DSC_8363
With the new year of course comes a new line of Transformers. For 2020, these come in the forms of Earthrise and Bumblebee: Cyberverse Adventures. As I get older and hoard more stuff, I find my interest in the main line stuff is starting to wane, mostly because I expect more from my toys, even if I have to pay more. But, there's always a few figures here and there that tickle my fancy, and that is the subject of todays write up, the Transformers Earthrise: Cliffjumper figure, a Deluxe class release with an MSRP of $29.99 CAD.
Earthrise is a continuation of the "storyline" set out in Siege: War for Cybertron. The battle between the Autobots and Decepticons has reached Earth, and the various characters have adopted Earth based alt modes.. which is a nice of way of saying instead of loving homages to G1 modes, they're probably going to use the actual G1 modes. Now, normally this would be something that tickles my interest, but with the existence of the MP line, I feel that getting to attached to this line could cause trouble down the line should they release a character in that form. The good news, however, is that if I do decided to buy something, the ones I get at my local Walmart are the same as what would be sold in Japan, and probably cost much less too so... #winning.
Cliffjumper was one of the original G1 minibots, and was one I commonly referred to as "Red Bumblebee" as in both toy and show, the two shared many characteristics, and there may even have been some red Beetle toys to further confuse the issue. OG Cliffjumper makes his return to the Transformers lineup in the Earthrise lineup, complete with his alt mode of a red sports car. As stated, he is in fact a Deluxe sized toy, even if he is one tiny mother of a toy.. I mean, look at him next to Nat. Remember that Nat is only about 5.5 inches tall, which places Cliffjumper somewhere around 4 inches in robot mode.
As far as I can tell, there's no gimmick with this line like there was with Siege, though I suspect there will be a theme from a transformation perspective.
Cliffjumper comes with the figure and his weapon, a bazooka that can separate into multiple smaller weapons/parts for the vehicle mode. That was expected from the previews. What I DIDN'T expect was that Cliffjumper has a removable backpack that doubles as an "accessory", but look so stupid I didn't even bother to photograph it. Other than serving as a dumb looking weapons/armour, it also allows the design team to cheat in the design of these toys. I'm kind of mixed when it comes to how I feel about this. On the one hand, the final figure looks pretty good, so what do I care about how they achieve it, but on the other hand, it feels almost like a step backwards with regards to design ingenuity. Now, I don't know if the backpack thing is a feature across all the figures - I do think I read something about it in the the upcoming Arcee figure, and thus I suspect it may be a feature across the entire Deluxe size class, if not the sizes above.
The Deluxe class has always been a great combination of size (usually) and articulation, no matter what line you're looking at. Earthrise is no different, with Cliffjumper possessing ankles, knees, hips, waist, shoulders, bicep swivel, elbows, wrist swivel, and head on a ball joint. With all that at your disposal, you're gonna be able to get Cliffjumper into at least one or two decent poses, though posing with the combined bazooka may be a bit challenging due to the size of the weapon.
From a paint perspective, it's now the second year we've had these elevated prices, but at least it can be said that paint application quality is generally not bad. though the actual amount of paint on the figure is relatively limited. I think the only red parts that are painted are the canopy, and the only black parts painted are the stripes along the front and the rear of the vehicle mode. All the silver is painted, including the bazooka. Overall, there are some minor hiccups here and there, but the resulting product itself isn't bad at all. There are none of those "battle damage" paint apps on the figures that most people hated on Siege figures, which results in cleaner figures and less cost for Hasbro/Takaratomy. There's only one decal, the Autobot sigil on the vehicle hood, and the quality and application of this was acceptable.
Build quality is another area that the increased price point seems to have helped overall. The joints are nice and tight, holding poses as intended. The plastic itself.. again I don't have the technical terms for it.. feels like whatever they use for 3D printing, which is rigid enough to support finer detailing, but does not feel brittle at all. Along with a more ambitious transformation scheme, I've also found that the tolerances are better, with parts fitting together nicely with fewer gaps, as well as more actual tabs themselves for mounting parts and guiding transformations. Backpack cheat aside, the transformation itself is a decent challenge and does allow Cliffjumper to remain a tiny little thing even in vehicle mode without having bot mode part sticking out like a sore thumb.
In conclusion, it can be stated that as a Transformer collector, I've come to grasp with the reality of the new pricing scheme and it's nice to see at least that Hasbro/Takaratomy is making some effort to improve the product. Everything looking great, is very crisp and clean, and I can't even complain about the size because, well, Cliffjumper is tiny. While I guess they could have made a Legends scale figure out of him, from an articulation perspective I'm glad they didn't. I feel whether or not you feel this is a good Transformer or a letdown will all depend on how you feel about the backpack.
I don't have any plans to get anything between now and Arcee, but with random 20% off sales that show up from Toys R Us, there's a good chance I'd pick up something else from this Wave One as to verify my backpack theory.
Back to the grind!
DSC_8363
With the new year of course comes a new line of Transformers. For 2020, these come in the forms of Earthrise and Bumblebee: Cyberverse Adventures. As I get older and hoard more stuff, I find my interest in the main line stuff is starting to wane, mostly because I expect more from my toys, even if I have to pay more. But, there's always a few figures here and there that tickle my fancy, and that is the subject of todays write up, the Transformers Earthrise: Cliffjumper figure, a Deluxe class release with an MSRP of $29.99 CAD.
Earthrise is a continuation of the "storyline" set out in Siege: War for Cybertron. The battle between the Autobots and Decepticons has reached Earth, and the various characters have adopted Earth based alt modes.. which is a nice of way of saying instead of loving homages to G1 modes, they're probably going to use the actual G1 modes. Now, normally this would be something that tickles my interest, but with the existence of the MP line, I feel that getting to attached to this line could cause trouble down the line should they release a character in that form. The good news, however, is that if I do decided to buy something, the ones I get at my local Walmart are the same as what would be sold in Japan, and probably cost much less too so... #winning.
Cliffjumper was one of the original G1 minibots, and was one I commonly referred to as "Red Bumblebee" as in both toy and show, the two shared many characteristics, and there may even have been some red Beetle toys to further confuse the issue. OG Cliffjumper makes his return to the Transformers lineup in the Earthrise lineup, complete with his alt mode of a red sports car. As stated, he is in fact a Deluxe sized toy, even if he is one tiny mother of a toy.. I mean, look at him next to Nat. Remember that Nat is only about 5.5 inches tall, which places Cliffjumper somewhere around 4 inches in robot mode.
As far as I can tell, there's no gimmick with this line like there was with Siege, though I suspect there will be a theme from a transformation perspective.
Cliffjumper comes with the figure and his weapon, a bazooka that can separate into multiple smaller weapons/parts for the vehicle mode. That was expected from the previews. What I DIDN'T expect was that Cliffjumper has a removable backpack that doubles as an "accessory", but look so stupid I didn't even bother to photograph it. Other than serving as a dumb looking weapons/armour, it also allows the design team to cheat in the design of these toys. I'm kind of mixed when it comes to how I feel about this. On the one hand, the final figure looks pretty good, so what do I care about how they achieve it, but on the other hand, it feels almost like a step backwards with regards to design ingenuity. Now, I don't know if the backpack thing is a feature across all the figures - I do think I read something about it in the the upcoming Arcee figure, and thus I suspect it may be a feature across the entire Deluxe size class, if not the sizes above.
The Deluxe class has always been a great combination of size (usually) and articulation, no matter what line you're looking at. Earthrise is no different, with Cliffjumper possessing ankles, knees, hips, waist, shoulders, bicep swivel, elbows, wrist swivel, and head on a ball joint. With all that at your disposal, you're gonna be able to get Cliffjumper into at least one or two decent poses, though posing with the combined bazooka may be a bit challenging due to the size of the weapon.
From a paint perspective, it's now the second year we've had these elevated prices, but at least it can be said that paint application quality is generally not bad. though the actual amount of paint on the figure is relatively limited. I think the only red parts that are painted are the canopy, and the only black parts painted are the stripes along the front and the rear of the vehicle mode. All the silver is painted, including the bazooka. Overall, there are some minor hiccups here and there, but the resulting product itself isn't bad at all. There are none of those "battle damage" paint apps on the figures that most people hated on Siege figures, which results in cleaner figures and less cost for Hasbro/Takaratomy. There's only one decal, the Autobot sigil on the vehicle hood, and the quality and application of this was acceptable.
Build quality is another area that the increased price point seems to have helped overall. The joints are nice and tight, holding poses as intended. The plastic itself.. again I don't have the technical terms for it.. feels like whatever they use for 3D printing, which is rigid enough to support finer detailing, but does not feel brittle at all. Along with a more ambitious transformation scheme, I've also found that the tolerances are better, with parts fitting together nicely with fewer gaps, as well as more actual tabs themselves for mounting parts and guiding transformations. Backpack cheat aside, the transformation itself is a decent challenge and does allow Cliffjumper to remain a tiny little thing even in vehicle mode without having bot mode part sticking out like a sore thumb.
In conclusion, it can be stated that as a Transformer collector, I've come to grasp with the reality of the new pricing scheme and it's nice to see at least that Hasbro/Takaratomy is making some effort to improve the product. Everything looking great, is very crisp and clean, and I can't even complain about the size because, well, Cliffjumper is tiny. While I guess they could have made a Legends scale figure out of him, from an articulation perspective I'm glad they didn't. I feel whether or not you feel this is a good Transformer or a letdown will all depend on how you feel about the backpack.
I don't have any plans to get anything between now and Arcee, but with random 20% off sales that show up from Toys R Us, there's a good chance I'd pick up something else from this Wave One as to verify my backpack theory.
Back to the grind!