My first review with my first lightsaber, so please bear with me.
First a short story: Been a Star Wars fan since it existed. Renewed fandom with SWTOR and Clone Wars, especially since I could share it with my boys. Been in Martial Arts for years. And further got the bug to get a lightsaber when our school started using them (note - not a nice as US ones) in extra curricular activities. Like special seminars and demos and such using traditional Kabudo Karate and Kenpo into use with lightsabers. For example, in the big annual martial arts show this weekend, it opens with a group form done with lightsabers some of the students will be performing under low house lights. Then later same show the kendo demo substitutes lightsabers for kendo swords and the 2 students are doing a remix to the Ep5 Luke and Darth saber combat.
Then I found Ultrasabers. My goal, one I could combat with, also able to do some tricking with (Martial Arts combos of flips, jump kicks, etc), lastly make it Sith based for my persona.
So after watching, waiting, and hoping, my last obstacle, or so I thought, was convincing the wife. See my wife is a fan of Star Wars as well. She plays SWTOR with me and is even more involved than I got. When I showed her the hilts and the options, her remark was, I kid you not, "Now I need to pick a saber color I want". So in short I could buy one ..... as long as she got hers as well. She loved the Azure Reaper, but that will be a different review because it'll be turned into a Yari Spear to meet her needs.
So I was stuck between the Malice and the Reaper.
I went with for my first: Reaper with Sound [Blade LED Color:Blazing Red][Flash on Clash:SY (special request)][Battery Configuration:Li-Ion Setup with BuckPuck (Batteries & Universal Charger Included)][Recharge Port:No Recharge Port][Blade Option:Heavy Grade][Sound:Yes, Obsidian USB Sound!]
Hilt: Loved it when I first seen it, still loved it when I had it in hand. Black with engraved silver pattern, angled ends, and the claws look cool on it. For combat and costume, the claws are great accessories. But for having claws on it for my forms and tricking, not as good, bumped myself a couple times in practice and I don't want to hit one hard either. Plus lighter equals better there, even thought its not that heavy (more on weight later). Hilt length - For Martial Arts, just long enough for me to hold like a katana (basically about 1 hand space between the upper hand and lower hand grip). Now I do wear medium size gloves, so someone with bigger hands may not be able to. Not so long that you cannot one hand wield.
Color: Blazing Red and FoC SY. What a cool combo. Love the contrast on the FoC.
Blade: After hitting the forum and the tutorials, went with the Heavy grade standard with full contact combat use in mind. Since we have both an Ultra blade and a standard blade here it was easy to compare by putting her Ultra on mine just to see. I do believe the Red is truer in the standard blade over the Ultra. Length of 36" is fine for combat, but for tricking and stunts, I'm thinking of a custom 30" blade. Would make it work better in tighter spaces and shave more weight. I'd probably stay with the heavy grade because its more durable in oops situations where I may strike something (like the ground ... or myself).
Sound: Being my first I did not know what to expect. I really like the Obsidian sound. I downloaded the client same day the saber arrived, loved tweaking and customizing the sensitivity and sounds. Downloaded other sound files and mixed and matched. Tutorials and the built in help made it pretty easy to get the hang of.
Weight: In case your interested to know. As it came out of the box fully assembled and batteries in, 2# 1.2 oz according to the postal scale. Without the claws, 1# 14.7 oz. Now again does not sound significant but less weight = faster, and even though it may not seem like much, better muscle stamina for long stunts. Of course this probably applies to the Crimson Reaper as well. The Azure Reaper is the same too.
Cons: none with the saber. The effect on the family is the boys (9) want their own, and my oldest wouldn't mind either. We picked up some 24" blades so the younger can use ours for now. These 2 sabers blew the budget for now, so it was a compromise to get the extra blades to be able to share. hehe. We also got in a little trouble with some wives of the guys at Martial Arts as we showed the lightsabers off. It did not take much demo to prompt several to explore getting their own, or at least instilled the desire for one of their own.
So, that's about it.
"Thanks for talking the time to read"........ wait ... not very Sith-like. How about.... "Be honored that I took the time to write this."
That's better.
Looking forward to being part of the US community.
Chalous
