This will be a first for me.  In most cases we review items as collectibles, at least partially.  For my first time here at Bantha Skull I will be reviewing an item as a toy.  There is no short term collectibility for the Force Link Starter Set (even though it comes packed with a figure).  There could be long term collectibility if it becomes a game changing hall-of-fame toy, but that’s a discussion for much further down the road and by a generation that currently counts their age in single digits.  Therefore, we will undoubtedly be judging this as a toy.  After this I will be writing my Yelp review for Chuck E Cheese’s. 

Let’s address the elephant in the room right away.  On no level is the Force Link designed for adult anatomy.  Additionally, even when I’m not well insulated by a layer of “happy fat”, I’m a large individual, so double that previous statement.  The strap barely fits around my wrist.  In fact it was stretched to such an extreme that the velcro popped free several times.  Also, do you know that bone that sticks out on your wrist?  It’s called the head of the ulna if google has served me well.  After about five minutes of use, that would become irritated.  Again, this is no fault of the toy, which does have legitimate faults to be discussed below.  Never was someone of my size considered in the design of this toy.  Complaining about that would be like Peter complaining that wearing Stewie’s onesie is too tight.

In what has to be a cost saving measure, the device contains no switches or buttons.  The incremental cost of such things adds up quickly.  The device is motion activated.  It turns on by tapping the body of the Force Link and it powers off after five minutes of inactivity, so battery life may be a concern.  An RF chip in the figure transmits a signal to an internal antenna in the device.  The audio quality isn’t exactly hi-fidelity, but any concerns that it bears any resemblance to 1999’s COMMTech reader should be put out of mind immediately.  The sound files are provided by LFL.  The dialog is perfectly clear and the actor’s voices are readily recognizable.  There is a hint of tininess probably resulting from the small speaker.  No child will pay notice to this at all.

After playing the initial phrase from the figure, you have to continue tapping the device to advance through the lines.  Sometimes advancing all the way through the lines of dialog fails and the loop starts over.  This can be frustrating when trying to cycle through all the phrases.  I highly suspect this is due to the figure moving in my hand and the RF signal is no longer readable.  The relative thickness of my adult hand probably plays into this as well.  Actions sounds are revealed by moving the figure forward or side to side.  This is probably some of the best play value for kids.  Activating the action sound by moving forward works, but not consistently in my experience.  Moving side to side rarely works for me. 

I don’t like the “tapping to activate” aspect of this at all.  A button would have been a godsend.  A spring loaded button offers physical feedback to the user.  Tapping the hard plastic body offers no such response, so when it fails to operate, it’s difficult to diagnose why.  And given my troglodytic tendances, this results in me tapping harder and further irritating the head of my ulna.  Even more frustrating is that I’ve had my device get stuck on alternating between two phrases which adds a layer of repetition annoyance.  Again, I have to consider my adult anatomy as a complicating factor here, but this is perhaps the most irritating issue I experienced. 

If the costing on this was so tight that physical buttons had to be abandoned. it tells me that it might be being sold at cost or even a slight loss similar to video game consoles, and it’s viewed as a way to move figures.  If that is the thinking, I think they might be right.  I bought this for one reason:  It looked fun.  And it is fun for me, but only in short bursts due to the comfort issues detailed above.  But the play value expands with the more compatible figures and vehicles you own.  I have to think this will be a synergistic release that moves more product.  If I were a kid and only owned two figures, I’d probably play with this as long as I played with Laser Tag back in the day (which is to say five minutes).  But the bigger the collection the bigger the play value.  One encourages purchase of the other and vice versa.  Then when you look at something like TIE Silencer where it plays constant engine sound effects, it starts to become a must have.

For me personally, this is where the synergy comes into effect.  I bought the Force Link because I wanted to try it with the figures I already own.  Now that I own the Force Link, I’m more inclined to purchase that vehicle because I want to try the features.  Hasbro can manipulate me all too easily.  Also think about the basic cleverness involved here for adding electronic sounds to vehicles.  In the past, every single vehicle with electronic sound effects would have its own speaker.  The consumer incurs the cost of that speaker with each purchase.  Here the consumer has to only buy that speaker once, and it adds play value to every single vehicle with the chip.  Furthermore, if the consumer doesn’t care about electronic sound effects, they don’t have to opt in at all and can save the cost.  I think this is some pretty sound “outside the box” thinking on Hasbro’s part. 

I should mention the figure a bit (even though most have quit reading by now).  The starter set includes the only masked Kylo Ren figure released for The Last Jedi to date.  The figure is 5POA, so it’s primary job is to stand assuredly and look good while doing so.  It does.  With the wide stance and prodigious clodhoppers, it stands securely.  Due to the nature of the costume, it has only two sets of paint applications for the mask and the belt buckle, but they are cleanly applied.  I really do want to call our readers’ attention to the paint applications on the mask.  That is an intricate pattern, but it is applied cleanly and crisply.  That should give collectors optimism about the quality we can hope to expect in the Vintage Collection.  The figure succeeds at its job, but again, 5POA is what it is.  One neat attention to detail is that all of the lines of dialog are obviously while Kylo Ren is wearing the helmet. 

Because of the issues I described above with the lack of buttons and the frustrating frequency of intermittent functionality issues, I’m bouncing between a score of 5 and 6.  I’m going to assume that some of the issues are due to inability of the RF to transmit through my adult sized hands, so I’ll give Hasbro the benefit of the doubt with a 6.  The technology is absolutely neat, but it’s not fully there yet. I hope Hasbro continues to refine it especially the usability aspects. One physical button to both activate and advance through the sounds would greatly increase the user experience.  Also, ensuring that the chip consistently increments through the phrases would be helpful, but I realize the amount of persistent memory to do that (for every possible figure) might be unrealistic. 

I really want to see this concept evolve and continue from Hasbro especially because it’s a practical way to add sound effects to vehicles. I hope Hasbro continues to refine the implementation.