Review: #752
Name: Nightbird
Brand: Transformers
Allegiance: Decepticon
Line: Masterpiece
Year of Release: 2022
Size Class: N/A
Mold Status: remold of Masterpiece Arcee
PACKAGING AND CONTENTS:
Nightbird comes in the typical black Masterpiece box, with plenty of stock photos on the back to show off the many features of the figure.
Nightbird comes with a collector's card and a huge amount of accessories, even for a Masterpiece figure.
VEHICLE MODE:
Nightbird transforms into a Cybertronian vehicle. Given that she is a remold of Arcee, this is a familiar vehicle and it looks fairly nice here.
The glossy black contrasts nicely with the matte grey (which is painted). And while you should expect it for a Masterpiece figure, it is not always the case, but it is nice to say that Nightbird doesn't have any exposed robot parts here.
She's approximately the size of a Voyager in vehicle mode, but is of course more complex and feels a little bit heavier too.
Given the roofless nature of the vehicle, there are some detailing for the inside of the car, including seats and the dials / screens on the dash.
Only one of her accessories store away out of sight in vehicle mode, and that's the gun which pegs underneath the front of the vehicle.
Otherwise, you can plug the swords and kunai on the side, and this is officially depicted in the instructions.
The vehicle has some nice curves and the wheels roll, but there are no other gimmicks.
A good looking vehicle mode, and while it's a bit statics, it's not unexpected for something in the Masterpiece line.
TRANSFORMATION:
Surprisingly for a Masterpiece figure, Nightbird isn't too complicated, and there aren't any omoments in the transformation scheme where it wows you. Nevertheless, there are still several little nice touches that help achieve the look. She transforms very similarly to previous Arcee figures. Most of the engineering when into her backpack, which has a lot of the vehicle mode being folded up, and despite what it may look like, it's compact considering how much it had to compress in there. The trickiest part was getting the chest to fold down as you needed to twist the head a certain way to provide enough clearance.
ROBOT MODE:
Nightbird's robot mode looks quite good, although she still has the proportion issues from Arcee. In particular, the chest piece feels a bit too low so it looks off.
Something that cannot be avoided with Nightbird or Arcee figures is that there will always be a backpack, there's just too much of the vehicle mode to fold away.
Her head sculpt is good, and Nightbird has a huge chin, which makes you wonder whether the lower chest piece was deliberately done like this in order to accommodation this remold.
Nightbird's mouth plate can be removed, while you can also remove and replace the face with a shocked expression, including an anime sweat drop.
Size-wise, again, Nightbird is around Voyager size, and her proportions can make her look skinner and lacking in mass in comparison.
From the side, you can see how much of the backpack sticks out, thankfully, it doesn't affect her balance too much, but there is still an effect.
She has plenty of articulation. She has joints for her head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips knees and ankles.
Despite only being around the size of a Voyager, she has joints for her hand, her index finger is individually jointed, as is her thumb, while the rest of her fingers are one piece.
She has a small footprint, it's surprising that the designer didn't give her a bit more of a heel spur as the backpack can be a slight issue. She still stands fine in most poses, but you may need to adjust her.
This is officially in the instructions, and you manipulate a few pieces in the backpack so that she can lay on her back midjump. It's actually a really nice feature and looks great.
Moving onto her numerous accessories, the first is a pair of Variable Ninja Sword (which can also be used to store her shuriken in).
These are a pair of transparent yellow swords that she can hold in both hands, and look quite impressive.
The swords can store by pegging onto her backpack.
Next are the Light Ninja Swords.
She has enough articulation to hold one with both hands.
There are a pair of them so she can dual-wield as well.
The blade portion of the swords can be removed, and you can replace it with a purple effects part, which still looks pretty decent.
The handles can be pegged on the sides of the backpack, but feels a bit too easy to dislodge.
Next is the Shuriken Gun, which is a small pistol.
An effects part can peg onto the barrel so it looks like it is being shot.
This has a better storage point as you can open up on of the panels in her backpack and it slots inside.
There is a holster that can peg onto her thigh, in which the pistol can store there.
Next up is the blowgun, which is a slightly bigger and longer gun.
Again, there is another effects part that is designed to be used with it.
She comes with two shuriken, which pegs onto the palm of her hands (which can also be double stacked), and you can create some incredibly cool poses with them given her flexibitility.
Then there are a pair of sai, which can initially store on her forearms.
Of course, she can hold both of them in her hands.
Depending on how you want, she can also hold them in an upright position too.
Nightbird has so many accessories that she's designed for you to mix and match the ones you'd want her to use at the same time.
It is possible to attach every accessory (barring the effects parts) in robot mode but it's quite unwieldy and pieces are prone to popping off.
Nightbird's robot mode on her own is pretty good, but her play value comes from her numerous accessories, which makes her really fun.
OVERALL:
Nightbird is a really nice figure, not being she is an awesome Transformer (she's solid though), but due to the sheer amount of accessories, even for Masterpiece standards. What's more, her accessories aren't of the type where you try it once and put it away, since these are all weaponry, and they give the figure so much flexibility. She's well painted and well detailed in both modes too, so Nightbird is recommended.
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