Yeah, my front wheels are always caving in due to the weight of the car. It seems like a catastrophic design flaw on an otherwise perfect figure.

 

The front wheels. They always caved in on it's own weight. I pushed them back and more flush into the joint and they sit fine now.

 

Just got my Sphinx aka Mirage yesterday, and my MP Tracks and Wheeljack a few days before. And I must say, I'm more satisfied with the 3P Mirage compared to the 2 MP figures!

Pros:
- feels heavy/solid, due to diecast parts. Makes me feel like I'm getting what I paid for.
- wonderful articulation, with almost every possible articulation points you need in a TF figure
- good paint job; I did not find any problem with mine
- decently tight joints; not too tight, but isn't loose for that matter
- love the details done, especially for vehicle mode. I especially love the crispy words on the tyres
- scale makes it fit well with MP line, which is what I want.
- comes with nice accessories, like alternate faces and hologram race driver piece
- interesting transformation process, allowing the figure to look good in both vehicle and robot modes.

Cons:
- tyres are made of rubber, which I fear my disintegrate over time.
- tyres would require some adjustments once in a while, as they get pushed into the wheels sometimes when I transform him
- shoulder gun is attached in a way that prevents you from pointing it upwards
- instructions lack/miss out several steps, which may confuse you or even make you unintentionally damage your figure.
- back of the head can be difficult to remove. I was so afraid I would damage the connection parts of the head pieces


Before buying him, I was reading through this thread to take note of any potential QC issues, such as poor paint job and missing parts. Fortunately, mine is just fine except for that rather stubborn head piece! I really love this figure; it feels more satisfying than the recent MP Tracks (who is still quite awesome, if I do say so myself)! Also, if you want a video that shows how to transform him (as the instructions can be a bit unclear or miss out some stuff), you can try this video. It's in Japanese, and I too can't really understand it, but the video itself is informative enough!

 

Just got him tonight, wow he definitely has the official MP feel.

Everything is perfect on mine... the front wheels collapse, but might be too much grease in the diecast joints. Might get better with time?

"Sorry, Prime. The ship was... full."

 

Got mine today, and I'm of two minds (maybe more   ). Initial thoughts:

- on one hand, I don't think I had any *major* QC issues, so that's good.
- nice heft, materials don't seem cheap
- car mode appearance is stunningly good
- in car mode my front wheels have a significant amount of toe out (to use a racing term). Doesn't roll well at all. Has the universal front sag as well.
- none of the four tires wants to stay on, just sliding around on the rims in-and-out. If I keep him, I'll be using some clear RTV to hold them in place.
- transformation wasn't too bad, but getting the front wheels just-so to lock in and allow the chest to go all the way down was a pain. Also, I didn't know the little grey flaps on the side of the chest were hinged, and at first I was trying to lower the chest without flipping them out, and obviously it wasn't going. Instructions not all that clear.
- the red-trimmed half-circle upper chest piece not tabbing or locking in place is odd. It just kind of floats there.
- and like everyone else, the shoulders, especially the left one are very loose/droopy because they don't lock in. This is by far the biggest flaw in the figure design, IMO.

That's a lot of little gripes, but overall it's not a terrible figure. It's probably close to TT MPs from a design standpoint. I'm not saying TT always does it better, but I'm saying that if I got an official figure that made this many questionable design choices, I'd be a bit disappointed with it too.

Once I got it in hand, I finally figured out what bugs me so much about the head, and it's the complete lack of a chin. I don't need a big ugly pronounced gundam chin, but his bottom lip just tapers back and disappears towards where a neck *should* be. The soft features and very long flat nose only serve to make that lack of a chin more obvious. I'd pay handsomely *no pun intended* for an improved head/face.

He lacks the heroic proportions of many carbots due to his very narrow chest/shoulder width. He's the counter-point to Invisible's arguably overly-heroic proportions. Neither gets it *just* right IMO.

But, Sphinx looks good on the shelf and holds poses fairly well, like most others have said, not floppy, but not that tight either. From a strictly G1 toon aesthetic standpoint, Sphinx fits the bill far better than the competition. From a fit, finish, and fun standpoint, Invisible is a vastly superior product, IMO. I suspect I'll keep Sphinx in the beautiful car mode on the KO MP car shelf and Invisible on the robot mode battle scene shelf. Both need a new head badly.

Overall, nice first figure in MMC's MP line, but it is far enough off the mark that I'll have to think hard before I order another in this series.

*6/10*

 

Messed up lighting on these but what the heck.

Mirage2 by Shogen, on Flickr

Mirage3 by Shogen, on Flickr

Mirage4 by Shogen, on Flickr

Mirage5 by Shogen, on Flickr

 

I rocked the die cast sections up til they stopped and it holds the plastic portions attached to the wheels much better. The car sits much more level now too. And I love how effortlessly he rolls.

Mine don't move without actually pushing down on the car.

It was said the tires are silicone or something, not rubber.

 

Pretty much this  :

 

Went ahead and posted mine over in the BST forum. We'll see what happens
http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/items-sale-trade/1055828-mmc-ocular-max-sphinx-f-s.html

 

Some notes after fiddling with mine a bit:

-Vehicle mode is gorgeous. Anybody who argues against this has gotta be crazy
-The heft is still surprising to me; MMC seems to use a ton of diecast metal, although it's thoughtfully places, so I'm not worried about issues like paint chipping or joints wearing out
-The neck joint is abysmal. That assembly is so awkward, and I never feel like I get the neck fully extended forward so the ball joint (which is also a pain) sits at an angle
-The face sculpt is *just* a bit too mushy. Not bad, but it looks out of place amongst other bots with defined faces. Not sure why MMC saw fit to include an even mushier alternate sculpt
-Although I thought they wouldn't, the forearm panels not locking in anywhere really bugs the heck out of me, especially when they leave gaping holes in the forearm.

All that being said... not a bad figure. Fit and finish are excellent on my copy- so many paint apps and tight tolerances that could have gone wrong didn't. Those are my only complaints. That and the fact that he came with two pieces missing, which is a big deal. All in all, it feels like a high quality product- plastic is great, joints are tight, etc., but the QC and design just don't make me want to flock towards future MMC releases in the same way as a company like BadCube's work does.

I will, however, say my favorite part of the whole shebang- seeing all those community members' names on the inside flap of the box. Just something magical about that.

 

Absolutely great figure. I would prefer some Soar level joint tightness I need to future the hips a little. But that is very small price to pay. The altmode is fantastic, and the bot mode effortlessly poses. He just poses so naturally. Definitely my favorite carbot thus far. Can't wait for light blue as I expect the few frustrating QC issues will be resolved. If you compare how ungainly and difficult to pose MP Wheeljack is Sphinx is a miracle. I so wish MMC would give us a Wheeljack that could pose like this.

 

So anyone had any luck removing his face yet? Which facesculpt is toon accurate btw? Since he comes with 3 faces in total.

 

I don't have this in hand, but I don't get the gripes about all of the face sculpts. Sure, one or two may be bad, but the plain one looks precisely like the animation model, and also looks good to me.

Now, all the other problems have me worried. I guess I'll just cross my fingers and pray.

 

The operative word "looks" was used to convey what it looks like to me, not what IT IS.

But at this point, I'd say FansToys is a proven leader in 3P Transformers. I don't see any reason to assume that FansToys will fall flat with Willy.

 

So i finally took the head apart after prying at it with my finger nails for about half an hour. I'd recommend using a screwdriver to widen the holes in the back of his head so that it slides off a little easier when you guys manage to get his head off. From what I've experienced the back piece of his head was so much of a tight fit it felt like it was gonna snap if you just forced it out of there. Cheers.

 

For those like myself, design IS part of what makes a quality figure. MP-05 Megatron is a perfect example of a rushed design contributing to the disaster he turned out to be. It's an awful Masterpiece figure and always has been. Most of what makes it awful(cosmic rust aside) is due to a rushed and poorly thought out design.

I like Tracks but the shoulder/wing area is badly designed. As for having wheel issues, the front driver side wheel on my Tracks floats and because they are pinned directly into the plastic, there is no way to adjust that front wheel. Sphinx on the other hand, has adjustable front wheels so all four wheels on Sphinx touch the ground and roll, and they do so quite well.

We couldn't disagree more about Tracks engineering being "right on par" with his predecessors. I'd say we agree on one point though. The choice of using die cast was a "good design choice" because it makes the sliding mechanism on the arms much more sturdy than they would have been with plastic alone. Necessary? No, but definitely increases the durability of moving parts.

As for the back, I'd say that just because you can't see how the backpack could have been improved doesn't, mean there wasn't a way. Going back to MP-05, I remember many people claiming that there was no way to make Megatron's legs thicker because of his alt mode, yet here comes Apollyon, to shoot holes into that argument.

 

This figure.... Is a beautiful mess. QC issues galore. MMC lost a lot of goodwill with this one.

 

Been messing around with him this morning and he shines more in dynamic poses. I think in 'boring' attention style stance he looks a little wooden but if you spring him into action he explodes with character:



I had to take off his shoulder cannon. The way it attaches restricts head movement so it's gone till we get that new adaptor from Autotron.

 

Mirage (ahem, Sphinx!) with and without his droogs





​

 

Beautiful pictures!

I've found that if you click the shoulder cannon all the way down, it doesn't restrict head movement at all:







That said, I'm not sure I want to move his head much anyway. The piece holding the ball joint is ridiculously thin, especially given that you have to put pressure on it for the transformation, and the ball joint is tight and has friction:



It alarms me slightly, and I can't tell if this is already a stress mark or just a reflection because of the shiny grey plastic:



Either way, I'm wondering if we're giant to see a few headless Sphinxes in the weeks to come...