Emerje wrote:My tiny Speed Series Optimus Prime came in the mail today from HTS in a box big enough to fit a Voyager with lots of room to spare. It isn't very good. I wasn't expecting knees, but I was expecting ball jointed shoulders since there's more than enough room for them and they've been a staple in figures this size for many years now, even Titan/Prime Masters have them. But no, his shoulders are just a simple swivel. He does have ball jointed elbows, but they don't offer much range. He also has ball jointed hips, but without knees they aren't really useful for articulation, just for the transformation. Bafflingly he does have an ab joint that doesn't serve any real purpose. It's used to give him a slight bend for his transformation to give clearance for his hips, but that could have been easily fixed by shaving down some of his sculpted details. The cost of the extra plastic and metal pin could have gone to knee joints or more paint. Interestingly all of his wheels are held on with big metal rivets rather than pegged on like has been popular lately. And he has six wheels even though it's pretty common for a figure this small to have a pair of fake wheels and I honestly wouldn't have minded. The whole figure just screams of miss-managed resources.
Emerje
I had the exact same experience - bought all 4 Speed Series guys and Optimus was the worst of the group (I'd call Barricase the best, personally). If they'd just given him ball shoulders and swivel elbows instead of the other way around he'd be significantly better.
Just put in an Amazon order for MP VW Bee too. I already have an order with HLJ but I usually get backup preorders for things I really want from somewhere easy to cancel (Amazon, BBTS) in case something goes wrong with another order. Especially AmiAmi stuff, I just got in an order for Figuarts Super Buu the other day and accidentally ordered 3 because the pages were loading slowly and for some reason the "change quantity" button had disappeared. It's terrifying asking them to cancel anything because they're so prone to closing accounts for it.