantment, especially when so much more care is taken with hiding bot bits in ground vehicle modes. After forty years of collecting Transformers with mostly crappy jet modes, Macross has become my refuge for beautiful transforming jets; it's my primary draw to the franchise although Macross Plus owns me for numerous reasons. It's just a damned excellent anime.

[Axelay]

I am so curious if anybody has in-hand yet the first of the Mecha Invasion Giant Legion two-packs? I couldn't resist preordering these.

[mikeszekely]

1 hour ago, Axelay said:

I am so curious if anybody has in-hand yet the first of the Mecha Invasion Giant Legion two-packs? I couldn't resist preordering these.

I didn't preorder, but I keep thinking about buying the set.  They're weird... they're too big to be CHUG, but the aesthetic doesn't jive with Masterpiece, but they look sturdy and fun to mess with.

[Axelay]

11 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I didn't preorder, but I keep thinking about buying the set.  They're weird... they're too big to be CHUG, but the aesthetic doesn't jive with Masterpiece, but they look sturdy and fun to mess with.

I'm super picky about which Transformers or 3rd party-formers I buys these days. I still have a special place in my heart for TFC's Hercules, as I thought the weapons and Devastator-parts onboard storage was undeniably clever. I also loved using the treads of the tracked vehicles as forearms and not as shoulder fillers. Mecha Invasion's take on this is intriguing, as it appears to have the same onboard storage elements. I honestly like how clever it feel using Mixmaster as an arm, as it makes Devastator look like he's got huge Popeye-like forearms.

[Axelay]

I received the first Mecha Invasion Giant Legion set yesterday! Here are a few casual photos from my desk. I can''t even remotely do a review as well thought-out as mikeszekely, but here are some of my thoughts.

- Show.Z store is not playing around with shipping or packaging. Holy crap. I went through 4 layers - with bumpers - before I finally got to the toys.

- Size comparisons against a Lego Mustang Dark Horse and Storm Collectibles Mitsurugi. These are considerably larger than I was expecting.

- Both of these things are absolutely phenomenal. I love the aesthetic, the colorways, the tampo printing, the lightup features, the onboarding of all weapons and Devastator parts.

- Transformation is right in that sweet spot for me. They are just fun to transform!

- I am sick of the slavish insistence on "cartoon accuracy." Barf. I think moving Mixmaster and Scrapper to arms makes good design sense, and I can't wait to see how Scavenger and Bonecrusher incorporate Devastator feet into their alt modes.

- I don't know what kind of voodoo or deal with the devil Mecha Invasion has pulled in order to get these at their price point. Under $100 shipped for BOTH is just insane.

- Up until now, my very favorite 3rd party Devastator is still TFC Hercules. It's old, but I utterly love the incorporation of all of the weapons and Devastator parts. Giant Legion looks like it might just take Hercules' crown...

- I surely hope the remaining 4 will be out within a year's time.

[mikeszekely]

6 minutes ago, Axelay said:

I received the first Mecha Invasion Giant Legion set yesterday!

I was just wondering if you had gotten them yet.  I just ordered them myself yesterday.

[Axelay]

10 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I was just wondering if you had gotten them yet.  I just ordered them myself yesterday.

I hope that you will enjoy them as much as I have. They are so much fun! (And that's something which I feel has been missing from so many of the transforming things I have purchased in the last few years.)

I forgot a few more talking points.

- Rubber tires for both. These roll incredibly smoothly.

- I hadn't seen mentioned anywhere else that - like Hercules - the pistols will all apparently combine into a rifle.

- I am not bothered one bit by the non-articulated fists on the robot modes. If it makes for better pistol grip, then good.

- The diecast piston on Scrapper's crotch is a huge laugh. I can just hear Jobby the Hong going "boioioioioioioing!"

Edited October 12 by Axelay

[Black Valkyrie]

 

https://tformers.com/daily-prime-third-party-optimus-prime-colors-rx782-gundam-rolls-out-/53842/news.html

 

[Chronocidal]

1 hour ago, Black Valkyrie said:

 

https://tformers.com/daily-prime-third-party-optimus-prime-colors-rx782-gundam-rolls-out-/53842/news.html

 

Interesting idea, but including random pictures of sprues from unrelated kits is.. confusing?  None of those are even parts from the completed kit they show.

[mikeszekely]

I order a lot these days from TFSafari and ShowZStore.  I'd been giving a slight preference to TFSafari, because it seemed like I was getting stuff quicker from them.  But I gotta tell you, I have three packages out from a single order with them, one shipped on October 2nd and two on October 3rd, and none of them have arrived yet.  It's like the parcel carrier takes over a week to hand them off to USPS after they get through customs (and then for some weird reason once they got to my local USPS hub they sent them to another hub instead of delivering them, so...?).  Meanwhile, I ordered from ShowZ, they shipped on the 12th, and my stuff was delivered a week later.  Might have to start shifting more of my business back to ShowZ.

Oh, what was in the package?  Only the first Giant Legion pack from Mecha Invasion, so tonight you guys get my review for their first figure, Loader.

To be clear, I'm saying that these figures are from Mecha Invasion because that's how sites are listing them, but aside from "Giant Legion" there's no branding on the box or instructions, and no contact information.  Frankly, they can call themselves whatever they want, I'm like 75% sure it's Generation Toy/Transform Mission, so I'm going to compare these guys with GT's (previous) Constructicons.

Anyway... Loader is, of course, their take on Scrapper.  Now, GT's Scrapper was already fairly stylized, but you had the slightly-protruding middle of the chest, flat head, wheels on the shoulders and legs, and a big ol' shovel on his back.  Loader is far less conventional.  He's got the masked face of Scrapper, and the colors (aside from black hands) are about where they should be, but that's about it.  You can still tell it's Scrapper, though, because the shovel is still there... it's just his feet!

As unconventional as the design is, the result is an undeniably clean figure.  One of my peeves with Generation Toy is was their tendency to fold over panels and flaps without always securing them, but you've got none of that here.  The only bits that aren't totally locked down are the black parts of his shoulders.

There's a strange mix of choices here, though.  From how much bigger he is than GT's Scraper, you'd assume that Mecha Invasion expects these figures to go with your MP collection.  There's metal parts on his crotch and knees, and lots of little painted details and tampographs.  But, aside from the little painted details, there isn't much paint on Loader.  He's fairly light, and in an era where MP is going harder on Sunbow than I'd prefer Loader's about as far from Sunbow as you can get while still being recognizable as Scrapper.  Then there's his hands... solid black pieces with holes in them.  He doesn't even have the basic hinged "typewriter" fingers that MP carbots (and even some Generations toys) have.

Loader comes with this double-barreled gun (that looks like something G1 would cook up, IMHO), as well as a button cell and a small circuit board with an LED on it.  The battery fits onto the back of the board, with the rough negative side toward the board.

Articulation on Loader is pretty good.  His head is on a ball joint that can tilt up/down/sideways in addition to swiveling.  His shoulders swivel and can move laterally 90 degrees, but unfortunately the lateral hinge is inside toward the body and the swivel is on the other side of the hinge, so he's got Hot Rod shoulders.  His biceps swivel, his elbows bend over 90 degrees, and his wrists swivel, though there's a bit of a clearance issue there.  His waist swivels, and he's got 90 degrees of ratcheted ab crunch.  The wheels on his hips hinge out of the way, so his hips can go forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees, ratcheted all around.  His thighs swivel, though only about 45 degrees in or out.  His knees are double-jointed and bend 180 degrees, exposing metal pistons in the process.  His feet swivel, tilt up a little, and tilt down almost 90 degrees, and he's got 90 degrees of ankle pivots.

You can make Loader hold his gun in either hand by shoving the handle into the hole in the fist.  He doesn't seem to have any weapon storage in bot mode.

He does have light up eyes, though.  Open the back of his head, then stuff the battery-filled circuit board so the board is pointing in toward his face and the battery side is facing the back of his head.  Once installed, check out the barrel of his gun.  You should see some magnets in there.  Simply move the magnets near Loader's head and the light should come on.  Do it again to make the light go back off.

Transformation is one of my favorite things about this figure.  Usually 3P figures, even ones I like with clever and intuitive transformations, still have more steps than a mainline Leader or even Commander-class figure.  Loader, though, is somewhere between a Deluxe and a Voyager in complexity.  Fold the flaps on the outsides of his feet around the the fronts to open them up, then swivel his feet 180 degrees.  Fold out the metal part of his crotch, then bend his legs forward so that small holes at the bottoms of his thighs can plug onto the metal part.  Tab the hip skirt wheels into his thighs, double bend the knees, and tab the feet together.  You're halfway there already.  Turn his waist 180 degrees.  Untab his neck from his torso and pull out his backpack, then fold his head into the backpack.  Fold the top of his torso forward, revealing the combiner hand*.  Rotate his biceps 180 degrees, swing his arms back 90 degrees, then start to move them laterally into the spot where his head was.  As you do, you'll be able to swing the black tops of his shoulders forward and then swivel them so they sit flush and allow his arms to be tabbed together with his the black parts of his shoulders tabbing into the top of his torso and encapsulating the combiner hand.  His wrists swivel forward, then his elbows bend 90 degrees, stuffing his hands into the back of his torso.  Then his backpack and head shift on a double hinge to cover his hands and form the cabin.

I think he's a pretty good-looking front loader, too.  There's molded doors and windows on the cabin, molded ladders leading up the cabin, lights on top of the cabin, taillights on the rear, painted vents and caution stripes, and pistons in the shovel's arms.  It's not as elaborately detailed as GT's, and you can't really unsee his legs in the shovel's arms, but I think it's very recognizable as Scrapper in this mode.

Loader's knee and ankle joints translate into working joints for the shovel in this mode, and he rolls on fat rubber tires.  Something else I really dig here is the weapon storage.  You're better off storing it mid-transformation, as we'll have to undo a bit if he's already in loader mode.  Move the cabin, straighten his arms to get his hands back out, then split and spread his arms.  You might even want to fold the combiner hand out a bit, but you should see a peg hole in the void that his robot hands were tucked into.  The barrels on his gun wrap around the stock, and the whole thing plugs right into that peg hole.  There's room enough for everything to fold and tab back into place.

*Yes, I said "combiner hand."  It seems that Mecha Invasion's unique take on the Constructicons isn't limited to Loader.  Rather than turn into the Gestalt's right leg, Loader turns into a left arm, so we can expect their Devastator will also be a stylized, unique design.  No partsforming is required, either.  Open up the loader like you're going to store his weapon, but fold out the combiner hand and leave it out as you close everything back up.  Rotate a quarter turn at his robot waist, so the bottom of the front half of the loader is facing toward an imaginary Devastator's left side while the bottom of the back half is facing forward, and that's it.  I'll covered the combined articulation when Devastator's all put together, but for now it looks like he'll have a bicep swivel and a ratcheted 90 degree elbow bend.

I'm not exactly sure where exactly Loader fits into my (or your) collection.  As I said earlier, he's too stylized and has some "cheap" design elements that don't really fit with Masterpiece-style figures, but he's way too big and has enough premium touches that he definitely doesn't go with Generations, either.  It's hard to outright recommend something if I don't really know what you're supposed to do with it.

But, here's the thing... when it comes to the fun factor, Loader is one of the best toys I've bought this year, and one of the best 3P figures I've ever bought.  It poses well in bot mode, looks good in alt mode, and has an elegant simplicity that makes flipping between modes an absolute joy.  It's so refreshing to pick up a toy that isn't a mainline Hasbro figure and transform it in under five minutes.  And you want to know the best part?  Loader only runs about $85-$90... and he comes with the second figure in this set!  You can think of him as being a mere $45 or so on his own... that's like halfway between a Hasbro Voyager and Leader!  So, I can't blame you if you're thinking you've got no place for Loader on your limited and dwindling shelf space.  But if you can find the room in your heart and home then I do highly recommend checking Loader out, as I think he's a much better toy than a lot of figures that cost double or triple what he does.

[mikeszekely]

11 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

And you want to know the best part?  Loader only runs about $85-$90... and he comes with the second figure in this set!  You can think of him as being a mere $45 or so on his own

If you get one really good figure you actually one, and one worthless piece of garbage, then maybe this sort of mental math doesn't quite work.  And while I am leaning toward suggesting that Loader probably could be a $90 toy on its own, that's definitely not the no-brainer choice that a $45 Loader is.  So we have to ask, who comes with Loader, and is he worth the other $45?  I'll answer the easier question first- the guy who comes with Loader is Mixer, Mecha Invasion's version of Mixmaster.

Mixer is, in a lot of ways, closer to the source material than Loader.  He's got a big mixing drum on his back, he's got wheels on his arms, and his lower legs and feet are made from his cab.  I actually prefer his head to Generation Toy's, as I think it's more recognizably Mixmaster than GT's slightly generic toy-style approach.  Mixer is definitely still stylized, though.  He's missing the "hood" where the G1 toy's missile went, and rather than the roof of the cab being his shins and feet the front of the cab is sort of squished up and perched over actual feet.  It might not be a big deal for some (most?), but I think his torso with the big silver and gunmetal chunk running down the middle is a bit generic.  There's a vent on the right side of his chest that sort of references the red bit (Sunbow)/sticker (toy) on G1 Mixmaster's chest, but it feels sort of random when he doesn't have that key-shaped panel dominating his chest.

Like Loader, makes for a very clean robot.  Yeah, his fuel tanks are curled up onto his shoulders, and he's got the mixing drum for a backpack... but you kind of need that mixing drum backpack to be Mixmaster, eh?  I suppose I should also point out that Mixmaster does have a connector port on his butt, but you're not going to see it from most angles.

Like Loader, Mixer gets a gun, an LED circuit board, and a button cell battery.  Again, the batter goes into the cradle on the back of the board with the rough negative side pointing toward the board and the smooth positive side with the text pointing away from the board.

Mixer's articulation is similar to, but slightly worse, than Loader's.  Again, his head is on a ball joint, and he can look up a good bit and tilt his head sideways more than you're likely to need, but his chin means he can't really look down.  He's got the same sort of Hot Rod shoulders as Loader, so they swivel and move 90 degrees laterally, just not at the same time.  Biceps swivel, elbows bend over 90 degrees, and his wrists swivel.  His waist swivels, but he doesn't have an ab crunch.  The reason is that the ab crunch joint on Loader is the combiner elbow.  Mixer does have a joint for his combined mode, but transformed properly it's on his back side, trapped behind his mixing drum.  That said, you can arch his back slightly, and if you really want to fake an ab crunch you can undo the silver part of his torso, open his back, and turn the joint around.  It'll stick out and you won't be able to close the silver part of his torso back up, but you can get a picture out of it.  Moving along, his hips are ratcheted and do 90 degrees forward, backward, and laterally.  His thighs swivel 45 degrees in and out.  His knees are double jointed and ratcheted on both ends, bending a combined 180 degrees.  His feet have a very slight upward tilt, 45 degrees of downward tilt, and 45 degrees of ankle pivot.

You'll note, again, there's no hand articulation beyond a wrist swivel.  His gun's handle slots into the hole in either fist, and there's no bot mode weapon storage.

As with Loader, you can install the circuit board by opening the back of Mixer's head and placing the board in with the LED side toward the front and the battery toward the back.  Mixer's gun also has a magnet in the barrel that you can use to turn the LED on and off.

Like Loader, Mixer's got a super simple, elegant transformation.  Pull his mixing drum out on the double hinge.  Swivel the shoulders 180 degrees, and bend the fists inward.  Flip the silver panel on his torso up so it covers his face.  His arms then collapse into his sides, with his knuckles tabbing together above his head and his forearms tabbing onto that silver piece you covered his face with.  Spin his waist 180 degrees, fold out the spout on the back of the drum, then push the drum back into place.  You're halfway done already!  Fold in his heels, then swing out the small black bits directly under the windows on his shins.  With them out of the way, you can fold the nose of the cab out, then flip his feet around to fill in the void vacated by the nose of the cab.  Flip the little black bits back down, then push his legs in on the sliders mid-thigh so that the two halves of the cab can come together.  Bend his hips forward 90 degrees, then use the double knee hinges to swing the cab back down.  Swing his fuel tanks around, then slide them inward so they grab onto the tabs below his smokestacks and you're done.

Two things jump out at me looking at Mixer's alt mode.  The first is that I do prefer a cartoon-style purple mixing drum; I just think that's visually more interesting that so much green.  But the second thing is that, with engine in front of the cab, the guard on the front, and the vents in front of the door, is that Mixer's alt mode reminds me less of G1 Mixmaster's and more of the Mack Granite used for Revenge of the Fallen Mixmaster.  Hmm... come to the think of it, Revenge of the Fallen Scrapper walks on Shovel feet.  I wonder if we'll see any Bayverse influences on the other four?

In any case, while there's no metal in his joints like Loader got, his fuel tanks and stabilizers are metal.

There's not a ton left to say about his alt mode.  He rolls on rubber tires, but the stabilizers don't move, nor does his mixing drum spin.  You can store his gun in his alt mode, though.  Before you tab his legs together to form his cab, line up the handle with the bigger notches under the cab, while the smaller notches with tabs will fit over and slot into the bottom of the gun.

Just like Loader, Mixer is shaking things up by becoming an arm instead of a leg.  It's easier to get to arm mode from his truck mode.  You simply pull out the fuel tanks and spin them around over the rear tires like you're going to robot mode.  Fold up the spout on the drum, then extend the drum on its double hinge.  Spin the drum 180 degrees, so the spout is behind the cab, then pull the drum open.  Inside you'll find the combiner hand, just flip it out, close the drum, and hinge the drum back down.  Tabs on the combiner wrist will plug into the back of the truck, locking everything in place.  Then it's just a matter of rotating the cab and the combiner elbow 90 degrees, then rotating the cab alone back 90 degrees, so that the combiner port under the cab will face in toward Devastator's right side but the combiner elbow is facing forward.  I think I neglected to mention this yesterday, but you can leave both Mixer and Loader's guns in their alt mode storage spaces.  However, it appears from the instructions that the individual weapons will combine into a larger weapon for the combined mode.  Mixer's weapon appears to be the handle; the arrow-like fins on the barrel are tabs that wedge into hollow channels on the palms of the combiner hands.

Moment of truth time... I think Mixer is a small step down from Loader.  Now, it could be a personal bias- Scrapper is my favorite Constructicon, after all.  Or it could be because Loader has a little bit more articulation.  Or maybe it's because I think his alt mode weapon storage is a bit more clever.  Whatever the reason, it's a very small step, and Mixer shares most of Loader's strengths- mostly good articulation, tampographed details, solid build, good alt mode weapon storage, and a simple, elegant, fun transformation that unobtrusively stores his combined mode bits, no partsforming required.  Of course, he's got the same weaknesses, too.  He's too stylized and "cheap" to belong with your MP collection, but also to large and too "premium" to go on your Generations shelf, so deciding if and where this fits in your personal collection can be a challenge.  All I can say for sure is that this set brings me joy.  It's refreshing to get big, chunky bots that are fun to play with and transform.  There's no 100-step transformation that takes longer to complete than watching a full episode of the G1 cartoon.  You don't have to worry about scratching the paint or treat it like an adult collectible.  And at $90 for the pair they don't cost an arm an a leg, so if you're curious to check them out for yourselves they're a low-risk gamble.  As for me, if they can keep up the quality while keeping the prices low I'll be very interested to check out their future projects; I understand that they're working on Dinobots in addition to their Constructicons.

[M'Kyuun]

@mikeszekely, I enjoyed your reviews of these figs, and after years of buying figs that have varied in complexity, often to the detriment of enjoyment of transformation and thus the toy on the whole, it's refreshing to see a company take a step back in that area to simplify things to a more enjoyable level. A decade or two ago, I wished for more complexity and judged toys my that metric, but I find as I'm getting older, my frustration level with some of these things grows due to what often seems over-complexity for its own sake. Anyway, I appreciate a transforming toy that's actually fun to transform and I agree that that's an ingredient that has been increasingly missing over the years with a lot of these toys, even, admittedly, my own LEGO designs. I also give props to Mecha Invasion (or whoever they really are) for taking a leap and doing their own thing with such iconic characters. They could've played it safe and kept to the G1 likenesses, transformations, and Devy makeup, but they took a great deal of creative license and put their own stamp on these characters. In this age of heightened "Sunbow accuracy", the epitome of oxymoron, taking this design direction is certainly a far greater gamble than it would have been a couple decades ago, but I hope they find an audience. For my part, I have ToyWorld's Devy as my MP stand-in, and with little room for more toys of that scale, I'm content. I do, however, have a couple of Dream Star Toys' Aerialbots (Slingshot and Skydive) which are also departures from the slavish G1 direction allowing for more accurate jet modes, and while they're not the most fun things to transform, I laud the decision to be creative while still embracing the essence of the characters.

As Mecha Invasion continues to release these revised Constructicons, I look forward to your reviews. Hopefully, the entire line of figs is consistently creative and enjoyable, as well as their take on Devastator. Also, kudos are always a must for any company attempting to do integrated non-parts-forming combiners, so my hat's off to MI for going that extra mile. Always a plus in my opinion.

[JB0]

I actually find it interesting that they're shaking up which bot forms which limb, and admit to being very curious what led to that decision.

I've made my affection for new takes on old characters known in the past, this is just a surprising change to legally-not-Devastator's basic layout.

[Axelay]

10 hours ago, JB0 said:

I actually find it interesting that they're shaking up which bot forms which limb, and admit to being very curious what led to that decision.

I've made my affection for new takes on old characters known in the past, this is just a surprising change to legally-not-Devastator's basic layout.

I absolutely agree. Having these in hand, it's almost undeniable that making Mixmaster and Scrapper be arms instead of legs just makes good sense.  They make for quite interesting looking arms, and I always thought that they looked kind of odd as feet. From photos on TFW, I am under the impression that Hook and Long Haul may be coming next, so it will be interesting to see how these turn out and whether they have any particular innovations.

[JB0]

5 hours ago, Axelay said:

I absolutely agree. Having these in hand, it's almost undeniable that making Mixmaster and Scrapper be arms instead of legs just makes good sense.  They make for quite interesting looking arms, and I always thought that they looked kind of odd as feet. From photos on TFW, I am under the impression that Hook and Long Haul may be coming next, so it will be interesting to see how these turn out and whether they have any particular innovations.

I like how Mixmaster looks as a leg, the cab-as-foot is a nice design feature. But yeah, Scrapper's always looked like they just... forgot to put a foot on down there.

And getting Scavenger off the arm is a great change, his bucket arm won't just dangle awkwardly off the shoulder now... it'll dangle awkwardly off the shin instead! (Nah, it'll probably secure flat.)

[mikeszekely]

Optimus Prime and Galvatron were some of the first figures Dr. Wu released in their Extreme Warfare line.  And while I suppose it's nice that both factions have a leader, the simple fact is that if you have an Optimus you need a Megatron.  And at long last, Dr. Wu has rectified this oversight by releasing their newest figure, Menace King.

Out of the box, I'd say that Menace King is an aesthetic upgrade over their Galvatron.  Aside from the barrel on his back being a bit chunky he's got pretty good proportions, and I appreciate the gunmetal paint on his shins.  I can't help but notice that he's missing the hammers on his shoulders, and his forearms are actually asymmetrical.

From the side we can see that bis boots are a bit chunky, and from the back he's got a trigger and guard dangling off his left arm and a few very visible screws.  Before I judge him too harshly for that, though, I'll remind you that this is a Micromaster-sized figure.  This guy is shorter than Hasbro's Legends-class Megatron, and doesn't even come to the top of Commander-class Optimus' shin.

Normally Dr. Wu sells figures in packs of two, but Menace King is alone in his package.  Unlike many other Dr. Wu figures, though, Menace King has accessories.  There's his fusion cannon, of course, as well as parts to make his stock and silencer for alt mode.  Unlike the MP and G1 toys, though, they don't seem to have any other combinations or uses in robot mode.

Articulation is a tad disappointing on Menace King.  His head's on a hinged ball joint, which combine to give him some impressive up/down tilt and a swivel but no sideways tilt.  His shoulders are also on ball joints for swiveling and moving laterally 90 degrees.  His left arm has a ball joint at the elbow, which bends 90 degrees and doubles as a bicep swivel.  His right arm, though, only has a hinge and no bicep swivel at all.  Sadly, this leaves him unable to pull of a pose with his cannon on top of his arm.  No wrist swivels, but he does have a waist swivel.  His hips are on ball joints, but his pelvis is in the way.  This leaves him with only about 30-35 degrees of forward or backward motion, and about 45 degrees of lateral spread.  The only thigh swivel he has is the movement of his leg around the ball joints in his hips.  Due to his transformation his knees are double-jointed.  I get the sense that only the top joint, which bends a little less than 90 degrees, is meant to be used for bot mode, as engaging the lower joint reveals some alt mode details, but as long as you're ok with that you can actually get almost 180 degrees of knee bend between the two joints.  His feet can tilt down, but not up.  He lacks a true ankle pivot, but his toes are on swivels so you can fake as much as you need.

Menace King's cannon has a slot that fits over a squarish tab on his right arm only.

Menace King's transformation isn't too complicated, but it's one of the more ambitious ones we've seen from Dr. Wu.  His fists fold in, and he raises both arms 90 degrees laterally.  His waist swivels so that his toes are pointed toward his left, then the top half of his torso can swings out and away to the left.  That'll put his left arm in position to tab into the top of his midsection.  Turn his left forearm 90 degrees so that the ball joint the trigger is attached to is pointing up, then fold his entire arm under his chest, spinning and orienting the trigger so that it plugs into his crotch.  Straighten and fold the barrel around from his back to the spot his left arm just vacatated.  Lift his hip skirts and fold out the little bits tucked underneath them, then fold his feet down and bend his legs at both knee joints so that his feet can reach the tabs on his right side, just above his butt.  Before you tab his legs together and plug his feet into the aforementioned tabs, though, take the outside of his legs and spin them 180 degrees.  Once everything is in place, fold his hip skirts back down and attach them to his thighs to complete the pistol's grip.

I'll be honest... I think his gun mode looks a bit messy.  One side has the mechanical details from his waist still plainly visible, plus a big pin through the barrel.  The other side has a quartet of prominent screws.  The trigger and guard are a single piece on a ball joint with black paint inside.  It's also a bit gappy because things don't tab in as well as they should.  Now, truthfully, if this were a larger figure I might consider the messy gun mode to be a dealbreaker.  However, once again this guy is tiny.  Considering the trouble that other companies have had pulling off a decent Megatron that turns into a gun at larger scales the fact that Dr. Wu crafted a good-looking robot that turns into a fairly proportional gun at all seems like a small* miracle.

*Pun intended.

Menace King's fusion cannon plugs onto the same tab as it does for bot mode to form the scope, though it has to be removed and turned around.  The silencer has a notch in it for the sight on the barrel to fit into, and the rest of the parts become the stock, which fills in a gap under the grip.  With the stock, scope, and silencer it's unmistakably Megatron, even if it's a bit gappy.

As small as Menace King is, he's too large for most fingers smaller than, say, MP-44 to told, but a bit too small for most Titan-class figures and 3rd-party combiners.  The sweet spot is going to be Hasbro combiners, like Legacy Menasor or the Combiner Wars teams, with aftermarket articulated hands.  Here I've got him held by Legacy Menasor with the DNA upgrade kit.  I removed the trigger from the ball joint, and I think it would be nice if his grip was a little more secure, but he's holding Menace King by the friction in those DNA fingers.

Menace King definitely has a couple of flaws, but they're flaws I'm inclined to forgive due to the scale and price.  Like Dr. Wu's other Extreme Warfare figures he looks better and more accurate than Hasbro's own Core-class figures despite being smaller, and posing them with your Combiners or Titans makes them look even bigger than posing them with Core-class figures.  At the risk of sounding like a broken record, yeah, I recommend this guy, I love the scale, and I want Dr. Wu to do the entire Sunbow cast.

[mikeszekely]

23 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

the simple fact is that if you have an Optimus you need a Megatron

You know, I said this, yet I have two Legends-sized Magic Square Optimus Primes, plus NewAge's, and yet I don't have a Legends Megatron.

Until now, that is.  When I ordered Dr. Wu's Menace King, I went ahead and also ordered Magic Square's Doomsday.

To be clear, this is a recent S-variant reissue.  Other variants exist, with slightly different decos and accessories.  I can only comment on what I have in front of me.

And what I have in front of me looks pretty good!  I think I personally prefer more metallic colors, but what we have here is definitely cartoon accurate and looks pretty great with their Light of Victory version of Optimus.  After seeing so many other takes on Megatron, what I really appreciate from this design is how clean and well-proportioned it is.  His legs aren't too skinny, nor are they too chunky.  His chest isn't too wide or too narrow.  His pelvis doesn't look like a big black diaper.

He's not burdened with a bunch of kibble on his arms or back, either, aside from stuff like the gun barrel that's supposed to be on his back, a trigger guard that tucks fairly neatly into the small of his back, and a trigger in his butt crack.  This has got to be one of the cleanest Megatrons I've had the pleasure of looking at.

That said, zoomed in this close you can see some mold flashing.  You might have also noticed that some spots, like his forearms, are coming untabbed.  It really comes down to Magic Square's choice of materials.  Yes, that nylon plastic is sturdy and pliable, but it's also too soft for it's own good.

As I said, I know other versions of Doomday come with different accessories.  I think the original release came with a ton of stuff.  This release just came with a fusion cannon, the parts to make the stock and silencer, and two alternate faces.

Doomsday's head is on either a ball joint or a mushroom swivel.  It looks like it's a ball joint that's just set so deep that it can swivel but not tilt.  However, the other end is hinged at the chest, so he does have decent up/down tilt.  His shoulders are ball joints that can rotate and move laterally about 75 degrees.  His biceps and wrists swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees.  His waist swivels, and he's got a 90 degree ab crunch.  His hips are a little weird.  They're on ball joints, and at first it seems like he can only move them slightly forward, 90 degrees backward, and nearly 90 degrees laterally.  However, the ball joints are hinged, and can drop down.  This gives him the clearance to bend his hip nearly 90 degrees forward under his pelvis.  He has two thigh swivels; the first one is his entire thigh around his hip, and the second is a cut just above the knees.  Speaking of knees, they bend a little over 90 degrees on a single hinge.  His feet can bend down about 45 degrees, and his toes can bend up nearly 90 degrees.  If I'm being generous he has maybe 45 degrees of ankle pivot.

Doomsday's fusion cannon can attach to his right arm.  The peg has little wings on it, and the hole in the bottom of the cannon is keyed so you have to put the cannon on sideways, then turn it 90 degrees.  When you do a tab on the edge of his forearm will fit into a slot on the cannon, locking it into place.

Unlike Menace King, whom we looked at yesterday, you can combine Doomsday's stock, silencer, and fusion cannon for a G1-style gun emplacement.

As for the alternate faces, Doomsday's stoic face and forehead are simply tabbed onto the back of his head.  Slide it off and replace it with another expression, in this case either a yelling face or a laughing face.  Just be careful not to loose the eyes, which are a separate piece.  You only get the one pair of eyes.

The upper half of Doomsday has one of the smarter transformations I've encountered in a Megatron.  His arms detach from his torso and swing down on armatures.  The backs of his shoulders open up, as do his forearms, and his the outer armor on his forearms spin around to cover his elbows.  His wrists just fold in.  His chest double-hinges up and to the right, allowing you to open his back and tuck his head in, as well as move the barrel around and in place.  Move the trigger guard and then the upper half of his torso will spin 90 degrees to his right.  His vented lats fold backward, taking the arms with it, and his arms tab together.  Spin him 180 degrees at the waist, then lift his hip skirts and double-hinge his pelvis out, and you'll find another swivel his his crotch.  Spin that swivel 180 degrees, so his legs are facing his front but the trigger trigger has been spun around to his crotch.  Bend him at the ab crunch, and you can start to see how his chest comes back down and his arms lock in behind where his left shoulder was.

Things get trickier with the legs.  The hips drop down, and you need to orient the ball sockets just right on the ball joints, and spin his thighs around so the inside is facing out but the rest of the leg is still facing forward.  Then his legs open up, and with fairly unclear instructions, you fold in some panels, you fold out some other panels, and use some sliders to ultimately both make his legs a little thicker front-to-back and a little thinner across the shins, as well as move the shins up over most of the thighs.  With the legs in place, you can move the hip skirts in to lock the legs to the arms and fill in the grip, then pull out the trigger and lock the trigger guard into his crotch.  Honestly, the process itself isn't that bad once you know what you're doing.  I prefer it to MP-36's transformation.  Most of the frustration really comes for the wonky tolerances of the nylon plastic, and the fact that my old fingers aren't quite as dexterous as they used to be.

I wouldn't say that Doomsday's alt mode is the most realistic Walther I've seen, but I'd say it's pretty serviceable, especially given its smaller size.  I mean, it cleans up better than Menace King, anyway.  I think my biggest complaints are the gaps in the back and the lack of a safety.  Also, no matter what I do, he seems a bit crooked.

The fusion cannon attaches the same way; I don't think you actually even have to remove it for transformation.  The stock slides into a clip on his heels.  The silencer fits over his barrel, but you have to remove the tip of the barrel first.

I don't have easy access to any of my displayed combiners right now, due to how my room and shelves are currently organized, but I did have my old Zeta Combaticons in storage.  I grabbed their Vortex to see if he could hold Doomsday, and the answer is "not really."  Doomsday's grip is just a bit too wide for him to really close his fingers around it.  That's not really a big deal to me, though.  It'd have been better if he'd come with an accessory that was himself in alt mode for other Legends figures to hold (something I believe was included with his original release).

Doomsday is a figure that is alternately brilliant and frustrating.  He looks fantastic, he poses well, and the transformation is one of the better ones for turning a cartoon robot into a gun that I've come across.  The frustrations are mainly that the engineering might be a bit ambitious for a figure this small, and the materials.  Magic Square needs to stop with the nylon already.  Tabs don't secure the way I want them too, and after one transformation he's already got joints that are getting loose.  Change the plastic, though, and upsize this to scale with Studio Series Optimus or even Magic Square's own MP-style Light of Peace Optimus, and you'd have a strong contender for the best Megatron ever made.  For now, I think I can recommend this guy as a companion piece for Magic Square's Light of Victory, and potentially as the best of any Legends-scale option for Megatron, though I should probably check out NewAge's before making that call.

[mikeszekely]

On 10/22/2024 at 11:51 PM, mikeszekely said:

For now, I think I can recommend this guy as a companion piece for Magic Square's Light of Victory, and potentially as the best of any Legends-scale option for Megatron, though I should probably check out NewAge's before making that call.

Well... I ultimately decided not to get NewAge's Megatron.  They tend to run a bit much for their size, and while their engineering and materials do seem top notch it's hard to justify when you already have a perfectly good Legends-scale Megatron.  That said, I did the next best thing, and picked up a copy of Jinbao's Destroy Emperor.

If you're familiar with Jinbao, chances are that you know them from either their up-sized copy of MMC's Feral Rex or their up-sized copy of Generation Toy's Gravity Builder.  And since I started by talking about NewAge's Agamemnon, you can probably guess that this is an up-sized copy of of that.  As such, any discussions of engineering or aesthetics should apply to Agamemnon as well, but build quality, joint tolerances, accessories, and paint/deco might be different.

With that in mind, Destroy Emperor is a little less than a head taller than Doomsday, and I believe that Agamemnon and Doomsday are roughly the same size, so there's your upscaling.  In a vacuum, I think Destroy Emperor looks fine (from this angle), and has most of the details you'd expect from a good G1 Megatron.  The problems don't really start until you have him side-by-side with Doomsday.  Then you start to notice that his lower legs are a bit thin, his midsection is a bit too tall, and his chest is a bit narrow.  There's very visible hinges in his waist, a large oval in his crotch, and a bit more kibbly-flaps on his arms and shoulders.  If I'm being nitpicky, I'd also point out that the gun barrel on his back should be turned so the front sight should be facing forward, not to his right.  However, you can actually pull the muzzle off, turn it 90 degrees, then put it back on, though you'll have to do it again in alt mode or it'll look like the barrel is on sideways.

The back and sides don't do Destroy Emperor/Agamemnon any favors, either.  His back is just a mess.  Sure, Doomsday's got a trigger guard folded into the small of his back and a split in his butt with a little trigger tail, but Destroy Emperor is maybe half as thick and he should be with nothing but a mass of hinges with a trigger and guard poking through the middle.  What's more, I don't know that these pictures really show it clearly, but his feet aren't flat, and I've had issues with him wanting to lean to his right.  To be totally fair, MP-36's back is kind of a mess, too.  getting a Sunbow-style Megatron to turn into anything resembling a decently-proportioned Walther is clearly a challenge, and I'd be inclined to forgive Destroy Emperor's aesthetic issues, especially at this scale, except that Doomsday is right there next to him and looking, in my opinion, miles better.

At least Destroy Emperor comes with a lot of accessories.  You of course get his fusion cannon, stock, and silencer.  You get the Key to Vector Sigma, an Energon mace, and an orange plug for his gun barrel.  You get an alternate face, a gray bit with a small straight translucent purple effect part, a trio of of longer effect parts, and a single chunky effect part.  There's two bits of sprues with some alternate left and right pointing hands and left and right open hands.  He comes with the pistol Megatron uses to murder Prime in the '86 movie.  Now, all of that comes with the actual Agamemnon, but Jinbao went a bit further and also included a second alternate face, a weird little gray thing, his mind control helmet, and the parts to build a display stand.

Destroy Emperor's head is on a ball joint.  He can look up a bit and tilt his head sideways a little, but he doesn't really have the chin clearance to look down.  His shoulders swivel, no problem, and they can move a little under 90 degrees laterally.  Due to how he transforms, there's a little bit of a butterfly there as well.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees.  His wrists swivel, as does his waist, but there's no ab crunch.  His hips are a little weird.*  They connect to his pelvis via ball joints, but those joints are only for transformation and for moving 90 degrees laterally.  Below the ball joint is a thigh swivel, then a dedicated hinge that's lower than his pelvis armor that allows him to kick his legs over 90 degrees forward, but only a miniscule amount backward.  His knees are hinged and bend about 120 degrees.  His feet lack an up/down tilt, but his ankles pivot about 90 degrees.  For those keeping score at home, that winds up being not hugely different in most areas from Doomsday, except that Doomsday has an ab crunch.

*It's my understanding that this is exactly how the first run of Agamemnon worked, but subsequent runs have a different hip design.

The fusion cannon has a weird h-shaped hole under it, and a massive tab folds out from Doomsday's left arm for it to attach to.  My first thought is that the chunky effect part fits into the cannon, which it does, except that it doesn't look great.  It looks less like a blast of energy and more like a crystal... in fact, if it were green instead of purple I'd say it's the Crystal of Power from "Fire In the Mountain" (aka the episode where the Autobots dig up and undo Skyfire's heroic death in "Fire in the Sky" because they need a ride to South America).

The stand is fairly simple.  There's no ratchets or anything, once the arm and tip are put into place they don't move, and you have to pull them apart to reposition them.  The tip plugs into a hole in Destroy Emperor's butt.  A butthole, if you will.

The stock and silencer become a gun emplacement, like the G1 toy/Doomsday/MP-36.  The orange barrel tip has a little peg that fits into the muzzle.  It's easy enough to remove.

The mind control helmet plonks right on top of his head.  Most of his other accessories like the gun, the gray piece with the little effect part, his mace, and the Key to Vector Sigma have small pegs that fit into his default fists.  The fists themselves use similar pegs to plug into his wrist, so changing hands is as easy as yanking the default hands off and plugging a different one it.  You can plug the mace directly into his wrist as well, though the fit is very loose on my copy of Destroy Emperor.

If you're thinking that the little effect part makes for a pitiful beam saber, you can pull the effect part off and use one of the longer, more jagged ones.  However, I'm not sure that it's meant to be a beam saber at all.  It's more like an adapter plug that lets you attach those effect parts to the end of his fusion cannon.

I thought maybe the small effect part might make for a good beam from the pistol, but the pistol has a front sight on it and there's no cutout to accommodate it.

Here's all three faces lined up.  The stoic face and the smiling face were the ones that Agamemnon originally came with.  The third face is an angry face.  I have hard time imagining that Jinbao created it themselves, so maybe it's from a different Agamemnon release.  Regardless, swapping his face is exactly the same process as Doomsday- pry the entire front of his head off, as it's simply pegged in, and swap in the face of your chosing.

That just leaves that weird gray bit.  It's meant to be a back filler.  Rather than copy one of the 3D-printed designs that covered most of his back, it's just fills in some of the space on his left side.  There's a slot there, and a tab on it plugs right in.  I'll say it makes him look more balanced, like he's not missing a chunk of himself, but it doesn't really hide the mess, and it needs to be removed for transformation.

Speaking of transformation... honestly, this might be my all-time favorite Megatron transformation, because it's simultaneously simple but clever.  You start by removing his fusion cannon and folding in the tab on his arm.  Lift the hinges and gun barrel on his back up 90 degrees, so the barrel is pointing straight out over his right shoulder.  Lift his belly panel and fold the hinge out behind it, then thread the entire thing back through his stomach to extend with the trigger guard behind his back.  Rotate his waist 180 degrees.  Push up on the bottom of his chest slightly and pull his arms out, then fold his chest forward and spin in 90 degrees, so the part that was connected to his right shoulder is now covering his face.  Lift his back hinge up another 90 degrees, so it tabs into the edge of his chest, and spin the barrel into place.  Grab the sides of his pelvis and shift them down; that oval on his crotch is concealing hinges.  In addition to bringing his legs closer together, it's going to uncover a hinge in his waist that'll let you swing the entire thing forward 90 degrees.  Fold the panel on the back of his RIGHT shoulder out, collapse his forearm over his bicep on a slider and flip some of shoulder kibble down over his forearm.  Use the butterfly joint in his shoulder to shift his arm forward 90 degrees, then with his hips out of the way, you can swing the whole arm and the side of his body it's connected to around to tuck his hand into the side of his chest where his left shoulder was.  The left arm is a bit more complicated.  You want to fold out the panel on his shoulder, open a panel on his forearm, and bend his elbow 90 degrees.  Then, using a hinge near his wrist, bend his forearm so it flips over with his fist pointing in toward his wrist, then use another hinge to straighten his arm with the fist tucked up against his elbow.  Fold the armor around his forearm back around, and flip a flap on his shoulder kibble (it sounds complicated, but it'll make sense in hand).  Now, you're going to use the butterfly joint to shift the arm forward and the hinges to swing the arm around like you did on the right, except this time instead of forming the back of the gun while his chest is the front his arm is forming the back of the gun AND filling in the gaps on his back.  Fold down his heels, open his calves, untab the insides of his lower legs, and spin them 180 degrees so they're poking out between his feet.  Fold the hammer out of his left heel, and then you should be able to tab his heels and lower legs together.  Turn the outer edges of his legs 180 degrees, then bend his knees.  The dark gray inner bits from his legs should slide into a gap between his arms, and his heels will tab in place and close up the back of the gun.  Close his calves on the back of the handle and his hip skirts will tab into his thighs, then finish him off by taking the prongs on the flap behind his tummy panel and plugging them into holes in his hips to lock the trigger guard in place.  It's all very fluid, nothing feels like it's fighting your or has to be forced past anything, and you get the sense that you can focus on one chunk at a time before moving onto another whereas Doomsday has you practically exploding his legs and rearranging them.

It's a pretty good-looking gun mode, too, though unlike Doomsday one side is definitely a bit cleaner than the other.  The side with the front of his chest has a few hinges under the slide, nothing to egregious, but the side with his back has a few more hinges and seams due to how it transforms.  And yeah, if you're looking down from the top, you can see the colored circles and rectangles from his tummy on the inner edge of the trigger guard, but ultimately I think it's fine.  Maybe Doomsday is a little cleaner-looking overall; shins shins make for a smoother front on the grip than Destroy Emperor/Agamemnon's thighs, and I might be a bit pickier if this were blown up to MP-scale, but I think it's perfectly fine for a Legends-scale toy.  Frankly I think it'd be fine all the way up to a Generations-scaled figure.

Unlike Doomsday, the fusion cannon does have to partsform to become the scope- it's actually connecting to the insides of the lower legs we slid between his arms.  The stock uses a pair of tabs to grab into a pair of slots on the back of the grip, and the silencer will slide right over the barrel- you don't have to remove the tip like you did with Doomsday.  That said, it's almost certainly going to come off and get stuck in the silencer anyway when you take it back off, and leaving you to pull the silencer apart and grab a pen to push the tip back out.  Not sure if that was an issue with a legit Agamemnon or not.  The gun mode doesn't really interact with any of the other accessories, as the silencer is too big for the blast effects (although, with the beam saber hilt/effects adapter you can attach the effect parts directly to the barrel without the silencer on), and there's nowhere the seems intentional to use the stand.  For the same of this picture, I stuck the peg on the stand through the slit in the trigger guard.  It's fine, though.  As good as he looks in alt mode, and as easy and smooth as his transformation is, Megatron's gun mode doesn't particularly do much and you're probably going to have him in bot mode most of the time anyway.

When it comes to a Legends-scale Megatron you've definitely got a hard choice to make (or realistically already made, since I'm way behind on these guys).  Personally, on looks alone, I'd give the edge to Magic Square's Doomsday.  I think he's just a bit cleaner in both modes, and has better proportions in robot mode.  But that nylon plastic leaves him with frustratingly wonky tab tolerances, and there's a panels on his shins that you kind of have to force past the sliders on the inside when you're transforming him that make him a bit more of a pain to handle.  Magic Square's weaknesses are Jinbao/NewAge's strengths, though.  What Destroy Emperor/Agamemnon lacks in his thinner proportions, arm kibble, and messy back he makes up for with solid materials that tab solidly in place and a fluid, clever transformation that makes you want to play with him.  The question of which one to get, then, will likely come down to your priorities.  If you want the best-looking bot and don't care about the transformation, then Magic Square.  If you like transforming your figures and want what is easily the best Megatron transformation I've experienced, then go with NewAge.  Or if you want a good-looking bot for your display but still want a cheap way to experience NewAge's engineering, at just around $20 or so you're not going to break the bank if you buy Doomsday and Destroy Emperor.

[JB0]

9 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

and an orange plug for his gun barrel.

Clearly the most important accessory. MP quality right there.

[mikeszekely]

I've reviewed Studio Series TFone Megatron, two 3P Legends versions, and Dr. Wu's itty-bitty Megatron, all since October began.  Surely I'm out of Megatrons to review for awhile?

Well...

So this little guy here doesn't seem to have a name, just a number, CT-01.  It's the first product from a company called Chang Tiao.  And I have to say, Chang Tiao is bringing an interesting approach to this product.  Rather than the typical Legends approach of making a mini-Masterpiece like Magic Square or NewAge, Chang Tiao basically looked at that Core-class Optimus & Bumblebee set Hasbro released awhile back and said, "what if we made a Megatron to fight that Prime?"  Of course, we know that Hasbro actually made a Core-class Megatron, but one who's colors are a bit off, one who's back and shoulders are dominated by massive tank kibble... well, one that turns into a tank.  CT-01 is colored and kibbled like a more traditional cartoon Megatron, but you can see he's still very much built like a Hasbro Core-class toy.  Indeed, the sculpt of his shoulders and feet are nigh-on identical to the actual Core-class Megatron.

Spinning him around, we can see plenty of visible ball joints, hands that are only visible from the front because the alt mode stuff wraps around them, minimal effort to clean up his back kibble, super hollow calves, and even plastic-saving cutouts in his butt and the back of his head.  Now, on a $70 3P Legends figure I'd absolutely be livid about this sort of thing, but remember, CT-01 is meant to replace the Hasbro Core-class Megatron with other official Core-class toys.  In that, it absolutely succeeds.

CT-01 comes with his fusion cannon; it's actually attached in the box, unlike some others, and does not need to be removed for transformation.  You get an Energon mace.  And you get a smally but nicely-detailed little Laserbeak.  It doesn't transform; it's wings don't even move, though it has hinges at the top and bottom of its neck.

CT-01's head is on a mushroom swivel.  There's no tilt, though you can use a transformation hinge to kind of make him look down a little bit before his head starts folding into his chest.  His shoulders are ball joints that swivel and move 90 degrees laterally.  No dedicated bicep swivels, but his elbows are ball joints that act as swivels as well as bending 90 degrees.  No wrist swivels, but he does have a waist swivel.  His hips care more ball joints, and they can move forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees, plus they provide minimal thigh swivel.  His knees, which are (you guessed it) ball joints, bend nearly 180 degrees and can also be used as swivels.  He has no foot articulation; like the official Core-class Megatron his feet are just molded lumps at the ends of his shins in a permanent slight pivot.

As mentioned, his fusion cannon comes already attached.  It has a slightly off-set peg that plugs into a corresponding port on his right arm.  Speaking of pegs, the Energon mace also has a peg so that be can hold it in either hand, but in a way that the handle bends over his knuckles to give the illusion of it replacing his hand like in the cartoon.

Laserbeak also has a peg that folds out of his tummy (and no feet).  This peg can be used to "perch" Laserbeak on CT-01's left arm.  Now I'm thinking it's kind of too bad that Hasbro's Core-class Soundwave doesn't have such a hole on his arms or shoulders.

While toy safety laws have consigned official Megatron toys to be forever tanks now, Chang Tiao went for that old-school G1 gun mode.  The transformation is the kind of simple that, again, makes CT-01 feel like something Hasbro could have done themselves.  Spin his fusion cannon 180 degrees.  Turn both of his forearms in 90 degrees, lift both arms 90 degrees, them spread them laterally 90 degrees.  Use the double hinge in his torso to shift his upper body out to the right, and his left arm should tab into the space his chest just vacated.  Open his chest, which will give you the clearance to swing his right arm across the front of his torso so it can peg into his left arm, and fold his head down before closing his chest back up.  Wrap his backpack down and under his chest, and fold the barrel so it's in the space his right shoulder was.  Swivel his lower legs at the knee joints so his toes are pointing in at each other, then use the same ball joints to fold his lower legs up and over his thighs, tabbing the legs together as you do.  Then just plug the trigger guard into the slot above his foot and you're done.

CT-01's gun mode is far from perfect.  The grip is wider at the top than at the bottom, with just the illusion of a contour in bow the black parts were molded.  There's no trigger in the guard.  The back of the gun is missing, with visible fists instead, and there's wide gaps between the handle and the slide where his robot midriff is still plainly exposed.  As with the robot mode, these are the sorts of things that'd bug you if you meant for this figure to go with a 3P Legends collection, but they're exactly the kinds of shortcuts you'd expect to see on an official Hasbro Core-class toy.

There's nothing really for Laserbeak or the mace to do in this mode.  And CT-01 doesn't come with the stock or silencer a more premium figure might have had.  However, in another clear demonstration of its intended purpose, the blast effect parts Hasbro's been using since Siege plug into both the fusion cannon and the gun's barrel with no issues.

If I haven't made it clear by this point, Chang Tiao is clearly a company that understood the assignment.  This is not a premium, mini-MP sort of overly-complex 3P figure.  This is a toy that looks, moves, transforms, and feels like one of Hasbro's own Core-class figures.  The downside to that is that it's a simple toy with somewhat limited articulation, hollow bits, and a somewhat messy gun mode.  But the plus here is that it absolutely looks like it belongs with Hasbro's stuff; it often seems to me that even when a 3P makes a non-Legends, non-MP toy (usually MMC or Planet X these days) they have a tendency to make them somewhat complex or in a different scale, and they don't actually blend all that well with Hasbro's stuff, but if you told me this design came from a Takara employee who planned a Core-class Megatron before Hasbro stepped in and said, "if we can't have gun Megatron in America, nobody else can either!" I'd believe it.  And the price is right, too.  I paid $18 dollars for CT-01, which is actually cheaper than Dr. Wu's much tinier Megatron.  And while you might point out that Hasbro's official Core-class toys are like $10, you can think of the $18 I paid as covering the "free" shipping from China, as I'm told the local price there is much closer to $10.

Which brings us to that all-important question... should you buy one?  I'd say that's pretty dependent on whether or not you've been collecting Core-class Transformers.  If you have, even if it was just that one Hasbro set with Prime and his trailer and Bumblebee, then unequivocally yes; I prefer CT-01 to Hasbro's own Core-class Megatron.  That said, I think the majority of Transformers fans are more into the Deluxe-and-up classes, with Cores for the really small guys like Wheelie and the tapes.  Hasbro's stated purpose for having Core versions of guys like Prime and Megatron (aside from having cheaper versions of the main guys on the shelves) is to put with your Titans to make them look bigger, but Dr. Wu's been doing that with even better, even smaller figures.

[Dangard Ace]

TFCon Baltimore MMC OM reveals by Anthony Brown on FB and Paik on YT.

Both looking good!  

 

[sh9000]

The Chosen Prime Display.

[Axelay]

Very exciting!