Luckily for me the widely reported cracking plastic has not happened to my figure. I have only been able to see a tiny crack on the neck armature piece near the back of the head at the rear. It's show in my video review at the link below. Click through to watch the full review over on the Kool Kollectibles YouTube channel!
The packaging is as we all know and love in the MP series. The contents are well stacked with accessories as shown below. The jeep hood and hologram effects are nice to have, but I won't be using them in my display. Many of the car parts that can be left attached during transformation I also left off, such as the rear cannon and spare wheel and fuel canister.
The new Spike figure included in this set is scaled well with the jeep mode, but this means it's quite a bit larger than the previous Spike figures that came with Bumblebee and Optimus. At least this one, with the larger size, doesn't keep popping off its arms and legs like the others!
The jeep mode is beautiful, has that official licence aesthetic to it, and the paint app is a gorgeous matte green which I really like. I'm glad they went with this colour and not a darker green like the original G1 toy. I much prefer the cartoon style.
The first thing pretty much everyone will do when unboxing in this jeep mode is check it over for cracks. Straight out of the box, mine was fine. The usual places for cracks include the side footrest hinges, the front pins/hinges near the front wheels, and the hinge at the rear panel that needs to be pulled out slightly.
It will do well for people to watch transformation videos on YouTube that clearly show where you should avoid placing pressure. This will definitely help in preventing cracks or breakages with your figure.
The transformation is rather complex, at least for me. I took my time and slowing manipulated every panel as I watched transformation videos. The engineering in the feet and lower legs is fantastic, and definitely the Masterpiece Moment for me on this one. If you go slow, and make sure the panels are all folded in the right way, the lower legs and feet will collapse together really well, and shouldn't stress the plastic.
The upper body transformation does have a couple of scary parts, especially the cannon and head armature piece. There is a single screw at the rear hold that armature in place as it swings, and it is screwed in very tight. Moving the arm is what causes many of the cracks. General advice has been to loosen that screw, but even as I did that I saw the tiny crack appear.
Luckily that's the only place that I've seen cracks, but many also have cracks at the back of the knees along the hinges there, and near the sides of the chest. Now that I've transformed mine into bot mode, he'll be staying that way pretty much forever in my display cabinet.
The bot mode is simply amazing, and for me is by far the best looking Hound out of all the options at the moment. There's barely any kibble that people love to complain about, and he looks very accurate to the cartoon. He fits in beautifully with the new Optimus and Bumblee, and complements the + versions of the Lambor and Nissan molds really well too.
Overall, I think Takara designed a fantastic figure, but let themselves and collectors down with sub-standard plastic. The hinges or the pins are simply putting too much stress on the plastic, resulting in many reports of breakages. It's certainly ruined the experience for many collectors. Hopefully if they do a repaint or a reissue, the plastic quality is improved, because this design deserves to be given the best production value it can.
If it wasn't for all the reports of breakages, I'm pretty sure Hound would go down as one of the best figures in the MP series. But as of now, it's really a matter of what could have been! Mine's still holding up ok with a few pose changes, but here's hoping it doesn't start falling apart!
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