Knock Off: Fortress Maximus

Presenting: Some cheap Chinese knock off of Fortress Maximus courtesy of some unknown Chinese sweat shop in some God forbidden corner of that part of the world. Okaaaay I'll keep this short. It's actually not bad for something that's only worth PhP 300! You definitely get what you pay for - which is a small glimpse of what the real thing must be like. It's not the world's most perfect toy and chances are you'll die of Lead poisoning if you keep playing with this, but if you're a heavy Transformers collector, then this replica of the original toy is a must have.

 Fortress Maximus comes in displayed in a package that is clearly almost three times his width. It's a hefty box that fools you into thinking that maybe there's more to the figure than is inside. Like maybe the other weapons of Fortress Maximus, or - God forbid - an actual God Sword replica. Certainly there should at least be a manual inside.

There's none of that. Just the little plastic Fortress Maximus. No Master Sword, no Master Dagger, no Spike Witwicky who becomes the head of Cerebros, who becomes the head of Fortress Maximus (Yeah it's a complicated relationship). Technically Cerebros is included - he's the head after all. Because there's no manual, unless you know that Fortress Maximus is a headmaster, you will be unable to transform him. So you could say that this is two robots in one. Just keep saying that till you believe it.

Once you've worked out how to transform him - it's not that complicated - you'll start to grow to realize that the sculpt is pretty decent and almost completely accurate down to the twin push-car launchers on the ramps while Fortress Maximus is in vehicle mode. 

Stickers though are a problem. They don't really stay on and are easy to remove (Note the bent one on his belly button).

His weapons are articulated. You can position the torso and leg cannons.

But that's about it.

At the end of the day, "Hey! It's only PhP 300!!!" Take it and be happy. It's actually a great base if you want to try and repaint it to get a more accurate version of Fortress Maximus. It's actually something that I intend to do. Here's a picture of the original just to whet your appetites some-more. Look at the picture below then look at the pictures above. It's close and accurate.

It just needs some love and attention.

As an added extra treat, because this is a Bootleg version, I'm going to bootleg a video review. This video is from one of the followers of this blog, fellow collector Cyrus Valmadrid: