Fire Phoenix

I hadn't intended to buy one of these...I was going to get the blue Japanese one and put the Jäger on the recolored Liger Zero when that was released, or something. But no...by some freak happenstance, our local Wal-Mart actually HAD NEW STOCK. And there it was, saying buy meeee, build meeeee...

I really like the new box colors, but I don't like the odd shapes of the Blox packaging. It makes for lots of tape to check to make sure something's still factory sealed (and also makes it annoying to open). And while the Blox being in that thing *looks* neat, it's a pain in the foot to open, and they tend to get dented...but Fire Phoenix's box art was nice (it's the end of the world!!), other than the lazy repeating of the random-Japanese-from-Battle-Story in the background.

Time to build...and this is not red. Nope. What we have here, folks, is a PINK phoenix. Okay, okay. Salmon-y red. But next to a true shade of red, the stuff looks pink. The yellow is a nice dandelion color and the grey a decent neutral one...but this thing cries out for a good crimson red. Paint...so tempting...

Erm. Anyway. Actual construction is pretty easy, as you'd expect from a Blox. The head is really, really cool-looking and articulate, but the top yellow crest falls off enough I'm getting tempted to glue it, and the beak gets stuck if you close it all the way. And the pilot is a differnt shade of grey. What the...? Well, maybe he put bleach in the load with his uniform :p. The wings are really cool-looking too, although they're a bit fixed in place. The legs suffer the same problem-they're on two connectors each, at an angle that renders them near-bendless. Argh!

The tail is nice, especially with how it has to hide the fact that it's really a bunch of Liger Zero leg armor. The legs are clever, too, with the hidden guns. The one bad point? The missile. It looks...eh.

While not a bad design, Fire Phoenix could really use well-articulated legs to go with the spiffy tail and neck/head. Ditch the Liger Zero armor gimmick. Better yet, ditch the Blox. Such a pretty design deserves to move. *ponders how one could get it to do so*