Well halle-freakin’-lujah he is real! After all these years we finally get a great update to Blue Jet/Fitor and it looks good, it handles good, it poses good, it transforms properly and it was relatively cheap. Now if you’ll excuse me a whole flock of pigs just flew over and my car is a mess.
TCP did ship yesterday and is expected to arrive today but only after I had canceled my preorder and ordered another one because TCP dragged their feet for days in moving from my preorders to getting it shipped out.
I must say that Tough Trailer kinda blows. The shoulders pop off the ball joint fairly easily, the inside tabs on the arms don't want to tab in, the accessories that tab into the front of the vehicle tab in very precariously and the rear wheels are on C-clips so they can pop off as well. On the plus side the scaffolding is nice but even that is ruined because TT's feet are so large that he will mostly likely step on the connecting tabs making it difficult to get it in a solid stance. The only true redeeming quality this thing has is the engineering. But even then I would much rather pick up and mess with Blue Jet.
My little Bike Robo showed up from TFSource. I have to say that my favorite part is his little babyface. He isn’t too bad overall...feels a lot like the Eagle Robo I already have. He’s a bit too tight in some spots and too loose in others, though, and the articulation in the neck and shoulders is pretty limited (wrist rotation woulda’ been nice as well). He kinda feels like a midgrade 3P figure. Regardless, I do like the way he looks, the transformation is interesting and the inclusion of the stand is a nice bonus (which I will likely repurpose for use with a different figure). At $60 shipped, I don’t plan on going too deep with these figures. But I would love to add a Loco, Turbo, Crasher and Scooter at some point.
@fschuler yeah the $40-ish regular price for them feels "about right" considering the quality of the figures, accessories included, etc when you compare it with similar 3P type figures. But it all goes out the window after the fact when the prices go up. I had the first 4 releases for a while but Eagle Robo felt too finicky for me, never quite solid, and Bike Robo didn't feel very well put together. Wheels kept popping off the shoulders, legs wouldn't quite stay together, etc. They didn't thrill me. I liked Tank Robo and Rod Drill though. Nice chunky bots. I didn't even realize that Shuttle Robo and Missile tank Robo had been released though - I figured they were perennially "coming soon" and that the line had been quietly dropped by Action Toys. Did they get a very wide release? Maybe I just wasn't paying attention during the release window? Been a busy few years IRL. I only noticed there was new stuff happening when I saw Blue Jet preorders on the various sites recently. Action Toys, as (if my understanding is correct) a branch of the same group responsible for Maketoys, Fansproject, whatever the various connections are, certainly seems to be keeping up with their reputation for infrequent communication and sporadic product releases.
I didn't realize there was a connection between Action Toys and other 3P companies. Interesting. That explains the 3P feel...lol... He's fiddly...just like Eagle, and not something I feel like I want to mess with much. He looks the part, though. If they could reign in their clearances and tolerances, they'd feel a lot nicer in hand. Still, these guys can hold a pose pretty well, for the most part, once you get them into it. It's a niche market, I know, so I won't complain much about the prices or shortcomings.
I remember wembling on Shuttle Robo, Missile Tank Robo, and the rest for a while on most sites so guess they had a pretty good distribution. For some reason I just couldn't pull the trigger since back then I didn't know if they would be any good and thought they were fakes. Got Steam Robo after lurking this thread for a while.
Ah, how is Steam Robo? I went through wikis a while back to try and refresh my memory on the Go-bots I remembered most from when I was little. The ones that stood out the most (that have figures so far) were Tank Robo and Steam Robo. Not sure I want to try and track down Steam Robo though. There were others (Pathfinder / UFO Robo, Road Ranger / Truck Robo) but who knows if Action Toys will ever get to them. I think we're nearing the end of all the ones they've shown off so far in prototype form, aren't we? The only ones left that haven't been released are Pro Truck Racer and Supercar Robo? I'd hope they have more planned after those, but the release schedule, lack of new prototypes and infrequent communication tells me otherwise.
I actually really love Steam Robo as my first into the series. He stays mainly in train form on my shelf since I like that mode a bit more than his robot mode. To me he seems like a great upgrade from the original toy which I loved to death. Plus he has a secret area that people here figured out how to store his gun in train mode so it doesn't get lost. What blows my mind on the transforming is how they kept the top part of the train as his body and arms while the bottom wheel area is his legs, just like the original toy. Unfortunately I do not have any others to compare him to (still on the fence if I can afford display space for Buggy Robo which is sitting in my PoL) so can't help you if he is worth it.
Just got a text from my wife that a package just arrived, so it looks like my order has arrived safe and sound.
Battle (Tank) and Rod Drill will be in my grubby hands by tomorrow, but Blue Jet arrived today and he is fantastic! Transformation is fairly easy, the only difficult part is probably getting the shoulders rotated completely while tabbing the arms into the chest (the pegs need to go in all the way, and the shoulders need to be flat/rotated all the way in order for the fake cockpit to fit in). You will probably get stress marks in the female ports on the arms, but nowhere nearly as bad as with Buggy Robo. Also be careful when spliting the fake cockpit apart. There's a tab that hooks over you need to watch out for. Other than that, jet mode and robot mode is great! Wasn't expecting ratchet knees so that's cool.
I'm loving Blue Jet. My only complaint is I wish he had one more click in the knee bend for more dynamic poses but he's still great. Is there any chance of getting a white crasher since they can only make figures from the original anime?
