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Re: A look at some Kre-O sets: Basic Bumblebee, Basic Prime, and Jazz
I got myself a Basic Optimus today and I've built him in both modes.
Brief review: There are some really nice parts in this set. The ball-joint pieces have a huge range of motion and their rubberized balls give them a lot of friction to keep poses while still allowing them to be moved fairly easily. There are also a lot of nice little hinge-pieces that could be handy in a lot of projects. The headsculpt is also really nice, albeit nothing surprising (it looks basically the same as every other Optimus Prime headsculpt we've gotten over the past 27 years, although the mouthplate has the extra detail from his WfC toy.)
The assembled models are decent but flawed in both modes. The truck mode looks okay but some sections (such as the front bumper/grille assembly) will fall off every time you touch the thing. The robot mode has some proportion issues and isn't very well articulated compared to what we'd expect in a regular transforming figure of this size. The legs have no knees, although they're balljointed at the hips and ankles, which is nice. The shoulders only bend outwards while the elbows are only capable of a bicep-curl, and he doesn't have any hands to speak of.
The real problem comes when you try to "transform" him. While I expected some amount of parts-forming, I didn't expect to have to literally detach every single piece from every single other piece, which is what you pretty much have to do to transform this set (there are maybe four or five part-pairs that can stay assembled in the same way in both modes, the rest all has to come apart.) This becomes a real hassle due to the fact that the set in composed of 90% thin pieces that are a pain in the ass to separate.
All in all, the set it worth it for some useful pieces that can compliment your existing LEGO-style block collection (if you have one) but for Primus' sake don't try to build the figures on the box.
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