TF Views

Combiners parts,like what the energon 5-in-1 combiners had or What FOC Bruticus had,which do you prefer?

Do you prefer your combiners to have the combiner parts & pieces like the hands,feet,head as seperate add-on parts like what the Energon 5-in-1 combiners had? if yes,please list a reason why.

Or do you prefer your combiner parts & pieces like the hands,feet,head to be not be add-on parts like FOC Bruticus has? if yes,please list a reason why.

I post these questions because it seems like the Online TF fans wanted one thing 10 years ago,but did a complete 180 degrees a few years ago & now want the oppossite. 10 Years ago most on-line TF fans wanted the combiner parts not to be seperate add-on parts,now they want this.

Personally,I could go either way,I don't care. I didn't mind that the Energon 5-in-1 Combiners weapons transformed into add-on either hands or feet. I didn't mind the way FOC Bruticus did the combiner hands,feet & head.

I liked the way the Energon 5-in-1 combiners weapons transformed into feet or hands,this was clever as they had the abilty to become both. Having weapons transform into combiner accessories is leaps & bounds better than having the 1980's scramble city combiner accessories,as their useless & just get shoved in the corner when not used for the gestalt mode.

The Energon ones being guns just screwed them over--instead of being good hands or good weapons, they were crappy versions of both. Bruticus proved it could be done, and the hands/feet are actually one of the best things about that combiner.

Haven't had the FoC Combiners, so I can't speak to that. I've never been that bothered by the hands and feet and whatnot being extra prices, either. Hell, most of the time I'd be displaying the thing in combined mode anyway

Actually, I really dug how the later Bruticus sets had that retool where every piece in the set could be used in the combined form. That was pretty neat.

Predaking had it halfway down. I dig how his feet become weapons for the dudes that become legs. If they could have figured out a way for that to work for the hands and head, too, that'd have been amazing.

So I guess I judge it on a case by case basis. If the overall toy is cool, then whatever. I also really dug how some of the PCC drones would turn into just crazy looking limbs for their gestalts. And I dig how the Prime Terrorcon set works it out, pretty much.

I don't have the FOC ones either but I do like the idea of combiners having their merge parts integrated into the designs. That said, extra parts don't really bother me, because really, what does a robot foot look like anyway so why can't it be made of the smaller robot's weapons?

The problem was that each one tried to be a hand, a foot, and some kinda weapon. I have ClaDev and his cruddy claw hands are atrocious.

Onslaught Six wrote:The problem was that each one tried to be a hand, a foot, and some kinda weapon. I have ClaDev and his cruddy claw hands are atrocious.

Energon 5-in-1 Devestator was the worst of the lot of 3 gestalt,to the extent the toy simply wasn't worth picking up.

Energon 5-in-1 Superion & Bruticus had decent sculpted hands & feet with decent articulation.

Onslaught Six wrote:The problem was that each one tried to be a hand, a foot, and some kinda weapon. I have ClaDev and his cruddy claw hands are atrocious.

Yeah, that's a big part of why I didn't care for the Energon combiners that much personally. It's a nice idea to make it so they can combine in different configurations while reusing those parts, but I didn't feel it really worked that well in execution. I don't mind it that much if those parts are separate, like a lot of G1 figures did, but the hands and feet on the Energon combiners can look very out of place.

Integrated merge pieces are always going to be my preference (I swear we had this same conversation back on BWTF a decade prior), they make more sense and they are more satisfying. That said, they do require compromises which aren't always welcome, so I can sometimes understand the use of bolt-on merge pieces, but they'd still not be my preference. Plus, the Energon hands and feet largely sucked anyway.

JediTricks wrote:Integrated merge pieces are always going to be my preference (I swear we had this same conversation back on BWTF a decade prior), they make more sense and they are more satisfying. That said, they do require compromises which aren't always welcome, so I can sometimes understand the use of bolt-on merge pieces, but they'd still not be my preference. Plus, the Energon hands and feet largely sucked anyway.

It seems like the on-line fans who buy those 3rd party not-TF combiners prefer the add-on bolt on type combiner gestalt hands & feet.

Honestly,most of the new age TF combiners Takara/Hasbro made in the last 15+ years were just horrible sculpts in all modes. no amount of integrated gestalt pieces or add-on bolt combiners pieces could have fixed these molds. Examples:
1-1997 Magnaboss was 75% the elephant,with the bird being the guts,while the lion was a headmaster.
2- 1997 Tripredacus just looked goofy with his big clown feet,skinny legs & marshmallow head.
3- 1998 BW Neo Magmatron,Awesome sculpted gestalt,but missing key articulated joints in the head,waist,legs swivels,restricted elbow joints.
4- The Car Robots build team was epic awful in sculpt & engineering in all modes. the way the gestalt combined with that trio peg was horrible. there is techinacally only three molds with the 4th being a retool. having a basic as the core & the deluxes as the limbs was epic awful/fail.
5- The Car robots train bots,I failed suffered from serious mis-proportions in the individual & gestalt modes. The Hasbro versions were inferior as Hasbro didn't want to use translucent plastic for the molds,instead they opted for all regular plastic with badly colored in tiny windows on the Three trains.
6- With all this above,I felt the Energon 5-in-1 Combiners were the best combiners Takara/Hasbro made. With the only negative being duplicate limbs & not all 5 new molds for each combiner.
7- PCC wasn't that great as the limbs had no individual robot modes.
8- ROTF Supreme Devestator looked like a Gorrila with bad misproportions,display stabilty problems,limited poseabilty & no individual robot modes for the individual robots.
9- FOC Bruticus,had ugly sculpt & colors in all modes. the core onslaught needed to be voyager sized to make the gestalt more proportioned.

The Build Team didn't have "one mould," Grimlock is entirely different from the others, and Hightower and Heavy Load have unique detailing and even transform differently.