The Energon Pub

Makin a thread for her cause there isn't one. For now I'll drop a stock pic, my own and a review to follow shortly....

So I didn’t mess around with her the day I got her, but I did last night. And damn, I didn’t think I’d have so much to say about A figure, but here it goes…

Starting off in bot mode:
She's heavy! I think her legs are entirely diecast.... either way she's got the weight of MP-10. She seems to be quite posable. Double jointed arms, very deep curl on the knee joint, but doesn’t have a waist swivel?! Her... stomach(?) pops out of her waist for transformation which can sort of give her a tilt, but no actual swivel. For some reason, this really upsets me. Her ankle pivot is kinda weak too, and with those small feet it is actually really difficult to get her to stand. She does have a toe joint though, which is pretty good. But yeah, posing can be a chore.

There’s a razor thin gap in her chest that really irritates me... right between the white collar bone’ish piece and the pink hood chest piece. I can’t not see it when I look at her. Not to mention the mushroom pegs in her arms. Seems very $15 Deluxe'y. And that backpack of hers shockingly, secures to NOTHING. Granted the friction seems to mostly be keeping it from flopping about, but seriously all it woulda taken was a single peg to secure each of her back thingies. And speaking of her back thingies, they look kinda messy from certain angles. Weird angles. Like, from the back, it’s one solid smooth piece. But from the front (which is how every right minded person will have her posed on a shelf) it’s a jumbled mess. I find it very unappealing...

Transformation:
If you scroll down, you’ll see that I took a LOT of car pics. I did this for two reasons. 1) Even though people are getting her in hand and pics are populating the internet, there are almost none of the car, and 2) I will likely never be transforming her a second time. Taking her from bot to car for the first time was a friggin nightmare. Car back to bot was better, but still not a fun experience. Unraveling her back thingies was crazy, and her front wheels are on a slider/pin dealy that annoyingly pop out to easily. It’s all pretty involved... feeling like a you took a TF, blew it up, and are trying to reassemble it. And one last thing, her torso separates from her wait on a pencil thin piece for transformation and is rather dangly. It’s not a good feeling.

Car mode:
Once everything is in place… it is a pretty solid piece of car. Once you can see the car taking shape, I was thinking the driver/passenger (cockpit? Sorry, words failing me) area would be an open gappy mess, but it actually comes together quite well, even with some neat tricks. And although I mentioned (in robot mode) her back thingies look messy, but I gotta give it props because essentially 80% of her alt mode is stored up in them.

How does the car mode look though? It’s not bad, but not perfect either. Certain angles look great, others not so much. I think the front end is kinda choppy with panel lines and such, whereas the back gives a more solid (and pleasingly curvy) look. Also from most angles, she looks like a hover car. I hate that. Her wheels are quite small, and half covered, so they’re pretty hard to see.

So my final thoughts…
Right at this moment, I don’t know if I’m happy with Rouge or not. Y’know how Badcube Sunsurge came out and blew us all away? Then was completely obliterated by MP-39 Sunstreaker? That’s what this feels like. I’m starting to get wise to how these 3P MP’s have been going. I’m not trying to demean their effort, but I can’t help but picture an official MP Arcee free of these issues (even if she currently is nowhere in the books). Takara probably has an entire team of people working on each figure, so it’s no doubt that they have a better refinement process than these 3P’s. I have been staring quite hard at Fanstoys Kup and Springer itching to pull the trigger, but based on Rouge here, I’m nowhere closer to pulling it or dropping it.

All I'll say is, I was more impressed before she was in hand. Do your homework before you commit.

Hot dang, nice write-up Shaj!! I really wish you picked up Sovereign and had written up something similar

More in hand pics, much better than mine

Thanks for the honest review, Shaj. Oh dear, she's not looking so hot (so to speak). The lack of a waist swivel is definitely a shame, and I'm sad to hear the transformation is a bit of a dog's breakfast. But what really kills it for me is the proportions. She looks kinda skeletal, with very thin, stick-like limbs, and her body shape is a bit, dare I say it, mannish with those wide shoulders and barely-there hips. Also the facesculpt is...off, somehow.

I must be honest, I've always had a bit of a dislike for FT. Their releases (with some exceptions, notably Grinder) have always seemed kinda soulless and lacklustre, and their transformations seem quite ballachey too. Like, they aren't KFC levels of bad, but I honestly think they're kinda overrated as a company.

With regards to the 3PMP vs Takara MP debate, I don't think we should count our chickenoids before they've hatched. Sure, TW Arcee is a hilarious failure and this is kind of a wash, but we still have MMC's offering to come out (which assuming they don't drop the ball on the QC should be superb, at least aesthetically) and if Maketoys did an Arcee, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Though I will say, whilst I generally dislike the "MAXIMUM CARTOON ACCURACY" route that Takara have taken with MPs lately, I wouldn't mind a Takara Arcee, if only because Arcee and the 86 movie designs in general were a bit more detailed and nice-looking in general than some of the other designs.

But yeah, thanks for this Shajaki, I'll be saving my money on this one.

Yeah I've not seen one review of this that makes me want to buy it. I like to transform my Transformers. Sounds like this will be an easy pass like their Kup was!

itscramtastic wrote:Hot dang, nice write-up Shaj!! I really wish you picked up Sovereign and had written up something similar

Thanks! It's strange that I haven't given how much of a Galvafanboy I am

Black Hat wrote:But what really kills it for me is the proportions. She looks kinda skeletal, with very thin, stick-like limbs, and her body shape is a bit, dare I say it, mannish with those wide shoulders and barely-there hips.

I do and don't agree with this. Skeletal only for the arms, and I wouldn't go as far as to say mannish. She's just not ultra femme, and the plainish proportions I think is more in tune to the original source material.

Black Hat wrote:Also the facesculpt is...off, somehow.

Even though I'm baffled by that (I think they're fine), it's not just you. After lookin around, it's a pretty common complaint.

ScottyP wrote:Yeah I've not seen one review of this that makes me want to buy it. I like to transform my Transformers. Sounds like this will be an easy pass like their Kup was!

Really? Everyone else seems to think their Kup is setting the golden standard

IIRC their Kup was well built and looked the part but the transformation was not designed to be operated by human hands.

Great read, and appreciate the car pics, Shaj! And thank you for the honest review -- I'm disappointed to hear all this since she was on my list....but knowledge is power, and half the battle (or something). Thanks again for the pictorial!

I especially like her in your last shot -- she don't need to stand up!

Ugh.... folks, I must apologize, I missed one step in her transformation. BUT in my defense, FT's stock photo is wrong too! Lookit:

shajaki wrote:

The tip of the front end has one more piece. It's supposed to flip out from underneath to give the hood a more pronounced nose.





The reason this bugs me so much is because of my statement about never TF'ing her again. Now I feel I have to to make things right

bodrock wrote:Great read, and appreciate the car pics, Shaj! And thank you for the honest review -- I'm disappointed to hear all this since she was on my list....but knowledge is power, and half the battle (or something). Thanks again for the pictorial!

I especially like her in your last shot -- she don't need to stand up!

And that last pic... gives me an idea for another funny one. Stand by

shajaki wrote:

bodrock wrote:Great read, and appreciate the car pics, Shaj! And thank you for the honest review -- I'm disappointed to hear all this since she was on my list....but knowledge is power, and half the battle (or something). Thanks again for the pictorial!

I especially like her in your last shot -- she don't need to stand up!

And that last pic... gives me an idea for another funny one. Stand by

D axed me this elsewhere, thought I'd drop it here too

shajaki wrote:

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:Huh, why do your photos make her face so much better than the original photos? Even other people posting photos on Facebook groups have really bad face pictures.

hmm...

You know what it might be? All of her faces are pretty much the same, except for one. The one I popped on has slightly bigger eyes (can't recall if the mouth is any different) and I thought it looked more "toony". I'll try to take a shot tonight of all of them together.

Sorry, took me a while but here's them faces! The first one is the one I use.

Also, I wanted to do a shot of them in their shades

OMGGGGGGGG THEY LOOK AWESOME TOGETHER!

I feel sorry for Springer. But he's gonna hafta find a bot more his size.

Wait a minute... they actually included the O face with the figure? Geez...

Glarryg

bodrock wrote:I feel sorry for Springer. But he's gonna hafta find a bot more his size.

Not if we're talkin FT's Springer. He's huuuuuggeee

Glarryg wrote:Wait a minute... they actually included the O face with the figure?

Yup, they really seriously did. I was surprised too

Oh me oh my. And with that face and Road Rage's "bumper gun" (sure, Takara, everyone believes you)...Sounds like we have another cross-figure interaction gimmick.

...I'll get my coat.

shajaki wrote:

bodrock wrote:I feel sorry for Springer. But he's gonna hafta find a bot more his size.

Not if we're talkin FT's Springer. He's huuuuuggeee

Glarryg wrote:Wait a minute... they actually included the O face with the figure?

Yup, they really seriously did. I was surprised too

Oh yeah!! He's a beaut, too.

bodrock wrote:Oh yeah!! He's a beaut, too.

Ugh... I got some serious nostalgia love for Springer... the wants are strong