Grahf: I see what you did there Dr. Wu. I see.

It's so dumb yet makes all the sense in the world.

Any chance for blue/blue, purple/blue or blue/red versions in the future?

But I mean, what else do you do with 2007 Frenzy? I mean you could probably make it and the Sweeps from RotB share most of their parts. Frenzy and Freezer/Novakane do look alike. They just have different inanimate object alt modes. But they would make for easy retools into the other. So much so I was expecting Hasbro to do it with their Freezer mold. They obviously didn't, but they should've. Frenzy would've been a tad too tall, but it's not like Freezer and Noah weren't either.

Fun fact, I was never able to get a Noah in exo suit figure. Not a single one. Scalpers suck. I didn't get Earthrise Quintesson Judge either, but at least we might have another chance to get those assuming they're not a third deco. I have three of the Pit of Judgements though. It's just I also want three of the Earthrise deco too. And I would've gotten three of the proposed Takara deco before they cancelled it. I should've gotten the Takara release of the Earthrise deco, but by the time I realized that I couldn't get it at US retail, it was already gone from Japanese retail too.

Grahf: Wow, that's not a bad looking kit.

There's nothing to over inflate the price. Just a nice barebones kit that does the bare minimum of what could be done to the base figure without going into something more elaborate like the Minicons.

The new exhaust pipes looks good. Colorless translucent with yellow and orange paint. However, did they really need the waffles? People complain all the time about Hasbro doing it, but DNA is every bit as bad about it when they shouldn't even be doing them at all.

So even though they made parts with waffles, they made waffle fillers for the Sideway's thighs. Go figure right? Waffles in the base figure are a no go. Waffles in the new parts are a go. Okay.

The feet are okay. They do the job I guess. It's perhaps the laziest way to go about "fixing" the problem with the stock feet though. For some reason, Show Z hasn't uploaded the picture showing that there's 5mm ports in the bottom of the feet. So in case you were curious, there are some down there. You can even use them in alt mode by flipping up the feet. I like that there are added 5mm ports in case I wanted to store extra weapons or give him a Weaponizer rider or something.

The colors are matched about as well as could be given how difficult it seems to be to match purples. Never mind, I got a better look and no, the purples don't match at all. The stock parts are bluish and the DNA parts are reddish.

Wait, what's going on here? I haven't said anything bad about this kit. That's no like me.

Well, I seen the price.

It's listed at $24.99 elsewhere. So about $27.99 here.

Yeah, that's a crap price.

Let's put this in perspective now.

The Age of the Primes Alpha Trion kit is listed at that same elsewhere for $27.49. Yet it has at least three times as many parts. Most of which are painted. And there's also at least two different kinds of plastics used. And the parts are run in no less than four different color plastics. There's no less than four different color paints too. Minimum you're looking at four molds, one for each color (purple, grey, blue and white with a potential fifth being maroon but I think those parts are painted as they match the same color paint used on other parts and are are instead run in white along with the beard).

This kit has four different colors too. Black, purple, grey and colorless translucent. However, you could get away with only two and then paint the other parts. I mean, there's no reason to run four molds in four colors on such a small kit I could imagine one mold, one gate minimum (for the colorless translucent). The other color SHOULD be grey. Both the purple and black would be easy to paint over grey. However, I don't think that's the case. I think there's a second gate minimum as the 5mm ports inside the feet are grey and look to be separate pieces from the purple of the rest of the feet. Why? This is needlessly complicating something that should be insanely simple.

This should've been an easy and cheap kit. But it's not. Somehow they managed to turn it into something needless complicated and overly expensive when simple paint would've made things so much easier. But hey, at least they didn't run ALL the parts in the colorless translucent plastic and then painted amiright? Could you imagine all the broken ankles if they made them in the translucent plastic? It's not above them either as they did it for Vector Prime's wing connectors.

Oh hey, what do you know, My SECOND set of Vector Prime wings are breaking now too. From just standing there on display. Translucent plastic is highly prone to temperature changes causing them to shrink and expand frequently. And since they're on pegs that are perhaps a bit too thick for the translucent plastic ports, the ports will start to crack even if you heat them up before assembly to prevent the cracks. It's literally only a matter of time. I'm just surprised that the wings haven't broken at the hinges yet on either of my sets. There were several reports of those breaking for others. But this is another story entirely.

Again though, DNA fumbles. Just what is this company doing? This kit is going to be $28 here roughly. That's not worth it for how little is here and how little it actually does. That's on top of the $42 retail figure. And the main issue still hasn't been addressed yet. That being the Minicons. So that's another kit and even more money to have to think about too.

At least I know the upcoming kit for Megazarak will be cheap. And that it works well, has no reported breakage issues, and actually had real design work put into it in order to get the alt mode to tab together with the new shoulders. For once, DNA beat the three different 3D print kit designers who all said that they couldn't do anything about the alt modes with the new shoulders. And DNA did it. Sure it's not like it was difficult, but that's looking at it in hindsight. All it was would slightly altering pieces that you already had to remove anyway.

Grahf: LOL never mind. I just seen the QQT Devastator next to PotP Predaking and he's still super short. Granted, the first video I watched the dude wasn't sent all the parts and didn't have the pieces that go under Devastator's feet. But still, that wouldn't have added much more height. So I continue to wait to find an Omega Supreme to go against SS86 Devastator. No third party one is in range. They're either way too big, or too scrawny and short.

Grahf: LOL oops. The Hasbro stock Superion head is on a ball and socket joints. My bad. Should've checked first.

Grahf: These seemingly too forever to finally get released only for them to go on sale for 20% off not long after.

So odd, I wonder why that is.

Is it the character choices? I mean, the Beast Wars characters done in this style.

Is it the stylistic choice itself? The samurai motif.

Or is it that they came out two years after they were planned to?

It could be all of the above, it could be none of the above. I guess we'll never actually know for sure.

I would imagine it's at least not the price per size as it's not exactly like Iron Factory is a new company with a new pricing structure. People have seemingly become accustomed to these prices.

Looking at the other samurai figures, it would appear as though it's not the prices, sizes, motif or era that's the problem. I mean, Primal, Lio Convoy, Grimlock, Cyclonus, Lockdown, Thunderwing, Bludgeon and the G1 car bots seem to have all sold out without needing to be discounted. So it's all the more puzzling as to why BW Megatron and Cheetor have to be put on sale.

This Megatron looks great though. It's just nothing I'd care to have in my collection. For me, it's the price vs size thing. And I'd just rather have something else for the price that furthers my collection in some way now than to have a cool one off figure sometimes.

I don't know, I just find it interesting as to why some things go on sale when others like it didn't. Did the market for these collapse? Is it just here on Show Z this happened?

Oh well, no use further dwelling on the issue.

Good looking figure though and that 20% off is tempting.

Grahf: ...is this the first time someone has done a gun mode Megatron figure in Shattered Glass colors?

Still though, there's so many actual decos a gun mode Megatron figure could have before having to do SG colors.

So far Galaxy Toys has done:

Standard Megatron grey.
Standard Megatron silver.
Standard Megatron Marvel G1.
Shattered Glass G1 Megatron.
Black and purple Megatron.

The last one is pretty much its own thing. Megatron has been black several times and some had purple as an accent color, however, not like that.

So what else could they do?

Takara G1 Megatron/G1 Megaplex. Grey, not silver with blue isntead of red.
Hasbro Lava ("Safety") Megatron. Blue and orange.
G1 Black Megatron. Black instead of silver/grey in some spots and brown instead of black for the grip/legs.
Chrono Q Black Megatron. Black instead of silver/grey everywhere and brown instead of black for the grip.
MP Megatron Gold. Gold isntead of silver/grey and purple instead of red.
G1 toy Megatron.
G2 Megatron.
Megastorm. Yes there's a difference. Grey instead of purple camo.
Archforce/Combat Hero Megatron.
Combat Hero Megatron. The cancelled deco.
Vega/M. Bison.
Black Gun Robo. Black instead of silver/grey, blue instead of red and brown instead of black on the grip.
BW Megatron alligator.
Megalligator.
BW Megatron T-Rex.
TM Megatron.
TM2 Megatron.
Megatron X.
Cybertron Megatron.
Energon Megatron.
Gigatron/RiD 2001 Megatron.
Machine Wars Megatron.
Reverse Convoy.
Hate Plague.
Golden Lagoon. ALL gold.
Classics Megatron.
Alternity Megatron. Grey, blue or black.
2007 Megatron.
RotF Megatron.
DotM Megatron.
TLK Megatron.

I'm joking with most of them. But I mean, I think anything goes now that we've seen this mold done in SG colors. Making Siege Megatron in these colors was one thing. Especially since it came with bonus parts to try and pass it off as someone resembling SG Megatron so long as you've never actually seen SG Megatron before lol. At least it tried though.

I don't know though, there's just something about the gun mode Megatron that looks very off in this deco. interesting to see regardless.

As always, I will get Lava Megatron if they make one.

Grahf: I had no clue what to expect with this one.

Not sure if this is "good" or not though.

I mean, it seems to have places for all the parts in both modes. Hell, there's even multiple placements for some parts.

It's just a shame that the base figure has so few places that you can actually alter due to some spots being normal screws and then some spots being flat headed pins. And you can't actually take the torso apart fully without having to deal with the flat headed pins. You can take some screws out, but the space that opens up in the chest isn't enough to actually get the arms out at the shoulders without breaking the figure at the back. Ask me how I know lol.

However there's four spots where the figure can come apart that could've been used to add things. Those being the thigh and bicep swivels.

The bicep swivels are obvious. Swap the arms out at the biceps to add in multi limbed arms. It's not an ideal spot to do that to to get six arms, but four could work. And then you can use those four arms to become the front of the alt mode. I mean, the four arms split at the biceps wouldn't look or play any worse than those huge kibble chunks hanging off the bottom of the arms as it is. The third set of arms could then just be the tentacles.

Speaking of the tentacles. If the arms won't come out unless you break the back of the figure, the tentacles are never coming out. They're too far down the torso for any breakage points in the back to occur to access them. You can actually cleanly break the back to get the shoulders out and put it all back together without any noticeable marks (again, ask me how I know lol), but who want's to actually break their figure. I did it by mistake trying to see how it all worked. Ultimately, you realistically can't turn the tentacles into actual arms.

What about the thighs then?

Well, not much can be done here due to the skirt the figure has. And again, some parts are flat headed pinned in. Not only that, due to the softer rubberized plastic used, you're going to have an extremely bad time trying to heat those pins up to try and remove them. I don't dare even try. Not that I even have something to swap even if I did safely manage to remove the pieces of skirt.

So why bring up the thighs at all then?

Because the thighs are double mushroom pegged. And there's a little truck you can do to extend joints like this that 3D print designers like to employ. It's the same one used to make Legacy Lio Convoy a tad taller as well as to lengthen the arms of SS RotB Airazor's arms. You take the limb off at the thigh/bicep joint. Then you put the limb back on, but lower it by one "rung" on the double mushroom peg. Then take a spacer to fill in the gap on the inside of the thigh/bicep as well as that now unused slot by dropping the limb lower. This piece will also fill in the gap mad between the lower and upper limbs by extending them. Best part is that due to the skirt on the figure, you don't need perfect color matching with these parts.

Admittedly you're not getting much extra height doing this though. And the tabs on the backs of the legs for alt mode no longer tab into the rear skirt pieces. But I mean, it's a thing that could be done.

You could even leave the filler pieces out and just lower the legs anyway as again, the skirt is going to cover it. However, the two mushroom discs on the legs are slightly different sizes with the top one being smaller. So when you have JUST the top mushroom disc plugged into the lower part of the thigh, the legs are rather loose and are prone to falling out without a brace to keep them in.

Just some thoughts I've had while trying to figure out what could be done with Quintus. The only ones more annoying than him to upgrade are Alchemist and Micronus.  And I guess Nexus too but only due to his severe lack of 5mm pegs and ports. I've drilled out a few 5mm ports on Nexus and now you can add quite a few things to make the alt mode more interesting. I've turned him into a Duocon actually by separating him at the waist's mushroom peg. I want to turn the legs into a tank like thing, but I don't have any spare tank treads on 5mm pegs to use other than the incomplete ones from Brunt as the rest of the treads are molded onto the chest. The torso of Nexus becomes a small fighter jet obviously. Not much else to do with that nosecone. The legs and pelvis make fora decent second flight unit. You can manipulate the feet into wing like structures. Looks a bit like Skysledge/Shockdrive from RiD 2015 Crash Combiners in jet mode...just without the more defined cockpit. Pun totally intended due to what would be the placement of the cockpit on the lower body of Nexus due to the location of the 5mm port in the rear of the pelvis.

With some extra 5mm ports and some extra parts though, Nexus is so much more fun. He really should've been loaded with 5mm pegs and ports to make up for not being a combiner on his own. That way a Weaponizer could merge with him or something.

Grahf: Well, at least it's original.

And that it shows that this KO company, whoever they may be, is very willing to do more decos of this mold.

How well this is going to sell though, I don't know. It doesn't interest me in the slightest. At first when I seen in on Facebook or wherever else, I thought it was just some generated image and not a solicitation for an actual figure. Yet here we are though with a listing for it.

All the Optimus decos that could still be done and you make this though. At least Prime collectors will have another figure in the collection that doesn't look like anything else so there's that.

Have fun if you're getting it...provided it is a real figure. I'll be passing though.

Grahf: I was so very excited to get this in earlier today.

I sleep opposite hours from most people in my area so I was asleep when it was delivered. I seen it sitting on my table in the living room when I got up to use the bathroom.

However my life came crashing down shortly after.

I get woken up not long after being told my son isn't doing well. My son is Gizmo and he's such a good boy. I don't have human children and just have my son Gizmo. And today he passed in my arms. He's how laying in the spot on my table where this figure once sat. I've been up for a while now just crying all day. I'd go to sleep, but I don't want to leave him by himself and this is the last time I get to spend with him before what was his appointment to send him to sleep early and painlessly turned into a retrieval tomorrow...today...I don't know what to call it anymore. It's 12 hours away still. All the hospitals were closed today so I found a service that comes to your house, but we were too late. He was fine for what he was. That being a 14 year old boy with a heart condition. I fed him by hand as that was the only way he was eating, but he was still eating. He seemed as fine as ever doing what he does. Then as I was going to go to sleep and give him his heart meds, he didn't want them. I should've known something was wrong then, but it wasn't the first time he didn't want the treats with hidden meds in them. From then on though it was a "quick" turn. Quick...it felt like forever. Watching him. Listening to see how his breathing was. He wasn't "there" anymore though. He was doing all he could to just breath. I scrambled to try and find something but again, everything was closed or too far away. So my parents came over and my brother came over and we all held him for a while. My brother left to go back to his family as they're packing up to move. Gizmo was in my arms and he fought to get away so I let him. He walked a little bit and I knew that was it. I ran back over to him to pick him up, I wrapped him up trying to comfort him and then he went. I miss him so much. It didn't feel like this when his parent went. But Gizmo. I birthed him. His mother didn't want to break him out of his sack. She was done cleaning Teddy Bear and then Dora. Then out came Gizmo and she kept cleaning the Dora even though she was clean already. Then the last puppy came out and she went to him. As soon as I seen Bandit was okay I swapped him for Gizmo but Delilah somehow Droopy Dogged her head into her body and popped it out the other end to go back to cleaning Bandit. Gizmo lay there in his sack not moving, not making any noises unlike his siblings when they were in their sacks. My sister and niece didn't know what to do as they were the only ones there with me. My sister told me she was never on this side of a delivery before. So I got him out of his sack myself and cut his cord. I massaged him to make sure he woke up and everything was fine after that. Dora and Bandit went to one family. Teddy Bear went to another with a cute little nugget daughter. I never seen them again after that. The two families never contacted us again after like two months. So I have no idea what happened to them. They told us they'd stay in touch. That was part of the deal. Maybe its' for the better though. I'm never going to hear his little feet click clacking through the house anymore. I miss him. I love him.

Sorry.

Grahf: Well now there's a decent choice for a normal sized KO. SS29 Sideswipe goes for decent money on the aftermarket. Not stupid high, but more than triple the price it was originally.

Not only that, but this Ko changed the deco a bit. The rims and seats in the car mode are changed and most importantly, the robot mode has more of that shiny silver on places that couldn't be built with it on an American retail figure. The only bad thing is that those same pieces might be weak points on this KO. I know it sucks when HasTak uses different style plastics as they can't ever match the colors properly as a result, but it does add stability to the figure. Some KOs that change those parts do suffer breakages at those spots from time to time.

Regardless, this looks good. I think I have this. I know I didn't get one new, but I think I got it in a lot from Ebay more than a few years ago. I might dig it out to sell it and then replace it with this and end up making a good bit of money on the deal.

So I might pick this up at some time as while I don't really care much for SS figures at times, Sideswipe in particular has such an interesting design even though it's technically the standard G1 robot mode. It's been modified enough to make it look like a unique look. The door wings, wheeled feet and hood/truck chest manage to look quite different than normal. Especially when compared to Bumblebee who just ends up looking like G1 Prowl.

I wouldn't mind it if they did this mold in red too as it's something that Hasbro hasn't done since the original toy lines for the films and Takara did for the MPM.