Love a lot of things about this set but Groove is just such a horrible original design but they did a decent job getting it right. Leg and hip proportions look horrible. Kibble is expected because of character and did a good job. It is just so unnerving to have basically FT size First Aid and Blades with dwarves in Streetwise and Groove and have them be team members. This original carbot scale has just always pissed me off. Why couldn't Groove be Wreck Gar size at 2 inches taller? FT made carbots the right size in robot so why not for Streetwise. I understand they wanted to scale with their Menasor but it just looks silly when the cartoon even had the whole team the same size in bot mode and just shorter than Hot Spot. It's like they had to kill off the S1&2 cast because it was OP and the 27 dwarves against Globo Gym.

in regards to complex transformations, Bayverse says hello and to get the look right they are here to stay. I think there are simpler methods but they will always veer toward bot and alt mode accuracy when conflicted. It's hard to blame them. We demand it and want 100% posability which I think should always be there and not compromised. Something has to give. At the same time, you cannot compromise quality and that is where the smaller bits without the premium materials has caused issues. If you are going to design this way you cannot cut corners. Applying retrosynthetic analysis principles to a design process, there is an extensive library of mass shifting solutions revealed through all other MPs out there. They solve almost any issue and we only occasionally see something new.

 

As someone mentioned before, yeah I'm all up for a re-designed xtb streetwise, to be the same height as their first aid.
But there is just no way to make groove being tall. FT get away by making stunticons tall but look how thin they are, and by design groove is a stocky dude, u physically can't make a tall groove but also beefy looking.
My question is so far, why design groove being just a bit shorter than streetwise? Make it the same height as fuzz doesn't hurt anything, especially since the motorbike won't scale with the car anyway.
Typical xtb, drive u mad in order to find out where their weird decisions come from.

No box shot? what's the next one?

 

We should have Bobbys review of Jocund today

 

Guess he has a relationship/Sponsorship with Keith/XTB and got dibs??

 

He does say in the video that Keith sent him the figure early and he doesn't know if he will still have early by the time the review is live.
Although this is nothing really new. 3P company's send figures early to reviewers all the time (now if those reviews get the reviews out before the mass release is a different question).

 

It does look far better than fuzz, just even from the pure bot mode look. And also to me it looks better than mmc counterpart.
Just wish it's the same height as fuzz, but overall seems a successful release from xtb.
Does the box hint the next one?

 

I don't have any issues with team members being different heights. It add variety and makes a nice change from having all limb bots needing to be the same size, as we have for the Constructicons, Aerialbots, Stuntacons, Predacons, Technobots, Terrorcons... My recollection (which may be disproven by evidence, I'm sure) is that Blades and First Aid were slightly larger than Groove and Streetwise in the cartoon. If so, it would mirror their opposite numbers, the Combaticons, who did have some difference in height (Brawl being taller than Swindle, for instance).

Yeah, it would be nice if the MP carbots were slightly larger, but I made peace with that years ago.
If you *did* have companies re-doing the carbots to make them equal to the FansToys stuntacons bot size, I suspect the alt-modes would increase in size too (because not every company has FansToys magic)- which would then make the FansToys stuntacons too small...

 

Where have you seen the MMC counterpart?

 

The digital renderings of all the modes from different angles have been out for months.
I'm just judging from the look purely.

 

Looks great! Can't wait for TCP to get their stock in.

 

Mine was shipped today by tfs-express!

 

Bobby's final consensus:

Recommend.

Pros

- Intuitive transformation

- Fully painted

- Good study materials

- Good articulation aside from the head

Cons

- Needs more head and knee articulation (though knees are still dynamic in posing)

- Paint chipping

- Front bike struts do not stay in place easily

 

Jocund actually looks pretty good ngl

 

Hopefully for the Youth version they will add a fully modelled engine block as its upper arms/entire arms for a more realistic motorcycle.

 

Gotta have the fronts of the arms red, silver chest and lots of detailed tampo work. I'd love to have a Youth version!

 

Jocund looks really good! I haven't even attempted to transform Fuzz but I definitely will with this guy

 

This guy was the make or break for me with this set and I might be in on this.

 

I'm really liking the look of this guy and can hardly wait for XTB to start rolling out the the Youth version. I was a latecomer to the Menasor, how long was it before they started doing the Youth versions on that one? 3 bots in or so?

 

I'm really looking forward to how MMC version turns out now, not willing to go in on another x-transbots combiner but going by bobby's review this looks better than streetwise at least.

 

Yeah, my XTB Menasor experience got worse with time until I sold it. I just don't trust them for something this complex so I'm gonna wait and see what other options come for combined mode, maybe Zeta or FT or someone will surprise me and go with MMC for the individuals.