Again, AGAIN, TFSource is advertising the entire MakeToys
Quantron set for super cheap, $110 this time for Black Friday, and AGAIN this
set me on a rant in the presence of my poor, beleaguered wife about how
excellent a set of figures these guys are, and how everyone should buy them.
That made me realize that I hadn’t finished writing them up, and had in fact
been neglecting Sonicdrill. So, let’s rectify that, shall we?
The fifth and final member of the Quantron team, Sonicdrill
is the Nosecone analogue, and is perhaps a perfect encapsulation of the entire
oeuvre of the team. A great amalgamation of the original G1 design and the
general reimagining of said present in figures like Overheat and Celeritas,
Sonicdrill is this great intersection of tradition and risky re-envisioning.
While the robot mode is a good combo of those two values, the vehicle mode is
something totally new.
So, robot mode presents Sonicdrill with the visual cues of
being a scientist or demolitions expert, a pair of wildly differing
professions, yes, but the one figure manages to wrap both around each other
without any visible seams. Large removable spotlight parts on the tops of the
shoulders and Saiyan Scouter monocle pair with small extendable arms that fold
up inside the shoulders to give that science or explorer look, while blasters
slung under the forearms and the drillbit sticking up behind the back give the
demolition appearance. The forearm blasters can be folded back behind the arms
so that they are not visible, which gives Sonicdrill a different look. The
drill can be detached from the back and mounted over the robot fists, so that
Sonicdrill basically has an anime mode, and the drill rotates and looks pretty
jagged and menacing. There are no additional accessories.
The robot mode is pretty standardly poseable, but has a kind
of funky waist that sort of acts as an ab crunch, but also frustrates posing
because it is fairly loose. It may not even be intended as an ab crunch, as it
is a transformation joint primarily, and it contributes to the overall
condition of the figure as being floppy. That is an unfortunate reality for the
toy, as it is a bit floppy. Thin, too. Sonicdrill is basically only the front
half of a toy, as the back is pretty much comprised of only the middle of the
vehicle mode. And, this middle-of-the-vehicle piece makes the figure back
heavy. The feet are very narrow and stubby, so everything needs to be balanced
well and evenly in order for the figure to stand up, and falling over is pretty
common. This is a real letdown, since Sonicdrill is the most poseable of the
entire team, even having that double shoulder joint that allows for so much
extra arm movement. The plastic also feels the thinnest and lightest of the
entire set, most likely due to the slight nature of the toy generally. But
unlike, say, Celeritas, who feels light and thin because he’s largely without a
back half, or Overheat, who feels thin in some of the panel pieces that form
the alt mode shell, Sonicdrill feels thin and light in totality, with hollow
legs and some thin parts.
The vehicle mode is pretty different, at least for a vehicle
mode for this character, which typically takes a more compact and blocky
approach. Sonicdrill transforms into a flat, wide drill vehicle, looking more
sleek than powerful. Honestly, it’s not real clear how that drill would clear enough
material for the wider vehicle to pass through, although this may simply be a
matter of my not being imaginative at the moment. The vehicle is very science
fiction-y, and that’s great, and fits with the general motif of the Technobots
a lot better than the traditional Nosecone brick on treads. Sonicdrill is an
H-tank, the likes of which we haven’t had in a while in the world of
Transformers, or at least, the first one I can recall in some time. The
transformation is a pain, the least amusing of the team, despite Overheat being
more complicated. Sonicdrill’s issue is that his body basically wraps around
the grey middle parts that hand off the robot back, and lining up everything is
sometimes more of a hassle than it ought to be. A Third Party figure hallmark,
the unnecessarily taxing transformation does detract from the enjoyment of the
figure somewhat, as unlike teammates Blindfire and Celeritas who have simpler,
smoother transformations, Sonicdrill seems to warn against repeated
transformations, and so is the figure from the set that gets the least amount
of in-hand time.
No wheels in the treads, which seems like an odd omission.
Not at all a subtraction from the toy, but we are so used to being able to roll
vehicles along surfaces that once that ability has been taken away, one can’t
help but notice.
The vehicle mode is very nice overall. Sonicdrill is the
figure that really lives in the shadow of the other four, and that’s not for a
lack of trying on its part. It has a great looking robot mode, and a great
looking vehicle mode, but a finicky transformation and issues with balance
prevent it from being as highly lauded as the others have been rather easily.
It is a bizarre criticism of a toy to say that its problem is that it’s not a
different toy, but that is appropriate for this one.
But, Sonicdrill is this marvelous encapsulation of the
entire Quantron team. The team contains two figures that are wildly faithful to
the originals (Blindfire and Metalstorm) and two figures that take some pretty
daring risks (Celeritas and Overheat), both the kind of things that people tend
to love the 3P scene for. Sonicdrill tries to mesh these two approaches, and
does so rather well: a new and different robot mode, with a vehicle mode that
is a version of an updated Nosecone drill tank mode (see: Unite Warriors Nosecone and futurize the tank mode). So in this
regard, Sonicdrill is the unifying glue that holds the team together in terms
of aesthetics and design.
I am already on record as saying that everyone should own
this set, which makes Sonicdrill kind of an automatic in terms of whether or
not he’s recommended. But even if you didn’t “just” need it to complete
Quantron, Sonicdrill is another excellent figure, and one that even with its
flaws would be a hard one to pass on.
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