Our next review concerns the D.Va blaster! It’s slightly longer in proportion than the original, and the coloring is a bit off (due to being a toy blaster). Otherwise, though, it’s a fine Rival pistol that performs better than expected, and is a fine prop as well.

Nerf This

The D.Va Blaster comes equipped with a bunny charm, and holds three rounds of Rival ammo (made of green foam, no less). The blaster has a large, open handle that, at least in my hands, is comfortable to use. The plastic ridge at the front of the grip might become annoying over time, though. In any case, the plastic is thick and solid, like you’d expect from a Hasbro offering. The real safety switch is mounted on the left side of the blaster, a molded (fake) one is on the other side to match.

The D.Va blaster also has a “recoil” feature built in – the back part of the slide extends backwards and then retracts when the blaster is fired. This does require you to prime the blaster, however, so I would not recommend priming the blaster just to see the movement. Dry firing is bad, ok?

Within the Blaster

The D.Va blaster is, for all intents and purposes, a small Kronos – a Kronos that’s actually somewhat limited by the size constraints of the blaster. In a Kronos (or the Reaper blaster, for that matter), the internal magazine sits in front of the plunger tube, which moves backwards partway through the priming process. The forward return then pushes the ball into the barrel.

In the D.Va blaster, there’s not enough room for the usual setup of barrel-magazine-plunger tube, not without distorting the shape of the blaster. In this case, the plunger tube and magazine are all one piece, and the magazine rests under the (short) barrel. The entire assembly has to move back in order to load any balls. It’s an interesting solution for the size problem, but the setup does ultimately limit the power and capacity of the blaster (the movement of the magazine takes up space).

The recoil function of the blaster is contained within the back portion of the slide, and consists of a white plastic lever, hooked up to a small torsion spring. Interestingly, that white lever actually gets pressed down and out of the way slightly by the jam release button.

Not that, as with the Reaper blaster, using the reset button to re-open the breech may require you to give an extra tug – this helps move the plunger tube completely past the internal ratcheting mechanism so that you don’t have the same trouble as the guys in this video.

Performance

As with the Reaper, I was able to fire two balls per second – although considering the capacity of three balls, that’s not the most useful metric. In terms of power, balls averaged 86 feet per second in muzzle velocity – respectable numbers when the bax advertises 80 FPS.

Last Thoughts

The Nerf Rival Overwatch D.Va Blaster is a great blend of prop and working toy blaster. At $30 at Gamestop, it is twice the price of the Kronos, which has more capacity. But if you’re a fan of Overwatch and want a blaster that’s fairly accurate to the game, you probably won’t be disappointed.