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RotF Dirge, a review


Yuyuyami

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So today I found Dirge. He's a lot better than I thought he would be. His paint and plastic look much better in person than the shopped stock photos Hasbro distributes, which is a bit of a rarity (horrible mistransformations aside, I mean). In the stock photos he looks dull and matte and quite chubby in both modes. In person he's sleek and shiny and... Well, he's beautiful. I'm very happy with this guy, though he does have some kibble issues in robot mode that defy a working solution. Anyway, here's the review:

 

 

Alt mode: 10/10

 

When it comes to Transformers, I love jets. Unless I know a jet transformer is just REALLY bad (I.E, the wings are floppy and the nose falls all the time), I'll get it. Being a cool jet will automatically guarantee at least an 8/10 for the alt mode for me. However, to get those extra two points, the jet has to go WAY past the extra mile.

 

Dirge has a wonderful color scheme. He's made of a super shiny blue plastic that photographs and films as a dull medium blue. In real life it's a wonderful greenish blue, a color I haven't really seen before. It gives the jet mode a proper dark color befitting Dirge and a Decepticon, while not making it too dark to see (counter example, RotF Thrust's red is WAY too dark. Looking at him is like looking at a black hole). He also has gold and silver trimmings that are tastefully done. They add just the right amount of definition to his shape without making it too busy.

 

The jet mode itself is a hell of a lot thinner than pictures made it look. I thought the air intakes were going to take up half his wing span with the rest being dominated by his (thankfully) optional missile pods. In reality the air intakes only take up about a third or a fourth of the wing span, making it look nice and proportional. The overall shape has a very sleek and unique shape and it's quite a winner.

 

There is a bit of kibble in the undercarriage, but it only extends a centimeter below the actual craft and is unobtrusive. It doesn't look as nice on the bottom as the top, but it looks a lot better than most jetformers. What's also nice is that the rear landing gear is placed right in the middle of the kibble, which distracts the eyes enough to justify the ugly parts.

 

His jet mode is a real winner in my book and I think most people will think the same. It does nothing wrong and everything right.

 

Transformation: 8/10

 

The overall transformation is deceptively simple and reminds me of some old Beast Wars toys where the torso is set sideways in the alt mode and rotates to the front, giving asymmetrical arms born from each end of the alt mode. There are some neat parts, like the head sliding up and snapping together and the tail pegging into his back which makes everything solid. There are also some annoying parts, like unpegging the tail from the left arm which is a pain to do if you're a nail biter like me.

 

Over all, the transformation is interesting in that it's derivative more from the old beastformers than more modern toys, but it's nothing you haven't seen before, except maybe the head.

 

Robot Mode: 7.5/10

 

The robot mode is where this guy starts to falter. While he looks cool and his headsculpt is amazing, there are two big problems:

 

Because his arms are not symmetrical, the left arm has a limited shoulder that can't even go straight down on the outwards hinge. It's easy to fix this, but the results will be far from satisfactory, especially considering how much motion the right arm has in the shoulder.

 

His wings just hang off his calves and there's no good place to put them and they interfere with being able to get a solid grip on his legs when posing him.

 

Those problems annoyed me a LOT at first, but the shoulder was easy enough to fix to where I could accept it and I've gotten more used to the legs.

 

One thing I really like about the toy is that he uses three fairly weak locking mechanisms to engineer the leverage you have on the toy so that his robot mode is incredibly solid. You won't be able to pry apart his pelvis halves without undoing the last two locks, both of which can't be undone on accident. It's a really clever design.

 

Dirge's looks are quite well developed. He's thin and almost skeletal, making him look like an armored rotting corpse. He has enough little bits to fit in well with the Movie line without looking over crowded for his size. I almost want to say that he'd fit in well with the Galaxy Force toys except I don't have any of them for comparison.

 

To finish off, his Mech-Alive is very... Odd. When you turn his shoulders up and down his tits rotate. It looks weird and perverse while also being quite reminiscent of Soundwave's tapes. I can tell that they're supposed to be exposed jets, but it just looks wrong. On the up side, the parts that move are a dark plastic and hard to see when you're not paying attention to them, so it's not as bad as it could be.

 

Overall, it's a decent robot mode that just suffers a little too much for its interesting design. It'd be far better if the wings would peg in to the lower legs without blocking the knee joint.

 

Total: 8.5/10

 

He's a good figure and worth picking up, but it's better to go in being prepared for his quirks and flaws.

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  • 2 months later...

Great review!

 

Dirge is a neat figure and wasn't going to initially pick him up until a number of fans were hyping him up before his release. After picking him up, I really am glad I listened to the hype.

 

Dirge is, by far, one of the simpler Transformers figures I've picked up from the RotF line in terms of the transformation. I wish he was a bit bigger, though. The head did give me a bit of a quirk in trying to figure it out (I still wish Hasbro was better with those darn instructions).

 

The cone-shaped head is very unique but a bit awkward. It's one I've gotten used to over time, however.

 

The kibble is very apparent on this figure and is a bit of an annoyance, but for what Hasbro could do in moving some of those spare parts was good, so I have to take that into consideration and give them brownie points for it. I honestly don't think there could have been any other place on the figure they could've placed some of that kibble.

 

Overall, a pretty good figure with an awesome paint job and a unique design. My biggest complaint is the size of the figure...I wish it were a bit bigger.

 

4.6/5

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  • 2 months later...

I just picked him up this weekend at the TRU sale. I think he's a pretty good figure as well. I love the headsculpt and the leg articulation.

 

Nice review, BTW.

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