Transformers: Legacy Victory Saber (Star Saber, Victory Leo, Fire, Holi)

Accessories

This set comes with a stand and a bunch of useless blast effects. How about we don’t do blast effects and put more into making the toys better? Just an idea, Hasbro, you should think about it.

Fire

Previous Mold Use: Siege Micromaster Topshot, Siege Micromaster Red Heat, Siege Micromaster Wheel Blaze, Siege Micromaster Fireline, Siege Micromaster Bombshock

When I saw that two members of Rescue Force was one of the stretch goal bonuses for this set, I did not realize they were just repainting existing molds. Does he have a better paintjob? Yes. Was this one of the crappiest stretch goals they could ever do? Also yes. I mean, he looks great, but I would rather have had some of the missing Micromaster Patrol members. Now, they have announced the two missing Rescue Patrol members will come with Deathsaurus. That’s great and all, but we are still missing tons of Micromasters, so it’s hard to really get that excited about it.

Holi

Previous Mold Use: Siege Micromaster Stakeout, Siege Micromaster Road-Police

See my review of Fire above.

Victory Leo

Beast Mode: Victory Leo is pretty darn awesome. Colors are great, paint apps are perfect. His tusks do tend to pop out and are a bit annoying to get back in place, but otherwise he looks great. I just wish he were bigger.

Vehicle Mode: In vehicle mode he looks like a folded up winged lion with guns on his back. Hey, even great toys can’t be perfect in every mode.

Robot Mode: Victory Leo looks so amazing in robot mode. I don’t know what to say other than perfect.

Brain of Courage

Every picture of the Brain of Courage I took was blurry. Not much to see, he’s minuscule. It is unfortunate this way wasn’t bigger so the brain could have been properly sized.

V-Star

Vehicle Mode: The smaller jet, referred to as the V-Star, is pretty great. Too small, but that’s the whole set really. Such a great looking design and wonderful paint apps.

Robot Mode: V-Star looks great in robot mode. I love his head sculpt. Again, too small.

Star Saber

Vehicle Mode: Star Saber looks great in vehicle mode. I do have an issue with the design of his robot mode antennae. They needed to ratchet and lock in place. It’s way too easy to knock them out of alignment. However, other than that nothing to complain about other than being too small.

Base Mode: His base is fine, better than most. Only problem is I never really got his shield plugged in. It connects to hinged pieces, and the pegs don’t stay in well. It’s really poorly designed. Could be worse. It could be bad design for something more important than his base mode, but for the price and how long we waited, they owed us better.

Robot Mode: In robot mode Star Saber is just awesome. Colors are perfect. My only complaint is those antennae.

Victory Saber

Vehicle Mode: Victory Saber looks great in his combined vehicle mode.

Robot Mode: And now we have Victory Saber combined in all his glory. He really looks amazing, though he would look better if he were fifty percent bigger.

Overall: G1 Victory Saber is one of my favorite Transformers ever, and other than being too small, Legacy Victory Saber is a worthy homage to the original. What he is not, is anywhere near big enough. I would have happily paid fifty percent more for him to be fifty percent bigger. The size means he could never possibly be better than the original, but toys rarely are. The big issue I have with Victory Saber is the myriad production issues he has. There is a whole list of quality control problems. Mercifully mine has none, or at least none so blatant that I noticed them. There are apparently so many issues, that they are going to make more of them for replacements. They also had one of their resellers apparently under report their preorders so some people in Europe received refunds, and due to a shipping mishap, the ones meant for people in Taiwan were damaged and they got refunds as well. Hasbro MUST reevaluate how they manufacture and sell their collectibles. Make no mistake. Victory Saber is NOT a toy, he IS a collectible. Same was true of the Shattered Glass Toys. Hasbro can use crap quality control practices on retail toys and we can just get pissed off about it, return the bad ones, buy replacements, and blog about Hasbro’s incompetence. But that is not good enough when they are making toys for collectors. Those MUST be delivered, and if there are quality control issues, they MUST replace them. Pulse’s inability to replace damaged exclusives is unacceptable, and Hasbro’s failure to deliver Victory Saber in satisfactory condition to every single person all over the world who ordered him is unconscionable.

Thanks for reading!