TF Views

Perceptor: (robot/half-track)

This is a case of me generally agreeing with previously posted reviews.

"Reveal the Shield" Perceptor is a mixed bag. There are some clever ideas mixed some badly executed designs that more or less balance each other out to result in a middling representation of an old character.

There are some clever elements in the engineering. But, the whole effort seems like a post-hoc attempt to make the character fit with an arbitrary design used in "Transformers Animated". A design this arbitrary should be better pulled off, (as the primary goal should be to make the toy work on its own, rather than making it work with the design). This figure does not add anything new to Perceptor, nor does it do an especially good job of representing Perceptor as the character is traditionally represented.

Unless you have a need for a new Perceptor, or are a completist, skip this one.

Grade: C/D

I think that's a little bit harsh. The bot mode certainly does represent the character well with the knobs on the sides of the arms and the chest window bit that flips down. It's main design problems lie in the fact that not everything pegs together. The back has one but doesn't stay in consistently and the arms to lock into place at all making poses harder than usual.

I get the feeling that the pegging and such, including that awful backpack, are the result of the toy being forced to use the TFA design.

They could have just started from scratch and come up with something more workable. The toy is flawed both conceptually and in the execution.


Dom
-still using one for a custom...a very special custom.

I think it was less of a case of being directly patterned on TFA Perceptor than it was taking inspiration from that one for a vehicle mode when they knew they couldn't get away with selling a transforming microscope in this day and age. There's really not much Animated-ish about it other than the choice of vehicle mode. And the vehicle modes aren't even all that similar, now that I look (TFA Perceptor's got an open trunk with the cannon/scope mounted in it, and no treads.)

I found him frustrating at first, but he's grown on me. I think the robot mode is great, except that the shoulder joints are stiff enough to want to unlock his whole back assembly when you try to pose his arms. That's kind of aggravating. Bonus points for being able to wield his G1 weapon, though. Try it if you haven't, the color match is actually spot-on (at least with my copy).

Screw his G1 weapon, he apparently looks great with Blurr's sniper rifle.

BWprowl wrote:they knew they couldn't get away with selling a transforming microscope in this day and age.

Scalpel.

Scalpel is different; he was in the movie (and semi-prominent) and also he was a Basic. They can get away with stranger altomodes (Ejector or whatever the toaster's name was) in that size class. Deluxe, though...

Why? I don't see that the alt mode should be limited to the scale of the toy. Why should the larger price points be limited to just jets and cars?

Because Hasbro thinks they can't get away with "different" altmodes in those size scales.

I don't pretend to know how they came to that conclusion. Maybe they playtested a Perceptor proto that turned into a microscope. Maybe they didn't. Maybe they're working off prior market research. (I would LOVE to know more about how they do that, but the chances of them answering a question about that is likely nil--why would they tell us? That's internal information! If it was out there, Mattel might steal it!)