Novi Stars - Nita Light Energy Pod playset

Oh Novi Stars...

It's been a while since they went on "hiatus" or whatever, but stock still clings on in stores at clearance prices. Sadly not super clearance enough for me most of the time, that is, until tru decided to mark Nita Light and her ridiculous giant pod of whatever down to £10.

I'd always kinda wanted Nita, she's a cute little doll but £30 for a doll with a playset I didn't really think i'd use was just a bit excessive.

But £10? Heck yes, that's what they've marked down most of the regular Novis too anyway.

This box.. is freaking MASSIVE. Seriously, you have no idea how ridiculous teeny ol' me looked carrying it around the place.

So, we have Nita right there, proudly declaring she can glow in the dark.
Artwork wise, girl seems to have spilled her drink man.

See that TEEENY tiny text next to the big pink planet saying "fits any novi stars doll"? Yeah, that's the contents list. It's stupid small, really too small to be noticed I think. It should be a little more prominent, you'll understand why i'm bringing this up soon enough.

So the back of the box has a photograph. Poor Nita looks a bit no necked in this photo.

Her age is in light years, which triggered a long angry rant from my husband. I admit it, I mostly just smiled and nodded hah.

She doesn't understand beds.

I do however think her "want to learn" is kinda cute. She can't keep a secret and claims her friends can "see right through her" which makes me smile. She has a clear body you see.. get it? *headdesk* Yes, terrible jokes...

Here she is out of the box. The pod itself is rather large, but thankfully not too heavy.

She's adorable! She's got bright purple hair, blue sparkling eyes with uh.. aliens? in them?? I'm not sure what that is, it looks like a space invader.

The pod itself turned out to be an intelligence test. I think I failed. Initially I thought it was hinged maybe, or that the buttons on the sides did something but as it turned out, the entire front just popped off when I pressed it in slightly. I'm not actually sure how I managed to NOT open this for a while, I think I was over thinking it. Doh.

Inside the little baggy came this stuff. It all clips into the pod.

the two hair elastics are a bit random.

I kinda dig the alien writing lol. though it does raise the question, why the hell is the title of the magazine and the blurb in english when the articles are apparently written in alienese?

The magazine has the same image printed on both sides, it's just a plastic tablet.

Getting Nita out of her box wasn't too difficult, least not by the standards i've come to expect from MGA. She had some elastic around her arms and legs, a bit around her waist and then two of those stupid long plastic tabs stitched into her hair. THOSE were the problem, but they're always a problem no matter what doll. I loathe them. It frizzed her hair up a bit removing them, but not too badly.

Interestingly, she doesn't come with a brush.

her little headphones just sit on her head, a little precariously but they seem to stay on if you get them in the right position.
They're very cute headphones, they even have little speaker details on the inner which is a nice detail.
They're a bit too huge to be worn around her neck though.

She has a hole in one hand, presumably for a ring... yet comes with no ring... huh... random. At first i'd kinda thought maybe the drink she came with had a peg that would go in the hole so she could hold it.. but nope... just a random hole in her hand. Presumably other dolls with this body had rings or something. Still, missed chance there MGA.

Nita's antennae are little uh.. lightening bolts? Something like that. Which seems appropriate with her "energy" theme.
She has a very understated faceup, a soft pink and purple eyeshadow and plain pink lips. It works nice against her white skin, particularly with the soft pink blush.

Her hair is cut to a kinda odd length, it's a bit asymetrical and it's cheap nylon, but it's a fabulous colour.

She has little peep toe boots, they're black with embedded silver sparkles.

Nita's overalls are silver with black stripes, little flared cap sleeves, a silver waistband and unexpectedly... ACTUAL POCKETS! Proper, deep, working pockets omg. These are rare enough in real women's clothing, let alone doll clothing. I'm ridiculously outrageously happy about pockets here (wow.. that's kinda sad thinking about it isn't it?)

Her outfit is simple but I actually kinda dig it. It feels like she should have a spanner in one hand and be fixing that pod, not sleeping in it.

Nita has a completely static body. Her arms move/fall off sure, but her legs are locked in place. It makes dressing her an absolute nightmare. Her pants get caught on the widest point of her posed legs and it takes a bit of force to wrench em off and get em on again.

I find it odd that the whole reasoning behind the removable arms, as cited in the instructions that came with Nita, are to "ease dressing", yet they made the rest of the body so awkwardly shaped that redressing is a moot point anyway.

 

Here's the pod all assembled. And you may notice there's something missing here. Yes, Nita doesn't actually come with a pet. Despite her pod having space and a little stand for a pet, Nita hasn't got a pet. So... why the hell does the pod have a stand for one? Why is the picture on the front featuring a pet spinning? Why why why?
It isn't listed on the front of the box in that teeeeeny writing, but I seriously doubt any child or indeed parent will check that contents very carefully. Both the front and rear image of the doll feature a pet, the same pet at that (who's pet is that?) which just feels frightfully deceptive. I'd have thought trading standards would insist they put in big bold letters "does not include pet" on the box, but nope... a teeny almost unnoticable list of contents set waaay to the side and overshadowed by much larger bolder graphics that distract the eye, that's enough to get MGA out of trouble for false advertising here.
I think that's really quite dodgy.
Sadly MGA pull this crap a lot with their "stock photos" showing details that are never produced, like articulation or accessories. I wish they'd stop doing it because it must be so disappointing to kids.

Furthermore, it would seem only the first wave novis can fit the pod. I looked, my curl and coil novi pet doesn't have any sort of hole to slot the stand piece into, so can't be put in the pod.

And the curl and coil doll is way too tall.

"Cole", my gender reassigned Ina Ferna is also too tall thanks to his fire hair. Drat.

Let's pop some batteries in this sucker and see what it does then.

it takes 3 regular AA batteries, which aren't included because MGA are cheapskates. Bah. I always like it when an electronic toy comes with a little pack of batteries, it's not hugely common though sadly. But it's always a nice little touch.

Anyway,

Batteries in, here we go!

The first thing that strikes me upon turning this thing on is the god awful racket it makes. Holy crap it's noisy. It's a grinding, whirring drilling noise from the motor that makes this toy utterly useless as the "night light" it's supposedly meant to be. How can Nita sleep in there with all that noise? It's like having a construction crew in the next room!

Whiiir whiiiir whiiiir it goes, and up and down Nita gently bobs while the lights around her cycle through colours. Blue, purple, green, red, yellow... and so on.

the colour change effect is actually quite nice, if this thing didn't make so much noise it'd be a cool effect of her bobbing up and down.

I am however disappointed she cannot be put upside down into the clip and float upside down as well. The clip is fixed in place and the position it holds her in means her legs are too long to go upside down. Boo.
She also keeps whapping her head on the lamp above her head as she floats... oops?

Maybe a concussion helps her creative process.

Sadly I haven't got any of the first wave pets anywhere easily accessible to test out the spinning, but the peg does rotate slowly and steadily. I kinda wish Nita also rotated in a slow steady manner instead of bopping up and down and whacking her head on the ceiling but there ya go.

"Keep it down in there!"

It does make for some fun photos though.

Now of course my biggest problem is.. where the hell do I store this pod?

I can fit two dolls into it, it's a bit um.. cozy though. (you can see in this photo the scratch across the cover of the pod, I dunno how that happened, I think it was there when I opened the box honestly.

Yes, I just sorta shoved it on a shelf lol. You can see it's a bit bulky, not exactly easy to display. I think if it didn't make so much bloody noise, it'd make a really cute little lamp/night light on a side table but alas, there's no way anyone but the dead could sleep through the racket this thing grinds out. Wowza.

So sadly, because she has the pod, Nita doesn't come with a stand of any sort. Soooo she can't stand up without falling flat on her face, her back, her side...

Overall, i'm not displeased for the £10 I paid. I got a doll who's rather cute (and apparently glows but yeah... ) some awesome headphones, a drink bottle, a magazine prop and a big chunk of noisy plastic that lights up. The pod itself... really I could leave but Nita is a really cute doll. I do like her very much.
She's I think, one of the most solidly designed of the original Novis. Her outfit is well made and adorable, I love her hair colour and the white of her face is striking. Her gimmick is that her head glows, which is fine and dandy. Certainly it works better than Ina's fire hair lighting up (you press an antennae and HOLD it down, as soon as you let go the light goes off. What's the point?) or the wierd gloop inside a few of the first wave ones that made me worried about seepage over time.

I do wish Nita had a body with actual hip joints, being able to sit down would be great for a doll who hasn't got any ability to stand on her own two teeny feet. But it'd also mean she could actually be redressed without worrying about ripping her clothes stretching them over her legs.
Like all Novis, she suffers loose arms that like to fall off if you breathe on them or even look at them funny.
I do wish they clipped in a little more solidly.

But I like her overall look, so for what I paid, i'm not really about to grumble too loudly.
I think had I paid full rrp, i'd be annoyed.
She has no pet despite the image on the front of the box, she comes with very little in the way of accessories (none of the novis come with much though) and the pod is a noisy cumbersome item that can't even fulfil it's primary function, being a damn night light!
The cycling lights are nice, but the noise really distracts from the effect. It's annoying, it's loud, it's obnoxious. I'll take Mae and her inane valley girl babbling over the sound this pod makes any day.

At the end of the day, Novi stars aren't really doll as i'd imagine them. They're more like gimmicky little figurines you're supposed to display and not really play with. they're too fragile to withstand much, their arms, antennae etc are very easily broken or lost. But as a little figurine, they're stinking adorable and Nita is no exception.

The pod however, really doesn't deliver. Yeah the lights are pretty, but it's really cramped inside despite being a fairly chunky thing, it makes a terrible noise and the front panel feels pretty flimsy. I have no bloody clue WHY there's two holes in the base of the "room" either, that makes no sense and the limited positioning of the doll inside is a real shame (come on, she totally should be able to go in upside down! that's a cliche of zero gravity!)
There's nowhere to put the drink or the magazine, they just have to lie on the floor and when the pod is activated, poor Nita whacks her head against the ceiling lamp repeatedly.
I can't see it being something that gets played with much by a child, there's really limited playability here. It barely works as a room, it doesn't work at all as a light so what are you meant to do with it? 

It could definitely have been a lot better, and it's not worth the extra money that was originally charged for it.

So the Energy Pod playset? I give it a rather mediocre 5 head contusions out of 10.

At full price, this set is massively underwhelming, i'd even go so far as to say a rip off. But at a bargain basement £10, I don't regret my purchase. If only for the doll with her super cute overalls, and they are SUPER cute.