While I haven't collected any of the action figures, I really enjoyed the movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and it's a shame that it didn't do better at the box office. I thought it was an excellent D&D movie that didn't try to get too meta but still captured the feel of playing D&D with a group of friends. My daughter says it's currently her favorite movie, so I guess that's high praise, eh? Hasbro is still releasing some Dungeons & Dragons figures in their Dungeons & Dragons: Golden Archive line, some based on the film and others simply based on characters and creatures from the game. It's been kind of tough to find anything at retail other than the first three characters released (Holga, Simon, and Forge) and Rakor, though I have recently seen a Xenk and Doric at GameStop about four months after the release of the film. I never saw the Gelatinous Cube anywhere until it was on a clearance shelf at Walmart for $6 earlier this month. What the heck? It seems like this year Hasbro hasn't been able to get their action figures on shelves at mainstream retail. D&D has had a limited presence, G.I. Joe: Classified Series figures have been almost non-existent at Walmart, and Indiana Jones stuff apparently was not even ordered by Walmart. The Gelatinous Cube did make an appearance in Honor Among Thieves, so this toy is based on the movie appearance. It's an interesting release and while I never intended to purchase it, I changed my tune when I could get it for $6 bucks. Ready to check it out? Then join me after the break...
The Facts:
Height: 7 3/8ths inches, width and length: 6 7/8th inches
Articulation: Rotating figure holder
Accessories: 2 axes, shield, pauldron, bag of holding, potion, book, armor piece, scroll, three skeletal pieces, scroll, bow, and coin pouch.
Non-Scalper Price: $34 dollars
The Positives:
* I don't have any of the newer D&D figures but I did have
Indiana Jones nearby and he looks to be about the same size as those figures, so he's volunteering to be our test subject. Indy is 6 1/8ths inches and the cube is 7 3/8ths inches tall. It's a fair sized piece, simply built from six panels molded in a see-through bluish plastic.
* Here's the cube with all of the included accessories attached. All of the accessories are removable and some can function fairly well as accessories on their own. Others are really just meant to be decorative pieces of the cube. The plastic is just solid plastic, nothing squishy or gelatinous about it, but it does have a sculpted texture to it that makes it look like a solid cube of gelatinous material.
* The top of the cube easily pops off, allowing you to place figures and objects inside. The claw rotates, allowing you to pose a figure inside as if they're suspended in the middle of the cube. There's also a hole, hidden by the silver shield piece, so a figure can stick their hand out.
* Here's a look at Indiana Jones trapped in the gelatinous cube. It's a cool effect. Not perfect, but still kind of neat.
* All of the accessories on the cube are removable and some of them can actually function as useful accessories. They all have a hole on the reverse side for attaching to the plug(s) on the cube. First up is a pretty nice bearded axe with some ornate detailing in the blade and on the handle.
* Next up is a Bag of Holding. You can't really stick all of your goodies inside of here but the paintjob on the front is really nice and it's pliable enough to put this on a figure. It doesn't fit perfectly, but it's still a cool extras. One of the better ones in the set, really.
* Next up is an ancient tome with a gold ram's head on the cover. Again, all of these little extra have some solid paint applications and a nice amount of sculpted detail. There's also some wear and tear on the cover, perhaps where the gelatinous cube is already beginning to break down the book.
* Random bones from a previous meal make a nice extra, too. Snap them on the cube or just have them setting around on your display; they're kind of cool, though a bit on the small side.
* Another axe is included, this one with some more damage to the blade. You'll have to mess with things to get a figure to hold the axe blade thanks to the wrapping on the handle, but it is a cool little piece to have strewn about the battlefield.
* I'm loving this bow. It is really, really nice, with more sculpted detail and more paintwork than I can think of from any bow in the Marvel Legends line.
* Some of the other extras are a potion, a skull wearing a helmet, a pauldron, a tattered scroll, and a leather purse with coins spilling out.
The Negatives:
* Too bad that all of these pieces are rather flat, intended to just be stuck on the outside of the cube with little use as accessories.
* It's not often that you can say that Funko did a better job on something than Hasbro, but I do think
Funko's Gelatinous Cube POP! is actually a better piece. Hasbro's cube has lots of stuff on it, but it's all just stuck to the outside like a katamari. Funko found ways to suspend things inside the cube, and I wish Hasbro would have tried to find ways to put more objects inside the cube. Maybe more thin posts and such that could attach to the bottom of the cube?
* I also don't think Hasbro's Gelatinous Cube looks oozy enough. It's too transparent, killing the effect of things floating inside. I almost feel like thicker walls, perhaps with stuff molded inside, would have helped, still making it translucent but not totally destroying the effect.
Gelatinous Cube definitely is not a sleeper hit of the year or anything. It's fun, sure, but it feels a bit half-baked. I really think a little bit of better design could have made for an incredibly cool toy. As it stands, this is definitely one to wait for clearance for. There is fun to be had here, especially if you love this bizarrely classic D&D creature, but Hasbro released something that felt more like it should have been a Build-a-Creature type of item than a standard release. It gets a Good rating from me, which is perfectly average. It is a Gelatinous Cube for 6 inch figures, which is awfully cool, but it could have been so much more!
My younger daughter has both Doric and Simon (her favorite characters in the movie) and these are nice figures, if a bit small IMHO (especially considering the size of the boxes).. Doric is a bit low on accessories though, but Simon has some nice ones. I'd say Simon is definitely the best one out of these two.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I saw Doric and Xenk and both were definitely very light on extras. I've never even seen Edgin at retail yet. The distribution of this line is really weird over here.
Delete