{"id":3577,"date":"2014-02-02T04:55:57","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T04:55:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anymoon.com\/blog\/?p=3577"},"modified":"2014-02-06T04:37:48","modified_gmt":"2014-02-06T04:37:48","slug":"bandai-dx-macross-quarter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anymoon.com\/blog\/?p=3577","title":{"rendered":"Bandai DX Macross Quarter"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Review: Less than 10% the cost of Yamato’s transforming capital ship toy
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Packaging & Extras<\/strong> (4\/5)
\nThe box may seem overly large (see picture for dimensions) but it does come packed with goodness. There were two things that kept this packaging from a perfect score. First, there’s no collector’s style flip-top lid. Truth-be-told, I’m not really holding that against the Quarter too much since the toy is so large that if they were going to package it in a mode where it could be opened and viewed it would have required an even larger box. The true reason I’m knocking this score down is because there are such big plastic trays within the box that the\u00a0package is a bit squishy. I picked this\u00a0up to pull it from its shipping container using one hand and the box immediately pinched in the middle where I was holding it. The plastic trays do not do enough to reinforce the box’s integrity making me long for the days of styrofoam trays. Yeah, there is one styrofoam tray but at least one more was clearly needed. \u00a0 Alternatively, the box could have been made of much thicker cardboard. \u00a0Inside the box you get the following:
\n1) full display stand
\n2) 8x mini figures (Vajra, Koenig shuttle, Koenig Gerwalk, 4x valkyrie, and a Q-Rea\/Rare)
\n3) 1 pair of articulated hands
\n4) 1 pair of fixed posed hands
\n5) Aircraft connector pieces
\n6) an instruction manual.<\/p>\n

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Charm & Collectability<\/strong> (2\/5)
\nOriginally released in December 2009 with an MSRP of 19,800 Yen, this toy landed on retail stores with a thud. \u00a0When I first posted my review I scored the toy fairly high in this category. \u00a0I originally said: “This toy suffers only from not being a limited edition product and not being a transformable jet. Toy history tells us that the capital ships aren’t as popular as other toy lines although I don’t think we’ve had a ship like the Quarter before. On the plus side, this thing is huge, gimmicky, and features a fair amount of diecast giving it some real heft. This feels like an old school toy in the best ways.” \u00a0Unfortunately for fans of capital ships, this toy has been on sale at bargain basement prices at many retailers for quite a while now.\u00a0 It looks like it didn’t sell as well as many had hoped.\u00a0 Will it be a hot collector’s item some day?\u00a0 Possible… but not for a while and as such I’ve slashed the score here.<\/p>\n

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Sculpt, Detail, & Paint<\/strong> (8.5\/10)
\nYou can definitely nitpick the warmth of the colors in Bandai’s choice and some small details but overall this toy is a stunning likeness to the CG Model. No decals are provided\u00a0but you probably won’t mind since there’s so much pre-painted detail. There’s even some\u00a0pre-painted detail on the tiny accessory figures. Are those figures perfectly in scale? No, but I doubt they were always perfectly in scale in the actual animation also.\u00a0 I think the comparisons to the line art above offer some hint that maybe the gun ship and carrier did a bit of shrinking from one mode to the next in the cartoon as the toy looks pretty much spot on in cruiser mode but the arm accessories appear too large in attack mode. \u00a0Since this toy functions so much better in attack mode than cruiser mode I wish Bandai would have focused their efforts of CG emulation to the attack mode but I’m guessing that most fans of capital ship toys would think I’m insane for suggesting such a thing. \u00a0If we ever see a ‘renewal’ Macross Quarter, which I have absolutely no expectation of, this score would hopefully come down a bit.<\/p>\n

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Design<\/strong> (7\/10)
\nObviously I was impressed with this toy but it does have a couple crucial flaws. The first flaw, and minor one in my book, is that the aircraft carrier can only be holstered in attack mode by using accessory parts. This is minor because I don’t anticipate the gimmick will get much use and it was cool of Bandai to include it at all. \u00a0If we ever get a revision though, I hope they find a way to ditch the extra parts. \u00a0The second, and much more major problem, is that the weight of the giant gun and aircraft carrier are too much for the arms to handle in cruiser mode which makes the stand a necessity. It would have been nice if Bandai could have figured out some locking mechanism that would have kept the carrier and gun level in fortress mode when the toy was held by the mid-section. Sadly, this is a pretty big deal as I can’t possibly imagine anyone “whooshing” around with this in cruiser mode which should be part of the toy’s fun. Originally I scored this toy an 8 in this category but I’ve since revised this score downward as it’s clear fans of capital ships want to be able to handle the toy in the capital ship mode without leaving it attached to the display stand. \u00a0Instead fortress\/cruiser mode just makes one hell of an impressive display piece on its stand. That big shortcoming aside, this toy does have some great gimmicks including the removable storage areas on the carrier’s deck, the\u00a0Cheyenne\u00a0destroids\u00a0(I’m guessing… you can’t tell what they are by looking at them) that pop out from the sides of the carrier, the gun that splays open, and all the individual gun turrets. I’m not a huge fan of the Quarter’s design (it looks like it transforms by standing up) but I can’t really fault this toy as it pulls off all the things it’s supposed to do. Yamato subsequently released an SDF-1 toy that gave us all the structural rigidity you could possibly want in cruiser mode but stripped away the spinning articulated turrets which I felt were a must for capital ships. \u00a0Fun fact, this article in February 2010 included my very first video review. \u00a0Thank you to all of you who viewed it and provided me with constructive criticism for the next several months as my video reviews improved. \u00a0Here’s an updated HD review:
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