That's the thing, isn't it. People need to separate their bias, both ways. I see you pointing out questionable engineering and/or "flaws" but to me that doesn't merritt a figure being called overrated, that's just a toy that doesn't meet your standards.
What is overrated, if not a figure with significant flaws that people rave about regardless? All the figures I listed are raved about, yet have glaring flaws.
That’s such a summation of Hasbro of the last few years, do something awesome, but come up just short enough to be seriously annoying (see also: all the rest of the WFC ‘almost there’ alt modes)
It's especially bothersome with Soundwave, because from what I can see, it would have required no additional effort or resources to do it right; just more intelligent application of the resources already in play.
The knee doesn't bend backwards, so his kneecap "bump" ends up on the outside edge of the tape deck, rather than on the inside edge like it normally would.
MP-44 - A version well outdone by third party companies. Part of the cab is in the LEGS. The back of the cab mode is atrocious. Haslab Unicron - A giant, expensive shellformer whose alt mode folds up into pure intrusive kibble. I still like him, but he doesn't deserve the rave. Plus it's an exercise class to get him to transform. Siege Ratchet - "Oh my god he is so amazing every TF collector has to get him" then he's immediately forgotten about once Earthrise impossible-to-find pay-out-of-your-ass Ratchet comes out. All Seekers - Every new version is better than the other until the next new one comes out.
The things you're complaining about here are purely intentional design decisions. Shifting part of the cab mass into the legs helped alleviate design issues they encountered when designing MP-01 and MP-10. Prime's animation model has a relatively svelte upper body, but great big blue boots. But a truck has all its mass up front, with almost nothing to speak of at back. MP-01 had a really deformed cab to sort of balance that out. MP-10 went the other way, and jacked up the rear of the truck crazy huge. As for the actual aesthetics of the truck rear, that area's not really "presentable" on real-life trucks anyways. They were attempting a more realistic truck cab mode than they'd done previously, so that area wasn't of particular concern.
Understandable. The robot mode is stellar I give them that. But it has been, in my opinion, done better by Transform Element. I'm not a just not fan of the alt mode, and the transformation is a nightmare without practice.
But what you call flaws aren't really flaws they're just design choices you don't like. The Earthrise Seekers not having a waist swivel is a bummer, but not a flaw, it doesn't take away from the enjoyment of the figure, having one would just enhance it.
Idk, when these design choices were there on a previous remold of the figure and are also available on a good majority of the A-list characters to define them as “the definitive releases of these characters for years on,” even Leader class or Commander class figures, it just doesn’t really sit right with me. For god sakes they designed nobodies like Airwave and Allicon to have great posability, why doesn’t their second most popular villain character get as much? Plus that doesn’t even mention the weird arm swivel that isn’t at the elbow, it’s near where the shoulder is, meaning you just swivel the whole arm around when posing it, the lack of wrist articulation, or the limited ankle tilt. You’d be right on the whole “it only enhances the experience” if it wasn’t for the fact that the experience is something every figure of an important legacy character has pretty consistently across the board
Have you NOT handled T30 Springer, EVERY mode on that toy is a POS. Can't tab together in either mode, bot mode is fiddly with floating shoulders after the slightest handling.
WTF was wrong with your T30 Springer? Either you were doing something wrong, or you somehow got the lemoniest lemon to have ever lemoned.
Hasbro’s ?, I had the same looseness issues especially with the feet , till I swapped it out with Takara’s .
There was no isolated issue with the Hasbro version either. I got two, for some reason or other (I've long since forgotten why), and both were perfectly solid.
Might be a lemon on my end then , both hasbro’s springer and sandstorm had loose feet and weren’t able to securely tab into the shoulders .
Garbage design. Also, I'd like to commend both of you for attempting to correct my opinion, anecdotal evidence aside.
If a design choice makes the figure less functional than intended, like T30 Springer, or compromised in one mode like SS86 Hot Rod's lack of a proper rear bumper, then it can legitimately be considered a flaw. In the case of HR, a deliberate one because the focus was on the robot mode, but it's still a flaw. In Springer's case, the flaws are due to not refining the design enough. (I also take issue with his IDW-based aesthetics, but that IS simply a choice I don't like.) A flaw may be due to an intentional design choice, but it remains a flaw.