It was Summer 2014, when i went to Hong Kong for family vacation and i stumbled upon a fully stocked Transformers store in Mong Kok area. Back then, i had no clue whatsoever regarding Transformers Third Party product. As i walked and browsed around the store, the super kind store manager guided and recommended me to Maketoys Giant combiner product. I bought the MT Giant and i was hooked. It was the MT Giant that dragged me into 3rd party world until today.
Maketoys has been widely considered as one of the elite 3rd party companies. They release a few series of toy line spanning from Combiner, Battle Tanker, City Bot, and recently released a Re-Master line (Maketoys website). The Re-Master line is deemed to be a Masterpiece-scaled toy. Two Re-Master line characters are Hellfire (based on G1 Inferno) and Wrestle (based on G1 Grapple).
Packaging
Both figures come with a sturdy box with a very good artwork. I forgot to mentioned that the Hellfire bot was a regular release, while Wrestle was a Maketoys Exclusive release. When you opened the box, the robot was safely and securely contained within a clam shell along with their accessories and instruction manual. Both robot comes with an identical rifle (only difference are in color, black for Hellfire, and gray for Wrestle). Both robot also comes with 5 alternative face with various expressions.
Presentation
Hellfire and Wrestle are a very sturdy and solid robot. They have a die-cast part on their feet and doesn't have problem standing up. The color was very good and shiny. I like the sculpt and as mentioned before, you have the options to change the face expressions. However, unlike the other Maketoys line (i.e: City bot, combiners, battle tanker, etc) i find it that the Re-Master line is lacking of paint applications. The rifle guns also come with one color without any lick of other paints. I don't know if this is the intention of the company, but i personally would like to see a bit more color break up and paint applications.
Other minor complain from me also that the so-called "white wing" behind the Hellfire head always pop-off and very loose. Currently i use nail polish and a bit of tape to help with strengthen the ball joint.
Transformation
Transforming from robot to alt mode (which is a fire engine for Hellfire and Crane truck for Wrestle) was a joy. The only difficulties i experienced the first time i tried to transform them was in the waist and leg area. The waist has a double ratchet joint mechanism that you have to maneuver it to transform it correctly. However, once you know how the double joint mechanism work, you should have no problem transforming them the second time and so on. The alt mode also has a storage for you to store the rifle gun, which is always a nice touch.
Articulation
Both robot should be able to pull of few poses, and i found it very satisfying that the balance of the robot is very well distributed, hence i didn't encountered any problem when posing the robot. There are few strong ratchet joints, started from the shoulder and bicep swivel, down to the leg and knee area. The feet also have a rocker which helps the robot to be posed naturally. Be careful with the waist guard though, as the waist guard piece is one-piece and needs to be move before you move the leg forward, otherwise you may risk of breaking the piece.
My Thoughts
Overall, i'm very happy with the purchase and both robot will sit on my shelf along with the other Masterpiece-scaled robot. I know that few 3rd party companies is in the work for similar figures such as Ocular Max Backdraft, X-Transbot Dante, and not to mentioned that Takara will also release their own Inferno, but personally i think the Maketoys version of Inferno and Grapple can pretty much compete with those upcoming products. Even with the above minor complaints (and possible future improvements) such as loose parts, lack of paints applications, i will continue to be part of Maketoys bandwagon as i look forward for their next releases...
Cheers,
Epen
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