After what seems like an age, the long thin parcel containing Hasbro's latest character Lightsaber has arrived. Based on Ahsoka's Clone Wars saber, she's famous for dual-weilding her sabers but there's only one in the box. At £229, I'm not buying 2, so I'll stick with the one I have, though admittedly I'm not exactly thrilled with what I ended up with.
One of the main draws for me was the fact that Hasbro has finally caught up with third party sabers and added a bunch of features that the official blades sorely lacked. The first thing is that the blade is finally removable, allowing the hilt to be displayed on its lonesome. For this purpose there's a lovely stylised stand in the box that looks great - a lovely gunmetal grey with a bit of heft - two plastic attachments give the metal frame the recquisite grip for this saber, and it's clear they'll be using the base metal mold in future releases. It's a smart bit of design, and it'll handle the saber with blade attached it you want it to.
Oddly shaped packaging declares this isn't your traditional Lightsaber.
The package also contains a cute Kyber Crystal which can fit in the hilt once the blade is detatched - you can't see the crystal light up, but you do see a small porthole of light when you turn it on. It's an okay inclusion, but it doesn't light up on its own (despite what the promotional pics would have you believe) so feels like a bit of an afterthought. I would have been just as happy without it.
With blade attached, the Lightsaber has some excellent functionality, light years ahead of the previous fixed blades. It has a flash-on-clash effect that makes the whole blade change colour when you hit something with enough force, though the piece-together nature of the blade means I wouldn't use it for any serious duelling. It hums and changes pitch when moved, just like its forebears, but what really makes it stand out is that you can change the colour of the blade by holding down the power and effect button together. You have blue, green and yellow (in that order) to choose from, which is a really lovely bit of engineering. If you press the button your saber will make localised flashes as if deflecting laser-fire, and if you hold it down, it'll make the end of the blade light up as if it's cutting through something in a myriad of colours. These functions combined make this a very versatile bit of kit.
But it's not all good news, and that's because of the hilt's construction. This thing is EVIL.
The hilt with its Kyber Crystal
I'm frankly amazed that Hasbro could release a product that's genuinely dangerous, and make no mistake, the edges of this saber are sharp enough to cut, as I discovered when I nicked my knuckle on one of the sharper edges. The blade has two long edges down the middle that are stupidly sharp, it's like holding onto a cheese-grater. Holding and swinging the hilt, you can feel it digging into your hand, and play with it long enough and you'll be developing blisters and callouses. The hilt needed to be rounded down and I can't for the life of me think why it wasn't - it makes the product uncomfortable to hold and hugely impractical. You might as well hold a proper sword, blade first.
In another puzzling bit of design, turning the blade on requires you to press a button that's shielded on all sides, the gap being less than a centimetre across - anyone with normal sized fingers is going to struggle to even turn it on. Luckily I have fairly thin fingers, but it's a another daft design decision on an already baffling product.
Finally, the effects button on my copy doesn't connect properly - you have to mash the button down and to the side to get the contacts to connect and get the effects to work. This makes actually using it in any sort of practical way impossible, as you stand there gritting your teeth trying to make it work. It's a button, and Hasbro couldn't build it properly. Bloody hell.
So there's a lot to love in the intent of this blade - it has lots of lovely functions, but on a product that's hard to turn on and, due to the poor construction, impossible to use as intended. You certainly won't look very cool with it as you stand there struggling to make the blasted thing DO something, at which point it's really no more practical than the more limited blades that preceded it. Honestly, the best thing about the saber is that you can detatch the blade, throw it on a stand and have it look nice in a corner. Not exactly what it was made for, and certainly not worth the asking price.
The best thing to do with it - throw it on the stand and admire its evil construction.
In all then, I can't really recommend the product. Construction is both poor and dangerous, it's highly frustrating to actually use and that means it isn't fun.
And what sort of Lightsaber worth a Jawa's nut isn't fun?
Follow A.I. on Twitter and Like us on Facebook to get all the latest site updates
