The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[MKT]

13 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Got this guy POed.  Just a beautiful fig in either mode. Transformation looks a bit involved but interesting- some neat solutions. The choice of the lovely Asurada GSX from Future GPX Cyber Formula works so well for this character design. I hope the final toy is equally well realized in the QC department. If this is what they can do as an introductory product into the transforming toy scene, and their QC is good, I'm looking forward to future releases.

 

This is such a beauty. And at 20cm vehicle mode length, it is much larger than I thought it would be. 

[M'Kyuun]

On 11/21/2022 at 2:21 AM, MKT said:

 

This is such a beauty. And at 20cm vehicle mode length, it is much larger than I thought it would be. 

This guy's coming in a bit bigger than MMC's Stray/Ater Beta, the latter of which I own. I still dig that fig, but I'm really glad now that I passed on their Drift as this fig is looking downright amazing. There's certainly much more complexity to it as well, and I like Asurada-inspired alt mode. I'm really amazed that it looks on par with Flame Toys' beautiful non-transforming figure, and yet it does transform. It's very cool; I just hope, being a first release for this company, that they have their QC under tight control.

[mikeszekely]

Feels like I've been reviewing a ton of official figures lately... and official figures often need 3P upgrades.  Now, I happened to grab a whole 3P figure that I'm primed to talk about, but before that I have a pair of DNA upgrade kits I'd like to cover.  I'm going to cover them in release order, so we're starting with DK-36, an upgrade for Studio Series 86 Sludge.

The kit comes with the pieces you see here- some effects parts,  a shield, a handle, two clips, some rubber bits, some googly eyes, and a sword.  The sword, while obviously molded differently to look like the sword that came with G1 Sludge, is a match for the one that came with their kit for Slag- translucent red blade in a solid red hilt.  I commented when Slag's kit came out that Grimlock's kit had a metallic silver-painted blade in a silvery gray hilt, so they didn't match.  With Sludge's kit having a sword that matches Slag's, I kind of hope when they do the inevitable kit for the inevitable SS86 Snarl or Swoop that they include a new red/red sword for Grimlock.

Anyway, we'll start with the stuff this kit is supposed to fix, so to begin remove the pair of screws on Sludge's butt, then pull off his crotch.  Inside his crotch you'll find a pair of gray ratchet parts.  Carefully pry them out, then jam some of the rubber bits in them to keep the ratchet from compressing so easily.  This will tighten the forward/backward motion on his hips, but honestly, I didn't think Sludge needed it.  What he needed was tighter lateral joints on his hips, and this kit does nothing for that.

Sludge's knees are a little loose, I suppose.  If you remove the screws on the inside of his thighs you can pull the inside off and you'll find a ratchet above his knee joint.  Same deal, you can wedge a rubbery bit into the ratchet to help it resist being compressed.  The Nonnef kit I'd already bought for Sludge had similar pieces already, though.

Another problem I had is that his wings want to pop off the hinges.  That's what the clips in this kit are for.  You take the longer cylindrical end and jam it into the gap in the hinge.  This helps force the friction bits to stay in their spots.  The other end is supposed to wrap around the lower part of the hinge and grab underneath it, but the edge of the wing kind of warps it out of place.  I'm not sure how well the clips will hold up in the long run.

Aside from fixes, we have the aforementioned sword (left), compared to one of Nonnef's (right).  Nonnef's will probably be fine for most people, but I do prefer the DNA one.    The handle is a bit tight in Sludge's hands.  As for the shield, you plug the handle into the back, and then pop the whole thing into a free hand.  It's a bit tiny for a shield, I think, but being a shield honestly isn't its main purpose.  We'll get to that in a bit.

That just leaves the blast effects and the googly eyes.  Well, the eyes don't have a purpose in bot mode.  And neither do two of the blast effects.  The third, the yellow one, can be used in bot mode.  You have to remove the back end of it first, then it'll have a 5mm nub on it that plugs into Sludge's gun.

We can use the googly eyes in dino mode.  They're meant to recreate that scene where Sludge's eyes pop out when Devastator pounds his back in the '86 movie.  It doesn't look great, because it has to be thick enough and solid enough that it won't break, so it doesn't really blend in with his head.  You kind of just bend it enough that curved edges grab into his actual eye sockets.  To get it off, you kind of slide it forward and the shape of the eye sockets will force the curved ends out enough that it'll pop off again.  At least the paint's a good match for the gold paint Hasbro used.  It's a "that thing from the thing" kind of gimmick, and I can take it or leave it.

The sword, by the way, has a flat tab that happens to be the right size to friction into the peg holes on his dino hips/robot shoulders for storage.

The shield has storage, too, revealing it's true purpose... it's a chest filler for the dino mode!  If you're using the stock feet, you can turn the handle 180 degrees and it'll fit in the void, leaving enough room that you can still store Sludge's gun on his robot toes.  If you're like me, though, and you swapped the stock feet with Nonnef feet, good news!  The chest still fits.  It's a tight fit, though, and there's not enough room to leave the handle plugged into the back.  You'll have to remove it.  You can still stuff it into the space above the robot toes, and the chest will seal it in, but it'll be loose and rattling around in there.

Lastly, there's the blast effects.  You need to put the back of the yellow one back on, because that piece has a smaller peg hole on it.  That peg hole fits onto the peg inside Sludge's mouth, the one meant for Siege blast effects.  Now Sludge is breathing fire or shooting some kind of energy beam!  But Sludge shouldn't have all the fun... there's also a smaller dark orange one for Slag, and a wider yellow and orange flame that's meant for Grimlock.

Like the DNA kits for the previous SS86 Dinobots, Sludge's kit has some useful bits and some less useful bits.  I like the useful bits!  I think DNA's swords are better than Nonnef's or the 3D-printed ones, and the blast effects are decently done.  I don't love the shield in robot mode, but it does fill in his chest in dino mode.  However, I'm a bit disappointed that DNA didn't design any folding feet; if you only bought the DNA kit, you'd still have toe-udders dangling down from his belly.  The knee ratchet fixes might be useful if I didn't already have some, but the hip fixes aren't really necessary.  I'm not sure how well the clips actually will hold the wings on, and the googly eyes are a gimmick that I could honestly have done without.  The mixed usefulness of the parts in this kit can make it a bit difficult to justify the price, especially if you have or are will buy other kits to address stuff like the robot toes that DNA missed.  Indeed, I think if you're only going to get one kit and you live in the US you're better off ordering from Nonnef- it'll cost you maybe half the price after shipping, it'll get you a sword and fixes for the knee Ratchets (plus another gun you may or may not want), and it fixes the toes that DNA didn't.  I don't think I regret getting the DNA kit, though.  If you feel like splurging, DNA does make the best sword, I like the blast effects more than I expected, and you can use the chest shield even if you're not using stock feet.

[mikeszekely]

The other kit I got from DNA is DK-35, which you think would come before DK-36, but it was actually released after.  This is a kit for Studio Series 54* Megatron (that is, the one from the '07 film).

So, what exactly was wrong with Megatron that needed to be fixed?  I touched on it when I reviewed him *checks the date", holy crap, three years ago (good gravy I'm getting old).  To save money, Hasbro reused the entire front of the torso from the earlier SS13 Megatron from Revenge of the Fallen.  It's the sort of thing where you a lot of people might look at him and think, "shiny silver chest made of jagged bits of metal, sure, that's accurate enough."  But, when you actually look at it and compare it with something like the MPM Megatron, you can see that it's actually not so accurate.

So that's pretty much what DNA is trying to fix.  You get a replacement front torso, plus a new blaster weapon.

To remove Meg's old torso, first you yank the head and part of the neck off the friction hinge.  Then, remove the two screws on the backs of each shoulder.  Hang onto those screws, you'll need them later.  Lift the backs of the shoulders, along with the rest of the arms, off and set them aside.  Now, work the front of the shoulder off the mushroom peg.  You may find it easier to remove the outer part first, then push the inner joint off the mushroom peg.

Next, there's two screws in Megatron's butt you'll have to remove.  Fold his back down, and there's another screw inside the bottom front of the torso.  Those screws you can toss.  Carefully turn him over and pull the front of his torso off.  Be careful that the small gray pieces inside his pelvis don't fall out.

With the original torso off (left), you can compare it and see how it's different than DNA's more movie-accurate replacement (right).  Anyway, carefully put the new torso in place, then screw it in not with the old screws, but with new ones that DNA included in a little baggy.

With the torso in place, snap the head in place and put the front of the shoulders and arm joints on the mushroom pegs.  Then put the rest of the arms back on, and screw them in place with the original screws.

So now you have your Megatron looking that much more movie accurate, but we can do better!  Fold one of Megatron's hands in.  Then, using a ball-shaped peg on the underside of the DNA blaster, you can plug it into a hole on Megatron's wrist, and now he can blast fools like the MPM toy.

"But wait!" you say.  "The MPM toy's blaster could do that expanding, two-handed gimmick that the movie did!"  Relax, DNA's still got you covered.  Fold open the top of the blaster, and sure enough you can fold out a longer cannon barrel.  Now, there are hinged blades on the back of the cannon.  With both of his hands folded in, turn his arms so that his hands are on the underside.  There's a bit of a gap between his forearm armor and the hinge his hand folds in on-jam the blades on the blaster into those gaps.

Boom!  Two-handed big cannon mode, just like the MPM, just like the movie.

Frankly, that'd be enough for me if DNA stopped there.  But they didn't stop.  They kept going!  This kit improves his alt mode, too!  When you open up his back for transformation, take note of these two little doohickeys.  They're on panels that flip around, causing the doohickeys to stick out the front of Megatron's chest.  Finish transforming him, and what do y'know?  DNA gave Megatron landing gear!  Or, at the very least, they kept his painted chest from rubbing directly on the ground.

And we're still not done!  Megatron's alt mode wasn't totally screen-accurate.  One of the most noticeable things about it is the gap between his legs.  DNA can't make Megatron's alt mode screen accurate, but they did plug the gap.  There's two tabs on the underside of the blaster, near the front.  These tabs go into cutouts on Megatron's ankle joints, so the blaster sits between Megatron's legs.

Again, it's not totally screen accurate, but it does blend somewhat seamlessly into what is otherwise an empty gap.

DNA is a company that can be pretty hit or miss.  I've bought so many of their kits.  Sometimes they fix a problem, but fail to fix others.  Sometimes they're overpriced because they come with a bunch of stuff you didn't really want or need.  On a few occasions, the kit was designed so poorly that it outright failed at what it's supposed to fix (the legs for Siege Magnus immediately spring to mind).  But once in awhile they just nail it, and they fix a problem so effectively that the kit is pretty much essential.  This is one of those cases.  A new torso that's more movie accurate and has landing gear to keep his painted chest off the table, paired with a blaster like the MPM's that both does the thing from the movie and fills an alt mode gap, and for a price that's comparatively low versus some of their other recent kits.  Suffice to say, if you have this Studio Series Megatron, you should definitely buy this kit for him.

*DNA also makes a version of this kit for the Takara Premium Finish version of this figure.

[mikeszekely]

In late 2003/early 2004, Takara released MP-01, the very first Masterpiece Transformer.  They followed it up with a few more before realizing that it could be a whole line with a unified scale instead of a few one-off cool robots, so they rebooted with a new scale-standard MP-10.  Gradually, as the years went by, Takara's MP designs lost their realistic detail and went harder and harder on looking just like the cartoon, and when MP-36 released in 2017 people were complaining that their Optimus didn't match their Megatron.  2019 brought us a plethora of new options, first with newcomers Magic Square and Transform Element giving us their takes, followed a few months after with Takara's own official replacement in MP-44.  With so many choices for an MP-scale Optimus Prime, does the world need even more options?

Turns out, maybe.  Here's Magic Square's MS-02 Light of Peace.

Magic Square's first effort, MS-01 Light of Freedom, seemed to start with MP-10 and ask, "how can we make this better?"  They added more cab panels to the arms, they used the same grill for both modes instead of one for truck and one for robot, and they added a lot of engineering to the legs to hide away the rear wheels.  They fixed the proportions and fixed some of the shapes and molded details, sure.  But his head was like a slightly simplified MP-10 head, and he retained stuff like most of the bumper being part of the Matrix chamber in his chest, the headlights and the rest of the bumper are on panels on his back, and his lats unfold and spin around to get out the front wheels.  Now, I loved (still do!) the result- he's got heroic proportions and enough realistic details like windows on his chest with wipers that are actually part of the alt mode and louvered vents on his shins that, to me, he looked like an ideal Optimus, the "real" robot that Sunbow was trying to animate on an '80s kids-show budget.  Thing is, a lot of people don't seem to want a "real" Optimus, they want one that looks like an '80s cartoon.  This, I think, caused a lot of people to pass over MS-01 in favor of TE-01 and MP-44, and the impetus behind MS-02 seems to be ditching the realistic look of MS-01 in favor of that super cartoony look their 2019 competitors had.

Which, I suppose, brings us to those competitors.  While TE-01 has a subjectively good "feel" with solid joints, quality plastic, and bits of diecast, I've often felt that sculpt of the figure is a bit blocky and lifeless.  MP-44 (or at least, the KO of MP-44 I have) has slightly thinner arms, a slightly narrower chest, and slightly rounder edges that make him a tad cartoonier, but also gives him a tad more life.  And when you put MP-44 next to MS-02, you can kind of get the impression that Takara and Transform Element did the assignment and came up with their own answers, but Magic Square was copying Takara's homework.  A lot of the shapes and proportions on both figures are very similar.  That said there are fewer visible seams on MS-02, and the ones he does have seem to fit together a bit more snuggly.  There are fewer screw holes visible.  But perhaps the most obvious difference is the backpack.  MP-44 was widely ridiculed for having a massive backpack meant to accommodate some electronics.  MS-02 not only does away with almost his entire backpack, with the thinnest front-to-back profile short of maybe TE-01, the backpack he does have is actually the only that that's cartoon-accurate.  Heck, even the molded lines on the backs of his legs are more accurate.

The end result, at least in my eyes, is that MS-02 comes off as slightly cleaner and even more accurate than MP-44.  The one advantage I think MP-44 still has is that it's painted, while MS-02 is molded almost entirely in the "correct" colors of plastic.  And, yeah... we should probably talk about that plastic.  On the plus side, it's not the sometimes mushy-feeling nylon stuff Magic Square usually uses.  On the other hand, it's very light, and it has a feel that at first reminded me of the original Fans Toys Tesla, which was all kinds of horrible and prone to developing tiny cracks.  After messing with MS-02 for awhile, though, I'd say a more fair comparison is probably the 1/144 Bandai HGUC MRX-009 Psyco Gundam model kit I built several years back in that it honestly seems durable enough, it's just very light, likely with thinner parts assembled around joints, and not a drop of diecast in sight.  But because there is an association, rightly or wrongly, with heft and "quality," in the interest of full disclosure MS-02 is the lightest G1-style MP-esque Optimus in my collection.  Seriously, coming it at just 332g, it's over 200g less than TE-01 (534g), less than MP-10 (422g), and less even than the already light-ish MS-01 (390g).  For the record, my MP-44 was 496g, but as a KO it's likely off from the official.  Oh, and all measurements are just the Optimus figure, no accessories.

Speaking of accessories... MS-02 doesn't come with a lot, but do we need a lot?  We've got the essentials with his ion rifle and his energon axe.  In both cases, the sculpt is perfectly fine but unpainted and largely unremarkable (save for how thin the handle on the rifle is).  The only other accessories you get are a pair of trailer hitches.  More on them in a bit.

TE-01 had what I'd consider the minimum acceptable articulation for 2019.  MS-01 had pretty good articulation, but it was shown up by MP-44 and Takara's push for amazing articulation.  Again, though, you get the sense that Magic Square looked at MP-44 and was taking notes, because the articulation on MS-02 is excellent.  His head is on a ball joint with the ball inside his neck, and combining that with smart use of the cutout in the back of his head and the overall shape of the head to be able to look down a fair amount, tilt his head sideways around 30 degrees, and look just a little shy of straight up in addition to swiveling.  His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and can extend laterally around 130-ish degrees (in theory, his shoulders could go even further but at that point the top of the smokestacks collide with his collar).  Butterfly joints extend from inside his body to push his shoulders past his chest while turning them inward almost 90 degrees, allowing him to cross his arms in front of him.  His biceps swivel, and he's got double-jointed elbows that allow you to bend them about 180 degrees, plus if you really need it there's a second swivel between the two elbow joints (more for transformation).  His wrists swivel, plus it bends backward so he can hold out his hand in a "stop" pose.  His fingers are all individually articulated, with ball joints at the base of each finger to allow a bend and some splay with an addition hinged knuckle in the middle of each finger, while the thumb has a ball joint at the base for rotation and folding over the palm, plus an addition hinged knuckle.  His waist swivels, then much like MS-01 it has a double hinge that allows him to arch his back almost 90 degrees or ab crunch forward over 45 degrees (with varying levels of sculpt breakage).  His back and side hip skirts are hinged at the top to move out of the way, but the front skirt is designed to fold up and into his pelvis when his hips move forward.  The joint itself has an unconventional shape, too, where it's attached to his crotch near the front but has a part that runs backward a bit before connecting to his leg, which leaves his legs in a proper position when his legs are straight but dropping his legs a little to clear his pelvis when he kicks forward.  Ultimately, this translates to a bit over 90 degrees forward on a ratchet, a little under 90 backward, and over 90 degrees laterally on a softer ratchet.  His thighs swivel.  His knees are double-jointed, both ratcheted, and bend nearly 180 degrees combined.  His whole feet are on ball joints, which gives him a slight up/down tilt and swivel (hindered by the shape of his leg around the foot), and providing him with around 90 degrees of ankle pivot (that said, realistically it's more like 60 degrees before the sole of his foot is above the inner edge of his leg).  His heels have hinges that can give them more independent up down tilt, and the front of his foot is actually double-hinged with a third hinge in the toes, so they can tilt up or down up to 90 degrees.  Seriously, if Magic Square had just given MS-02 a teapot joint he'd be giving MMC's hyper-articulated Optus Pexus a run for it's money.

It's probably also worth mentioning that while being very light can detract from a "premium" feel, it has some advantages in that almost all of his joints feel good- not too loose, not too tight- without the extra hardware or reinforcement needed to support weighty plastic or diecast.  One of my gripes with MP-44 is that, despite the premium price tag, his joints often feel kind of rickety, leading to posing him with hyperextended knees when he's supposed to be standing straight.  Sure, that could be because mine's a KO, but based on my experience with a legit MP-52 I'm inclined to believe it's not the KO, it's the design the KO copied.

To give MS-02 his axe, you have to pry apart the ball at the base, then you fit the larger end over his hand while it's making a fist, then fit the other half back on around his hand.  Yeah, I'll probably never use it again.  His rifle goes into his hands using the tried-and-true method of tabs on the handle that plug into slots on his palms.

I guess, technically, MS-02 does have one other accessory.  If you look inside his chest you'll find a Matrix of Leadership, as is more or less required on Optimus Prime toys these days.  Even the Voyagers!  The Matrix can be removed, and it's one area where I can definitively say that Magic Square dropped the ball.  I mean, the translucent blue plastic core and the vac chrome on the non-translucent plastic is all well and good, but they really should have painted the globe around the core gold or, better yet, copper.

I suppose, at least, it's hidden away most of the time.  Indeed, better than MS-01, whose chest opened to a naked Matrix.  This time, Magic Square included an inner cover.  As a matter of fact, of the three "cartoon" options, MS-02 actually has the most screen-accurate inside of Prime's chest.  TE-01 comes close, but the ridges alongside the Matrix chamber look more like tubes or pipes there, they missed coloring the bit next to the gold circle on the chamber door, and those circuits that TE painted metallic gold are green in the film, like MS-02 has them.

MS-01 had (and frankly, still has) one of the best truck cabs on an Optimus toy, retaining a lot of the realistic details that MP-10 did but fitting together with a less obvious shoulder joint and fewer seams on the front.  As I mentioned earlier, though, the engineering didn't deviate too far from MP-10s, so the back of the truck has the same "this is obvious robot legs" issue MP-10 had.  Actually, worse, because the fronts of his shins don't fold around the way MP-10s do, so the vented shins are more obvious and cause the back of the truck to be even taller, plus the taper of his legs leaves a gab between them that's larger near his knees.  MS-02's butt is still somewhat visible, but his legs do more to transform and flatten out.  The cab itself looses some details, though, smoothing out the roof, getting a bit shorter front-to-back, and ditching the stripe.  Personally, I prefer the cab striped, but the stripe was often missing from the cartoon, including the '86 movie.

Mind you, that's the kind of cartoon "purity" that designers are chasing these days, and so we have to compare MS-02 to TE-01 and MP-44, which are also stripeless.  But I think there are some interesting things to note here.  Like, for all the cartoonishness of MP-44's robot mode, and despite ditching the stripe, MP-44 still retains some of MP-10's details like the rectangular, two pane headlights and the round fog lights (marker lights?) set into the bumper, alá a real Peterbilt 362.  Heck, they put translucent yellow on the bumper like the cartoon, but in spots where a real Peterbilt 362 would have cutouts.  TE-01 has the right geometry on the bumper, but no yellow, and it still has the rectangular headlights.  MS-01 has the correct geometry for the bumper, and it fills in the trapezoids on the sides with translucent yellow.  Plus, it's the only one that has square headlights like the cartoon, although I'm not really into the round lenses they set into them.  I'd argue that it's the most cartoon-accurate truck from the front.  From the sides it's, again, the cab's a little shorter than the others and TE-01 benefits from the harder edges.  Things get interesting when you look at the backs.  TE-01 has the most solid least-obviously transforming cab, but I think MS-02 fills in just a bit better than MP-44 with the back running the whole way down and less noticeable seams between the shoulders and back.  The blue part on TE-01 runs the whole way to the cab, which gives it another advantage over MS-02's visible butt, and it's got more molded truck details that make it less like legs.  MS-02 is a bit too smooth, with some gap between the legs that's not covered by the panels on top, but I do feel like it's at least a big improvement over the over-engineered mess of parts that is MP-44.  At the very end, TE-01's got pretty obvious robot toes.  MP-44 has some bits that come out into something like lights and a bumper, but perched over and not totally hiding his robot toes.  MS-02 folds his feet up in a way that makes them less conspicuous blocks and even reveals some painted taillights.

Of course, you could argue that TE-01's rear isn't really complete without the partsforming hitch.  If you're going to make that argument, though, the same goes for MS-02.  The hitch even helps hide the gap between his legs and the fact that the panels don't cover the whole area, making the rear look more finished.

And, mind you, that's all aesthetics.  What I haven't talked about yet is the engineering, and that might be the most pleasant part.  MS-01 was fun and easy to transform because it was like an improved version of MP-10's.  TE-01 did some clever stuff with their engineering, especially in the legs, but some clearance issues in the torso, especially when from robot to truck, could be a bit frustrating.  And MP-44?  His legs aren't the only thing that's over-engineered.  His upper body does some crazy contortions not to turn into a truck, but to get into a space where panels from his backpack and legs could shellform most of the cab around them.  MS-02 winds up being a bit of a breeze, really.  Sure, Magic Square cribbed some ideas from MP-44; his cartoon chest opens and spins around to make most of the truck's windows, and most of the roof plus a strip of the cab between the windows comes from his backpack.  And changes were made to the legs so that his waist doesn't rotate 180 degrees and the back of the truck looks more like a truck and less like robot legs, as we've covered.  But the rest, including how parts of the bumper and headlights are on his back, how some of the side of the cab is stored in his forearms and covers his elbows, how how his Matrix chamber spins around to reveal most of the front bumper and how it inverts along with the grill on his abs (which forms the actual truck grill), is by and large still MS-01's transformation.  In short, transforming MS-02 is a breeze.

In truck mode MS-02 doesn't have a lot of gimmicks, but what he's got is pretty similar to MS-01 or MP-44.  He rolls, and he's got rubber tires.  His doors can open (but you're not going to find that little bit of space that Takara managed to carve out for a little Spike/Sparkplug/Carly figure.  Using one of the partsforming hitches allows you to connect an official MP trailer to MS-02.  This is why MS-02 included two- one works with MP-10's trailer, which I happen to have.  If you think the blue stripes on it don't match with the cartoon simplicity of MS-02, the other hitch works with MP-44's trailer.  Alas, my KO MP-44 doesn't have a trailer (to my knowledge, none of the MP-44 KOs do), but if a KO trailer is released and sold separately I'd be tempted to pick one up... this guy, not MP-44.

I gotta be honest with you, when I heard that Magic Square was making MS-02 I went ahead and preordered one.  I did it because it's Optimus Prime, and who am I if not that guy that buys all the Optimus Primes?  But, aesthetically, I preferred (and honestly still do) MS-01's more realistic aesthetic to the super Sunbow look this guy, TE-01, and MP-44 were chasing.  Then early reports started coming in about how light he was, how bad the plastic felt, and several reports of smokestacks breaking during shipping, and I'd lost pretty much any excitement or enthusiasm I'd had.  When I got the in-stock notification I was mostly glad that I finally had over $150 of merch in my TCP stash, so I could finally ship it and get the DNA kits I'd reviewed prior to this.  And sure, in-hand, my first impression was that he was light and that the plastic didn't feel great.

But then I started really messing with him.  Putting him in all kinds of poses, transforming him, transforming him back.  Really comparing not just the look, the heft, and the materials with my other MP-style Primes, but comparing the whole experience, and I really started warming up to MS-02.  Ultimately, just because I prefer that more heroic, slightly more realistic look, MS-01 is still my favorite, and he's still going to stand with my other MP Autobots on my main shelf.  But, while TE-01 still has its charms (namely, the best build quality and materials, and probably the most clever transformation from the waist down), MS-02 beats both it and MP-44 in my book for the best super Sunbow Optimus.  Yes, he's light, yes the plastic feels off at first, and yes he's got minimal accessories and next to no paint.  But he also nails the cartoon look better than the other two, he's a blast to pose and play with, and his transformation is a breeze.  Just be sure to temper your expectations... do you want a heavy, (super subjectively) "premium" feel for a figure you're going to put on a shelf and rarely handle?  Then you might prefer TE-01 or MP-44.  But MS-02 has shattered its weak first impressions to become one of my favorite purchases this year by being a good-looking cartoon Optimus that's fun to play with.  I mean, how many other Optimus Primes are you going to pose pretending to be Minmay?

[derex3592]

@mikeszekelyAwesome review!!! I LOOOOOVE my TE-01 with cell shaded front window decals, but I gotta admit, MS-02 looks darn good!!! Christmas present to myself perhaps???.....

[lechuck]

15 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

But perhaps the most obvious difference is the backpack.  MP-44 was widely ridiculed for having a massive backpack meant to accommodate some electronics.  MS-02 not only does away with almost his entire backpack, with the thinnest front-to-back profile short of maybe TE-01, the backpack he does have is actually the only that that's cartoon-accurate.  Heck, even the molded lines on the backs of his legs are more accurate.

On the topic of backpacks, it might be worth pointing out that the one on MS-02 is a bit too wide which breaks the upper body silhouette to some degree. MS unfortunately did not engineer the truck roof top collapse inwards, so your left with this somewhat unsightly bracket around the body.

The hands throw me off, I like that their fully articulated, but at the same time it looks ugly because all the fingers are the same length.

[mikeszekely]

5 hours ago, lechuck said:

On the topic of backpacks, it might be worth pointing out that the one on MS-02 is a bit too wide which breaks the upper body silhouette to some degree. MS unfortunately did not engineer the truck roof top collapse inwards, so your left with this somewhat unsightly bracket around the body.

While this is true, had you not mentioned it I wouldn't have even noticed.   In hand and once you start posing him it's not as prominent as some pictures of him standing straight from a dead-on angle make it look.

6 hours ago, derex3592 said:

Christmas present to myself perhaps???.....

Maybe?  I mean, I really love MS-02, but opinions around certain parts of the web have been mixed.  Many seem to agree with me (great articulation, a clean sculpt, easy transformation make for a good time), but others cannot get over the materials.  I'd say it comes down to what you're looking for in a collection; if you're like a certain masked Youtuber whose priority is a "premium" shelf queen, then TE-01 has better materials and "feels" better.  But if you like to play with your figures MS-02 is so much more fun to pose, at least IMHO.

[MKT]

Received Unique Toys' R-05 Desperado @DotM Megatron recently.

This figure is huge, and the heft is pretty crazy due to the judicious amount of metal it has. To put in perspective, it is 25% taller than a 1/48 DX VF-1, but weights almost 300% as much. It is no wonder many reviewers of this figure mentioned how tired their hands get after transforming it lol.. There's so much weight that when I initially took it out of its box and stood it, the hips & legs wobbled a bit too much than I liked and I wondered if the joints could not cope. But it was just merely mis-transformed out of the box, and after spending couple hours just tabbing stuff correctly, assembling one of its claw hands, wrapping the metal chains, and generally familiarizing with its articulation, the figure stands solidly and can hold some basic poses well with its beefy, mostly ratcheted joints.

Just when I thought 3P Bayverse TF toys have reached a pinnacle in terms of engineering & design, Unique Toys always outdo themselves with each release. This figure has what I consider to be UT's defining characteristics - good, almost accurate sculpt in both modes, and obviously prioritizing robot mode in this iteration, but not so slavish to the CG model until it sacrifices its usual straightforward transformation playability and durability by avoiding small, fragile moving parts.

I've not transformed it to alt mode, and I would like to use the word 'fun' in its transformation just like its previous products, but looking at the transformation videos means this is going to be a much more very involving endeavor this time. Although not necessarily frustrating, but just that it has many, many steps.

Leaving it is robot mode for now, it just has so much shelf presence. I'm also very impressed with its right claw hand. They are very articulated and should be able to offer nice expressive gestures with more fiddling.

 

 

   

[M'Kyuun]

On 11/28/2022 at 10:48 PM, mikeszekely said:

In late 2003/early 2004, Takara released MP-01, the very first Masterpiece Transformer.  They followed it up with a few more before realizing that it could be a whole line with a unified scale instead of a few one-off cool robots, so they rebooted with a new scale-standard MP-10.  Gradually, as the years went by, Takara's MP designs lost their realistic detail and went harder and harder on looking just like the cartoon, and when MP-36 released in 2017 people were complaining that their Optimus didn't match their Megatron.  2019 brought us a plethora of new options, first with newcomers Magic Square and Transform Element giving us their takes, followed a few months after with Takara's own official replacement in MP-44.  With so many choices for an MP-scale Optimus Prime, does the world need even more options?

Turns out, maybe.  Here's Magic Square's MS-02 Light of Peace.

Magic Square's first effort, MS-01 Light of Freedom, seemed to start with MP-10 and ask, "how can we make this better?"  They added more cab panels to the arms, they used the same grill for both modes instead of one for truck and one for robot, and they added a lot of engineering to the legs to hide away the rear wheels.  They fixed the proportions and fixed some of the shapes and molded details, sure.  But his head was like a slightly simplified MP-10 head, and he retained stuff like most of the bumper being part of the Matrix chamber in his chest, the headlights and the rest of the bumper are on panels on his back, and his lats unfold and spin around to get out the front wheels.  Now, I loved (still do!) the result- he's got heroic proportions and enough realistic details like windows on his chest with wipers that are actually part of the alt mode and louvered vents on his shins that, to me, he looked like an ideal Optimus, the "real" robot that Sunbow was trying to animate on an '80s kids-show budget.  Thing is, a lot of people don't seem to want a "real" Optimus, they want one that looks like an '80s cartoon.  This, I think, caused a lot of people to pass over MS-01 in favor of TE-01 and MP-44, and the impetus behind MS-02 seems to be ditching the realistic look of MS-01 in favor of that super cartoony look their 2019 competitors had.

Which, I suppose, brings us to those competitors.  While TE-01 has a subjectively good "feel" with solid joints, quality plastic, and bits of diecast, I've often felt that sculpt of the figure is a bit blocky and lifeless.  MP-44 (or at least, the KO of MP-44 I have) has slightly thinner arms, a slightly narrower chest, and slightly rounder edges that make him a tad cartoonier, but also gives him a tad more life.  And when you put MP-44 next to MS-02, you can kind of get the impression that Takara and Transform Element did the assignment and came up with their own answers, but Magic Square was copying Takara's homework.  A lot of the shapes and proportions on both figures are very similar.  That said there are fewer visible seams on MS-02, and the ones he does have seem to fit together a bit more snuggly.  There are fewer screw holes visible.  But perhaps the most obvious difference is the backpack.  MP-44 was widely ridiculed for having a massive backpack meant to accommodate some electronics.  MS-02 not only does away with almost his entire backpack, with the thinnest front-to-back profile short of maybe TE-01, the backpack he does have is actually the only that that's cartoon-accurate.  Heck, even the molded lines on the backs of his legs are more accurate.

The end result, at least in my eyes, is that MS-02 comes off as slightly cleaner and even more accurate than MP-44.  The one advantage I think MP-44 still has is that it's painted, while MS-02 is molded almost entirely in the "correct" colors of plastic.  And, yeah... we should probably talk about that plastic.  On the plus side, it's not the sometimes mushy-feeling nylon stuff Magic Square usually uses.  On the other hand, it's very light, and it has a feel that at first reminded me of the original Fans Toys Tesla, which was all kinds of horrible and prone to developing tiny cracks.  After messing with MS-02 for awhile, though, I'd say a more fair comparison is probably the 1/144 Bandai HGUC MRX-009 Psyco Gundam model kit I built several years back in that it honestly seems durable enough, it's just very light, likely with thinner parts assembled around joints, and not a drop of diecast in sight.  But because there is an association, rightly or wrongly, with heft and "quality," in the interest of full disclosure MS-02 is the lightest G1-style MP-esque Optimus in my collection.  Seriously, coming it at just 332g, it's over 200g less than TE-01 (534g), less than MP-10 (422g), and less even than the already light-ish MS-01 (390g).  For the record, my MP-44 was 496g, but as a KO it's likely off from the official.  Oh, and all measurements are just the Optimus figure, no accessories.

Speaking of accessories... MS-02 doesn't come with a lot, but do we need a lot?  We've got the essentials with his ion rifle and his energon axe.  In both cases, the sculpt is perfectly fine but unpainted and largely unremarkable (save for how thin the handle on the rifle is).  The only other accessories you get are a pair of trailer hitches.  More on them in a bit.

TE-01 had what I'd consider the minimum acceptable articulation for 2019.  MS-01 had pretty good articulation, but it was shown up by MP-44 and Takara's push for amazing articulation.  Again, though, you get the sense that Magic Square looked at MP-44 and was taking notes, because the articulation on MS-02 is excellent.  His head is on a ball joint with the ball inside his neck, and combining that with smart use of the cutout in the back of his head and the overall shape of the head to be able to look down a fair amount, tilt his head sideways around 30 degrees, and look just a little shy of straight up in addition to swiveling.  His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and can extend laterally around 130-ish degrees (in theory, his shoulders could go even further but at that point the top of the smokestacks collide with his collar).  Butterfly joints extend from inside his body to push his shoulders past his chest while turning them inward almost 90 degrees, allowing him to cross his arms in front of him.  His biceps swivel, and he's got double-jointed elbows that allow you to bend them about 180 degrees, plus if you really need it there's a second swivel between the two elbow joints (more for transformation).  His wrists swivel, plus it bends backward so he can hold out his hand in a "stop" pose.  His fingers are all individually articulated, with ball joints at the base of each finger to allow a bend and some splay with an addition hinged knuckle in the middle of each finger, while the thumb has a ball joint at the base for rotation and folding over the palm, plus an addition hinged knuckle.  His waist swivels, then much like MS-01 it has a double hinge that allows him to arch his back almost 90 degrees or ab crunch forward over 45 degrees (with varying levels of sculpt breakage).  His back and side hip skirts are hinged at the top to move out of the way, but the front skirt is designed to fold up and into his pelvis when his hips move forward.  The joint itself has an unconventional shape, too, where it's attached to his crotch near the front but has a part that runs backward a bit before connecting to his leg, which leaves his legs in a proper position when his legs are straight but dropping his legs a little to clear his pelvis when he kicks forward.  Ultimately, this translates to a bit over 90 degrees forward on a ratchet, a little under 90 backward, and over 90 degrees laterally on a softer ratchet.  His thighs swivel.  His knees are double-jointed, both ratcheted, and bend nearly 180 degrees combined.  His whole feet are on ball joints, which gives him a slight up/down tilt and swivel (hindered by the shape of his leg around the foot), and providing him with around 90 degrees of ankle pivot (that said, realistically it's more like 60 degrees before the sole of his foot is above the inner edge of his leg).  His heels have hinges that can give them more independent up down tilt, and the front of his foot is actually double-hinged with a third hinge in the toes, so they can tilt up or down up to 90 degrees.  Seriously, if Magic Square had just given MS-02 a teapot joint he'd be giving MMC's hyper-articulated Optus Pexus a run for it's money.

It's probably also worth mentioning that while being very light can detract from a "premium" feel, it has some advantages in that almost all of his joints feel good- not too loose, not too tight- without the extra hardware or reinforcement needed to support weighty plastic or diecast.  One of my gripes with MP-44 is that, despite the premium price tag, his joints often feel kind of rickety, leading to posing him with hyperextended knees when he's supposed to be standing straight.  Sure, that could be because mine's a KO, but based on my experience with a legit MP-52 I'm inclined to believe it's not the KO, it's the design the KO copied.

To give MS-02 his axe, you have to pry apart the ball at the base, then you fit the larger end over his hand while it's making a fist, then fit the other half back on around his hand.  Yeah, I'll probably never use it again.  His rifle goes into his hands using the tried-and-true method of tabs on the handle that plug into slots on his palms.

I guess, technically, MS-02 does have one other accessory.  If you look inside his chest you'll find a Matrix of Leadership, as is more or less required on Optimus Prime toys these days.  Even the Voyagers!  The Matrix can be removed, and it's one area where I can definitively say that Magic Square dropped the ball.  I mean, the translucent blue plastic core and the vac chrome on the non-translucent plastic is all well and good, but they really should have painted the globe around the core gold or, better yet, copper.

I suppose, at least, it's hidden away most of the time.  Indeed, better than MS-01, whose chest opened to a naked Matrix.  This time, Magic Square included an inner cover.  As a matter of fact, of the three "cartoon" options, MS-02 actually has the most screen-accurate inside of Prime's chest.  TE-01 comes close, but the ridges alongside the Matrix chamber look more like tubes or pipes there, they missed coloring the bit next to the gold circle on the chamber door, and those circuits that TE painted metallic gold are green in the film, like MS-02 has them.

MS-01 had (and frankly, still has) one of the best truck cabs on an Optimus toy, retaining a lot of the realistic details that MP-10 did but fitting together with a less obvious shoulder joint and fewer seams on the front.  As I mentioned earlier, though, the engineering didn't deviate too far from MP-10s, so the back of the truck has the same "this is obvious robot legs" issue MP-10 had.  Actually, worse, because the fronts of his shins don't fold around the way MP-10s do, so the vented shins are more obvious and cause the back of the truck to be even taller, plus the taper of his legs leaves a gab between them that's larger near his knees.  MS-02's butt is still somewhat visible, but his legs do more to transform and flatten out.  The cab itself looses some details, though, smoothing out the roof, getting a bit shorter front-to-back, and ditching the stripe.  Personally, I prefer the cab striped, but the stripe was often missing from the cartoon, including the '86 movie.

Mind you, that's the kind of cartoon "purity" that designers are chasing these days, and so we have to compare MS-02 to TE-01 and MP-44, which are also stripeless.  But I think there are some interesting things to note here.  Like, for all the cartoonishness of MP-44's robot mode, and despite ditching the stripe, MP-44 still retains some of MP-10's details like the rectangular, two pane headlights and the round fog lights (marker lights?) set into the bumper, alá a real Peterbilt 362.  Heck, they put translucent yellow on the bumper like the cartoon, but in spots where a real Peterbilt 362 would have cutouts.  TE-01 has the right geometry on the bumper, but no yellow, and it still has the rectangular headlights.  MS-01 has the correct geometry for the bumper, and it fills in the trapezoids on the sides with translucent yellow.  Plus, it's the only one that has square headlights like the cartoon, although I'm not really into the round lenses they set into them.  I'd argue that it's the most cartoon-accurate truck from the front.  From the sides it's, again, the cab's a little shorter than the others and TE-01 benefits from the harder edges.  Things get interesting when you look at the backs.  TE-01 has the most solid least-obviously transforming cab, but I think MS-02 fills in just a bit better than MP-44 with the back running the whole way down and less noticeable seams between the shoulders and back.  The blue part on TE-01 runs the whole way to the cab, which gives it another advantage over MS-02's visible butt, and it's got more molded truck details that make it less like legs.  MS-02 is a bit too smooth, with some gap between the legs that's not covered by the panels on top, but I do feel like it's at least a big improvement over the over-engineered mess of parts that is MP-44.  At the very end, TE-01's got pretty obvious robot toes.  MP-44 has some bits that come out into something like lights and a bumper, but perched over and not totally hiding his robot toes.  MS-02 folds his feet up in a way that makes them less conspicuous blocks and even reveals some painted taillights.

Of course, you could argue that TE-01's rear isn't really complete without the partsforming hitch.  If you're going to make that argument, though, the same goes for MS-02.  The hitch even helps hide the gap between his legs and the fact that the panels don't cover the whole area, making the rear look more finished.

And, mind you, that's all aesthetics.  What I haven't talked about yet is the engineering, and that might be the most pleasant part.  MS-01 was fun and easy to transform because it was like an improved version of MP-10's.  TE-01 did some clever stuff with their engineering, especially in the legs, but some clearance issues in the torso, especially when from robot to truck, could be a bit frustrating.  And MP-44?  His legs aren't the only thing that's over-engineered.  His upper body does some crazy contortions not to turn into a truck, but to get into a space where panels from his backpack and legs could shellform most of the cab around them.  MS-02 winds up being a bit of a breeze, really.  Sure, Magic Square cribbed some ideas from MP-44; his cartoon chest opens and spins around to make most of the truck's windows, and most of the roof plus a strip of the cab between the windows comes from his backpack.  And changes were made to the legs so that his waist doesn't rotate 180 degrees and the back of the truck looks more like a truck and less like robot legs, as we've covered.  But the rest, including how parts of the bumper and headlights are on his back, how some of the side of the cab is stored in his forearms and covers his elbows, how how his Matrix chamber spins around to reveal most of the front bumper and how it inverts along with the grill on his abs (which forms the actual truck grill), is by and large still MS-01's transformation.  In short, transforming MS-02 is a breeze.

In truck mode MS-02 doesn't have a lot of gimmicks, but what he's got is pretty similar to MS-01 or MP-44.  He rolls, and he's got rubber tires.  His doors can open (but you're not going to find that little bit of space that Takara managed to carve out for a little Spike/Sparkplug/Carly figure.  Using one of the partsforming hitches allows you to connect an official MP trailer to MS-02.  This is why MS-02 included two- one works with MP-10's trailer, which I happen to have.  If you think the blue stripes on it don't match with the cartoon simplicity of MS-02, the other hitch works with MP-44's trailer.  Alas, my KO MP-44 doesn't have a trailer (to my knowledge, none of the MP-44 KOs do), but if a KO trailer is released and sold separately I'd be tempted to pick one up... this guy, not MP-44.

I gotta be honest with you, when I heard that Magic Square was making MS-02 I went ahead and preordered one.  I did it because it's Optimus Prime, and who am I if not that guy that buys all the Optimus Primes?  But, aesthetically, I preferred (and honestly still do) MS-01's more realistic aesthetic to the super Sunbow look this guy, TE-01, and MP-44 were chasing.  Then early reports started coming in about how light he was, how bad the plastic felt, and several reports of smokestacks breaking during shipping, and I'd lost pretty much any excitement or enthusiasm I'd had.  When I got the in-stock notification I was mostly glad that I finally had over $150 of merch in my TCP stash, so I could finally ship it and get the DNA kits I'd reviewed prior to this.  And sure, in-hand, my first impression was that he was light and that the plastic didn't feel great.

But then I started really messing with him.  Putting him in all kinds of poses, transforming him, transforming him back.  Really comparing not just the look, the heft, and the materials with my other MP-style Primes, but comparing the whole experience, and I really started warming up to MS-02.  Ultimately, just because I prefer that more heroic, slightly more realistic look, MS-01 is still my favorite, and he's still going to stand with my other MP Autobots on my main shelf.  But, while TE-01 still has its charms (namely, the best build quality and materials, and probably the most clever transformation from the waist down), MS-02 beats both it and MP-44 in my book for the best super Sunbow Optimus.  Yes, he's light, yes the plastic feels off at first, and yes he's got minimal accessories and next to no paint.  But he also nails the cartoon look better than the other two, he's a blast to pose and play with, and his transformation is a breeze.  Just be sure to temper your expectations... do you want a heavy, (super subjectively) "premium" feel for a figure you're going to put on a shelf and rarely handle?  Then you might prefer TE-01 or MP-44.  But MS-02 has shattered its weak first impressions to become one of my favorite purchases this year by being a good-looking cartoon Optimus that's fun to play with.  I mean, how many other Optimus Primes are you going to pose pretending to be Minmay?

Like you, I have MS-01 as my primary MP Prime; MP-10 is tucked away behind my MP Beast Wars figs, but fairly easily accessible if I feel the need. I really like the details and beefier proportions of MS-01 over the slender and 'toon accurate' Primes by Takara and TE. And too, the transformation is smart, eschews the need for faux parts, provides a decent truck mode and an excellent looking bot mode. I bought their recent Light of Victory legends figure upon which MS-02 was based, and I have to say I was initially thinking of grabbing up a copy of that too, especially after seeing its articulation. However, I don't like the toon accuracy direction of flattening his leg louvres, omitting the cab stripe, the square headlights, or the longer face mask (for my money, MS-01 has a perfect head sculpt). My hope is that they'll release a toy-based version with all of MS-01's details. That would pretty much be the definitive Optimus Prime toy IMHO.

[sh9000]

@mikeszekely Nice review.  Now to find it for the cheapest price and receive the toy and packaging in good condition.

[Drad]

On 11/29/2022 at 12:31 PM, lechuck said:

On the topic of backpacks, it might be worth pointing out that the one on MS-02 is a bit too wide which breaks the upper body silhouette to some degree. MS unfortunately did not engineer the truck roof top collapse inwards, so your left with this somewhat unsightly bracket around the body.

The hands throw me off, I like that their fully articulated, but at the same time it looks ugly because all the fingers are the same length.

 

Considering all the things that MS-02 gets right, I'm willing to overlook those shortcomings. Heck, I'm not even a fan of the hyper-toon look.. in fact that change in aesthetic direction is what made me quit collecting Masterpiece Transformers altogether (well, that's part of it but the rest isn't relevant here). What Magic Square has achieved with this latest iteration of Optimus Prime is just so impressive that I had to pick him up.

He's amazing! Looks like a non-transformable figure like Hasbro's R.E.D. line or Super7's Ultimates and yet not only does he transform but they managed to streamline the process and make it fun instead of frustrating. One of the gripes I have about the push toward near-total cartoon accuracy is all of the compromises that need to be made to achieve that seamless, kibble-free look in both modes. Often times the result is the figures being heavily over-engineered which makes them more shelf queens than toys. I understand that we all have our preferences but I do like to play with my toys from time to time. Having a shelf full of expensive transforming "toys" that you're afraid to touch and require you to take a day off to transform isn't my idea of fun. It's just sad.

Magic Square showed me that these are toys to be played with and that they can look incredible in the process. MS-02 Light of Peace is Sunbow Optimus Prime from my childhood. Looking at it takes me back to simpler times, devouring bowls of sugary breakfast cereal with my little brother while watching cartoons on our small (though we thought it was huge back then) TV. I'm grateful.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

It looks like decals are being made for Ronin:

If they are waterslide decals, I don't know how they would stand up with repeated transformations.  That blue deco scheme looks quite striking though.

[Convectuoso]

New pictures of NewAge's Ratchet and Ironhide 2.0

[sh9000]

I think I might buy the MS Highway Overlord set.

[mikeszekely]

I'd have to go over it with a fine-toothed comb to spot the differences, but I have the individual releases of Magic Square's Stunticons.  They're good!  A bit simpler than their Devastator, but at that scale I don't think that's a bad thing.

[Convectuoso]

Promo pics of NewAge's Ironhide v2

[Convectuoso]

 

 

[Hikuro]

wow newage did some pretty good engineering on those. I'm pretty impressed!

[CoryHolmes]

Does anyone have any updates on X-Transbots James//Bond?  Last I heard it was supposed to release a few months ago.

[mikeszekely]

They had a prototype at one of the trade shows last fall. But other than that, no. Always take 3P release dates with a grain of salt, especially XTB. I'm guessing three more months, minimum.

[Convectuoso]

 

Preview from Magic Square 

 

 

[Scyla]

BSF hosted his 3rd party awards:

My favorite 3rd party toy of 2022 was D-Zef (IDW ver.).

[Convectuoso]

NewAge's Omega Supreme:

 

 

[nightmareB4macross]

12 hours ago, Convectuoso said:

NewAge's Omega Supreme:

 

 

 

What a great looking figure.

[mikeszekely]

Chalk it fewer MP-style 3P releases, the fact that I'm getting close to "completing" my MP collection, or some combination thereof, but 2022 wasn't the best year for me and 3P stuff.  I reviewed 97 official releases in 2022, but (excluding reviews I wrote for older figures that I just happened to pick up and reviews for upgrade kits) I only wrote eight reviews for 3P figures.  Over in the official thread I listed my top five of the year, and the challenge was whittling my list down to the best five.  I'm having the opposite problem here- I think to get to five I might have to include some stuff that I'm not so gung-ho on.

5. X-Transbots Janssen - When I reviewed it, I had some issues with it, and apparently some other people had some QC problems.  I concluded that it was a pretty significant upgrade over Fans Toys' original Tesla, and that it was a better value than their newer Tesla 2.0, so I gave it a recommend.  Well, in the months since you could find some deals on Tesla 2.0 that brought it to around the same price, and at that point maybe go with Tesla 2.0 instead?

4. Magic Square Crane Master & Load Master - Magic Square packs some impressive engineering into their designs... but, between the small size and smushy nylon plastic they can also be a tad finnicky.  Still, this was the set that completed their Devastator, which I think has better engineering and looks better than NewAge's... but yeah.  Finnicky.  I'd still love to see someone upscale this set to modern Hasbro Deluxes, maybe use less nylon in their plastic. 

3. Fans Hobby Meg Tyranno - After a bit of a QC disaster with their Armada Optimus, Fans Hobby came back swinging with their Armada Megatron.  Meg Tyranno has solid aesthetics, a solid if uninspired transformation, and lots of compartments and play patterns that remind me of their Overlord (one of my favorite Fans Hobby releases).  This one might have scored higher, if I were more of an Armada fan.

2. Magic Square Light of Justice - Two things prevented this from figure from being my #1.  First, the plastic, while sturdy, is thin and light, and there's no diecast and very little paint, giving the figure a "cheap" feel.  Second, when it comes to aesthetics, I still prefer their earlier Light of Freedom.  Once you overlook those two issues, though, what you're left with is a figure that looks cleaner and has a cartoon-accurate minimal backpack compared to MP-44 and has far better articulation and doesn't seem as lifeless as Transform Element's OP Leader.  Pair that with a straightforward, pleasing transformation and compatibility with both MP-10 and MP-44's trailers, and you've got my second-favorite MP Optimus.

1. MMC Ocular Max Medicus - When it comes to 3P Transformers, in my book, MMC is the company to beat.  Sure, they don't use as much diecast or paint as Fans Toys... they also don't charge as much as Fans Toys, and they still make figures that strike a good balance between realistic and Sunbow.  But what really sets MMC apart from their competitors is that somehow consistently make figures that don't just look good, they're fun to handle.  MMC releases figures that have some of the most clever engineering, and Medicus is no exception.  Super clean, cartoon-accurate robot mode with solid articulation.  Gorgeous alt mode that's 95% Sunbow but with some extra real-world details.  An arm mode that features a bicep swivel, double-jointed elbow, and a fully-articulated hand that requires zero partsforming because the hand is actually built-in.  And, somehow, a transformation between those modes that's clever, fun, and doesn't make you want to pull your hair out.  This guy is the total package, and I can't wait to review Navigant (who technically released at the very end of last year, but didn't make it to me before the New Year).

[Dobber]

Anyone know why Show-Z still doesn’t have MS-02 in stock? They usually have things quick but everyone seems to be reviewing/receiving theirs and ShowZ is still preorder status. Did they sell their initial stock or something and I just missed it. Just seems odd. 
 

Chris

[mikeszekely]

18 minutes ago, Dobber said:

Did they sell their initial stock or something and I just missed it.

Yes. They sold through their initial stock very quickly, but I think they're expecting more by the end of the month. I'm in the same boat with a different figure with them.

[Dobber]

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Yes. They sold through their initial stock very quickly, but I think they're expecting more by the end of the month. I'm in the same boat with a different figure with them.

Thanks Mike

[no3Ljm]

Looks solid. I'm in.   Though not sure where to purchase the Asurada decals. 

 

 

[M'Kyuun]

3 hours ago, no3Ljm said:

Looks solid. I'm in.   Though not sure where to purchase the Asurada decals. 

 

 

Waterslide decals come with it. At least if you order with Showz, but I'm guessing the decals are part of the package from the factory.

Looking forward to getting this guy, but not the transformation so much, nor the application of those stickers, which really are a must to bring out the ultimate look of the car mode. Beautiful fig, though, and the Asurada from Future GPX  CyberFormula is a great choice for an alt mode.

[mikeszekely]

19 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I can't wait to review Navigant (who technically released at the very end of last year, but didn't make it to me before the New Year).

But he did make it shortly thereafter.  So, this is MMC Ocular Max Navigant, their MP-style Streetwise.

I suppose I could have had him with Generation Toy, TFC, or Combiner Wars Streetwise- I know that when I reviewed Medicus I put him with the GT version.  But, what's really the point of placing a figure like Navigant with such stylized figures?  No, I figured the best figure to compare Navigant to was Medicus, so you can see how the team is shaping up so far.  Because, like Medicus, Navigant definitely has that Sunbow aesthetic.  He's got the truncated hood for abs, a chest dominated by a windshield, the pelvis with the molded square, the V-shapes on his thighs, even the lines on his wrists where the animators where maybe sort of drawing where the alt mode's headlights were.

Navigant sports cartoon-accurate white toes (despite the toes being formed from the lightbar on the original toy), the correct number and placement of windows on his shins.  He's got the extra red details on his head, and the sides of his forearms are formed from car panels so he's got wheels in all the right places.  I'm not sure how cartoon accurate his back is, but there's some mechanical details on his calves that I definitely don't mind, and the large chunk of his actual hood on his back keeps things super tidy.  I think the only thing I can really fault is that he doesn't have his stars on the outsides of his legs- they're actually on the insides, due to how he transforms.  It's a small thing, though, and I can definitely live with it as-is.

Oh, one more reason I compared Navigant with Medicus... Medicus is white.  Navigant is gray.  Maybe Navigant is a little more gray in-hand than I expected, but Streetwise is actually supposed to be light gray, not white (or the, I dunno, beige that X-Transbots went with).  I feel like MMC is the only one to have gotten this right.

Anyway... Navigant doesn't come with (or need) a lot of accessories, but he does have slightly more than Medicus did.  For starters, you get his pistol.  It's slightly larger than Medicus', but it's a similar style that doesn't have a ton of detail.  You also get two alternate heads, one with a slight smile and the other a grimace.  To swap the heads, you just yank the installed head off of the ball joint and pop another on.  Options are good, but I'm fine with the the default stoic face.

Although Navigant's neck sits on a ball joint, there's a hinge in his head necessary for transformation.  So, he has a little bit of sideways tilt, not a ton down, but he can look 90 degrees straight up.  It doesn't even really break the sculpt, because he's got a neck under it all.  His shoulders rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees.  His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows bend maybe 120 degrees or so.  His wrists swivel, plus they're hinged so they can bend outward slightly and inward almost 90 degrees.  His thumb is on a ball joint that swivels and folds the thumb over the palm.  Each finger is a separate piece with a hinge at the base, though they are sadly molded into a permanent curl.  His waist swivels, and he does have around 90 degrees of ab crunch.  His hip skirts are hinged, and with them out of the way his hips can go 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees.  His toes can tilt up and down, and he's got just a bit under 45 degrees of ankle pivot.

Like Medicus, Navigant bucks the usual MP trend of putting tabs on the sides of the gun's handle and instead puts one on the back.  So, instead of tabbing into his palm just behind the finger hinges, it plugs in to the base of the palm, where it juts out for the thumb.

There's a trend I've noticed with companies like Fans Toys, XTB, and even Takara to utilize overly-complicated transformations to take a robot from super Sunbow to a somewhat more detailed alt mode.  Indeed, when XTB and MMC announced they were both doing Protectobots around the same time, I checked out the early reviews for XTB's version of Streetwise and noped right out of what looked like a frustrating mess.  I'm very pleased to say that the wizards at MMC, though, have a reputation for crafting figures with more clever and, dare I say, fun transformations.  That's certainly the case here, as going from robot to car was a piece of cake.  Just remember to spin the lightbar around.

Navigant turns into a fairly realistic Nissan 300 ZX (I mean, realistic enough that I'm pretty sure MMC was using the '84 50th Anniversary Edition as a reference), so you've got the accurate intake and hood scoop, accurate placement for the headlights, taillights, and marker lights, and a little silver bump where the Z badge should go.  Cartoon accuracy means he's got a white nose and spoiler, plus yellow stars on his doors instead of black (although they lack the rounded tips), and the lightbar is the cartoon-style instead of the solid red of the toy.  Yet, MMC decided to run a black stripe down each side that neither the G1 toy nor the Sunbow model had, and the side mirrors are also black.  The mirrors don't bother me, but I might actually see if I can remove the stripe.

I don't usually make a big deal about how the underside of an alt mode looks- to me, it's kind of ok if it's a bunch of obvious robot bits scrunched up under there, as long as I don't see a face.  But, lo and behold, Navigant is pretty tidy under there.  Only his arms are particularly visible, and even then you kind of have to know what you're looking for there.

Navigant rolls on four rubber tires.  His doors can open, as long as you ignore the fact that the window and frame stay behind, and there's no empty space for anyone to sit.  That said, there is just enough space in there for you to stash his gun.  Granted, it doesn't have a cutout that it can sit securely; once you close him up that gun will rattle around in there.  But, I can't find any other way to store his gun, and it works for both car mode and combined mode.

Speaking of combined mode... the feet, knees, and a structural part connecting the feet and knees of Defensor are going to come from MMC's Hotspot.  I think, especially after the many Menasors that have been released, there's a temptation there to just stick a car onto that structure.  Maybe mess with the hood to give a "transformed" look.  I mean, that's what GT and Maketoys did with their Defensors.  Even when Streetwise is the whole lower leg there isn't a lot of transformation, like Combiner Wars or TFC, and Streetwise can make sort of a thin leg.  This is not going to be the case with Navigant.  From the front, he's got the Sunbow car-with-a-shortened-hood look of the cartoon, but as you look around him you can see how MMC made Navigant actually transform, expanding and filling out his leg mode.

Navigant is a very easy recommend from me, even if you just want a solid Streetwise and don't care about Defensor or the other Protectobots.  Consider, Medicus was my pick for my favorite 3P figure of 2022, and I think that Navigant is even better than Medicus.  His shoulders lock in better, his joint tolerances are better, his proportions are a little better, and his transformation is a bit more intuitive.  Just a really solid, fun figure all around.

[Scyla]

7 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

But he did make it shortly thereafter.  So, this is MMC Ocular Max Navigant, their MP-style Streetwise.

I suppose I could have had him with Generation Toy, TFC, or Combiner Wars Streetwise- I know that when I reviewed Medicus I put him with the GT version.  But, what's really the point of placing a figure like Navigant with such stylized figures?  No, I figured the best figure to compare Navigant to was Medicus, so you can see how the team is shaping up so far.  Because, like Medicus, Navigant definitely has that Sunbow aesthetic.  He's got the truncated hood for abs, a chest dominated by a windshield, the pelvis with the molded square, the V-shapes on his thighs, even the lines on his wrists where the animators where maybe sort of drawing where the alt mode's headlights were.

Navigant sports cartoon-accurate white toes (despite the toes being formed from the lightbar on the original toy), the correct number and placement of windows on his shins.  He's got the extra red details on his head, and the sides of his forearms are formed from car panels so he's got wheels in all the right places.  I'm not sure how cartoon accurate his back is, but there's some mechanical details on his calves that I definitely don't mind, and the large chunk of his actual hood on his back keeps things super tidy.  I think the only thing I can really fault is that he doesn't have his stars on the outsides of his legs- they're actually on the insides, due to how he transforms.  It's a small thing, though, and I can definitely live with it as-is.

Oh, one more reason I compared Navigant with Medicus... Medicus is white.  Navigant is gray.  Maybe Navigant is a little more gray in-hand than I expected, but Streetwise is actually supposed to be light gray, not white (or the, I dunno, beige that X-Transbots went with).  I feel like MMC is the only one to have gotten this right.

Anyway... Navigant doesn't come with (or need) a lot of accessories, but he does have slightly more than Medicus did.  For starters, you get his pistol.  It's slightly larger than Medicus', but it's a similar style that doesn't have a ton of detail.  You also get two alternate heads, one with a slight smile and the other a grimace.  To swap the heads, you just yank the installed head off of the ball joint and pop another on.  Options are good, but I'm fine with the the default stoic face.

Although Navigant's neck sits on a ball joint, there's a hinge in his head necessary for transformation.  So, he has a little bit of sideways tilt, not a ton down, but he can look 90 degrees straight up.  It doesn't even really break the sculpt, because he's got a neck under it all.  His shoulders rotate and extend laterally 90 degrees.  His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows bend maybe 120 degrees or so.  His wrists swivel, plus they're hinged so they can bend outward slightly and inward almost 90 degrees.  His thumb is on a ball joint that swivels and folds the thumb over the palm.  Each finger is a separate piece with a hinge at the base, though they are sadly molded into a permanent curl.  His waist swivels, and he does have around 90 degrees of ab crunch.  His hip skirts are hinged, and with them out of the way his hips can go 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees.  His toes can tilt up and down, and he's got just a bit under 45 degrees of ankle pivot.

Like Medicus, Navigant bucks the usual MP trend of putting tabs on the sides of the gun's handle and instead puts one on the back.  So, instead of tabbing into his palm just behind the finger hinges, it plugs in to the base of the palm, where it juts out for the thumb.

There's a trend I've noticed with companies like Fans Toys, XTB, and even Takara to utilize overly-complicated transformations to take a robot from super Sunbow to a somewhat more detailed alt mode.  Indeed, when XTB and MMC announced they were both doing Protectobots around the same time, I checked out the early reviews for XTB's version of Streetwise and noped right out of what looked like a frustrating mess.  I'm very pleased to say that the wizards at MMC, though, have a reputation for crafting figures with more clever and, dare I say, fun transformations.  That's certainly the case here, as going from robot to car was a piece of cake.  Just remember to spin the lightbar around.

Navigant turns into a fairly realistic Nissan 300 ZX (I mean, realistic enough that I'm pretty sure MMC was using the '84 50th Anniversary Edition as a reference), so you've got the accurate intake and hood scoop, accurate placement for the headlights, taillights, and marker lights, and a little silver bump where the Z badge should go.  Cartoon accuracy means he's got a white nose and spoiler, plus yellow stars on his doors instead of black (although they lack the rounded tips), and the lightbar is the cartoon-style instead of the solid red of the toy.  Yet, MMC decided to run a black stripe down each side that neither the G1 toy nor the Sunbow model had, and the side mirrors are also black.  The mirrors don't bother me, but I might actually see if I can remove the stripe.

I don't usually make a big deal about how the underside of an alt mode looks- to me, it's kind of ok if it's a bunch of obvious robot bits scrunched up under there, as long as I don't see a face.  But, lo and behold, Navigant is pretty tidy under there.  Only his arms are particularly visible, and even then you kind of have to know what you're looking for there.

Navigant rolls on four rubber tires.  His doors can open, as long as you ignore the fact that the window and frame stay behind, and there's no empty space for anyone to sit.  That said, there is just enough space in there for you to stash his gun.  Granted, it doesn't have a cutout that it can sit securely; once you close him up that gun will rattle around in there.  But, I can't find any other way to store his gun, and it works for both car mode and combined mode.

Speaking of combined mode... the feet, knees, and a structural part connecting the feet and knees of Defensor are going to come from MMC's Hotspot.  I think, especially after the many Menasors that have been released, there's a temptation there to just stick a car onto that structure.  Maybe mess with the hood to give a "transformed" look.  I mean, that's what GT and Maketoys did with their Defensors.  Even when Streetwise is the whole lower leg there isn't a lot of transformation, like Combiner Wars or TFC, and Streetwise can make sort of a thin leg.  This is not going to be the case with Navigant.  From the front, he's got the Sunbow car-with-a-shortened-hood look of the cartoon, but as you look around him you can see how MMC made Navigant actually transform, expanding and filling out his leg mode.

Navigant is a very easy recommend from me, even if you just want a solid Streetwise and don't care about Defensor or the other Protectobots.  Consider, Medicus was my pick for my favorite 3P figure of 2022, and I think that Navigant is even better than Medicus.  His shoulders lock in better, his joint tolerances are better, his proportions are a little better, and his transformation is a bit more intuitive.  Just a really solid, fun figure all around.

Great review Mike, I think your observations regarding the fun of the transformation is spot on. Ever since the ex-Takara designer AK took over the transformations across the board of MMC products (even characters he didn’t design) are bare non in the industry. Even Takara's own Masterpiece line can’t keep up with them.

What is funny is that no one talks about how the build of the OX robots changed since the Assaultus releases. Before that the MMC bots had die-cast and thin panels. Now it is more in line with what made the Reformatted line great: thick, high quality plastics and no die cast. Also the aesthetic changed to a more blocky, less intricate look.

For my MP collection I prefer the old approach more but these new release are a joy to handle.

Edited January 6, 2023 by Scyla

[mikeszekely]

8 hours ago, Scyla said:

What is funny is that no one talks about how the build of the OX robots changed since the Assaultus releases. Before that the MMC bots had die-cast and thin panels. Now it is more in line with what made the Reformatted line great: thick, high quality plastics and no die cast. Also the aesthetic changed to a more blocky, less intricate look.

As far as aesthetics go, some of the people who work with MMC have commented on that.  The idea for the Ocular Max line was that the designs would be based on Studio OX, however, it quickly became apparent that full-on Sunbow was what the majority of the market seemed to want.  The more recent the design, the more Sunbow less OX/Hasui.

Regarding materials, I don't think MMC is necessarily done with diecast (or even thinner panels... I'll be getting to that in my next review).  I mean, what was their Ocular Max release before the Assaultus bots?  I'm thinking it was Saltus, and he had diecast.  I think the lack of diecast on their Combaticons and Protectobots is simply because they're combiners, and the extra weight is more of a detriment than an asset.  All that being said, yeah, it definitely gives their combiners more of a Reformatted feel (if not aesthetic), and that's not really a bad thing.  MMC's Reformatted releases (with the debatable exception of their Insecticons, who were originally supposed to be OX) have a pretty stellar track record, while some of their early Ocular Max stuff had a few issues.

Sadly, the word going around is that MMC may be killing off the Reformatted line.  One the one hand, that's a bummer... like I said, they've had some really great releases in that line.  On the other hand, sales of Reformatted figures are down.  Hasbro's mainline has been resurgent since Siege, and the Reformatted stuff was always sort of too big for Hasbro, too small for MP.  Combined with the fact that we're getting farther and farther from IDW v1, where they were taking a lot of their design cues and... yeah.

[Scyla]

20 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

As far as aesthetics go, some of the people who work with MMC have commented on that.  The idea for the Ocular Max line was that the designs would be based on Studio OX, however, it quickly became apparent that full-on Sunbow was what the majority of the market seemed to want.  The more recent the design, the more Sunbow less OX/Hasui.

Regarding materials, I don't think MMC is necessarily done with diecast (or even thinner panels... I'll be getting to that in my next review).  I mean, what was their Ocular Max release before the Assaultus bots?  I'm thinking it was Saltus, and he had diecast.  I think the lack of diecast on their Combaticons and Protectobots is simply because they're combiners, and the extra weight is more of a detriment than an asset.  All that being said, yeah, it definitely gives their combiners more of a Reformatted feel (if not aesthetic), and that's not really a bad thing.  MMC's Reformatted releases (with the debatable exception of their Insecticons, who were originally supposed to be OX) have a pretty stellar track record, while some of their early Ocular Max stuff had a few issues.

Sadly, the word going around is that MMC may be killing off the Reformatted line.  One the one hand, that's a bummer... like I said, they've had some really great releases in that line.  On the other hand, sales of Reformatted figures are down.  Hasbro's mainline has been resurgent since Siege, and the Reformatted stuff was always sort of too big for Hasbro, too small for MP.  Combined with the fact that we're getting farther and farther from IDW v1, where they were taking a lot of their design cues and... yeah.

When talking about previous Ocular Max releases I meant the likes of Sphinx, Backdraft and Terraegis who all feel very different from the Compaticons and Protectobots. I don't necessarily think that this is a bad thing either since it seems like a fine niche for MMC to operate in. I can't comment on Saltus since I sided with the FansToys Apache in the Springer wars.

Regarding the end of the Reformatted line, I have high hopes for the Infinite Finity line as a replacement but besides Eris: Kultur and Eris: Armada Megatron they haven't shown any new molds besides a rumored G1 Drift. Eris: Kultur was excellent (sans the swirly plastic) so once they release anything besides Eris:Transformer with a tank alt-mode I think it will be a fine replacement for the Reformatted line. 
 

[edit:] Totally forgot Omne, which is another good example. Yeah, MMC did an MP Cosmos (which I actually own).

Edited January 7, 2023 by Scyla