Toy Review: Transformers Generations Legacy Wreck 'N Rule Collection G2 Universe Leadfoot and Masterdominus

Review:  #829

Name:  Wreck 'N Rule Collection G2 Universe Leadfoot and Masterdominus

Brand:  Transformers

Line:  Generations - Legacy

Year of Release:  2022

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS:

As part of the Wreck 'N Rule Collection set of exclusives, this set contains G2 Leadfoot and Masterdominus.

The set comes in a box that has a fantastic piece of artwork, and is designed to be stacked together with the rest of the collection as a bigger piece of art.

Furthermore, each set contains a piece of cardboard that can fold and combine into a hammer.

THE FIGURES:

The set contains two figures, G2 Leadfoot, a retool of Earthrise Mirage, and Masterdominus, a retool of Ractonite.

Since both figures are retools, where one is a relatively obscure character, and the other is a new character, the only draw is if you liked the molds or if you like the designs.

Masterdominus is a Fossilizer so he can split up into parts to attach to other characters to power them up.

OVERALL:

To be fair, this is a nice set, but probably not worth the full price as they are not strong characters.  The color scheme and molds are decent though, so are good if you can find them on sale or at a steep discount.

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Mushoku Tensei II: Jobless Reincarnation (2023-24)

Mushoku Tensei II: Jobless Reincarnation is the second season based upon the light novel series. The season is 25 episodes long and the first episode shows off the effects of the teleportation disaster from the previous season from another viewpoint. It can seem unrelated at first. Then it goes back to Rudeus who is continuing his journey to try and find his mother. He is severely affected by Eris’s decision to leave him last season, and this causes him to be depressed.

Rudeus’ depression has a significant impact on the season’s tone at first. Everything seems down and worse. Rudeus is struggling hard, not only in his objective, but also in his social interactions. It’s not something that is easy to get out of, and it takes some time before the other characters he meets in his adventuring life help turn him around (to be fair, it doesn’t take that long at all).

Like the first season, the plot isn’t obvious in the direction that it’s going. It is like a slice-of-life anime, where Rudeus takes it as it comes. He doesn’t know where he wants to go, what he wants to do, and how he wants to go about it. Even his quest to try to find his mother is soon put in the background and Rudeus moves onto the next phase of his life. While it doesn’t get to the point of feeling aimless, there are times where you wonder if the author had any idea where they wanted it to go.

Nevertheless, Rudeus continues to get more powerful, but not obviously so. He was already strong, although his experience with death in the previous season had shaken him, he’s still considerably stronger than all his peers. It’s interesting to see the setting change back to something more akin to a high school setting, with the vague promise that Rudeus will be able to find out what he needs to know.

The anime is not shy with its themes. It wasn’t as obvious in the first season although it started to show up towards the end. This second season straight up shows the sexual issues that Rudeus has, and the effect it has on him. While its depiction isn’t realistic, there are times where it reflects on how it would impact his ego. This ends up driving more of his motivations in progressing in life than finding his mother…

All that being said, Rudeus makes progress towards finding out the cause of the mass teleportation accident that sparked a lot of the events of the anime. He finds out something that viewers would have suspected, or at least not be too surprised about when it is revealed. It’s still light on details on what exactly happened, but it successfully dangles the carrot in promising we will eventually understand.

If you were expecting epic scenes or big payoffs, this is not the anime for you. It’s slow-going and despite the difficulties that Rudeus finds himself having to overcome, it never really feels demanding or challenging enough. He never really drops down to the worst, so when things end up going his way, and his life gets much much better, it has that feeling you get from isekai where the protagonist has it a bit too easy. Rudeus is currently the more powerful than most, he’s finding his true love, and on the verge of having his own family.

Even when fate shows its cruel side and throws Rudeus a curveball when he is most happy, it still feels he has it okay. That’s fine, especially as Rudeus is shown to not be a perfect character. There are some cringeworthy moments where he doesn’t deal with situations with the care and finesse that he should have, and that reflect his previous life. Despite being in this world from being a baby to adulthood, he is still very clearly influenced by his previous life.

Maybe it’s because even after 17 years of living and growing up in this new world, he still constantly thinks and speaks in his past life’s voice, a 34-year-old adult male, it is very creepy and inappropriate with a lot of his thoughts. It gets quite uncomfortable at times, and despite his years of experience, he still makes questionable decisions such that when things happen, it is squarely on his shoulders and no one else’s fault, so you can’t sympathize with him at all.

The season finale hits it the worst. A bit of action which is fine, and it seems that Rudeous may be achieving his supposed goal (before being severely sidetracked). He supposedly encounters a big loss in his life (which is partially his fault anyway for not listening), but this ends up being the story trying its hardest to justify his harem. This just makes the character even more horrible, and no matter how hard the anime tries to dress it up, there is no justifying it and it’s just some sort of twisted fantasy of the author.

Overall, Mushoku Tensei II: Jobless Reincarnation emphasizes the glaring flaws of the story. The first season wasn’t great in terms of its themes and implications, but it could still be glossed over. The second season doubles down on that, so Rudeous is truly a creepy and horrible person. Although it’s made worse by the anime trying very hard to justify those actions. The animation is good… but everything else about it is not. It’s hard to root for a character who doesn’t deserve it.

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Toy Review: Transformers Generations Legacy Wreck 'N Rule Collection Masterdominus (Deluxe)

Review:  #828

Name:  Masterdominus

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Autobot

Line:  Generations - Legacy

Year of Release:  2022

Size Class:  Deluxe

Mold Status:  retool of Kingdom Ractonite

BEAST MODE:

Masterdominus transforms into a skeletal mastodon (similar to a woolly mammoth).

He has a weird black color scheme on the upper layer for some reason, with some gold highlights.  This does kind of detract against him.

As a skeletal figure, he can feel a bit unsubstantial.  Above is a comparison against other Deluxes.

As a retool of Ractonite, the main new thing is a new head sculpt, and this is the best thing about the figure as it looks awesome.  The mouth can open and close too.

There is articulation, but not too much of it is meaningful as it is hard to not make him look awkward when moving his limbs.

An awesome retool (and surprising at how much can change with just a swap of the head).

TRANSFORMATION:

There is little change in the transformation compared to Ractonite, but he transforms as a partsformer.  You pull him apart, do a little bit of fiddling around with some parts, and then put him together again.  Basically, the limbs become the limbs of the robot mode, but with the front and back piece of the skeleton forming the shoulder pads.  The torso of the beast mode is the torso of the robot mode.

ROBOT MODE:

Ractonite had a terrible robot mode, one that may eventually grow on you.  Masterdominus is the same, and he is very wide thanks to the shoulder pads.

He has a wide upper body with slim legs, and that is a big reason why he looks so weird.  Thanks to the long heel spurs though, he keeps his balance well.

The head sculpt is unchanged and has a knight theme to it.

He is about average height for a Deluxe, although quite a bit wider than normal.

Articulation is fine, with joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees and minor ankle tilts.

The mastodon head defaults to a shoulder pad but you can take it off and attach it to his arm as a weapon.

The other nice change compared to Ractonite is that while Ractonite has 5mm posts as "hands", Masterdominus tries to improve it by having another set of 5mm posts, so that it looks like "claws" instead.  It's a slight improvement.

FOSSILIZER MODE:

As a carry over of the mold, Masterdominus is a fossilizer, which means he can split up into pieces to form as armor for other characters.

He predominantly splits into three pieces, two weapons and a backpack which acts as shoulder guns.  It doesn't look too bad, although the weapons are a little bit too big for a Deluxe so probably Voyager and Leader classed figures are where you would want to use them on.

OVERALL:

Masterdominus is a clever retool.  Who knew that changing only the skeletal face can make such a big impact on how the figure looks (yes, a lot of the figure has been retooled, but the most notable change was the beast mode head).  As part of an exclusive set, he can be a bit pricey, but if the alt mode interests you, then he is worth getting during a sale.

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My Friend Peppa Pig (PS5)

My Friend Peppa Pig is an adventure game that is predominantly for young kids. Yes, it has an easy trophy / achievements list and there’s that appeal, but it’s a short simple game that’s more like an entry for younger audiences starting out. It’s based upon the preschool cartoon Peppa Pig, and the premise is that you are a friend of Peppa’s who is visiting her.

The game starts off with a simple character editor so that you can design your character from a limited set of presets. Then there’s a quick tutorial where basically you just use the analogue stick to move around, and X to interact with objects and characters. You’re then let loose in the world, and you can explore it with Peppa. You start off with Peppa’s house and then moving around, you’ll be able to go to her school, the museum, the forest and several other locations.

It is designed to be a slow and relaxing game. It’s basically a sidescroller where the characters move from side to side. There are scripted events where you help someone find their glasses or sticks to build a campfire. It’s not riveting stuff, but it has a simple charm to it. The story revolves around interacting with Peppa’s friends and family, and then helping them out. There’s no meat to the gameplay as all you need to do is go around to where you need to go and press X. The graphics are a simple colorful affair that’s true to the cartoon.

As it is such a simple game, there aren’t many opportunities for issues or bugs to remain after all the patches. While the gameplay flow is fine for its target audience, as an adult gamer though, there may be some little things here and there that may annoy you. The biggest one is the unskippable cutscenes where it goes on for a little bit too long and are so repetitive. Every time you enter an area, Peppa will say the same thing.

The game is extremely short, which is disappointing. You can easily finish and see everything that the game offers in much less than two hours. You can then keep on going to the same places and doing the same things afterwards, but there’s too little content, especially for a full priced game. This lack of content is emphasized since the game feels decent for its intended purpose.

Overall, My Friend Peppa Pig is good for young ones, and for trophy hunters. To be fair, the game has nice graphics (for what it is going for) and charm to its simple gameplay. It can be grating with the constant commentary from the characters but when you put it into the context of its target audience, it’s fine.

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Toy Review: Transformers Generations Legacy Wreck 'N Rule Collection G2 Leadfoot (Deluxe)

Review:  #827

Name:  G2 Leadfoot

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Autobot

Line:  Generations - Legacy

Year of Release:  2022

Size Class:  Deluxe

Mold Status:  retool of Earthrise Mirage (itself a retool of Siege Mirage)

VEHICLE MODE:

Released in a 2-pack with Masterdominus in the Wreck 'N Rule Collection set of exclusives, G2 Leadfoot transforms into a yellow and blue Formula One race car.

This is a nice alternate mode, and the blue has an amazing shade of metallic blue that really makes the figure pop with the yellow.

Leadfoot is a good size for a Deluxe too.

Leadfoot is a retool of Earthrise Mirage, itself a retool of Siege Mirage.  Basically, it's the earth form of the Siege version and there is a significant amount of changes here, including a tiny bit of the transformation.  As a result, the spoiler looks much better than the original Siege figure.

Both guns peg onto either side of the vehicle.

The only play value here is rolling him on a flat surface, but still, this is a fantastic vehicle mode.

TRANSFORMATION:

He transforms pretty much the same as the Siege Mirage with a minor tweak to his arms.  The front splits into half along with the sides to form the legs.  The arms, instead of completely folding into the spoiler, is a little bit more spread along lengthwise (the vehicle mode is actually slightly longer than the Siege version thanks to this), and splits for robot mode.  The head is revealed along with the fake torso from underneath the vehicle mode (rather than the back like the Siege mold).  It is a clever and more substantial retool than you'd expect.

ROBOT MODE:

Robot mode brings out a little bit more of the blue to the thighs, so he basically has a yellow upper body, and a blue lower half.

This is a pretty good looking robot, with little in the way of kibble.  The rear wheels nicely slots into his back, only the front wheels and fenders kind of stick out the back of his legs.

The head sculpt is new compared to the Earthrise Mirage, and it looks awesome here with the red eye visor.

Size-wise, he is about average for a Deluxe class figure.

A quick comparison with the original Siege Mirage, and Leadfoot still has the semi-awkward looking lower legs, but thanks to the darker color scheme, it isn't as bad here.

Articulation is fine with joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees and some ankle tilts.

He comes with a pair of guns, one slightly bigger and longer than the other (with a painted purple tip to boot).

He can hold both weapons in both hands and looks pretty good with them.

The guns can store on his back when not in use.

Unlike Mirage, the guns are not designed to sit on his shoulder as a shoulder cannon (although you can attempt to do it).

A fantastic little repaint, and the G2 colors are quite subdued for G2, making him much easier to accept and blend in with other figures.

OVERALL:

This is a really good looking repaint, even if you don't like the character.  Although for a more obscure character like this, it is the right decision to put him as an exclusive (rather than clogging up shelves by shelfwarming), but this also makes him more expensive than a normal Deluxe.  Thus, if you are interested, it is probably best to wait until a sale.

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