The Cal Kestis series is among my favorite Star Wars video games to date, and I am looking forward to the third installment whenever that may be.  In the meantime, I’m glad that Hasbro is taking an interest in providing some of the characters in TVC.  The only problem is that other than Cal Kestis himself, all the figures so far have been troopers.  As such, Hasbro was probably banking on collectors being able to acquire most of them and sprinkling them into their Imperial ranks across the OT time frame, even if they weren’t fans of the game.  But in order to really bring this to a proper level, we definitely need some of the main characters - both allies and enemies - like fellow Jedi, Inquisitors, and Cal’s crew.  Until then, the whole collection is going to fall a little flat.  And I wouldn’t be upset if we got the Stinger Mantis, but it might not be too practical for the 3.75” scale.

In any case, we have another trooper from the video game here.  This time we get the Jetpack Trooper.  This particular canon iteration has undergone a few cosmetic changes through its major appearances in Rebels, Battlefront, and Survivor.

The figure is a retool/repaint of the VC231 Stormtrooper.  To be more precise, it’s actually the VC263 Artillery Trooper (which has the modified backpack hole) with a new helmet.  The helmet has a ridge (painted yellow), similar to clone troopers, and a “chest box” that is attached to the helmet (not the chest) via a pair of hoses - like a TIE Pilot.  I’m not sure if I would prefer if this box was attached to the chest.  If you hold it in place, the head still maintains a decent range of motion despite the hoses.

The jetpack is unique to this figure, and fits nicely into the hole on the back of the trooper.  The only other notable difference is the left shoulder armor is painted gray, and has the Imperial Cog emblem on it.  I believe there were different colors in other appearances, but it was gray in Survivor.

It’s a cool looking figure, and I picked up a few.  I decided to upgrade my display options by picking up a few adjustable, clear “flight” stands, and I look forward to using these around my collection for the various flying characters.

Overall, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this guy - except we collectors are starting to get antsy with this stormtrooper mold that is still using the older hip articulation.  I’ll still give it the same 9 that we gave VC231, but not the 10 that we gave the artillery trooper, which excelled due to the striking paint apps and the awesome accessory packout.