Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Sewer Board and Bug Buster Vehicles Review
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To most Ninja Turtle fans, we are living in a golden age. NECA, Super 7, Funko, Mattel, Dreamex, PCS Collectibles... the list of companies producing
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle product for fans just keeps growing. And while all of these companies are producing statues and action figures, for
me, a major part of the Ninja Turtles toy lines will always be the vehicles like the Party Wagon, Cheapskate and the Foot Cruiser. And there's
still only one player in that game, the original, Playmates Toys. And this review covers the last vehicles they produced for the Rise of the Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles toy line: the Sewer Board and Bug Buster. The Sewer Board has seem multiple releases in the past, so I'm not expecting any
surprises there. But the Bug Buster motorcycle looks like it could be a lot of fun.
Packaging - 6/10The packaging design for this final series is the same as all of the previous ones. The wide window box gives a clear view of both the figure and vehicle inside. And this time around, unlike the Shell Hog cycles, the vehicles aren't so large to take up all of the space. It also means that there is plenty of space on the back to show off the vehicle. There's even enough room to show all of the tricks you are suppose to be able to perform with the skateboard.
Sculpting - Sewer Board 1/10, Bug Buster 7/10This is the third time that the skateboard and ramp and it hasn't gotten any better since the first release and that was already little more than a brick on wheels with little to no sculpting effort beyond the wood grain on the ramp. They did at least update the logo on the ramp. But while the Sewer Board set is underwhelming, the Bug Buster vehicle looks like it could have been driven straight out of the Rise of the TMNT cartoon. The overall design is quite simple with very clean lines. But there is still quite a bit of detail included. My biggest complaint would be that it is just too big overall. Mounting this cycle would be like climbing onto a horse due to the height of the foot rests. They could have easily shrunk the entire vehicle down by about twenty percent and it would have scaled much better with the figures.
Paint - Sewer Board 1/10, Bug Buster 6/10The Sewer Board once again comes with no real decoration. There is a single sticker preapplied for the deck of the board and that's it. It's even worse with this release as the only decoration for the board is the Rise of the TMNT shell logo on a lighter green background. This is lazy. And it results in a board that is so dull looking that I can't imagine anyone would actually ride something like that. There's more effort put into the Bug Buster. But the few green stripes they applied are enough to break up the large swaths of purple. It's not quite enough to be impressive, but meets my minimum expectations at least.
Figures - Vert Master Mikey 6/10, Donatello 3/10While I find the Sewer Board completely underwhelming, it does at least have one bright point in the form of Vert Master Mikey. Truthfully the figure isn't all that special. It's just the same mold and paint apps as the series one Mikey with a new head. But much like Savage Mikey from the 2012 line, the idea of Mikey wearing the remains of one of their enemies as protective gear is just cute. The Donatello figure included with the Bug Buster doesn't seem to have been given a unique name and unfortunately that seems to be inline with the amount of effort put into the figure in general. For reasons I can't imagine, they reused the Battle Shell Donatello body, but without the mechanism to open the shell. But this leaves multiple large holes in the shell. Plus it means that the figure still has half of the shoulder straps attached to the front shell and they were left unpainted again. They also skipped painting the wraps on his arms and the lens of his goggles. That last part about the goggles is more annoying than one might expect as this is the first and only Donatello in the line to have goggles that can be moved between his eyes and the top of his head. It's rather sad that the goggles end up being the only stand out feature for this figure.
Play Value - 7/10The Bug Buster cycle has a few cool play features, the obvious one being the ability to split the wheels apart and change it from a motorcycle to some form of hovercraft. It also has a spring loaded projectile that fires from the front. There's also a removable canister on the back that doesn't have any action features. The Sewer Board just has a pair of wheels connected to a flywheel so the board can be pushed along the ground once or twice to build momentum and then released. You can also rotate the platform that holds the figure and adjust a switch on the bottom to alter how the board moves. For an adult collector, that holds no interest. But I have to admit that it is the type of feature that a kid could probably play with for hours, especially with the inclusion of a ramp to interact with.
Value - Sewer Board 3/10, Bug Buster 6/10The Sewer Board was not all that impressive when they first released it seven years earlier. And releasing it two more times hasn't added anything more to it. The Vert Master Mikey figure is cute, but a cute new head sculpt isn't worth the $20 price tag. The Bug Buster on the other hand is a completely new vehicle, although they have done motercycle/hovercraft before. The Donatello figure included is underwhelming, but not a deal breaker. But if they had included an actual Bug Bustin' version of Donatello with the cycle, this would be a hard set to pass up.
Happy Hunting:The Rise of the TMNT line left retail shelves almost a year ago. So your only option is going to be the secondary market. A quick eBay search turned up plenty of the Sewer Board set, many selling for less than retail. But I only saw a handful of Bug Buster cycle sets. And the prices were already several times the original retail. It actually looks like the cheapest option right now is to ship one in from the UK.
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