Toy Review - Titans Return Leader Sixshot

[GoktimusPrime]

Thoughts:

* Amazing! It's pretty much everything you'd expect from a Classicsverse Sixshot. The visual aesthetics very nicely match the G1 toy. It's also indicative of this current Generations line and shows how far CHUGUR has evolved - from modern toys based on G1 characters to what appears more to be modern toy 'translations' of G1 characters. And as others have mentioned, this higher level of G1 fidelity also means that these figures can often act as surrogate MPs.
* The silver wings are an improvement over the grey wings on the G1 figure.
* As others have mentioned, the Headmaster gimmick is pretty superfluous and can be completely ignored. I hope that more future TR figures based on non-Headmaster characters will be designed in this way.
* Stickers - I would've preferred tampographs. The stickers don't look bad per se, but tampographs look nicer than stickers. I wonder if this was done for budgetary reasons - if so then I can forgive the stickers cos stickers are better than nothing at all.
* QC: A few joints on my figure are a bit floppy/loose and I noticed that another Sixshot that I left on the shelf had a piece of paint chipped off the faceplate.
* I personally would've preferred to see white thighs over black, purely for the G1 accuracy since the rest of this toy is so G1 accurate. Seeing inaccurate black thighs feels odd. Having said that, there's nothing inherently wrong with the black thighs - it's neither better or worse but just comes down to personal preference. I wouldn't be surprised if TakaraTOMY went for white thighs.
* The submarine mode is silly and is clearly Hasbro's way of giving this toy a gun mode without calling it a gun. Obviously you just turn it upside down and it's a pistol. The way that the handle forms is far more solid than on the G1 toy which is nothing more than just the wings. On this figure the wings clip onto the wolf mode's head and neck piece forming a more solid handle. No trigger though.
* Revolver is really more of a Brainmaster than a Headmaster as he basically forms the face of Sixshot rather than the head. Revolver doesn't really have a fully formed head mode and if you placed him onto the body of another TR figure, that figure would look like it had microcephaly. In fact, Sixshot looks microcephalous when you flip his helmet top open... as if his stasis pod had contracted a robotic form of the Zika virus while carrying Sixshot.
* The two halves of the tank turret don't seem to be able to clip together. Have I missed something? Also, most of the limbs don't seem to lock in but rather just sit loosely in place. I suspect that this may also be due to budgetary constraints. This is a Leader Class Sextuple Changer after all. While the G1 toy was more solid in its alt modes it was also a complete brick in robot mode. The high degree of articulation on TR Sixshot's robot mode finally makes him feel like a ninja, which is Sixshot's Japanese function (忍者参謀).
* The tech specs bio states: "A master of all combat types, trained to take down targets in any scenario." - I find this very cool in 2 ways. Firstly it's a reference to G1 Sixshot's Anglophone function (S.T.A.G. - Solo Transformers Assault Group). Secondly it may also be a reference to IDW Sixshot's role as a Phase Sixer. This may not be so far fetched considering that Hasbro will be releasing a Generations Black Shadow and Overlord.

Enough talk, photo time!















♪"We all live in a purple-teal submarine, a purple-teal submarine, a purple-teal submarine..."♭


Unofficial (but probably authorially intended) gun mode



What if Revolver is actually Daniel!

Click here for even more action pics of Sixshot!

[doublespy]

Thoughts:

* The two halves of the tank turret don't seem to be able to clip together. Have I missed something? Also, most of the limbs don't seem to lock in but rather just sit loosely in place. I suspect that this may also be due to budgetary constraints.

No they don't. But I like that at least the folded wings give the arms a "stopping point" in tank mode.

After owning him for a while, the side to side hip swivel and knee joints have started loosening (which were already pretty loose when I bought him). This a bit of a design oversight: they are simple pinned through, not ratcheted. In robot mode he's quite top heavy so if leave him displayed in a wide stance dynamic pose, gravity will weaken the joints. Worse still, 5 of the 6 modes require engaging and disengaging the double knee joint, which puts a lot of force on the regular robot knee joint. I gave the joints a coat of clear nail polish, which made him hold poses better, but the knees are still quite weak because it's quite tricky to get the nail polish in the seams of the joint.

[GoktimusPrime]

I've done a quick 'n nasty MS Paint job to see what Sixshot would look like if the upper thigh pieces were more G1 accurately white. I suspect that TakaraTOMY might do this. I also reckon that they'd give Sixshot chrome hubcaps (I've just used light grey to approximate this). But otherwise there's actually not a lot that needs to cosmetically changed on this toy to make it more G1 accurate - it hits the mark pretty damn close (as opposed to say, TR Blurr ).

[shockNwave]

Had to spend a lot of time to take in all the modes on this bad boy. When it comes to defining the word; "epic" in regards to the TR series, there's sheer size as shown by Fortress Maximus and Trypticon and then there's sheer versatility and flexibility as shown by Six Shot.

P.S. I love it how Revolver can be placed behind the wolf head to create the appearance of two pairs of sinister eyes rather than one.

[M-bot]

Terrific engineering (no mode is absolutely perfect but that is the cost of having so many alt modes). Imposing in robot mode. Great paint apps and stickers (not common traits amongst modern TFs). Epic figure!