Maketoys – Battle Tanker Upgrade Review

Sorry taking me so long to put up the review. There are lots of pile of works and shitty happening lately during past two month. I manage to write few by few every days trying to complete the post. So here you go. Maketoys first released product on December 2011, Battle Tanker upgrade for RVS/United Optimus Prime G2. It was already hit the store Worldwide and can be found (restock) at RK to save your shipping fee.

In case you wonder who is Maketoys. They are the new 3^rd party toy makers from Japan (rumors belong to Fansproject) joined in Transformers market recently last year and showcasing few prototypes at toy conventions.

The Packing

It is a very large packing box fills with beautiful artwork background. But for me, it’s unnecessary when you can’t put in main character. It was a waste of spaces as most of the upgrade parts are small. Everything packs separately with total 19 parts.

For the first released edition, you will get the special Drift limited sword. It was beautiful and details made. Say good bye to the original ugly rubber sword.

Replacing New Parts

Before continuing the review, there are two parts require to be replaced. The first was easy, just unscrew the hip area and replace the Battle Tanker version. I did have slight problem fitting in properly. Luckily it didn’t stand out too much. However, the second is the hardest and risky I ever tried.

The new head doesn’t have any opening slot or whatsoever. This mean you have to put into the neck ball joint directly. That was freaking very hard and really can break it. I follow the instruction guideline by putting the head into the boil water for more than 30 seconds to soften plastic. These allow easily inserting the head into the ball joint. It was a success and this seriously took me 20 minutes. Once I had done the replacement Battle Tanker parts, next on putting up the final upgrade to begin the review.

Do note that Maketoys has already issue the replacement better head for the new batch. No information was mentioning how to obtain for the first released buyers or could be sold together in latest Bulldozer and Excavator released.

The Toy

Even though, you only gets upgrade on the arms, head, hips and legs. I am really amazed the result changes the RVS Optimus Prime G2 into whole new different looks. Awesome is the only word I can describe so far. The articulations didn’t get affect much after upgrade except gaining extra weight on arms and legs. Posing still remains same as the original since the shoulder didn’t get any (unnecessary) treatment.

The new weapons given without doubt are pretty bad ass as well. The sword blade is swappable which comes with samurai like type and large translucent blade with a nice light feature built into the handle. To be honest, I’m not quite a fan on electronic light sword and dislike the idea having wire linking to the (battery) backpack. It doesn’t look ugly and fine. But it just annoying, also Maketoys make terrible mistake linking out the wire in a wrong direction that can easily damaging it.

Of course this can be easily rectified by changing the wire direction through modification. I unwilling to do that because this upgrade cost me hundred in case it went WRONG!

While the G2 OP didn’t comes with his own range weapon. The Battle Tanker trailer comes with two which can be separate to use as handgun mode.

The Battle Trailer

It can transform into few forms. For one, battle station mode shows at their official website. However, it didn’t show in the manual for some reason. The second mode, I’m not really quite sure what the right name to call. But it does remind me the similar weapon backpack used by Sentinel Prime called Apex in Megatron Origin comic. That one was badass.

Once you connect the weapon trailer, the weight nearly double. There is a stand on the back of the trailer and can be lowering down to support becoming siege mode.

The overall does looks pretty great. Still, flaws can be seen on the trailer design. The plastic poly joints are too weak for my opinion and loose on both ends. Whenever I let it hold the weapons trailer, it won’t stay still including affecting transforming into trailer mode while trying (manage) to close the top. It was somehow stuck and requires some adjusting the poly joints to correct positions.

Conclusion

It’s good to know Prime continue to get new upgrade treatments from the 3^rd party group. I know the retail price of US$100.00 (at RK) does hurt your investment including mine wallet. You can’t blame them for such a high price. Bad economies are culprits and now we are expecting another few 1-2 YEN drop every month. But the quality and the design without doubt the best upgrade RTS/United G2 Optimus Prime so far you are going to get for Transformers collection.