You know, I gotta agree. After handling him for a few days he really does have a premium feel to him. I mean I like Hoist quite a bit but he feels like a standard issue tf. This feels...more.

 

Molding most parts in black and painting over with red worked since the underlying plastic shows through a bit and makes the red look appealing in my eyes.

 

I was just fiddling with MP Bumblebee again (the first one) and I’m struggling to find a huge difference between him, a Masterpiece, and Cliffjumper, a mainline deluxe. In some ways Cliffjumper feels like the better product, just more solid and smooth to transform. I won’t defend his parts forming but I will say it doesn’t bother me. It’s actually kinda nice to have the option to remove his backpack.

Whether you like him or not it’s definitely an interesting release and shows that Hasbro is still capable of surprising us.

 

After messing with him for a bit I have to say... he is amazing. Get over the size and he is an awesome transformer. almost perfect in every way. I see the need for the partsforming. I thought it would distract but, it doesn't . Cliffy just feels like a premium transformer. Best of the wave for me.

 

So I've just noticed that the black part of Cliffjumpers cannon has a little tab and cutout section which make it clip perfectly into the mushroom peg slots on either the hip or the shoulder. Not sure if this is intentional or what its supposed to be used for if it is? I saw someone mention the shield can peg into the black part as well so I wonder if that has anything to do with it?

 

Finally got this little trigger-happy bot yesterday. As I suspected, the partsforming is a non issue. Overall I really like this CJ. Best CHUG Cliffy by far. The accessories are interesting, I'm gonna be fiddling with those for a while. The figure itself is great, tons of articulation, fun transformation, sweet alt mode. I think my only complaint is the lack of Autobot symbol on his chest (but of course that's easily solved). Here's hoping we get Bee, Gears, Huffer, etc in this style.



My best approximation of the box art pose:

 

All the paint really does give a premium-feel to this guy. Unfortunately, the large blatant partsforming is always gonna bug me and keep this from being a perfect CJ. Pretty close though.

 

Just opened mine today has a reward for completing my self-quarantine after being exposed to Covid-19.

He's fine. The size bothers me less than I expected it to (tho he still feels over-priced), and the parts-forming bugs me as much as i figured it would (for it it spoils the hand candy when I have to put down and pick up bits). The paint is nice, and the accessories pretty cool. Great head sculpt. Getting him into car mode is surprisingly tough tho; a lot of those pegs and tabs do NOT want to go in.

Classics Cliffjumper Comparison:



I forgot how incredibly clever the Prime/GDO Cliffjumper's transformation and engineering is. And I forgot how much of a nightmare it is getting War for Cybertron Cliffjumper back into car/egg mode.

 

Kinda honestly hate how useless some of his acessories are. Like, the skis and the wierd Rocket-Launcher Back piece? If you want to have him holding his bazooka halves like pistols there's nowhere to put them.

And to have the full launcher on top of his car mode you have to have the skis sticking up and it looks stupid.

He's got too many fiddly accessories without any actual function on their own so you just have to set them down to the side. Seems to go against the versatility we've seen in nearly every figure in WFC.

 

the skis can be put in the side of the guns like clips when using them as separate guns.

 

Alrighty, I always wait a week or so to do a text review of my figures, and here's another. I do this for fun and also in the hopes that it will help people make a decision on whether or not they want a figure in their life, so hopefully at least someone gets something out of this other than me. If not, oh well, I enjoyed typing it up.

Ramblings:
Let's get this out of the way: he's small. A lot of forumers have complained about this fact, but the thing is: he's supposed to be small. Cliffjumper is a small basic class figure at a deluxe class price point, but this figure more than takes advantage of its budget. Much like Leader Class Shockwave and Astrotrain, Cliffjumper is concentrated goodness--a smaller figure at a bigger price point that's more intricate and less hollow than what we've come to expect from their size class. This figure has it all: insane articulation (ab-crunch!), a giant missile launcher, paint from head to toe and a typically superb WFC headsculpt. As far as complaints go; the tabs used to lock his arms into place in car mode have a bit of paint chipping going on and his ab crunch is a tad loose. Cliffjumper is the second best deluxe I've gotten from the War for Cybertron Trilogy (next to Spinister, of course), even at a smaller size he's more than worth your money. Oh, and he partsforms, but who cares?

The Good: Articulation, accessories, paint, sculpt
Nitpicks: Slightly loose ab-crunch
The Bad: Paint Chipping
Mode Ranking: 1. Bot 2. Car 3. Ski-car mode
Transformation Difficulty: 6/10. A wee bit tricky.
Grade: I grade my figure out of 100, and take points off for things I don't like.
-5 for Paint chipping -1 for loose ab-crunch
94/100

 

Have peace of mind when attaching the skis in pistol mode. A bunch of different guns feature side loading magazines, such as the Sten and Sterling SMGs. So the skis can be used like that...side loading magazines.

 

Also the inward sides of the feet, only sticks out a mm or so at the bottom but surprisingly doesn't get in the way of the ankle tilt.

 

I finally bought him yesterday. I had seen him once before, but the size put me
off. I got over it pretty quick after handling him. Also, turns out the parts-forming doesn’t bother me at all. Sure, would’ve been nice if you were given the choice, but it’s okay. You do get a choice with his weapon/weapons. My copy has no tolerance issues. Every joint is tight enough. It’s my first Earthrise figure. Hopefully, I’ll have the chance to buy more.

 

Posted this on the ER Apprañeciation thread too,

A word of caution:


My Cliffjumper was losing paint in the shoulders, where they tab to make the back wheels and I decided to coat them with clear nail polish, as I have done before to prevent it from peeling anymore. The polish disolved the paint slightly, but luckily I could coat it kinda evenly so that it doesn't look worse than it already was.

If anyone is interested I'll update tomorrow when its dry to report on how it turned out.

 

I thought people stopped using clear nail polish decades ago. you need to get on the Future wagon. Nail polish is usually enamel. that will melt other paints and even sometimes plastics. Use future. Plus clear nail polish always crasks away down the road. My earliest fix attempts with nail polish still have that NASTY powder residue that continuously leeches from the ball joint.

 

Thanks for the tip.

 

That really why I got off the G1 MP train. I just didnt see any value in it for the money they were costing. I dont have my G1 MP bee anymore..but im betting if you stand the 2 close together it works.

CJ here is top shelf quality, and im thinking they went with Quality, and MP tolerances for this mainline deluxe. If this released right around the time of MP bee, and it had a bit better paint, they could have packed in some stupid cartoon accessory and priced it at $80 and you know it would have sold.

Yet..its $20.

 

So having had Clifford the Big Red Car for a week now, I've had a few thoughts. Here's an interesting set of comparison shots:

The first thing I was surprised by was how close, both in terms of size AND parts count/complexity, Deluxe Cliffjumper is to Scout Reveal The Shield Windcharger. Apart from the added accessories that Cliffy comes with, he is essentially an old Scout class figure. RtS Windcharger was about $7.99 when he came out. So he'd probably be around $10-12 today. And while Cliffy boasts the gun accessories and all that paint and clear windows, RtS Windcharger has that very nice metalflake candy red (that doesn't show up great in my pics) AND the integrated magnet guns.

It's also interesting how close Cliffjumper is to PotP Beachcomber in size in vehicle mode, and general beefiness in robot mode.

But it's PotP Windcharger that really brought to the fore what it is that bugs me about Cliffjumper. Now let me say, I like Cliffjumper. It's a solid figure. But it's also a figure I will forget about in a few months. See, it's not merely that it partsforms that bugs me; plenty of figures partsform and in a lot of cases I'm fine with it. Partsforming, like fake vehicle bits, is an engineering cheat. And an engineering cheat can be very effective in solving a problem like mass-shifting or replicating the impossible transformations of a cartoon or movie. But Cliffjumper's cheat doesn't do that. The designer ran into a problem and decided that the only solution was the have the back be removed, and then pegged in elsewhere. OK. That could work. And by doing so, the designer had the freedom to re-attach the back of the car in ANY way they could imagine.

And this is what they came up with:


Having it stick out the back at an awkward upturned angle, that sticks up over his shoulders when viewed from the front. That's not elegant. That's not clever. That feels like the designer was rushed in completing the design. Why not have it hang off the back the other way, flat, like on Toro? Or maybe add a pair of hinges to it so it flattens a bit more? Or perhaps the wheels could stay attached to that piece so that there wouldn't be the need to try and puzzle-fit everything together? It's not even a clean fit; there's that gap in the middle.

Which brings me to RtS Windcharger. It's a much less expensive figure, but it's also a cheaper feeling figure. Lower parts counts. Lower complexity. The paint doesn't have that premium feel.

But.

Within those limitations, the designer was able to design a figure that looks like it walked off the screen in robot mode, has just as realistic a car mode, AND, most impressively, does all of this while incorporating room for a Titan Master to sit inside, fully enclosed; all without having to remove a single piece. THAT is a triumph of engineering. THAT is a figure I find myself returning to time and time again.

So, while I like Earthrise Cliffjumper, and it IS the best version of that character we've frankly ever gotten, it is far less impressive a figure to me than a figure from nearly three years ago at less than half the price.

And don't even get me started on Titans Return Wheelie. It does everything PotP Windcharger does, but better. It feels like it was designed by space aliens from the future.

 

I don't want to be that dumbass that asks something that I can google myself, but since I've done it a million times and I'm never sure wtf I'm supposed to buy, I'm gonna ask.

Do you by any chance have and exact link, preferably Amazon, where I can buy it? Here in the Tropic there's not too many people with hardwood floors so Walmarts and other supermarkets don't sell that many floor polish.