Toy Review: Transformers Generations Studio Series Arcee (Bumblebee) (Deluxe)

Review:  #728

Name:  Arcee

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Autobot

Line:  Generations - Studio Series

Year of Release:  2022

Size Class:  Deluxe (Wave 16)

Mold Status:  new

VEHICLE MODE:

Arcee transforms into a Cybertronian motorbike, but it's a unique looking bike, especially the double front wheels.

The bike looks pretty good overall but fails a bit at the back where the robot hands are exposed.  You can plug the robot guns on the side on or in her hands, to act as twin exhausts.

As per usual with a Transformer that has a bike alternate mode, they're usually pretty small and Arcee is no exception here.  Above is a comparison against TLK Bumblebee.

The only play value here is that she can roll on a flat surface.  The front wheels roll, while there are small plastic wheels at the back (the bigger "wheel" is faux).

A good vehicle mode that suits Arcee, and also differentiates her quite a bit from past Arcee toys.

TRANSFORMATION:

Unlike some of the other Bumblebee movie inspired figures, Arcee doesn't overcomplicate things and as a result, she has an interesting and enjoyable transformation.  The front and most of the underside splits to form her legs.  While the back are where her arms is.  The top compacts into a backpack.

ROBOT MODE:

Based upon her appearance in the intro of the Bumblebee movie, Arcee looks awesome here, having some bulk but still retaining a feminine shape.

The backpack isn't too big and evokes the G1 incarnation's backpack.  The biggest problem with it though is that the two outer panels don't actually have anywhere to lock in so it shuffles around when you handle the figure.

The head sculpt is basically the G1 head done in a movie-style, but it's one of the worse implementations as it looks really unnatural and weird.

In terms of size, she's slim and slender, so yes, with the size shrinkages coupled with price rises, and it makes these figures less and less value for money.

As part of the Studio Series line, she comes with a cardboard stand, depicting war torn Cybertron.

Her articulation is great, as you'd expect.  She has joints for her head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

Despite being so slender, she feels solid and apart from the backpack panels as mentioned earlier, there are no other floppy bits just hanging off and getting in the way.

She comes with two small guns as weapons.

She can hold the weapons in both hands.

Those guns can store in her backpack, although they don't exactly look great there.

The front wheels behind her feet act as natural heel spurs, so she is extremely stable however you pose her.

A strong robot mode that looks good, and poses well.

OVERALL:

Arcee is a fun figure, with two solid modes and a fun transformation in between.  The biggest negative, and this is prevalent across the whole Transformers line now, is the small size and poor value for money.  At least her engineering is good and has a rock solid robot mode.

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The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. - Season 1 (2016)

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. is an anime that’s based off the manga series. The first season has 120 episodes, but each episode are short clips, such that they form 24 normal length episodes. The anime follows Saiki, who is someone born with psychic powers. He could talk within days of being born, and walk within months. He actually has so many powers that he could be classified as a god, since he can read minds, influence people’s minds and the world itself, teleport, psychokinesis and many more.

While his parents know about his powers, since having used his powers to help others when he was younger with negative social consequences, he has decided to not use his powers in front of people again. He is now a high school student, and as a result, he is constantly being placed into situations where he needs to use his powers… discreetly, in order to not draw too much attention to himself. That’s also where all the humor and fun lies in.

While in theory it sounds awesome be Saiki, having all those powers, he does try and explain some drawbacks. He has the ability to see through objects, but no way of “turning it off”, so he constantly sees people’s internals instead of their exterior appearances. Or how he has no choice by to hear people’s thoughts, so he can never be surprised, or how he always hears a person’s true thoughts, even if they’re negative. It does help in balancing his powers a bit.

The anime pretty much immediately hits its stride with its premise, and you’ll immediately love the interactions of Saiki with other characters. He doesn’t have any say in the friends he makes, or the situations that’s in. He seems logical, trying to go for the rational way out, but for a lot of the time, the rational choice isn’t necessary going to achieve the situation that you were hoping for. It’s hilarious at just how normal the situations that Saiki gets himself in are, and the ridiculous and over-the-top ways Saiki tries to diffuse the situations, and yet it still somehow makes sense.

The best parts are Saiki’s responses. For some reason, it’s usually the other characters that has some weird reaction and Saiki’s the normal one with his logical non-nonsense analysis. He’s humble when he needs to be, accepting that he doesn’t want to show off despite how easy it is, and yet he also knows that he’s the best at everything. Effectively, he shows off to the viewer, and it’s a good thing that it never crosses his mind to decide to do evil things otherwise the whole world will be in trouble.

Even though Saiki constantly reveals new powers, it never feels like he’ll pulling them out of nowhere, or just because it’s convenient to the plot. Well, that is true, but because Saiki himself has so much charisma, and we already know he’s effectively invincible, it’s not much of a stretch if he has many more powers we aren’t aware of. He also tends to use a few of his powers time and time again, so that helps especially when he uses them in a different way or scenario, so that it doesn’t feel repetitive.

By the time we are towards the end of the season, you will feel that you know Saiki really well and the limitations of his powers as well as when he can use them. It just feels natural. So it’s no surprise that the anime manages to keep up the quality with its content. Saiki likes to tease making it seem like he’s breaking the fourth wall but then still kind of makes it seem like he isn’t. It also naturally introduces new characters over time, then actually makes effort to integrate them, so that they become familiar before introducing the next one. It’s done really well here.

Since the season is comprised of clips and doesn’t have arcs as such, there isn’t the type of build up a season finale might get. Nevertheless, it finishes as strongly as it started, and the final episode shows that Saiki himself has definitely changed. While he’s still stoic most of the time, he can’t help but show that he does care for his friends (no matter how much of a pain they are), and he’ll do what is within his ability, and within reason, to help them which is quite heart-warming to see.

Overall, the first season of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. is fantastic. Saiki may seem like an overpowered person but it’s handled well here with some caveats to those powers. Not enough to severely gimped him but just enough to not make him too generic. His attitude is also great, he’s consistent in wanting to avoid attention and the problems it brings, but of course can’t help but still make friends. The best part is that the whole season is consistent with its quality, with each clip striking gold with its humor and twists and turns.

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Arcade Archives: Contra (PS4)

Arcade Archives: Contra is a port of the game Contra from the Arcades, released digitally for the PlayStation 4. It is a run and gun shooter and is the first game in the Contra series. The original was released in 1987, and this version contains both the Japanese and US versions. As an arcade game, naturally there isn’t much to the story but if you open up the manual, it gives you the backstory that the playable characters are Bill and Lance, who are super soldiers (codenamed Contra) tasked with destroying the aliens’ invasion base on Earth.

With that backdrop, you’re thrown right into the game and the controls are easy to work out. It has a 2D perspective so you run from left to right, shooting all the enemies in the process. You start with the default gun, but as you defeat monsters, they’ll drop powerups including more powerful guns like one that shoots three bullets or a laser. rounding out the controls is the ability to jump / duck.

Once again, naturally, as an arcade game, Contra is designed to be hard. You will die if you touch an enemy, or if something hits you. It’s designed to overwhelm the player and designed to kill the player in order for the player to keep inserting money. Since this version is not an arcade cabinet, you’ll have infinite continues as well as a menu with quite a number of customizable options. You can tweak the difficulty, the number of lives each credit, remap the controls, the ability to continuously fire by holding down the shoot button, create save states and how easily you can get additional lives.

So while the game is hard and you’ll constantly die, at least you’ll be able to grind your way through it to the very end. That’s when you realise that this is a really short game. The game is also predictably structured, with a run and gun section, then a 3D section where you’re shooting up instead of to the sides, and then a boss. Repeat this three times and you’re finished with the game in under 30 minutes (much less if you’re good). Throughout this mode, there’ll be a high score.

So there’s not much to the game apart from playing through it again and again to get high scores. There are two additional modes, the High Score mode disables continues so you play under you get a game over to obtain the highest score. The Caravan mode gives you a 5 minute time limit to get as high a score as you can. In all modes, you can upload the high scores onto online leaderboards. However, all these modes are basically the same game anyway and the average player is effectively guaranteed to die during a run.

Overall, Arcade Archives: Contra is a blast from the past. You’ll get a kick out of the nostalgia if you’ve played it as a kid, however for newer players this is a rough game. The game is designed to kill the player as easily as possible which can be frustrating since it can feel unfair. It’s a short experience so you don’t waste much time on it even if you don’t enjoy it so it kind of balances out.

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Toy Review: Transformers Generations Legacy Kickback (Deluxe)

Review:  #727

Name:  Kickback

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Decepticon

Line:  Generations - Legacy

Year of Release:  2022

Size Class:  Deluxe (Wave 1)

Mold Status:  new

ALTERNATE MODE:

Heavily based upon his G1 incarnation, Kickback transforms into a robotic grasshopper.

It's accurate to the G1 toy to a fault, so this is basically the robot lying down with some insect legs flipped out, quite disappointing in the end.

In terms of size, he's okay, but since he has an insect mode, he's definitely not as substantial as something that transforms into a vehicle.

There's no meaningful articulation here, particularly since the two front pairs of legs are joined to the same limb.  The wings can rotate up and down.

The robot weapons, which include the pair of swords, can peg onto his wings, while the guns peg to the underside.

If you haven't noticed, the insect head is the back of the robot mode, but it blends in quite well.  It's an average alternate mode, it would be pleasing to fans of the original G1 toy but feels lazy compared to other recent Transformers.

TRANSFORMATION:

Kickback probably has one of the most simple transformation schemes in the Deluxe figures.  He's mostly in robot mode already so you only need to flip the rear grasshopper legs up, the feet down, fold the front pair of grasshopper legs into the robot arms and flip out the fish.  Then rotate him at the waist and flip down the panel to reveal his head.

ROBOT MODE:

Despite the simple transformation, at least the robot mode looks pretty decent.  Although he has legs that seem proportionally too big for him.

He has the grasshopper wings point up from his back, which looks really good.  If you're not a fan, you can also rotate them back down.

The head sculpt is quite nice, but there's a big flaw and you can probably tell from this particular figure.  His antennae are made from soft rubbery plastic and despite his small stature, for some reason, he is packed in the box with not enough space for his antenna so they end up being permanently bent, and you'll need a hairdryer to soften the plastic and pull it straight again.

For size, Kickback is a small Deluxe, which is disappointing for something so simple as well.

Articulation is solid, he has joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

He has three weapons, a pair of big swords, and a gun.

He can hold the gun in either hand, and it looks pretty good.

When not in use, the gun can store on his back.

While ankle joints are always nice, Kickback's aren't super great as they're not his whole feet, but rather the inner portion, so it is harder to utilize.

For the swords, you can peg them onto the outside of each arm.

They look great, even if oversized.  The translucent purple used is a good choice.

Alternatively, Kickback's able to hold the handle of the swords in the more traditional sense.

There's no real storage place for the swords if Kickback's not using them, but you can clip them back onto the wings if you want, but they look really awkward there.  Another missed opportunity is the fact that the swords cannot combine into a bigger one, that would have been really easy to do.

This is a good looking robot mode, if a bit simple.

OVERALL:

Kickback is an average figure.  He's very bland in the sense that he doesn't try anything new and has a super simple transformation that borders on being completely lazy.  His weaponry helps save the figure, especially in robot mode but the alternate mode is very disappointing.

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