M'Kyuun Posted January 31 Posted January 31 3 hours ago, JB0 said: Some of the Constructicon trumpeteers don't even have mouths! Galvatron was spot-on when he called that scene bad comedy. 2 hours ago, David Hingtgen said: Yeah, well, NONE of them had lungs, so mouths wouldn't do much good for playing a trumpet anyways. Especially in SPACE... I concede my point! Just one of the dumber things in the '86 Movie. Dare to be Stupid may have been focused on the Junkions, for good reason, but I think it applies to a number of things in the film. The showdown and quotes from Prime's and Megatron's fight are classic for a reason though, and worthy of having been enshrined in other media. Quote
mikeszekely Posted January 31 Posted January 31 (edited) The coronation was on Cybertron, and the repeated visits by humans in the first two seasons and Daniel's near-constant presence in Season 3 implies that Cybertron not only has an atmosphere, but one amenable toward human life. You guys are overthinking it. Just because they happen to look like bugles, assume that they are in fact some sort of Cybertronian instrument that interfaces with and works differently than an Earth bugle. Problem solved. Edited January 31 by mikeszekely Quote
JB0 Posted January 31 Posted January 31 5 hours ago, mikeszekely said: The coronation was on Cybertron, and the repeated visits by humans in the first two seasons and Daniel's near-constant presence in Season 3 implies that Cybertron not only has an atmosphere, but one amenable toward human life. You guys are overthinking it. Just because they happen to look like bugles, assume that they are in fact some sort of Cybertronian instrument that interfaces with and works differently than an Earth bugle. Problem solved. Honestly, I just roll with it most of the time. It is a silly franchise with a silly premise, so when the cartoon's doing something silly, it is just... on-brand. Quote
M'Kyuun Posted January 31 Posted January 31 3 hours ago, JB0 said: Honestly, I just roll with it most of the time. It is a silly franchise with a silly premise, so when the cartoon's doing something silly, it is just... on-brand. True, but the first season started out with a slightly more serious tone. Alas, we can't go back in time and tell them to choose different toys for Megatron, Soundwave, Reflector, and the cassettes so that they can avoid all the mass-shifting shenanigans required to keep their bot modes at the larger scales. I often wonder what the show would have been like had they assigned those toys to different characters and kept them at realistic scale in both forms. We'll never know. Anyway, I enjoy the more focused narrative of first season where it's essentially Megs and the Ds looking for ways to either gather resources or gain greater power and advantage. The Autobots, nearly always on the defensive, try and stop the Decepticons while protecting themselves and Earth. The overall tone was more serious, and while there were moments of whim and humor, silliness even, on the whole I found it much more enjoyable than any successive seasons, which only seemed to incorporate far more whimsy and silliness, which didn't, and still doesn't, appeal to me. The '86 Movie , while it had its few serious and shining moments, had its share of silliness. Astrotrain's request to "lighten the load" while in the vacuum and weightlessness of space takes the cake. 🙄 The writers definitely did not anticipate this movie's becoming the icon that has become amongst fans, especially adults who can pick it apart for all of its gaffs and sillier bits. Then again, given the short lifespan of most toy properties, who could have predicted that this one would still be going strong 40 years later? Quote
mikeszekely Posted January 31 Posted January 31 39 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said: True, but the first season started out with a slightly more serious tone. The first season had Jazz using an icicle to hit snowballs at Starscream. Quote
M'Kyuun Posted January 31 Posted January 31 3 hours ago, mikeszekely said: The first season had Jazz using an icicle to hit snowballs at Starscream. 😄 I don't remember that, but I know he was completely covered in snow and let it fall on Spike in "Fire in the Sky". I always thought it odd that they killed off Skyfire in that ep, although it has one of the more solemn endings where Skyfire sacrifices himself and the Autobots pay tribute. However, they dug him up in the "Fire on the Mountain" episode of season 1, IIRC, thus cheapening his sacrifice. Regardless, I really liked the character and was glad they brought him back. Quote
anime52k8 Posted February 1 Posted February 1 I know it's more accurate, but the tiny hood chest looks so dorky on sideswipe. that plus terrible alt mode. Quote
mikeszekely Posted February 15 Posted February 15 I've been posting reviews for upgrade kits here, on the logic that they are unlicensed kits made by various 3Ps. I was thinking today, though, that a lot of collectors into unlicensed 3P figures may not be interested in upgrade kits for official figures because they're not into the mainline stuff. Likewise, I know there are people who are into mainline figures and don't mind getting unlicensed upgrades, but are vehemently against 3P figures. So what do you guys think/prefer? Should upgrade reviews stay here, because they're unofficial, or should they go in the official thread because they're for official figures and not really relevant to 3P collectors? Quote
mikeszekely Posted February 15 Posted February 15 Well, here's a quick upgrade kit from Nonnef, for Legacy Slipstream. This kit is a collab with Toyhax, so you get a label sheet, some chest parts, some wing fillers, and some new null rays. Note that this is what you get with the "basic" kit. You can also get the chest and wing fillers in different colors. There's also a more Cyberverse-accurate chest, but it's sold separately. We'll start with the wing fillers. They're exactly the same as the ones he did for Windblade, and attach to the wings by pushing two pegs into the 5mm ports on the wings. Next up we'll do the null rays. To assemble them you'll need the rays themselves, plus four parts off of the above sprue (save the other parts for later). Stuff the finned parts into the gaps under the null rays, which will leave just the 5mm port open. The other parts have two 5mm pegs. One goes into the null rays, the other goes onto the backs of Slipstream's shoulders. Here's how we're doing so far. Much as with Windblade, I can take or leave the wing fillers. The null rays fix one of my major problems with this figure, though. Before, you could put the stock rays on her wings which looked ok in standing poses, but didn't really work for action poses, or you could plug them into the undersides of her forearms (or stick them into her fists) which just looked wrong. With Nonnef's setup they look to be positioned more accurately and still move with her arm (plus, by most versions of the character, gray/silver is a more accurate color for them). My other major problem with Slipstream was that they just repainted Windblade's chest rather than give her a more traditionally Seeker-esque cockpit torso. So... let's build her a new torso. Begin by removing these two screws on her back. This will let you slide the front of her torso off, bringing her head with it. Slide her head off. Attach her head to the larger purple piece, and screw it in place of her old torso. Remember those last two parts on that one runner I told you to save? They're for her abs. You can pick either style, and it simply plugs into the the lower port on the Nonnef torso. Take the other purple piece and plug it into the top to ports. It's a better shape, but still devoid of detail. That's where the stickers come in. There's three cockpit designs on it. A and B are for this chest, C is for the Cyberverse chest (which I didn't order, but am considering). Aside from cockpits, you've got various stripes for her wings, some silver accents, and a few extra Decepticon badges. Here I've got with chest B, since her actual canopy is blue and most depictions of her use blue. I also put the purple stripes on her teal wings. It's definitely an improvement, but I find myself wondering if I'd like the Cyberverse chest better. It's flatter with a wider cockpit, but it has the turbine intakes the G1 Seekers have. Also, while her wings are usually depicted as teal with purple accents, given that the other side of her wings are still mostly purple I wonder if I wouldn't prefer purple wing covers with teal stripes. There's the transformation to consider, too. The new chest isn't an issue, but the wing covers take up the ports you'd normally use under the wings for her null rays. Nonnef's solution is to plug his null rays into the ports on the edges of her shins and flip them up over her wings. And, yeah, that technically works... but I don't really like it. All-in-all this kit's a bit of a mixed bag. I think it does a lot for her robot mode, but negatively impacts her alt mode. To be fair, I don't think Hasbro did a great job with Slipstream in the first place; she's supposed to be a female Seeker, not Windblade with a Starscream head. I don't think she needed wing covers, she needed entirely new wings. And while Nonnef's new null rays are an improvement over the stock and are designed to work with her existing arms, I kind of think she needed whole new arms. Finally, the new chest is appreciated, but it'd be better if we weren't relying on stickers to make the canopy. For now, I think that Nonnef's kit is reasonably priced and worth checking out as it does address some of this figure's big issues. But my fingers are crossed, hoping someone like DNA will take on a more extensive overhaul of the figure. Quote
tekering Posted February 16 Posted February 16 On 2/15/2025 at 1:19 PM, mikeszekely said: I know there are people who are into mainline figures and don't mind getting unlicensed upgrades, but are vehemently against 3P figures. I would imagine that represents only a small minority of your audience, Mike... 🤔 Quote
mikeszekely Posted Sunday at 09:37 PM Posted Sunday at 09:37 PM 8 hours ago, tekering said: I would imagine that represents only a small minority of your audience, Mike... 🤔 True, I just want to make sure that my small (but excellent!) audience is seeing the content that matters to them. That said... I'm pretty sure everyone wants to hear about the "Original Optimus." And by that, I mean POP-01 Original Optimus. Yeah, that's really what it says on the box, and I have no idea what Chinese fly-by night has that kind of stones, because near as I can tell they didn't put their own name on it anywhere. There was some Chinese I thought might be a company name, but turns out it's just the Chinese for "Original Optimus." Of course, it's not actually the original Optimus Prime. But, as many of you undoubtedly know, the toy that became the original Optimus Prime toy was borrowed from Takara's Diaclone line, where it was called Battle Convoy. And that's sort of what POP-01 is... a KO of Battle Convoy. Just not that Battle Convoy. Rather, it's a KO of the more recent Diaclone reboot Battle Convoy V-MAX, a more modern and roughly Voyager-sized figure that I'd kind of wanted for my Optimus collection. Yeah, it's not technically Optimus, but it's the kind of homage that brings things full circle. And it does have a very Optimus vibe... mostly blue-head with a silver mask, mostly-red torso, silver thighs, mostly-blue shins and feet. One thing I might have changed if I were in charge would be giving him a silver pelvis and ditching the gray on his shins, but hey. That's not the biggest deviation from your traditional Optimus design, rather, it's the Mechwarrior cockpit in his chest and the overall "this definitely doesn't turn into an Earth truck" aesthetic. So why a KO? Well, I wasn't particularly interested in the Diaclone reboot at first. It's an expensive, gimmicky line, and while the early figures did have a neat retro '70s sci-fi toy look they didn't really grab me. By the time I was aware of Battle Convoy V-MAX it was sold out at the original price and now mostly sits somewhere between $700-$1000 on the aftermarket. Heck, Takara released a set of vehicles called "Power Greater" that was essentially an armor upgrade kit for Battle Convoy, and that by itself is regularly over $300. Generally speaking I think it's better to support the originals when you can, but if Takara is willing to let the aftermarket get that insane without reissuing their more popular figures and someone else comes along and offers me basically the same thing for $160, well, KO it is. And where Takara is pushing the line on nostalgia for the original Diaclone toys while doing their best to keep it distinct from the Transformers brand that the original Diaclone toys begat, whoever made POP-01 would rather bank on that Diaclone-Transfomers association, figuring (probably correctly) that Transformers collectors with no real interest in Diaclone at large will definitely buy another Optimus Prime. Which is why they've included this new, even more Optimus-esque head that I don't believe the Takara Battle Convoy V-MAX came with. And, yeah, that's the head that's going on my copy. Aside from an alternate head, you get a ton of accessories. You get a trailer, because what's an Optimus Convoy without one? There's a pair of double-barreled turrets that I've placed on top of the trailer. There's a pair of guns, and a red pod. And because Diaclone is supposed to NOT be Transformers, we have a pair of Dianaut pilots. There's a... platform? Bed? It's a thing... the instructions (which, near as I can tell, are a straight copy of the Chinese Battle Convoy V-MAX instructions) call it something like "repair splint". There's also all this! From left-to-right, top-to-bottom, we've got a pair of pads for parking the little Diaclone motorcycles, some girders that make a pair of arches, two connectors for turning the pair of arches into one bigger arch, four chairs, a sticker sheet, two claws, two small computer consoles, two medium computer consoles, two large computer consoles, two connector parts, two of what the manual seems to call "core hooks" (my Chinese isn't great), and two "decks." There's also a sheet of magnetic tape; I haven't done anything with it, but it seems like you can put the tape on places in the trailer and magnets in the Dianauts' feet will allow them to stick there. Now, from what I've seen of the actual Battle Convoy release and what the manual indicates, vs what we actually got, POP-01 comes with two fewer connector part, two fewer decks, and four fewer core hooks than the legit release, plus the single sticker sheet is missing several of the stickers that came with the pair of sheets the legit version did. If there are other differences that you know about that I didn't mention, please feel free to chime in. Moving right along, "Optimus" has a head on a ball joint that swivels, looks up, and tilts sideways just fine, but doesn't have a lot of clearance to look down. His shoulders rotate, ratchet 90 degrees laterally, and have a little forward butterfly. His biceps swivel, and double-jointed elbows bend almost 90 degrees. His wrists swivel, and his fingers (which are molded as a single part) are hinged at the base. His waist swivels. His hips go 90 degrees forward, and just a little less than that backward or laterally. His thighs swivel, and despite being a single joint his knees bend around 130 degrees. His feet swivel, plus they have one hinge that gives him a slight upward and nearly 90 degrees of downward tilt, and another hinge that gives him nearly 90 degrees of ankle pivot. The guns on his shoulders can swivel upward; they're technically pegged in, and can be removed and held in his hands. The barrels of his shoulder guns are also pegged in and can be removed. Flaps under those guns can open to reveal molded and painted missiles. And he can hold his guns by plugging them into either fist. Note that while they're using a peg-and-peg-hole style similar to Transformers the pegs are a tad smaller. Those pegs exist in more places than just his fists... he's got some on his back, the backs of his forearms, the sides of his shoulders, and his shins that you can use to plug in other accessories, like the trailer turrets. Technically, the ports his shoulder cannons are plugged into, or in what's leftover of the shoulder cannon after you pull the barrel off. Speaking of barrels, there's a port under the barrels of his guns, so you could pull the barrels off his shoulder guns then plug them onto his rifles to make them bigger guns. Modularity is the name of the game, here. Speaking of, while there's nothing in this set that uses them, if you're into Diaclone you might have some smaller accessories with smaller pegs. "Optimus" has some of the ports for those smaller pegs on his back, on the outsides of his wrists, and on the sides of his feet. There are also a pair of clips on his hips. These clips cab grab onto his rifles. They're going to come in handy later. On that note, you can pull the blue "core" cockpit out of his chest, and swap it with the red one. No one's stopping you. Both have opening canopies that the Dianauts can sit in. The so-called "core hooks" are another place you can sort of dock those pods. Doing so adds some pegs to them, if you want to look for a place on his body to store the extra pod. Then again, you could dock the spare core pod with the trailer. That said, the trailer has it's own cockpit, complete with seats for Dianauts, and one assumes it can operate as a vehicle on its own without "Optimus". "Optimus" has a transformation that's honestly kind of similar to the original Convoy/Optimus toy. Turn his head 180 degrees, lift the flap it's on, then turn it 180 degrees as well. Slide the core forward and tuck the head into the space behind it (or maybe take it out and put it back after tucking the head in, as the new head doesn't seem to have enough clearance to fold in with the core in place). Fold his fists in, slide the shoulders back a bit, then swing them behind his body and tuck his arms up under them. Spin the feet 180 degrees and fold them so his soles line up with his shins. Fold the wheels out of his calves and swivel them under his feet, then swivel his waist and make him sit down. Tab his legs together, and swing the front wheels from his legs around to the front. It's a tad more moon buggy than truck, but I don't hate it. Like I said, it reminds me of some of those old '70s style sci-fi toys that imagined what a future moon or Mars base might be like. The only thing I'm not a big fan of is the gap between the front wheels, under the core cockpit. I think that's because they're not meant to be empty. Well, like I said, modularity is king here and you can really do whatever you want, but the instructions want you to put the rifles into their hip-clips, and then dock the second core pod onto the front, between the guns and under the other core. That's the "complete" truck mode. The complete truck can then, of course, pull the trailer. The connector is even on a swivel, so the truck can turn independently of the trailer. It's a bit awkward, though... the connector is on a hinged stalk, and it has to stick out a bit from the front of the trailer, otherwise the height of the truck will lift the front of the trailer. Takara seems to know it's a bit awkward, so there's another gimmick. You can press this thin gray button on "Optimus'" butt, and his upper body will detach at the waist. Once detached, you can flip down to connectors on the front of the trailer and dock the entire upper half of "Optimus" directly onto the front of the trailer. This sort of leaves his lower half to act as "Roller." It's fine, though. It's got it's own cockpit, and the rifle clips can swivel a little. The shins can fold up and away a bit to create a pair of twin-barreled guns. Another option is the repair thingy. You can mount it onto the back, then it can hinge up to an angle. It's got fold-out repair arms, little winglets, and a flap at the back. I suppose, if you don't fold out the repair arms or the winglets it looks like a mobile launch device. But what could it launch? How about his own upper half? Turn the shoulders 90 degrees and you can wrap the arms around to the sides. Wings and stabilizers fold out from said arms, and little canards from the sides of his chest. On the underside you can find some landing skids that you can deploy. With nothing docked to it the trailer still has uses. Open these connectors on the sides and lift up a flap on the back. That'll allow you to fold it down. Once that's done, the sides of the trailer open up, just like the original Diaclone Convoy. On the front of the trailer you can open the corners and then, after pushing a button to release it, slide the cockpit up and spin it around. Once you've spun it around, you can slid it back down. The cockpit itself can slide down into rails on the trailer, acting like an elevator of sorts. Or, heck, just remove the whole thing. The sides stretch out into the "Directive Flying Orbiter (D.F.O.)". The D.F.O. even has ports on the sides and top for accessories. The inside of the trailer is pretty spartan, but that's where all those other accessories come in. There's ton's of peg holes on the floors and walls. Personally, I arranged it like this: arches with the claws on the rails inside on the edges of the front central part, with the motorcycle pads directly under them. The repair module is plugged into the floor of the rear middle, with the core hooks flanking it. The small computers went into the front-middle of the two front sides; with the hooks on the arches slide toward the rear, they'll pass under the arches when the trailer closes. The decks go onto the walls at the top rear of the trailer, and the other four computer stations with chairs go onto the rear sides. This will allow the trailer to close with everything in place, as the computers and decks will go over the bed and core hooks. There's enough playability there, too. Dianaut's can sit in the chairs and operate the computers. The rifles peg and neatly into the decks on the walls. "Optimus" can lay on the bed, with the flap at the bottom holding his feet while it's angled. Which is good, he needs repairs! His arm fell off! Which is still one more gimmick, mind you. You can apparently swap is arms with the arms of other compatible Diaclone mecha (such as the Power Greater set I mentioned near the beginning). Again, modularity is the name of the game. In fact, not only do you not have to arrange the inside of the trailer the way I did, you can rearrange the trailer itself. All three ramps pull off, and shuffle them around if you like. That's actually where those leftover combiner pieces come in. If you look around the trailer you'll notice that it's actually got quite a few of them already on. If you pull them apart, you can split the front and rear halves of the trailer. To this end, Takara sold "Grander Expansion Units" which were basically half a trailer with more arches, hooks, and connector parts. Pull the doors off and you could use the connector parts to add an expansion unit to make a trailer that's half-again as long... or buy several and make an infinitely long trailer. Up to you. So where does that leave us? As an Optimus toy POP-01, and by extension Battle Convoy V-Max, is ok. Simple transformation, unrealistic sci-fi alt mode, but decently articulated and pretty recognizable as Optimus despite not actually being Optimus. I think the POP-01 price is fair for what you get, though I definitely wouldn't pay for a legit one at this point. But that's sort of got me thinking... who is Diaclone actually for? The modularity makes for a great play pattern that I think would be really appealing to kids, but Takara sells these things for at prices that pretty firmly target collectors nostalgic for the original Diaclone line. The kinds of collectors that might pose them on a shelf and not touch them again, and don't really need the modular play pattern. Even from my own adult collector perspective, the mix-and-match thing might be fun but they're so expensive that I'm not sure I really want to buy more. Well, I guess the bottom line is that if you ever wanted a Battle Convoy V-MAX, whether you're into Transformers and see this as a version of Optimus or are just into a cool sci-fi robots, but find legit Takara copies to be priced outside what you feel comfortable paying, POP-01 is a solid alternative. Quote
dgco86 Posted Monday at 04:23 AM Posted Monday at 04:23 AM 6 hours ago, mikeszekely said: So where does that leave us? As an Optimus toy POP-01, and by extension Battle Convoy V-Max, is ok. Simple transformation, unrealistic sci-fi alt mode, but decently articulated and pretty recognizable as Optimus despite not actually being Optimus. I think the POP-01 price is fair for what you get, though I definitely wouldn't pay for a legit one at this point. But that's sort of got me thinking... who is Diaclone actually for? The modularity makes for a great play pattern that I think would be really appealing to kids, but Takara sells these things for at prices that pretty firmly target collectors nostalgic for the original Diaclone line. The kinds of collectors that might pose them on a shelf and not touch them again, and don't really need the modular play pattern. Even from my own adult collector perspective, the mix-and-match thing might be fun but they're so expensive that I'm not sure I really want to buy more. Well, I guess the bottom line is that if you ever wanted a Battle Convoy V-MAX, whether you're into Transformers and see this as a version of Optimus or are just into a cool sci-fi robots, but find legit Takara copies to be priced outside what you feel comfortable paying, POP-01 is a solid alternative. I think I fit the description here but I'm most likely in the minority to be honest. From what I've seen, the vast majority of Diaclone reboot collectors are into army and/or diorama building and mixing and matching parts to make their own creations. You can refer to these threads on TFW2005 for more information. https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/takara-tomy-diaclone-reboot.1051661 https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/1-60-scale-compatible-toys-rihio-diaclone-lightyear-mft-gundam.1223541/ https://www.tfw2005.com/boards/threads/diaclone-base-building-and-display-thread.1226803/ Quote
JB0 Posted Monday at 08:15 AM Posted Monday at 08:15 AM 10 hours ago, mikeszekely said: But that's sort of got me thinking... who is Diaclone actually for? The modularity makes for a great play pattern that I think would be really appealing to kids, but Takara sells these things for at prices that pretty firmly target collectors nostalgic for the original Diaclone line. The kinds of collectors that might pose them on a shelf and not touch them again, and don't really need the modular play pattern. Even from my own adult collector perspective, the mix-and-match thing might be fun but they're so expensive that I'm not sure I really want to buy more. I think the target market is individuals with a fondness for cool robot toys and a surplus of disposable income. I also suspect the line exists as an award for modern Transformers engineers(having suffered under the tight paint and part restrictions of the TF line, neo-Diaclone allows them to go wild). I don't think Neo-Diaclone would really scratch an itch for original Diaclone homages(some of the old-name designs are fairly far from the originals, and there's a lot of them with no "G1" root at this point), but the few I've picked up are really cool toys and I wish I could just go all-in on the line, drop a friggin' grand on Robot Base, and then spend even more to build a force of Battle Convoys and Big Powereds to march alongside it. I couldn't justify buying Battle Convoy V-Max at the time, and I believe that one sold out unusually fast for neo-Diaclone since everyone knew the Prime connection. I did get the later Powered Convoy set(which honestly seems to owe more to God Ginrai than to the original Powered Convoy that became Ultra Magnus). Quote
mikeszekely Posted Tuesday at 03:56 AM Posted Tuesday at 03:56 AM 17 hours ago, JB0 said: couldn't justify buying Battle Convoy V-Max at the time, and I believe that one sold out unusually fast for neo-Diaclone since everyone knew the Prime connection. I did get the later Powered Convoy set(which honestly seems to owe more to God Ginrai than to the original Powered Convoy that became Ultra Magnus). Big Powered is definitely more than I'd want to spend today, too. Maybe whoever did POP-01 will do a POP-02? I'd definitely go for the Power Greater upgrade for Battle Convoy or Big Powered. I'm mildly interested in Dia-Battles, Battle Buffalo, Grand Dion (with Guardian expansion), and a few of the TriVERS and Versaulters. 21 hours ago, dgco86 said: I think I fit the description here but I'm most likely in the minority to be honest. From what I've seen, the vast majority of Diaclone reboot collectors are into army and/or diorama building and mixing and matching parts to make their own creations. You can refer to these threads on TFW2005 for more information. Yeah, I think it's great that people are getting and doing what they're into, but I looked as some of those links and find people buying 45-packs of generic off-brand Dianauts, and all I'm thinking is that the Dianauts are the least interesting bit for me. I guess Diaclone isn't really my schtick... so I'll get back to my niche, since the third and final set of Mecha Invasion's Constructicons came. 05 is the creatively named Excavator. And, yeah, he's very obviously Scavenger. Maybe, because Bayverse Scavenger is a red repaint of the big wheel guy Prime murked at the beginning of Revenge of the Fallen (and part of Devastator's torso, apparently), there doesn't seem to be much in the way of Bayverse influences here. With tread legs and a shovel on his back, perhaps I could suggest that he's influenced by Scrapmetal, the other Bayverse excavator that makes up Devastator's left hand? But then again, that's kind of just G1 Scavenger, isn't it? And that's pretty much what MI's Excavator is... sure there are some stylized details, like grill abs, loads more mechanical details and greebles, silver feet, biceps, and hands, and the ironing board on his chest is inverted, but I think Excavator is competing (and winning) for least-reimagined Constructicon in this set. The treads that cover his legs are black instead of purple, sure, but the purple is still there under the treads, and yep, there's the shovel on his back. But if I sound like I'm being a bit hard on Excavator, it's because I think MI could have done more to reimagine Scavenger, not necessarily that I think they should have. After all, turning the shovel into the legs definitely made Loader evocative of Bayverse Scrapper as much as G1 Scrapper, but given that Scrapper is my favorite Constructicon I think I was a little disappointed that Loader was skinny and didn't have a shovel on his back. By contrast, sure, Excavator isn't doing anything too daring, but he's a smart-looking Scavenger with strong proportions and just enough mechanical details to be interesting. I dig! As was the case with the first four, Excavator does come with an LED & battery (already installed), but his only real accessory is this gun. Pay attention to the shape of the barrel; his pack-in-partner's gun is extremely similar. Excavator's head swivels, looks down a little, and tilts sideways a little on its ball joint, with a solid 45-ish degrees of upward tilt. His shoulders rotate. Unlike the first four members of this set, Excavator's shoulders can move 90 degrees laterally on the correct side of the swivel- no Hot Rod shoulders here! Actually, that's not quite true, as a transformation hinge on the other side of the swivel can also move his shoulders 90 degrees, but that means you actually get over 90 degrees of lateral shoulder movement. His biceps swivel, as do his wrists, and his elbows bend 130 degrees on a single hinge. His waist swivels. His hips are a little limited... you get 90 degrees backward and just a hair under that forward on ratchets, but only about 45 degrees laterally. If you use the transformation hinges, you can kind of stretch that to maybe 60 degrees. His thighs swivel, and his double-jointed knees bend a full 180 degrees, revealing a diecast joint with molded faux-tread details. His feet cannot tilt up, but they can tilt down and swivel, as well as pivot about 45 degrees. Excavator holds his gun by plugging the peg handle into the hole in either fist. You can see the magnet under the barrel that's used to turn the LED in his eyes on and off. Excavator's transformation is pretty simple, but a relatively interesting take on the character nevertheless. His waist and this thighs both rotate 180 degrees. Stick his arms straight out in a t-pose. Fold his hands in, and rotate his shoulders 180 degrees, then rotate his biceps another 90 degrees so his fingers are facing up, then bend his elbows 90 degrees. Undo the sides of his chest by untabbing and folding them down, then swinging them out the sides. Lift the front of his chest up about 180 degrees, which will also fold his head into his chest. The entire top of his torso will then fold forward 90 degree. The silver part of his chest will fold over the gap and cover his head, and then his shoulders can shift back so his forearms can meet and lock together. The chest bits we folded down and out of the way can swing around and tab back in to square off the front of the vehicle, and the top half is done. Now his hips shift up and away from his pelvis slightly, then rotate back 90 degrees. His feet fold down, so his heels tuck into the treads, but then the silver parts swing around to the inside. Bend his hips back so that the treads line up with the rest of the vehicle, then his feet tab together then into his forearms on the underside of the vehicle and you're done. The biggest complaint I've heard about Excavator is that he seems a bit long. Traditionally, the deck does overhang the back of the treads, but the front of the deck and cab are set back from the front of the treads. While technically correct, excavators come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I don't really mind it, though I think they maybe missed a beat by not making him one of those really large Terex excavators they used for Bayverse Scavenger. As you'd expect at this point, there's storage in Excavator's alt mode for his weapon. After you've got his chest and arms folded up for alt mode but before you fold his torso over you'll see this I-shaped indent on the inside of his chest, above his head. The butt of the gun plugs right into it, then the barrel can fold down over his head. Excavator's shovel arm is fairly articulated... there's a hinge where it connects to the deck, a hinge about halfway through, and a hinge at the bucket. There's also a swivel near the base. In excavator mode that makes for plenty of digging poses, and in bot mode you can swing the shove around and above his head or over his shoulder. I do wish there was maybe more more hinge, though, just above the swivel. It'd let the shovel fold up almost entirely into a neat little backpack in bot mode. However, that's about it for alt mode. There are no little wheels in the treads, so he doesn't roll, and the deck cannot turn. Finally, we come to his combined mode, and now we can really see why Mecha Invasion thought it was a good idea to flip the limbs around. I've often heard people praise TFC's Hercules for using the treads on Scavenger and Bonecrusher to form Devastator's forearms (a move IDW artists also pulled first for the All Hail Megatron series), but a forearm still needs a hand. While MI cleverly found places to store said hands in Loader and Mixer, and could probably have found a place for a hand on Excavator, what MI found is that treads make for an even better foot than forearm. The mechanical details on the outsides of his legs even combine with his own feet to give the leg mode toes. The transformation is, again, surprisingly simple and easier to do from bot mode than alt mode. His chest and head fold up like he's going to alt mode, and the sides of his chest shift to fill in his lats. His feet turn 180 degrees with the leg kibble, and his arms scrunch up, but the rest is basically just him kneeling. Excavator is another win from Mecha Invasion. It's a solid, good-looking robot with simple, clever engineering into an interesting leg and foot and a passable excavator mode. It's not a premium shelf queen, but it's a fun toy to actually mess around and play with. The biggest challenge most collectors will have is trying to decide where to CHUG-style but Masterpiece-sized bots in their collection, but again you get two bots for the same prices as a Hasbro Commander-class. It's worth making room somewhere. Quote
MKT Posted Tuesday at 04:47 PM Posted Tuesday at 04:47 PM On 1/30/2025 at 3:59 AM, M'Kyuun said: Showz Store has POs up for Touch Toy's J-16N Wu Tian Yu Shang 2035 Nacrmmi, yet another licensed transforming Chinese fighter by this company. I passed on their previous effort, Carefray, a Chinese J-35 which looks oh so suspiciously like the US F-35 but given that this has a nigh-flawless Su-27 Flanker mode (The Shenyang J-16 is a Chinese derivative of the Soviet fighter), I couldn't resist pulling the trigger. I love the look of the Flanker, one of the most beautiful designs amongst the world's modern fighters, and I've long wanted a transforming version of it. Prior to Touch Toys' version, Sci-Industry, who made sophisticated transforming versions of the Chinese J-20 (Lumitent) and the Changhe WZ-10 combat helicopter (Aegocopter) had a transforming Flanker design in the works that looked amazing. Alas, it was never released and Sci-industry seems to be all but defunct. However, Touch Toys, whose designs are uncannily similar to those of Sci-Industry, are producing incredible transforming versions of real Chinese military aircraft, ships, and a mobile missile launcher that maintain the realism, features and functions of the actual vehicles, and yet transform into complex highly articulated bots. I've heard the designs described as Bayesque; however, let's be clear- these figures have actual mechanical transformations which make sense because they are 100% practical, whereas Bay's monstrosities were the creations of CG artists who just cut up images of vehicles and placed them willy-nilly over a frame without any thought as to how anything would actually move or assume its position. Touch Toys is operating at a level far beyond Takara, who've proven again and again ad nauseum that they have no clue how to make an accurate fighter turn into a robot or vice versa. So while Touch Toys figs, due to their complex aesthetics, do approximate the Bayformer aesthetic, the actual engineering brought to bear makes a world of difference. This guy looks impressive in bot mode, but man, that fighter mode is just amazing. The gear retract and they're located properly on the jet, a feature we almost never see on a Transformers figure. If I have but one gripe, I'm not too crazy about the long skirt bit hanging from the waist. I've no doubt it correlates to some bit of traditional Chinese attire, but I wish and hope that it can fold up onto the bot's back and out of the way of the legs. In all other regards, this is truly a masterwork of engineering. I wish the designer, possibly a fellow going by the interesting sobriquet "Black Apple", worked for Takara, as they, and we as a Transformers fandom, could certainly benefit from his approach to transforming aircraft. I'm definitely looking forward to adding this to my collection. Yes, they've outdone themselves this time. It could be the most complex 3rd party jet bot yet, but the results are truly amazing. Quote
anime52k8 Posted Wednesday at 02:13 AM Posted Wednesday at 02:13 AM it's impressive. It would be a lot more impressive if it didn't have a giant kibble loincloth. Quote
mikeszekely Posted Wednesday at 03:41 AM Posted Wednesday at 03:41 AM By process of elimination, you can easily figure that Bonecrusher is the only remaining Constructicon for Mecha Invasion to cover, so here's Bulldozer, the guy who comes packed with Excavator. Given that this set has been very stylized and one of my (very minor) criticisms of Excavator was that he played it too Geewunny, what I'm about to say might seem a bit hypocritical, but... what is it with 3Ps that put the shovel everywhere but Bonecrusher's chest? Maketoys made hip kibble out of it, and my biggest complaint about GT's was the shovel kibble that juts off his forearms and hovers over his shoulders. TFC only got part of the shovel onto their Bonecrusher's chest. Well, in Bulldozer's case it's because he's 70% Excavator again. And I don't mean in a "same engineering" way. I mean everything but the shovel kibble from the waist down is exactly the same, just with green plastic instead of purple. From the waist up, the lower part of his torso that upper part folds over is the same, minus some slight differences in the ab grill, parts of his back, and his entire arms are the same parts, just decoed a bit differently. It's not necessarily the worst thing ever. Bulldozer doesn't look bad, and Excavator was already pretty good (dare I say, better than Craner, even?). The new chest is molded with red-painted details that do evoke the shovel chest of G1 Bonecrusher. It just that the previous sets gave you two unique figures, and this one gives you two nearly identical ones. And between the two nearly identical figures you get, Bulldozer is arguably the weaker one. For one, there doesn't seem to be a good place to put the shovel kibble on his legs. Official, they kind of hang over his knees, as I have pictured here. I've seen people try flipping the kibble around to the back of the legs. Currently on my desk I have them angled upward like hip skirts. This is Bulldozer's gun, as per the instructions. As I said with Excavator, their guns look very similar. I guess it technically doesn't matter whose is whose. So, as Bulldozer is basically Excavator you could reasonably expect that their articulation is the same. And that's true... for everything but the thigh swivels. As you can see, the arms that connect the shovel kibble to his legs are connected very close to the cuts for the swivel. If you position the arms so that they're parallel to the cut, you can use the thigh swivel. But literally any other position, like their official place over his knees or my unofficial hip skirts, will cause some portion of those arms to overlap the cuts and block the thigh swivels almost totally. In other words, not only does the kibble make Bulldozer a bit less tidy, it actively gets in the way. Gun-peg-fist. Magnet in gun activates LED in eyes. You know the drill. 70% Excavator means that Bulldozer's transformation is basically the same. The only real differences are that there's no ironing board flap to cover the gap. Rather, he's got his alt mode cabin that hinges over the gap instead. Then, instead of a shovel in the non-rotating part of the waist, it's filled in with some mechanical details and a flip-up exhaust. Finally, the black W-shaped bit of nothing on Excavator is replaced with the middle section of the Bulldozer shovel, and the leg shovel kibble has to swivel around to tab into it. Bulldozer's gun attaches and stores in alt mode exactly the same way as it does for Excavator, which further leads me to believe that they're more or less interchangeable. Bayverse Bonecrusher was a tank, not a bulldozer. There were two Bayverse bulldozers, though. A yellow bulldozer we don't really get a good look at (but was possibly a Caterpillar D11) that ostensibly formed one of Devastator's legs that was eventually named Skipjack, and a red guy who fought with Bumblebee named Rampage that was created from the same concept art, and presumably shares the same alt mode since both characters got Studio Series toys and they were the same except one was red and one was yellow. On that note... Bulldozer has the shovel that's taller in the middle, and connected to to the treads, as well as the closed cockpit of the D11. There's molded details like shorter versions of the pistons that connect the shovel to the front of the bulldozer, though in this case they don't actually connect to the shovel. That's about where the similarities end, though. It's fine, though. It's decent enough bulldozer. The alt mode proportions suit a bulldozer better than an excavator, I think. And again, using basically the exact same transformation, Bulldozer turns into the other leg for the gestalt. In this case, I think the similarities between Excavator and Bulldozer are actually a strength. Sure, Excavator has his cabin off to the side and most of his shin is the shovel arm and bucket, while Bulldozer has a little shovel blade above his ankle and his cabin near the knee, but they're minor differences on what's basically the same leg. A little extra kibble to fuss with is all it took to make Bulldozer the weakest of the six in my eyes, but messing with the GT versions while I took these pictures really throws into contrast how the worst of Mecha Invasion's Constructicons is still so much better thought out, designed, and executed than any of GT's. I'm beating a dead horse, but these are simple, well-designed, well-executed, fun toys that deliver a lot of bang for the buck. I have no qualms about recommending this set, or any of these sets, or ALL of these sets, even if the combined mode sucked. Wait, does it suck? Tune in tomorrow to find out... Quote
Valkyrie Hunter D Posted Wednesday at 03:58 AM Posted Wednesday at 03:58 AM 1 hour ago, anime52k8 said: it's impressive. It would be a lot more impressive if it didn't have a giant kibble loincloth. With all the origami going on, I would thought it'd be simple to just fold the loincloth in half which would look better. Regardless, the alt mode looks quite sleek and I would be all over it if it weren't for the dull colors. Quote
M'Kyuun Posted Wednesday at 03:51 PM Posted Wednesday at 03:51 PM On 2/14/2025 at 8:19 PM, mikeszekely said: I've been posting reviews for upgrade kits here, on the logic that they are unlicensed kits made by various 3Ps. I was thinking today, though, that a lot of collectors into unlicensed 3P figures may not be interested in upgrade kits for official figures because they're not into the mainline stuff. Likewise, I know there are people who are into mainline figures and don't mind getting unlicensed upgrades, but are vehemently against 3P figures. So what do you guys think/prefer? Should upgrade reviews stay here, because they're unofficial, or should they go in the official thread because they're for official figures and not really relevant to 3P collectors? As a collector of both official and third-party toys, with a focus on mainline, I think your current approach is apropos. For those who only collect Hasbro/Takara but aren't opposed to an upgrade here or there, are just curious, or perhaps simply unaware, showcasing those upgrades in the official thread puts that information where it needs to be for interested parties, as well as for folks like me who buy both official and non. While the upgrade itself may be third party, the intention is the betterment, subjectively, of the toy in question, and when that toy is an official Transformers figure, I think it should be featured in the official thread. Likewise third party stickers/decals, and such. Ultimately, when the intent is to enhance an official toy, it should be showcased in the official thread. My $.02 FWIW. Quote
mark-1s Posted Wednesday at 06:47 PM Posted Wednesday at 06:47 PM (edited) 14 hours ago, Valkyrie Hunter D said: With all the origami going on, I would thought it'd be simple to just fold the loincloth in half which would look better. Regardless, the alt mode looks quite sleek and I would be all over it if it weren't for the dull colors. Touch Toys seems to have a thing for loin cloths Edited Wednesday at 06:48 PM by mark-1s Quote
mikeszekely Posted Thursday at 02:04 AM Posted Thursday at 02:04 AM 8 hours ago, M'Kyuun said: As a collector of both official and third-party toys, with a focus on mainline, I think your current approach is apropos. For those who only collect Hasbro/Takara but aren't opposed to an upgrade here or there, are just curious, or perhaps simply unaware, showcasing those upgrades in the official thread puts that information where it needs to be for interested parties, as well as for folks like me who buy both official and non. While the upgrade itself may be third party, the intention is the betterment, subjectively, of the toy in question, and when that toy is an official Transformers figure, I think it should be featured in the official thread. Likewise third party stickers/decals, and such. Ultimately, when the intent is to enhance an official toy, it should be showcased in the official thread. My $.02 FWIW. My current approach has been the 3P thread, but your logic was basically my thinking on putting future reviews in the official thread instead. I dunno. I see a lot of the same faces in both threads, but it feels like engagement is higher in the official one. 20 hours ago, mikeszekely said: Wait, does it suck? Tune in tomorrow to find out... OK, enough with the suspense. Let's put these guys together. We didn't really talk about Craner and Tipper's combined modes yet. This is basically Tipper's. We're just missing the final step, which is folding his feet and the green parts of his ankles back. There's a lot of clever engineering going on here, as his arms and the lip of the bed are over his head, but the front of chest swivels 180 degrees to cover the gap between his arms and to lift the chest shield, which was always self-contained in his body. Tipper's own chest shifts down and spreads to make the gestalt pelvis, and the way his hips spin and flip to widen for combined mode works better than a lot of earlier approaches. Now here's where things get a little complicated. Rather than have the cab wrap around sit next to the rear half, Craner's hips detach and angle out (which the instructions forget to mention). The sides of his legs have to ultimately grab onto those hook tabs and slide back, and it's probably the least-fluid bit of the whole set. Part of Craner's legs may pop off, but don't be alarmed. While they're not really supposed to, they're actually just pegged on in the first place, so it's simple enough to plug them back in. Note the gray connectors on the underside... they're going to plug into the top of Tipper. And yes, the gestalt head lives inside Craner's torso. No partsforming. Once Craner is plugged into the top of Tipper and the Craner's legs are properly locked onto those hook tabs we can start to solidify things. Craner's shoulders lock into Tipper's forearms. The cab and engine bay on Craner open up so you can fold out the shoulder joints. When you close them back up, Craner's arms will fold down and his fists will grab onto pegs pegs behind them. A hook will latch onto what's actually Craner's butt to secure the chest shield. The result is mostly extremely solid; only the chest shield feels like it could be more secure. The arms, have connectors that will simply slide over the combiner joints we folded out of Craner. It's just a friction connection, nothing fancy. I wouldn't recommend picking the gestalt up by the arm or anything, but it's solid enough that it's not going to pop off while you manipulate him. Finally, we'll do the legs (though in the future, I think I'll attach them before I attach Craner to Tipper). Do you recall the I-shaped slots we plugged the weapons into for their alt modes? With Tipper's feet folded up properly you'll find identical pegs at the ends of his legs. That alone would be a pretty weak connection, but there's a ton more connections. First, the leg bots have a pair of pegs on each shoulder. One peg goes into Tipper, one goes into the spot where Tipper plugged into the weapon storage. Tabs on the leg bots' forearms both lock them in place in the gestalt calves, but there's also peg holes near their elbows that lock onto pegs on Tipper's feet. Now that's all pretty solid, but we're still not done! Flaps unfurl from the leg bots' shoulders. These flaps reach up to plug into slots just below the knee joint, ensuring that the leg bots completely envelop Tipper's lower legs and feet. And finally, we have our combined mode. Since the team is called "Giant Legion," I'm going to say he's called Giant. One the one hand, I think he looks pretty fantastic for a combiner with zero partsforming, though his arms seem a tad short and his elbows are definitely up too high. Sure, one shoulder's a truck and the other is a shovel, but the purple and silver details on the forearms lends them a certain symmetry, as does the very similar legs and feet. If I might have made one suggestion to the MI team, it might have been to make the back parts on the rear of Loader and the silver bucket on Excavator green to make for a bit more color symmetry, but it's hardly the worst thing I've seen. And, sure, he doesn't have a shovel for one foot and a truck for the other, but Giant is still very recognizably Devastator with solid, less wheely feet. Rather than jut off of his back, the crane boom folds down Giant's back. It's something Maketoys and GT sort of did with their cranes, and I've always thought it's a bit tidier that way. The butt cheek wheels work for me, too... I think it's a pretty solid design. The only thing that might be a turn off for some people is that the individual members are more MP-scaled (they're about the same size as ToyWorld and XTB's Constructicons, bigger than GT's, and smaller than Fans Toys and Dream Star Toys'), but the combined Giant is only a little taller than GT's Gravity Builder. MI gives you options for Giant's face. He's got normal eyes, and an LED that lights them up magnetically (just like the individual guys). But if you lift up his forehead, you'll find a visor folded up inside. You can flip it out and close it over his regular eyes if you prefer the visored look (as I do). Again, a goal of this set was no extra parts. You might have noticed that there really wasn't storage for the weapons in combined mode, and that's because the weapons combine. First, we'll take Craner's NSFW gun and extend the barrel. Note the slots near the tip? Grab either of the leg bots' guns and you'll find a tab under the barrel that plugs into those slots. Tipper's gun has tabs on the magazine that plugs into a slot near the magnet of the leg bot's gun, with the barrels pointing in the same direction as Craner's gun (or the opposite direction of the leg bot's). Then take the other leg bot's gun and use the same tabs/slots to plug into the opposite side, sandwiching the tip of Craner's gun and the handle and magazine of Tipper's between them. Now, get Loader's gun, and fold the barrels around like you do for storage. A tab on the back of Mixer's gun will plug into a slot under Loader's. You want the handle of Loader's gun to lay on top of Mixer's. Correctly assembled, two tabs on top of Mixer's gun plugs into slots on the leg bots' guns, while two tiny pegs on Loader's gun will plug into the barrels of Tipper's. Giant's head is on a ball joint. He can't really look down, but he's got plenty of upward and sideways tilt in addition to swiveling. His shoulders rotate on ratchets; the wheels on Mixer's truck can get caught up on his back or chest shield, and limits his right arm to only about 45 degrees of ratcheted lateral motion. Loader's shovel can more easily move out of the way, though, for unimpeded rotation and 90 degrees of lateral movement. His biceps swivel, and his ratcheted elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel. Each finger and thumb has a ball joint at the base and two additional hinged knuckles. His waist swivels; no ab crunch. His hips skirts can fold forward, giving him a bit over 90 degrees forward, a bit under 90 degrees backward, and 90 degrees laterally at the hips. They're ratcheted joints that seem to do well enough keeping Giant standing, even in an A-stance, but they're not actually strong enough to support the weight of the leg. His thighs swivel, but the tires on his butt are a limiting factor there. His ratcheted knees bend about 90 degrees. There's no up/down tilt on his feet, but they swivel and have a little under 45 degrees of pivot. All-in-all, there are combiners these days with more articulation than this, but they tend to use a lot of partsforming. For a gestalt with zero partsforming I think Giant's articulation is good enough, and I continue to be impressed by how solid he is. Not one tab came loose, and certainly no members detached, while I was manipulating him. Giant holds the combined gun in an MP-style, where tabs on the handle go into slots in his palms. The thing to note here is that the handle is the barrel of Mixer's gun, with the tabs being the fins on it. I supposed, in the long term, this could lead to paint wear on the gun barrel. Just like on Craner alone, the crane boom on Giant's back can swivel and flip over his shoulder. The little blue lens makes more sense, as it'll wind up directly in front of Giant's left eye. Giant's giving me serious Gundam X vibes! I just wish he had a bit more articulation in his arm so he could put his left hand on top of the boom/barrel. So, answering my original clickbait question, no. The combined mode definitely does NOT suck. I might wish tighter hip ratchets or a bit more articulation. I think he could have benefitted from slightly longer arms (or at least better elbow positioning) and a few color tweaks. The fact is, though, Giant is one of the most solid combiners I've handled. He's not G1, but so far he's the best Devastator in my collection (I have high hopes for MMC, though). It's really hard to believe that this company came out of nowhere and released an entire six-member combiner team in less than a year (or, looked at another way, FT's fourth and fifth Stunticons), and that the entire team cost less than $300 (a mere $70 for the whole set more than a single Fans Toys Constructicon). Everything about this set (except getting Craner's legs into combined mode) is smooth and solid, fun to transform, and fun to handle. The worse things I can say are the subjective scale issues and lack of G1 cartoon accuracy (though that last one could also be a point for the Giant Legion for some). If there is any way you can work the Giant Legion into your collection you should definitely do so. This has quickly become one of my absolute favorite 3P purchases, I highly recommend it. Quote
M'Kyuun Posted Thursday at 04:00 AM Posted Thursday at 04:00 AM I received these guys yesterday and decided to post a quickie review. Forgive all my LEGO stuff in the background; I'm working on something and just took some quick pics. This is Dr. Wu's Impact Wave, his take on the G1 Autobot cassette combiner, Decibel. here's some art and the OG toy for comparison. The G1 combiner featured very little in the way of articulation and was one of the poorer efforts among the G1 cassettes. I say this as a fan of the cassette bots. It's the only G1 combiner team i don't own, and quite frankly, I don't feel like I'm missing out. Dr. Wu's take is fairly faithful to the artwork, minus his shoulder weapons. For whatever reason, Wu attached those cannons to his upper arms, pointing up no less, instead of sitting on his shoulders pointing forward. It's a weird decision, but the range and amount of articulation packed into this fig earns my forgiveness. the head is on a ball peg which allows it to move fore and aft as well as rotate 360, with full 90 degrees up and about 5 degrees down. The arms are on ball joints and can rotate 360 degrees, the biceps swivel 360, the elbows bend 90 degrees, the wrists rotate 360, the hands can bend inward 90 degrees (for transformation), and the claws on the outsides of the hands can bend 90 degrees outwards. There's no waist swivel, but the legs can rotate fore and aft 90 degrees on ball joints, swivel 360 on mushroom pegs at mid-thigh, the knees bend 90, and the feet can rotate down well past 90 degrees while the toe can rotate, in place of a full ankle rocker, 360 degrees. All four of the individual cassette weapons store on the combined mode: the aforementioned cannons on the arms, and the other set tab into the calves. the feet have molded and painted details reminiscent of the Pteranodon's weapons which were used as feet on the OG toy. Note too that the rivets in the OG toys thighs have also been replicated as molded and painted details. The only issue I have with the combined mode, and perhaps it's just an issue with my copy, is that the two cassettes are only held together by a single tab-slot connection, and the slot is located within a rotating panel on a ball joint to which the arms also mount. On mine, the arm ball joints are tighter than the rotating panels to which they're mounted and without anything else securing them together, and with such small tabs holding them together, mine fall apart far too easily. I'm surprised that Dr. Wu didn't create a more robust method for holding them together, but he didn't. You can see the slot in the blue panel and the tab on the upper torso. Given all the additional real estate to work with, I'm still surprised that there's not another point of connection built into this. It definitely could have used it. The individual cassettes took on the forms of a T-Rex or Allosaurus (Noise) and a Pteranodon (Graphy) respectively. While Wu's take on Graphy, Supersonic, holds pretty true to the G1 toy, albeit with better articulation in the wings, his take on Noise, Explosion, takes a fair bit of license, but IMHO, the result is a far better executed therapod mode with more in common with Grimlock's look than that of the flat and more suggestive shape of the original toy. And much like the combined mode, the weapons are mounted to the legs pointing upwards instead of to the torso pointing forward. Weird, but it is what it is. the range of articulation is great for such a small toy, though. Since his legs form the combiner's arms, all the aforementioned articulation applies. the head can rotate up and down and it can also raise and lower since the bit it attaches to is hinged further down in the torso. Unfortunately, it can't rotate left or right and the jaw doesn't open, which is forgivable on such a small fig. The little arms are on ball joints at the shoulder and feature a bending elbow allowing for about 180 degrees of rotation. The tail is formed of two section- the tip can rotate up and down through about 120 degrees and the larger part, which contains the combiner head, rotates a little over 90 degrees. Overall, pretty impressive for such a tiny fig. Unfortunately, as cassettes, these guys fail miserably, as there's no attempt whatsoever to impart any cassette details. Even a hint of reels would have been nice, but nope. As it is, the cassette alt mode is more suggestion, which is a bummer and something I really miss from the G1 toys which did a much better job of trying to look like microcassttes. However, their wafer modes do fit in kingdom Blaster and Netflix Soundwave, so at least that bit of interplay is possible. This one's a mixed bag: I love the individual bot modes and the combiner mode. However, the weak connection for combined mode is disappointing and makes handling the thing a pain, as it just doesn't want to hold together and I can't believe Dr. Wu didn't come up with something more robust, especially when combination is its major gimmick. Cassette modes are more suggestion than realization, which also sucks for "cassette" bots. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with these figs. Quote
mikeszekely Posted Thursday at 04:08 AM Posted Thursday at 04:08 AM 6 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said: The only issue I have with the combined mode, and perhaps it's just an issue with my copy, is that the two cassettes are only held together by a single tab-slot connection, and the slot is located within a rotating panel on a ball joint to which the arms also mount. On mine, the arm ball joints are tighter than the rotating panels to which they're mounted and without anything else securing them together, and with such small tabs holding them together, mine fall apart far too easily. It's not just you. From what I've heard, it's very common/everybody. Personally, while I've enjoyed the good Doctor's work, Decibel's obscure enough that I'm content taking a pass on this one. Quote
M'Kyuun Posted Thursday at 04:59 AM Posted Thursday at 04:59 AM 14 minutes ago, mikeszekely said: It's not just you. From what I've heard, it's very common/everybody. Personally, while I've enjoyed the good Doctor's work, Decibel's obscure enough that I'm content taking a pass on this one. Misery loves company, but in this case that's disheartening news. I've been enjoying Dr. Wu's takes on the cassettes (I hope he eventually moves on to do the staples: Ravage, Rumble, Laserbeak, Steeljaw, Ramhorn, and Ratbat at minimum) and they're generally much better than Hasbro's offerings, Eject being the only real exception. To have the combining mechanism on a combining set be so poorly executed seems a gross oversight, and I just can't believe they didn't fix it before mass production. Alas, they didn't. However, as you said, these guys are obscure, as I think they only came to my attention when Dr Wu announced them. I had to visit the Wiki to learn about the original toys, which rank pretty low by comparison, although G1 Slam Dance couldn't rotate its arms fore and aft either. However, I think the dino modes shine (I know, technically Pteranodons aren't dinosaurs, but for the sake of argument...) and the combined mode, if you can get it to stay together, looks good, too. I don't regret the purchase, but I hope they receive a fair amount of necessary feedback about this and make adjustments on future releases. There's still Dile and Zaur which form Legout to produce, so hopefully, if he decides to do them, they'll be done better. I'm looking forward to his takes on Slugfest and Overkill, whose original toys I don't own. I have the Fanstoys versions, and they're pretty well done, but I'm looking forward to having versions that scale with Hasbro's Legacy scale, as much as I wish they'd go back to making them actual microcasstte scale again. I just want a nice full set of cassettes for Legacy+ that are similar in articulation and craftsmanship, as I have little faith in Takara/Hasbro to deliver (Eject is a surprising entry, so credit where due- I wish the rest were to that standard). Quote
mikeszekely Posted yesterday at 07:00 AM Posted yesterday at 07:00 AM With the Giant Legion all wrapped up I could be done with Constructicons for awhile. On the other hand, I could take a look at Dream Star Toys' Hook Warrior. While you may here "IDW" tossed around describing these guys, this is definitely NOT how Hook looked in the IDW comics. Honestly, Hook's traditionally my least-favorite Constructicon, but this guy's kind of gorgeous. No weird cartoon legs, no cabin foot, no "what do we do with the wheels on his arms?". As with Shovel Warrior, there's loads of mechanical details but with curves and angles that give him an almost organic shape, and they replaced his traditional overhanging shoulder shelves with big booster wings. It's a very slick design; I think my only real aesthetic complaint is that there's nothing about his chest that screams "Hook" to me. This lack of immediate "this is Hook" is exacerbated somewhat by the fact that his crane is not attached to his back out of the box. Rather, it's an accessory... one of several. In addition to the crane, he comes with a red translucent blade, some kind of short cannon, his gun, the combined mode chest armor, the combined mode head, plus an alternate face and forehead for that head. If you pull the forehead out, you can slide the visor out and remove the lower half of his face. Then you can mix and match to get the look you want... stoic vs angry face, eyes vs visor, and normal forehead vs crested forehead. That crested head is going to come up later. In something of a first for Devastators, it seems Dream Star's won't be made from six guys, it'll be made from seven. The chest armor can transform into what appears to be the upper half of Megatron. I don't have confirmation, but it looks like Devastator's forearms become Megatron's legs, and some part of Devastator's crotch and hip skirts might be his pelvis. I'll go into more details on him when the set is complete, for now all I'll say is that he does seem to have ports on his forearms, but they do NOT match any pegs on the cannon that comes with this set. Getting back to Hook Warrior, his head's on a ball joint. He can look up, down, and tilt his head to the side adequately. His shoulders rotate on ratchets but can get hung up on his backpack, and they move laterally 90 degrees but on the wrong side of the swivel so he has Hot Rod shoulders. His bicep swivel is weird. There's a flap at the top of his bicep, and if you fold it down he can swivel his biceps 360 degrees but it looks messy. But if you don't fold it down, his bicep looks neat but the swivel grinds against the wheels in his shoulders and forces them apart. His elbows are even weirder. It seems like a single joint that bends a little under 90 degrees... but also nearly 90 degrees backward. There's actually a second joint, but it's behind a flap. If you open it up you can use it to get a bit over 90 degrees of bend, but now he's got a big flap laying on the front of his bicep. Or, you can open it just a little, and settle for just 90. His wrists swivel. His thumbs have a ball joint at the base with two additional hinged knuckles, while his fingers are pinned at the base with two additional hinged knuckles. The index finger is separate, the other three are molded together. He's got a ratcheted waist swivel. His hip skirts can move so his hips can go 90 degrees forward or laterally on ratchets, but only about 45 degrees backward due to his butt armor. He has limited thigh swivels, and double-jointed knees. The upper joint is ratcheted, the lower just friction. Despite the double joint you're still looking at just a bit over 90 degrees of bend. His feet and toes have some downward bend due to how they transform, but no upward tilt. His ankles pivot about 45 degrees. The cannon and pistol both have handles that fold out with slots on them. They plug onto tabs in his palms, then you can wrap the fingers around them. As for his crane boom, the most obvious thing is to plug the large peg on the base into one of the two large peg holes on his back. There are ports under Hook Warrior's forearms as well. You can fold in the handle of the cannon and flip out a peg, then plug it into either arm. A similar peg can be used to attach the red blade. There are less obvious things you can do with the crane. There's a hinge on it, so you could rotate it and fold it over his head. The butt of his gun plugs into the end of the boom, above the hook. The peg you use to connect the crane to his back also fits into his forearms, if you want to give him a sort of underslung BFG. Alas, I can't find any meaningful way to attach the cannon. By far my favorite thing to do with the crane, though, is to extend it, bend out the ends, and attach the red blade to make a pretty wicked scythe. The only downside here is that he can't hold the scythe particularly well. There is a handle-like protrusion you can wrap one hand around, and the other around the dark plastic, but there are not slots for the tabs in his palms to lock into. It's purely relying on the friction in his fingers not giving out under the weight of the scythe. Kind of worth it, though. Like I said, I traditionally think of Hook as the boring one, but with a scythe he's kind of badass. Hook Warrior's transformation is a bit more involved than Mecha Invasion's Craner, but honestly I think it's a lot more straightforward than fellow DST Shovel Fighter. Like many other Hooks in my collection you can kind of break him into his upper and lower half, and focus on one half at a time. While it's fairly obvious what's supposed to move and where it's supposed to go, you will occasionally get tripped up by exactly how certain parts move, though, and the instructions are pretty terrible, sometimes ambiguous and occasionally omitting some steps. My first thought was that Hook Warrior almost looks more like a military truck than a crane. However, this style with three-wiper cab set in front of four front wheels, with four more rear wheels with a centered boom are common from Chinese manufacturers like Shanghai Evangel Industrial or Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group. The main thing that's a bit off is at the rear. Hook Warrior's booster wings wind up forming identical pods flanking the crane. There's some molded detail that almost suggests a window, and the control cab for the boom does usually sit on the left side. On a real truck like the XCMG XCT80 there is a pod on the other side, presumably housing some of the machinery to move the crane, but it's significantly smaller than the control cabin. There's some tolerance issues. You might have noticed that I can't quite get the front of the cab lined up right. The green plating under the crane that makes up his backpack doesn't like to stay plugged into his actual back all the way in truck mode, either. Hook Warrior can roll on his rubber tires, and the crane can elevate roughly 60 degrees with two extending segments. The hydraulic piston is another real-world feature you'd see on these sorts of Chinese crane trucks. Somewhat annoyingly where the crane attaches to the truck can rotate, but the pods flanking it are locked in place and prevent it from turning. On that note, the crane requires some partsforming. The big peg you use to plug in into his back gets folded in, and instead of using the big holes you use a pair of smaller pegs to plug them into those two smaller holes between the two big ones. If you did it right, the gray plastic on the crane will follow the angled slopes of the green plastic on the truck. Too bad, the connection of the smaller pegs is a little loose. I find the crane likes to pop off when you manipulate it. As for the rest of his accessories, Devastator's head sort of transforms. You can fold his neck back 90 degrees, and spin and flip some kibble on the back of his head over his face, so it wraps under the chin. The right side of Devy's head folds down and away and rotates 180 degrees. The right side folds up and uses a ball joint to lie semi-flat. The neck peg will plug into a peg hole in front of the pod on the left side of the truck, with the side of his head mostly covering and tabbing into the side of the pod. The other side of Devy's head just lies on the truck. It doesn't even tab into anything. With a red-painted "window" I guess we can pretend Devy's head is the control cabin for the crane. The barrel of Hook Warrior's pistol collapses and plugs into the barrel of the cannon, and you can plug the blade into a square hole on top of the cannon. You're supposed to plug into a peg hole in front of the pod on the other side, but this time it doesn't even remotely resemble any part of an actual truck. It's just kibble. Honestly, I think I'd have preferred if the entire pistol could have stored inside the cannon, or the cannon could have turned into a better gun in the first place, and that the cannon better resembled the control cabin. I'd have preferred to omit the Devastator head entirely; if the gestalt is going to need partsforming might as well go all in on it. While DST is going for a very stylized look, and making his partsforming bits into an extra Megatron figure is a bit out there, DST doesn't seem to be reinventing the combination the way MI did. Shovel Fighter was a right leg, and Hook Warrior is the upper torso. There is a little shifting of other parts, but the bulk of the transformation is simply starting in truck mode, undoing some clips on the insides of his thighs, splitting the front of the truck in half, and then using the unlocked mid-thigh joints to wrap the front of the truck around to the back and folding the arm connectors out as you do. You should wind up with something like the above picture. Once there, you can slot him into the chest armor plug using pegs inside to plug into the ports under the truck windows. The head plugs into one of the large pegs where the crane was. The crane can then shift to either side by plugging it into a tab in front of the combiner connector and a port behind it. If you like, the red blade can store on top of the crane, but there doesn't seem to be a place to store the cannon or the gun. Surprise! Hook Warrior has a fourth mode! Like Shovel Fighter, Hook Warrior can also transform into a right leg. Again, it's a bit easier to start from the truck mode. The section behind the cab with the combiner pegs will shift back, giving the cab room to fold up. The front of the cab shifts forward to give the foot more toes. Heel spurs fold out from under the cab, and the front pair of tires wraps under them to form a heel. The rest is basically rotating the pods 190 degrees and reposition Hook Warrior's arms, then opening up his chest to reveal the slot for the leg connection. The red blade can store in one of the large peg holes where the crane usually goes. The crane, meanwhile, folds up and plugs into the heel, with the other end just sort of resting against the calf. Again, there's no place for the cannon or the gun. Come to think of it, Shovel Fighter's gun had alt storage for vehicle mode, but not leg mode. I'm guessing, based on how the gun plugs into the cannon, and how there are other ports on the back and top of the cannon, that maybe the cannon and all their other guns will combine into a larger gun for Devastator. Anyway, you might be wondering what's up with Hook having a leg mode? This is a reference to the IDW comics, where Spike killed Scrapper. Later, Bombshell used a cerebro shell to take control of Prowl, and Megatron made Prowl the Devastator's upper torso while Hook moved to Scrapper's spot. And that alternate forehead with the crest that I said was going to come up again? That'd be the crested head that the fan-dubbed "Prowlestator" sported. There's no prototypes, or even a definite confirmation, but it's been strongly implied that (counting Megatron) this set will actually have eight total members, with a version of Prowl to release after the standard six Constructicons. Given that Scrapper is my favorite Constructicon and one I wouldn't mind displaying on his own, and given how many other Devastators I have, I appreciate that DST is giving us extra options for this set. But as for Hook Warrior himself... he's decidedly OK. I appreciate the more straightforward transformation, I think he looks pretty good in both modes, and the crane boom as a scythe grants him a cool factor Hook rarely seems to posses. However, some iffy tolerances and questionable design decisions like his elbows and flaps that lie in place but don't actually plug in or lock on hold him back a bit and make him seem like a step back from Shovel Fighter. You do get a bit more bang-for-your-buck than Shovel Fighter, though, as they cost the same but Hook Warrior comes with a lot more accessories and an entire fourth mode. Ultimately, I think the stylized designs are, as with MI's, a two-edged sword. There are people who don't really want or need another cartoon G1 Devastator who will appreciate that DST is doing something different, but likely just as many strictly cartoon collectors who simply don't have a place for this on their shelves. To the latter, nothing I say is likely to change their minds. To the former, I'd say that Hook Warrior has his flaws, and neither he nor Shovel Warrior are as fun or inexpensive as Mecha Invasion's guys, but if you like the design Hook Warrior seems to be free of any major QC issues and has a strong shelf presence. I'll give him a soft recommend. Quote
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