Transformers Generations Titans Return Deluxe
Item No.: Asst. B7762 No. B7035 Manufacturer:Hasbro Includes:Tiny head robot Vorath, bat, small gun, claw Action Feature:Transforms from head to robot Retail:$14.99 Availability: September 2016 Other: Somehow Not Sold in Batman Colors Yet
Before this mold was Convobat [FOTD #1,627] ,Mindwipe hit stores for significantly less money. It's pretty much the same toy at a fraction of the cost. One of three Decepticon Headmasters from Japan's Headmasters series, the bat had the power to control the minds of other robots, but it was pretty benign overall. In the US series, Mindwipe basically just used the power to combine with the Headmaster partner and to push a guy off a cliff. No stealing Paypal accounts, no making someone shoot themselves in the face. This is someone who doesn't appreciate a superpower.
This 1.5-inch head robot is Vorath, with a sculpt like his G1 namesake and deco that has changed a bit. The front of the tiny 5-jointed robot remains unpainted, but the color layout is very similar - the colors themselves have changed. The original toy was more red, this one is more purple. The mouth and visor remain, as do similar sculpted details. He has no problems fitting in the chest or plugging in to the head socket, and while it's a smidgen loose it's not problematic.
I like the head mode for Mindwipe. The eyes look a bit like a visor, and the silver face looks vaguely like facial hair. There are lots of big shapes and sharp angles, and I absolutely love the paint job. The red is bright, the silver is clean, and the black is... unpainted. It's just everything that it should be.
As a bat, Mindwipe is a lot of fun. Obviously, he's a little chunky - there are feet hanging off of his wings, as they become the robot legs. He's got a great soft brown face with an articulated jaw, with sculpted brown bits that look mechanical rather than fuzzy. The paint job is really great, and the alt mode has a few moving parts - specifically, multi-jointed wings that can fold over on his little bat body. It's very cute. The driver Vorath can ride around in his chest cavity, and while the bat can't hang upside-down he can stand around on feet that clamp right on to the base of the wings. Nicely done.
As a robot, it's pretty great - we don't get a lot of larger beast mode toys, so this unique robot is something we probably won't see much more of in the USA. There are little wings on his back, a body design that's sort of similar to a cross between the comic, the US cartoon, and the toy, plus a head I can't quite specifically place. It's pretty close to the US animation, but nothing's perfect. Articulation is pretty good, with double-jointed elbows and fists that can hold the accessories and added 5mm ports to plug them on the forearms.
Transformation is fun enough, although the more flexible plastic used for the bat wings requires some finesse to get tabbed in to the harder plastic parts to assemble the robot legs. Getting the bat mode is a snap, and it's a fun change. You'll like it.
Hasbro and TakaraTomy did a good job with Mindwipe. Its only real flaw is not being some Autobot car from 1984 you've bought a dozen times already - it's great to see Hasbro digging deeper into the first few years of toys and giving us remakes of something new and cool. I don't have an original Mindwipe, and for under $20 this is a pretty nice substitute.
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