Here is Arcee in her vehicle mode. It's certainly the same pink and white car that totally looks like cars from the year 2005. In all seriousless, it does have that naïve 80's prediction that 2005 would have sleeker cars than ones from the past. The colors look fine, though while the shape of the altmode looks good, you do have the lower legs not quite making the sides look too flush. It's especially noticeable on the sides, too; there's a gap that's a bit unsightful to look at. Everything else is about what one would expect Arcee to have in her vehicle mode.
The vehicle mode even has a little cockpit sculpted nicely, with a steering wheel, seats, a dashboard, and a little screen. Good luck getting any figures that could fit in it.
Here is how you store the weapons. The blades could be stored on the sides if you like, but the gray gun can be securely attached with both the handle and the tabs on the sides that her hands hold on to. The pink gun slides into the back of the altmode to mostly fill in the empty void.
Here is a comparison with Titans Return Hot Rod. TRHR isn't as G1 accurate, but I like his altmode design looking a bit sleeker than the norm for a G1-styled Hot Rod. Setting aside fron the slight differences in height, this view makes Arcee look like she's in the right size, although that's not the case.
The size might be right given how Arcee has less mass than Hot Rod, it does seem surprising to have a Deluxe with less plastic put into it than figures from the Generations line (I say that knowing how Arcee normally scales)
Arcee's transformation is simple for a Generations figure, even a bit moreso than some of the other figures made before and after her. Some of the engineering went into backpack hinges and the hinges of the hips, I feel.
In robot mode, Arcee looks fairly good from the front, though she suffers from a massive backpack. I know that the backpack has to stay in order for it to keep the shoulder pylons that are a part of her desogn, but it looks weak from the side because of how much folds up on her and from the back because it doesn't look like it changed much. It's thankfully hollow enough so as to not be overly backheavy, thougj leaning her forward slightly is advised.
Arcee's articulation is fairly basix. Ball joints on her neck and shoulders, bicep swivels below the shoulders, and right angle elbow bends that feel like the softest plastic ratchets ever. Hips move front and back on swivels and in and out on hinges, swivels above the knees, hinge bends for the knees, and ankle hinges.
Arcee can be displayed with either her guns or her blades. The problem is that my Arcee has the retooled hands that are more open than the initial tooling, but the consequence is that you can't put the weapons all the way in the hands since there's a bit of plastic that stops them. The guns look off in the hands, though the blades, which evoke Animated Arcee, look fine. At least the guns can be decently stored on the hips.
The blades can be stored on the sides of the forearms if you want, which kind of capture Prime Arcee this time around. As for storing them, you havr some slots on the top, though they don't really have the best storage yet.
Funny enough, I'm covering the version that came a few months after the Hasbro release, but here is the Thrilling 30 version of the character. It has more black and buts of blue than the Takara version, though its early copies had less open hands that hold the weapons better. Honestly, the Hasbro version looks perfectly fine.
This is the Combiner Hunters version released in SDCC 2015. Arcee now has a black and purple(?) paintjob and comes with a massive meatcleaver that's used to slay combiners. It looks cool and crazy at the same time.
This is the Platinum Edition Autobot Heroes 5-pack version, giving Arcee a metallic deco along woth Thrilling 30 Springer, Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus, Generations Kup, and Generations Blurr (the last two NOT being their Titans Return forms). Needlessly celebrating that 1986 movie, this set was only available at Target.com.
The Paradon Medic Lifeline was a repaint that came with Quicksilver, a reuse of the Flanker Targetmaster from Swerve. It shouldn't have the backpack, and it's not easy to army build because of how expensive this blatant character model reuse was. Oh, AKOM animators...
Here is the odd yet accurately done Chun-Li repaint. Car mode looks too weird, but the robot mode looks pretty good, though Arcee is the only character to not be a repaint of a Titans Return figure.
The only retool of the mold, Nightbird makes for a surprisingly solid reuse of the mold, especially with the head. Captures the sleekness better than the other Nightbird from Siege.
Here is Legends Arcee next to Titans Return Hot Rod in robot mode. She's a noticeably shorter figure by being a head shorter than Hot Rod. While it's fine that he's the taller figure, I am reminded by how the price feels weird when you consider the use of plastic in either figure.
This is an alright figure for a first transforming G1 accurate Arcee made by HasTak, but nowhere near as deserving of the praise it first got. I'm don't think it's an awful figure, though more could go well with it in terms of engineering. Weirdly, when I went to TFCon, the Generations figure was nowhere to be seen while this version was easier to find. I guess you can get this version of the figure if you want, but get it at a more reasonable price.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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