Review:9497 Republic Striker Starfighter/NovaFlare

Joined: December 29, 2006 № of Reviews: 17 № of Featured reviews: 1

"" contains an extrinsic dash or other characters that are invalid for a date interpretation.

Finally, some more EU sets![edit | edit source]

Votes:

0

Vote

Despite everything in this second 2012 Star Wars wave being amazing, it's the two Star Wars: The Old Republic sets I've been looking forward to the most- all completely new models and minifigures, based on an era in the Star Wars universe that I've come to like a lot.

The fighter[edit | edit source]

The fighter is fairly nice to look at- it's primarily a dark red, with some white markings and splashes of orange in there too. It also seems to nicely capture the fact that this fighter isn't as modern as the fighters from the movies and The Clone Wars, I'm not really sure how it does this, but when I look at it, I do get the impression that it's somehow based on an older fighter. I don't really have anything bad to say about the fighter, but it does have a lot of nice features.

The most noticeable feature is the wings. The wings can actually fold inwards towards the body of the fighter, and the mounted laser cannons also turn so that they can make the folding process happen, and also so that they are always facing foward. These images from Shop@Home can show it better than I can ever describe it:

Wings in
Wings out

As you can see, the fighter can convert from a more compact, A-wing type craft, to an X-wing (or Z-95) like fighter which is more dangerous due to the fact the flick-fire missiles mounted on the underside of each wing are now positioned to fire. By changing these wings, it's like getting two ships for the price of one- the ship looks completely different just by moving the wings around. I don't know a whole lot about the Talon-class fighter, so I'm not sure if these fighters can actually do this in the Star Wars universe, and I get the feeling that they can't but it's a nice feature nevertheless. Also worth noting is that the wings are clipped into position in some way when they are either in or out, so you don't have to worry about the wings moving around when they shoulnd't be.

The cockpit is well done, control panels, and also some handlebars, inserted into the ship by the use of a hinge piece that I'm not sure I've seen before. Other features include storage behind the cockpit for Satele's double-bladed lightsaber, and two flick-fire missiles on each wing. I'm happy with with flick-fire missiles as long as you don't actually have to physically flick them with your finger, and these ones involve pushing a TECHNIC piece in for each missile, so that's fine with me, and missiles are always good for a bit more playability.

Interesting pieces include that hinge piece for the cockpit mentioned above, transparent pink cones for the engines (I think I've only seen them on the The Clone Wars Y-Wing, and maybe somewhere else which I can't quite place), and the two large pieces making up the front of the body are printed with white, which means... no stickers!

The minifigures[edit | edit source]

T7-O1

He looks ok, I guess. There are three very detailed printed pieces for the parts of the dome and the front of the body, and having a third wheel is great (although I don't think they could have gotten away with just two legs for a T-series droid). But, when you look at the droid from the front, it just doesn't really look like you're looking at the front of a droid's head, like you do with R-series droid minifigures. I just think that it could have somehow been better managed, with a transparent light blue stud being used for T7's main photoreceptor. Another thing is that the body seems to stick out from the head just a bit too much. That said, I'm still fairly happy with the droid, and it's great to see a T-series droid being made, and it also gives me hope that we'll someday see T3-M4 along with some Knights of the Old Republic sets.

Jace Malcom

Yes, he's officially called "Republic Trooper", but this minifigure is obviously based on the Havoc Squad Commander. His printing is really well done, nice design on the legs, lots of detail on the front and back of the torso, including a knife in its scabbard, thermal detonator on the back, and lots of armour detailing. The head piece matches Jace perfectly with the scar on the right side and facial expression, and while at first I thought that another hairpiece (like the one used on Crabbe) may have been more appropriate, this other hairpiece is growing on me. The portable blaster cannon is about the right size and fairly well designed, but it's a bit hard to position. Of course, this is understandable, being a two-handed weapon, it obviously makes it hard for a minifigure to hold it.

Satele Shan

One of my favourite Jedi, and being an EU character, one I didn't think I'd ever get. The body design is amazing, nice green pieces with gold and grey printing, and a very nice level of detail. In addition to the clothing, there are also three braids of hair printed on (two on the front, one on the back), and fit nicely with the mould of the hairpiece- it does look like from the front that the printed braids come down off the side of the hairpiece. The face is Wonder Woman's, and I'm not sure whether it quite works, even if I didn't know it as a face I'm so used to associating with Wonder Woman (I guess Satele is like a superhero among Jedi since she can absorb a lightsaber blade with her bare hands though ;) ). I think the angry/instense side is ok, but on the other side I guess I'd just like to see more a of a serious face than the raised eyebrow and the smile. However, without making a completely new printing pattern, I would say that this is the best piece for the job, and I'm definitely happy to see that we got movie-style faces as opposed to The Clone Wars ones.

Overall[edit | edit source]

Great set, great minifigures. I'm not really sure how to sum it up any other way. I know I did have a few negative points with the minifigures, but I really am extremely happy with them overall, partly that they are characters I like and that I never thought I'd get to have in LEGO, but also because they are well designed. The ship is much better than what I expected (before building it, I never knew the wings changed, and I'm really a fan of this feature), and couldn't ask for a better design of this fighter.

Recommendations[edit | edit source]

But this set. I may be a bit greedy in saying this, because if it sells well, we might get a few more EU sets which is something I really want, but it is a great set with some great features.