DSC_3322
Today, we look at the survivor of Amazon shipping disaster, Transformers Earthrise: Snapdragon.
Snapdragon is the second of two Horrorcons to be reimagined by Hasbro/Takara for the modern age of Transformers., with the other being Apeface who was released as part of the Siege lineup in Fall 2019. While the personality of the pair different depending on the continuity, this much remains constant - this pair of Decepticons are Headmaster Triplechangers, with questionable animal modes.
Like with Apeface, this iteration of the character brings that G1 nostalgia along with improvements to the actual engineering behind the toy, and updated Technobabble. Instead of a Headmaster, the little figure is called a Titan Master, but is still named Krunk after the G1 character. The overall shape of the figure, colours, alt modes, face, and so on are instantaneous recognizable to us Old Timers
I keep forgetting to mention this, but in addition to the figure and weapons, each box has a "decoder strip" which is a throwback to the G1 toy days, where you'd put a red piece of plastic up against the Tech Specs on the back of the box to get the characters vital stats. These days, it's used to decode some message that I believe unlocks stuff on a website.
As far as I can tell, Snapdragon is the first use of this particular mould, which is always nice. Two of the biggest issues I had with Apeface appear to be resolved here. The first being that Apeface had no waist, which is absolutely insane for a Voyager sized figure in this day and age. The other problem was that for some reason the plastic quality was inferior to the rest of the Siege line, which is not the case anymore. Plastics feel stiffer and aren't a pearl finish, which overall seems to allow for better tolerances, as well as the detailing on the figure to actually show up.
There is technically a third point, but that's with the Battle Damage paint apps. Some people like them. Some people don't. I'm impartial.
Articulation and range of motion on Snapdragon are pretty much what you'd expect (ankles, knees, thigh twist, hip, waist, shoulders, forearm pivot, and head - there is no useful wrist articulation). So, again you'll get your run of the mill action poses, but with a toy that do something other than stand around and look pretty).
Paint work is... alright. Smaller figure and lower price point means fewer apps as compared to Doubledealer whom I looked at last. It's serviceable, and honestly with no real official art work or Takara version to tell me otherwise, I can only presume that this is the artistic vision of the figure come to life.
When it comes to a Transformer, build quality is always the biggest thing as poor QC can result in a warped looking figure or misaligned limbs, and in the past this has always been an issue when talking about Hasbro vs Takara. Well, if this unified product thing has done one thing right, it's that I find despite having more complicated transformations and more moving parts, I find that the figures hold together much better than before, and the joints/finishes on the piece generally aren't bad either.
Transformation to Jet mode and then Dragon mode are fairly intuitive, especially compared to Apeface. At the end of the day, while I like stupidly complicated transformations, if a simple one can get the job done, so be it. On the whole, it's pretty typical for a Voyager size figure. After all they can't all be as intricate as Springer.
That about does it for Snapdragon. I was worried he would disappoint me as much as Apeface did, but I'm glad that money was put towards addressing the biggest issues that I had with that release. An easy recommend if you're into Headmasters and if, like me, you never got around to playing with one in the 80s.
At this time, I still have the two Arcee's on preorder (which are way late), and still no ability to preorder Sky Lynx and Scorponok. It's been a very strange year to say the least, but I would have thought I would have had the ability to at least preorder things.
Oh well... things will happen when the time is right. Besides, I've got a bunch of other things to tinker with in the meantime.
DSC_3322
Today, we look at the survivor of Amazon shipping disaster, Transformers Earthrise: Snapdragon.
Snapdragon is the second of two Horrorcons to be reimagined by Hasbro/Takara for the modern age of Transformers., with the other being Apeface who was released as part of the Siege lineup in Fall 2019. While the personality of the pair different depending on the continuity, this much remains constant - this pair of Decepticons are Headmaster Triplechangers, with questionable animal modes.
Like with Apeface, this iteration of the character brings that G1 nostalgia along with improvements to the actual engineering behind the toy, and updated Technobabble. Instead of a Headmaster, the little figure is called a Titan Master, but is still named Krunk after the G1 character. The overall shape of the figure, colours, alt modes, face, and so on are instantaneous recognizable to us Old Timers
I keep forgetting to mention this, but in addition to the figure and weapons, each box has a "decoder strip" which is a throwback to the G1 toy days, where you'd put a red piece of plastic up against the Tech Specs on the back of the box to get the characters vital stats. These days, it's used to decode some message that I believe unlocks stuff on a website.
As far as I can tell, Snapdragon is the first use of this particular mould, which is always nice. Two of the biggest issues I had with Apeface appear to be resolved here. The first being that Apeface had no waist, which is absolutely insane for a Voyager sized figure in this day and age. The other problem was that for some reason the plastic quality was inferior to the rest of the Siege line, which is not the case anymore. Plastics feel stiffer and aren't a pearl finish, which overall seems to allow for better tolerances, as well as the detailing on the figure to actually show up.
There is technically a third point, but that's with the Battle Damage paint apps. Some people like them. Some people don't. I'm impartial.
Articulation and range of motion on Snapdragon are pretty much what you'd expect (ankles, knees, thigh twist, hip, waist, shoulders, forearm pivot, and head - there is no useful wrist articulation). So, again you'll get your run of the mill action poses, but with a toy that do something other than stand around and look pretty).
Paint work is... alright. Smaller figure and lower price point means fewer apps as compared to Doubledealer whom I looked at last. It's serviceable, and honestly with no real official art work or Takara version to tell me otherwise, I can only presume that this is the artistic vision of the figure come to life.
When it comes to a Transformer, build quality is always the biggest thing as poor QC can result in a warped looking figure or misaligned limbs, and in the past this has always been an issue when talking about Hasbro vs Takara. Well, if this unified product thing has done one thing right, it's that I find despite having more complicated transformations and more moving parts, I find that the figures hold together much better than before, and the joints/finishes on the piece generally aren't bad either.
Transformation to Jet mode and then Dragon mode are fairly intuitive, especially compared to Apeface. At the end of the day, while I like stupidly complicated transformations, if a simple one can get the job done, so be it. On the whole, it's pretty typical for a Voyager size figure. After all they can't all be as intricate as Springer.
That about does it for Snapdragon. I was worried he would disappoint me as much as Apeface did, but I'm glad that money was put towards addressing the biggest issues that I had with that release. An easy recommend if you're into Headmasters and if, like me, you never got around to playing with one in the 80s.
At this time, I still have the two Arcee's on preorder (which are way late), and still no ability to preorder Sky Lynx and Scorponok. It's been a very strange year to say the least, but I would have thought I would have had the ability to at least preorder things.
Oh well... things will happen when the time is right. Besides, I've got a bunch of other things to tinker with in the meantime.