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TRANSFORMERS TOYS AND MERCHANDISE SECTION

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Transformers Toy Review Archive (older series, 1984 to date)
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Sir Auros' review of: Hoist

Name: Hoist
Function: Maintenance
First cartoon appearance: N/a
"You have to be rolling before you can be fighting."

Hoist is the first on the scene whenever an Autobot is injured in the line of duty. His personal mission is to take sure that each of his comrades operates at peak efficiency levels at all times. Though his primary function is maintenance and repair, he'll gladly convert to robot mode to take on a Decepticon adversary.

When I recently found three G1 Spychangers at my local KB, can you guess which one I bought just because it was there and rare? Yeah, I'm less than pleased with the Hoist mold and wonder why they even bothered. Heck, Ironhide or Ratchet would have worked out significantly better using the Spychanger X-Brawn mold, but Hoist just doesn't work.

Vehicle Mode:
The vehicle mode is closer to the original Hoist than the robot mode and I can't say that it's really a bad mode or that it doesn't look good. It's kind of funny seeing a yuppy SUV converted to a motorist assistance vehicle, but somehow it does work. Ironhide or Ratche would have worked better though, especially considering the RiD X-Brawn mold is used for Universe Ratchet. The mold itself is a nice, solid thing though.

Robot Mode:
Here's where the figure falls on its face. The mold cannot be divorced from the original X-Brawn look and the paint job isn't even close to being similar to the original Hoit's color scheme. I really wonder why they even bothered to try if they were going to be so far away from what they apparently intended to do. It's kind of neat that the arms in this mode has more articulation than your run of the mill spychanger, but the figure has no weapons other than being able to swing the hood of the car at people.

Transformation: 9 - The one point I really have to give the figure credit for is being able to replicate the transformation for the RiD version of the mold accurately.
Durability: 8 - Sturdy in vehicle mode, but I'd worry about the arms in robot mode.
Fun: 7 - Good as a Hot Wheels type car, but not much else.
Price: 2 - Way overrated due to rarity and is barely worth the current retail price anyway.
Overall: 6 - Really not a great figure as a reproduction of a G1 toy but could've been better had the mold been used for a more suitable figure and with a better paint job
 
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