UA-100768763-1 Jump to content

Battle Beasts Minimates


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 2.3k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Congrats to those who have got them. I went to toys r us(in maryland) today hoping to find gold but alas it was not to be. Asked the nice woman at the desk about them. She told me they were about to reset the store and the battle beasts would be available here in a week or two. Hope that helps.

Also wanted to pop in to say great photos, really shows off all the little details.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow! I just read the LRG Battle Beasts review that YouBastards posted the link for.

As painful as it is to read any criticism of Minimates, they are pretty spot on in a lot of cases. It's a lot of the same issues I had with Halo. Halo gave me my first brush with buyers remorse regarding MM's. I suspected this would be the same case with BB and it looks like it is. Anything over-engineered for MM doesn't stand up as well as regular mates. There are a lot of problems with anything non-standard when it comes to staying in place, with both fit quality and plastic used.

I can't expect Lego quality due to the enormous costs involved with the precision Lego requires, but the LRB review was a "truth hurts" painful review.

(bringing this convo over to the proper thread)

Ouch. Yeah, that was pretty brutal. However, I can't say I disagree with some of the critiques. I think this guy was being a little hard on them because he obviously loves the original BB line, but his comments about kludgy articulation and uninspiring paint apps, at least on the two sets I've seen so far (Vorin and Merk), fell in line with a lot of his comments.

I had (and stil have) high hopes for BB, but I'm beginning to wonder if the line has just hit the point where you've pushed the basic Minimates block figure design concept too far. The conceptual purity argument is one thing – if you started collecting Minimates for their simplicity and minimalist design aesthetic, then the add-on bits are obviously not your bag. However, when these add-ons begin to obstruct Minimates' ability to function in their original intent as highly posable block figures, one starts to question their value. Problems with fit and plastic quality are obviously another issue entirely.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if collectors of discriminating taste really are the intended audience for this particular line. Where guys like us tend to fiddle with these for a bit, then pose them on a shelf, kids tend to play hard with and throw them in a bin with a bunch of other toys. We care when pieces for certain guys go missing or things don't stay standing up on a shelf; kids just have fun with them, mash them up, then forget about them and move on to the next toy. We like fragile hard plastic with sharp details and crisp paint jobs; kids like flexible stuff that bends and pops apart before it breaks.

Maybe the 8-year-old kid's review of series 1 looked like this:

So I got the new set of Battle Beasts and it's AWESOME! They come apart, and i put the spider guy's legs on the walrus and he was like P-CHHHSSSSHHHH with his hammer, and then the ram guy kicked the scorpion and he totally exploded! Then I had the skateboard kid do a jump off the table and I lost his hat, but he comes with hair so I didn't need it anyway!

Did we outgrow Minimates, or did Minimates outgrow us?...

Edited by Lobsterman
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Vorin and....Zik....are still the only Battle Beasts I have held in my hand at this point, but that will change tomorrow when my package arrives from Luke. From everything I have seen posted so far, I think my expectations are appropriately set. I'm anxious to get them in hand, but that excitement would be greater if I knew there were more characters shown from future waves. Zach's comment about Series 2 not being definite has me pretty worried, and it definitely has tempered the excitement for Series 1.

Zach, are you able to comment further on future Battle Beasts Minimates? Have you seen design sheets? Will prototypes be shown at C2E2? Is DST waiting to see sales results of the first wave before determining if the line will continue?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Still nothing at my TRU today. I wasn't expecting anything since trucks come Wednesdays currently, but a guy can hope, right?

I did ask about these, though, and had one of many helpful employees look them up. Nothing scheduled, but she did put them in as an order to ensure arrival. *Hopefully*

On a related note, for those Marvel fans, while I had her looking, I asked about Marvel 15 and it looks like maybe 15 will be on 14's skew number. 1600 or so at the distribution center. Compared to 480 or so for BB.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I really don't know what to think of that review. Yeah, there are valid points (and I can say that loose/stuck joints is about the same in the TRU ones I have), but it just seems like there's a lot of hatred for this line long before it even hit shelves. If you go into a review disappointed, you'll easily see everything through that perspective.

For what it's worth, I wish these hadn't been called Battle Beasts and I wish there had been no news about these until they came out. This thread has been going for years now and we're only now seeing real product on the shelves under this brand name and that's a lot of time for a lot of people to set their standards high based on what they think some mostly forgotten toy line from the 80's should be. You mix that with QC issues and a small comic mini-series with no on-going status and I'm not sure this line will survive. And that's a huge shame since these things are well designed and have great potential. I hope I'm wrong, but I feel like this line really has the deck stacked against it from the start.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, we lost B00sted about two clicks back. RIP.

Yeah I am pretty much out of all toys for myself TBH, not anything about the line as I still love and support this line and hope for it to the best it can. I really hope the line takes off and there is a series 2 and even past that. I even sold off 75% of my Armrorvor collection. My own toy obsession was taking over making sure my son was spoiled and I needed to get that in check. Now we have about 5 bajillion monster trucks in the house I think we are good but still need to add keep adding more to make sure :)

l6bq7LE.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, we lost B00sted about two clicks back. RIP.

Yeah I am pretty much out of all toys for myself TBH, not anything about the line as I still love and support this line and hope for it to the best it can. I really hope the line takes off and there is a series 2 and even past that. I even sold off 75% of my Armrorvor collection. My own toy obsession was taking over making sure my son was spoiled and I needed to get that in check. Now we have about 5 bajillion monster trucks in the house I think we are good but still need to add keep adding more to make sure smile.png

l6bq7LE.jpg

Face it, you have just as much fun with those as he does, and that's why you're buying more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...