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Post by xiombarg on May 6, 2006 3:04:49 GMT -5
The official release date for "Ultimate forming and movable Alteisen" has been hard for me to pin down as I've read various dates ranging from March all the way to September, but today turned out to be the surprise happy day. First thing I noticed on the box is that Ultimate Alteisen has been released as a Banpresto product and not a Unifive product as had been originally announced last year. Not sure why, but the SRW franchise is Banpresto's creation (although Banpresto and Unifive are both owned by Bandai) so it makes sense for them to want to keep SRW in their pocket, and as it turned out Alteisen is a nice gem of a figure with a bunch of super cool gimmicks which I will go into in a bit. Ultimate Alteisen measures in at roughly 16 cm, which was kind of a relief, because some people were speculating that it was going to be an 11 cm figure which would have meant a smaller scale than the Degenki Hobby figures and been a real let down. Metal content is substantial! This was the biggest surprise to me. I was expecting metal in one major area only, like the feet, or the torso, but he's got a fair amount of metal in almost all major areas including parts of the skeletal structure as well as the exterior body. I would say the metal content is at least 50% or more. This pic shows some of the more prominent metal areas with the green "o"s and plastic areas with the blue "x"s. Ultimate Alteisen has a truckload of gimmicks, and most are awesome. Little gimmicks seem to be a bit uncommon at the moment, so this is fun stuff. First, the spring loaded doors to the missile bays on the shoulders. The vents on the sides of the shoulders work as release buttons. Push to make each one pop open individually! In this pic one of the vents is circled. Next, the jets on the back of the shoulders are also spring loaded. The top of the shoulder acts as a release lever to bring the jets up from their inactive position to active position. Then we have the spring loaded revolving stake on the right forearm, which works ok, but the gimmick itself turns out to be only mildly amusing because the stake can only extend a couple of millimeters when fired. It's too bad actually, because you can tell they put some effort into this to get it to work around the disengagable revolver cylinder. The green circle shows the release button for the cylinder which is shown in the pic after this one. Which then brings us to the disengaging revolver cylinder. This is really cool, and not so much because the cylinder moves from the casing but because there are six removable shells inside the cylinder that are even painted a bronzish color! I mean how cool is that? It was a very fun little surprise to discover being that the instructions didn't show it. Ok, fromt he pic above you might be wondering what's up with that reloader of shells. Yes, it's a reloader, and no you can't actually use it to reload the cylinder. But there is an extra hand that comes formed to hold the reloader specifically. Very cool. For tonight I'm going to end off with this pic of Ultimate Alteisen with the Banpresto/ Volks "Twin Bird Strike Set" with Wildfalken and Wildwurger High Mobility. Tomorrow I'll go into the articulation and some of the problems or possible problems with the figure.
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Post by mannyD on May 6, 2006 5:28:02 GMT -5
wow! congrats xio, it looks great. great revue too on the diecast parts. what is the SRP of this bot?
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Post by xiombarg on May 6, 2006 13:21:46 GMT -5
Manny - Hey thanks man. I bought it from Amenbo for 10240 Yen, or roughly $92 USD. It's not that bad of a price considering that the Degenki Hobby PVC versions cost almost the same, and with all these $200 and $300 figures running around right now Alteisen almost feels like a good deal.
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Post by xiombarg on May 6, 2006 14:47:25 GMT -5
So here is the "Part II" of the review because I was too tired last night to continue on..
Alteisen's major joints are ratchet joints including the hips, shoulders, and elbows. All of them are very tight.
But there's some strange news and some bad news when it comes to articulation. First, there is no turning waist axis. Because of the way the've connected the chest/ torso/ hips, it's more complicated than what you normally see on a figure. At first I couldn't figure out why, but after playing with it for a bit I figured out that they put two vertical axis points that allow for side to side motion for balancing and leaning adjustments. Whether this was worth it or not is debatable where having a waist axis allows for more spontaneous poses, but it is perhaps easier to get Alteisen to balance.
There also isn't a turning axis in the lower thigh or knees. In other words the legs pretty much face forward and can't point outwards. There is a ball joint for the hips, but the range of motion is limited. I guess it's hardly worth mentioning, because there are at least three joints in the feet alone and two in the knee, so balance is never a problem, but for the most part Alteisen is a face forward kind of guy.
As I mentioned, Alteisen's construction is a bit different from what you normally see, and this is especially so in the joints. The poseability is great, but getting used to how the joints work on Alteisen takes a minute because he uses multiple 2 axis swivel joints in place of ball joints. For example, I had to scratch my head for a moment to get certain arm poses to work because instead of adjusting a single shoulder ball joint, you have to adjust three swivel axis joints. Another example was realizing there were two joints in the knees, one that moves forward and one that moves back. They did this so they wouldn't have to compromise the sculpt, and it makes a lot sense once you realize what they are doing. This might all sound odd, but it actually works well and makes a lot of sense for the stability and longevity of the joints. And as I mentioned most of the joints that would wear out from gravity are ratcheted.
I also forgot to mention that Alteise comes with a little hangar bay stand, which I haven't put together yet, but I'll post pics of it later!
My conclusion on Alteisen is that he is a very well made figure with a better than average price point. He's also loaded with surprises and is fun to mess around with. Honestly he turned out to be more than I was expecting (which wasn't much because of the lack of pre-release info), but for whatever Alteisen might be lacking, to me he makes up for it with big bonus points for gimmicks, cool stuff, and heavy metal construction appeal! I'm impressed!
Perhaps more pics soon..
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Post by Ben-Ohki on May 6, 2006 20:16:11 GMT -5
gimmicks are a lost art and this toy screams old school! Very cool review!
I'm not big on the SRW designs, but I know what I like.
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Post by lurkerx on May 7, 2006 8:27:14 GMT -5
I like it Its very "bad-guy gundamish" design, it would definitely go well with my MMM gundams any leads on where to get these bad boys???
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Post by xiombarg on May 7, 2006 13:05:24 GMT -5
Ben - Ohki - I hadn't really thought about it, but now that you mention it Alteisen does have a lot of old school qualities in the way he's been built. He reminds me of a bigger version of the die-cast Macross Destroid figures. Every time I pick him up he surprises me by how heavy he is.
LurkerX - I got mine from Amenbo, and I think HLJ has them too, but both places have been listing it as a low stock item. Amenbo only had four to begin with, and last I checked HLJ didn't even put up a product photo. It's too bad but I don't think there were a lot of pre-orders and I would bet the production number was low. I noticed on Yahoo Japan that a couple of vendors were trying to do pre-order sells, but my impression is there weren't a lot takers because the auction listings always seemed to stay up.
I can't put him down! Everytime I look at him or pick him up I like him more and more. He's really a great figure.
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Post by roanstalker on May 7, 2006 16:25:08 GMT -5
Wow. Nice review xiombarg. Alt's one of my favourite designs from SRW originals (when OG is out in english I'll probably play his story first since I played Ryusei's first in the japanese version). From what it sounds like, it's a pain to get it into any decent poses. I hope the sculpting is as bad as their perfect transformation V Gundam. The head was mal-formed! (Dunno if it was just the one I got though.)
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Post by xiombarg on May 7, 2006 17:59:47 GMT -5
It's not that he's exactly hard to pose, it's just that you have to work with more joints than normal because there is an individual joint connection for each axis instead of all the axis points being located at one joint connection point. Here's a picture that shows how man joints are located in the arm area. The green arrows are ratcheted joints. Note that the missile bay also has two of it's own joints to enable more poses.
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Post by mpchi on May 9, 2006 15:17:26 GMT -5
Made no mistakes folks. Base on the toy design, this Alteisen is not your average gokin. Check out the pics on this review. Its articulation is nothing short of impressive. Just look at those poses. Glad that it turned out so cool. I still waiting for mine to arrive. But ever since the Huckebein MKII was out last year. I have totally locked on to this toyline. Just hope it won't die out as the demand seems low. With the high price that SRW collectors spent, we should be getting stuff like this, not some cool looking Dengeki Hobby PVC figures that are so poorly build that it can't even stand on its own. Surprisingly, this Alteisen is pretty much the same size as the Dengeki Hobby figure, so as the Kotobukiya plastic kit. Guess Dengeki made Alteisen bigger than normal.
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Post by xiombarg on May 9, 2006 19:48:59 GMT -5
Made no mistakes folks. Base on the toy design, this Alteisen is not your average gokin. Check out the pics on this review. Its articulation is nothing short of impressive. Just look at those poses. Glad that it turned out so cool. I still waiting for mine to arrive. But ever since the Huckebein MKII was out last year. I have totally locked on to this toyline. Just hope it won't die out as the demand seems low. With the high price that SRW collectors spent, we should be getting stuff like this, not some cool looking Dengeki Hobby PVC figures that are so poorly build that it can't even stand on its own. Surprisingly, this Alteisen is pretty much the same size as the Dengeki Hobby figure, so as the Kotobukiya plastic kit. Guess Dengeki made Alteisen bigger than normal. The Dengeki figures are ok for just plain plastic action figures, but they don't compare at all to Ultimate Alteisen. It's not even a close match. Ultimate Alteisen kicks the Dengeki figures butts in every single way possible. But really Ultimate Alteisen is almost a perfect presentation of the figure in my book. I also sincerely hope that this toy line continues forward because it would be a damn shame to not have it go on. Yeah, the pictures I took are kinda boring, but I was just displaying ye' old anatomy of the figure.
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Post by boogeyman on May 10, 2006 6:45:36 GMT -5
coolllllllllllllllllll
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Post by xiombarg on May 11, 2006 23:10:25 GMT -5
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Post by lurkerx on May 12, 2006 9:14:47 GMT -5
yup ordered mine yesterday Once again Xio you've made me want something that wasn't even on my radar to begin with curse your sultry reviews!!! ;D
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Post by xiombarg on May 12, 2006 9:49:04 GMT -5
My evil secret plans continue to succeed! Bwah-ha-ha!! ;D
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Post by BIGFIRE on May 12, 2006 11:18:51 GMT -5
SRW is a game not available in the States right? Just curious because I have never seen the robots before but I love the designs.
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Post by question on May 12, 2006 13:35:30 GMT -5
Same here... I ordered mine today... I am not sure if I should thank Xio or hate his eveil reviews... yup ordered mine yesterday Once again Xio you've made me want something that wasn't even on my radar to begin with curse your sultry reviews!!! ;D
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Post by boogeyman on May 12, 2006 16:33:57 GMT -5
Me too
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Post by xiombarg on May 12, 2006 17:03:07 GMT -5
I should be a secret agent for Bandai hired to give good reviews for their low sales toys! "Yeah, it's 90% metal, yep...and it's 25 cm. Did I mention that it has three transformations and 25 points of articulation? You should all go buy one!" *evil snicker*
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Post by mpchi on May 15, 2006 15:42:54 GMT -5
Surprisingly, think SRWOG for GBA is coming to the States, published by Atlus. Saw it at E3. So guess we'll have a SRW game in English afterall. And Alteisen is in that game. ;D
Got my Alteisen a couple days ago. Good stuff, but need a bit getting used to. The articulation is awesome, but almost to a point its a bit much. The way the torso is put together is quite complicated, but some joints in there you don't use that much. It does help balancing the figure though, and can do some more subtle bending and twisting. There are also a lot of movable armor parts all over the figure, that i find a hard time to find a spot just to lift or handle it with your hand. Turn out the crotch is the safest spot to lift it, without messing up the limbs or movable parts. So it doesn't feel as solid compare to the Huckebein MkII, since that one has a simpler body structure. But once you start posing and have Alteisen on a surface, it balances very well. Gimmicks work pretty well too. The revolving stick might extend only a couple mm, but it works fine.
Only thing I don't like about this release is the ratchet joints. Pretty inconsistent with some looser than the other side (the shoulder-torso connection) and some too tight (the upper leg swivels). But the main issue is that they have too much leeway between each click, letting the limbs dangle a bit too much inbetween clicks, and only locks the joints in pose AT the clicks. This made the figure less solid, and weaken the effects of having ratchet in the major joints (But still way better than the nightmare that the Dengeki ones have on this issue). It still better than no ratchet, but they could have been better made.
Still a very good figure and looks mighty cool. Just need a little bit warm up time before you really get to like it a lot, based on the way its built & designed. Not as straightforward as the Huckebein MkII, but just as awesome.
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