I’m going to begin this review by being honest with you, because we’re all friends here at Toy Wizards, and friends should be honest with each other.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about Hoist…as a character. Of course I’ll have some things to say about his figure in the Earthrise line of Transformers toys, but the character from the G1 cartoon wasn’t someone I paid much attention to. I vaguely remember the episode where Hoist and Grapple built a solar tower to show off to Optimus. While I’m not as enamored with him like I am with some of the other tertiary characters like Cliffjumper, it’s nice to see a character such as Hoist get some shine. Hasbro continues to release their Earthrise figures to reflect the G1 characters with as much cartoon accuracy as possible, and our friend Hoist here is another prime example.

Transformation like the others in the line so far isn’t terribly involved but is still fun to mess with. Converting Hoist into vehicle mode, he ends up locking together securely enough, however sometimes when forming the rear section of the tow truck, what had previously tabbed into place has a tendency to pop free and I would have to fiddle with him a fair amount. Once finished though, Hoist makes for a visually pleasing version of his cartoon vehicle mode, with a nice deep green contrasted by the bright orange of the tow section, along with the caution stripes along the side of the truck.

The paint on Hoist looks great nailing that G1 look and feel. It’s an overall clean conversion with the exception of one glaring and unfortunate oversight in vehicle mode which is Hoist being a literal knuckle dragger, with his fists sticking out from underneath the bottom of his truck mode.

I’ve nitpicked about Wheeljack’s shoulder cannon being a little stubby and how Optimus could have had a port in his fist to accommodate his Energon-axe, but those were minor gripes. Hoist’s fists being visible in vehicle mode wasn’t a deal breaker in my decision to pick him up, but you can’t tell me Hasbro couldn’t have figured out a way for them to tuck up inside the cavity of the truck better to be less noticeable.

While I’m not as emotionally attached to Hoist as I am to the other characters in the Earthrise line, it’s still a well done figure overall that is currently in stock and available at bigbadtoystore.com. Hoist fits in great with the rest of the Autobot team, and I’m counting down the days now until his mold mate Trailbreaker hits the shelves.

I give Earthrise Deluxe Class Hoist 4/5 Solar Towers.

Product Features

• 5.50 inch (14cm) scale
• Made of plastic
• This ecosystem of collectible figures allows fans to build out epic space battle scenes
• Converts into classic G1 tow truck mode in 20 steps
• Figures can connect to expand the battlefield
• Instructions may or may not include English translation

Box Contents

• Hoist figure
• Weapon accessory
• Piece of the Transformers Universe map
• Red decoder to unlock the map’s hidden paths

 

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