As much as I enjoy his alt mode, I’m a bigger fan of his robot mode. The aforementioned articulation is a big part of that, he can get into some fantastic poses, even standing on one leg with a high kick, but the sculpted details make sure he looks good in all those poses. I’m not sure how faithful the figure is to the source material, it appears to be pretty close from the few pictures I’ve seen, but it doesn’t matter to me since he looks good. I love the head sculpt – it looks like a mix of classic G1 with more of a Japanese feel. And perhaps most important, it’s a classic Autobot face. I kinda want Payload, the yellow repaint of the Decpticon Long Haul (dump truck) from Revenge of the Fallen but I can’t get past the gnarled Bayhead.
With most of the pieces molded in the appropriate color, Drift doesn’t require much paint. In his alt mode, the kanji and graphics are clean as are the handful of painted car details like the brake lights, grills, and back window. In his robot mode, there’s handful of painted details and they’re all clean which translates to a sharp looking figure.
Of course, the thing that stands out most about Drift in package is his giant sword. It looked cool in the package nearly as long as his alt mode. When opened, it’s still pretty neat, but it’s made of a really soft plastic that you can nearly fold in half. It’s still cool, but I’m worried about it drooping over time and I mostly keep it stored on his back (or his undercarriage in his alt mode). Apparently, the Japanese written on the blade translates to “Peerless under heaven”. How badass is that? Exactly.
From what I’ve gleaned so far from the wiki entries, the sword is for emergency purposes only or Thursday, I’m not sure which. Also, the clip that holds the large sword in place on his back actually extends from the body. I’m not sure, but I guess it’s to give some of the limbs a little more clearance. It’s a cool little feature.
Since I didn’t know much about Drift, I didn’t know about the two smaller swords he was going to come with. They’re made of the same soft plastic, but what blew me was how they store on the figure. When I began to transform Drift, I popped his doors open to find the swords. In his robot mode, his doors act as sheaths for the two smaller blades and when he transforms the hilts fold down to be completely hidden internally.
That was awesome. I was feeling a tinge of purchase guilt since I knew nothing about this Transformer that I just bought, but when I found the swords hidden inside, that washed away. So much so, that the upcoming Blurr – who reuses this mold with a new head – is also locked in for purchase. (Plus, I love Blurr. The movie Transformers are some of my favorites).
Overall, I’m very happy with Drift. I don’t know if I’ll ultimately like the character, but the great level of articulation combined with the sharp look and classic feel makes for an awesome toy. He comes with three accessories, all of which store on the figure (I love that) and perhaps most importantly – he can hold his big sword with both hands. Most action figures can’t do that. Think about how cool He-Man would look if he could be posed with both hands on the power sword? That’s how cool Drift is. See, Drift’s so badass that his figure is badass too.
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Ugh. I can’t stand Drift. It sucks that he gets an awesome toy while fans don’t have tons of classic characters.
In the upcoming months there are going to be a bunch of classics characters showing up. He gets alot of crap because he’s not one of the classic characters and, to be honest, it gets tiring reading that constantly.
He got a lot of the flak because he had a sotlight issue announced before he had even made his debut, with lots of promotion of how mega badass he was, something that was never proved on the printed page, making him look like an ascended fan character. And while he isn’t quite as bad as the internet would have you believe, he still takes a place in the line up that an old obscure character could have used.
I shan’t hesitate to pick up the mold as Blur thouh. The various shades of blue work beautifully on the car mode.
Thanks for a little more backstory. I can see the argument that he’s taking up a spot since he’s in wave one, but that should lessen over time as we get more G1 folks.
And Blur does look awesome… Vault and I turning into those folks that rebuy molds in new colors. 😀
LOL Sounds like He-Man fans “Marzo is too 200x”. LAME.
I can see that…
As for the figure itself, he is awesome. He’s incredibly fun to play around with. The upcoming Blurr in wave 3 has a new head, with pistols replacing the short swords, and a big sniper rifle replacing the big sword.
I’m excited for Blurr… Starting to wonder which older “classics” I’m missing.
But at the same time, I have Hot Rod and Hot Rod is a far cry from Drift.
NICE! Thanks for the review… now you convinced me to buy one!
Yay! And Sorry! 😀
Wow. That Tranformer looks really… badass! 😉
Yes… evidently my photography didn’t bring him down a notch. 😉
You should pick up All Hail Megatron since it directly effects the events in the current comic. The stuff from before doesn’t really matter anymore though.
Thanks! I feel like I’ve got a lot to catch up on.
Just one more outstanding Transformers deluxe in a year full of outstanding deluxes. I’m happy that he’s more plentiful now, so others can join in the fun.
Noisy, in bot mode, try folding out a window a bit on his scabbards and stowing Drift’s longsword in there for more inordinately bada$$ action. Also, be on the lookout at your TRUs for Breacher, Seaspray’s little scout class homeboy. I picked him up this week.
I’ll try the scabbard trick! Thanks!
And thanks for the heads up on Breacher true. I’ve been wanting to put Beachcomber in there, but WM refuses to cleance his $16 2pk.
I’m not a big Transfan (gee, I seem to say things like that alot, huh?) but reviews like this do make me re-think that stand. Altho I’d probably just always hunt for the best looking Optimus Prime and call it quits there. 🙂
Say, did they light-pipe his eyes there, or is that just some reflection from the photo shoot? Remember when it seemed just about every figure line had at least one chara with light-pipe eyes? I kinda miss that…
That is indeed light-piping – and incredibly well-placed light-piping, may I add. The hole allowing for light to reach the eyes is on the top of his head, rather than on the back of the head, where it can get blocked.
As for the best Optimus to have for casual Transformers fans, may I recommend Masterpiece/Anniversary Prime for the deep-pocketed – and Henkei Optimus for the non-deep-pocketed?
Agreed with Pax on a Masterpiece Prime. He’s magnificent if you got some dough to put forth. I never did get a companion Megs for him though. 🙁
The light-piping is well done; I should’ve mentioned it.
Thanks guys! Yeah, I recall Masterpiece Prime, I was giving him a good, hard look when I saw him pop up on redtag at Walmart a few years back, but he never came down from around $50 IIRC, and that was just too rich for my blood. I be poor. I figured if they marked the stack (yes, stack. Like about 15 of them) to the $35 range I’d pull the trigger but either it never happened or it did and someone scooped them all up.
I seem to recall there was a Revoltech Prime, when that line started. I know it was non-transforming (which I guess makes the name ‘Transformers’ useless to some) but it had a real nice look to it. That’s kinda sorta my benchmark. Looks like the cartoon, dig?
I suspect Classic Optimus Prime will get revisited yet again sometime soon. He’s the RX-78 Gundam of Transformers 🙂