DSC_8054
Alright.. now that responsible parenting is done and I took a nap, I'm refreshed and ready to unleash some hell.
Returning to Variant Harley Quinn, the next step is to discuss her transformation. To me, her main selling feature was her power suit form, which made Harley look like a cross between Animated Harley and freaking Deathstroke. According to the mythos, her power suit parts form her mallet, which I figured, for a $224 USD price tag, meant that the suit parts would actually form a set of armour like the way Andromeda Shun and his God Cloth worked out, something that cost far less (though understandably smaller too).
Nope... it's just a bunch of parts swapping. You remove all the parts from Harley and you swap on the parts from the mallet. Kind of lazy, IMO, especially at this price point. You can also, should you choose to, swap out the front of her skirt for a red and black themed piece, and the exchange is easy enough to accomplish. Figuring out which limb goes on which side may require a quick lookup of stock photos, as it did with me - there's no writing on the instruction to help, and it doesn't make matters better when colour is the main difference on a figure's parts but your instructions are in black and white.
As it utilizes the same torso, the combined form doesn't lose any articulation - in fact it technically gains same as she now has double jointed knees.
Now that we've gotten all the nice stuff out of the way, lets talk about why I want to strangle Square Enix, and it all boils down to tolerances and QC on the whole.
One of the gimmicks of the set is that you're supposed to be able to combine the rack for the various limbs, along with some other random parts that don't serve any other purpose to make a syringe themed gun platform. While neat, for $224 USD I'd have though the feature would be implemented a little better, instead of more parts forming. THEN, tolerances are so bad that I can't even get the parts to fit together without significant paint rubbing issues (or in my case, I can't get them to fit together at all).
Even when pieces do fit together, like the mallet head and the shaft, the connecting parts are painted and really should have been left as a plain unpainted plastic because again, paint rubbing. Not to mention the weight of the mallet head has me concerned about whether or not the roughly one inch of connection length is enough to ensure there is no snapping of the handle at that point.
Take a look at the photo of the top of the head - for whatever reason the two ears are not in the same position on opposite sides of the head. Overall it looks like either the black ear is 1/8" too close to the front of the face, or the red one is 1/8" too far back. That's 1/8" of an inch... not a millimeter or two, and makes the ears look lopsided. The diamond on the top of head is also lopsided.
For all the acceptable paint work that is on the base figure, the armoured pieces have some pretty crude finishes on them by comparison. If you look at the armless photo, you'll see some very rough finishes with regards to the plastic of the collar, which in turn of course affects the quality of the paint. The paint on her garter (which technically is on the base figure but I figure talk about all of it here) and the who region in general, look terrible. I realize that most people aren't going to check under the hood, but again.. $224 USD!!!! Have some pride, and make something that doesn't look like a freaking knock off.
As there is more paint on the armoured parts as compared to the base figure, there are understandably more paint errors with regards to masking, and to be honest the sheer number of them doesn't make my stomach upset. But, the quality of the actual paint apps again pale in comparison to both their smaller and larger counterparts. There is a very muddy finish on these supposedly metal parts in all the colours. Part of it I'm pretty sure is due to the less than perfect finish on the plastic itself, which probably features softer plastics as compared to their competition, but the other part of it I'm sure has to do with the paint and the application of the paint itself.
Again, it's $224 USD, which is still within typical Hot Toys figure range, especially if we don't take into account the Sideshow tax. Most plastic Iron Man figures look better than this - sure most don't have extra limbs, but they certainly have more actual parts and more importantly, more parts to paint. The finish on the armour is reminiscent of the Kotobukiya Mark IV I have, and before that, the Kotobukiya 1/6 scale Witchblade figures.
This combination of soft detailing on the plastic and at best average finish on what is supposed to be shiny metal parts is a disappointment to say the least.
One more thing to mention, though it is relatively minor, is that softer plastics should have been utilized for the hands as getting the Uzi is in somewhat of a challenge. Of course, in order to allow for the consistent metallic finish on the backs of the hands, these would have had to been two plastic types glued together.
So is the figure perfect? Nope.. never expected it to be, but from an engineering perspective as well as an overall quality perspective, it is a disappointment IMHO. Square Enix could have done so much better - it's not like I had to work hard to find these issues.
if the rumours are true about Play Arts being done, then factors like the ones listed above probably lead to falling sales - I mean, who wants to pay $100 - $150 USD for a "better than typical" figure? At that price range, you're gonna have some expectations. Their Bring Arts are cheaper ($70 USD or so a piece) but are also only 1/12, so at that size they're competing with a large number of manufacturers. Based on what I've seen, Square Enix will be alright in that if price stays relatively stable then the proprietary IPs alone will sustain the toy line, but from what I've seen thus far the actual toys aren't winning any beauty pageants.
That about wraps this one up... until next time.
DSC_8054
Alright.. now that responsible parenting is done and I took a nap, I'm refreshed and ready to unleash some hell.
Returning to Variant Harley Quinn, the next step is to discuss her transformation. To me, her main selling feature was her power suit form, which made Harley look like a cross between Animated Harley and freaking Deathstroke. According to the mythos, her power suit parts form her mallet, which I figured, for a $224 USD price tag, meant that the suit parts would actually form a set of armour like the way Andromeda Shun and his God Cloth worked out, something that cost far less (though understandably smaller too).
Nope... it's just a bunch of parts swapping. You remove all the parts from Harley and you swap on the parts from the mallet. Kind of lazy, IMO, especially at this price point. You can also, should you choose to, swap out the front of her skirt for a red and black themed piece, and the exchange is easy enough to accomplish. Figuring out which limb goes on which side may require a quick lookup of stock photos, as it did with me - there's no writing on the instruction to help, and it doesn't make matters better when colour is the main difference on a figure's parts but your instructions are in black and white.
As it utilizes the same torso, the combined form doesn't lose any articulation - in fact it technically gains same as she now has double jointed knees.
Now that we've gotten all the nice stuff out of the way, lets talk about why I want to strangle Square Enix, and it all boils down to tolerances and QC on the whole.
One of the gimmicks of the set is that you're supposed to be able to combine the rack for the various limbs, along with some other random parts that don't serve any other purpose to make a syringe themed gun platform. While neat, for $224 USD I'd have though the feature would be implemented a little better, instead of more parts forming. THEN, tolerances are so bad that I can't even get the parts to fit together without significant paint rubbing issues (or in my case, I can't get them to fit together at all).
Even when pieces do fit together, like the mallet head and the shaft, the connecting parts are painted and really should have been left as a plain unpainted plastic because again, paint rubbing. Not to mention the weight of the mallet head has me concerned about whether or not the roughly one inch of connection length is enough to ensure there is no snapping of the handle at that point.
Take a look at the photo of the top of the head - for whatever reason the two ears are not in the same position on opposite sides of the head. Overall it looks like either the black ear is 1/8" too close to the front of the face, or the red one is 1/8" too far back. That's 1/8" of an inch... not a millimeter or two, and makes the ears look lopsided. The diamond on the top of head is also lopsided.
For all the acceptable paint work that is on the base figure, the armoured pieces have some pretty crude finishes on them by comparison. If you look at the armless photo, you'll see some very rough finishes with regards to the plastic of the collar, which in turn of course affects the quality of the paint. The paint on her garter (which technically is on the base figure but I figure talk about all of it here) and the who region in general, look terrible. I realize that most people aren't going to check under the hood, but again.. $224 USD!!!! Have some pride, and make something that doesn't look like a freaking knock off.
As there is more paint on the armoured parts as compared to the base figure, there are understandably more paint errors with regards to masking, and to be honest the sheer number of them doesn't make my stomach upset. But, the quality of the actual paint apps again pale in comparison to both their smaller and larger counterparts. There is a very muddy finish on these supposedly metal parts in all the colours. Part of it I'm pretty sure is due to the less than perfect finish on the plastic itself, which probably features softer plastics as compared to their competition, but the other part of it I'm sure has to do with the paint and the application of the paint itself.
Again, it's $224 USD, which is still within typical Hot Toys figure range, especially if we don't take into account the Sideshow tax. Most plastic Iron Man figures look better than this - sure most don't have extra limbs, but they certainly have more actual parts and more importantly, more parts to paint. The finish on the armour is reminiscent of the Kotobukiya Mark IV I have, and before that, the Kotobukiya 1/6 scale Witchblade figures.
This combination of soft detailing on the plastic and at best average finish on what is supposed to be shiny metal parts is a disappointment to say the least.
One more thing to mention, though it is relatively minor, is that softer plastics should have been utilized for the hands as getting the Uzi is in somewhat of a challenge. Of course, in order to allow for the consistent metallic finish on the backs of the hands, these would have had to been two plastic types glued together.
So is the figure perfect? Nope.. never expected it to be, but from an engineering perspective as well as an overall quality perspective, it is a disappointment IMHO. Square Enix could have done so much better - it's not like I had to work hard to find these issues.
if the rumours are true about Play Arts being done, then factors like the ones listed above probably lead to falling sales - I mean, who wants to pay $100 - $150 USD for a "better than typical" figure? At that price range, you're gonna have some expectations. Their Bring Arts are cheaper ($70 USD or so a piece) but are also only 1/12, so at that size they're competing with a large number of manufacturers. Based on what I've seen, Square Enix will be alright in that if price stays relatively stable then the proprietary IPs alone will sustain the toy line, but from what I've seen thus far the actual toys aren't winning any beauty pageants.
That about wraps this one up... until next time.