Oh? I had no idea. Mine has been nothing short of perfect and I'm eager to get their Orion pax with the crazy articulation.

 

Nice to see a render of combined mode early on.

Seeing a lot of the XTB Menasor in it though...so I guess bass mode is in!

I wonder if Hotspot bot mode is just the cab / front of the fire engine, then the rest of it transforms into the Defensor bot skeleton? (instead of combined mode being a separate trailer).

Kind of like the DX9 Menasor did. Would be a clever way to do it, and also make a better sized fire engine alt mode when compared to the other members.

 

MMC quality is great, they still don't know how to design ratchet joints though...

 

My favorite thing about this update on their Facebook page is the guy who said, "Yeah, great, but what about Locke, HMMM???? Awfully quiet on that front, I noticed!" when two of their previous three posts before that were about him.

I'm convinced that about half the planet has a different version of the Facebook app and that for them, it only shows the posts they make and nothing else.

 

Looks good overall. The main problem to me is the limb bots alt modes look real life, but the combiner torso looks very toon. They clash and look like they are from different sets. They should make the combiner torso look real life as if it's part of Hotspot real life looking alt mode.

Edit : Seems like MMC saw this problem and fixed it by making the limb bots alt mode more toon and making the torso look more stylized. So the blend together better. Though the combiner proportions look completely awful.

 

Not bad at all! Though i'll be waiting on Streetwise reviews before jumping in.

 

So we've had a fully painted prototype of Streetwise and a render of combined mode and FT STILL haven't put out a silhouette in response?  

The render looks like the combiner body will use a lot of the engineering from Menasor, the knees and maybe the shoulders are the same (but hidden under vehicle kibble). I wonder if the arms have shells like Menasor being depicted here or if the arm bots will be bigger than the legs.

If the QC is good I'm in.

 

XTB's Defensor looks reallly good to me, because the limb bots seem to have very detailed and real life accurate alt modes and it shines through even in limb mode. Specially First Aid looks great. Defensor's head looks to be in a good size as well, and not so small as most bots/gestalt toys do these days. This is a set, depending how it combines and functions, that I would like to have in G1 toy colours. Especially Hot Spot. Bring it on!  

 

Looking good so far I can dig it! And as @TigerBlade pointed out, seems I’ll get my wish regarding the scaling of the 5 members to each other, awesome! That makes XTB the only game in town for me.

I do hope the quality is as good or better than the beserkars...Bring on the streetwise preorders I’m in...I’ll be a good little guinea pig once again for this one  

 

If it wasn't for the colors, I wouldn't even be able to tell at a glance that those things are supposed to be Defensor.

I don't get it, XTB always goes for toon accuracy in bot mode. That's their MO...toon accurate bots and realistic vehicles. I don't know why anyone would suddenly expect otherwise now. The only question we should be asking is whether or not it'll fall apart out of the box, not whether or not it'll look like the toon.

 

Pretty much exactly what I want in an MP Defensor. Only things I would change are slightly larger chest plates and match the overall blue closer to the toon. Don’t care about the bots since I’m going MMC for them. I’m also one of those guys who is happy with my XTB Menasor.

 

My only wish is that the arm bots dont split in half like their stunticons. Please turn into proper combined mode arms please XTB!

 

The picture says it’s going to 51cm. That’s bigger than their menasor and about the size of the zeta bots if not taller. Weird choice but a welcome one since their menasor being too small next to zeta is why I bought the fans toys version instead.

 

It's marginally smaller, absolutely. But too small?



Not really. I don't get why ppl still peddle that narrative. 1cm (10 whole millimetres) isn't the end of the world when you're discussing 50cm bots. Menasor will look absolutely fine against this guy, just as he does with the Zeta boys.

 

FYI, XTB confirmed Streetwise will NOT be grey. It'll be off-white. From facebook:

Disappointing to me, probably good news for others.

 

It just different opinion, toon accuracy doesn't mean ugly as fxxk to me. In the G1 cartoon, there are a lot places the drawing doesn't look good at all.
If one day, either Takara or XTB released MasterPiece Devastator like this, saying 100% toon accuracy, will u still buy it?

 

Strange, but I kinda miss the "collar" he has in some versions. Makes the head and shoulder area a bit more interesting. Oh, and the red panel on the stomach would really help as well.

 

I don't think it's the end of the world for people it's just their preference. It's like having Sideswipe a head shorter than Sunstreaker, it's not alot shorter and not a big deal, but some peoples preference are the two are the same size. TW devy is a little shorter than zeta bruticus, and it's not bad. Then Monolith is a little shorter than Tw devy, and it's not bad. But for me pairing zeta bruticus with Monolith misses the sweet spot.

I'm glad XTB saw that the size was to small and made their Defensor bigger.

 

Also talk about toon accuracy, there are 2 obviously places that not toon accurate.

1) The arms are too big compare to legs. The top heavy body portions with small legs is not really G1, more like 08 animation style. You can see the G1 image below is not like that.

2) too much details on the arms/legs while not much on the body. Maybe the body is going for MP3.0 cartoonish simplistic style, but the limbs are MP 2.0 with lots of details, more realistic drawing. Which is a weird combination. Could because this is not final rendering. I sure hope the style is more unified in the final product, either go for MP 2.0 or MP 3.0, just not a mix bag.