TFC Toys Ares: Nemean

 

Ares is the TFC Toys version of Predaking and the Predacons. The third G1 combiner from the company, Ares is a five member team, unlike the six members of Hercules. Each figure comes in a fairly standard window box, similar to those of the Hercules team members, and generally shares that Hercules aesthetic of the Cybertron-era of Hasbro figures.

Nemean is team leader and Ares torso third party analog of Razorclaw, named after the famous lion of Greek mythology with the impenetrable flesh that Hercules was tasked with taming. Transforming from robot to lion, Nemean is a lot larger than the other four Ares team members, and provides an interesting evolutionary step between figures that comprise Hercules and Hades, examples of TFC’s early and more modern offerings. There are a number of things to talk about, so where to start.

"You're a pretty big guy. . . "

It’s proven very difficult to pin down feelings and reactions to Nemeans’ robot mode. Much larger than the other figures in the set, Nemean shares physical characteristics with all of them, and not even just because they share the same basic transformation scheme. Nemean has a number of the same physical features that fellow cat moded teammate Phlogeus does, including and perhaps most notably the way the shoulders fold out from the main body. The shoulders pull closer to the body for beast mode, but extend away on flat rectangular planks for robot mode, offering a wider torso and more posing options. The robot mode is generally poseable, and does look good in certain poses. The large lion head in the middle of the chest is a Razorclaw and Predaking standard, sort of the most distinguishing characteristic of the G1 figure. The robot head looks very nice, although is not a G1 Razorclaw face, having eyes instead of the visor. The head is light piped, which is pretty cool.

Nemean is a problematic robot though. He needs to be posed just right in order to help the legs look less bad. They are long and gangly, partially due to the robot legs transformation into rear lion legs, and partly for no real reason. Nemean is tall, and should be larger than the others, but this is kind of overboard. The figure isn’t tall for a purpose, it’s just tall. The hands are connected to two incredibly small tabs that fold into the forearms during transformation, but the tabs are so small that the hands usually pop off with even the slightest pressure. The over the shoulder cannons simply plug into holes in the back of the shoulders, and are poseable and extendable and such, but they look like, when viewed from the rear, they are just stuck into some holes in the shoulders. The lion head that ornaments the chest is fiddly as well, and there are no tabs or pegs or anything to help stabilize it. The panels of the mane are prone to slipping outward, extending the circumference of the mane, which is only supposed to be flared out in combined mode. The figure is also weighted strangely, so that it wobbles quite a bit when it is free standing. Not overly prone to falling over, but not really the sturdiest of figures. Nemean comes with an enormous sword which he can wield in either hand. It is the base part of the sword for the combined Ares mode, which takes the sword parts of the five figures and assembles them into one ridiculously large sword. Let’s save sword talk for the final Ares write up, but for now, know that Nemeans’ sword is fairly poor, but is the absolute middle of the pack sword in terms of the pieces that come with each figure. Phlogeus and Phobus have the worst, Conabus and Aethon the best, and Nemeans’ huge one then is the middle value. It’s a large, two handed Medieval Europe style sword, the kind you grind and grind to level up your RPG character to be able to use. (Note: I push my glasses up the bridge of my nose as I type zweihander –mr) It is possible to pose Nemean with this weapon so that he looks good, but frankly, Nemean looks better dual wielding the swords that come with Conabus and Aethon, like as a general statement. Also, the shoulders and upper torso slide upwards for both Ares torso and lion modes, but does not lock into place in standard Nemean robot mode. If the figure is picked up by the upper part of its body, the body elongates in a comical fashion.

The upper body appears too wide in relation to the smallness of the waist and the thin lankiness of the legs. While some of that is probably accounted for by Nemeans’ combined function as torso, thus needing to provide a larger upper body and more or less a waist, as an individual figure, it looks a bit strange. Like Nemean always skips leg day.

Transformers with animal alt modes are often criticized as having a stand up/bend over transformation pattern, and Nemean is not much of an exception. Essentially, Nemean leans over and then undergoes a pretty extensive bending at the hips to become a lion. Again, all five of the Ares figures have the same leg transformation, wherein the figure does the splits, and then bends their legs downwards a short distance away from the hip, forming an L-shape with the thigh. The lower leg or calf then slides upwards to cover the thigh parts, widening the animal hips and revealing the rear animal legs. The robot feet then spin around to “reveal” the animal claws which have really just been there all this time. Nemean makes a fine robot lion, but there are some issues in this mode as well. For starters, the red lion tail is a removable part, and all it does is slightly and loosely wedge up inside an open area on the lion butt. There is not a hole or socket for it to plug into, so over time, it just falls out. The lion head is again fiddly in beast mode. And the elongated body makes Nemean look strange from certain viewing angles. The intention is to strike the silhouette of a sleek hunter, but he kind of just looks sickly.

In all honesty, Cybertron Leobreaker, or Botcon Razorclaw for reference on these pages, is not too far off as an adequate beast mode comparison.

So Nemean has some issues. But, it seems like there’s a fairly plain explanation for many of them. Nemean and future featured team member Phlogeus share most of the same design; the only major differences being in the robot mode chests. It is entirely possible that Nemean and Phlogeus share the same design and that, in order to make Ares a larger, proportionate combiner, Nemeans’ measurements were simply increased in order to make the figure bigger, rather than redesigning Phlogeus or designing an all new figure to be Nemeans’ size. The hands, weakly connected and prone to popping off as they are, transform into the forearms the same way that Phlogeus’ do, only not as well or as solidly. The robot shoulders accordion outward in the same way that Phlogeus’ do. Overall, Nemean with Phlogeus’ measurements would probably be just as good as Phlogeus is, but he’s not. He’s larger. Even the legs and their length seem to point to this conclusion, as were Nemean designed individually, the legs would probably not be as needlessly long as they are. It’s like someone just changed the dimensions on Phlogeus in CAD before sending them to production. If Nemean is simply an upsized Phlogeus, that doesn’t make the issues with Nemean ok. In fact, it seems to magnify them, as it adds to the list of issues a cheap and probably fast upscaling of one design to take the place of a different and new design. This upscaling idea is not known to be true, and it should be pointed out that it is pure speculation, but it doesn’t seem like it would be impossible or completely out of the realm of possibility.

Cartoonish but good lion head.

Sad to say, but as the first figure released for the team Nemean does not really fill a person with confidence for the rest of the set, nor the combined mode. But enthusiasm for this figure ebbs and flows. Right out of the package, he was unimpressive. But, two weeks later when really experiencing it for the first prolonged time, opinions on Nemean improved quite a lot, as a number of tweets posted during the experience can attest to. But then, taking pictures the next day, Nemeans’ stock had fallen again, not quite as low as that first impression, but they had taken a hit. Now, a few days after that, feeling continue to go back and forth. This is not a terrible toy, and there are absolutely worse attempts at this character and alt mode and everything (again, see Botcon Razorclaw), but as the harbinger of the Ares set, Nemean is enough to give pause. For its initial price and the fact that figure number two, the now oft mentioned Phlogeus, would be some months away, Nemean feels like a reason to take stock and reevaluate ones commitment to the rest of this set, or if it may be better to pursue War Lord or Feral Rex or another of the various third party Predakings that were all releasing concurrently with Nemean. Happiness with both Hercules and Hades brought Ares to us here at the Coffin, and a terrific sale on Big Bad Toy Store brought us all five of the figures at once. In the context of the rest of the set, Nemean is perfectly fine, but as a standalone figure, he’s kind of a pass. We know, since we are experiencing this set years after its release and have it complete already, without the inconvenience of waiting around, how Ares is going to turn out, and we know what the other figures are like. Nemean is just not on the level of the others, or really, of any of them between the three now full TFC Toys combiner teams the Coffin has examined. This is a different sense of feeling like the first figure isn’t the best than was had with Exgraver, as Exgraver is a totally fine figure that simply underwhelms. Nemean is a figure that does some things well, but most other things poorly. Purposely absent is any talk of the torso mode, as that will be covered in the eventual Ares article, but as a spoiler, Nemean fills that role just fine.

Without Nemean, you can’t form Ares. So you need Nemean in order to complete Ares. Aside from this necessity, Nemean is real middle of the road as an individual figure.