L.O.L. Arcade Heroes - Infinity Queen and Starling
Note: Click on pics to enlarge!
No accompanying video for this review, sorry!
Finding Infinity Queen specifically was a bit of a task. She's the only girl in the set of six of Arcade Heroes and could be the crowd favourite. I've seen the boys almost everywhere until they almost disappeared. I also got to her late. That's my own fault. Anyway, time to see what the fuss is all about.
The Arcade Heroes is a unique series where the packaging is shaped like an arcade video game machine with mecha-hero suit with the doll inside. That's pretty cool! I love reusable packaging and awesome extra features. This series is one of the very few that is not a blind box, and who you get is determined by who is printed on the external packaging. As you can see, Infinity Queen and Starling is featured on 3 of the 4 sides of the box, and that's how I know who I got.
These were $19 at Target and $25 at Big W when they still had stock, at Mr Toys for a jaw-dropping $39.99 (WHAT.WHY). They were at Kmart for $25 which is where mine came from.
The box is no bigger than my forearm; 19cm or 7 in. There's a printed cardboard sleeve covering it, and tells you what's inside. It says there are 15 surprises inside including the arcade machine and the mecha suit.
To take the sleeve off cut the tape holding down the tabs of cardboard on the fake screen, then pull it from the top-down and out. When you pull this down, you can see the mecha suit in the arcade machine, and a flat paper blind bag stuck to the back of the cover.
This black and blue paper blind bag that has the cutest little handheld console print, has perforation down the middle, to tear and open it. I don't want to ruin the design so I cut the side off.
Inside is a glittery gold coin with "no cash value" on one side, and a pizza slice with "United States of Pizza" and "one slice/point" on the other.
Next, slip off the cardboard sleeve, and we get a better look at the arcade machine! Its base colour is light grey, with blue embedded glitter and lots of textured diagonal stripes. It's accented with black, blue and pink painted details only on the front, on the panels, buttons and coin slots. The joystick is solid blue, a piece of its own. Above the screen says Pixl Matic, and above that again is a sticker with the Starling mecha suit, and one of the boy's suits that looks a LOT like Optimus Prime. The back of the machine has some textured features too, like a little fake power plug, switches and cooling vents.
The left of the machine has a full-length sticker of all 6 character mechas together, and on the right side features the Starling suit.
Time to open it up! Take the gold coin from earlier and slide it into the right side of the large coin slot. This might take some force. The bottom panel of the front will fold down to reveal the legs of Infinity's mecha. The top half takes some force to come loose but pops off the front of the machine. Slide the casing of the mecha and doll out by twisting and pulling it forward. It takes a little bit of forced fiddling.
Behind Starling are the character stat card, checklist and instructions. Let's have a look at those first. The stat card is thick cardboard, double-sided, with Infinity Queen on one side and Starling on the other.
The checklist is also double-sided. One side is a poster of all the mechs, and the other is the checklist of course, with the mechs and their matching tots. Infinity queen is an Ultra Rare, so I guess that makes sense as to why I was having trouble finding her! The art of V.R. Dude with Cyber and Bhaddie Bro with Chaos are pretty dang awesomely, and if I can find them for cheaper than Infinity I might pick them up! Bhaddie gives me toxic emo-goth JackSepticEye vibes and would go super well with my Bhad Gurl big sis.
The instructions from step 1 to 3 are fairly useless at this point, and should really be included in a more early accessible area, like at the front with the coin. Step 4 onwards does show me something I didn't know though, and that is where to find the accessories. Step 5 to 8 show me how to take the mecha suit off the doll, and steps 9 through 11 show the water and temperature features. The instructions say the doll is either a spitter or a colour changer, but not both. The checklist indicates Infinity is a spitter, not a colour changer, but I'll still test it by putting her in the freezer or using a warm blow drier on her. I can see that there's glitter on her eyes and I don't want to get it wet. As such, I won't be doing her drink and spit function either.
To take the mecha out of the plastic casing, simply peel off the tape above the arms, and open from the bottom.
Starling is mainly purple covered in glitter, with hot pink and silver detailing. It's got cute little cat ears on the helmet and wing pack on the back of the torso. She does stand on her own so that's pretty cool.
Starling is articulated at the elbows and knees and nowhere else strangely - I guess because the other joint points are the doll herself. The arms fall off easily and that's not ideal.
Now to undress Infinity from the Starling mecha. As mentioned the arms come off easily, and she looks super silly without them.
Without legs is even funnier.
Without the helmet and now she looks like a little metal bee. There's a mouthpiece in the mouth guard to keep the helmet attached to the head.
And finally, here's Infinity Queen, fresh outta her mech suit. Isn't she cute?
Infinity has a dark skin tone - not as dark as the box art though - and her shoulders and hips twist to pose. She has two-tone purple micro braided hair - lavender and grapey - pulled up into two buns COVERED in glitter. There is a fair amount of glitter shedding. She has big hot pink eyeshadow wings and dark brown iris', both covered in glitter of the same respective colours. She's got pink lipstick and dark blushing. She's wearing a printed on purple one piece with the midriff and back cut out. The one-piece has a glitter coating like the mech suit and black and silver zipper details. She's got divets behind her ears so she can wear sunnies!
I can confirm after putting her in the freezer for a few minutes, she is not a colour changer at all but is a spitter as she expels air from her mouth when her head is compressed.
Step 4 says to push the bottom of the thingy in the back of the arcade machine up to reveal the accessories of Infinity. The first click shows a character selection screen, and the second click shows Starling and Atomic. Pushing this thing like the instructions say to does NOT reveal the accessories. I pushed it one more time back to the start and cut the tape holding the print to the thingy, with a craft blade, trying not to cut the print. That worked, and the accessories fell down.
I don't want to damage the awesome prints so I carefully pulled the plastic away from the paper and cut where it got stuck with the craft blade. Success! I put some tape over the damaged parts of the back of the print to stop any further damage to the area and taped it back into the arcade machine.
Time to dress Infinity.
She's got an itty bitty glitter embedded pink tee, purple suspenders, belt and silver glitter-covered skirt. Underneath are deep blue to purple colour shifting glittery booty shorts, and she wears a jelly neon pink backpack with elastic straps. Her boots are the same pink as the tee, with silver buckle and zipper details and silver glitter coated soles. The glitter on both the dress and the shoes shed as much as the hair. So gross. She also has a hot pink juice box with 'Galactic Punch Blueberry' on both sides.
The instructions say that she can wear the mech's hands as gloves - they come off the arms - but they don't stay on Infinity's hands :/
On the bright side, you can put the mech suit back in the plastic case and back in the arcade machine for display!
So this is everything that comes with Infinity and Starling, including the packaging and waste, which is minimal.
I'll only be throwing away the plastic casing that held the accessories to the screen print, and it's recyclable! PET 1. The mech-suit case is the same plastic, but I'll be keeping it to store the suit inside the arcade machine. Everything can fit back snugly where it came from like it was never opened. That's cool!
I like this toy. Minimal waste, more than one way to play with the doll, and the mech suit is so awesome. It displays well too, so after play, it can still look nice. I highly recommend this product, and assuming the boys play similarly, which I'm certain they do, I, by extension recommend them as well. Just note that the boys are indeed anatomically correct i.e. have male private parts. For me, this line is up there with the Hair Flip series.
It requires some patience and steady hands to do some of the unboxing as to not damage or break some parts, so I'd suggest it be played with those older than 8 years old. I personally think the recommended age of 36 month/3 years noted on the back of the box and in the instructions is far too low.
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Who's your fave Arcade Hero?
We rule the world, that's right, we're L.O.L. Surprise.
Don't take my words as an unbiased judge for this product. I'm very picky. Do some more research! Check out others reviews, check out their homepage below, or purchase one to discover it for yourself!
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