Got this at TFcon and I really just yesterday spent what I'd consider some quality time with it.
Most folks are going to overlook this because the box says KFC. Don't. I own a lot of their products, and this is hands down the best one in terms of, well, everything. Great build quality, fantastic sculpting, that nice glossy sturdy thick ABS (I think?) plastic like an Armada trilogy toy, clever, complex, yet not frustrating at all transformation, and even integrated storage for the guns in tape deck mode.
If I had to find some drawbacks, it's probably the tape storage and gimmick. It doesn't feel sturdy and the tapes get stuck easily. I don't see myself using that a lot anyway, but if you do, be careful.
I like how the alt mode scales with Soundblaster, little bit of a callback to the size difference of the G1 toys without being quite as dramatic:
Yet the robot modes still come out to be roughly the same size:
Twincast may be just a hair taller, but not by a lot.
As far as the cassettes, Stinger is fantastic and feels very sturdy. Same great plastic they used on Twincast and I just luff that cute wittle scorpion bot. The bio for Stinger is awesome as well, story is basically that he was around the whole time during G1, he was just stuck inside the tape door and couldn't get out.
Mandy kinda stinks and is a weird pink and doesn't pose well and the guns don't fit in her hands well at all and only one of the three options for heads they give you is painted to work in cassette mode. She's disappointing, yeah, but doesn't spoil the whole set by any means.
Finally, is it a Masterpiece? Twincast is, yes, no question. I will buy Transistor if they put it out using this same type of plastic in red without that metallic paint. The cassettes are not, but I don't feel any of KFC's are and haven't used them for my MP display as such. Nice touch though and I love seeing G1 concepts like Stinger finally brought to "life".
I completely recommend this toy. The price is in line with a Takara MP, so even that isn't a big deal. Oh, and the box art is by the awesome
Phil Knott, so that's an added cool bonus. Not often I get a third party product and feel completely satisfied with it, but this is one of them. KFC has definitely turned a corner with this release, or at least I hope so!