Arcee
(Energon)
Arcee, the popular G1
femme, finally gets a toy of her own (albeit it in a different incarnation),
rather than just being a repaint. As her Energon self, Arcee is a sleek
motorcycle. The actual toy in this mode is great- wonderful design all
around, with no extras to speak of. Her mold detailing is great, without
being so much as to make the toy lose its sleekness. The paint detailing
is also awesome for a toy this small, and the teal and reddish-pink highlights
are really nice contrasts against the white and black. (Thank goodness
she wasn't just that awful sissy white-and-pink like her G1 forerunner!)
The only real problem I have with this mode are the exhaust pipes on her
sides, which form her Energon weapon in robot mode. They're just waaay
too large proportionally, but even this wouldn't be so bad if they stayed
in one place. Their peg holes are a bit on the loose side, which means
the tend to wiggle around a bit if you don't keep her on a flat hard surface.
The pegs on the bottom of these pieces (used to hold them together in weapon
mode) also skim whatever surface you put her on, and usually actually lift
one of Arcee's two wheels slightly above the flat surface- which means
that when you roll Arcee along, what usually happens is that only one of
her wheels will move while her two exhaust pipes just wiggle back and forth.
Further playtesting REALLY should have been used to correct this.
In robot mode, Arcee
is alright. The wheels on her back help to complement her mode rather than
just looking as vehicle extras, although I do wish they'd have some way
of locking into a certain position. The motorcycle shield hanging off her
butt looks kinda doofy, though, and I think the high heels need to go-
yeah, she's a female, we get it. You don't exactly go charging into battle
wearing high heels. Her proportions and overall color scheme and detailing
are still great, however, and her face looks true to her G1 counterpart
while still retaining some individuality. Although her face is still primarily
pink with a round "helmet", instead of being completely round even on the
backside, Energon Arcee's helmet turns into a wavy fin near the back. Which
actually looks better than G1 Arcee's beehive doo, really. Arcee's articulation
is also fairly good- she can move at the head, the shoulders, the hips,
the knees (at two places), and side-to-side at the elbows. This last articulation
point is the only one that's a bit restrictive, especially since it could
have easily rotated front-to-back as well, given her design. Her arms are
actually just her motorcycle seat halves, although they do have individually
moving hand pieces on ball joints that come out of the lower halves of
the arm. They're rather tiny proportionally, though. Her odd arm movement
also allows her to only hold her Energon crossbow at a sideways angle,
which looks rather odd in most poses. Especially given that her Energon
crossbow is so HUUUGE when compared to the rest of her body- it's got to
be 1/3rd of her total mass, right there. It borders on ludicrous. The Energon
Crossbow also is only held together by one peg, so the main body of it
tends to wiggle back and forth. This is especially baffling, since just
one more peg would have made it very stable. The crossbow itself is your
standard missile-firing device. It also has two Minicon ports on it, if
you want to connect it to a larger Transformer. Arcee's Autobot spark crystal
is, oddly enough, on her belly button. Given how big it is in proportion
to her body, it really looks weird, especially when you fit her Energon
chip on top of it- it's almost as if she has a bit of a pot belly.
Although Arcee has the
best vehicle mode out of any Omnicon (ignoring the Energon exhaust pipes),
her robot mode, although fair, could use a bit of work, especially when
it comes to her arms and the placement of her spark crystal. Still, she's
a pretty good toy, as all the Omnicons are. But I'd recommend Strongarm
or Skyblast over her, unless you're just
a really big Arcee fan.
Review by Beastbot