So as I was browsing the remnants of previous lines, I cam across a few figures that I didn't bother orders for one reason or another. I was gonna get Strongarm, the third repaint/retool of the Minerva mould, but then I came across a figure that I knew nothing about (canonically), but looked awesome enough for me to just say "fuggetaboudit" and buy it anyway.
Meet Autobot Chase from the Rescue Bots universe. I think this was a 2010-ish series that was clearly marketed to younger children (the actual toys had a very Playskool aesthetic). I've heard the series had excellent writing, but as per my usual rule, I was more interested in the toys rather than the series. My kids wouldn't haven been old enough to play with these at the time, in fact, one wasn't even born yet, and the other could barely walk) so I never got into this series at all. I imagine this was a main character of sorts.. I have no idea. It just looked neat. I don't know which figure this was retooled from (if any at all), but I was told that the Cliffjumper from Prime that looks very nice was a retool of this figure.
In terms of accessories, , kind of neat. I guess because of the nature of the property, Chase here isn't going to kicking ass and taking names any time soon. He comes with basically two emergency vehicle light beacons and a claw, all of which are made from that terrible translucent plastic everyone hates.
Here he is out of box and fully equipped. The claw can actually break into component pieces that can be mounted on the hard points rather than the emergency lights.
So, in my case, the appeal of this figure is just how clean he looks in robot mode. There's mothing fancy about the looks, it's just so symmetrical and safe looking, like they want to make the most average looking figure of all time.
Head sculpt wise, it looks pretty good. I definitely remember seeing a toy with this mug. What's interesting is that by releasing this figure into the Mainline, Hasbro/Takara Tomy are expecting people who watched the original series to actually still care enough to get this. I know many of the G1 collectors didn't care for this one.
Articulation points are pretty much upper end for a Deluxe size, featuring a waist and both bice and thigh swivels. Ankles aren't terrible though they're designed more for side tilt than front/back tilt. 90 degree knees seems to be the standard on all the Mainline figures, which is disappointing as there's really nothing limiting that. Shoulders, elbows, and head are pretty standard too. Ultimately, it's not like the figure comes with any accessories or weaponry that scream "I'm a badass" so generic posing should suffice.
Transformation into vehicle mode isn't complicated per se, but I found that the QC on the tolerances lead to some frustratingly tight fits. After some slight struggle, you do get a pretty sweet looking car. Reminds me of an old school muscle car, though of course this one is Police decoed. The various accessories can be plugged into the various available ports.
Paint Applications are clean and of course minimal. They match the Blue paint used on the chest/roof and the Blue plastic really nicely. The White paint is acceptable, though there are a few weak spots, but again its worth noting that the colour match was basically on point. Everything else is generally clean. I guess budget cutbacks reared their ugly heads again, as the wheels could have really used some paint on the hubs.
Build Quality wise, it's really the tolerance issues I ran into while transforming the figure. This figure differs from the traditional recipe by having a small piece folding down to cover up a gap, rather than having other pieces shorten. Well, I guess QC wasn't quite perfect there as getting that damn thing to fit in the slot was a bit annoying. Otherwise, it's a relatively simple figure, even by Mainline standards, so there really wasn't much else that was pushing the envelope.
I didn't expect anything earthshattering with Chase, and yeah, overall the figure delivered. Standardized articulation, relatively straight forward transformation. unique, if a bit pedestrian, accessories. Maybe there's a contingent of fans that would love for there to be more entries from the series. For the rest of us, a solid cast entry and builder of the ranks.
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