Saturday, August 10, 2013
Review: Sons of Cybertron Rodimus
| Figure Information | |
| Manufacturer: | Takara Tomy |
| Origin Series: | Transformers G1 |
| Scale: | Non-scale |
| Height: | Approximately 13cm tall |
| Original Price: | 5,000 yen |
| Packaging: |
The Sons of Cybertron box for the classics edition features a very simple yet effective design, the front features a head art of both Optimus and Rodimus as the set includes both of them. The said cover is an open-able window which lets you see the crystal versions of the sons of cybertron (lulz).
The sides of the box are merely the same and just contains the Transformers Sons of Cybertron label along with Takara Tomy's logo; the back on the other hand features a full head art as the cover only featured half of their faces, as well as silhouettes of the two figures with their weapons equipped.
Anyway, enough of the box art and let's get good ol' Rodimus out of his clamshell!
| Details - Vehicle Mode: |
Starting off with the vehicle mode; the crystal version work really well with the classics mold of Rodimus, cast in a dark red clear plastic, Rodimus' sports car mode looks like he's on fire; his signature flames retain and are in solid detail.
The smokestacks are painted in a pleasing silver along with the rims of the tires. And looking a the sides, you'll see more of the inner frames of the vehicle and it certainly looks fantastic!
The spoilers are cast in chrome gold, so, do be careful in handling the spoilers.
Practically almost every bit of detail haven't been left out especially the lights. Being the sports car he is, Rodimus features a thruster on the back of his vehicle mode.
You can attach an ignition effect on his vehicle mode as an option and also form a battle mode which I didn't bother taking a picture of as it looks ridiculous (but you can view it here).
| Details - Robot Mode: |
Going on the main dish, Rodimus features a really previous generation of TF figures that are quite blocky in a sense but believe me, it looks pretty nice. With the exception of the tires, some minor details, the chest and the feet, Rodimus is still cast in glorious clear dark red plastic and some clear orange ones for the upper part of his leg. The color combination of the opaque ones against the clear parts really do work well and they actually do make Rodimus looks awesome in many ways.
Rodimus also features a decent headsculpt, though not as how he looked like in the G1 Cartoon, the classics design really didn't fail to deliver for me.
Additionally, his left arm features a unique option to pop out a mini-saw that he can deploy for emergency dissections and whatnot.
Since I don't own any other versions of the mold, if he did have light pipe in the others (quite sure United Rodimus has one), well, it's doesn't really pop out that well here since he is made up of around 90% clear plastic, making his entire body glow instead which shows some really nice inner workings of his bot mode as well as making him look like he's in some sort of power up mode in a super robot series. XD
| Accessories: |
Not really an accessory but he does use his thrusters as his blaster in his bot mode, and the ignite parts can be fired like a missile. (Personally I prefer not to attach the ignite parts since it looks weird)
| Articulation Points: |
Now, this is where Rodimus falls, as his general articulation is pretty limited but I'll go into it bit by bit so let's start with the head. The head "should" rotate a full 360 but my piece seems to have a flaw in it such that rotation fully to the right or left pops Rodimus' head open (and there are stress marks all over the top of his head because of the pop outs. >:( )
His shoulders are on a ball joint and can freely spin forwards and backwards in a 360 degree manner, however, sideways are a different story as it only supports around a 45 degree raise. His elbows are hinged and can only bend until 90 degrees but it gets more coughed up when he wields his thruster blaster.
His hips are weird, it does have a swivel but the entire 1/3 of the crotch piece swings with it, it is pretty neat for articulation but it is weird at the same time; the biggest downer is that it can only support kicking forward as backward movement are hindered by his vehicle mode's windshield kibble. His thighs are double hinged but they both only wave sidewards and it's weird if you swing the upper hinge on one direction and then swing the lower towards the other; only useful for transformation purposes but he can fully split sideways.
His knee joints are hinged but due to the blocky design, he only bends a little near 90 degrees; the knee joints also have some swivels with them so that helps in making "dynamic" poses.
| Poseability: |
Given his articulation points, how does Rodimus actually fare in actual posing? Well, I must say he's not a complete brick, though dynamic poses can only be done if "mid-air" action poses and they're not that much dynamic either as his head can't look up or down nor can he swing his arms sideways towards his body.
Surprisingly, Rodimus' main winning points of articulation would be his legs as these are what gives him the better poses, and he can do a kick pose quite easily.
His mini-saw also allows you to give Rodimus some meelee poses like beating up a Vehicon. :p
Lastly, you can indeed pose him together with Optimus as he is the next in line of the Primes.
| Final Thoughts: |
I must say, I love the mold despite the lack of articulation and playing with this Crystal version really holds no regret in me getting this version, I love the crystal effect and hey, it would look even better with a crystal protector. (which is the main reason I got this) :D So, do I recommend the figure? Seeing as this mold IS one of the better small scale Rodimus figures out there, yeah, though you could opt for the United Rodimus Prime (the molds most recent retool). As from where I got it, got the 2-pack via collecticon from around 2 years back and had the set split with my sis since I don't like Tornado Prime. XD Anyway, do leave a comment if you want me to review Sons of Cybertron Optimus as well.
I give the hot rod a blazing 3 out of 5
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