I bought Transformers Encore 21: Soundblaster and Encore 22: Twincast early this week, say about Tuesday. Was too busy to do anything about them until yesterday (photo taking) and today (posting).
As expected, these sold like hotcakes and had Ultra Magnus not reserved them at one of our frequent shops for me, I would have missed out entirely. These are not very enticing to me, to be honest, because I already own both vintage versions (D-101 and C-116), the TFC version of Soundblaster and the eHobby version of Twincast.
Takara, however, understood the psychology of the OCD type collector like me and (strategically) released each of these with new cassette recolours - which was the main and only reason I bought these Encore releases. Can't pass up another variation of cassettes, I love these things.
So how do these stack up against these vintage counterparts?
On holding them in hand, my preliminary thoughts were these - man, the quality looks crap even though I was just looking at them through the clear plastic window. Why crap? Well, plastic quality looks cheap (yea, plastic can look cheap, go figure); sticker placement was off (eg: the 'Scorponok weaknesses' sticker on Nightstalker is pasted slanted on the 3 pieces of Encore 22 that I inspected); tampographed 'stickers' look crap and slanted (I remember the time when these were cool, think TFC reissue Starscream, Sunstorm, etc, but then not for Encore 21 and 22).
Anyways, those were my initial bias. Let's get to the photographic comparisons.
First, an establishment shot of D-101: Soundblaster with Encore 21: Soundblaster and C-116: Twincast and Encore 22: Twincast. One of the obvious differences is of course the cassette(s) that each came with. The vintage release only came with 1 cassette each, which the Encore release came with 2 (repainted) cassettes each. Since the cassettes are all different anyways, there is really not much point in 'comparing' them.
D-101: Soundblaster (comes with Buzzsaw) side by side with Encore 21: Soundblaster (comes with Enemy and Wingthing). One question that popped into my mind - why is the Encore's box about 20% longer than the vintage release? What could be at the portion underneath the box art? A lot of air no doubt!
The key box differences that is worthwhile to compare is probably the box art. Here they are side by side. Aside from the overlaid cassette box art, can you spot the differences between the 2? No? Okay, vintage Soundblaster has golden/ yellow eyes while Encore Soundblaster has red eyes! Now, what did I say about Decepticons having red eyes...
Close up of the D-101: Soundblaster's box art
Close up of Encore 21: Soundblaster's box art. I know, right? Red eyes!
I think Enemy and Wingthing's colours are a little strange. They look almost like someone took Rumble and Ratbat's existing box art and then played with the hue/saturation function to come with the box art rather than actually re-colouring them from scratch. Also, vintage Soundblaster's box art appears to be more 'fine' in detail compared with Encore Soundblaster.
Now, let's take a look inside.
D-101: Soundblaster. Very sweet vintage type insert. Classy too. Missiles on sprue.
Encore 21: Soundblaster looks like that. Main difference is of course the plastic insert compared with the vintage's styrofoam insert. Now, we also see that the portion behind the box art is almost completely air and done just to make the box 'appear' bigger. In terms of the toys, the key differences are the stickers (stickered for the vintage version and tampographed for the Encore release) and also the presence of the large Decepticon symbol on the Encore version. The vintage version has no Decepticon symbol on its chest but only a tiny rub-sign on one shoulder.
Now, onto C-116: Twincast and Encore 22: Twincast
C-116: Twincast (comes with Steeljaw) side by side with Encore 22: Twincast (comes with Stripes and Nightstalker). Same question comes to mind - why is the Encore's box about 20% longer than the vintage release? What could be at the portion underneath the box art? A lot of air no doubt!
Similar with the Soundblaster situation, the key box difference lies with the box art.
Aside from the overlaid cassette box art, can you spot the differences between the 2? No? Okay, vintage Twincast has golden/ yellow eyes and Encore Twincast has blue eyes! Now, what did I say about Autobots having blue eyes...
Also, the entire face of Encore Twincast is coloured differently, to better match his anime colouration in the 1987 Headmasters series. Kudos to Takara for doing these!
Close up of C-116: Twincast's box art
Close up of Encore 22: Twincast's box art. Here you can see the recoloured face more clearly. I like the recoloured box art of Nightstalker and Stripes better than that of Enemy and Wingthing. Same comment as Soundblaster in that the vintage box art appears to be more 'fine' in detail compared with Encore release.
Now, let's take a look inside.
C-116: Twincast. Very sweet vintage type insert. Classy too.
Encore 22: Twincast looks like that. Main difference is of course the plastic insert compared with the vintage's styrofoam insert. Now, we also see that the portion behind the box art is almost completely air and done just to make the box 'appear' bigger. In terms of the toys, the key differences are the stickers (stickered for the vintage version and tampographed for the Encore release) and also the presence of the large Autobot symbol on the Encore version. The vintage version has a large Autobot symbol on its shoulder, but not the chest, presumably to distinguish it from C-38: Broadblast.
The location of the Autobot symbol on the vintage Twincast (this is a sticker).
Another key difference is that Encore Twincast lacks all the 'electronic' detail on its chest door portion, probably because of the presence of the Autobot logo. Here is what is missing...
Vintage C-116: Twincast paperworks.
I got 2 sets of paperworks for my Encore Twincast - 1 packet with only 2 bio cards and another package with 3 bio cards. Guess, they do QC these stuff after all?
A final shot to show both Encore 21 and 22 with their contents.
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i just got mine yesterday and as much as i'm glad to own these 2 (since i never got the vintage ones) i'm not happy about the tampographing especially on Soundblaster's chest! how on earth am i to detect Fortress Maximus' weak spot when his huge Decepticon logo is totally in the way :(
ReplyDeleteAs much as i can appreciate having items on sprue, i'm actually glad the Encore series didn't have this if not i won't have the heart to break off any items off the sprues *heh*
I'd agree, the cassettes were the major selling points, its lovely to have new cassettes, i'm secretly hoping they'd release Slamdance & Squawkbox since (correct me if i'm wrong) they were never released in Japan? It'll totally fit into the concept of how Twincast & Soundblaster could both hold 2 cassettes :D
This made me laugh very hard - "how on earth am i to detect Fortress Maximus' weak spot when his huge Decepticon logo is totally in the way". How very true!
DeleteI like the idea that the Communicators should come with the combining cassettes, and you are right they were never released in Japan, who instead got the combining dino-cassettes.
H_D great comparison, but you mentioned about plastic quality on these? how do they stack up with their vintage counterparts? I am most likely buying them, but need robot modes comparisons. thanks for doing this, much appreciated!!
ReplyDeleteNo time to do robot photo comparisons... sorry
DeleteNo worries, at least you have the originals to compare and I guess the reissues are for more for playing and displaying..... :D
Deletethanks once again H_D. I will buy them but just keep it MISB.
Hey Heroic Deception, nice to read your review. You are right about the QC and the plastic quality. The QC was disappointing. Was playing with the EC22 Twincast and one of the handle broke when i was trying to transform it... And some of the screw actualy came loose... But well i must say that the Encore 21 22 got the best Art box design... G1 still the best =)
ReplyDeletehi Chris, which part of Twincast broke? Yeah, like I said, I just don't think the overall quality is any good, QC aside (there's only so much they can do to QC something that is not up to scratch).
DeleteThanks for the comparison, glad to see even the big bots have some differences!
ReplyDeletehi Scotty, very welcome!
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