TMNT Nickelodeon Toy Review #2

On July 5th, I shared a review of the TMNT toys that came out and are based off of the Nickelodeon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toy line.   At that time, I only covered the four Turtles with promise to cover the other characters when I could.  I’ve finally gotten my hands on a second set of th  Nickelodeon toy line to be able to share this review.  Just like before, I did a video of me opening the toys.  So here’s the video and then we’ll get onto a bit of a written review. 

(Sorry the sound is off in this video a lot.  Something strange happened with this recording.)

It’s good to finally have all of the characters out of package together, getting to see them and feel how they move.  Though as I mentioned in the video, I am disappointed about some of the movement of characters, such as no bending in the knees and April not able to even lift her legs.  The joint is there, but her legs just don’t move.  If I try to force her legs, they seem as if they will break.

One of the things I noticed about these 5 toys compared to the Turtles is that some odd reason they do not have the sheet of paper advertising what is coming for the TMNT toy line.   It is a little check list that came in the TMNT packages.  I don’t know if this is suppose to be a nod back to the original toy line with having the fanclub paper with the only four Turtles or if this was just to save on paper.  I do think that they should of had the check list too, as I know people who got these characters before finding the Turtles.

With Splinter, the paint job still throws me off with his face.  I think if he was painted more like a rat it would be easier for the fans to take in.  I found the hole where you put the tail to be funny when I first got the toy, it was really like a butt hole.   Though I am impressed at how well the tail stays in there after you put it in.  The Splinter toy feels very stiff to me.  It seems opposite of what the show is trying to say about him being younger and able to join in on more fights.  Even though he does have a joint at his waist so you can turn his bottom half, his clothes restricts how much he can move, making it so the joint is not really noticed that much.  It would be neat to see a Splinter with more joints so that he can be better posed with the Turtles or in a fight scene.

The April O’Neil toy still feels like I’m holding a toy right out of the Ben 10 series.  I use to watch Ben 10 a lot, so this is really weird to me to have a TMNT toy that looks like one of those characters.  Just look up images of Gwen and tell me she does not look a lot like this new April.  After getting around that comes to the toy itself.  I want her legs to move!  Nice that the ball joint works so they twist around but I want the joints that I can see right there in the toy so that she can bring her legs up and back to work.  This does seem like it will be a much different version of April.  Curious where they’re going with her, but as a toy she seems very plain with little movement in her joints.  Lucky for me, I just use these toys for display though I’m sure there will be broken April’s out there where children are trying to get these annoying joints to work.

The Foot Soldier is the only one of these toys with a lot of joints.  This is a cool toy because you can pose him in many ways.  His wrist and elbows twist, rather have bending elbows, but twisting is okay.  There are ball joints in his legs and shoulders, giving his arms and legs more range of motion.  He also twists in his waist and knees as well as the neck.  So, he’s moveable and looks cool.  I love the two-toe ninja boots.

The Kraang is the toy with one cool piece.  For me, the android body here is a very frail and stiff toy with barely any joints.  It keeps falling over and seems like it would be easy to break up in any battle by the Turtles.  Though the android body sucks, the Kraang itself is cool.  It’s soft and comes right out of the body.  It can fit on a finger like a finger puppet.  As a stand alone from the body it’s one of my favorite toys and I wish we got a Krang toy like this from back in the day,  just make him a little bigger.

Shredder is a tall toy.  He is a bigger toy than the others.  He’s got his normal armor on him, though it seems to have grown and has bulky leg gear.  I’m going to have to see how it looks in the show, but right here it seems like it would be a pain to move around in.  But we can’t test that theory too much since, once again, there are no knee joints.  But at least his elbows bend!  That’s exciting.  I really do wish the knees did.  He looks better than the original Shredder toy, as if he’s more of a threat.  But the 4Kids Shredder toy is my favorite in design as it stands right now.

While these are okay toys, I do have other favorite toy lines that have come out from Playmate Toys.   Though really, I think one of the things that’s making it hard to give these a real fair judgement is the fact that they are doing some big changes to characters we’ve known and loved over 29 years.  The new design of Splinter’s face, the Gwen look of April, and the bulky gear on Shredder.  I think my true feelings for the toys will come through once I start seeing the show and get a feel for these new looks.  Until then, I’m just glad to have these in my collection and be able to share them with fellow TMNT fans!

Have you collected the Nickelodeon Toy line?  If so, please let us know your thoughts on these toys.  Please share reviews, comments and questions below!