Sunday, February 20, 2011
Review: [Takara Tomy] Transformers United UN-05 Soundwave -Cybertron Mode-
| Figure Information | |
| Manufacturer: | Takara Tomy |
| Origin Series: | Transformers: War For Cybertron |
| Scale: | Non-Scale |
| Height: | Approximately 14cm tall (head tip) |
| Original Price: | 2,300Yen |
| Figure Blister Card: |
Well, blister card's pretty well designed with G1 Prime and Megs facing each other above the United logo. Basically, since it's a blister card, you can freely inspect it and choose the best piece out there as some proves to have some little smudges sometimes. In here, inside the blister, you see the character's name below and a preview of his vehicle mode. At the back is a nicely shopped image of Soundwave along with a list of his gimmicks and his stats, something you usually see in TF packages.
| Details: |
Details will go into two parts since, well, he has two modes. Now for the Robot mode first; pretty much he's detailed very well, enough for me to give this one a good rating already since well... Yeah, newer TFs are well detailed usually it's the paint scheme where it'll leave a good impression or not. And since this is United, or shall I say Takara ver. he's painted in metallic blue color, which sells for me, although not all of his blue parts are colored the same, some parts retains Hasbro's matte colors though most noticeable here aside from the metallic blue are the pink-ish colors, this was made to give it an impression that its actually glowing, thus the very light shade of purple or in a general sense, pink. Well, one thing I really don't like for the TFs in general are the usual choice of gripping hands or just open hands. But meh, transformation is always counted so that possibly limits it but still some other TFs does have a joint for the fingers so you can open it or just leave it in a grip manner. One really weird detail is that Soundwave supposedly has light-piping but since his visor's colored solidly, the light-pipe is pretty useless. :p
Now for the vehicle mode. Well, I won't be grading the transformation anymore since, well, they're not called Transformers if they can't transform now right? But still such exists but that's another story. Anyway, there's always the handy instruction manual to guide you in transforming to the Alt modes.
His vehicle mode is an SUV-type vehicle, well, cybetron design of course. XD Really nice and it's pretty small too, which is kinda cute but anyway, the overall appearance is nice and as you can expect, the details are quite great as well. Though, one thing that bothers me in this rend of the vehicle mode is the inconsistency of blue since his weapons are in matte finish, it looks kinda off when in vehicle mode.
Well, though not a cassette player in WfC, he still retains one thing common among almost every version of Soundwave... his opening chest; and quite nice since you can store his two weapons inside his chest. Both modes can open this part.
As seen in the vehicle mode shots, he has some sort of spikes that act as some sort of bumpers for his vehicle mode. The spikes can be flipped upwards to make it into some sort of weapon.
| Articulation: |
To sum it up Soundwave uses different types of joints that makes this version quite poseable in many ways. Joints are the following: swivel neck, ball-jointed shoulders, a hinge in the elbows and a swivel point right above it, swivel wrists, ball joints in the pelvic area and swivels just near it, hinge knees and lastly, ball-jointed ankles.
So, given those points, how does Soundwave fair in articulation? Pretty good, he can sit, he kneel and has an amazing balance that even allows him to do a kick pose and stand completely well in one leg. His weapon that's supposedly on his shoulders can, of course, be removed and be placed in his other gripping hand. You might've noticed that there isn't an accessories section here, pretty much as I'd want to, I'll skip it since his only two accessories are a part of his vehicle mode anyway and thus, would be the same for almost all TF reviews that'll go in this blog. Anyway, fun shots below.
| Final Thoughts: |
Well, deluxe class TFs are cheap and affordable, it all just comes down to deciding whether to go for Habsro's or Takara's. Usually the main difference being the paint scheme, Takara usually does provide more of a higher-end toy due but would, of course, be more expensive, but hey, it's just different in around 400-500 bucks here which would be around 1000 yen or 10$ more. But hey, Soundwave is a pretty nice catch, the versions doesn't really matter since it's more of a color preference but overall, he's quite a good catch definitely something I'll suggest to those who collect TFs.
| Rating (Out of 10) | |
| Details | 8 |
| Articulation | 10 |
| Price | 10 |
| Overall: | 9.3 |
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hmmm, seems pretty cool. I think I want an Arcee now, hehe
ReplyDelete