>>11547481Part of the problem was Retro Series being a completely dumbass rebranding of 25A. 25A should have remained the mainline 1/18 scale toyline and then the O-ring figures should have been called the Retro Series, because they're retro. The Retro Series rebrand of 25A was basically a bunch of reissues, many of which were inferior to their older releases, like Duke who got a silly looking O-face head sculpt, garish colors and most of his paint apps skipped. Plus his redesigned "articulated wrists" caused his arms to pop out and look horrible. And he wasn't even the worst offender. That dishonor goes to Scarlet who completely abandoned her original 25A toolings and got a truly half-assed repaint of Shooter. Her shoulderpad isn't even sculpted, it's just a paint app and it looks like babby's fist custom figure.
There were a couple of good reissues in that line-- the Cobra Trooper, Cobra Officer, Cobra Commander, and Destro were all fine, and I even liked the taller Roadblock figure even if his ankles weren't articulated (although like most toys in the line his accessories were a complete random mish mash instead of giving the fans the ones that they wanted). The problem is so many of the figures just had no understanding of the characters and that further undermined any credibility that the "retro" claim had. They came with wrong accessories, wrong colors, or were just random, like Snake Eyes who was the ninja version's head on the commando version's body with ninja weapons and an elastic parachute harness with no parachute for some reason. The line was 25A when everyone at Hasbro stopped giving a shit, just swept up everything off the floor, stuffed it into blister packs and tried to sell it. It was such a horrible fall from grace after the 50th anniversary rebrand which gave the line many of the best figures it ever had.
