Transformers

Transformers X TMNT – Party Wallop

I have lost track of how many of these crossover Transformers we have gotten but it’s a pretty neat line that for the most part has been done pretty well. I particularly like that they are mostly original molds. It feels like it would have been easy to just do some mediocre repaints. I suppose making actual meaningful molds was probably part of the deal for getting some of these IPs.

The TMNT crossover is pretty good, it’s not perfect, but I like it. Party Wallop definitely has the “Ninja Turtle” look in Robot mode, with a few spots of added armor that sort of resembles Samurai armor. The neat gimmick here is that the head has a swappable bit that lets Party Wallop wear a bare green head or one of the four TMNT colored bands.

I am not sure I would suggest anyone order 4 of these. Mostly because he is very large. Not quite Leader class large, but he is bigger than a standard Voyager. Plus the alt mode is the Turtle’s Party Wagon, and having 4 of those doesn’t really make any sense.

Back on the largeness though, a lot of it is that he is really chonkey and wide all around. Almost too much so. The robot mode has plenty of articulation, but his mass makes it kind of awkward to use, or just awkward looking. Like a Sumo Wrestler doing Karate.

I am not real sure how much could have been done to slim him down, but there is some interesting techniques used in the transformation to make the Party Wagon smaller. There is a lot of crunching and compression and some of it seems a little hard to keep held together. I have trouble with the front wheel panels holding in place.

The Party Wagon looks really nice though when transformed. It’s missing the Red Door on the one side, but that could be painted if one wanted that bad enough. It would mean one shoulder pad becomes asymmetrically red though.

Considering the lack of red plastic anywhere else, I am sure they just opted not to make one red for cost savings.

He has some other nice features though. There are weapons for each of the 4 Ninja Turtles available, and everything has a place to store on Robot mode. The front of the Party Wagon forms the entire torso of the robot, but it can also be removed to reveal a more “Turtle Shell” looking torso. The front piece can be used as a shield as well, though the Turtles didn’t really ever use shields like that. It’s a nice bonus feature though. The front circle on the front of the van comes off to become a little pizza as well.

One last nitpick to mention, the package is not collector friendly at all, which I kind of hate.

It also feels like a missed opportunity not giving him a Mechaturtle head.

Overall, I really like this one. The thick chonkey body makes it a little awkward as a Ninja Turtle, but it’s still a very nice robot and transformer otherwise. That chonkey body isn’t really a problem in basically any other context that isn’t “Ninja Turtle.”

Review – Transformers – G1 – Rodimus Prime

Apr 5th, 2023

by Ramen Junkie.

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I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before and chances are you already know, but a while back, Hasbro re-released several of the old G1 toys in commemorative packaging with, unfortunately, commemorative pricing. They ran 30 to 40 dollars each and were exclusive to Toys R Us. A few people bought it, but most didn’t. They made it to clearance and the occasionally discount clearinghouse store.

That’s why I picked up Rodimus, sort of. Unlike Perceptor or the Incecticons, I wasn’t interested in him at 40 dollars. But for 8 bucks, I figure, how can one go wrong. Well, it’s possible you can.

Let’s make a positive upswing for a second. I like Rodimus Prime’s vehicle mode. There is something really classy about a supped up RV with flames and huge pipes. Seriously, who came up with this design, it’s brilliant. Vacationing in style.

It’s also huge. He dwarfs the Autobot cars and is pretty large even when compared to modern deluxes. The whole thing is pretty solid and the 6 rubber tires are really cool. This mode is the reason to buy Rodimus.

The robot mode is pretty lame unfortunately. Granted I’m all about Articulation and proportions but I can be flexible. I’ve also recently picked up G1 Smokescreen and he’s got a really slick robot mode. Rodimus is way too tall and his limited articulation (shoulders only) make for a very boring toy. His shoulders also end up set a bit low on his body making the ugliness shine through even more.

The legs all end up under the trailer anyway, so it’s not like they could not have easily remedied the “too tall” thing. Sixty to Seventy percent of the body is legs. I’m not saying Hasbro should have remolded this toy for the re-release, I’m just commenting on the original design here. I guess the point of the toy being tall was to help him stand out as the leader of the Autobots.

When in robot mode, his trailer/camper back becomes a gun emplacement. The height is adjustable so shorter Transformers cam operate it just as easily as Rodimus can. It also includes a pair of attachable shield panels to help protect the user from incoming fire. My only real complaint with the gun base is that 1, you can’t open it while it’s attached to the Rodimus car and the turret doesn’t rotate at the base, just at the top, which is better than nothing. Otherwise it’s pretty slick.

So overall, Rodimus is still a decent toy. The robot mode leaves much to be desired but the Gun Base and vehicle mode are really nice. He’s probably not worth the original steep price, but if you can get him cheap, you might consider it. Still he’s likely to be a bit bland for anyone who is not a G1 enthusiast.

Legacy Shadowstrip

Dec 22nd, 2022

by Ramen Junkie.

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My Transformers purchases these days has slowed to an absolute molasses drip. There is a lot of “cool” stuff being put out, but I often already have “good enough” versions of these characters and the prices are getting a bit too much for my taste. I do still pick some up occasionally. One that’s been nagging at me a bit was the new Menasor in Transformers Legacy. The Stunticons are my favorite combiner team and up there on my favorite Transformers. I really like the Combiner Wars version of the team, though it’s not perfect. The new version is designed to much more closely resemble the jankey way it was animated in the original cartoon. Which means that Motormaster and his trailer just turn into a giant robot, that you can strap some deluxe sized Stunticons to.

I don’t object to this concept, but I also really, do not need another Menasor.

Then they put out this sub-line called “Velocitron” which included this random G2 Recolor of Drag Strip. He even got a new name of Shadowstrip. I can kind of get behind the “justification” for a second Menasor if it’s G2 colored. Especially because the non Combiner Wars aspect would kind of match with the G2 Bruticus I have from the War For Cybertron line (Different design styles for G2 recolors).

Now, there isn’t any guarantee or announcement they will ever complete this set, but a lot of people have also been praising Legacy Drag Strip as a solid Transformer, and the colors are nice, so even if Shadowstrip ends up being alone is his G2ness, I can live with that, he is a pretty neat little figure with some fresh gimmicks on his transformation.

I have some slight beef with his guns being the same, they would have been opposites in the previous world of not cost cutting at every turn, but I can live with it. You could technically stack them with each other infinitely too if you wanted. The split in half part for his combined mode is also hard to do without a tool. Maybe Motormaster has tabs or something that facilitate splitting them apart. Maybe I am missing something, but as it is, I have to use a screw driver or something to push the release tab.

Studio Series – Rampage

Jul 18th, 2019

by Ramen Junkie.

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The second in the multipart, multiyear release of figure from Hasbro to produce an accurate Revenge of the Fallen Devastator is Studio Series Rampage. The first release was Studio Series Scrapmetal, who was a pretty good all around transformer, and sort of an original character for Studio Series, who didn’t get a release in the original Revenge of the Fallen line. Rampage here is a little different though, he was a leg for the old Devastator that didn’t have individual robot modes and he got a single packed Deluxe release that didn’t come with a limb mode.

Rampage is also notable as one of the few Constructicons with actual screen time in the movie beyond becoming part of the whole. He kidnaps Sam’s parents in Paris (or wherever) because a bulldozer driving through a European city isn’t conspicuous AT ALL. Later he shows up again to pogo around the desert in a death match against Bumbebee, who rips the spine out of Ravage and beats Rampage to death with it.

The Pogo mode is the most interesting aspect of this guy really. He doesn’t have any sort of traditional legs at all, not even optional ones, just a monopod leg and a stand for the toy to keep itself upright. His bod does have a few joints to let it compress and look sort of springy, but his neck and head are kind of limited and he can’t really crouch too much without looking weird.

He also has two huge claw arms, but the articulation is really limited. All of the joints are pretty much fingers or near the shoulder, so the longest part just sticks out all weird and straight looking.

Other problems? Oh yeah. On mine, he head pops off super easy, partially due to the way it ball sockets on to the join sort of in the back. He also had some trad bits that hang off his arms to emulate the character’s whips in the movie, but there isn’t enough joints or length to make them look particularly cool in any poses. Especially with the limited arm articulation.

Rampage does have a lot of nice little details all over his body, he looks cool, he just, doesn’t DO much. He looks like he will make a pretty amazing Devastator leg one day. Fortunately, from what we have seen so far of the other Devastator limbs, he looks like he is going to be the most compromised and weakest design, so it can only really go up from here. As a stand alone toy, Rampage is pretty weak unfortunately.

Studio Series – Scrapmetal

May 9th, 2019

by Ramen Junkie.

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So, for the most part, the Michael Bay Transformers movies are pretty trash. Mostly for the shitty plots, but Revenge of the Fallen is particularly bad. One thing it did have that was pretty cool though was Devastator. In general, I do like the Bayverse/Movieveerse designs, and the take on Devastator was pretty interesting. Though the Revenge of the Fallen toy line was full of some of the most complex Transformers ever produced, the only full on Devastator is produced was Legends scaled. There were individual figures of most of the components that had robots and vehicles, and there was a large combined figure that only had parts that turned into vehicles, no robots.

Hasbro has decided to remedy that with Studio Series, by putting out a new Devastator, across eight figures, that all have robot modes and vehicle modes. There were 6 components to the previous version with vehicles only and Seven in the Legends sized one, which added a vehicle to create the pelvis and back. This new iteration is taking things a bit farther, following the pattern from the Legends sized version, but splitting one of the arms into two separate toys.

Scrapmetal is one of those two arm characters. He’s technically the only “new” character of the set, since Hightower (the crane) has almost made up the arm on the previous toys. This figure more or less forms the hand.

Scapmetal turns into a small excavator. The primary driver in Studio Series is robot mode scale so the excavator is pretty small, but there are some small er versions of this particular vehicle out there. The vehicle is a little small compared to old style Deluxes but looks alright next to other Studio Series. The transformation doesn’t allow the top to rotate independently of the treads unfortunately.

Transformation is pretty straight forward but has a few neat little tricks. There’s some fun asymmetry to the way the arms fold in together to form the top part of the vehicle mode. The legs pretty much just collapse and fold up underneath. He has a little removable shield thing that mostly exists to cover a few gaps in the vehicle mode, which is a little cheaty.

The robot is pretty normal as well, at least for Movie Constructicon standards. The other initial release is Rampage who stands on a single Pogo Leg, but other highlights of the Constructicons include Hightower, who turns into a sort of Velociraptor, and Demolishor who is a pair of arms on giant wheels.

One neat little bit if you want to fancy him up a bit, his legs have the option of working as “normal knees” or can knock back and become Digigrade legs. Probably the main disappointment is that there isn’t really anything fun his crane arm can do in robot mode. You can swing it up between his legs like a huge phallus but that’s not super useful really. He also has a lot of neat little extra detail. The biggest stand out is the treading detail inside his back, that doesn’t serve any purpose in either mode. I imagine in the combined form it will be more visible for some added detailing.

Scrapmetal really has me excited for the test of this team. He looks like he’ll probably be comparably sized to the old Revenge of the Fallen Devastator, but with a lot more detail and more functional articulation. I also kind of like that these are being released over time, since it gives me a chance to spread out what is essentially a $200 purchase over a couple of years.