by Gauntlet101010 » Mon Sep 10, 2012 9:13 am
Bumping up this topic to give my opinion on the figure. Yeah, despite saying it's best to wait, I didn't and got him at a con anyway. But he was $75 there, which is lower than he is at BBTS (with the US price there and not including shipping), and at cons these things are a bit pricier than online, so I think it about evens out. The same vendor still had IT's Arcee at $100, to give some context.
The good news: they have definitely learned a thing or two since Val! The joints, save for the upper arms, are all nice and tight. The legs, where they swivel out, are actually a bit too tight, but it didn't break when I opened them up and after that there were all good. The figure, unlike Arcee, feels solid in both modes. The only place it isn't solid is the arms in beast mode. They don't peg in anywhere and are free to flop around. More good news: the spikes aren't eye-pokingly sharp as they are on the other Quint figures!
Like most of their offerings the ting seems to come right out of the animation. Still, the torso is way too long or the arms are too short. Or maybe a bit of both. The result is a mispositioned robot mode. No, it's definitely not FP quality. Plus you have to remove some shoulder spikes to get it into beast mode.
On the plus side everything goes somewhere. The weapon splits apart for Beast mode and the middle connecting part goes in the mouth and both spikes go on the ends. So it's not like it's not self-contained. It's still a cheat, though.
As for the size ... it's huge. When I handled it i felt that, at least I got something for my money. It's ... voyager size, maybe? Maybe Ultra? The tail adds a lot to the length. Definitely large. I feel they scaled it to match G1 Gnaw. Not having a G1 Gnaw on hand, I can't really say, but that's my guess. So it's massive. But I still don't feel this is a problem. Allicons are big, dumb brutes. If it's too large, it only adds to him being a big, dumbbrute. The ONLY concern I have is that this guy won't look very nice next to iGear's Sharkticons. (If they ever actually release those guys because who really knows with iGear?)
Stylistically, I have to admit it favors G1 over any more modern TFs. It's very simple and the mispositioned look wouldn't stand out so badly among G1 figures where that sort of thing was fairly common. But let's be honest ... he's probably going to go with your IT Quintessons and G1 Sharkticons, even if you have a Neo G1 collection like me, and he looks pretty good next to those guys. I definitely like the figure. He's heads and tails better than Val was. But for the price he is right now I still think it'd benefit people to wait. Get one now if you're impatient like me, but IT stuff does tend to stick around for a long, long time. When it goes on clearance I'll probably get two more.
Wanted:
City Commander's head (KO or original)
Henkei Hot Rod's bio card
Universe Ironhide / Ratchet's gun/blade attachment