With the great releases of the first 2 members: Axle and Rover, my expectations for this figure is already high enough.
Let's look at it in more detail
Packaging
It's the same outer box packaging as with the previous releases and Himed is also secured inside plastic clampshell. This time the complexity gauge shows 3 out of 5 for Himed transformation.
It also comes with the standard instruction manual and one piece of gun/blaster gun that can be combined together with Axle's gun. When combined together, it is exactly the same 2 guns with the guns that came with Rover.
There could be a possibility that these guns can somehow combine together for the Guardia combined mode weapons. We will see when we review the combine mode.
Presentation
When i took out Himed out of the plastic clampshell, i felt that Himed is somewhat smaller and lighter compared to Axle and Rover. As always, the built-quality of the figures is outstanding. But for now, let me elaborate on the few negatives that i have with Himed.
First, the lower leg of Himed feels hollow (and yes it is hollow!!) you can see it clearly from the side.
Second, just like Rover, from the back, you will notice that that the back thigh is also hollow. Off course this is a personal and preference view, but i do not like hollow plastic.
Third, the arms joints and mechanism feels awkward and weird.
On the positive side, i like the fresh design and aesthetic of Himed. The face sculpt is awesome and i like the chest piece. It resembles a big white ambulance cross (medieval style).
When compared with TFC Red Cross and Takara Unite Warriors First Aid, Himed is the slimmest of them all.
Himed will form as the left hand of Guardia, so i take a look on the combiner port as well. It seems that Maketoys is using a new combiner port, because the port is different (and bigger?) than the one that we have with Giant and Quantron.
Transformation
Transforming Himed to an ambulance mode was a breeze and simple enough. I did not have clearance issue like i had with Rover. So in terms of my personal scale of complexity, Himed is definetely easier than both Rover and Axle.
The legs fold up nicely using the same mechanism ala Combiner Wars/Unite Warriors robot.
Again, when compared with TFC Red Cross and Takara Unite Warriors First Aid, Himed's ambulance-mode is the smallest among all. When compared with Rover Car-mode, Himed is also smaller. Here i thought that Ambulance should be big (in terms of scale), but i think Maketoys opted more for proportion than scale.
So in order to keep the combined mode of Guardia in good proportion, the scale of Himed was adjusted to a smaller scale.
If that is the case, than i have no issue, since i will be displaying Guardia in combined mode anyway, and i like my combiner to be in well balance proportion.
Himed also has the same ratcheting knee joint like Rover. The waist swivel also on ratchet joints, which will help considerably for the combined-mode.
Like i mentioned above, i felt that the shoulder arms joints is weird and the piece that shoulder joint attached to is easily unpegged during posing. I'm not fond of the shoulder joint at all. But to be fair, the TFC Red Cross shoulder joint is not good either. As a matter of fact, Himed shoulder performs better than TFC Red Cross.
When you bend the knee, you can immediately notice the hollowness of the lower leg.
My Thoughts
Himed, without a doubt, is still a solid robot. Its just that it doesn't feel as great as Axle and Rover. The emptiness and hollowness of the lower legs only adds to the overall robot being light. Unlike Rover and Axle, where the robot feel solid and packed with detail inside, I felt emptiness when holding and transforming Himed.
But that only a minor nitpick as Himed looks great as a robot and i think (when combined) the lightness of the robot (as an arm) will help with the overall stability of the combined mode. I have had experiences with other company's combiners where the arms portions is just to heavy and bulky, hence it is not in well balance proportion.
I like to think that Maketoys choose to go down this road because they see and plan ahead towards full combined mode of Guardia. Few sacrifices to be made in order to make Guardia solid and well proportion.
Anyhow, if you are invested to Guardia already, you are most likely buying Himed nevertheless. You are committed to this line because of Guardia, so you will still buy Himed even with all the shortcomings that it comes with.
You wouldn't want your Guardia missing one hand dont you? :)
Cheers,
Epen
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