The Energon Pub

Diem wrote:First up, the packaging. As usual, the packaging is excellent and fits in nicely with the other Alternities. The instruction sheet includes the Tech Specs and Power Plans for each character. It also includes a text-only story and information on the car mode, the Orochi.

Speaking of the Orochi it's certainly an unusual-looking car. Far less well-known than the Nissans or Suzuki, the car has a very streamlined and organic appearance. The various vents and lines make it look fairly jet-like by car standards. There are a lot of nice details like a tiny rubber radio antenna and the car's badge. Sadly, the opening parts aren't too exciting. Opening the doors reveals a steering wheel that turns and car seats but the rest of the interior is pretty obviously composed of robot parts. Even more tragically you can see through the floor of the car. Opening the bonnet reveals not even a fake engine but only the back of the robot head. Opening the boot reveals only more robot parts.

Intrestingly the figure has a second alt mode, sort of. The rear wheels can be folded up to reveal tiny wings. It's similar to G1 Tracks' flight mode but not as good. The Engrish instructions refer to this mode as "Flight From" which seems appropriate for Starscream.

The transformation from car to robot is sophisticated but not too complicated. His doors and door frames have a tendancy to fall off their ball joint and his number plate bends up to become a heel on one foot and also often falls off ( and it's annoyingly small). Other than that there are no real issues.

When it comes to Alternity Bumble I feel that his "G1-ness" was to the detrement of the figure but in this case it's impressive that Takara managed to force so much Seeker-osity into a carformer. The homage details are everywhere, whether it's the leg fins, the wings, the shoulders or the guns. The robot form is detailed, distinctive and posable, and makes a strange balance between blocky G1 designs and modern mecha aesthetics work well.

Skywarp is treated well here. His car mode is a homogenous purple but his robot mode adds some black and lilac to the mix and generally keeps his traditional colours. His head suffers from a small amount of Dull Surprise but is otherwise a nice sculpt.

Starscream however has a more unusual appearance. His pale grey has been totally replaced with white. This makes him look more like Jetfire than anything else. The other strangest point is his headsculpt which, as you've probably seen doesn't look very Starscream-y. Even a fan of originality like me thinks it's a bit too.

The robot has a couple of other flaws too. The wings look unsymmetrical, the figure when viewed from behind looks just plain ugly, the car doors end up as useless and obnoxious kibble that falls off easily, and his car mode antenna ends up on his inner leg which looks really bizarre.

That said, these figures are certainly not bad by any standards. I heartily recommend Skywarp, and Starscream is good if you can get over his non-traditional looks.






[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zbPVa-bnIw[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=681COq6TFyc[/youtube]



[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMPlqB4VI1c[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFqZMnG_xWc[/youtube]

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Mykltron wrote:Pretty good review Sir! You covered pretty much everything and it's funny to watch you retrieving bits from the floor!

My questions are:
-How stable is he and how firm are the joints? Prime falls over due to his heavy backpack and Megatron has weak ankles so how do these fare?
-Can you give us a pick of all four molds standing together for height comparison please?

Dead Metal wrote:Starscream has 4 eyes?
Yea Skywarp looks way better, but damn the mold looks like it's a lot of fun. The alt-mode is awesome and the transformation looks very interesting, still too pricey for me at the moment.

Great reviews Diem, very informative and detailed!

Diem wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:Starscream has 4 eyes?

It looks like four eyes in all the pictures but in person it looks more like two eyes with a horizontal slit, like Kermit the Frog. It's a really weird look. Hopefully I get time this weekend to translate his profile and/or fiction to see if it sheds any light on the matter.

ImperiaxPrime wrote:

Diem wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:Starscream has 4 eyes?

It looks like four eyes in all the pictures but in person it looks more like two eyes with a horizontal slit, like Kermit the Frog. It's a really weird look. Hopefully I get time this weekend to translate his profile and/or fiction to see if it sheds any light on the matter.

Looks like a design flaw and an oversight in painting. Judging by the pictures I've seen it looks like the top set of eyes should actually be the top eyelid and someone forget to tell the paint department to slap some white on there. Could this be the truth of it Diem?

Diem wrote:

Mykltron wrote:Pretty good review Sir! You covered pretty much everything and it's funny to watch you retrieving bits from the floor!

My questions are:
-How stable is he and how firm are the joints? Prime falls over due to his heavy backpack and Megatron has weak ankles so how do these fare?
-Can you give us a pick of all four molds standing together for height comparison please?

I think Convoy's problem was more down to weight distribution than poor joints, they seemed pretty tight to me.

That said, this mold has a pretty good center of gravity and fantastically articulated feet so you can get some good poses with no falling over issues.

As for your second point: [pic removed]