by D-Maximal_Primal » Tue Mar 05, 2024 7:54 am
- Motto: "There are no impossibilities in the multiverse, just small minds unable to comprehend the possibilities"
- Weapon: Armor Axe
I have pictures I will share later (work computer vs personal with image upload capabilities), but I have my own review to tag onto Scottys. And for the most part, we agree.
Starting with Kaen by himself, he is a wonderful little short and stumpy bot. his train mode is my favorite of the bunch (I prefer more industrial/worker type trains compared to the others), and I really like how his transformation works. I also adore his robot mode, I am good with the proportions, and the way he comes together is really nice. I do really like it, he is the best of the 6 trains by far.
To go with Scotty, with some time lapse, my opinions on the other 5 are as follows:
Shouki has a wonderful train mode and a robot mode with a nice presence. My only real complaint would be the fiddlyness of his robot mode shoulders with the kibble.
Getsuei is probably my 3rd favorite overall, with his leg panels and back piece really being the only complaints I would have. His colors are wonderful too, and his train mode is my 2nd favorite after Kaen.
Yukikaze is probably my least favorite of the set, I'm sort of annoyed at the leg proportions, and the kibble management gets annoying especially in combined mode. To me, he has the most problems between all 3 modes.
Suiken is my 2nd favorite robot overall, and 3rd favorite train. I love his colors, and they really did help him cut a very nice silhouette. His backpack connection is a little weak though, makes messing with him a bit of a pain, but otherwise he is pretty good.
Seizan is probably 4th best in both categories, he's solid though, same issues as Suiken with the backpack, but came with the cool sword, so he is a decently strong bot by himself.
So if I had to rank the 6 overall, I would rank them as follows:
1) Kaen
2) Suiken
3) Getsuei
4) Seizan
5) Shouki
6) Yukikaze
As for Raiden, the big thing, the big deal of the set:
He kinda really sucks.
It took a good bit of time to assemble him (as expected), but what I wasn't expecting was how fiddly it would be to actually form him up.
For one thing, like Scotty said, Yukikaze struggles to hold his part. Getsuei is much more solid, and makes a much more balanced leg, though the kibble is annoying. Part of this is the 2 trains are vastly different sizes, to be in scale, and that is part of the reason the trains taking priority (which don't get me wrong, I love) makes this as a combiner suffer, making it clear to me they should have thought through actually making this a combiner more, thought through the scaling commitment more, or maybe just made the individuals larger to help deal with the size differences.
Another thing that irks me is that Kaen forms a miniscule waist and hips, and 80%+ of Kaen is butt kibble. And no waist swivel either. Feels like they really could have used his lower legs to help make a better balanced set of legs for the combiner.
like Scotty said, Shouki is asked to do too much, and he just doesn't pull off much really good at all. I like the way the arms connect, clever, but it severely hinders the posing, and Shouki just isn't strong enough to hold it. Plus, attaching the arms was a super pain. And for some reason my Raiden head does not want to hold up front.
The arm bots are cool enough, but they can hardly pose, and the way the kibble is around the hands makes holding his weapons very difficult on top of the issues of the hands actually holding the weapons.
Overall, the combined mode looks good from maybe 2 feet or more away, but get in closer and look from an angle other than straight on, and the facade falls apart. He is heavily compromised, barely able to support his considerable weight, awkwardly proportioned in the legs, hard to get into a non-static pose, and sadly, just does not feel like a worthwhile ~$850 venture.
I am very torn on decombining him and displaying him as individuals, as I may not combine him again, but his Raiden form takes up much less space, but the individuals are far and away the better part of the set.
And it turned me off the other trains, as it is now very obvious that a waist extension is far from the thing he needs most, he needs a helluva lot more to be worth the capital.
I'm looking for parts,
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