Destroyer Droid (Battle Damaged) - EI - Basic

Unrelenting in their attack, destroyer droids bear down on the armies of Naboo, sustaining damaging hits yet still carrying out their mission.

After a stellar first release, and deciding to follow in the footsteps of repainting the Battle Droid figures, Hasbro quickly realized there was easy money in swift repainted and re-released action figures. Now, they didn’t follow in the exact same path for the Destroyer Droid (Battle Damaged) figure as it is an all-new sculpt, but the idea of bringing the same character into the basic figure line, but differently, was a keen way to help collectors army build. Such is true for the Destroyer Droid (Battle Damaged) figure. It’s hard to argue in a contrary manner that the first Destroyer Droid wasn’t an excellent action figure. Sure, it had a few issues here and there, but it is a very strong sculpt that will hold up through the years of advanced technology that is involved with toy making. For the new version of the Destroyer Droid, Hasbro added an action feature which is honestly something we don’t like seeing added to action figures. It does have a decent sculpt and the action features are well hidden. If you just want to display this figure on the shelf, it will do its job well. But if you’re looking for a plaything, well the figure might spontaneously combust in your ands because the action feature is a little too sensitive for our tastes.

At first glance, Destroyer Droid (Battle Damaged) looks nearly identical to the original Destroyer Droid. But a side by side comparison will reveal just how differently they look from each other. Their statures, their postures, their head sculpts, etcetera all are unique to one another. Really, the only thing making them looks so similar to one another are the paint operations – and even those are different. Hasbro gave the Destroyer Droid (Battle Damaged) figure a little more accenting however. And the accents are not only worked into the paint operations, but also the sculpt itself. Destroyer Droid (Battle Damaged) comes with craters and crevices and notches in its sculpt to recreate blaster and lightsaber damage. These three dimensional enhancements have then been painted with a beautiful metallic light blue paint that makes it look and feel as if the droid really sustained damage from multiple sources. We’re thoroughly impressed with how Hasbro worked this detail into this figure, but it makes us wish even more that they would have left out the action feature because it really interferes with our full appreciation of the figure. You might be able to overlook it, but we struggle to get past it.

The action feature is housed into the Destroyer Droid (Battle Damaged)’s back leg. When you push in this back leg its upper body “explodes” up and away from the lower section. For extra “battle damage” you can easily remove the droid’s head as well. Although for all intents and purposes this looks like a faithful recreation of a droideka, this version comes with less articulation than the original release. The lack of articulation benefits the action feature as there is no room for the lower legs to spread out when utilizing it. We imagine that kids will have fun blowing up these droids when they recreate scenes from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, but the novelty will wear off rather quickly for the adult collector. This version of the Destroyer Droid will definitely add some variety into your displays and dioramas, it’s just not an action figure that you’ll want to have as your “go-to” Destroyer Droid. Destroyer Droid (Battle Damaged) comes with a CommTech chip, and unlike the first release this one talks in human voices because the phrases are from the prospective victims of the Destroyer Droid (Battle Damaged) figure and their interactions with it. It’s silly, yes we know.