The battle for third party Transformers Legends figures is really hotting up, particularly between Magic Square and Newage toys. Having previously been blown away by Newage's take on a toy-style Reflector, I knew I had to see how both companies handled fan favourite Soundwave.
Both companies have multiple decos, with Newage offering 6 varieties of their toy, while Magic Square offered 3 - they both share a cartoon deco, black (Soundblaster) deco and a toy deco, though they do handle what constitutes each of these very differently.
The Contenders:
The closes comparison is the Newage Toon version vs the Magic Square Metallic version, so I've picked these two to go head to head. They both come with tapes, which we'll also go through, but let's start with the bots themselves.
Magic Square "voice Ripple" Metallic Colours
Arriving in a beautiful navy with gold and silver accents, the metallic Voice Ripple stands a head taller than his Newage counterpart. He comes with multiple hands, his signature weapons and Laserbeak. All this for £32.99.
Newage "Scaramanga" Cartoon Colours
Bringing a slightly more purple-hued metallic navy, the Newage toy offers flat yellows and greys in place of Magic Square's gold and silver, which makes for a nice contrast. He also comes with multiple hands and signature weapons, but is also packed with 3 tapes (Rumble, Ravage, Laserbeak), a transparent cone thing he used in the cartoon once, and a light up block to place in his chest so that he can emulate the streetlamp he transformed into back on Cybertron. The latter two items are short-run exclusives, so won't be packaged with future releases. His price-point is £44.99.
Round One
Let's start with direct comparisons for the main bots. You aren't going to be disappointed with either, frankly, as they both capture the character extremely well. There's a lot of shared engineering too, with both having the same elbows (where part of the forearm is static to allow for cleaner 90 degree bends), both have ankle tilts that overlap the shins to make for a seamless stance, and both have faux buttons in robot mode that are replaced by panels stored at the back.
Each has some positives over the other, so let's look at those.
Scaramanga's weapons are the weakest accessory, as they are both identical and therefore have issues whether a blaster or a shoulder cannon. The shoulder cannon sits a little too far forward, though in truth the character design is at fault regardless, because his vision is always blocked by the cannon to his right - so approach him from that angle and he'll never see you coming! Scaramanga also has many more visible lines, with holes that go all the way through his forearms, visible screws, ball pegs on the shoulders and unpainted transparent plastic on his tape door hinges. You can see all the mushroom pegs in his legs and from the top you can see that he's noticeably thinner than the Magic Square effort.
Sound Ripple is smoother and bulkier, making him a lovely presence on the shelf. The single hinge on his tape door is fully painted, his thighs are seamless and nicely angled, his shoulders are broad and if it weren't for a couple of peg-holes on the shins, you'd have a hard time knowing that it could transform. Honestly after I got this I cancelled Hasbro's upcoming RED non-transforming action figure because it was now entirely redundant.
But let's give Newage's effort some credit (it's overdue at this point!). He has metal feet, which give him a lot of heft for such a small figure. He has an ab-crunch with extra moulded detail at the back to keep it seamless for about 30 degrees. Because the shoulders are on ball-joints and not hinges, they stay level with the chest, unlike Sound Ripple who shows off unsightly, unpainted armpits while his arms are raised higher than they should be. Scaramanga is really flexible, with only his 90 degree knee joints being bested by Voice Ripple's full bend.
But before we give it to Magic Square entirely, Scaramanga has one more trick to show you - magnets in his wrists allow Laserbeak to stick in place. Now that really is lovely attention to detail!
Alt Mode
Both transformations suck - they're very intricate and a bit scary. Moving on...
Not much in it from the front
This is where Scaramanga really shines. He's compact, has a nice colour balance across the alt mode with solid lines (especially across the bottom) and everything across the top is blue, whereas Sound Ripple's hollow feet are on display. Magic Square's effort is too thick overall, and the back is a total mess, looking half-finished at best. Newage's finished boombox isn't perfect, but it's certainly more solid and pleasing to look at. At the end of the day, it's a rectangle with a door, and Newage just collapses into a denser, heavier little unit. Like Reflector, the alt-mode is a lovely little thing and I love how the Decepticons utilitarian alt-modes are just so much fun.
The shell-like Magic Square (left) feels brittle and unfinished.
Tapes/Minions
And now we swing back to Magic Square a a clear winner. I vastly prefer the colours used on the Magic Square tapes, and the sculpts, arguably because they're larger, are just better. I hate the Rumble/Frenzy robot modes tend to have thin ankles to accommodate the feet sliding into them, it makes the shins look like they're upside down, and Newage falls into this trap. Furthermore you can't remove the guns either, and while the MS version is a bit fiddly on this front, at least you can use the weaponry.
The Newage Laserbeak isn't bad, it evokes the character and the magnet gimmick is well utilised, but it doesn't really have any feet and the dull grey plastic isn't terribly attractive.
Ravage is a closer call - I like the longer neck Newage gives their Jaguar, both have ball joints for the "puzzled dog" look and the legs work well on both. They both have ball joints at the shoulders and hind legs to splay out which adds to their presence, and the missiles on the top of the hind-legs are present and serviceable. The Newage tail is laughably crooked however, so I'd go Magic Square again here.
Newage minions left, Magic Square right. It's no contest really.
So looking at the overall packages, it's clear to me that you're going to get satisfaction whichever way you jump. Both Soundwave-alikes are solid figures in robot mode, with Magic Square looking just a bit cleaner, but Newage feeling more robust and offsetting the clean lines for a bit of extra articulation - your priorities will determine a winner here, but for me, it's all about the photographs and I just think Magic Square's Soundwave pops that little bit more in front of the lens.
In terms of alt-modes, that's a decisive victory for Newage. I won't say either transformation is enjoyable, with lots of fiddly little panels to gingerly fold around, but the end result is clearly a victory for Scaramanga. He's dense, the colours are more fluid and he feels great in-hand. This is likely the mode I'll be keeping this in.
As for tapes, well here we go back to Magic Square, they just look much better. You can actually buy a set of the Magic Square tapes separately, so that's good news if you don't mind mixing them up. You won't get blue Rumble, but you'll get red and black Frenzy (I think of them the other way around), Ratbat, Buzzaw and Ravage. That's certainly a good selection of all the best tape moulds.
The winning combination!
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