Dollar store engineering = dollar store pricing


I'll be very honest I wanted him but after much research, I found out about the former.

 

Personally, I would wait it out. I had Apollyon. It's a fine figure, but I think someone (hopefully TT) is going to make an MP Megs that is cartoon accurate and a quality bot.

I love to transform my MPs. It's not the Apollyon was a chore to transform. It wasn't. It's just that nothing seemed to fit together solidly in either mode. The hips popped apart all the time (no matter how much future I used), the shoulders were too loose (or too tight if you put on the replacements), and the handle of the P38 was never flush.

Add these quality/engineering issues to the super-wide crotch and the clunky lower legs and you have a bot that's just OK. The upper torso and face hit it out of the park (although mine had a blemish on its chin), but the rest of the bot left a lot to be desired.

Despatron seems to fit with MP-10 pretty well as it's a stockier version of Megs. However, it lacks the even greater cartoon focus the line seems to be going as of late. I'm sure the engineering and quality will be on-point though. MT seems to have that part down from what I've read.

 

40 pages? Amazing. That's a masterpiece of a thread.

Anyway shouldn't this is be in the "adult" part of the forum? you 'd get better help purchasing it rather than making a logical choice.

 

That's something I forgot to mention on mine as well. The ankle looseness. It's a pin joint, so I have no idea how to tighten it. I've used nail polish on the joint, but to no avail. He will stand, but it takes a bit of fiddling to get him to stand right.

EDIT: After getting serious with the ankle joints, and nail polishing the heck out of it, I got it tight, so he stands great now.

 

The only real issue I have is that his arm joint isn't quite tight enough to hold his cannon up at some angles... but as long as you live in the realm of reality, you will be ok with adding a little floor polish to the ball joint. The other minor issue I have with him is that the gun barrel on his back is die cast, so it can flop over when you're moving him around.

Mine is the v2, and I haven't had any other problems with him.

This is about as good as his cannon pointing gets with mine (not having applied any nail polish or future to the joint)


and here he is conducting experiments on poor Bumblebee

 

love that fridge and that seeker head on ice.

 

To the OP, I would recommend buying a second-hand one if you can confirm from the seller that it doesn't have any of the major issues folks here report. I'm not sure how difficult that would be to do though.

I actually have 2 V2s, one to fiddle around with and one for display only, which I do with only my favorite figures (MP-10 and MP-13 being the others). I've found that I had to tinker some with him to tighten everything up, but once I did that I absolutely love the figure.

BTW, I had a V1 at one point that was a total mess, with dimples on the chest and head and all kinds of issues fitting together.

 

hehe thanks! Starscream had that coming for a long time  

 

i love mine but in all honesty i would wait , takara will do him one day

 

This is the kind of asinine and uninformative post you should avoid reading when making a decision. Full of bias and ignorance that passes opinion as fact...

Wheelwave...If you want an Apollyon, research, be sure it's a V2 or the second production run of him. Pics are around to provide info about which version is which.

Mine is a V2, he has 3 issues, one is a common issue with hips not staying tabbed in. The shoulders are not loose on mine, actually it was addressed in the V2 predominantly. I have transformed mine over 10 times, you do need care in doing so, no heavy handedness, it is absolutely not kid friendly in that regard, but care in doing so, there will be no problems.

I have not replaced the shoulder sockets on mine and even after 10 plus transformations and reposes he still holds Laserbeak and his Cannon up perfectly.

The leg panels that make up the gun handle don't tab well in alt mode even on the V2.

Despotron may be a better quality and easier to transform, but is it the one you want to look at on your shelf, or is Apollyon? The amount of bad unfortunately does outweigh the good copies of Apollyon...but the V2 did fix some of the issues.

In the end, research, decide what you want to do with the figure, does it fit the aesthetic you want...

I have Apollyon, love mine, again no major flaws...but I'd take a Takara 2.0 in a heartbeat, I bought Apollyon because he looked awesome and I needed a MP Megatron, but Takara will get top billing once or if he comes, if not...Apollyin will be my Megatron...if thats any help at all.

 

apollyon is a great toy if you get one without qc issues. don't hamhands it and know you're getting an adult transformer. don't go in expecting a retail toy or something easy to transform.

 

no one in their right mind would Ham hand anything that pricey. not sure why people blame the handler almost immediately without knowing the person.

from Apollyon, to that 3P sky fire etc have shoddy engineering.

 

You don't really think 9 times out of 10 that if an someone breaks a toy themselves...they're actually going to admit it? Just saying, a thought if you will...

There's a huge difference in engineering and quality, the engineering on Apollyon is sound, because it does work. The quality is the issue because of materials and even the chosen factory... XTB or 539 designs is sound in design and engineering, KFC is shit in their manufacturing facility choices and choice of materials...apparently the same thing that plagues Spin Out, because I read KFC had a hand in manufacturing.

It's still a fugly ass figure IMO, but had Omni chose a different company to back him...SO may have been a quality figure, even if the engineering and design left much to be desired for some.

 

not if you're part of this bunch. we're not normal people. we notice the smallest of defects, slightest sloppy paint app, to the smallest of details.

I have more faith in any of you than these companies.

it could also be both. shoddy factory hired by some family owned business? how likely will both be at that point. low quality material paired up with design flaws without any engineering skills.

designing and engineering are two things you have to balance in this game.

most of things I found so far were engineering flaws. from the shape of the gear teeth, length and thickness of the waist peg, etc. that's all part of the engineer's job to calculate for the materials planned to be used not the designer.

 

If you are looking for an MP Megatron that transforms into a gun, then, at the moment, Appollyon is probably the best choice.

Best among crummy choices, though. And, I'm not saying the figure is bad, but, as mentioned, it is fraught with quality control issues. Some end up great, a lot end up not-so-great.

For the investment into a toy of this price, you might want to wait. There will be more Megatrons produced, likely by both official and unofficial means. They will likely improve.

In the mean time, if you don't want to wait, and you don't mind the tank alt-mode, the Combiner Wars Megatron is a pretty great toy, and with the proper add-on kit, he'll stand very well against MP Optimus Prime.

 

He's not bad, but due to the nature of him trying to look like the cartoon and transform into a gun, I hate the torso transformation. That's looking at MP5 as well. I hate that figure so much.

Appearance wise sans the thigh gap, I love the way Appollyon looks. I'll consider MT version closer to release date though.

 

The KFC doing Spin Out is a rumor and KFC and XTB are distinctly connected (I THINK they use the same factories). Apollyon isn't nearly the mess Spin Out is and the more recent Andras did quite well QCwise. KFC's Doubledeck and non metallic Transistor were generally ok; there's some looseness in my Doubledeck and things here and there on people's figures but the figures have generally held together as opposed to pieces falling out and virtually every joint being incapable of holding. More relevantly SG Transistor was apparently much better than anything previously and that's closer to around Spinout's time. So with I don't know what the story with Spinout is but I don't think it's KFC's factories.

 

MakeToys version takes some extra liberties with the design, but it does look very good. The question is the gun mode and how does he handle? How complex is the transformation?

X-Transbots Megatron is simply stunning. There is no denying he just looks perfect next to Optimus in robot mode. The builds are similar and they look like two warriors destined to battle to a draw forever. However, he does have his flaws:

-Gun mode is not realistic but actually doesn't look that bad in person. With the extensions you won't even notice how fat he is or how small the scope is.

-The fits are poor. In other words, pieces meant to hook or clamp together and joints are all over the place - some too tight, some too lose, some just right. Although his transformation isn't overly complex, the problems with the fits makes it a pain and prone to some breakages. It also can lead to articulation or stability issues.

I would say mine is 80%. It's workable, I still like him and will keep him, but I was not happy for the price. They have to do better going forward (and they have with Scourge at least).

 

Yeah, I knew XTB stepped it up with Scourge with not reading about so many problems, hopefully they get it right and maybe revisit Apollyon if an official hasn't come by then. And where ever Spin Out was manufactured...I'd never use them again.

 

Wait for the official release. My opinion.