Bot Reviews: Transformers: Kingdom Core Soundwave

You know, I frequently forget that the Core-class pricepoint (or Cyberverse Commander, or Legends or whatever it’s currently called) originally mean “miniaturized big guys”  instead of just small guys. The ones I’ve collected tended to be mini-vehicles, or small guys, like Rattrap, Vertebreak and Dracodon, or Swerve and Tailgate, figures that were designed to scale with mainline Generations stuff, since they were textually small. But the point of the size was originally to scale down the larger guys, and Kingdom (and Legacy) have also been doing that, mostly sticking to the G1 staples, your Primes and Megatrons and Starscreams and whatnot. I haven’t really gotten into them this time around, just for the sake of collection focus and space, though I’ve heard the new batch is pretty good. But I got an unexpected chance to interact with them, when a friend and longtime table-mate gifted me this one at TFCon, for helping organize the whole thing (thanks, Andrew!).

Core Soundwave, in particular, received a lot of buzz in the collector-sphere, so I’m glad this is the one I got to own. We all know him as the One With The Cool Voice, who shot tapes out of his chest, and changed into a music player, and it’s interesting that for a long time, HasTak were hesitant to do versions of him that still changed into a tape player, with the Netflix version (reviewed here) being one of the few modern takes on the original design. So it’s refreshing to see them just do a tape-player version out of the gate, especially one that almost feels like a shot fired at Iron Factory, Newage, and all the other unlicensed mini-mech-makers.

Robot Mode

Yep, that’s him, that’s G1 Soundwave, as we remember him. This isn’t a new re-interpretation (like some of the other G1 Core Guys), this is the G1 version pretty dead-on, a man composed of boxes, with a little shoulder-mounted cannon. Out of the Core/Legends/whatever I do have, Soundwave’s a bit smaller, by a head or two, and just feels even more miniature due to being a shrunken design.

The funny thing about him is that he’s not actually based on his G1 animation model. It’s the Netflix design, shrunken down, which in turn, included a lot of G1 toy-based details in the design.

There’s a lot of really specific, miniature sculpted details on his legs (the shape of the silver rectangles, and the tiny divots in them), the shoulders (the ridges on top of them) arms (the little circles on his forearms) and chest (the little “arrow” underneath the Decepticon symbol) and back (the tech details on his sticky-outy back part) that actually imitate details from that Netflix figure, which were often leftover from the Siege toy it was extensively retooled from. This isn’t bad, it gives the figure sculpted detail that adds visual interest, it’s just interesting to see, especially since a lot of these details (shoulders, arms, chest-arrow) came from the G1 toy, too.

Importantly, it looks right, it looks good, it looks like a Soundwave. The only real flaw in the sculpt is that the back of his robot-mode head is hollow, otherwise it’s pretty clean.

One reason that Soundwave feels so premium is that he’s got a lot of paint on him! He’s mostly cast in dark blue and light grey plastic, with a smokey, nearly-opaque chest window, and augments it with a lot of nice silver paint, red paint, and gold paint, again in places that replicate the Netflix layout more than anything else (especially around the legs). Impressively, this little guy actually paints some details that the larger figure omitted, like tiny bits of red on his shoulder cannon and gun, and extra silver and red on his shoulders that imitates the G1 toy’s stickers. The level of small detailing is really impressive in person. The only missing thing I notice is the red lines at his wrists he usually has, a detail that the Netflix one also didn’t have.

In terms of build quality, the knee joints on mine seem to have loosened over time, unfortunately. However, luckily, this doesn’t seem to have impacted his stability, as between his big feet and thighs, he has no trouble staying up in bent-knee poses, and the rest of his joints are nice and tight. This is good, because Soundwave is extremely articulated for his size. Let’s run through it: He’s got rotating feet, knees, thigh swivels, hips, elbows, shoulders, head, and shoulder cannon articulation. And out of that, a lot of those are on ball joints, or multiple swivels, so he has a startlingly impressive range of motion for the size (a shame he’s got no waist). That being said, his hips are blocked by his tape-button sculpting, limiting their forward and backward motion, something that the larger Siege and Netflix ones avoided by putting the buttons on moveable panels to avoid this. But in practice, it doesn’t really impede articulation that much.

For accessories, Soundwave’s shoulder cannon can come off, and he’s got his arm-mounted gun with a sculpted in missile. His weapon is a bit looser in his hands than I’d like, thanks to colliding with his wrist.

It’ll stay in when poses, but if you shake him, it’s going to come out. When not in use, both weapons can fit into holes on his legs.

His most interesting feature and accessory, though, is you can pry his chestplate open, and pop out a tiny Laserbeak.

It can’t transform out of tape mode, but it’s extremely detailed for such a small thing.

I can’t identify what the sculpt is copying, it doesn’t look like the Netflix or G1 toolings, but it does look really nice (Later Edit: Apparently, it’s specifically based on Masterpiece Laserbeak’s cassette mode, for some strange reason). It’s cast in black, and painted silver and red on one side. It doesn’t do anything, just exists, but the fact they did something like this at this small scale is really impressive.

There’s a slight issue with the chestplate though: It doesn’t like to sit quite flush with the chest when Laserbeak’s in there, and instead, is a tiny bit open.

I’ve tried putting the tape in every possible way, it’s just a hair too big. Maybe you could shave something down to make it fit, but I’d rather not mess with it, and it’s not a huge visual eyesore.

Transformation

G1 Soundwave’s transformation was very simple, and this release barely changes it, since it scales down so nicely. You’re just folding him up into a box, basically. The arms and head go back, the legs go up, and you’re done. I think the only step it’s really missing is that his weapons don’t get to hide in his back as batteries, but that definitely wouldn’t work at this scale. A quick tip: Look out for tiny tabs on his back that fit into holes on his forearms, if you’re having trouble lining his arms up.

Tape Deck Mode

So, there’s a big visual problem here right out of the gate: Soundwave’s feet don’t really fold away like on the original, but instead, stick out of the sides of this tape deck, looking like cat ears.

However, you can also opt to unfold them into their robot-mode configuration, stacking them horizontally on the top of the tape deck, which looks nicer from most angles, at the price of exposing some hollow bits on the side of the deck. Pick your poison, I guess, but I prefer the second configuration.

Aside from that, it’s a solid-looking tape deck, complete with sculpted buttons, and tiny little details like a recording light on the left, and a little spinning volume wheel on the right side. As I said at the top of this, it’s refreshing to see a mainline release just be this, with no caveats. I will say, it’s a bit kibbly from the back, especially if you stash the weapons on the pegholes left there.

It’s definitely less kibbly than the Netflix one, though not as clean as the G1 figure.

For features, we’ve still got the opening tape cover, which Laserbeak can fit in (I imagine this track starts up when you hit play).

But more than that, the best feature in this mode is just the small size. It’s a good scale to imagine the G1 toy shrinking down to, and it makes for a good prop for larger figures to interact with.

In particular, it feels like a good size for 6-inch action figures to interact with as an accessory.

Overall

Kingdom Core Soundwave really feels like a cut above most mainline stuff, and feels like it’s taking the things an unofficial third party figure would usually boast about having, but at an affordable, easy-to-access pricepoint. There’s really an unusual attention to detail and fun here, like someone designing it was specifically a Soundwave fan, and put a ton of work in.

It’s hard to explain how fun this guy is. They just took the G1 guy and shrunk him, and added joints. He’s a great desktop figure, and is fun to pick up and fiddle with. He kind of makes me want to track down the other G1 Cores, though I can’t tell if they’ll match the high standards set by this one.

So, if you can’t tell, Soundwave comes with an extremely high recommendation, even if you don’t collect small-scaled Transformers, or even if you don’t get a lot of Transformers, in general. This one’s fun, and not terribly expensive. Grab it if you can, and have fun.

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