Review #RX-1: "Classics" Style Bonecrusher
(TFC Toys Neckbreaker)
TFC Hercules part 1 of 8
Hello! Yotsuya, here! This review is something special... for it is the first review written for this website that is not written by yours truly! So welcome on board to Yotsuya's Reviews our first guest reviewer! Who is this esteemed person, you may wonder? He is a member of an online Transformers forum I frequent over at Seibertron.com. He's somewhat well known in those forums, I'd almost dare to say infamously so, where he has very strong opinions on things and is not afraid to make them known. In fact, he and I have had quite the row on occasion, as we have quite different viewpoints on certain matters!
So really, who better to ask to write a guest review? If it was just someone who would have the same exact thoughts and ideas as myself, that would kind of defeat the purpose and I may as well write the darn thing myself! Well, except of course that the toy in question is not one that I own. There are a lot of Transformers and related third party toys out there, and as much as I may want to, I cannot own them all.
So what is this mysterious toy you ask? (Or rather, you would ask if you were too dumb to read whatever link brought you here... Or heck, the title at the top of this very page!) Well, you may remember once upon a time that I reviewed a set of toys from a company called Maketoys that was a third party Devastator. And I am sure I mentioned in my reviews that Maketoys' set was but one of two competing third party Constructicons that came out around the same time. Well, today we begin a look at that other set with the first part of an eight part review dedicated to it!
I'll likely be back for a few extra comments of my own at the end, but without further ado, here is Rated X's look at TFC Toys' version of Bonecrusher, a.k.a. Neckbreaker:
So really, who better to ask to write a guest review? If it was just someone who would have the same exact thoughts and ideas as myself, that would kind of defeat the purpose and I may as well write the darn thing myself! Well, except of course that the toy in question is not one that I own. There are a lot of Transformers and related third party toys out there, and as much as I may want to, I cannot own them all.
So what is this mysterious toy you ask? (Or rather, you would ask if you were too dumb to read whatever link brought you here... Or heck, the title at the top of this very page!) Well, you may remember once upon a time that I reviewed a set of toys from a company called Maketoys that was a third party Devastator. And I am sure I mentioned in my reviews that Maketoys' set was but one of two competing third party Constructicons that came out around the same time. Well, today we begin a look at that other set with the first part of an eight part review dedicated to it!
I'll likely be back for a few extra comments of my own at the end, but without further ado, here is Rated X's look at TFC Toys' version of Bonecrusher, a.k.a. Neckbreaker:
TFC Neckbreaker (presented here with Reprolabels) is a good modern representation of G1 Bonecrusher. This is a voyager sized figure.
The steam shovel mode is nice. It has wheels on the bottom of the threads to allow it to roll. I wish the shovel would have been green for greater G1 accuracy, but what can you do? There’s not a great amount of movement in the shovel. It does not lift up, and comes apart very easily, so don’t expect to re-enact any construction themed scenes. But overall, the alt mode does its job well. And for those of you that cant live without parts storage, the guns peg on and you can have the giant fist extending from the rear end of the alt mode. Looks pretty stupid if you ask me, but I’m not a fan of parts storage. I keep all that crap out of sight in my nice roomy parts box. |
The robot mode is definitely the stronger mode here. He resembles G1 Bonecrusher pretty well, with the exception of the black chest and legs. The Reprolabels help the chest a bit. The head is a nice homage to the original G1 Bonecrusher in the cartoon. As with all the individual robot heads in this set, it has nice red light piping.
The figure is pretty well articulated. The head is on a ball joint that can turn sideways and look up. The shoulder joints can move up to the side. The upper arm has swivel. The elbow joints can bend, but no wrist swivel due to the transformation. The figure also has waist swivel. The legs are connected by ball joints at the hips. The knees can bend and the feet have forward and backward movement which can help with posing. On my particular figure, the right hip ball joint is extremely loose to the point where it dangles annoyingly. Of course, that’s nothing a little crazy glue can't fix to make the ball joint tighter. As with all the Hercules figures, Neckbreaker comes with a small purple gun which combines with the other members guns to form Hercules gun. A translucent red version of the same gun is also included which combines with the other members red guns to form a 2nd gun for Hercules. If you really desire parts storage bad enough, you can clip the giant fist so it hangs off his ass and looks like he is dropping a big purple turd. Not my thing, but maybe somebody likes it. Who knows ? |
Hello! Yotsuya back again! That wraps up Rated X's first review. Thanks, Rated X, for the look at this figure!
For a look back at the Maketoys version of this same character, you can find it as one half of this review here. I don't want to get too deep into debates on which one is better, but one of the arguments I often see Hercules fans bring up is that their preferred toys have better parts integration and don't have to depend on fists & forearms that transform into portable generators / jackhammers (depending on the mode). Oh yes, because having a giant fist hanging off the back of your vehicle or robot is so much more an elegant solution! (The proceeding may be slightly sarcastic.) On this, at least, it would seem Rated X and I have some measure of agreement, as he would rather just chuck the fist aside until it is needed for the gestalt. Arguments about which company hides extra parts better aside, while I definitely still prefer the Maketoys version, I cannot say that this toy is a bad effort. Both of them have their pluses and minuses, and if the Maketoys version had never existed I could have likely been happy with this. And those people who prefer this over the Maketoys version I am sure get just as much enjoyment out of their toy as I do. |
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Review added 24 July 2014 by Rated X. (Prelude and post-script comments by Yotsuya.) Comments are welcomed!
Opinions in the body of the review and the photographs presented along with them are from Rated X. Used on this website with permission.
Opinions in the body of the review and the photographs presented along with them are from Rated X. Used on this website with permission.