Overwatch

Overwatch Ultimates – Sombra

I had a lot of worry about Hasbro’s announcement of an Overwatch line. While getting more affordable versions of these characters is a nice prospect, I was very worried they would seriously screw things up. So far, it does seem to be a bit of a hit and miss line, but the hits outnumber the misses, and the misses are pretty obvious from the start.

The initial wave of single packed figures consists of Lucio, Sombra, Reyes (Reaper) and Tracer. I already have the Figma Tracer, though the Hasbro one looked a lot better in person than previous photos. Reyes still looks kind of funky and I have Reaper. So I opted for Lucio and Sombra. Both are in my top Five played heroes (Along with Tracer, Mei and D.Va) and neither have Figma figures coming yet. I wanted to start off with Sombra, who actually is my most played hero in the game.

So, right off, she looks way better in person than photos suggest. One thing I have noticed in photos is there is a weird graininess texture to her that shows up that isn’t really visible on the figure itself. The colors overall look really great and the head sculpt and paint are both really nice. There are a few places she could use a bit more paint but hey, Hasbro price point. Mostly her hand details could use a quick hit of coloring. I may add that later myself.

Articulation wise, she is, alright. It’s pretty much what you would expect from any Marvel Legends female figure. Her hips are severely limited by the long coat. The coat collar also feels a smidge too tall, since it sort of hinders her head side to side. Also in traditional Hasbro BS fashion, she only has single jointed elbows. Because Hasbro pretty much never gives female figs double elbows. On a side note, the coat looks like it might be removable, with little rubber pegs the way a lot of Hasbro’s coats are, but I am not going to test that theory myself and end up ruining the coat. She looks like she is just wearing a black body suit under anyway.

She also has weird feet. Not weird as in non functional, just weird. Her ankles are pretty wide and the feet themselves seem to be some of those rubber toe shoes, and not regular shoes. I honestly have not really looked at Sombra’s feet enough to tell you if this is accurate.

For accessories she has an extra set of hands, a Translocator pod, her Uzi, and a hacking effect that can attach to one of the hands. The accessories are all pretty nice, though the hacking effect is a little cheezy looking. It’s all solid pink plastic and it’s a little short. It’s wholey understandable in it’s design though, since Hasbro probably has a lot of breakage safety rules it has to follow for it’s figures. Anything less and it would break too easily. The effect from the Sombra Nendoroid is really nice, but I also worry that I am going to snap it to pieces anytime I look at it.

Overall, Sombra is pretty great. She has a lot of expected limitations, but she is a lot more affordable than an import figure. The whole lime scales really well with the Figma line as well, so having the Hasbro line as a supplement works really well.

Figma – Reaper

May 1st, 2019

by Ramen Junkie.

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I have to admit, I am super behind in talking about these various Overwatch figures, and a lot of figures in general. There’s various factors, but mostly I just, haven’t done it. Instead of catching up on Genji and Widowmaker and various Nendoroids, I’m going to just jump ahead here with Figma Reaper.

Reaper is quite a different toy than the previous Overwatch Figmas. Tracer, Genji and Widowmaker are all considerably more mobile in their overall look and design. Reaper is quite a bit bulkier than the previously released characters. He also has a lot more greebley detail going on on his body. Genji has a fair amount of this but Widowmaker and Tracer are basically wearing body suits.

All of this detailing is nice and crisp. His spikes are pretty sharp, for example. His coat has some articulated segmented parts to it so it can be posed draping or more flowing. His design unfortunately doesn’t lend itself to much posing though. The coat does hinder his hips a bit and his belts and straps hinder things a bit more. His armored lower legs kind of get int he way of his feet articulation as well and his shoulders are kind of bulky as well. Reaper isn’t really a ninja though, so not being able to do a ton of super dynamic poses isn’t really a huge loss and he makes up for it with detail.

Probably the biggest issue with articulation involves his head. The head itself is fine, but the hood piece attaches to the body in the front and back. This limits how much you can have him look side to side a lot. With the hood attached, his face is obscured. Or, you can detach the hood, but it then will just rest on his head, and it will reveal the huge peg holes and pegs. I kind of wish the hood were simply attached to the head itself.

He also feels a little light on accessories, but I think part of this is because both Genji and Widowmaker were pretty good for accessories. I mean, count wise, it probably has just as many extra pieces, and I m not sure what else they could have given him side from maybe some wraith form legs, but that would have probably doubled the price. What he has are an assortment of hands, a transparent effect that can sort of be used for any of his abilities (Wraith form, teleport, or Death Blossom), his two shotguns and some effect parts for his shotguns.

Speaking of his shotguns. They look right, and good, but man, having a physical version of this character kind of makes it obvious how ridiculous his design is. Dual wielding these two HUGE guns is kind of silly looking.

Don’t misunderstand me here, this is a good representation overall of Reaper. It just sort of makes the design flaws of Reaper really obvious when you have a little 3D version of him on a table in front of you.

Nendoroid – Junkrat

Mar 13th, 2019

by Ramen Junkie.

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I have, so far, picked up every one of the Overwatch Nendoroid figures released so far. They all have some ups and downs, but on the whole they are pretty good. Today, I want to talk a bit about Nendoroid Junkrat.

Of all of the figures released in this series so far, Junkrat is definitely one of the most unique. Honestly he seems fairly unique compared to all Nendos, not just the Overwatch releases. Maybe there is some vague hope that there might be some Tank characters released in this line after all, with how much Junkrat has going on that’s special. First off, he is a fair amount larger than the previous releases. I honestly never really realized it in game since Junkrat is always hunched over, but if you look at a pure size chart, he’s one of the taller characters in the game. His Nendo, even with its goofy short proportions, is taller than the previous releases.

Part of this comes from his huge head and hair. These are also a bit unique in design, though Sombra who came out at the same time shares the uniqueness. On the previous figures, generally the bangs of the hair are removable, and the face plates swap out underneath the hair. The face plates are pretty interchangeable, that is, you can easily put Tracer’s face on Mercy, if you want. Junkrat’s entire front half of his head makes up his face plates, instead of just the bottom half like other Nendoroids. The hair bits also have to be removed and reattached in chunks, to make the swap. It’s a little clunky to do quickly, but the end result looks better. with his partially bald head, a plate styled like other Nendos would have left a visible seam across his forehead.

Speaking of the face plates, he also has a swapable mouth piece to give him a “tongue hanging out” look. As a side note, the eyes and mouth on the second head LOOK like they could be removable/swapable, but I didn’t really want to test the limits of the plastic and couldn’t get mine to come out. There isn’t really any noticeable difference in the base face anyway, so swapping the eyes around wouldn’t really do anything useful.

Additionally, he has his peg leg. This is also fairly unique to Junkrat. Between the peg leg and his huge head unfortunately, it also means he’s not going to be standing without a stand anytime ever. Though most Nendos have small enough feet that you’re going to have a hard time getting them to stand up independently anyway.

All these unique bits though help give him a lot of neat character to his design. He definitely comes off as “Junkrat,” goofy and crazy looking.

He doesn’t stop at his basic design though. He has a slew of really neat accessories. All of the weapons he wields in the game are represented here, he has his sticky bomb, his grenade launcher, his trap, and his Rip-Tire. The launcher and sticky bomb are fairly boring, the sticky bomb isn’t even painted, but the trap and tire are both great.

The trap can be laid out open or closed, and had a hand designed to hold it up to emulate his in game emote where he uses it like a puppet. The Tire is nicely detailed and can be mounted to his back, or to a extra articulated arm piece as if it’s being launched and rolling away.

You can add in on top of this that MSRP for Junkrat isn’t more than the previous releases, it makes him feel like a pretty good bang for your buck figure. All in all, I think he’s definitely one of the cooler Overwatch Nendoroids so far.

LEGO – Dorado Showdown (75972)

Jan 30th, 2019

by Ramen Junkie.

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I don’t really review LEGO much, though I actually have quite a lot of LEGO in my collection. I’m making an exception here for this Overwatch themed set, Dorado Showdown, Set #75972. In case you aren’t familiar with Overwatch, it’s a fairly popular team based FPS game for PC and consoles. Blizzard seems to be really trying to push Overwatch into more of a media franchise for 2019. There have already been several figures put out by Goodsmile Company. There is now a line of LEGO sets. Hasbro teased an upcoming line of domestic figures. There have also been several food tie ins from Pop Tarts, Pringles and a cereal Lucio Ohs.

I wonder if it’s a little too little too late though a bit, the game is still popular, but it doesn’t seem quite as popular as it was a year ago. Time will tell on that one. Most of the LEGO sets look pretty decent though a couple seem to be pretty off in terms of scale. I look forward to picking up some others in the future. I decided to start out with the Dorado Showdown set. It felt like a good sort of total package set with mini figs and a vehicle and a little set piece.

So a little history on the set. Dorado is a map type in game called “Payload”. One team escorts the payload to the other end of the map while the other tries to stop them. The payload only moves when someone is standing near it. Dorado is a very Mexican/Spanish architecture themed map, as the name suggests. This set includes the payload, which is the truck, a very small part of the map in the archway, though this archway is in the game near the starting area, and 3 character mini figures, Soldier 76, Reaper, and McCree.

Each of the mini figures is a pretty decent likeness in the small mini fig format. McCree and Reaper have little clothy capes to help fill out their look, I really like McCree’s sideways poncho, though the stiffness of the material makes it lay a little funny. McCree also has an optional air piece to swap for his hat. Reaper and Soldier both have buildable weapon parts, which is nice, but also makes the weapons huge compared to the mini figs. Neither can really stand without being pegged onto something or without a stand. There aren’t any stands included with the set, I just used some I had for photos.

The payload looks good as well, and definitely resembles the Payload from the game. All of the cars in Overwatch are hover cars with little repulsor things in place of the wheels, but the truck has some wheels hidden on the underside so it can still roll easily. The little power generator that sits on the truck bed is removable and can be attached to part of the set piece to “power” the lights. You can open the cab and sit a mini figure inside to drive it as well, though no one actually drives the Payload in game.

The set piece is a little archway and a small fruit stand. The archway shows up just after the starting area in game, before a large open courtyard. It’s a simple design but has some neat tricks in the windows to make the window frames and movable shutter pieces. The LEGO studs on the roof bit also do a decent job of simulating Spanish Tiles for the roof, a feature present all over the map. The truck can easily roll through the archway as well, which is a nice touch.

Overall, it’s a nice little set. The vehicle works as a vehicle or a prop, the archway makes a good backdrop but can still interact with the figures and payload. The hero selection is good as well. The characters gives some variety for attack or defenders, in the game, no one has any real set “sides”. Though if you want to stick with the loose story, Reaper can be a sort of bad guy sand in since he’s been a member of Talon, one of the bad guy groups of Overwatch.

DX-9 K1 Freeman (Overwatch Bastion)

Dec 5th, 2018

by Ramen Junkie.

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So, even before Goodsmile announced they were doing Overwatch figures of any kind, a company known for 3rd party Transformers, DX-9 put out a transforming 3rd Party Bastion. Or as it’s officially know, K1 Freeman. So, a little background, “3rd Party” is a term used often in the Transformers community to refer to a slew of toys and companies that produce unofficial, unlicensed Transformers figures. There are, I believe, similar operations in other toylines, but Transformers is definitely the biggest market for these toys. They aren’t straight bootlegs, like you might find at a flee market, where some company produces a replica of of an official toy and sells it for cheap. These are heavily engineered and often expensive figures, released without the official sanction of the company holding the IP. They also often get goofy names like “K1 Freeman”. Bastion, being sort of a Transformer, got the 3rd Party treatment.

I waited on picking this one up for a while, until the official Figma figures were announced. I seriously doubt Figma ever puts out any of the larger characters, though I’d be happy to be wrong. I have even less faith that Figma will ever put out a transforming Bastion. So Freeman is the next best thing. The main thing that feels off about him is the default skin, which I had honestly forgot what it even looked like, because no one uses it in game.

He does the job pretty dang well. There is some limitation on the articulation, especially on the gun arm, but it’s mostly pretty good. Bastion isn’t exactly a ninja or anything, he’s a big heavy military robot that turns into a tank. Being the product of a 3rd Party Transformers company, he also has all three of Bastion’s modes. Granted, none of Bastion’s transformations are particularly complex. For the turret, he pretty much drops to his knees, fold up the arms, and extend the barrel on the back.

The tank involves some parts swapping, though there isn’t really any other way to handle those giant treads. The Gatling turret swaps for a tank barrel and the legs slide off and get replaced by the tank treads. The treads are actually functional, which is cool, but rubber on toys tends to not really last, so I imagine over time, they will likely end up falling apart. The parts forming kind of sucks, but it’s slick and easy so it works.

The best part, Freeman scales very nicely with the official Figma characters. He might be a tad oversized, but it works, and it’s not a lot if he is. He also includes a little version of Ganymede, his little parrot friend. Ganymede has a little peg that lets him peg onto a fee places on the figure.

Overall, Freeman is a pretty nice representation of Bastion. He’s gotten pretty affordable on eBay as well. The whole thing is very solidly built and has some nice heft to it as well, nothing flimsy here. The real X factor is what Hasbro does with it’s recently announced Overwatch line. They are more likely to release Bastion than Figma, but who knows if it will transform at all. I suspect it would at best turn into a turret and not a tank.