The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[JB0]

3 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

What bothers me is that they made a CGI model for a robot that looks an awful lot like Jazz that turns into a car that looks an awful lot like Jazz then named him after a prominent Season 1 Autobot that is NOT Jazz.😒

And we can never forgive Bay for turning Jazz into "that guy that said two sentences and then got murdered by Megatron".

...

Then bringing Megatron back from the dead multiple times and leaving Jazz to rust.

 

[mikeszekely]

Some more 2024 leaks, this time Studio Series.  This isn't from my usual source, but another one who's proved reliable in the past... but I have questions.

The list looks like this:

TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES CORE MV5 MOHAWK
TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES CORE MV6 RUMBLE
TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES CORE MV6 STARSCREAM
TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES DLX TF7 SCORPINOCK
TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES DLX MV6 SUNSTREAKE
TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES DLX WFC SIDESWIPE
TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES VOY WFC STARSCREAM
TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES VOY 86 SCRAPHEAP
TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES VOY MV6 SHOCKWAVE
TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES LDR MV6 MEGATRON
TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES LDR AST TF86 SWOOP

OK, well, we knew Swoop was coming, we were just waiting to here when (I really wish Hasbro would stop screwing around and release more than one Dinobot a year).  And some of these make sense.  A core-class Mohawk?  Sure, Hasbro loves doing motorcycles lately.  I've been hearing rumblings that War For Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron (the games) were joining Studio Series, so Starscream and Sideswipe are reasonable picks.  86 Scrapheap?  That'd be another Wreck-Gar retool, the Junkion with the red head and yellow torso.  TF7 is Rise of the Beasts, is Scorponok going to be in that one and we just haven't heard about it yet?

Now here's where I start having questions.  MV6 is Bumblebee.  Rumble wasn't in Bumblebee.  Megatron wasn't in Bumblebee.  Sunstreaker wasn't in Bumblebee.  Someone suggested that it's a misprint, that they're probably 86s (which would make Rumble a package refresh).  Sunstreaker was briefly in 86, flying Optimus' shuttle.  If true, curious to see what they'd do that they didn't with the Earthrise figure.  And while fans have suggested that they'd love a Studio Series Megatron that's a better toy than the Siege-retooled Earthrise figure, it's pretty much a fact that he can't have his G1 alt mode.  Do I really want another G1-ish Megatron compromised by a tank alt mode?

Also, if those guys are typos, what about the other two Bumblebee figures on the list?  Are they supposed to be typos, too?  Given that we already have a Core-class G1 Starscream from the Kingdom it seems unlikely that another Core-class release would get the budget to make any significant changes, so a Core-class Bumblebee Starscream seems more likely to me.  Likewise, while I think Hasbro could make a more accurate 86 Shockwave than Siege, fans have wanted a Voyager-class Bumblebee Shockwave since they released the Core-class version.  But if those listings are correct, then it calls the notion that the others aren't into question.  I mean, we know Megatron at least had concept art for Bumblebee.  And we do have a Soundwave and Ravage from Bumblebee.  Is there some concept art for Rumble and Sunstreaker in Bumblebee out there?

[mikeszekely]

Well, Arcee wasn't the only Rise of the Beasts figure Amazon sent already.  I also have Voyager-class Cheetor.

Cheetor, as a Voyager-class, seems weird.  In G1 the Maximals are supposed to be smaller than the Autobots already, and Cheetor was one of the smaller Maximals.  Even in Kingdom Cheetor was pretty much in-line with the Deluxe cars, but this Cheetor is slightly taller than Kingdom Tigatron.  I'll be curious to see if he's a bigger guy in the movie, or if this is entirely about getting a giant robo-cheetah to run alongside a certain offroad Camaro to recreate that scene from that trailer.

Is it film-accurate?  I honestly don't know, I don't think I've seen the CGI for the robot mode yet.  The coppery color does seem to match the CGI of the alt mode, I suppose.  I'm not really sure how I feel about it, otherwise.  There's elements of his chest that look like the eyes and the top of a a cheetah head kind of flattened out, and he's got the suggestion of ear points and a head crest.  Oh, and he's got spots!  But nothing else really screaming "this is Cheetor!"

Indeed, while he's got a butt flap and a tail along his spine, he's devoid of the wings and legs dangling off his back that I associate with Cheetor.  All-in-all, I'd say the design is ok.  Better than the Bayverse stuff, but kind of generic compared to Beast Wars.

Note that I'm not sure how his shoulders are supposed to look in the movie, but the shoulder armor his hinged and can move out to the sides.  I rather like that look.

Cheetor comes with this two little spears.  No gut guns or tail whips or anything like that.

Cheetor's head is on a ball joint with some fairly adequate up/down/sideways tilt.  His shoulders swivel, and he's got two joints for lateral movement.  The one is really a for transformation, and it's on the wrong side of the swivel.  It'll go about 45 degrees before his shoulders bang into his head.  The other is on the correct side of the swivel, and it'll go a little under 90 degrees.  You can combine them to go past 90.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees.  His wrists swivel.  He does actually have a waist swivel, it's just a little lower than you'd first expect and his butt flap can get in the way.  His hips go 90 degrees forward and laterally, and about 60 degrees backward (if you move the butt flap).  His thighs swivel just above the knees, which bend 90 degrees.  His toes can tilt up due to transformation, but nothing down.  His ankles pivot about 90 degrees, both in and out.

The two smaller spears are meant to combine into a larger spear.  You slide the end the three spikes into the top of his hand, then plug the other end into the first under his hand.

That being said, both ends have enough of a 5mm port that he can hold them as two weapons.  Or if you'd rather store them, they have tabs on them that fit into slots on his back.

Despite his larger class, Cheetor's transformation isn't particularly complicated.  Both his back and his chest open- opening his chest allows you to fold in his robot head, opening his back allows you to fold out the cheetah head.  And the rest of the transformation is pretty much just arranging his robot limbs to be cat limbs.  For the front legs that's pretty uninteresting.  His shoulders lock onto the cat's neck, then you turn the bicep and the wrist so elbows bend the right way and the claws are pointed forward.  Transforming his rear legs is a bit more interesting and works really well.  It's not exactly novel, as it's extremely similar to Titans Return Weirdwolf in that you shift his shins up to unlock a mid-thigh digitigrade bend.  The main difference is that you rotate his thigh 180 degrees first, so that his shin tabs into the back of his robot thigh and the digitigrade bend goes the other way.

As near as I can tell, Cheetor looks decently accurate to the CGI of him running with Bumblebee.  I mean, he's missing some of that gunmetal paint on some of his mechanical details, sure, and some panel lining would have helped, too, but it's a overall a very good catlike shape.  There's some molded fur where the CGI model has some, but it's the same color as the rest of him and molded so lightly I didn't even realize it was fur until I looked at the CGI.  Really, my biggest aesthetic complaint is the visible robot hands on the backs of his front paws.

Well, my actual biggest complaint with his alt mode is actually articulation, which is kind of limited.  His cat head is on a ball joint, but there isn't clearance for more than the slightest wiggle left/right/up/down.  He can swivel his head on the joint, but that just tilts his head like he's confused.  His jaw opens.  His shoulders are actually locked to his cat neck, so he's got no shoulder rotation or lateral movement.  His front legs are limited to a bicep swivel, 90 degrees of elbow bend, wrist swivels, and a little bit of up/down paw tilt.  His butt plate locks his waist swivel in cat mode.  His rear legs do a bit better.  His hips don't have the clearance to move too much forward or backward, but he retains the lateral spread.  His thigh swivel is locked in this mode, but his knees can still bend and now he's also got the digitigrade joint  His feet have a little up/down tilt, but they still retail the entire pivot range.  His tail is hinged so it can move up/down at the base, but it has no additional articulation.

As with robot mode, the spear can be stored on his cat mode by splitting it into two parts and tabbing them into slots on his back.

Fortunately, Cheetor makes a much better impression than Arcee (but at triple the price it better!).  His robot mode articulation is good, and although I wish his cat mode had better articulation it looks pretty good.  Speaking of looks, my complaints with his robot mode are likely more complaints with his design in the film than with the figure itself.  The most I can really say is that it probably could have used a bit more paint and some panel lining.  All-in-all, he's a decent figure that's worth checking out if you're curious about the new movie toys.

[mikeszekely]

On 2/12/2023 at 8:28 PM, mikeszekely said:

Heck, I'm even thinking about tracking down the other six Go! Autobots to complete the experience.

Well, to get the full Optimus Exprime experience I should at least get the two guys that combine with him, right?  So, this would be Transformers Go! G01 Kenzan, the leader of the Samurai Swordbot team.

Right out of the gate, Kenzan is giving me vibes that remind me of those large, chunky, cheap and simple Chinese toys you might see in the pharmacy toy aisle.  Like M.A.R.S Converters or something similar.  To be totally fair, I did consider that this figure is actually about a decade old now.  Maybe I'm just spoiled by the post-Siege engineering in modern Transformers.  So I decided to compare him with Beast Hunters Smokescreen, who in Japan was ostensibly part of the same Transformers Go! line.  And, well, Smokescreen is certainly no modern figure.  He's a tad fiddly, he's backing a lot of kibble on his arms, legs, and feet, and he's lacking some of the modern standards for articulation, but he's also better-proportioned and quite a bit more complex despite his smaller side and, I assume, lower price point.

I mean, I've actually seen some of the Transformers Go! cartoon now (you can find it on Youtube).  And in some ways Kenzan is very faithful the cartoon, because the cartoon had no qualms about copying kibble like the sides of his shins, the backs of his hands, the backs of his shoulders, and his massive kneepads.  But the cartoon at least presents Kenzan as having normal, heroic proportions.  That's definitely not the case with the toy.  His head is comically small.  He has no pelvis at all, and even the lower part of his torso is more implied by the kusuzuri-style flap between his legs.  You're supposed to think of Kenzan's legs beginning with the white part, but the blue parts above it are actually attached to the bottom of his chest with a gap between them.  I think it might have helped if there was something, anything there for the uppermost blue parts to plug into for this mode, to really drive home the idea that what very much seems to be his hips are actually supposed to be part of his torso.

He's also got a massive backpack, because he also has lights and sounds that I'm not digging up batteries for.  Despite his glaring flaws, there's some cool stuff going on here.  I like how his body is molded to look like he's wearing samurai armor.  Indeed, if you look at the back of his head he's even got a little topknot.

Much like Exprime, Kenzan has two unpainted swords made of a rubbery plastic, and just a single kabuto.  I dig the molded symbols on it- it's like the Autobot insignia wearing a kabuto of its own.

Kenzan's head is on a ball joint with the requisite swivel and a small amount of up/down/sideways tilt.  His shoulders swivel, and the shoulder itself can move laterally inside the blue shoulder armor a little over 90 degrees.  The entire thing can also move about 90 degrees for transformation.  No dedicated bicep swivel, but his elbow is a ball joint that swivels and gets 90 degrees of bend.  No wrist articulation.  He also doesn't have a waist swivel... or really a waist.  And this is where things get a bit awkward.  His thighs swivel where they connect to the bottom of his chest.  If everything is turned correctly, his hips can go 90 degrees forward and backward on ratchets by moving the white part of his thigh around the blue part.  To get lateral movement, though, you have to use the joint above this thighs.  They're ratcheted and get 90 degrees.  There's another thigh swivel at the base of the white part, then his ratcheted knees bend a little over 90 degrees.  His feet lack any articulation.

Kenzan can dual-wield his swords by sliding one into each fist.  His kabuto can use slots on one side to grab onto tabs on the sides of his backpack, becoming a sort of over-the-shoulders gun.  Alternatively, you can use a peg to have him hold the kabuto as a very awkward-looking gun, and the swords have slots on the sides that can attach to the tabs on his backpack.  Because they use the same tabs, he can't store all his accessories on his back at the same time.

Kenzan's transformation is super simple.  His head folds into his chest (don't forget to fold his topknot down), and his arms curl up.  Then his backpack folds up over his head, with his arms folding up to meet it.  His feet fold up, making most of the sides of the car.  Fold his kusazuri up, turn his shins inward, open his calves, then bend his knees so that his legs come together to form the font of the car.  He's a pretty huge car!

He's also a chunky, totally fictional car with simple painted spots for lights and minimal details, further reinforcing that Chinese drug store transforming toy vibe.  He does have some translucent plastic for his windshield and lightbar.  His rear is dominated by his battery compartment.

Kenzan's kabuto can be carried in this mode by plugging the 5mm peg on it into a port on top of his backpack (weirdly, there are several other ports on him).  As for his swords, they store under the car by using plugging them onto the same tabs that lock the backpack onto his back.

Much like Optimus Exprime, I can't exactly recommend Kenzan.  Objectively, he's not that great of a figure with a simple transformation, wonky articulation, and a chunky design with chunky materials that really don't feel like contemporary Transformers figures.  Takara kneecapped him by forcing him to essentially have five modes (we'll get to the other three another time), hit him again with a cludgy accessory based around a gimmick, then dealt him the finishing blow by adding lights and sounds that demand something like 25% of his mass be a battery compartment.  Subjectively, there's a certain charming character to this figure, a samurai police car in what is undoubtedly the most Japanese Transformers series to date, and I'm actually curious to see where we go with this.

[mikeszekely]

I went ahead and watched all of Transformers Go!, and it was... ok.  It's Japanese kids fare, no deep plots or anything, mostly battles that involve bad guys using incompetent minions that get destroyed by heroes yelling the names of their special attacks.  At just ten 15-minute episodes it doesn't drag or overstay its welcome, either.  Mostly I can say that watching it gave me an appreciation for what the deal is with the characters and all, so I can say at least I know what's going on with this guy- G05 Gekisoumaru.

Gekisoumaru, like the other Swordbots in this line, I can now say is roughly a tall Voyager.  Here he is next to Darksteel, who was colored red, given a new head, and released in Japan as G08 Budora in the Go! line.  As the leader of the Shinobi Swordbot team, he's meant to look more like a ninja than a samurai.  And sure, I can see it.

Proportions are going to wind up being an issue across the line, I think.  Once again, it's obvious that his head's a bit too small, and while the cartoon depicts him as being built sort of like Razorclaw, with a lion's head on his chest, on the toy the lion's head absolutely dominates his torso.  This is because, you guessed it, he's got lights and sounds and the battery compartment is in the lion's head.  But aside from some proportion issues he looks almost normal, if you can overlook the kibble on the sides of his legs.  

Of course, that is if you're looking at the front.  Once you start to look around the figure we're going to notice a few more issues.  Like the fact that the lion head on his chest as thicker than the rest of the robot it's attached to.  Or how his heel spurs are hands.  Or how his back is almost empty.  But I think the worst thing is his legs.  Like I said, from the front they look ok.  The lion head covers where you'd imagine his pelvis should be, and those big hinges you can see from the front should be his hips, right?  From the back, though, you can see he's got sort of a whole thigh on top of his thigh, and his actual pelvis is just below his chest.

Gekisoumaru comes with two rubbery swords and something like a non-bendy whip with a kunai on the end.  He also comes with his kabuto, which is the smallest and least obtrusive we've seen so far.

Gekisoumaru's head swivels, but there's no tilt.  His shoulders are on ball joints that can swivel and move laterally a little under 90 degrees.  You can also move them around the joint as a limited butterfly, or fake a greater butterfly joint by untabbing the orange part they're on and swinging it outward.  Unfortunately, he has no bicep swivel.  His elbows bend 90 degrees, but they don't fully straighten.  No wrist or waist swivels.  What I'd consider his robot hips, the big hinges visible from the front, can go 90 degrees forward and backward on ratchets (if you move them out and around the lion head, otherwise 60 degrees forward).  However, there's no lateral movement at that joint.  To get lateral movement you have to use the upper joint, behind his back.  It's ratcheted and gets 90 degrees.  His thighs can swivel just below the joints behind his back, or just above his knee joint.  Speaking of his knee, it's ratcheted and bends over 90 degrees.  His feet can tilt down, but not up, and he doesn't have any ankle pivot.

Gekisoumaru can hold either his swords or his whip in his hands.  The swords have holes on them that allow them to be plugged into pegs on his shoulders, but there doesn't seem to be a place to store the whip.

Because it's a thing he does in the cartoon, you can also use the holes on the swords to attach them to the whip.  As for his kabuto, it has some slots that fit over tabs on his back.  Although it seems tight, I find it a bit easy to knock it off.

Much like Kenzan vs Smokescreen, Gekisoumaru's transformation is super simple compared to a contemporary figure like Darksteel, who himself wasn't super complicated.  You fold his head down, then fold his fists down to unfold his front paws.  You're already halfway done!  Open his calves, tuck in the other hands, then bend his legs at the behind-his-back joints and his knees so that his feet can tab into his back.  Unfold the back legs from the kibble that was on his robot legs and you're basically done.

Gekisoumaru looks fairly ok as a lion, it's just that his head is a bit too big.  His swords become part of his mane, and his whip becomes his tail- you know I like it when accessories are well-incorporated in alt mode.  I'm not a big fan of the visible robot hands on the backs of his front legs, though.  I'm also not a fan of the way his tail connects.  Basically, there are slots on the handle.  With his robot legs tabbed together, there's still a gap with little ridges between them.  The slots on the tail slide over the ridges, but even with his legs firmly tabbed together the tail connection is fairly loose.

His mouth can open, and the lion limbs can move a bit at the shoulders, hips, and elbows, but he's not super posable in lion mode.

I guess Takara mandated that every part can be carried in every mode, so there is a way for the lion to carry the kabuto.  First, you have to remove the swords from his back and move them to his shoulders.  Then, there's a 5mm peg on the kabuto that plugs into a port behind his robot head.  I guess we can pretend it's some kind of back-mounted gun?  Not the prettiest, but better than nothing.

Oddly, there are two other 5mm pegs on the sides of the clear part of the kabuto.  Not sure what they're for (at this time).  My thought was that maybe the swords could plug in there and be stored on Gekisoumaru's back when he's in robot mode, but the swords stick out too far and won't allow the kabuto to each the slots on his back that way.

Well, we've only looked at three of these Japanese-exclusive Go! figures, but a pattern is definitely emerging.  We've got another chunky, kibbly figure below the standards of even contemporary transformers, compromised by electronics and combining gimmicks, that I cannot objectively recommend.  And yet I still find myself enamored with the way Gekisoumaru is designed to appeal to ten year old Japanese boys.  There's a freedom here, of not caring what Hasbro thinks or what the adult collector market wants.

[mikeszekely]

Well, I bought Optimus Exprime because he was a neat (and very Japanese) Optimus that I wanted for my collection of Optimuses... Optimusi?  And then I bought Kenzan and Gekisoumaru out of some notion that they were necessary to get the full Optimus Exprime experience.  After all, the show is Triple Combination Transformers Go!, so let's do some triple combining.

Per the rules of Transformers Go!, whoever wears the kabuto is the combined form's identity.  So, even though Exprime's combined modes use his kabuto only, Exprime only has torso modes and we're starting with the configuration known as DaiKenzan.  We're going to put Kenzan in this mode, where he forms the arms and chest, and Gekisoumaru will become the legs and pelvis.  Exprime is the middle torso, which is a generous way of saying he's a little bit of DaiKenzan's abs and a ton of backpack.

You stack them as above.  Then you unfold the red kabuto, but before you attach it you're supposed to attach his swords to the wings like so.  Notice that he doesn't really do this in the cartoon, but it's sort of necessary as the train kibble on Exprime's arms will lock into place by plugging into small holes on the sword.

So here's DaiKenzan combined and... huh.  I've seen figures that are compromised in robot mode to make for a better combined mode, and I've seen combined modes that aren't so great because they didn't compromise the individual modes before.  I figured with the weird proportions, joints, and kibble on Exprime, Kenzan, and Gekisoumaru were sacrifices to a greater combined mode.  But DaiKenzan's kind of a mess, isn't he?  His pelvis, such as it is, is far too narrow, and his entire lower body seems too small for all the bulk above his waist.  On that note, his arms seem too long, but I think they might actually be proportional with his body above the waist, it really is just that his legs and pelvis are far too small.  I'll ignore the lion's head that's on his butt for a minute... I mean, it's not ideal, but what about the mess of kibble all over his back?  The fact is, Exprime contributes very little to the DaiKenzan gestalt.

As I mentioned, in the cartoon DaiKenzan fought with Exprime's big swords, but they're kind of necessary for keeping his kibble together.  The instructions only tell you to have him hold Exprime's other kabuto.  It doesn't look much like a shield, but maybe the dragon head is like a flamethrower?  I dunno.  The 5mm pegs that were on Gekisoumaru's shoulders allow you to store Gekisoumaru's swords on DaiKenzan's hips, and I suppose he could hold one of Kenzan's swords.

As far as articulation goes, truthfully you're not going to have DaiKenzan do much more than stand around, as he's very top heavy and prone to falling.  But if you must know, no head articulation.  His shoulders swivel and can ratchet at least 90 degrees laterally.  His biceps swivel, and his elbow ratchets a little over 90 degrees.  His wrists swivel, and they can bend upward a bit.  His fingers and thumbs are hinged at the base which allows them to open sort of like a Combiner Wars hand, but mostly so they can fold in and hide away for Kenzan's other modes.  No waist articulation.  His hips ratchet 90 degrees forward, but not really any room to go backward.  They also ratchet a little under 45 degrees laterally, but you can do up to 90 if you untab Gekisoumaru's shoulders and move his arms out of the way.  His thighs swivel.  His knees are double-jointed, both ratcheted, and combine to 180 degrees.  He has no foot articulation.

Now, we can pull him apart and this time we'll put Gekisoumaru into a top mode, Kenzan into the pants, and Exprime turns into a different mid-torso mode.  Since Gekisoumaru is on top, this time the combined mode is DaiGekisou.

They stack like this.  And we're using Exprime's other kabuto, with the blue dragon head.  Unfurl it, and open the dragon's mouth to reveal a face.

DaiGekisou also winds up having proportion issues.  This time, though, his pelvis does seem a bit wider, and his arms are a bit shorter, which makes it look more like his upper torso is too long.  Like, maybe this would almost work if you left Exprime out of the equation.  Really, all Exprime is doing is making it look like a train crashed into a giant robot's back.  At least DaiGekisou's heels are better able at supporting his backpack.  In fact, his robot arms don't even lock in the way to do with the swords in DaiKenzan mode.  Rather, small cutouts are supposed to fit over the stems on the ball joints in Gekisoumaru's elbows, and the fit is kind of loose.  Between that and Exprime's legs forcing DaiGekisou's arms out to the sides a bit Exprime really detracts more than he adds to this combination, and although far from perfect I think I prefer DaiKenzan.

Since Exprime's swords aren't part of the gestalt, the instructions indicate that you should put them into this scissors mode, and Exprime's other kabuto becomes a shield.  I don't know of any way to use Kenzan's or Gekisoumaru's accessories with DaiGekisou.  For the record, again in the cartoon DaiGekisou just fought with both of Exprime's swords, one in each hand.

As for articulation, nothing in the head, shoulders swivel and can ratchet laterally 90 degrees.  Biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees on ratchets.  His wrists have a little up/down waggle, but no swivels.  No waist swivel.  His hips can go two clicks, a little under 45 degrees, forward on their ratchets, and a single click backward, and 90 degrees laterally (also on a ratchet).  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on ratchets.  Due to his transformation his feet can swivel, but there's no tilt or ankle pivots.

Honestly, I'm not sure what went wrong here.  Was there not enough budget in their transformations?  Was the solid chunk of batteries and electronics too much to work around?  Are five modes a piece simply too many (robot, train, dragon, and two different torso modes for Exprime, while Kenzan and Gekisoumaru each have a torso mode we haven't covered yet).  As I noted in their individual reviews, these three (especially Kenzan and Gekisoumaru) suffered from a number of compromises already that I'd hoped would make for better combined modes, but DaiKenzan and DaiGekisou are aesthetically worse than Optimus Exprime on his own, I think.   I mean, I do like the kabuto heads, but the weird proportions and mess of back kibble gives them a monstrous appearance, rather than the samurai and ninja vibes they give off on their own, and that causes the gestalts to lose a lot of the charm they had as individuals.  If, like me, you found yourself intrigued by the unique character of the individual robots I'd say that combining them isn't really worth the effort.

[mikeszekely]

So... you know how I bought Kenzan and Gekisoumaru out of some notion that I needed them to get the full Optimus Exprime experience?  That got me thinking that I'd actually need all the Swordbots to make sure I wasn't missing out on part of Kenzan or Gekisoumaru's experiences.  Yeah... I may have a problem.  Since I'm still waiting for one of the Samurai Swordbots to arrive I guess we'll start with the Shinobi Swordbot team.  So this is G10 Hishoumaru.

Hishoumaru is ostensibly continuing the ninja motif, and you can see it in the silver forehead and some of the textures on his shoulder joints and shins, I suppose.  But his details are a bit more subtle, and his bright orange color doesn't exactly scream "stealth".  Like the other figures in the line we've looked at he's sporting a bit of kibble on his legs, but unlike those other three Hishoumaru doesn't have any electronics.  So, in a static pose from the front, he actually doesn't look too bad.  Sure, his head is a little small, his arms are a little out from his torso, and his legs are a little big, but we've seen much worse.

From the sides and back we see a few more issues, though.  For one, he's got the whole unfortunate "use combined-mode hands as heels" thing going on.  Also, you can see that his torso is really a flap over his front side.  From behind his legs are attached to his body almost directly under his shoulders, which will be a problem when we get to articulation.

Which we will as soon as we cover his accessories.  There's a weapon that's either a sword of a fan, I'm not clear on what it's really supposed to be.  And of course you've got his kabuto.  

Ok, so that articulation.  His head swivels, no tilt.  His shoulders shoulders swivel and have an excellent forward butterfly.  They can move laterally 90 degrees, but the joint is on the inside of the swivel, which I hate.  His elbows are ball joints, curling 140 degrees or so and pulling double-duty as bicep swivels.  No wrist or waist swivels.  Now, his hips... there's a ratchet that goes 90 degrees forward or backward where his hip should be, anatomically, but no lateral joint there.  The only lateral joint is the top one, which will swing his leg out until, at 90 degrees, it's sticking out where his arms go, having pushed them up and out of the way.  His thighs swivel, both above and below his thigh, and his knees bend 120 degrees on ratchets.  His feet can tilt downward due to transformation, but not up, and he lacks ankle pivots.

Hishoumaru can hold his weapon in his hands, and if you fold the head on the kabuto in there's a 5mm peg that'll let him hold it as a gun.

There's also a peg hole behind his head that allows the kabuto to be worn on his back.

Hishoumaru's transformation is fairly simple, standard stuff.  Actually, it's a bit like Gekisoumaru's, in that the robot legs fold over onto his back, his alt mode legs come out of the kibble on his robot legs, and his weapon becomes his tail.  The alt head folds out of his chest and turns 180 degrees, though, making his robot back his alt mode stomach, and I rather like the way his arms curl up into his shoulders to become part of his wings.

I think he's supposed to be a phoenix, given the fiery colors and the shape of his tail, but then again I've never seen a blue lion and I could be reading too much into the colors.  Falconry or takagiri was a popular pastime of the samurai class, after all, and it might just be that Hishoumaru is simply a falcon.  In any case, his alt mode is ok.  A little chunky with thigh thighs, I suppose, and there's not a lot of articulation in his legs.  There's a hinge on his tail that lets it bend up (but not down), and the shoulder swivels, lateral joints, and butterfly joints give his wings a pretty solid range of articulation.  Plus his head can tilt downward where his head connects to his neck, it can tilt up where his neck connects to his body, it can swivel where his neck meets his body, and his beak can open.

As mentioned, his sword/fan/thing attaches to become his tail.  You simply plug the handle into a port on the bottom of his torso flap.  You can fold up his kabuto and plug it into a 5mm port on his back to have him carry it in his avian mode.

I think Hishoumaru is honestly one of the better figures we've seen in this line, but he's far from perfect.  His biggest issue is the lack of lateral hip joints where his robot hips are supposed to be; if he had that the bits of leg above his robot hips could reasonably be ignored as robot torso.  In other words, despite not having to deal electronics, he's still compromised by his combined mode and therefore below the standards of Transformers at the time, let alone modern Transformers.  So I still wouldn't recommend picking up Hishoumaru as a cool toy on his own, but as part of a set that's a unique bit of Transformers history he's been one of the better figures of the bunch.

[sh9000]

[Scyla]

49 minutes ago, sh9000 said:

 

Since this is an official picture I habe to ask: is Leader Snarl the same height as Core class Ironhide?

[JB0]

35 minutes ago, Scyla said:

Since this is an official picture I habe to ask: is Leader Snarl the same height as Core class Ironhide?

Leader don't mean what it used to, what with all the price-cutting these days.

[mikeszekely]

Got my preorders in.  Interesting that Ironhide appears to have a new pelvis in addition to a new head.

Anyway, I got some more Rise of the Beasts stuff coming in this week, so lets finish up with the Transformers Go! Shinobi Swordbots with a look at G20 Sensuimaru.

It's kind of funny that Hishoumaru was one of the better-looking robots in the Go! line, but, while working with the exact same constraints, Sensuimaru might be one of (if not the) worst.  His head is on a flap that has it look like it's floating slightly behind his torso rather than on top of it.  Kibble on the insides of his legs forces him into an A-stance, but like Hishoumaru the ostensible robot mode hip joints do not have any lateral movement, which forces you to use the combined-mode joints behind his torso.  As a consequence, not only are those joints always peaking out from behind, his arms can't really relax at his sides.

Then there's the fact that the bulk of his torso is a shark's head with a flap dangling from it's chin to hide the void between his legs.  Or the fact that his shins are dominated by kibble that sticks out as far as his feet do.  But, hey, he's a ninja!  Oh, and I guess we should be thankful that there's no visible combiner hands for heels this time.

Sensuimaru comes with two pickaxe-looking things.  And, of course, his kabuto.

Sensuimaru's head swivels, no tilt.  His shoulders have butterfly joints where they connect to the torso, and a ball joint for swiveling and a little under 90 degrees of lateral movement.  His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows can bend 180 degrees.  No wrist swivel, and no waist swivel (is it even fair to say he's got a waist?).  As I mentioned earlier, the only lateral hip movement he has is just under his shoulders.  You can get 90 degrees on ratchets before his legs and arms collide, but I recommend using it as little as possible as it ruins any illusion that he has an actual torso.  His intended robot hips have ratchets that go 90 degrees forward and backward.  He has a thigh swivel above his thigh and above his knee.  His knees bend 90 degrees on a ratchet.  His feet have a slight up/down tilt, but no pivot (the bottoms are angled for an A-stance).

While Sensuimaru can technically hold one pickaxe in either hand, they're actually meant to be combined using a small peg on one that fits into a small hole on the other, to make something more like a pinwheel.  And, as has been the case, the kabuto has a 5mm peg and can be held as a gun.

Or, you can fold the kabuto up and use the peg to fit into a hole on his back, giving him something like back-mounted missiles.

While still far less complicated than even some of the Predacons and Beast Hunter figures that wound up under the Transformers Go! brand in Japan, Sensuimaru has one of the more involved transformations among the Swordbots.  His head must be lived up and out of his torso before being folding back in.  His arms butterfly back to form part of the back and the dorsal fin.  Then his legs, which need to be positioned just right, open and fold over the arms to form the sides and the rest of the back, with some kibble that was on the insides of his legs meeting to form part of his tail.  The shin kibble spins and then shifts up to his alt mode chest, and the flap that pretended to be the front of his torso half slides into his shark chin, half folds up.  While combined, one of the parts of his pinwheel weapon spins 180 degrees, creating ta thick tab that plugs into his tail and forming his caudal fins.

As bad as Sensuimaru's robot mode is, I kind of love this alt mode.  It's an awesome design for a mecha-shark, with big missile launchers on his chest between his pectoral fins, the suggestion of ridged segments so the tail could move (although it doesn't), and vents on the sides that I'd imagine take in water to force out the rear for propulsion.  I do wish his feet could tuck in a bit better, but the points on his toes make for anatomically-accurate pelvic fins.  And once everything is locked together it's a very solid figure in this mode.

It doesn't do much, though.  His jaws can open and close, and that's about it.  As I said, his pinwheel weapon becomes his tail.  There are slots on his chest where you can attach his kabuto to his underside, but it feels like an afterthought as he can't even sit level with it attached.

At this point, I'm probably beating a dead horse, but it's the same story again and again.  Sensuimaru objectively isn't a great figure and I don't actually recommend tracking one down, but I kind of love him anyway for what he ultimately is- a little part of the footnote that is Transformers Go!, the most Japanese the Transformers brand has ever been.

[mikeszekely]

Unveiled today, but no preorders yet.

Shattered Glass Grimlock.

I dunno.  I know that Hasbro's gonna milk their molds, but I'd kind of prefer if they did a red-eyed, translucent plastic toy-colors Grimlock or a G2 blue Grimlock instead.  Coloring Grimlock like Trypticon and calling it SG was always lazy.

Core-class Swoop:

Aside from the fingers on his rockets he's potentially looking like one of the better Core-class Dinobots.

Core-class Skar:

Ankylosaurus.  Called it.

[Radioguy]

2 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

...I'd kind of prefer if they did a red-eyed, translucent plastic toy-colors Grimlock

Same! Any translucent variants, like 3P figures often do after a standard run, are right up my alley.

[mikeszekely]

Alright, we're wrapping up the Transformers Go! Shinobi Swordbot Team with a look at the combined modes... all three!

Like DaiKenzan and DaiGekisou the guy on top is the identity of the gestalt, so we'll just go in order.  Gekisoumaru gets in the top mode we saw in DaiGekisou, Hishoumaru becomes the middle, and Sensuimaru becomes the pants.  Then Gekisoumaru's kabuto locks into Gekisoumaru's back, Hishoumaru's torso flap, and the backs of Hishoumaru's legs before flipping over Gekisoumaru's head.

As combined modes go, GoGekisou isn't too bad.  Sure, his hips are a little narrow and his legs are a little thin, but otherwise he's fairly proportional.  As is the case with these guys, Hishoumaru is really more backpack than body, but he's far from the worst we've seen, and I like the way his wings form hip skirts.

Sensuimaru's pinwheel splits in half, and one half fits onto the pegs on either side of Gekisoumaru's whip.  The whip then plugs into Hishoumaru's fan/sword, and Gekisoumaru's swords plug onto the pegs sticking out the sides of Hishoumaru's fan/sword.  As for Hishoumaru and Sensuimaru's unused kabuto, they can attach to each other.

GoGekisou's head doesn't move.  His shoulders swivel, and they ratchet laterally over 90 degrees.  His biceps swivel.  His elbows ratchet a little under 90 degrees.  His wrists don't swivel, but due to how they transform he's got some up/down bend at the wrists.  No waist swivel.  His his can go 90 degrees forward or laterally on ratchets, but only a little bit backward because of the shark head on his butt.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on ratchets.  He lacks any foot articulation, though, and with all that mass on top he'll be tricky to balance in more dynamic poses.

His combined weapon can be held in one hand, while the combined kabuto becomes a gun/shield in the other.  Neither looks particularly impressive, but I do like that there are no leftover parts (whereas DaiKenzan and DaiGekisou only used Optimus Exprime's accessories and left Kenzan and Gekisoumaru's off to the side).

Now we're basically shuffling everyone up one spot... Hishoumaru moves up to the top, Sensuimaru moves up to the middle, and Gekisoumaru loops back around to become the pants (the same pants that we used on DaiKenzan, btw).  And since Hishoumaru is the top, we attach Hishoumaru's kabuto to form GoHishou.

GoHishou is a bit of downgrade after GoGekisou.  If you could only focus on the parts made from Hishoumaru and Gekisoumaru he wouldn't be too bad, but Sensuimaru is almost entirely back kibble.  From the front, that makes GoHishou look thicker than he really is, and from the sides and back you can see how Sensuimaru's arms are just kind of floating between his legs and Hishoumaru, and while Sensuimaru's legs tab into each other they don't lock onto any part of Hishoumaru or Gekisoumaru, making GoHishou seem just a bit sloppy.  I also think using Hishoumaru's wings as shoulderpads instead of, well, wings, is a missed opportunity.

GoHishou uses the same combined weapon, and this time we can connect Gekisoumaru's kabuto to Sensuimaru's.

GoHishou's articulation is largely the same as GoGekisou's- no head, waist, or feet articulation, swivels and ratcheted lateral movement in the shoulders, ratcheted elbow bends, bicep swivels, hand with a little up/down bend but no swivel, hips that ratchet forward and laterally but lack the room to move backward, thigh swivels, and ratcheted knee bends.  But, we are about to run into another problem that makes GoHishou my least favorite of the combined modes.  While he holds the combined weapon ok, the peg holes on his hands are too open, causing the kabuto to fall out of his grasp.  This is compounded with the fact that the hinge on Sensuimaru's kabuto is kind of loose, so even if you do get it pegged into GoHishou's hand the whole thing is going to flop down anyway.

Shuffle everyone up one more time, so Hishoumaru loops around to the pants, Gekisoumaru moves to the middle, and Sensuimaru gets on top.  Cap it all off with Sensuimaru's kabuto and we've got GoSensui.

As gestalts go, GoSensui is somewhere in the middle.  His arms are a little too thick, and I'm not loving the way the purple clashes with the orange.  Actually, the skinny orange legs under a top-heavy body with avian toes is giving me serious Big Bird vibes.  And, like GoHishou, he's carrying a ton of backpack, with Gekisoumaru's lion head dangling down behind GoSensui's butt.  Between that and the gap between his back and backpack he's doing a bit of a Michael Jackson lean.  However, the backpack itself seems a bit more solid on GoSensui, and Hishoumaru is the only one with fold out heels in pants mode, so he's pretty stable even with the weight on his back.  We also get a return of the wing hip skirts I liked on GoGekisou.

Same combined weapon, and again the unused kabuto combine to form a gun/shield.

By now you're probably getting a sense that all three Shinobi Swordbots used similar engineering in their legs, using some extra joints that are ostensibly part of the individual torsos to lengthen the legs in pants mode and to bend and spread into the arms of the top modes.  So, again, articulation is basically the same, with the same challenges balancing a very top heavy robot on feet with no ankles in more dynamic poses.  The only thing ne and noteworthy here is that GoSensui actually has closed 5mm port rings in his lands, sort of like Commander-class Jetfire's.  So he holds his accessories much better than GoHishou.

After the somewhat messy combined modes that were DaiKenzan and DaiGekisou, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Triple Combination gimmick was executed a bit better when you leave Optimus Exprime out of it and focus on just the Shinobi Swordbots.  While definitely not he best Transformers on their own, for display purposes I actually think GoGekisou is the way to go.  Is GoGekisou worth the cash and effort to track down all three Shinobi Swordbots?  Do I recommend them?  Objectively, again, probably not.  But, representing a show where Autobot ninjas travel in time to the Sengoku period and combine to keep Legend Discs from falling into the hands of Predacon oni?  It's a wild, ultra-Japanese footnote in Transformers history that's been kind of overlooked, and I kind of love it for what it is.  So, while I maybe can't recommend these figures, I don't regret purchasing them, and there's definitely room for GoGekisou on my shelves.

[M'Kyuun]

Hasbro has you covered @mikeszekely 😁

True to the original, looks like he'll combine w/ his trailer for a full armored version. Armada's not my favorite take, but I think they did a pretty good job with him from my limited experience with the original. You have a far more acute eye for the details, so you're more apt to pick out any discrepancies. regardless, I hope this satisfyingly fills a hole in your Prime collection.

[mikeszekely]

2 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

I hope this satisfyingly fills a hole in your Prime collection.

I'm looking forward to getting it in-hand and giving it a proper look, but from what I can see it looks like another Commander-class home run.

[M'Kyuun]

26 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

I'm looking forward to getting it in-hand and giving it a proper look, but from what I can see it looks like another Commander-class home run.

😄👍

I have to say, the choice of treads for the trailer is a bit odd; IRL, they'd limit the speed and bog you down on highways, not to mention tear up roads. But from a rule-of-cool perspective, pretty neat. Wish these actually rolled, but too much to ask for with these severely budget-limited retail toys. I'm glad to see the trailer hitch moved back a bit farther on the legs allowing for more clearance for the trailer to rotate. They put it too close to the cab on ER Prime for no good reason that I can perceive. 

Looking at this, it makes me wonder how they're going to approach commander class Ultra Magnus: all-in-one or separate robot with parts-forming armor? While AIO is generally my preference, I'm still satisfied w/ my CW UM and it wouldn't bother me if they decided to go the G1 toy route of a separate bot w/ armor. Either way, I just hope it's worlds better than the unpalatable Siege and Kingdom figs. 🤮

[Scyla]

3 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

Hasbro has you covered @mikeszekely 😁

True to the original, looks like he'll combine w/ his trailer for a full armored version. Armada's not my favorite take, but I think they did a pretty good job with him from my limited experience with the original. You have a far more acute eye for the details, so you're more apt to pick out any discrepancies. regardless, I hope this satisfyingly fills a hole in your Prime collection.

I’m sad that this is not the sculpt we saw a couple of years ago at that toy show.

I like the look of the base Optimus. The combined form has a sever form of tiny head syndrome and it is kibble-tastic which seems to be a requirement for all Armada Optimus Primes. 

I'm shocked that Hasbro is allowed to waste so much plastic on him. I guess that is the Commander Class budget on display.

[Scyla]

 

Better view of the Armada Prime in combined mode: https://news.tfw2005.com/2023/02/23/legacy-evolution-commander-armada-optimus-prime-new-in-hand-image-476209

[mikeszekely]

The Samurai Swordbots are coming, but we're going to take a break to cover some new releases, and we're starting with Legacy Evolution Core-class Grimlock.

I know that there are sacrifices being made in the name of a gestalt mode, and maybe these sacrifices are harder to make when you only have a Core budget to begin with.  But, between this and the recent ROTB Arcee I can't shake the feeling that Hasbro's really cheaping out on this class lately.  I mean, other recent Core-class figures like Rattrap, Megatron, Soundwave, and the Seekers have certainly suffered from their low budget but still ultimately offered pretty decent figures.  But Grimlock?  Where's all the color?  There's a red strip on his leg, but not the green or blue.  The front of his torso is painted gold, but just the front, and even then they missed the spots where hinges were cut in.  There's a dash of the red midriff, but none on his pelvis, and he's misisng the black on his thighs.

And that's without mentioning the huge hinge behind his head, the mostly hollow dino head and neck on his back, the mostly hollow legs, and the wings that sit far too low on his back.

Maybe Slag needed less paint in the first place, but I think Hasbro did a better job with him than with Grimlock.  At least Grimlock came out better than Sludge, though.

Also unlike Sludge, at least Grimlock came with a weapon.  You can probably guess that it'll have purposes beyond being a weapon, but bless the designer (Evan?) for trying to give it some semblance, however poor, of Grimlock's double-barreled rifle.

Grimlock's head can swivel, no tilt.  His shoulders are on ball joints, so they can swivel and move laterally 90 degrees.  Due to those hinges in his chest he also has an excellent forward butterfly that can bring is arm in front of his body.  He does sort of have a wrist swivel, though, it's just in the middle of his forearm.  His waist swivels.  His ball-jointed hips can go 90 degrees laterally, a little more than that forward, and a little less than that backward.  He lacks dedicated thigh swivels, but his knees are ball joints and they can turn out slightly under 45 degrees.  Plus, they bend over 90 degrees.  He has no foot articulation.  All-in-all substandard articulation, as even most Core-classes have elbows, but it's actually an improvement from Slag.

Using the small peg on one side Grimlock can hold his weapon in either fist.  There doesn't seem to be any other storage.

Grimlock's transformation is mostly familiar but very simplified.  His robot hands don't fold in, instead is his forearms rotate so the robot fists on on the inside and the dino toes point forward.  His chest doesn't shift downward, that's why he's got the big hinge behind his head.  The dinosaur head folds up higher, along with a good portion of his back, so the wings have to rotate 180 degrees on ball joints before forming the chest.  His legs tab together and then fold up onto his back, but there's no fancy hinged panels or fold out tails to worry about.  Rather, you form the tail by plugging the back of the gun into the tops of his knees.  The one little step you might miss is that there's a peg on Grimlock's back, and it needs to be flipped over to fill in the gap on his dinosaur back.  Otherwise there's not enough room for the legs to fold up.

Well... it's not great, but I feel like I've seen worse.  Like, the back of him that's made up from his robot legs is too large, but that's maybe an easier pill to swallow on a Core than it was on a Voyager-class like the Power of the Primes Grimlock.  From the front and sides the lack of color is a bit less apparent since he's basically gray where he needs to be and gold where he needs to be (minus those hinges again).  I may touch him up, add the red stripes to his sides.  Folding him into dino mode also hides a lot of his hollow gaps.  I think my biggest complaint is probably those ball joints on the sides of his neck, like giant tumors.

In dino mode Grimlock's head can look up, and he's got the swivels and lateral motion of his robot shoulders in his dino hips... but that's about it.  His jaws don't open, and his little dino arms are fixed in place.  Practically, that means most of the time he's in dino mode he's just going to stand around.  I guess you could bend him over like he's fishing...

Well, like I said a lot of his sacrifices are likely in service of his combined mode.  For instance, the lack of arm articulation makes the front of his leg mode more solid, since what we're doing appears to be taking the dino mode, moving the tail to plug into ports on the robot shins to make it a heel, and swinging and locking his robot arms to the front.  Open his dino neck and fold it over so you've basically got a brick.  The challenge seemed to have been what to do with Grimlock's wings.  His left wing just lies flat along the top, which looks fine, but I guess didn't leave enough clearance between it and the other leg on the gestalt.  So, is right wing spins around and tabs into his dino neck.  I'm not a huge fan of the asymmetry, though.  I suppose you could turn the other wing around and tab it to the first, forming a hood over Grimlock's dino head, but for now we'll stick with the official transformation.

And here's what we've got combined, so far.  It works, I guess.  Seems the idea was to get all Grimlock's toes lined up on the front to suggest that they're Volcanicus' toes, and he does provide a sturdy enough base that he stands up even with only one leg.  It's a bit of a shame that he couldn't have come with some accessories that became actual feet, though.  I suspect that'd improve the final proportions of the gestalt, too.  Oh well, combiners on a budget.

By the way, you'll note that Grimlock is the left leg, which I predicted back when Slag and Sludge were revealed.  And we've got the recent reveals of Swoop, a pterodactyl, for the right arm and Skar, officially revealed as an Ankylosaurus, as the left arm, leaving Snarl, the stegosaurus, to form the right leg, again, as I predicted, because again, I'm telling you that Volcanicus is a pre-tool for Dinoking.

In any case, Grimlock is another sub-par Core-class Dinobot who I don't recommend on his own.  Volcanicus is shaping up to be fairly decent, though, so get Grimlock if you're in it for the combined mode.  Or, you know, just wait for Dinoking.

[mikeszekely]

The Studio Series line began with a Deluxe-class Bumblebee that turned into a second-generation Camaro.  Seems kind of fitting, then, that the 100th Studio Series figure is a Deluxe-class Bumblebee that turns into a second-generation Camaro.

Of course, this time Bumblebee isn't exactly the Bayverse one, it's continuation of the one from Bumblebee, and we can see that in some of the details like the shape of the feet and the more solid, less "jagged metal" look of the thighs, arms, and torso.  Taken on just those merits, SS100 Bumblebee looks better to my eye than the original.

However, he suffers from several inaccuracies vs his CGI model, in ways that kind of make SS01 more accurate to its source material.  Some of that seems to be the retention of engineering elements from most (or maybe all) of the Camaro Bumblebees in the Studio Series line.  In this case, I'm specifically referring to the way that front tires swing out and back 90 degrees, and his doors open until they touch the tires, forming his wings.  As a continuation of the Volkswagen design from Bumblebee, though, his tires should be on his back between his shoulders, roughly situated over where a human's trapezius muscles are.  And, like the Volkswagen design, his wings are meant to lie flat along his back directly under the wheels most of the time.  When deployed, his wings are closer together and angled backward.

There's also the usual car kibble that they couldn't hide on a Deluxe budget, like most of the top of the car folded up into a backpack, the bits of the rear wrapped to the inside of his legs, or the tires on the sides of his legs.

Other faults can be attributed to Hasbro cutting costs even as they raise prices by skimping on paint.  Mechanical detail on the the top and sides of his feet, the outside of his shoulders and biceps, and some black stripes on the outside of his forearms are simply missing.  Ironically, one of the things they did paint was the inside of the forearm, and a good chunk of what they painted should have been left yellow.

The lack of paint extends to his accessories.  We've got a blaster that's positively covered in gray paint.  I'll need to see him use it in the movie to know for sure, but I'm betting that it's got more gray than it actually needs.  On the other end his his arm blade, which is cast in yellow plastic and has no paint at all.  If it's meant to be like the one that came with SS18 Bumblebee, then the blade and some of the mechanical detail should be painted.

Bee's head can swivel, and he's got a small up/down tilt but nothing sideways.  His shoulders are on ball joints that swivel and move laterally 90 degrees.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend about 90 degrees.  No wrist swivels.  His waist swivels, though.  HIs hips are ball joints that go a little over 90 degrees forward, a little less than that backward, and about 45 degrees laterally.  He has thighs swivels that move around the hips, and knees that bend 90 degrees.  His feet don't tilt up or down, but he's got ankle pivots good for around 60 degrees.

His blaster is mostly hollow underneath, save for a 5mm peg, so it works by pegging into and covering over his fist.  The way it's molded is mean to go with his right hand.  The arm blade has a pair of tabs that fit into slots on either forearm.

Alternatively, you can store his accessories on his wings.  Both wings have a tab on the back.  The arm blade has part of the cutout in it forming a slot that fits over the tab on one wing.  The blaster has a clip under the barrels that grabs onto the tab on the other wing.  It's not the prettiest storage, what with his weapons dangling so low as to be visible when viewed from the front, but it's something.

Despite the new old alt mode and the elements of Bumblebee Bumblebee's aesthetics, the transformation of SS100 should be instantly familiar.  From the doors forward it's nearly identical to SS01- the roof and windshield unfold from the backpack, his chest flips up over his head, his arms shift forward so the wheels can fold forward and the doors can fold back, running along the underside of the vehicle.  The back of the car feels similar, too, but I can't quite put my fingers on where I've seen this engineering.  Basically, the back window unwraps from the inside of his leg to the back, and his feet turn in and rock up into the void left by the window, with his heels turning 90 degrees to form the tail.

And, yeah, based on what we've seen it's a pretty accurate second-gen Camaro modded for offroad racing.  My complaints are fairly minimal.  His suspension seems jacked a little higher than in the film, to give his arms clearance under the car.  Other than that, it's missing paint again.  I'll excuse the fact that his front bumper isn't black, since it has to be yellow and silver for robot mode.  The skirts along the sides of the car, though, and the front side of his spoiler should be black, though, no excuse.  I'd have liked it if they painted the lights on his bumper armor and roof, too.  As for the rims, well, this is one time when Hasbro can get away with no paint, as they do appear to be black in the film.

Bee's got some alt mode storage for his weapons.  The blade has another tab, this one on the top, that plugs snugly into a slot between his legs.  As for the blaster, the fit is a bit more tenuous but there's a small indent in his bumper on the rear.  This allows the clip we used for bot mode storage to pinch over the armor on his bumper.

Despite the inaccurate wings and tire placement caused by a lazy reuse of engineering, I really like SS100.  His articulation is adequate, and the ease of the leg transformation makes him one of the more fun Bumblebee figures in the Studio Series line.  Wings aside, he looks good in both modes, he just could have used a bit more paint, some of which I may apply myself.  This one gets a recommend from me.

[Hikuro]

I"m hearing reports that some of the newest wave of legacy figures that weren't due for a few more months are trickling thru the gates. I didn't think to much of it when I read an article the other day but then I got an email from BBTS saying Twincast was arriving and due to ship out in the next week or so. Truthfully the only real reason I wanted twincast was just so I could add Rewind into the party. I mean I don't have a problem with Twincast, I even got a G1 Twincast reissue along with a Blaster. 

I did go out a bit this morning after a buddy of mine had been spotting some new releases at his local walmart. I hit the local target first and all I came across was a handful of Legacy Ironhide's which I had no interest in and 1 core slug. There are still a ton of Earth Spark figures piled on the pegs. Then I hit the walmart in town and came into possession of Spike. Said to myself, screw it, and got him. Not exactly an impressive lil core toy but I feel like I need to have him next to Bumblebee to make it more...I dunno, fun I guess. 

[mikeszekely]

7 hours ago, Hikuro said:

I"m hearing reports that some of the newest wave of legacy figures that weren't due for a few more months are trickling thru the gates.

Yeah.  That Core-class Grimlock I reviewed (and a Core-class Thundercracker I grabbed at the same time but haven't mentioned) are from that new wave.  There have been sightings of Twincast and Metalhawk both in stores.  I've heard tell that some people who bought from Robot Kingdom are also getting Skyquake.  I was sure they'd come before their May/June preorder date, but I'm a little surprised they're rolling out this early. Fine by me, I suppose, since I preordered the whole wave.  But I'm really only excited for Shrapnel.

But hopefully some of you are excited for the Rise of the Beasts Studio Series figures (or at least like reading about them.  Because here's Voyager-class Battletrap.

I don't know that we've had a good look at Battletrap's CGI model yet, so I don't have a lot to go on for the aesthetics here.  Uh... he's quite a bit taller than Bumblebee, roughly the size of an Earthrise Seeker.  There's still shades of the Bayverse aesthetic will lots of mechanical bits and bobs, and toes, for that matter.  But I do like that that we're not dealing with weird proportions, funky hands, or digitigrade chicken legs like basically all of the early Bayverse Decepticons, and I rather like his head sculpt.  Plus, I like that he's not just jagged metal and there's recognizable bits of truck in his torso.  From the front, I daresay he looks pretty cool.

The bits of truck kibble that make up his backpack aren't terribly egregious, either.  However, I loathe the kibble on the backs of his forearms.  To be fair, it could be screen-accurate kibble.  That doesn't change the fact that it looks like an out-of-place mess that's kind of in your way.  And as near as I can tell, it's actually not CGI-accurate.

His sole accessory is this wrecking ball.  There's a chain molded on it, and it's covered in silver paint, so it looks pretty good.  I'd prefer a gun, though.

Alright, his head is on a ball joint that can swivel and look up slightly, but no real sideways tilt.  His shoulders swivel, and on my copy they're way too loose, like, can't-support-the-weight-of-the-forearm-kibble-loose.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees.  No wrist articulation.  His waist swivels.  His hips can go 90 degrees forward and laterally, but only about 45 degrees backward due to his backpack.  His thighs swivel, and his knees can bend over 90 degrees.  His feet can tilt down, due to transformation, but not up, and the front of his foot swivels to give him roughly 90 degrees of ankle pivot.

If you have Legacy Bulkhead you'll know exactly how Battletrap's wrecking ball works.  You open it up, and there's a peg inside that can slide into either fist.  Then you close the wrecking ball so his fist is captured inside.  This would be fine, if it's how Battletrap uses it in the movie (but, as I alluded to, the only bit of him I could find in the trailers has him using a gun).  However, his own box art depicts it on a chain like flail, so it's kind of a bummer that the chain is just molded detail.

Like Bumblebee, Battletrap has storage for his weapon in robot mode.  Basically, there's a tab at the end of the 5mm post inside the ball, and that fits into a slot on the translucent part at the top of his backpack.  It's not the best fit, though... actually, tolerances on the clear plastic seem to be a bit off in general, as there are slots on his backpack formed by gaps between the outer yellow plastic and the inner translucent plastic, and they're suppose to grab onto tabs on his back to lock the backpack in place.  On my copy you can plug the backpack on then watch it immediately pop back off.  Oh well.

Transforming Battletrap is a tad frustrating.  There's some cool stuff, like how the lower leg splits in half and unfolds below the knee, then the whole thing folds around above the knee to make the sides of the truck.  Unfortunately, there are some wonky tolerances again, and they're compounded by the fact that his arms tuck up but don't really lock in place at any point except plugging the ends of his forearm kibble together- if you can get them to stay tabbed in.  Or if his sides will stay in.  Or if his top will stay in place.

Well, it's at least impressive how well he compactifies for this mode.  He doesn't look out-of-place next to Bumblebee.  Or, to contrast with another recent Mad Max-looking tow truck he's just a little longer, taller, and wider than the Junkion Scraphook, albeit significantly heavier.

There are fortunately more photos of the truck used in the film available right now, so it's a bit easier for me to find stuff to complain about .  Well, there's those big clips jutting out the sides, just in front of the side mirrors.  And the hole they plug into forces the "Bernie's Towing and Autobody" logos down a bit, so a stripe that should be running under it is omitted.  On the actual truck, the cab stops and there's a black bar holding up the flashing lights, here we have some orange kibble that would float awkwardly above the edges of the truck bed even if the cab did stay tabbed in all the way.  Instead of exhaust pipes running along the sides between the fuel tanks and the rear tires you've got a mess of foot kibble that drags so low his tires barely have any clearance to roll (and they don't actually roll all that well, so maybe they don't actually have that clearance after all).  There's a weird flame pattern on his front bumper... is it supposed to be rust?  Scratches?  Either way it's not on the truck they filmed with.  As for the rear, the trio of lights on each side are accurate enough but the hinges, cutout in the middle, and the bulges in the middle aren't.  His robot knees, hands, and parts of his forearms are easily visible and the back of the cab is wide open.  The boom for the tow hook is too short as well.  If I was GMC I'm not sure I'd be happy with how Hasbro represented my truck, but then again, maybe GMC is just happy Hasbro's checks don't bounce.

Well, he doesn't roll very well, but at least you can store his wrecking ball in this mode.  Actually, doing so kind of helps.  See, there are small tabs on the sides of the bits under the tow hook  There's a slot behind the peg inside the ball, and another slot on the other half of the ball, so the ball closes over and tabs onto both sides.  Since the tabs are on separate pieces that are ostensibly tabbed together themselves, the wrecking ball helps them stay together.

Battletrap's definitely a mixed bag.  The robot mode looks pretty good, except for the awful kibble on his arms, but loose shoulders kind of spoil that for me.  The truck, despite being a licensed vehicle, has tolerance issues that keep things that are supposed to be tabbed in from staying tabbed in, has things that should be tabbed or locked in place that just don't, and has entirely too much robot kibble, including some that prevents him from rolling well.  If he were a Deluxe, or heck, if Voyagers were still under $30, I might be able to excuse some of this.  But in the era of $35 Voyagers Hasbro needs to do better.  I know Hasbro recently announced they wanted to increase profits 50% by 2025, but if there plan to do it is to raise prices and lower quality I think a number of fans will simply stop buying their stuff.  On that note, maybe once the film comes out and I see it Battletrap will wind up being a favorite villain I'm glad I have a figure of, but as it stands right now I don't think I can actually recommend this one.

[M'Kyuun]

4 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Yeah.  That Core-class Grimlock I reviewed (and a Core-class Thundercracker I grabbed at the same time but haven't mentioned) are from that new wave.  There have been sightings of Twincast and Metalhawk both in stores.  I've heard tell that some people who bought from Robot Kingdom are also getting Skyquake.  I was sure they'd come before their May/June preorder date, but I'm a little surprised they're rolling out this early. Fine by me, I suppose, since I preordered the whole wave.  But I'm really only excited for Shrapnel.

But hopefully some of you are excited for the Rise of the Beasts Studio Series figures (or at least like reading about them.  Because here's Voyager-class Battletrap.

I don't know that we've had a good look at Battletrap's CGI model yet, so I don't have a lot to go on for the aesthetics here.  Uh... he's quite a bit taller than Bumblebee, roughly the size of an Earthrise Seeker.  There's still shades of the Bayverse aesthetic will lots of mechanical bits and bobs, and toes, for that matter.  But I do like that that we're not dealing with weird proportions, funky hands, or digitigrade chicken legs like basically all of the early Bayverse Decepticons, and I rather like his head sculpt.  Plus, I like that he's not just jagged metal and there's recognizable bits of truck in his torso.  From the front, I daresay he looks pretty cool.

The bits of truck kibble that make up his backpack aren't terribly egregious, either.  However, I loathe the kibble on the backs of his forearms.  To be fair, it could be screen-accurate kibble.  That doesn't change the fact that it looks like an out-of-place mess that's kind of in your way.  And as near as I can tell, it's actually not CGI-accurate.

His sole accessory is this wrecking ball.  There's a chain molded on it, and it's covered in silver paint, so it looks pretty good.  I'd prefer a gun, though.

Alright, his head is on a ball joint that can swivel and look up slightly, but no real sideways tilt.  His shoulders swivel, and on my copy they're way too loose, like, can't-support-the-weight-of-the-forearm-kibble-loose.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees.  No wrist articulation.  His waist swivels.  His hips can go 90 degrees forward and laterally, but only about 45 degrees backward due to his backpack.  His thighs swivel, and his knees can bend over 90 degrees.  His feet can tilt down, due to transformation, but not up, and the front of his foot swivels to give him roughly 90 degrees of ankle pivot.

If you have Legacy Bulkhead you'll know exactly how Battletrap's wrecking ball works.  You open it up, and there's a peg inside that can slide into either fist.  Then you close the wrecking ball so his fist is captured inside.  This would be fine, if it's how Battletrap uses it in the movie (but, as I alluded to, the only bit of him I could find in the trailers has him using a gun).  However, his own box art depicts it on a chain like flail, so it's kind of a bummer that the chain is just molded detail.

Like Bumblebee, Battletrap has storage for his weapon in robot mode.  Basically, there's a tab at the end of the 5mm post inside the ball, and that fits into a slot on the translucent part at the top of his backpack.  It's not the best fit, though... actually, tolerances on the clear plastic seem to be a bit off in general, as there are slots on his backpack formed by gaps between the outer yellow plastic and the inner translucent plastic, and they're suppose to grab onto tabs on his back to lock the backpack in place.  On my copy you can plug the backpack on then watch it immediately pop back off.  Oh well.

Transforming Battletrap is a tad frustrating.  There's some cool stuff, like how the lower leg splits in half and unfolds below the knee, then the whole thing folds around above the knee to make the sides of the truck.  Unfortunately, there are some wonky tolerances again, and they're compounded by the fact that his arms tuck up but don't really lock in place at any point except plugging the ends of his forearm kibble together- if you can get them to stay tabbed in.  Or if his sides will stay in.  Or if his top will stay in place.

Well, it's at least impressive how well he compactifies for this mode.  He doesn't look out-of-place next to Bumblebee.  Or, to contrast with another recent Mad Max-looking tow truck he's just a little longer, taller, and wider than the Junkion Scraphook, albeit significantly heavier.

There are fortunately more photos of the truck used in the film available right now, so it's a bit easier for me to find stuff to complain about .  Well, there's those big clips jutting out the sides, just in front of the side mirrors.  And the hole they plug into forces the "Bernie's Towing and Autobody" logos down a bit, so a stripe that should be running under it is omitted.  On the actual truck, the cab stops and there's a black bar holding up the flashing lights, here we have some orange kibble that would float awkwardly above the edges of the truck bed even if the cab did stay tabbed in all the way.  Instead of exhaust pipes running along the sides between the fuel tanks and the rear tires you've got a mess of foot kibble that drags so low his tires barely have any clearance to roll (and they don't actually roll all that well, so maybe they don't actually have that clearance after all).  There's a weird flame pattern on his front bumper... is it supposed to be rust?  Scratches?  Either way it's not on the truck they filmed with.  As for the rear, the trio of lights on each side are accurate enough but the hinges, cutout in the middle, and the bulges in the middle aren't.  His robot knees, hands, and parts of his forearms are easily visible and the back of the cab is wide open.  The boom for the tow hook is too short as well.  If I was GMC I'm not sure I'd be happy with how Hasbro represented my truck, but then again, maybe GMC is just happy Hasbro's checks don't bounce.

Well, he doesn't roll very well, but at least you can store his wrecking ball in this mode.  Actually, doing so kind of helps.  See, there are small tabs on the sides of the bits under the tow hook  There's a slot behind the peg inside the ball, and another slot on the other half of the ball, so the ball closes over and tabs onto both sides.  Since the tabs are on separate pieces that are ostensibly tabbed together themselves, the wrecking ball helps them stay together.

Battletrap's definitely a mixed bag.  The robot mode looks pretty good, except for the awful kibble on his arms, but loose shoulders kind of spoil that for me.  The truck, despite being a licensed vehicle, has tolerance issues that keep things that are supposed to be tabbed in from staying tabbed in, has things that should be tabbed or locked in place that just don't, and has entirely too much robot kibble, including some that prevents him from rolling well.  If he were a Deluxe, or heck, if Voyagers were still under $30, I might be able to excuse some of this.  But in the era of $35 Voyagers Hasbro needs to do better.  I know Hasbro recently announced they wanted to increase profits 50% by 2025, but if there plan to do it is to raise prices and lower quality I think a number of fans will simply stop buying their stuff.  On that note, maybe once the film comes out and I see it Battletrap will wind up being a favorite villain I'm glad I have a figure of, but as it stands right now I don't think I can actually recommend this one.

This fig hasn't appealed to me since it was first revealed, and your review only cements my opinion. Honestly, I'm not really finding too many of these RotB figs all that appealing. Money and space saved, but it's rare that so much of a line fails to appeal to me. As of now, the only figs I plan on picking up are the deluxe Airazor and SS Mirage. Honestly, I'd prefer this Mirage custom.

[mikeszekely]

12 hours ago, M'Kyuun said:

As of now, the only figs I plan on picking up are the deluxe Airazor and SS Mirage.

Curious that Mirage was unveiled, but there are no preorders.  Same goes for the Core-class Swoop and Skar, too.  As for Airazor, she just arrived and I haven't had a chance to photograph and mess around with her, so the review won't be ready until tomorrow-ish.  But in the meantime, perhaps you'd enjoy a Core-class Freezer?*

Wait, are we sure this isn't Frenzy?  *Double-checks box*  No, it definitely says Freezer.  Well, I have no idea who Freezer is.  Was he even in any of the trailers?  The box art is just a close up of his face yelling at you, and when I tried searching for info on him I got back mostly stuff on the other characters in the movie, especially Scourge, Mirage, and Wheeljack for some reason.

The lingering Bayverse aesthetics hit hard on this one.  As I alluded to, if you take away two arms and make him a bit less substantial and a bit more jagged metal and he's basically Frenzy.  Which, you know, we don't have a Studio Series Frenzy.  But then again, this isn't actually Frenzy, so...?

I guess he cleans up fairly neatly.  He's got a little backpack, but nothing egregious.  And Hasbro seems to have used a lot of his budget on paint, as he's got a dirty copper weathered effect all over the lighter gray parts.  Not sure why he has 5mm pegs for heels, though.

Frenzy doesn't come with any accessories.

OK, I'll be very upfront here as we move into articulation, this is where things are going to start to fall apart, as he's almost entirely ball joints.  His neck is hinged at the base with the idea that his head should extended forward from his body, but the hinge technically gives you the ability to lift his head up as well.  The head itself is on a ball joint with some up/down tilt, some ability to look left and right, and in this position swiveling is sideways tilt, and he could turn his head upside-down if you like.  His shoulders, which are a touch loose, can swivel and move 90 degrees laterally.  Ball joints at the elbows bend just over 90 degrees and act as bicep swivels.  No wrist articulation, no waist articulation.  Ball joints at the hips, again a tad too loose, have 180 total degrees of movement, but it's at an angle that runs from over 90 degrees forward to under 90 degrees backward.  They also allow for 90 degrees of lateral movement.  Likewise, the only thigh swivel you'll get is the limited swivel around the ball joint.  His digitigrade knees have no articulation, but he's got ball joints at the next joint (anatomically, the ankle) for a little swivel and a bend with a little under 90 degrees of total range.  His ankles (anatomically actually knuckles, BTW) are yet more ball joints with swivels, limited upward tilt, downward tilt until the pegs on the backs start hitting his legs, and a fairly limited pivot.

Freezer's transformation is simple, and would be super easy... if he weren't made of ball joints.  But because he is, he winds up being the most frustrating ROTB figure I've looked at yet.  It comes down to three things- first, very little actually locks or tabs into place.  Like, sure, his backpack opens and flips over his head, but other than that the only thing tabbing into anything else are his elbows tabbing into the other elbows on the same side.  The rest is kind of just arranging his limbs however looks best for you.  The second is that, because ball joints don't have regular bends or turns and so little actually locks into place, the one thing that's supposed to is a chore.  It's a struggle to get the ball joints turned just right at both the shoulders and the elbows to actually get the tabs on his upper elbows lined up with the slots on his lower ones.  Finally, when you do manage it, the third issue is we're now relying on the tension in the ball joints of those shoulders, those hips, and those legs to hold everything in place now, and we've already established that the hips and shoulders are too loose.   

While I'm complaining that his alt mode is a floppy mess in a descriptive sense, you might be looking at him and thinking "floppy mess" is literally his alt mode.  I mean, what is this?  Some kind of artillery?  I mean, sure, there's a gun barrel covering his head, and we (tried) tabbing his arms together and propping him up with them, but he's still 90% robot mode on his back.

He technically has a third mode, however.  Instead of tabbing his arms together at the elbows and propping him up on his hands, you can turn the lower arms and tab his lower elbows into slots on his thighs (again, sounds simple, but good luck lining up those ball joints to get the tabs at just the right angles), then tab is upper wrists into the slots on his lower elbows.  A 5mm peg can be unfolded from his back (wrecking your nails in the process).  Now, instead of being some kind of standalone artillery piece he's a gun that's meant for Scourge... who hasn't been released yet.  I gave him to the lamentably gun-less Battletrap, and he's a little big to use with him.  The 5mm peg is roughly around where Freezer's shoulders are, which means that all that limb kibble runs past Battletrap's wrist, past his elbow and all the way up to his shoulder.  Battletrap might have been able to pull it off anyway, but remember that Battletrap's shoulders are too loose and would usually collapse under Freezer's weight anyway.

I should note that Freezer apparently has a fourth minor configuration that's basically mounting his gun mode to Scourge's truck mode.  I'll try to remember to highlight it when Scourge comes out.

Quote

But in the meantime, perhaps you'd enjoy a Core-class Freezer?*

*No, no you would not.  I suppose you could still take this with a grain of salt since I haven't seen the movie and have no real background for Freezer, but Freezer's a crappy robot with worse alt modes.  Barring an amazing scene in the movie, he's borderline useless.  He's almost entirely annoying ball joints with almost no actual transformation.  Even for the lower standards of a Core-class figure he feels like a rip off that could have been a cheaper Battlemaster or something.  I can't imagine that he adds a ton of value to Scourge, either.  Skip this one and save your money.

[Chronocidal]

Yeah, that definitely looks like a complete mess of ball joints.  It's like someone threw a bottle of glue in a box of spare Revoltech parts, shook it, and out popped this thing.

Though.. the positioning in the last pic.. I can't help think he's trying to impersonate a micro-sized SDF-1.  Turn his hands around a little, straighten the arms, and you've got cruiser mode, with a giant gun on the front.  

[mikeszekely]

23 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

As for Airazor, she just arrived and I haven't had a chance to photograph and mess around with her, so the review won't be ready until tomorrow-ish.

Tomorrow is now today.  After a pair of duds, how will Deluxe-class Airazor fare?

Well, the initial impression is pretty good!  With the mask around her eyes, the feathered helmet, and the bird head in her chest she's recognizably Airazor.  On one hand, I'm not sure I dig the more monotone, limited color palette (based on the trailer, an issue that all the Maximals in Rise of the Beasts seem to share).  Her gray is now more brownish, with a few silver and metallic green highlights.  No more orange or bright gold.  On the other hand, I really like the sculpt.  ROTB Airazor trades in the '90s CGI proportions for a slightly taller, better-proportioned build.  She's still a feminine figure, but with a little more strength, a little more presence, than the Kingdom version.

Not a lot to add about the back and sides, except to say that I really like the feathered texture on her thighs and calves.

Much like the Kingdom toy, she comes with a pair of blasters, covered with that metallic greenish paint.

Although her head seems to be on a ball joint, she has a pretty limited up/down tilt and practically no sideways tilt (just enough to let me know it's a ball joint under there).  He shoulders are also, sadly, ball joints, but they swivel and move laterally 90 degrees, and they're at least tensioned well.  Her biceps swivel, and her elbows bend 90 degrees.  No wrist swivels.  Her waist does swivel, but it requires that you un-tab and lift up her bird-head chest a little so the beak clears her waist armor (something Kingdom avoided by keeping her waist armor low enough for the beak to clear it in the first place).  Her hips can go forward and laterally 90 degrees, and backward about 45 degrees due to her bird tail being in the way, but 45 is enough I think.  Her thighs swivel just above her knees, which bend all the way to her thighs and calves meeting.  Her ankles are ball joints, which allows them to swivel plus gives them a decent upward tilt, slight downward tilt, and a disappointingly slight ankle pivot.

Much like the Kingdom figure, Airazor can either plug her guns into her 5mm fists, or into 5mm ports on her forearms.  She lacks the other 5mm ports of the Kingdom figure, though, and I could find no other storage spots for her accessories.

I've been comparing ROTB Airazor to the Kingdom toy quite a bit, and there's a good reason for that- they're the same figure.  OK, sure, I know that in some interview or livestream one of the designers mentioned that it's a new figure and doesn't share any parts with Kingdom Airazor, and that's true.  But the engineering is 100% the same.  If you've transformed Kingdom Airazor then you've transformed ROTB Airazor, because every step is the same.  I'm not saying that's a bad thing- Kingdom Airazor was a good toy!  But I find it kind of curious that Cheetor's Studio Series figure is totally new and Airazor is the Kingdom toy with new parts, while the preivously-leaked non-Studio Series figures have a totally new Airazor and Cheetor is the Kingdom toy with new parts.

Using the Kingdom design means that ROTB Airazor has that same perched pose that aren't necessarily conducive to flying poses.  Her longer, thicker legs aren't as convincingly tucked against her torso.  It kind of changes what sort of bird she's supposed to be.  We can assume that Kingdom Airazor, with her smaller beak, is some kind of falcon.  ROTB's larger talons and beak suggest that she's be upgraded into some kind of eagle.  Of course, like Cheetor, she's also trading a realistic alt mode for a more bio-mechanical one.

Articulation in bird mode is much the same as the Kingdom toy.  Her feet retain their ball-jointed range, and a mid-shin joint is used for this mode.  You can technically still use her robot knees, but that'd break up the sculpt.  Her head can swivel and look up and down, plus her beak can open.  Her alt mode weapons are plugged into her robot forearms- since she doesn't have Kingdom's other 5mm ports, you can't plug them into the thighs the way you do on Kingdom (and Kingdom's legs tucked in tighter, so there isn't room to plug in her guns to her arms).  If you had the guns on her forearms in robot mode you don't even need to remove them for transformation, just rotate them 180 degrees.

Ultimately, I think the worst thing about ROTB Airazor is that it's not really a new toy.  Earthrise Starscream has more changes from the Classics mold than ROTB Airazor does from the Kingdom version.  But like I said, that's not necessarily a bad thing.  I actually prefer the robot mode on ROTB, as I think it has better proportions and a more interesting sculpt, but the alt mode suffers a bit for it.  Plus, Airazor doesn't have any of the joint tolerance issues I ran into with Freezer and Battletrap.  I'm going to give Airazor a recommend- if you liked the Kingdom toy, you should enjoy this one as well.

[M'Kyuun]

On 2/26/2023 at 11:12 AM, mikeszekely said:

Curious that Mirage was unveiled, but there are no preorders.  Same goes for the Core-class Swoop and Skar, too.  As for Airazor, she just arrived and I haven't had a chance to photograph and mess around with her, so the review won't be ready until tomorrow-ish.  But in the meantime, perhaps you'd enjoy a Core-class Freezer?*

Wait, are we sure this isn't Frenzy?  *Double-checks box*  No, it definitely says Freezer.  Well, I have no idea who Freezer is.  Was he even in any of the trailers?  The box art is just a close up of his face yelling at you, and when I tried searching for info on him I got back mostly stuff on the other characters in the movie, especially Scourge, Mirage, and Wheeljack for some reason.

The lingering Bayverse aesthetics hit hard on this one.  As I alluded to, if you take away two arms and make him a bit less substantial and a bit more jagged metal and he's basically Frenzy.  Which, you know, we don't have a Studio Series Frenzy.  But then again, this isn't actually Frenzy, so...?

I guess he cleans up fairly neatly.  He's got a little backpack, but nothing egregious.  And Hasbro seems to have used a lot of his budget on paint, as he's got a dirty copper weathered effect all over the lighter gray parts.  Not sure why he has 5mm pegs for heels, though.

Frenzy doesn't come with any accessories.

OK, I'll be very upfront here as we move into articulation, this is where things are going to start to fall apart, as he's almost entirely ball joints.  His neck is hinged at the base with the idea that his head should extended forward from his body, but the hinge technically gives you the ability to lift his head up as well.  The head itself is on a ball joint with some up/down tilt, some ability to look left and right, and in this position swiveling is sideways tilt, and he could turn his head upside-down if you like.  His shoulders, which are a touch loose, can swivel and move 90 degrees laterally.  Ball joints at the elbows bend just over 90 degrees and act as bicep swivels.  No wrist articulation, no waist articulation.  Ball joints at the hips, again a tad too loose, have 180 total degrees of movement, but it's at an angle that runs from over 90 degrees forward to under 90 degrees backward.  They also allow for 90 degrees of lateral movement.  Likewise, the only thigh swivel you'll get is the limited swivel around the ball joint.  His digitigrade knees have no articulation, but he's got ball joints at the next joint (anatomically, the ankle) for a little swivel and a bend with a little under 90 degrees of total range.  His ankles (anatomically actually knuckles, BTW) are yet more ball joints with swivels, limited upward tilt, downward tilt until the pegs on the backs start hitting his legs, and a fairly limited pivot.

Freezer's transformation is simple, and would be super easy... if he weren't made of ball joints.  But because he is, he winds up being the most frustrating ROTB figure I've looked at yet.  It comes down to three things- first, very little actually locks or tabs into place.  Like, sure, his backpack opens and flips over his head, but other than that the only thing tabbing into anything else are his elbows tabbing into the other elbows on the same side.  The rest is kind of just arranging his limbs however looks best for you.  The second is that, because ball joints don't have regular bends or turns and so little actually locks into place, the one thing that's supposed to is a chore.  It's a struggle to get the ball joints turned just right at both the shoulders and the elbows to actually get the tabs on his upper elbows lined up with the slots on his lower ones.  Finally, when you do manage it, the third issue is we're now relying on the tension in the ball joints of those shoulders, those hips, and those legs to hold everything in place now, and we've already established that the hips and shoulders are too loose.   

While I'm complaining that his alt mode is a floppy mess in a descriptive sense, you might be looking at him and thinking "floppy mess" is literally his alt mode.  I mean, what is this?  Some kind of artillery?  I mean, sure, there's a gun barrel covering his head, and we (tried) tabbing his arms together and propping him up with them, but he's still 90% robot mode on his back.

He technically has a third mode, however.  Instead of tabbing his arms together at the elbows and propping him up on his hands, you can turn the lower arms and tab his lower elbows into slots on his thighs (again, sounds simple, but good luck lining up those ball joints to get the tabs at just the right angles), then tab is upper wrists into the slots on his lower elbows.  A 5mm peg can be unfolded from his back (wrecking your nails in the process).  Now, instead of being some kind of standalone artillery piece he's a gun that's meant for Scourge... who hasn't been released yet.  I gave him to the lamentably gun-less Battletrap, and he's a little big to use with him.  The 5mm peg is roughly around where Freezer's shoulders are, which means that all that limb kibble runs past Battletrap's wrist, past his elbow and all the way up to his shoulder.  Battletrap might have been able to pull it off anyway, but remember that Battletrap's shoulders are too loose and would usually collapse under Freezer's weight anyway.

I should note that Freezer apparently has a fourth minor configuration that's basically mounting his gun mode to Scourge's truck mode.  I'll try to remember to highlight it when Scourge comes out.

*No, no you would not.  I suppose you could still take this with a grain of salt since I haven't seen the movie and have no real background for Freezer, but Freezer's a crappy robot with worse alt modes.  Barring an amazing scene in the movie, he's borderline useless.  He's almost entirely annoying ball joints with almost no actual transformation.  Even for the lower standards of a Core-class figure he feels like a rip off that could have been a cheaper Battlemaster or something.  I can't imagine that he adds a ton of value to Scourge, either.  Skip this one and save your money.

If the alt mode was some sort of praying mantis, I could buy that, but as any sort of relatable gun, it fails absolutely. Add to that the nauseatingly Bayformery Frenzy-ish look of it, and all interest recedes to nothingness. I so vehemently wish they'd put everything Bay in the rearview mirror and all but ostracize it like they've done with Animated, which was magnitudes better than any single one of the atrocious and unsalvageable travesties that are the Michael Bay live action films. 

7 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Tomorrow is now today.  After a pair of duds, how will Deluxe-class Airazor fare?

Well, the initial impression is pretty good!  With the mask around her eyes, the feathered helmet, and the bird head in her chest she's recognizably Airazor.  On one hand, I'm not sure I dig the more monotone, limited color palette (based on the trailer, an issue that all the Maximals in Rise of the Beasts seem to share).  Her gray is now more brownish, with a few silver and metallic green highlights.  No more orange or bright gold.  On the other hand, I really like the sculpt.  ROTB Airazor trades in the '90s CGI proportions for a slightly taller, better-proportioned build.  She's still a feminine figure, but with a little more strength, a little more presence, than the Kingdom version.

Not a lot to add about the back and sides, except to say that I really like the feathered texture on her thighs and calves.

Much like the Kingdom toy, she comes with a pair of blasters, covered with that metallic greenish paint.

Although her head seems to be on a ball joint, she has a pretty limited up/down tilt and practically no sideways tilt (just enough to let me know it's a ball joint under there).  He shoulders are also, sadly, ball joints, but they swivel and move laterally 90 degrees, and they're at least tensioned well.  Her biceps swivel, and her elbows bend 90 degrees.  No wrist swivels.  Her waist does swivel, but it requires that you un-tab and lift up her bird-head chest a little so the beak clears her waist armor (something Kingdom avoided by keeping her waist armor low enough for the beak to clear it in the first place).  Her hips can go forward and laterally 90 degrees, and backward about 45 degrees due to her bird tail being in the way, but 45 is enough I think.  Her thighs swivel just above her knees, which bend all the way to her thighs and calves meeting.  Her ankles are ball joints, which allows them to swivel plus gives them a decent upward tilt, slight downward tilt, and a disappointingly slight ankle pivot.

Much like the Kingdom figure, Airazor can either plug her guns into her 5mm fists, or into 5mm ports on her forearms.  She lacks the other 5mm ports of the Kingdom figure, though, and I could find no other storage spots for her accessories.

I've been comparing ROTB Airazor to the Kingdom toy quite a bit, and there's a good reason for that- they're the same figure.  OK, sure, I know that in some interview or livestream one of the designers mentioned that it's a new figure and doesn't share any parts with Kingdom Airazor, and that's true.  But the engineering is 100% the same.  If you've transformed Kingdom Airazor then you've transformed ROTB Airazor, because every step is the same.  I'm not saying that's a bad thing- Kingdom Airazor was a good toy!  But I find it kind of curious that Cheetor's Studio Series figure is totally new and Airazor is the Kingdom toy with new parts, while the preivously-leaked non-Studio Series figures have a totally new Airazor and Cheetor is the Kingdom toy with new parts.

Using the Kingdom design means that ROTB Airazor has that same perched pose that aren't necessarily conducive to flying poses.  Her longer, thicker legs aren't as convincingly tucked against her torso.  It kind of changes what sort of bird she's supposed to be.  We can assume that Kingdom Airazor, with her smaller beak, is some kind of falcon.  ROTB's larger talons and beak suggest that she's be upgraded into some kind of eagle.  Of course, like Cheetor, she's also trading a realistic alt mode for a more bio-mechanical one.

Articulation in bird mode is much the same as the Kingdom toy.  Her feet retain their ball-jointed range, and a mid-shin joint is used for this mode.  You can technically still use her robot knees, but that'd break up the sculpt.  Her head can swivel and look up and down, plus her beak can open.  Her alt mode weapons are plugged into her robot forearms- since she doesn't have Kingdom's other 5mm ports, you can't plug them into the thighs the way you do on Kingdom (and Kingdom's legs tucked in tighter, so there isn't room to plug in her guns to her arms).  If you had the guns on her forearms in robot mode you don't even need to remove them for transformation, just rotate them 180 degrees.

Ultimately, I think the worst thing about ROTB Airazor is that it's not really a new toy.  Earthrise Starscream has more changes from the Classics mold than ROTB Airazor does from the Kingdom version.  But like I said, that's not necessarily a bad thing.  I actually prefer the robot mode on ROTB, as I think it has better proportions and a more interesting sculpt, but the alt mode suffers a bit for it.  Plus, Airazor doesn't have any of the joint tolerance issues I ran into with Freezer and Battletrap.  I'm going to give Airazor a recommend- if you liked the Kingdom toy, you should enjoy this one as well.

I very much like Kingdom Airazor, and although I initially thought this was just a retooll/repaint of that mold, the fact that she's a new mold that follows the same transformation schema as the Kingdom toy doesn't bother me a bit. I think, too, the concessions are a little more apparent in bird mode, but not so egregious as to deter my overall positive opinion. However, I wasn't planning on getting this fig, since I already have Kingdom Airazor and Terrorsaur which fulfill my need for this particular mold. I was, however, considering picking up the deluxe RotB mold where her legs form a fair part of the wings and the arms form the bird's legs, just for some variation. That said, I think the Kingdom design's bird mode, and thus this deluxe Airazor's alt mode, offers far more in terms of articulation. Thanks for the review, Mike.

[mikeszekely]

4 minutes ago, M'Kyuun said:

I was, however, considering picking up the deluxe RotB mold where her legs form a fair part of the wings and the arms form the bird's legs, just for some variation. That said, I think the Kingdom design's bird mode, and thus this deluxe Airazor's alt mode, offers far more in terms of articulation.

A part of me thinks I don't really need the regular ROTB figures, with the notion that the Studio Series ones are more accurate.  That said, I get bored when I haven't bought a new Transformer in awhile.  I could see myself seeing them on a shelf and buying them on a whim.  Maybe I'll keep the accessories (the swords from that Airazor and the gut gun from that Cheetor) and let my daughter have the figures.

[JB0]

You know what the worst thing is about Frenzy Frieza Freezer? I love the concept, but the execution is just terrible. 

 

He turns into an artillery piece for smaller toys, or a rifle WITH AN ACTUAL SHOULDER STOCK for larger ones. And the stock's adjustable enough to fit a good range of arms.

This should be cool as heck, but... no, he just looks like Kickback had a seizure.

[mikeszekely]

Buzzworthy Origin Jazz is up for preorder on Target's website.

Edit: Pulse too 

Edit again: Pulse also has preorders for Guardian Robot with Lunar-Tread.  Now, don't ask me while I'll spend hundreds of dollars on every Seeker repaint under the sun but I can't justify a single $200 purchase on a repaint, but there you have it.  I dig the colors, but it's too big and too expensive to buy an Omega Supreme repaint.  That said, Black Zarak, the Ark, and Legacy Metroplex have all gone on sale/clearance- it's actually why I picked up Black Zarak.  If the Guardian goes under maybe $120-ish I'll probably bite.

While I'm talking about unreleased figures, this guy is making the rounds: Legacy Towline.  I think he's a Generations Selects.

For the geewunners like myself, this retool of Scraphook is supposed to be this guy from Robots in Disguse (2001):

I'm not feeling this one.  Don't get me wrong, I like the green, and I think we need more bright green Transformers.  Just because Scraphook has a tow hook doesn't really make him similar enough for this to work.  Scraphook and Towline are clearly different kinds of trucks, and Scraphook doesn't have the almost the entire cab for a beer belly the way Towline does.  I don't mind seeing more RiD in Legacy (or whatever comes next)- RiD '01 Optimus is one of my favorite Optimus designs.  But surely Hasbro can do better than this.

Edited February 28, 2023 by mikeszekely

[M'Kyuun]

54 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

Buzzworthy Origin Jazz is up for preorder on Target's website.

Edit: Pulse too 

Edit again: Pulse also has preorders for Guardian Robot with Lunar-Tread.  Now, don't ask me while I'll spend hundreds of dollars on every Seeker repaint under the sun but I can't justify a single $200 purchase on a repaint, but there you have it.  I dig the colors, but it's too big and too expensive to buy an Omega Supreme repaint.  That said, Black Zarak, the Ark, and Legacy Metroplex have all gone on sale/clearance- it's actually why I picked up Black Zarak.  If the Guardian goes under maybe $120-ish I'll probably bite.

While I'm talking about unreleased figures, this guy is making the rounds: Legacy Towline.  I think he's a Generations Selects.

For the geewunners like myself, this retool of Scraphook is supposed to be this guy from Robots in Disguse (2001):

I'm not feeling this one.  Don't get me wrong, I like the green, and I think we need more bright green Transformers.  Just because Scraphook has a tow hook doesn't really make him similar enough for this to work.  Scraphook and Towline are clearly different kinds of trucks, and Scraphook doesn't have the almost the entire cab for a beer belly the way Towline does.  I don't mind seeing more RiD in Legacy (or whatever comes next)- RiD '01 Optimus is one of my favorite Optimus designs.  But surely Hasbro can do better than this.

Thanks for those links, Mike. I managed to get Origins Jazz through Target, as Pulse was already sold out (only 49 minutes after your post). These damnable exclusives and their extremely short stock on Pulse are absolute BS. I'm not feeling the benefit of my membership when these things go up for PO and I have no awareness until an hour later and the bloody things are already sold out.  Anyway, you're a godsend. Thanks, Mike.

[mikeszekely]

1 minute ago, M'Kyuun said:

Anyway, you're a godsend. Thanks, Mike.

No problem.  I preordered at Target before I knew Pulse had a link, so I grabbed on there, but when I saw Pulse taking preorders I figured I'd better preorder there because I remember Target cancelling orders for Thrust.  What I'll likely do is keep my orders for both then pass one along to someone who needs it later.

[M'Kyuun]

8 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

No problem.  I preordered at Target before I knew Pulse had a link, so I grabbed on there, but when I saw Pulse taking preorders I figured I'd better preorder there because I remember Target cancelling orders for Thrust.  What I'll likely do is keep my orders for both then pass one along to someone who needs it later.

Very good, glad we both got our copies. I hope Target doesn't pull their PO cancellation shenanigans again. I missed out on Thrust precisely for that reason. grrrr

[JB0]

3 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

But surely Hasbro can do better than this.

Man, that's replaced "more than meets the eye" as the brand slogan at this point.