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Fansproject Retro Future Glacialord Set

I can only describe this set of figures as Toy Art. The amount of minute details and extra polishes these releases were given to make them feel like something that came out of the 80s is amazing, and is one of the few toys I’ve ever gotten that I wanted to leave pristine in package. From the style of articulation, to the Styrofoam trays, to the intentional box damage, this was a passion project that should have recieved more recognition when it released in 2014.

The Good: I can’t emphasize enough how much of an experience these toys are, but if you don’t care about the packaging, or don’t want to be spoiled to the experience, I added a bolded section you can skip to below. Just opening them is incredibly enthralling. Each box has different types of faux wear-and-tear on them to make them look aged, as if they were actually produced in the 80s, save for Megazero (the Megacero/Stag) who is made to look like a newer Korean issue. Once they’re open, each is packed in a Styrofoam tray and their Core Masters are inside small cards (which even have old safety warnings on the back).

For all but Megazero, they have a few of their stickers already applied to simulate that this is a preowned toy. They have simple, but easy enough to understand instructions reminiscent of those of the time that quickly detail their transformations from beast to robot to limb. Tusker’s instructions are even purposefully folded incorrectly to make them seem used.

Skip Here: Onto the toys themselves, all the limb bots are rather simple. While they all have at least one minor modern engineering trick to them, you could easily transform all of them without instructions. They all only have arm rotations for posability (with Tusker having slightly more), but so did the toys they’re emulating. Each member of the Glacialbots has a Core Master (at least that’s what I think they’re called) that forms the head and torso of the robot modes. There’s even specific engineering that allows each of them to ride on top of their respective animals, or transform without needing to be removed. And like Head Masters before them, they’re interchangeable.

Despite the instructions specifying certain robots to certain limbs, Glacialord is a Scramble City Combiner, meaning each robot can form either a leg OR arm for a bit of interplay. I’ve also seen images online that suggest the ports on Tusker’s torso mode are compatible with similar combiners from the 80s. Oh, and Tailclub, who is usually a leg, has a hidden elbow bend as an arm.

I will also add here that, currently, Glacialord as a set is very cheap if you know where to look. It originally retailed for around $300, but I managed to pick everyone up for around $75. It’s well worth that price for the experience alone.

The Bad: While I do shower this toy with heaps of praise, it has some issues. Mainly Tusker, the Mammoth. A lot of his joints are very tight, to the point that I thought I was going to break things on several occasions when transforming him for the first time. The knees on the Core Masters, too, have a similar issue. They loosen up a bit as you play with them, but I’m still nervous at times. Tusker, again, has a few friction parts that move around when you don’t want them to, like his forelimbs in beast mode and head in combined mode.

The Ugly: It didn’t sell. And that’s nothing to do with the toy, it’s the marketplace it was released in. I’ve managed to avoid mentioning Transformers up until now, but Fansproject is one of the companies that produces toys that resemble Transformers characters without the consent of their parent companies. However, Fansproject is unique among those companies for trying to branch out and produce their own original characters, like Glacialord. The problem is, when released, the people buying from that marketplace were only interested in feeding their own nostalgia for characters and not style, and still are for the most part, causing the entire Retro Future line to be scrapped after getting out a single complete toy.

Overall, I can’t gush enough about this toy’s presentation, and most of the toys are good recreations of an old style, with Tusker having the most modern engineering but also the most problems. Still, this set receives the highest of recommendations from me. And who know? If enough people discover this toy, and the accolades are strong enough, we might just get one more Retro look into the Future.