Arcee! For realsies!

by David Willis on February 29, 2012 at 6:46 pm
Posted In: Blog

I’m still sick, but I napped like aalll day and so I have the energy in me to write this.  Huzzah!

Like all of the other “Robots in Disguise” Revealers, Arcee is an entirely new mold apart from her “First Edition” version.  And just like Cliffjumper, she relies more on faux kibble for her transformation.  Instead of the front of the bike splitting apart and folding down to become her upper torso, the entire front of the bike now hangs off her back.  This results in a more “show accurate” chest, but I think I’m preaching to the choir when I say that’s not a step in the right direction.

I do not, however, want to give the impression that this is a disappointing or terrible toy.  It is not.  In fact, it’s superior to the FE in a few ways.

First of all, all its kibble is further out of the way this time.  FE Arcee had this problem with her shoulders, where the big shoulder kibble was attached to her upper arms and kept getting in the way of all the stuff hanging off her back.  This is not a problem with RID Arcee.  Everything’s back and out of the way of her range of movement.

Secondly, I like that she’s shorter.  FE Arcee was taller than both Bumblebee and Cliffjumper, which just won’t do!  RID Arcee is about a head shorter than FE Arcee, which is loads better, though not perfect.  I will take better over worse any day of the week, however.

Because she was created more recently, RID Arcee manages to be slightly more cartoon accurate than her earlier FE version as well.  The cuffs on her wrist are shaped properly, for example, and they managed to get her forearms blue this time.  Her chest, as mentioned, is more accurate, but that’s a function of the different transformation, of course.  (Other than the torso, the rest of the toy transforms basically the same as the older one: The rear wheel splits apart and folds into the back of her shins.)  The head also looks a lot better.  Her eyes are lessbeady and more large and expressive.

Oh, and did you know you can use the FE’s weapons on Arcee?  In addition to the 5mm pegholes that remain under her forearms for her blade weapons, there’s also two skinny pegs on either side of her motorcycle mode that allow you to mount her blade weapons as you could on the previous toy.  There’s no other reason for them.  That’s pretty awesome.

There are some downsides, of course.  She only comes with one blade.  It combines with a giant version of the blaster her arms can transform into on the cartoon.  She loses both her waist articulation, her wrist articulation is now a balljoint and keeps her from being able to put her hands on her hips most excellently, plus she lost all of her pink.  I assume the latter is because of Boys, who tend to be strongly sexist at the toy’s target age.

I now have all three of Prime Arcee’s toys!  How did this happen?

(I may have to sell the FE.  Hey, it has Reprolabels on it!)


└ Tags: ,