I’m not a Mega Blok guy. I’m not a Lego or Minimate or general mini-figure guy either. It’s not from hatred or anything, I just can’t jump into an entirely new paradigm with so much other stuff that demands my money. Despite not being a Mega Blok guy, I am usually very interested in good Turtle merchandise due to the fact that the concept of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles combines everything awesome in life and distills it down into a crazily playetic confluence of awesomeness.
Buying these was the result of opening up a random thread on Fwoosh because eventually you’ve read every thread you normally haunt multiple times so you open up this thread you have no real interest in to see what’s going on in here. So I clicked on the Mega Blok thread and saw pictures of some small and stylized TMNT figures. Then I read that they had some enhanced articulation.
And here we are.
A full set of turtles and some bad guys to go with them.
The most adorable set of Turtles I now own.
Oh dear.
The Turtles come in single sets with one figure, one set of weapons, and a very small playset piece that consists of a handful of blocks, some pipes, and a manhole cover. Each Turtle comes with the same set, so when you collect all four Turtles you have a handful of similar objects that you can either link together or rearrange some of the parts to build some kind of sewery-type of playset. I didn’t get into all of that so my setup will really just be plain and boring, but with some time you can probably build something pretty nifty. Besides, for me, the playset parts were secondary to the Turtles themselves.
These are cartoon-inspired Turtles, so they have the personalized bandanas and have the perky greens of their cartoon counterparts. I’m pretty much a fan of all different variations on the Turtles theme (except for the recent movie), so I had no issue with this style for the Turtles.
The size took me by surprise when I received them. I knew mentally that they were going to be “mini-figures,” and I knew what Minimates or Lego or whatever were like in hand, but since the amount of articulation that I was seeing in the pictures I looked at beforehand (pictures that had no real scale reference) made me think they would be larger than they turned out to be. Their relative itty-bittiness made me wonder if they were actually worth the price I paid.
After fiddling with them for a few minutes I no longer cared about the price, as the amount of articulation for their size is very shocking and makes each one totally worth the 8 dollar price tag per Turtle.
They each come with their signature weapons, which can be stored in the rubbery beltloops that can stretch to accommodate the size of their weapons. I know the weapons seem a bit oversized — Mikey’s nunchucks in particular — but just think of it as stylized and it won’t be an issue.
Each Turtle has full joint articulation in the shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees, with swivel hinges in both the elbows and knees. They have cuts in the ankles and wrists, and their heads are ball-jointed. So these little guys are really mobile and just a crap-ton of fun. “Crap-ton” is the official measurement of fun in Bentonia.
I was only going to get the four Turtles to sate my curiosity, but Rocksteady and Bebop were like . . . right there and only a click away. I can’t have Turtles and not have some bad guys for them to fight, so I bought both villains sets. As it turns out, this was wise, very wise. Both Bebop and Rocksteady came with three Foot Ninja apiece. While all the other characters came pre-assembled, you will have to snap the ninjas together yourself. Be cool, though, it’s not rocket science so you’ll be snapping ninja together like a pro after your first one.
Bebop, Rocksteady, and the Foot feature the slightly less-enhanced level of articulation, meaning no swivel hinge knees, but they’re still plenty articulated for kicking Turtle booty. They each come with the same weapon and look very authentic despite their size. In fact, “looking authentic to the source material” (the cartoon, in this case) is one of the biggest pluses of this line. If you look at the cartoon through a certain stylized mini-figure aesthetic, then these look exactly how they should.
Bebop and Rocksteady both come with slightly more elaborate playset pieces that can be interlinked with each other or grouped with the parts from the other four Turtles to create a much larger sewer playset.
Again, I just shoved a handful together for the sake of this photoshoot, so you can come up with something much more interesting with some rearranging of parts and stuff. You get the idea, though. And with the holes in the bottoms of their feet, you can perch them atop any section, and they can hold a nifty fighting pose indefinitely. Their little C-clamp hands can grip the pipes and everything.
With three ninjas per mutated bad guy, you have an army of goons pretty quickly. Will these make me a Mega Blok guy? Probably not, because sticky wicket (which is not what happens when an Ewok steals honey), but it’s possible I won’t be able to resist more offerings in the Mega Bloks Turtle line. Did I see a big-ass robotic Krang figure? Is there really a Turtle Van coming? Aaargh.
