I never watched Transformers Prime, though I have to admit the amalgamation of animation and movie based aesthetics did make for an interesting set of character designs. Sadly, most of those didn't exactly translate into toy form that well, which is a shame, but understandably there were limitations.
Luckily, in this day and age there are various third parties will to take a shot at these designs, which brings us to this figure, the Night Countess by APC Toys, which is their take on the Airachnid character.
The box art is... interesting to say the least. Clearly not official screen captures or character models, both sides feature what looks like the same illustration, but with a different Instagram filter applied to it.
I got my figure from ShowZ, who had it for $44 USD shipped to me. If I discount at least $10 for shipping, and if I consider that a Hasbro Deluxe is now about $26 USD after taxes, then honestly the $34 USD for a third party release isn't exactly outrageous. Having said that it, its certainly on the lower end of what a third party of this size would cost, and it's reflected in several areas, first and foremost being the contents:
- 1 x Main Figure
- 1 x Rotor
- 2 x Spider Legs
- 1 x Instruction Sheet.
Clearly having rotors that turn into spider legs would be very difficult, if not impossible, to pull off so having separate parts isn't surprising. Sadly, there
I generally can figure out Japanese instructions because even if I can't read it, the images are pretty clear. These instructions... well, they feature some really poorly photoshopped images of the toy in black and white, combined with pretty vague arrows, so it's a good thing I can actually read most of the Chinese.
So, I think the best way of summing up my feelings is that.. .this feels like something that Hasbro would make. I mean, there's both good and bad to that, but in the case of third party figures, I've seen some pretty poorly designed toys, so I 'd say that's generally a positive in this case. Of course, Hasbro often makes some questionable design choices, which are present here as well.
Starting with the positives. I have to say that the overall sculpt looks pretty spiffy, and is certainly a step or more above and beyond that of the original toy. I've never watched Prime, but even a casual glance at this figure made it clear that this was the closer match to the on screen model. Proportions are on the right track, but the biggest selling point would definitely be the head sculpt, which not only looks good, but also has some good paint work to bring out those details.
Speaking of paint, the head is probably the art the most paint density. Otherwise, you're looking at the gold, the silver on her waist, and the various shades of purple where the base plastic colour needed to covered up or just couldn't cut it. Applications are generally clean all over.
The rotor and the spider legs have multiple joints that allow for some display variation, which is always welcome.
Now that we've gotten all the happy stuff out of the way...
Articulation - it's like they could have done better but somehow ran out of budget. She's got heel rotation, knees, thigh twist, standard hips, mid torso rotation, standard shoulders, double jointed elbows, wrists, and a ball jointed base of head on the body, along with the various points on the rotor and spider legs, as well as the waist panels. It's not bad per se, but.. it could have been better.
No ankle articulation probably made the legs stronger at the ankles, but it makes for some awkward looking standing poses. The size of the crotch piece gets in the way of the legs, and of course the lack of waist is a disappointment. The shoulders are strange in that the greatest range of motion is when the arms are resting at the side of the body - anything else, the shoulder joint will not allow you to actually move the arm any further.
I will give credit for the fact that at least the head was developed such that there is sufficient clearance for tilt.
Transformation into Spider and Vehicle mode aren't overly complicated, though based on the instructions Copter is definitely more straight forward, even if there are more than double the number of steps - Spider mode instructions just aren't that clear, and the crappy instruction document doesn't help either.
There are fewer Shellformer components than one would have thought, and unlike Nicee, at least those components do not come off the body just so the poor bastard who developed the transformation could have an easier time, so kudos for that. Robo kibble in Copter mode is limited to the bits you can see under the vehicle itself, but is otherwise very clean.
Like with many Hasbro figures, there are some questionable design elements. First off, the connection point for the spider legs is very small.. and short. So basically, getting it connected is already hard enough. Then you have to get the angle just right otherwise they'll just end up popping out of the body, causing a total structural collapse of Spider mode. Incredibly annoying.
Then, there's whoever though up these pieces. The black pieces are what connect the arms to the torso of the figure. Transformation relies on basically the elastic properties of plastic, which may, one day, become brittle and result in warping or snapping of this piece. Then there's the fact that the connection point on the torso itself is a swivel, rather than a ball joint, so you;'re basically anchoring a bar at that point and prying on it every time you transform this thing.
I can already see things going badly.
The friction pin joints used for the hip armour pieces probably isn't the greatest, but I've seen similar questionable things used for MP figures, so I'll let that one slide.
Finally, it wouldn't be Hasbro if I didn't question the general durability of the materials used in the toy. The joints are generally fine, thank goodness, but the overall figure feels very light and flimsy, like we had before the Unified Product offerings. It's not too bad on the body of the figure, but the thinner parts, like the rotor and spider legs, are really bad and generally don't have much strength. The rotor doesn't matter a whole lot, but those spider legs... well their flimsiness makes life more difficult than it needs to be.
In the end, I'd say this was a decent figure - it didn't exactly blow my mind in every possible way, but it wasn't priced like a luxury figure either. I think so long as the expectations are properly set, you can enjoy this figure for what it is - a sharp looking figure which is more in line with what we should have gotten in the first place.
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