Okay gang, here is the long awaited review of my secret Wondercon purchase! As some of you guessed and the title claims, I bought the Arbiter.
Some of you might remember a thread I did in the fanart section some time ago with a series of Saber designs I had been playing around with. One of which I even went so far as to plan out in MHS parts. Well.... US done went and re-released the Arbiter, and when the video came out on youtube and the email announcement hit my inbox, of course like any of the rest of you I looked her over in detail. I shortly realized that the Arbiter matched about half of what I planned to build. I thought it over, and over, and over. I had wanted a gold blade anyways, and SY was rumored to fit the bill. I LOVE Obsidian and was ready and willing to put that in the custom, and I HAD to be able to fight with the thing. Turned out all I really had to sacrifice from my plans if I got the Arbiter was accent LEDs, which is no biggie considering Obsidian's combat durability is a MORE than adequate trade off.
Anyways, down to the actual review. I'll take a rare step to the dark side and torture you all with lots and lots of text before the actual video.
THE HILT:
The Arbiter itself is of course rated by the hilt, the design, the functionality, the appearance, and all that jazz. The Arbiter is 14 inches long, longer than any hilt I've ever seen or held with the exception of a full MR FX Maul Staff. It really feels like a small staff by itself, and that's not just the length, but the design itself. The hilt is designed to be largely a mirrored shape. The top half and bottom half look different, but feel and measure very similar. Even the weight of the two sections is similar in the hand. I find it wields equally well in a forward or reverse grip, and the feel stays the same either way which means you don't have to change your style much when you switch your grip, you just change which end you hit with. Your motions stay pretty much the same, Fluid with a capital f. lol That's more than I can say in that situation for any other hilt I own except MAYBE for a stock SI.
The Pommel is just the same as the one from the Archon, and that's fine with me. I like the look of it in solid silver more than I thought I would, it definitely looks better than the FX Luke pommel, and they are of similar styles. I make no secrets that this is my favorite pommel so far, it looks awesome and fits well with the styles of several OT and PT era sabers, and also has INCREDIBLE resonance.
The Main Body has some machined rings of varying sizes which make for a great grip. It's comfortable, and it looks nice. Much more detailed than the standard machined rings on hilts like the SI, or even the Bellicose I think. It's almost like having an after market grip already on there when you buy it!
The Grenade is just plain awesome, no two ways about it. It looks great, feels great, and works great. It gives you an incredibly stable and comfortable grip, and doesn't bite into the hand at all. No sharp edges anywhere. I should also tell you both main pieces of the hilt have a slimmer OD than I expected! They feel right in my hand, not oversized or thick at all. Just.... right. You all know the feeling.
The emitter is fantastic, great choke point, the flange looks amazing, and there are these little holes all around the blade socket that give it real detail I haven't seen on any other emitter. FX replicas included.
The one odd comment I have on the hilt is it's got some sort of odd fogginess to it, but you only notice if you look real close, and it doesn't bother me at all. It cleaned up some with a little pledge. No biggie at all. The length can be a little akward though, and does take some getting used to. At first, it feels like it should be 2 inches shorter, but once you get used to it, the hilt is perfect.
Overall rating? 8.5/10
THE BLADE:
This is my first Initiate Blade. I made sure to order it on this hilt because I've had this horrible problem for several months. It's been an unusually cold and rainy winter for Southern California, and I've been stuck indoors in a double wide. In otherwords, no room to train even when I felt like shaking the laziness. lol I'm happy to say the 24 inch blade works perfectly indoors, though I still occasionally whack this or that. I also very quickly found it to be a great con blade. I saw plenty of people walking around with full length blades, but I could still get away with spinning mine even in the crowds, and it was pretty easy to snake through tight groups with it too. As far as the brightness, I'm in love. Due to the short length and Mid Grade thickness, this thing is so evenly lit it's incredible. Put it next to a full length Heavy Grade and it's no contest. Even against a Green LED! The length also means it has less bend to it, which was pretty much the only qualm I had with my Mid Grades. I like a more rigid blade, and this is just about perfect for me. Just slightly more flexible than a Heavy.
Overall Rating? 10/10
MAIN LED COLOR:
Sentinel Yellow. This color is phenomenal, this and Sunrider's Destiny are my two favorites. SRD is great, but SY is a color by itself. It actually looks different from every angle, and not like the other colors just getting lighter or darker, it... shimmers in a way. And being yellow, it shifts through spectrums of gold, orange, yellow, a little green, more of a lemon yellow. It's just totally different from the standard colors! And of course, the reaction you get to having yellow on a saber in public is just like orange. People FREAK because they don't know you can actually DO that! Those reactions alone would probably make it worth it without the color's previously mentioned properties.
Overall Rating? 10/10
FLASH ON CLASH:
I never missed this feature when I didn't know about it, but when it came out I was a little bit bummed I missed it. Now having bought a saber with it, I LOVE it! It's like Obsidian isn't complete without this feature. It just adds that extra push to make things more real. When you watch the unmucked with version of the Original Trilogy, there's that yellow flash and flicker when the sabers hit or lockup. They spark and hiss. We had the noises for that before, but the visual effect really pushes things over the edge.
Now, this actually is one of the special points of the saber. I was just not able to choose between Fire Orange or Adegan Silver for my Flash, I talked with Deep and Ultra about it, and when it was all said and done Deep built her with Fire Orange Flash on Clash. We all agreed it was the right choice, it looks FANTASTIC. It's a little more subtle than doing total opposite colors, but the orange and yellow combo really recreates the movie effect perfectly both for the flash on clash, and for the lockup flicker. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't order another Obsidian without the feature. It just makes the saber one step more real.
Overall Rating? 10/10
OBSIDIAN:
Well, Obsidian is a soundboard that speaks for itself. It's customization abilities have been well reviewed and spoken for, and are amazing in their own rite. The board boasts fully customizable soundfonts for boot, ignition, hum, swing, clash, lockup, and power down. It also is incredibly durable and combat capable, I've seen several put through their paces in person and they simply aren't going to break in a fight. They are very well designed and an excellent combat board with a growing list of capabilities and features. Not to mention that unlike all those Hasbro and MR boards out there, you can set the swing and clash sensitivities to your own preferences. That means if you're doing a spinning show you can cut the clash down to nill, or if you're fighting like mad you can bring it way up. If you want to just pose for pics, you can kill them both, or only the swings, or whatever. I'd played with all of those features in the past, but what I had never done before was mess around with the volume control. I thought standard volume was plenty loud enough, but this sucker seems to be tuned up since it was built in a noisy convention hall. All I know is that to me, this baby is louder than my Bellicose with Obsidian in a side by side test, and I've had two Obsidians run with the same volume many times before so I know what it's supposed to sound like. lol And at the convention, you could run this and still hear it just fine over the roar of background noise from the exhibition hall with NO problems at all. Even passing the show at the Marvel booth I could hear my swings go off!
Overall Rating? 10/10
OTHER POINTS:
There are a couple of other things I'd like to mention about this order. The service was awesome, everyone was just totally ready to serve. They had no problem with all my last minute 'oh, and can I get this?' additions, and were ready to answer all my questions, and even helped me decide on options I was up in the air about when they had plenty of customers at the booth. They really take the time to try and help everybody and make sure the orders are correct. Also, when I came to pick it up Ultra took the time out to check it himself and see what I'd finally picked for the loadout. It's cool to see genuine interest from the company owner in his product and customer, and I appreciate that a lot as a customer. Particularly in a crowded and busy convention hall. I've worked big cons and know what it's like to be on the other side of the booth. That kind of customer service isn't always so easy to give at these kinds of events. Mad props to Ultra, Deep, and the whole staff for that one!
The only really odd thing is something I didn't notice till after I got the thing home. There's a sort of funny electronic smell vaguely akin to fingerpaints I would say that's just all over the hilt, and especially the battery pack/soundboard/speaker assembly. My more electronics experienced Dad noticed it and thought it was very odd, describing it as the smell of electronics when something is wrong, but decided given the time it had been running (and has continued to run) without incident it must be fine. I've concluded that it's nothing worth worrying about. This saber has now been through everything short of a serious duel and has no problems save the quirky smell, which is only there when you crack the thing open to get at the batteries, or else if you literally smash your nose against it, though it was a little worse before I cleaned the hilt. Either way, it doesn't seem to be anything more than a funny quirk, and I don't mind it.
Overall Rating of Service? 10/10
Overall Rating of Funny Smell? mildly fingerpainty and somewhat amusing
Now, I will grant you all the video you have been waiting for. This would have been up hours ago, but I was watching Dragonball Z Season 4 on DVD most of the time I was writing the review and it kept stealing my attention. You see... it's a long story, but I never saw the Garlic Jr. Saga before this. I enjoyed it, FTR, and have also been considering naming this saber Vegeta, or else something Saiyan related. lol Enjoy my long winded video friends! Bwahahahahaha!
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*your torture and my rare dark moment are now concluded, thanks for watching, and be sure to tune in next week for Captain Midnight*
