The robot mode is superb. Very solid, good balance, incredibly nice articulation. You can pose Defender in pretty much any position you'd like, he's so much articulated. He's got ball joints on the forearms, but the rest is pretty much all Clicky articulation, so it's very solid, holds into place. I couldn't ask for anything else.
While Defender has been praised as a wonderful figure, Slave does point out some weak points.
1. The back of his legs are empty, it just plain doesn't look too good IMO. Thankfully I never showcase my TFs from their backs, so it's pretty minor.
2. The second thing that bothers me the most is the chest plate, it's in Diecast... nothing against it. I love it, but it plain simply feel like Cold plastic to me. The diecast is so well made and painted, it actually feel and look like plastic, so I dunno why they even bother making the diecast parts.
I want to clear something out, Defender is not a "shellformer" obviously. I freaking hate those, he's highly complex, but here's the thing, Defender is a more of a "FOLDFORMER", he just folds and folds and folds again and voilà! A car! FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD and voilà! An helicopter. The complexity of DEFENDER is trying to fold correctly, in the right order and right angle, that's it.
Overall..
Pros:
+Great looking Robot
+Highly Complex transformation
+Homage, accuracy colours to G1 Springer
+Highly collectible
+Posability
+Clicky joints
Cons:
-Price
-fold fold fold fold
-nothing actually tabs or properly hold together other than the clicky joints to hold everything together
Is Defender worth the buy?
I'm still hesitant really. I watched Vange1us' video review while my Defender was in the UPS truck coming my way, I was really worried that I made a mistake buying him... but Vange1us reassured me, what he says at the end of the video, that he's not cheap because he's third party, that I'm buying a great garage kit, limited, etc. Because this is what I wanted, it is a great TF after all, maybe it is because I never really like Cybertronian looking vehicles. My main Turnoff about this figure is the folding aspect of the transformation.
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