Toy Review: Banana Force MPL-04 Orion Predator

Banana Force continuing their trend of big, diecast Transformers homages with their IDW Optimus homage.

Producer: Banana Force

Price: Approx. $240 USD

Release Date: Jan. 2022

Item Height: Approx. 10.75 in.

Item Weight: N/A

Batteries: 3x LR521 Cell Batteries

WHERE TO BUY: TFSource

Banana Force really brought something special back when they released their first figure MPL-01 Red Sharpshooter which was an homage to the “Car Robots” (“Robots in Disguise” in the U.S.) version of Optiomus Prime.

Rather than continuing on with the much-anticipated Ultra Magnus add-on (Which combines with Sharpshooter like in the cartoon,) they later announced and released Orion Predator which looks to be a more loose homage to the IDW comics version of Optimus Prime. While this figure carries on the standard of big, diecast, decently-articulated Transformers homages it really doesn’t give me that spark that their first release did. In the video above as well as the article below I go over my thoughts on this release as well as providing a gallery of the product.

Presentation: The box is a good, strong encased in an outer shipper box featuring line art of the prooduct (which I have to say looks amazing.) the product itself in well packed and protected inside of a foam casing with the majority of the accessories encased in a plastic clamshell behind it. I’m not the biggest fan of the graphics on the box itself but it does do a good job of showcasing the figure and everything that comes with.

Build: This is a hefty figure using diecast on the frame and a mixture of diecast and plastic as the outer shell. The paint applications are well done but I wish that the eyes on the two included headsculpts were painted rather than their choice of clear blue plastic with no outlet for light to come through making them look very dark and “dead.” The accessories that give add ons to the body of the figure attach with a mixture of pegs and magnets. The magnet pieces that go on the backs of the legs could have used stronger magnets as they stay on fine during display but feel like they detatch pretty easily during play/pose. There are also two pieces that peg into the outsides of the forearms that should have a tighter friction as they also tend to pop out during these times.

Accessories: Here’s a list of the accessories taken from the product listing;

1 x MPL-4 Orion Predator Figure
1 x Blaster
2 x Axe Weapons

The accessory listing is a bit short on product page, but it actually comes with a variety of hands, an alternate helmet with a different mask design, as well as swap parts like wheels for the backs of the legs and a backpack that holds a weapon of choice. It comes with a decent amount of accessories but none of them give it a lot of “oomph” like the D4Toys Exclusive Turbo Axe for their Flame Toys Kuro Kara Kuri Optimus Prime. It’s not to directly compare accessories between the two items bbut rather the presence that the accessories bring. Even with theior previously released MPL-001 Red Sharpshooter things like the ladder backpack really felt like they brought the piece to another level when attached where I don’t really feel much of a difference when the add-on parts are installed with this one. Even the alternate head has a mask that I don’t see many if any seeing as better than the original and will likely be rendered useless for most.

Another thing that I’d like to address like in the above video review is the failure to mirror molds on the axe parts. The axes come with 3 parts each to either lengthen them individually or make one, long axe that is held with both hands. The problem however is that each of the extension pieces has a hole to attach to the backpack on one side, but since they’re all the same mold, any parts held in the right hand will have the holes exposed on the outside. Normally this would be as easy as flipping them around to fix but since the parts peg in together with male/female ends that are a 3/4th circle rather than a whole, they can only be held one way in order for the axe blade to face forward. I know that not all buyers will care about something aesthetic like this but I do because even outside of aesthetic little things like this show a certain amount of care from the company for their product.

On the positive side, the blaster is awesome and both the light up feature and way that it’s activated via barrel extension are really cool.

Articulation: The articulation on this one is good with, but I wish that there was more overall range in areas like the ankles and butterfly joints on the shoulders. Those things really would have taken this piece to another level as the build quality is good but it makes the articulation leave a bit to be desired.

Overall Score: 6.5/10 – Orion Predator is good, but overall it doesn’t give me the wow that Red Sharpshooter did. It’s a solidly built figure but there’s a glaring lack of fine detailing to it all-around that makes it way too much of a background figure for something so big and hefty.