Cliffbee.com Shattered Glass Octpunch Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Octpunch
Series: Convention Exclusives
Allegiance: Heroic Decepticon
Alternate Mode: Hovercraft



HOVERCRAFT MODE
Height: 6cm Length: 19cm Width: 9.5cm

   A sea green, light aqua, grey and maroon hovercraft, Octopunch is a repaint of ROTF Seaspray using colours found on G1 Octopunch's Prtender shell. The cushion is sea green while the cabin is light aqua with transparent yellow windows. The fans at the back along with some other details are maroon while there's a grey tray behind the cabin. Rounding things out there's white and maroon missile launchers on the sides with transparent yellow missiles. Octopunch has a red Heroic Decepticon logo on top of the cabin. The colours are an unusual for a hovercraft, but line up to those of the G1 toy fairly nicely.

   This is a fairly realistic looking hovercraft, I guess from the tray area at the back we can assume it's designed to transport trucks or tanks or something similar. It has a sense of scale about it, thanks to the smallish windows on the cabin. With very visible missile launchers and this scale, I guess it's fair to say this is a military hovercraft designed to carry tanks or APCs. Not that I'd expect any military to use this set of colours. There's a nice sculpted texture on the cushion.

   Play value is relatively simple for a toy this size. The turbines can pivot out to the sides to allow for a larger payload and the back edge of the tray can fold down as a ramp - but both of these are by products of the transformation. The missile launchers fire the missiles quite well and there are four maroon wheels underneath which allow him to roll along fairly well. I'm not going to test, but I'm assuming this toy wont float - in fact given the front-heavy nature of it, I suspect it would sink nose first quite quickly.

   The colours are odd really but this is a fairly good military hovercraft with a nice level of detail. There's no tribute to the original toy in this choice of mode - other than the aquatic theme. It's a well executed hovercraft, despite the odd colours. The mould is from the movie line, but would fit well into the Classics style lines (and this makes me wonder why they made this SG instead of Classics).

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Split the front of the cushion and twist out & forward to form legs. Rotate the legs & knees, straightening the legs. Flip the groin up over the cabin, fold out the heelspurs & stand him up. Unclip the rear section and fold the sides out to form arms, revealing the head. Fold the rear section up onto his back, rotate the turbines up behind his shoulders. Fold in the panels which covered the head, rotate the arms down into position. Fold out and rotate the missile launchers on his arms and you're done.

ROBOT MODE
Height: 18cm Width: 14cm

   A sea green, light aqua and maroon robot, Octopunch has a light aqua torso with some blue patterning and aqua upper arms. His head and forearms are maroon while the boots & hands are sea green along with flippers on his feet. There's some medium grey on his feet, groin and hips. His eyepiece is transparent yellow and features a very useful lightpipe. Instead of a mouth, Octopunch features a blue breathing apparatus with hoses coming out from either side. The Heroic Decepticon logo is his chest while the maroon launchers (with transparent yellow missiles) are visible on the outsides of his forearms. These colours line up fairly well to those of the G1 Octopunch's pretender shell; down to the positioning of these colours.

   While this robot mode is quite bulky the head is much smaller than the distinct diving helmet seen on the pretender, which weakens the tribute somewhat; it's a shame as the colours line up nicely and there's an aquatic theme here. There are still shades of Seaspray here, since this is a co-opted repaint; but it works well aside from the relatively small head. The head is still aquatic and his eyes resemble a diving mask and the breathing apparatus mouth is obviously aquatic. The generally bulky shape of this robot mode works well (and suits Octopunch better than Seaspray). The turbines look good on his shoulders. It's quite apparent in this mode that the character's name really makes no sense on this toy - the original toy's inner robot turned into a crab; but there's nothing octopedal here.

   The play value is pretty good in this mode. The missiles fire nicely and the launchers can be aimed thanks to arm poseabilit. The turbines themselves (ie the blades inside) actually turn, although it's pretty hard to actually get in there and spin them. The missile launchers can detach and plug into his hands,

   Octopunch has good poseability, although it's perhaps a tad below what we might expect of a relatively gimmick-free toy at this scale. His head turns while the waist is fixed. His shoulders swing and lift out to the sides while the elbows are hinged with rotators. The hips swing and lift out to the sides (both joints are ratchetting) while the ankles are hinged with lateral twists allowing the legs to split while the feet rotate and stay flat on the table (a nice touch). Some knees joints would have been nice, but the transformation prevents this.

   A good robot mode with an excellent theme and some interesting features such as the attached missile launchers, face, spinning turbines and flippers. The poseability is a little limited but overall play value is still okay. The tribute is well considered given that the mould doesn't really suit the tribute (even given the aquatic theme).

VARIATIONS

   None that I'm aware of. Octopunch was produced exclusively for BotCon 2012, and as such was likely limited to a single production run. As mentioned he is a repaint of Seaspray.

OVERALL

   While I really dislike that he was done as a "Shattered Glass" character rather than a straight Classicsverse toy, it's easy enough to cover the red Decepticon logo with a purple stickered one. The colours match those of the G1 pretender shell well but the sculpt isn't really similar so the tribute isn't immediately obvious - although there's attention to detail in this repaint. The mould is good if not great. The hovercraft mode is straightforward and the robot mode is well put together. The aquatic theme in robot mode & choice of alt mode do fit the character, but there's not really a whole lot of semblance, which is a shame. The mould is a little simple for it's size but at least there are no awful gimmicks. I'd recommend this toy over Seaspray in that Seapray's tribute is even weaker, but as a convention exclusive his availability is limited & likely cost quite high so I'll stop short of recommending this toy - 7.5/10

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