Sorry for the delay on this one, life kind of happened and the camera I was using was doing things so I had to make sure everything was working right and such. If you are just joining us get caught up with part one here: Soundwave review Part one
With that now onto the review:
As we talked about in the last post, we did not talk about one of the big things of the figure, if you got the item when it was at Toys R Us, you also got his usual minions as part of the package The cassettes (or I guess Cassete-cons?). The old ones were pretty basic and simple from the 80s, but time marched forward and well this is the result. We’re gonna tackle these guys based on the bodies/characters in English names
Ravage:
As always we have the ever-faithful panther who is honestly the weakest of these guys. However, let’s just take a moment and enjoy the alt mode, shall we?
I don't know if the pics do these guys any justice however the engineering that was used to make these guys so flat has even to this day floored me. So let’s take a look at his transformation:
And there he is, the figure is a bit loose in the joints on mine but I feel that is more over time than anything, also I feel while the design is awesome it feels very test-type as it could have been better executed. However, if it was this guy who had to crawl the rest were built to run…
Lazerbeak and Buzzsaw:
Here we have the air division of team Soundwave, the birds as I mentioned earlier if Ravage had to crawl this is where we begin to see how the improvements just in two of these guys have shown, very clever design allows the birds to fold up and also take on their classic form we’ve seen in the shows quite well. The designs hold depth and scale well hidden in the tape form.
There are neat little features on these guys where the camera they used in the Transformers movie (the old animated one, not the Bay ones) can be shown off, and yes of course they can be placed on their boss on his shoulders and arms…
This is where more of the play-ability/display ideas come in handy, the cassettes don’t work without him whereas he can stand on his own if needed, hence the reason this was broken up into two parts. Still, on their own, they look great, but they are nothing without their base.
Rumble and Frenzy:
For these guys they got some extra items, they don’t look like much now but we’ll get to those in a moment. For now, here is the process and once more (and repetitive). You have to just admire the process of transforming these guys, if you saw the originals they were not much to work with. But now...well…or
These guys would honestly stand (literally) on their own, they are surprisingly pose-able and also come with enough things to be sold at a reasonable price. They also have included the pile drivers so you can have them shake rattle and roll your scenes or just show off. They can also be mounted onto Soundwave’s arms, and connected with another piece for another reference to the 86 movie. They can also be mounted onto the backs of the tapes, or their guns can be also. Kind of a preference at that point of what you want to do with them. Soundwave can also store the guns on his feet. Look, I know it sounds odd but it can be done the slots are there. However, I am always afraid that they will bend if I keep them inside, so I just store them on the bodies or pile drivers until I need them.
It should also be said, yes you can store the tapes inside Soundwave, you can hold I think even up to three of them in this mold as it was the Soundblaster (A retool of the OG Soundwave) so it can store more. There is a design flaw in it that the instructions even pointed out at times, which is when loading and unloading the tapes will jam, and if you spent a pretty penny on this well do you want to ruin that? He can hold one for display purposes if you want, and the look is enough.
Minor flaws aside this is a figure I’m proud to have in my collection. It’s one of those if you have a definitive item in your collection types of situations you stop. Yeah, I have other versions of the character from various universes. But, if I want to show off a classic G1-style one, this is the one I use and sticks in my mind. Other versions just pale even future remolds that try to be a tape deck. It’s also a character worthy of the “Masterpiece” treatment. If it is reissued or you can find a used one in good condition, grab it, the heft you feel when you grab it and the plenty of extras he has included make the price more than justifiable.