The modern comics universe has had such a different take on G1, one that's significantly represented by the Generations toys, so they share a forum. A modern take on a Real Cybertronian Hero. Currently starring Generations toys, IDW "The Transformers" comics, MTMTE, TF vs GI Joe, and Windblade. Oh wait, and now Skybound, wheee!
Dominic wrote: I would agree with this if the toys themselves were not so much a step back from what we had been getting before. I did not complain when Deluxes started hovering around the $15 mark locally (in 2010 or so), as those toys still felt like deluxes. Lets accept that "not quite $20" is the current price for a Deluxe. That is fine. But, modern Deluxes feel like yesterday's Scouts, which makes the price harder to accept.
This statement might have been true if we were still in 2012. Almost all the 2013 Newer BH toys are bigger in their size classes compared to 2012. The Generations 2013 TF toys appear to be bigger,higher sculpted,better engineered & worth their price.
Depends on where you shop,Obviously if your only shopping at Toys R Us ofcause your going to pay much more for TF toys. Hasbro.com's TF prices often are the lowest & can't be beat. Walmart & Target offer much lower TF toy prices compared to TRU,Kmart & Kohls.
Dominic wrote:It is not just the fact that the FOC figure is hollow. It is the fact that it looks like the sort of toy that would be hollow. Similarly, it is not so much the weight of the figure (either as an absolute or relative to a smaller figure like Windcharger), it is the look of the figure. As important as fiddle value is, I select for display value more highly.
I hear ya. I felt similarly at first with the figure, but actually now I feel quite differently, and was hoping you'd have a similar experience.
You did not steer me at all. As I recall, the exchange involved me asking you if you had seen the damned thing, and you saying you would keep an eye out. I should have thought it over more before buying a current TF figure (or anything by Hasbro) "blind".
True enough.
That is part of it. But, the colour mapping also plays a role.
Well, the color mapping isn't Hasbro's fault, those are the game colors in both modes.
BWp wrote:I tend to feel crazy when these sorts of assertions pop up, we all realize how inflation works, right? To expect something to sell for the same price for over a decade is insanity, the fact that Hasbro was able to keep the Deluxe price point at $10 for as long as they were is impressive enough in itself.
To be balanced on this, toy manufacturers get new technologies and smarter ways of business to balance those things out, so a figure that cost $2 to make a decade ago by today's technology and skill might cost $1.50 to make in those dollars. Also, there's a perception that for a few generations said that kids toys had to cost X, that a kid with a $5 bill would expect to be able to buy Y. Today that number is now $20 after 3 decades of being stalled, but the number of toys they buy is way down.
Dominic wrote:I would agree with this if the toys themselves were not so much a step back from what we had been getting before. I did not complain when Deluxes started hovering around the $15 mark locally (in 2010 or so), as those toys still felt like deluxes. Lets accept that "not quite $20" is the current price for a Deluxe. That is fine. But, modern Deluxes feel like yesterday's Scouts, which makes the price harder to accept.
That's it right there.
See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
It strikes me that we should be talking about the current "Generations" line in the "Prime" forums, given that the figures are all allegedly rooted in the game that is supposed to be in context with "Prime"
Of course, given how loosely the toys transalte the game's character art (especially the disk troopers), I suppose that we may as well keep reviewing them here.
Rewind/Sundor: (robot and bird/disks)
The short and practical review of this set is "no suprises". Rewind is cast from a significant retool of the Frenzy/Rumble mould. Of course, given the size and mechanical requirements of this toy, the changes are not only cosmetic by difficult to notice in passing. I am not sure, but it looks like Rewind and Eject invert the circuit printing on Rumble and Frenzy (flipping it top to bottom, rather than side to side). Sundor is a recolour of Laserbeak/Buzzsaw, albeit with different paint masking on the bird's head. My Sundor/Sunder has some serious quality control issues with the springs being a little too loose and the wing joints needing to be "worked" a bit to make them work properly
Grade:C/D This set is worth getting if you have a fondness for either of the characters, but not much else.
I actually do have a fondness for Rewind. Despite bad associations that I may have between the character and "More than Meets the Eye". Rewind was one of the first Autobot tapes. And, let me tell you that when I was 8 years old, discovering the Autobot tapes was one of my favourite toy hunts ever. (I did not even have Blaster. But, Autobot tapes!) As I got older, I really came to appreciated Rewind's archvist gimmick.
Rewind's "disk" mode is a modern take on the original's cassette form. Of course, the disk form is only very loosely a disk. If anything, it looks more like some kind of removable drive. (The moulded details along the round side of the "disk" that resemble ports and connections strengthen this impression.) This is not a bad general representation of Rewind (even if it succeeds in my eyes due to failing as a representation of the character as it was meant to be). And, Rewind's alternate form of a "disk" is different enough from the "data stick" form he uses in the comics that I can disassociate Rewind from the comics.
On another note, if we assume that Sunder shares Sundor's bio, he is actually a deep cover Decepticon spy. He is a deep cover Decepticon spy that is hanging around with the Autobot's main archivist.......
Question for you on the tapes/discs/whatever we're referring to them as, Dom: I know you initially had an interest in these guys for their possible customizing potential. Now that you've gotten your hands on a few of them and seen how they work (springs, auto-transformation, all that) do you think that customization on them is at all probable?
If the Club wanted to start recoloring these guys into random obscure dudes and chuck one in with every exclusive toy they sold in the future, that could be kind of neat. At any rate *somebody* should end up exploiting the pack-in potential the discs have. I could see Takara going crazy with exclusive recolors too.
Dominic wrote:It strikes me that we should be talking about the current "Generations" line in the "Prime" forums, given that the figures are all allegedly rooted in the game that is supposed to be in context with "Prime"
Keep in mind that Prime and the games are only in a LOOSELY-aligned continuity. Also, the majority of the game designs are showing up in IDW's G1 comics now.
I
actually do have a fondness for Rewind. Despite bad associations that I may have between the character and "More than Meets the Eye". Rewind was one of the first Autobot tapes. And, let me tell you that when I was 8 years old, discovering the Autobot tapes was one of my favourite toy hunts ever. (I did not even have Blaster. But, Autobot tapes!) As I got older, I really came to appreciated Rewind's archvist gimmick.
I liked the Autobot tapes well enough back in the day, just hated the Blaster toy design though, so chunky and not as cool compared to Soundwave.
I think what bums me out about these minions is how underwhelming they are as toys compared to their 30-year-old counterparts. If Hasbro re-released all the tapes again today, that'd be awesome on its own minus the nostalgia factor. But none of the modern minion figures in this line are worth spit to me without their nifty Blaster and Soundwave/blaster figures to carry their value in my collection.
Dominic wrote:Customizing these would be a nightmare. (Taking apart spring-loaded figures is always dicey, and never fun.)
Customizing the disks would take significant amounts skill and patience.
I would think if you don't mind not automorph-transforming them again, it'd be pretty easy, the hardest part being adding friction to the various hinges that were previously held in place with spring-tension.
See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
For one reason or another, Hasbro’s been on a Springer kick for a while. There was BotCon Springer (though that wasn’t really Hasbro), then Universe Springer and GDO Generations Springer. My point is they’ve been making Springers pretty regularly.
They can stop now.
I often like to withhold my final opinion until the end of a review, letting it coalesce from all the information I’ve gone over and arriving at a final judgment. But there’s no sense in holding back on this one: Generations Springer is an incredible toy. With that out of the way, we can get to the review, and find out why.
Helicopter Mode
Of his two altmodes, Springer’s helicopter mode always felt like it was more characteristic, more indicative of him. So we’ll start in this one. The size of this thing is impressive. Voyagers felt like they were getting a bit smaller (though not as noticeably as Deluxes) and guys like the recent Generations Soundwave compacted up all boxily for their vehicle modes, so there was little impressive vehicle mode size. But Springer seems to have some length to him. Some heft. making the tail section just the legs clipped together you might think would have it end up too spindly, but the sections are thick enough that it works.
This certainly isn't an Earth helicopter of any sort, but Springer wasn't a regular, current-day helicopter to begin with anyway, and they don't use the 'futuristic' vehicle angle to cop out on the details. Springer still has fold-down landing gear with sculpted wheels, a full cockpit and nose section with intakes, tailfins. They even allotted portions on the arm panels that fold out for the outer pods of the vehicle mode to have little wings on the ends of them. Hey, the rotor even spins freely! Those wing-pod sections might be the one weak part of this vehicle. They don't really peg into anything, just held in by the friction of their transformation hinges, so they move around a little more than I'd like for this sort of thing, but it's hardly a deal-breaker.
The missile launcher actually clips underneath the nose of the vehicle. Doesn't peg, the handle plays no part here, there's actually an extra clip section molded into it that clips into a receiving portion of the copter's cockpit, interesting. You do have to fold the front landing gear into the cockpit to make room for the launcher, and it can be tricky to get back out, but it's doable. The launcher itself is unusual too, in that it's actually a pressure-launch-style launcher, but it still uses a trigger you push forward to fire the missiles. Furthermore, the internals of it are set up so they fire one after the other, instead of both at once. I like it, because with no springs in there, you can't accidentally trigger a launch, but you still get a decently satisfying double-missile-launch gimmick if you want.
Transformation to Car Mode
Going between both modes, it's impressive to see how much effort they put into making both modes unique from each other, and making sure they didn't compromise each other. The window/cockpit section folds back to be in proper position for car mode, and despite windowed portions of the car folding away into wings for copter mode, Springer has 'extra' side-windows for the cockpit molded in clear plastic along the inner sides of it, so you aren't left with just empty space or something there. There're also side panels that lift out of the sides and rotate to cover or uncover the wheels depending on the mode, so you don't have big car wheels just hanging off a helicopter. The rearranging of the helicopter tailfins as spoiler wings on the car is also clever. The amount of effort put into parts like these is, frankly, kinda surprising.
I initially thought that there was nowhere for the rotor/sword to go in this mode, though I did notice it had a dedicated connection hole on the gun, so I figured they just wanted you to combine the weapons for car mode. But a quick peek at the instructions reveals a far more impressive solution. The landing gear/knee-spikes on the underside of the vehicle have tiny little tabs molded into the inside of them, and you peg the sword into those, then fold the whole assembly down to store on the underside of the car. It’s absolutely insidious how seamless the design of this part is, it’s just brilliant.
Regarding attaching and detaching the rotor/sword for helicopter mode, it's kind of a tight fit, and the part doesn't have the easiest leverage to get ahold of. I recommend folding it into sword mode when you're trying to do anything with it, since at least then it's not rotating freely, and you can twist it to get it all the way in if you need to.
Car Mode
Loosely interpreted as an ‘Armored Car’ in the instructions and packaging, but more clearly intended to be evocative of a dune buggy so this toy can be retooled into Sandstorm later (man, how lucky is it that two of the Autobot Triple-Changers both turn into helicopters and cars?), there’s still enough ‘armored’ about it to evoke Springer’s side of the equation. And frankly, Springer’s old car mode, rotor-less helicopter on wheels that it was, wasn’t really worth keeping a ton of details from. What we do still have is a car that straddles the line between 'futuristic' and 'tricked out for battle' with bits that look like extra bolted-on armor plating, and the gun mount on top of it. There's little tubes sculpted in placed going under areas of the car, suggesting further customization. And yeah, he's even got clear-plastic windows AND clear-plastic headlights inserted into the front of the hood-pieces. Jeez, they're really trying to win us over, aren't they? The wheels are even pinned in, not clipped on like a lot of wheels are today, and they have their hubcaps painted!
The missile launcher pegs into the top of this mode (same hole where the rotor was in copter mode), and has a hinge so it can elevate in addition to rotating at its connection point, which contributes to the idea of this vehicle as an armored 'combat' car.
One thing that should be mentioned about both of these vehicle modes is paint matching. The yellow ‘hood’ parts that also become part of the wing pods and the center of the cockpit in helicopter mode are made up of yellow plastic pieces with gray pieces painted yellow forming the back chunks of them. Now normally, yellow plastic and yellow-painted plastic are the Hatfields and McCoys of toy details, refusing to get along and obliterating any semblance of consistent detail. But here, Hasbro have miraculously made it work. I actually didn’t even notice the back parts were painted plastic at first, it matches amazingly well.
Transformation to Robot Mode
There's not a lot of complicated twisting or busywork to this, everything at one end of the toy stays at that end, car-sides/wing pods becoming arms, with the tail/aft end splitting into the legs, and the hood folding down into the chest. The arms have some decent manipulation going on with them, and I like the way the head folds up on an actual panel, rather than just rotating up on its own joint or something. And that little click the feet parts do, rotating just a bit on the outside along the axis of the wheels? It's oddly satisfying, makes the move feel more 'technical' than just flipping the feet out.
Don't forget to slide out and rotate the hood pieces for the shoulders, that's integral to the character design!
Robot Mode
Springer’s robot mode has stood out as abnormally impressive since those first pics at Toyfair. It’s detailed, and solid, yet dynamic. The wheels seated in the shins and shoulders lend a lot of character, and the way the forearm halves origami together for transformation and meet up to form sculpted vents along them is extremely clever. And there's little sculpted details like that all over the thing. Even the chest, which looks like flat yellow plastic at first glance, actually has armor plating and vents sculpted into it. The whole thing looks very sharp.
This robot mode's design is directly based on Springer's design from Last Stand of the Wreckers, incorporating things from the comics being a major theme of Hasbro’s output for the 30th Anniversary Generations toys. In particular, Springer’s head and face design are unmistakably based on Nick Roche’s art, and look great. It's rare to see Transformers toys based on specific comic-originating design, and almost unprecedented to see them based on a particular artist's style, and this example stands out as how well such things can work.
Posability all around is great. Universal hips, mid thigh swivels, and ratcheting knees on the legs. Not a lot of posability in the feet, though they aren't left a lot of room to move due to how they transform, and they're at least sculpted to accommodate splayed-out, more dynamic poses, so. And you can also use the posable knee-pads for extra support in kneeling poses. The arms do a lot better. The shoulders are vertical hinges with ball joints in the ends, where the actual arms are attached, giving him a large range of motion there. These ball joints are a little loose, so I might need to tighten them up a bit. The yellow chest panels that the shoulder hinges are attached to also can detach from the central chest hood a little too easily, making those sections easily the weakest part of the toy, but since those are literally the only problems with this mode, I can hardly complain. Then the arms have bicep swivels, ratcheting elbows that can bend to 90 degrees, and wrists with swivels AND inward-swinging hinges! With all that, his arms have a ton of range and he can pull of some greatly dynamic poses, especially with the sword and gun as weapon options.
Regarding the sword, you actually transform the rotor into this weapon mode when you go to car mode, but I’ll talk about that here. The rotor blades fold up and meet in the middle to form the sword, just like on G1 Springer, but they’re shaped here to actually form a more coherent, better-looking sword in their transformed state. Furthermore, the peg that goes in the hand is also where the pin/bushing that allows the rotor to spin in vehicle mode is located. At first that sounds like a point of failure right, like the sword would just spin freely while pegged into the hand? But there’s a green piece on top of the rotor (with a Mini-Con hardpoint on top of it, of all things) that folds down to let the blades fold up, and this piece pegs into one of many pegs around the diameter of the handle, locking the rotating mechanism into place! It’s another one of those ‘little’ details they worked in that contributes to how well the toy works overall.
Oh, back to articulation real quick, he's also got a waist swivel (that isn't just there for transformation, they specifically included it for posability!) and his head's on a ball joint, which is always great for character and personality.
The hole on his back for storing the sword (or the gun) actually isn’t used in any of the other modes, it’s purely there for robot mode weapon storage.
Altogether, the toy just has presence, between his well-conveyed tallness and his nicely thick and proportionate arms and legs. The impression of Springer I've always had as a character comes from reading the comics, where he's leader of the Wreckers, and this guy LOOKS like a leader.
Overall
Look, I've been one of Hasbro's strongest supporters these days, and I genuinely think most of their current releases HAVE been decently up to modern toy standards. And even then, having Springer in-hand and seeing what Hasbro's accomplished with this toy STILL makes me wonder if they were even TRYING until now. This toy has some brilliant engineering going into it, it's got sharply-sculpted detail all over it, little things like clear windows and headlights and pinned-on wheels with painted hubcaps in an era where we expect stuff like that to be cut! Little stuff like the feet rotating a bit for transformation or the sword and its locking mechanism or storage functionality that make it clear that a lot of thought and work went into this thing. Springer is a shining example of what Hasbro's Transformers toys can be when they're at their absolute best, and you should buy it as soon as you see it. This is a toy that reminds me why I collect Transformers at all.
Now I just need to see if there's anyone out there that'll buy my two now-surplus Springers.
Man, reading this, I"m pretty glad I didn't get that third-party Warbot Defender or whatever it was called. To a lesser degree, I'm glad I missed the Springer from last year, too. I'm not sure if I'll be picking up Blitzwing, but I do have a thing for '86 movie characters, so I can feel justified in picking this thing up.
Zero regrets about getting Universe Springer, though. That thing is a super-cool Cybertron design, and looks enough not like Springer that I can enjoy it as it's own thing, instead of as an extra Springer.
Dominic wrote: too many people likely would have enjoyed it as....well a house-elf gang-bang.
Saturday afternoon, I found myself with a few free hours, and decided to go for a walk, and said walk took me by a Target.
Bumblebee and BlazeMaster: (robot/car and robot/copter)
I am more or less done with toys, particularly TFs at this point. But, I recall really liking Armada 10+ years ago (despite not really wanting to). And, this set (as well as the Optimus Prime/Roller co-sell) reminded me enough of the old "Armada" toys that I figured it was worth a bit more than $10 to fiddle around with one.
This series marks a break with post "Dark of the Moon" TFG figures in that it is not related to the video game and likely has nothing to do with Hasbro's "Alignment". The robot mode is clearly based on 2010's "War for Cybertron" and the BB figure released that year. But, the vehicle mode looks like a weird bastardization of the 2006 figure's vehicle mode and Bumblebee's vehicle mode from "Transformers: Prime". This bothers me a bit as it shows how lax Hasbro is being with their own in-house context and brand-management (by virtue of them ignoring "Aligned"). But, I do like that the toy makes it look like BB landed on Earth with a Cybertronian robot mode and took a local disguise as an after-thought that did not impact his robot mode too visibly. And, if they lack of context for the toy were the biggest issue, I would be much happier with it.
Some people are inclined to be charitable to Hasbro due to the fact that they are trying to work within new budget limits and such. But, even allowing for that, BB and Blazemaster leave much to be desired. Bumblebee's legs pop off easily while being transformed. The parts do not always fit together well in car mode and often need significant "massaging". (Hasbro could not make sure that the pieces lined up better.....why exactly?) And, BlazeMaster does not fit properly in to BB's hand so much as it just sits there. (The bore on the gun peg is smaller than the bore on the hand hole.)
The robot and vehicle modes do not look bad on their own. And, there are some nice touches (especially in the wrist/wheel transformation). But, the over-all execution is weak.
BlazeMaster is a waste. The packaging gave me some idea what to expect. But, the actual toy is worse than the packaging implies. The gun mode looks good. The vehicle mode is acceptable only by virtue of its size. (And, it looks indistinct enough so that I can almost see it as being an undersized Cybertronian copter rather than being a poorly scaled disguise for BlazeMaster.) And, the robot is abysmal, complete with having the feet bound together by a transformation joint. Hasbro was doing a much better job with triple-changing figures at this scale 10+ years ago.
Grade; C
I grabbed BB and BZ out of curiosity, and even a bit of hope. If Hasbro's efforts in the last year or so had been better, I would likely be more inclined to give them another chance with Optimus and/or one of the upcomign Decepticon figures. But, at this point, after Hasbro has been consistently getting the basics wrong. I am less inclined to give them than chance.
Dom
-might still give one of the Triple Changers a shot, and *maybe* Metroplex.
Giving that set a C grade is high praise, coming from you. I expected worse based on the text. C is a passing grade, after all.
I want to post full reviews on Springer and Blitzwing soon, but I'm just burned out on words. Both their instructions suck, huge sheet yet missing "vehicle to bot" and "vehicle to vehicle", and of course have several overly confusing steps, contradictory steps, and that sort of thing. QC on both is ok but not outstanding, some pins not sunk all the way, that sort of thing.
Springer - very likeable in every mode. Some ideas are a little too ambitious for Hasbro's manufacturing (little stuff like final panel alignment in car mode, copter mode feet as tails staying perfectly upright), but overall it does what it's supposed to, it looks good doing it, and it's fun to play with. Transformation feels fresher, more like a real transformer than a lot of recent figures. Every mode looks great and functions well. Sword is fantastic and becomes bayonet for rifle, rifle is ok but not the star. Grade: A-
Blitzwing - on-paper design far too ambitious for budget or manufacturing. Robot is huge and harkens back to G1 roots without forgetting Animated popularity, however it is doomed to trouble from shoulder transformation that simply cannot deliver and just de-transforms whenever moved (everybody warned me and they were right). Animated rotating faces are keen, good inclusion, but very tight and require the head to be unscrewed a little just to turn. Plane mode is better than expected, but lazily leaves arms on top which is wasteful, the fuselage has a nice shape to it too, so that probably was a compromise late in the game. Tank mode is alright, better than I expected, feet/tailfins can be positioned to close up the gaps in the back, for no reason I can see they locked out cannon elevation, but turret rotates. Transformation isn't as good as Springer but has some charms, relies too heavily on hidden tabs in the middle that have to be rotated into place, and tabs into the underside of the turret; design on the PVC nosecone has a mistake, the transformation hinge is too close and causes the nose to be very difficult to move on its joint, but it needs to. That said, the more transforming I do, the more I like it and find little adjustments the designers had in mind but got lost in instructions. And there's some charm to the set as a whole the more I experience it. Sword and gun harken back to G1 model and have 5mm pegs and the sword a 5mm hole, but are made out of ABS so it's a tight fit in various 5mm holes like the fists; gun's grip is very short so it only fits in the fist when the fist is turned slightly; sword's 5mm hole is shallow because lower half was shot slightly smaller than upper half, so it's a deep hole but only 4.5mm halfway down. Grade: C+ if you have patience; C- if you don't.
See, that one's a camcorder, that one's a camera, that one's a phone, and they're doing "Speak no evil, See no evil, Hear no evil", get it?
