Hasbro Transformers Legacy United Star Raider Ferak Hasbro, 2024
Day #2,771: October 22, 2024
Star Raider Ferak Walmart Exclusive Retool of Cyclonus
Transformers Legacy United Walmart Exclusive Star Raider Capsule
Item No.: No. G0235 Manufacturer:Hasbro Includes:3 blasters Action Feature:Transforms from robot to spacecraft Retail:$34.96 Availability: September 2024 Other: Obscure comic guy to BotCon guy to mass market
I am generally pretty fond of the Walmart exclusives we're seeing lately. Since Legacy kicked off, the themes have been pretty interesting having jumped from the race-themed Speedia capsule, the G2-themed batch in 2023, and the 2024 pirate-themed Star Raider grouping. Ferak was pretty much a minor player in the old Marvel comics, but the BotCon people had him punch the man who said those things, boarded a ship, and joined the pillaging enterprise.
If you bought one of the flavors of Kingdom Cyclonus [FOTD #2,293] you know what to expect - he's big, relatively simple, and has enough new going on with it that I don't feel like a dope for buying him again. Still, gray is kind if bland, so the whole "they're pirates and Tidal wave is their ship" angle is a pretty neat selling point. It is unfortunate that there's no marketing (or shanties) surrounding the characters to put the idea out there, because Hasbro built out a fun faction that you pretty much only will grasp if you read the TF Wiki pages or are very, very close to the brand. The average Walmart customer will buy this toy (or not) based on its immediate merits, and the lack of piratey markings on the box might cost them a few sales.
This toy takes Cyclonus and retools him slightly to look more like the Cyclonus character - heck, he would have been good in Cyclonus colors, but we've already got two of those. In Ferak colors, it's worth noting the bright red face is painted and is worth looking at closely before marching to the register in case some doofus dinged it thanks to the open-box packaging. The gray color is mostly uniform, and you have to reconfigure the wings and knees (if you like) once you open the box to match the intended configuration. You can also keep him short to make him look different from Cyclonus, and that won't distract you from the new wings, chest, and head.
Articulation is the same has his purple ancestor, but the changes give you extra blasters that he can hold or just mount to his wings. New play features are always welcome, especially in lines like this where there's more emphasis on articulation and posing, which I would generally gladly trade for a weird play feature or tiny sidekick. But that's neither here nor there - for what it is, this is a good tweak to an existing design and more importantly, for most collectors, an all-new character. A very limited number of the BotCon Ferak were produced, so there's now no reason to worry about going back to get one of the older, smaller, rarer one.
The deco is largely good. It would be nice if he had a little more color to him, but it's good enough and I like the slightly darker gray. The Star Seeker/Star Raider symbol only appears on the figure's left arm, and since it's black ink on a dark gray limb it doesn't stand out very much. A white symbol might stick out more, or perhaps placement on a wing would be less subtle. It looks cool, but it's easy to overlook.
The conversion is easy - everything folds together pretty nicely, with lots of folding and unfolding to make things interesting. It's pretty much the same as Cyclonus save for the telescoping nose cone, which this drops in favor of a new ribbed, blunted tip of the ship. This is an easy one, and I like not having to consult an oracle to shift a robot to a ship like this. The only downers are that the unfolding wing parts are a tiny bit loose, and there are "cheeks" that stick out near the cockpit that are a little weird. But, that's how it is on the render, so that's how it is supposed to look.
The ship mode is more or less what you expect - it's basically a retooled Cyclonus with some big exceptions. The wings are retooled and have little tabs so you can plug in some extra cannons, and the nosecone is redesigned. It's good, with retractable landing gear and a pretty sturdy construction with a port on top for a blaster. It doesn't do a lot, but those few moving parts put it ahead of a lot of other alt modes. There are no visible markings in ship mode - a shame, I would have loved some sort of skull and crossbones or other markings on the tops of the wings - but it does a good job updating the old BotCon toy into something bigger, more impressive, and cheaper.
Quality and distribution don't always work to a toy's benefit. Being an exclusive, in solid cases of three, and seemingly widely distributed at my local Walmarts (unlike the G2 capsule last year), Ferak went from nowhere to nearly everywhere all in the same week, with a smaller distribution of deluxes and (as I write this) no sign of the Leader Thundertron gift set. You're going to find Ferak, and for $35 he's a fun toy - but given how many I am seeing, I would not hold it against you if you waited for a sale later. It might dry up (it's good, after all) but at least for the time being, he's super easy to find. And worth it.
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