Since the podcast won’t get around to covering these pictures until the 30th, I’m going to post my thoughts here. Forgive the long post!
Tahu: He’s cool. I don’t have a lot to say on him because my thoughts haven’t really changed all that much. I still think his weapons are ridiculous and somewhat stupid, and I think his color scheme is more than a little skewed. He only has three Mata Red pieces, two of which are covered up by gold crystal armor and his mask comes with a gold variant, so…yeah. That being said he’s pretty well armored so that’s a thing.
Onua: I don’t like him nearly as much as his 2015 variant, but he’s still pretty cool and has fantastic color arrangement. His weapon is also incredibly boss so that helps sell me on the set a good bit.
Pohatu: Kakama is great, but other than that… I welcome dark tan as much as the next guy, but there’s not nearly enough burnt orange and the dark tan gets countered too much by the over-abundance of trans-neon green. I would’ve liked to see burnt orange or dark tan shells on his forearms and some burnt orange on his lower legs to really balance out the color scheme. Thankfully, that can easily be arranged.
Gali: Again, don’t like her nearly as much as 2015 but she’s grown on me a good deal. The only part of her design I’m not really cool with is the Skrall armor on her upper leg. I’ve tried that on MoCs before and I know there’s no universe in which that isn’t gappy. Other than that, she’s neat.
Lewa: Lewa’s fantastic. His mask is legit, color arrangement is on-point, and he generally looks cool. The one thing I don’t particularly enjoy is his weapon design. I feel those are going to get real old real quick as far posing is concerned.
Kopaka: See, Kopaka would be one of my favorites if his color arrangement wasn’t so atrocious. He has a great stance and I love the orientation of the Skrall armor on his shoulders. I just can’t look past the golden knees and metru blue forearms, though. Those two colors just aren’t featured in his design enough to be incorporated all that well into his color scheme. Also, I don’t know where the heck you guys are seeing spring green in his torso pattern. It looks perfectly white to me, even after zooming in all the way.
Umarak: This guy is AWESOME. He’s a fantastic villain, and has a great presence to him. Really distinct from most BIONICLE villains we’ve received. Unfortunately, he has two crippling flaws; his lower legs and the gappiness below his shoulder armor and his actual shoulders. Hopefully the latter is easily fixable, but the former is pretty integral to his design. I’m going to see what I can do, though, because this guy is too epic to be held back by minor things like this.
Creatures: I pretty much have the exact same opinion on all of the creatures so I’m just going to lump them together. Awesome, unique, creative little things with some pretty awkward looking spots that hopefully aren’t as bad they seem. Ketar is, by far, the most awkward looking of the bunch. Very few aspects of his design look like they work well together; hopefully I’m wrong. Melum and Terak are almost perfect clones of each other, so that’s a thing. Ikir, Uxar, and Akida all look wonderfully unique and aesthetically pleasing, so I’m pretty content with them.
Other assorted notes: Umarak’s combo with Uxar is beyond top-tier and looks incredible. The new torso designs are interesting; on the one hand, I love that we’re getting fully custom torsos in a line of figures. I can’t even recall the last time that happened. On the other hand, I’m not sure whether the benefits will outweigh the negatives. I can already tell that arm articulation on some of these figures will be limited by the way the shoulders hook onto the upper arms; some won’t be able to stretch their arms out fully. Additionally, time will tell whether the new gear function is cooler than the “traditional” one, which I felt was almost perfectly executed on the 2015 Toa aside from the open ball joints. As I mentioned in the news video, however, it makes sense for this wave because since a lot of the Toa wield two-handed weaponry, the traditional gear function wouldn’t work for them all that well, whereas the new one allows them to swing their weapons from side-to-side.
Overall, very strong (but far from perfect) wave and I look forward to the release of the sets.
-Mesonak
kopaka even has a place to hold his extra ammo, Umarak has his attached to his sword