General Information
Release Date: July 1997
Price Point: $40 USD
Retailer: Botcon 1997 Exclusive
Accessories: Blaster (Fractyl), Blaster (Packrat)
Fractyl is one of the Botcon 1997 exclusive toys (Packrat being the other). Fractyl is a repaint of the Terrorsaur toy (bringing the total of 3 to separate characters using the Terrorsaur mold). The main mold change is in the back behind the head where the gun is stored. Whereas Terrorsaur had notches to help keep the gun inside, this toy does not. The color scheme of Fractyl is off white, gold and dark green. Of all the "Terrorsaur mold" toys, this one (in my opinion) has the most "natural" looking color scheme, mostly due to the green which takes up most of the toy. This is a very nice item to have for it's "exclusive" value as a collector's item.
Packrat is one of the Botcon 1997 exclusive toys. Packrat was packaged together in a two pack with Fractyl. Packrat is a repainted Rattrap toy. His colors are metallic blue, off white and gold. In beast mode, the painters took care to paint eyeballs into Packrat's "rat eyes" making him look a bit more realistic. In robot mode, the gold accents add a lot to the toy, making him look a bit robotic despite all the rat bits on his body. The original plan was to actually have vacume metallized parts on these toys, but cost limitations prevented that. In general, the legs are sturdy enough to stand the figure, but with so much on the back of the toy, it sometimes falls back because of the sheer weight it has to support.
This is a nice find if you are a true collector or if you're a repaint buff and just can't find Rattrap. Be warned however, the Fractyl/Packrat two pack was limited to 600 pieces, most of which are currently in collector hands. This set will not come cheap and the two are rarely separated to be sold separately. B
Updated Thoughts (February 14, 2022):
As you can see from the brief blurbs above, I never really went into detailed reviews of these two figures. After handling the figures again for the first time in years, I found myself getting very nostalgic. I still remember the reveal of these figures at Botcon 1997 and how taken aback fans were by such a gorgeous set. Previous exclusives had not been in packaging that looked like something you would find at retail (or as close to it as you could get at the time). Everything about this set is outstanding for the time. The graphics on the box pay loving homage to G1 and Beast Wars at the same time. The artwork by Andrew Wildman is spectacular and having the windows in the box to see the figures was even more incredible for the time.
The figures themselves are both beautiful and hold up very well. I enjoy both base-sculpts to begin with, but these metallic flake colors are gorgeous (though I admit I lean towards Packrat's colors versus Fractyl's). Years after the fact, I am actually glad these figures were not vacuum metallized as that process looked great at the time but proved to be bad years later as metallic bits flaked off of many Transmetal figures.
The original comment about this set being extremely limited made me curious about how available it is nowadays. As of this writing, one ebay seller has one for $1383 USD! Given the limited nature of the set and its age I can totally understand the collector's pricing but that makes this a truly premium item nowadays.
To this day this set remains one of my most treasured pieces not just because of the cool box, comic book and beautiful toys. It is also because of the nostalgia and fond memories associated with Botcon 1997 which was my first Botcon.
