Perfect Effect PC-04 Pefect Combiner Menasor upgrade kit review

Perfect Effect PC04 Combiner Wars Menasor upgrade kit

Wahey, I'm back, dusting off the blog and resurrecting it from the dead (it wasn't dead). It has been a quiet month or two of toy buying- much to the delight of my bank account. Now things seem to be rolling again in the "Liam likes this enough to buy it" stakes, so there is probably going to be quite a slew of new articles on here as we hit November.
As Depeche Mode said - "I just can't get enough"

So what do we have here? An upgrade kit for Combiner Wars Menasor? Yikes.

Perfect Effect are the self appointed saviours of Combiner Wars. Busying themselves knocking out upgrade kits for each of Hasbro's combiners released thus far.

I reviewed the hands and feet sets here, and was not completely impressed by them. Then Perfect Effect moved away from the extremities and into the torsos of the first two Combiners with kits that didn't grab me for the longest time.

Clearly I have been swayed.

Hit the button below to see the full review

Things start badly when you attach the kit to Motormasters alt mode. Yes, it can store there, Perfect Effect weren't lying but looks hillarious, as if he is carrying around scaffolding. The earlier hands and feet upgrades can be mounted on it in weapon form to make him a rolling assault truck of death, which is as awesome as it sounds - very. Essentially they have gone "here, it's a weapons rack" and I can sort of get behind that.

Third parties have a missed a trick here because an upgrade kit is the perfect opportunity to give this figure a trailer which could in turn have bulked out the combined form better, added new leg and arm options....sometimes I wish I could take the ideas from my brain and get someone smart to convert them into reality.

Points to Perfect Effect for making it fit into the truck, they could have taken the easy route and made it just a separate piece. They aren't no slackers.

Perfect Effects kit stays attached through transformation to robot mode as it clips into the combined modes crotch plate. Removal of the old piece is required, but there are no pins or screws - you simply pull it off.

Yes, I hear how pulling somethings crotch off sounds when spoken out loud.

Claims of "it works in all modes without having to be removed" are not false, and Perfect Effect try to make the best of a bad situation. The whole thing just hangs off of Motormasters back, which is not particularly low key even if it does compact as much as physically possible. Sure, you can plug the hand and feet guns into it, and make him super armoured up but it is a half baked approach. As you can imagine it makes the figure very back heavy so it becomes a precarious balancing act trying to get old Motors to stand still for a photo.

I'd like to have seen a few truck panels worked into the kit, to aid it in blending in with all modes with more pinache, but to be fair to Perfect Effect they were working around Hasbro's figure which was not designed with idea of this being attached later.

Having it connect and stay on is just a nice bonus for those of us who crave that sort of thing.

A brand new rifle piece is included in the set that is designed to fit with the existing gun and sword combo, but looks a lot better. It still has that odd skeletal vibe about it, but it is less in your face on this piece.

The sole reason this kit exists, and why you may be thinking of buying it, is for what it does in combined mode which is to make Menasor look 500 times more awesome.

No removal is required to complete the torso mode, and with some folding and rotating of hinges the new torso piece slots into place with few gripes, giving Menasor some much needed bulk. That whole horrific skinny waist, weirdo leg thing that was Menasors "official" combined configuration is now consigned to our nightmare bins.
The way it transforms around the figure rather clever, and makes use of it being connected in both Motormaster modes.

Perfect Effect PC-4 also attempts to fix some of the figures stability problems, and is partly successful,  An opportunity was missed to fix his disconnecting shoulders, which could have been integrated into the pylons that sit atop his shoulders, but the new waist piece does lock his hips into a better looking configuration and makes him more solid as well as quite  a bit taller.

Disappointingly, the way the kit clasps the legs causes the loss of all outwards, and backwards movement (the old hips are much higher up now) of the legs. Motormasters knee joints now become the hips for Menasor which it was never designed to do, so there is a noticeable shift in balance.
Dynamic poses are still perfectly achievable, just not in the way you'd probably like.

If this is the trade off for a far superior looking Menasor, I will take it because the improvements are well worth it.

Not only do the thickened and extended waist make him look better, but he also comes with a new head based on Generation One Menasors toy form. Nice looking addition it may be, but I think I still lean towards the stock head sculpt. If you could replace it's daft horns with the pointy ones from this one I think I'd have the perfect head sculpt.

Heck, I may get risky and try switching them out the next time I have a few glasses of Rum. I hate those Grey horns...HATE them.
This guy has an expression of rage, I am guessing that is what it is? It could just as well be pain, as if someone has kicked him between his brand new upgraded crotch.

The new head simply pops on at the ball joint, but mine is very loose to the point that about 20 minutes ago I heard a noise on my shelves and it was the head - it had fallen off. Clear nail polish will fix that easily enough when I can get round to doing it and I haven't seen any other reports of this being a problem.
So may just be bad luck on my part.

Remember that new rifle piece from earlier on? It also becomes the centre of a new extended sword which certainly looks way bigger, if not any better. Be careful, because when you insert the top blade it appears to form a seal and it is a nightmare trying to separate the pieces again. You can see in the pictures above that I have not slid it in all the way and it still looks fine. An imprint of the sword is still squished into my palm from where I had to try and separate it a couple of days back (note, I am just being dramatic).

As much as it does make for a bigger sword, I do wish Perfect Effect had included a sword more akin to Menasors G1 blade. After playing Transformers Devastation and seeing him look really awesome in that game, that is the Menasor I want, with that sword!

Articulation murdering aside, this kit is designed to make Menasor look better and it does an excellent job of that. Most of the people who will interested in buying it will be doing so to make Menasor look better on a shelf and this does exactly that so it is hard to complain. People will complain about the articulation problems, but this kits entire audience is going to be collectors who display their figures on shelves and don't really play with them so I wouldn't hold that against it. Especially when you get such improved aesthetics as an apology.

It does though feel like a missed opportunity to improve some of the figures weaknesses but then I finally have a Menasor who doesn't look like he is in excruciating pain from living.

So well worth the money then.


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