Pokémon Asia McDonald's Happy Meal Toys, Waves 3 and 4

As promised in my post for the Wave 1 and 2 toys, I'd cover the Wave 3 and 4 toys in another post, and the time for that is now. I have just obtained all four of the toys and tried them out, so it's time to discuss about them. Moreover, I sense that it may be hard to do this if I wait a few days, and based on that, it's important to do it while things are still fresh. Also, Wave 4 is indeed the final wave, as I'm told a different set of toys will replace this one soon - by the end of this week, in fact. Fortunately, everything's already in place.

First up are the Wave 3 toys. Wave 3 could be considered to be really a "wave", as it features a duo of Pokémon closely associated with water; the two are Psyduck and Totodile. Both are spring-loaded toys. For Psyduck, turning its tail makes its arms move to and from its head, emulating its "headache" expression, which is neat. For Totodile, pressing the middle set of three spikes allows the mouth to close, producing a distinct "snap". Actually, for the latter, the "snap" is a bit terrifying, but because there can't be sharp edges on these toys, it should be fine; it does allow the mouth to latch onto fairly small objects like sheets of paper (something I tested), so that becomes something to consider.

Next up are the Wave 4 toys. The two Pokémon featured are Torchic and Meowth, which are Pokémon known to be quirky in their own ways. The Torchic toy is mechanical, as it is a "bobblehead" style toy. The only thing that makes it different from a true bobblehead is that the entirety of Torchic's body above the feet moves, not just the head. The Meowth toy is hand-manipulated; its tail and both of its arms can be rotated to assume different positions, which makes it the only one aside from Vulpix in Wave 2 that has the ability to do so, though unlike Vulpix, the movement of each part is independent of each other. It's still pretty neat to be able to do so.

With that, I've obtained all eight of the toys, or in other words a complete set of them. It also helps that I got them in a timely manner, thanks to the information I received.

Overall, I'm impressed with the selection and quality of this set of toys. Regarding the latter, none of them involve any electronics, and they are all purely mechanical. Also, none of them need to be assembled (a hard proposition with the nature of these toys), which is a good thing. These are the exact concerns which I addressed in my general post about these kinds of toys. The featured Pokémon are pretty good too - despite the tendency toward water-related species - and even includes a Shiny form, which could help in popularizing this kind of form.

I say, it was worth waiting a few years to finally be able to obtain Pokémon promotional toys like these again, and this set is quite rewarding; it is easily one of the best. It looks like I'm due for a lot of fun with all the toys of this set.

One year ago: Balanced Systems Stimulate Civilization