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StryderK's Review: Masterpiece Buzzsaw and 'Rumble'

NOTE: Before I begin, let me set the record stright. That is RUMBLE in there, NOT Frenzy! Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. I know I know what the box says. But darn it! Masterpiece basis is all about the cartoons and in the cartoons, the blue guy is Rumble, not Frenzy. This is why those famous pile drivers (AT LAST I may add) are included in the box. For those few who does not know or are new to this whole entire "Transformers" mess. Back in the 1980's when Hasbro decided to make the cartoons as a "30 minutes" commercials and contracted Koei for the production, a miscommunication, lost translations etc. etc. etc. happened and the end result was they got Frenzy and Rumble crossed and the blue guy became Rumble. However, Hasbro refused to go along with it since they never expected that well, for many, the cartoons so loved they would become the holy grail of all holy grails for many when it comes to anything about the Transformers. So for the toys and the follow up comics etc. they kept the red guy as Rumble instead.

As you may expect, that divided the fans right down the middle when it came to who is Rumble and who is Frenzy. For many who follows the comics and the toys, they are firmly in the RIRFIB or Rumble is Red, Frenzy is Blue camp. For those who take the cartoons as the holy grail, they are fimly in the RIBFIR or Rumble is Blue, Frenzy is Red camp. Here is Matt Moylan and his LIl' Formers take on this whole entire debacle! Guess which camp I'm in?!?!?

Confused yet? Well, here is tfwiki's explanation on this whole entire mess farted out of you know where! Confused even more? Well welcome to the club buddy! Even ardent die hard Trans fans are confused by the issue so don't feel too down! hehehehe!

So ok, if the mods force me into it, I can also add Frenzy's info. But darn it! I will NOT change my review! The "cassette guy" review is about Rumble, not Frenzy!

Ok, rant over! Let's start!

As for the packaging, well, Takara this time actually didn't go full out, all on, with the "Masterpiece packaging, or how Takara is ripping you off" mode. This time, the box is actually pretty "tightly" packaged. Both Rumble and Buzzsaw are kept in their cassette mode to save space. Takara could've easily put both, especially Rumble in robot mode to add more space so kudos. Some accessories, such as Rumble's laser machine guns and sonic "confusion" booms (for those "FIBRIR" fans) are not even in the packaging itself, but kept in a seperate plastic bag in the space behind the plastic protection. But still, just because they didn't went all the way doesn't mean it's not there. 60% of the package are still nothing but empty space. Both cassettes can be easily kept together, rather than seperate. Rumble's laser machine guns again, are not even in the forefront of packaging so yes, it's not that big of a rip off like Grimlock or Soundwave, but still a rip off none the less since Takara could've easily saved some cost and give Rumble's guns a chrome coating like G1 versions.

With that over, let's get the stupid repaint out of the way!

Name: Buzzsaw
Allegiance: Decepticons (Destron in Japan)
Function: Saboteur/Assassin
Alternate Mode: Mini-Cassette

Buzzsaw is a very specific kind of artist—he likes to make art out of his victims. He approaches them with reasoned clarity and sophistication, gutting them with what he believes to be inspirational precision. However, his ego is easily wounded, and he's not adept at improvisation. If one of his "masterpieces" is interrupted and he cannot proceed as planned, he would rather retreat to sulk than rethink his approach.

He will kill you. It's not a matter of if, but a matter of where, when, and how painful it is.


Ummm...If you read my review on MP-13 Soundwave, specifically, about Laserbeak, then you pretty much know about Buzzsaw. It's the samething sans the new yellowish color. AKA, a repaint.....Like we don't have that in the Transformers universe right? But to refresh, basically:

Alternate Mode: It's a cassette, or a mini-cassette. If you saw Laserbeak, then it's the same except the yellow color. Yes, it still has all the cracks and seams. Also, my figure suffered a slight paint scratch on the part that will become the wing tips. The silver paint got all "razzled". So check carefully if it happens again.

Main mode: The same condor as laserbeak, the same easy transformations and the same problem, namely the Soundwave masterpiece policy of "everything folds into the robot". It bite Laserbeak and the same applies to Buzz. Namely, those two venetian style turbine intakes. Because they have to fold into the cassette, they are too small and also caused the figure to be too small also. Other wise, it's the same. The detail fidelity and the dead ringer look is still pretty cool, with the same forehead hidden camera. Basically, just consider Buzz (not lightyear) as Beaky's twin.

Score: 6. I may sound mean, but I just don't think too highly of repaints, which Buzz is. And consider the fact he wasn't too much shown in the cartoons, he's even more of a throwaway. I just consider him a bonus on what comes next. Here is where he will end up 90% of the time, as a cassette stuck in Soundwave's chest.....And also, because he's "self-contained" aka, there is no accessories for him like Laserbeak, and that score goes down even further.

Now, to the main lead of the show and why I bought this anyways.

Name: Rumble
Allegiance: Decepticons (Destron in Japan)
Function: Demolitions (sometimes warrior/attacker in the cartoons)
Extra: May get confused with Frenzy due to Hasbro getting their mind farted in the 1980's.

Destroy what's below and what's above will follow."
RUMBLE is your basic street punk. Small, but always acting tough. Quick temper and mean disposition. Follows Megatron's orders eagerly. Transmits immense low frequency groundwaves to create powerful earthquakes. His small size limits his physical strength, but his ability to shatter the ground makes him difficult to approach in a fight.


Ok, as far back as the 1980's and the cartoons, Rumble, the BLUE guy....although sometimes slight shade of purple, other time blue and a bit red, other time a more reddish shade of purple and other....AHH SHUCKS! Who care about his color! He is BLUE damn it! I'm blu, ohh so blue so...blue......Ok...Gotten carried away there!

But anyways, the first cassette popped out of Soundwave chest other than Beaky was, well, guess who? And as stated above, due to some confusion, Rumble ended up as the blue guy and put guys like me firmly into the RIBFIR camp. What made him so special was not only his laser machine guns on his back, always look cool to little boys, but also his arms can transform into two pile drivers that can shatter the very earth itself. Also, like Beaky, due to the magic of "Mass Shifting", he can be as short as six feet, all the way up to 20 feet (like when he drove away the six wheel F1 race car in "The key to Vector Sigma to become Dragstrip. Beaky can have a 25 foot wingspan, such as in "Starscream Brigaid" when he carried him off and bannished him to the island of Gualdalcanal). I always wanted Rumble (other than Ravage and Beaky of course) to go with Soundwave. So when this deal came up, I have to jump at it!

Alternate Mode: Ughhhh! Read my review on Beaky and Buzz (not Lightyear)....Same here. This time, it's even worse since you can see the outline of back of Rumble's head right in the center (see below on the Robot). Again, unless they invent Memetic Polyalloy or something, there is no way around that. Fortunately, unlike G1, everything is ball jointed and in plastic to avoid "loose joint" problem. However, as you can imagine, this meant Rumble doesn't take too kindly to strenous and hard pulling and ripping. I tried with his waist once and promptly pulled him in half (poor little guy). Luckly, I was able to put him back to one piece again (Whew) so becareful!
Score: 7. Ughh...Nothing to write home about. Again, samething for all cassette-ta-cons.

Main Mode: Rumble transform into this little dude that can range from six feet to twenty feet....As the cartoons shows, he's nothing but a street punk and will defend his masters, that's Megatron or Soundwave from anyone and isn't afraid to take on someone twice as big as him. To transform him is easy since he pretty much follows his G1 format. All that is, except his head. In G1, it is spring loaded and folds directly into his body. However, in cassette mode. That head is held in place by his arms. Unfortuantely, as many people will tell you. Those arms sooner or later will loose their grip, causing the head to pop out no matter how hard you try to keep it in place. In Masterpiece, the head is turn 180 degrees backward, then folds into a hole on the back or the front of the cassette. This solves that problem but as above said, causes in cassette mode, you can clearly see the outline of his head.

But still, Rumble does look good, especially if you never had a Rumble toy in the begining. Also, he's fully articulate. His head spins, arms, wrist, knees, legs etc. are all articulate. This mean he's alot more playable than his G1 counterpart and of course, being a Masterpiece, his detail fidelity is what to be expected. The only thing that brought the score down are those machine guns. They are small, far smaller than their G1 counterparts and as mentioned above, not chrome plated, just painted silver. However, Takara musta have borrow something from the modeling community, that is, for the guns if not the whole figure, they used "Slide-Moulding" technology. This allows far greater detail sharpness and fidelity and sometimes, details not possible with traditional "top down" method, such as hollowed out barrel ends. Also, a big note needs to be made as you can store these two guns in Soundwave while in recorder mode. This is not in Soundwave's instructions. But in recorder mode, at the back, you can flip out two carefully hidden compartments and insert those guns in there (They are actually on the bottom of Soundwave's footplates). On figure so small as Rumble, he really benefits from this technology as his face, facial expression are far fare sharper than his G1 counterpart. He even sports a goatee to go along with his "punk ass" image.

The other accessory is his sonic boom box. This attaches to the hole where his head is after transforming. MP-15 Frenzy has it too.....I guess it's Takara and Hasbro way of satisfying both FIBRIR and RIBFIR camps....However, just make a note, Rumble and even Frenzy never made use of this device even ONCE in the cartoons so that is that. Whiel BOTH made use of pile drivers! and speaking of those pile drivers.

And speaking of which, those two pile drivers (or "Hammer Arms" as the instruction booklet would call them)are front center in the packaging. And they are BIG! Hell, pulling out the hammer parts make the whole entire thing almost as tall as Rumble himself. There are several gimmicks other than attaching to Rumble's arms. For one, when not attached to Rumble's arms, flip out the top and you can insert Rumble guns into this "storage compartment". Just make sure those guns fins are facing outward. You can also attach the drivers into the sonic boom box to form storage containers of some kind and then attach them to the back of Rumble (where the head was). However, this makes Rumble heavy and he will topple backward. You can also attach this to Soundwave's arms in robot mode to become some sort of super rocket launcher. In Recorder mode, you can attach them to the side of the recorder as some sort of recharge battery or if you have some modicom of modeling skills, buy a small snake wire, streach a sprue, sand and file it down, attach one end to this.."thing" and form a spy telephone wire, which Soundwave uses sometimes.

To attach those drivers, fold in Rumble's hands, then form his arm upwards at the elbow as if he is surrendering, then slid the arms into the slots in the drivers. Notice there is a specific right and left driver. Attaching them to the wrong sides will cause them to hang loosely on the arm. If that happens, switch them around, insert until you hear a click and they should be in place. Then pull out the hammers to simulate Rumble pounding the ground.

Anyways, Rumble looks GOOD looking like this, especially since he use those arms almost all the time (hence why he is named Rumble!). However, there is one shortfall with these. They are heavy. Too heavy in fact. Unless standing upright, those will cause Rumble to tumble if not at a 90 degrees parrallel to Rumble's legs. This means if you bend his knees to make the drivers to touch the ground, both hammers has to be in contact. Or else Rumble will be pulled over by the weight of the damn things and fall over! Added together actually, the two drivers actually weights more than Rumble I think. That's how big they are!
Score: 8.8 He looks good thanks to "slide mould" technology. Which adds detail sharpness and fidelity not possible on traditional methods of moulding and of course, at last, those two pile drivers. However, brought down by the fact his guns are not chromed, he is a little loose without metal parts (double swords really since removing them solves issued, but of course, adds new ones) and those drivers are just too heavy sometimes.

NOTE: Just a side note on Rumble's paint job. As you know, Rumble comes in two shades of blue as the main color (with yellow highlights). For the lighter shade, Takara used the correct shade of medium sky blue. For the heavier shade however, they used light midnight blue. Unfortunately, the light midnight blue, which is dark, contains a bit of red in it. The end result in some light, he looks slightly bluish shade of purple! GARRRRRRRR!! Unfortunately, I can't really take points off as in some (ok, more than "some" here) episodes of the cartoons, that's what Rumble sports....The same purplish tinted light midnight blue shade and at least one scene, a very dark reddish purplish shade! GARRRGGHHH!!! Talk about throwing more mud into an already murky waters Hasbro/Takara!

Overall:
Transformation: 1
Not hard at all to figure out. One is a repaint and if you have Mp13 Soundwave, just throw away the instruction for that one. The other one except the head, the rest is basically just like his G1 counterpart.
Durability: 7. Buzz (not Lightyear) should be just as tough as Beaky. Of course, again, watch those two venetian blind turbines. Those can get loose later down the line. For Rumble, no metal means no metal on plastics, which usually means trouble down the line. However, he just feel too loose because of that. I certainly won't trust small kids with him as a good strong pull can easilly pull the little guy in half at the waist!
Fun: 8. Depends on what you are asking for. Buzz is a repaint. But like Beaky, he is still quite fun. Especially those grooves under the feet are still there so you can park him on one side of Soundwave's shoulder, Beaky on another. Rumble is even more so, especially now we have his pile drivers at last!
Playability 8. Both figures have far more articulations than their G1 counterparts and meant to be played. Rumble especially since his accessories can be attached to Soundwave also.
Price 6. Little bit of expensive at $50, the price I bought them. See if you can get a deal. However, if you are a fan of Rumble, then get him and consider Buzz a bonus. That's what I told myself!
Total: 8.3. Whether they are worth it is up to you and whether how much you are a fan of Rumble or not. But for me at least, it was worth it just for Rumble since I never had him when I was young and always wanted him and then there are his pile drivers.....Yeah, he's at Soundwave's feet, pounding some hapless autobot to the ground (then get pounded to the ground himself, looking at his broken pile driver while screaming "NO FAIR" after getting a taste of his own medicine from Sludge. See "S.O.S. Dinobots").
 
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