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I mean, I can only speak to my local Targets, but despite my desperate scrambling to preorder figures the minute they were available due to FOMO, I've seen pretty much every Buzzworthy release in stores, with more than a few turning into shelfwarmers... I mean hype for the Origins figures drove some kind of initial surge, but they seemed to restock and wind up on clearance, and Kup, toy-colored Dinobot, Towline, and all the N.E.S.T repaints were definite shelfwarmers. Oh, and to this day I can still walk into Burlington or Ollies and pick up $6 Silverstreaks that Target wrote off). The only Target exclusives that seemed genuinely difficult to get were before they started using the Buzzworthy Bumblebee branding, like Thrust and Runabout.

Heads up. You guys remember the Target-exclusive Buzzworthy Hound that was supposed to come out (before Detritus)? Apparently Target decided to cancel some of their exclusives when some of the previous ones didn't sell too well. Well, the good news is that Hound's not dead! The bad news is that he's now going to be part of a multipack along with Jazz, Wheeljack, Sunstreaker, and Trailbreaker, and I have no indication how (if at all) the other four are going to differ from their WfC/SS86 releases. The listing is "Gen Selects Autobot Multipack", so while nothing's been stated to me definitively yet I'm thinking it might wind up a Pulse exclusive.

I noticed that in recent years I've bought a lot less 3rd party Transformers figures. What was once an exciting competition to see who was going to fill the gaps in Takara's Masterpiece collection has shifted into an arms race to between Magic Square and NewAge to make figures that seem like Masterpiece in terms of looks and complexity, but in figures somewhere between Hasbro's Core-class and a smaller Deluxe. That's great for collectors who want good representations of a very large cast of characters to fit in limited shelf spaces. But what if you want something easier to transform, cheaper, and even smaller? Well, for that we've got Dr. Wu, and tonight I've got his latest figure in hand, Fire Ladder. Fire Ladder is, as you can see, Inferno. I've suspected that Dr Wu's stuff isn't exactly in-scale with the fairly tallish mini-bots they've done, and now we've got Inferno who's roughly the same height as Optimus. But I don't really mind it too much, because... ...they're very tiny figures! I mean, Fire Ladder is only knee-high to Earthrise Inferno. Despite his diminutive size he's got the sorts of details you'd expect- the ridges around his forearms, the squares on the front of his shoulders and the pylons on top, the wing and gun/nozzle on the side of the block around his head. He's even got the hoses on the sides of his legs, and half of the circles on the sides of his forearms. His ladder doesn't hide away like the MP, but it folds up into his backpack at least as well as the Kingdom toy does. Oh, and speaking of the Kingdom toy, like that figure Fire Ladder has both of his hands. But if you want the cartoon gun-hand look, well, he comes with one accessory. Guess what it is... Fire Ladder's head can swivel, but only about 45 degrees to either side due to space constraints inside his head box. His head flips around in the box for transformation, but you can use that to tilt his head up and down. His shoulders are ball joints that swivel without issue, but the pylons limit his lateral movement to about 45 degrees. Elbows are ball joints that bend 90 degrees and act as bicep swivels. No wrist or waist swivels. Hips are ball joints that can go about 75 degrees forward, and nearly 90 degrees backward and laterally. The limited swivel around the ball joints are all he's got for thigh swivels. His knees bend 90 degrees. Due to his transformation he's got a lot of downward tilt in his feet, but not much upward. He does have 90 degrees of ankle pivot, though, so you can get him in some dramatic wide stances. His gun accessory attaches by simply fitting over his fist, with the cutout facing in toward his body. It's funny, Fire Ladder's engineering is very similar to the Earthrise toy. His head is on an armature that expands and moves it and the ladder backward, his arms fold back with the pylons tucking into the back of the cab. His hips fold backward and his feet fold back, then the armature with his head plugs into them. What's funny about is that I think it made the Kingdom toy seem fairly simple compared to some of the other Voyager-class toys at the time, but when you shrink it down to make a fire truck closer in size to Micromaster Red Hot you get one of the more complex figures Dr. Wu has done so far. The fire truck mode looks pretty good, too. There's a bit of gap where his black hips are showing, but that's technically true for the Earthrise figure, too. The hinges and clips for his shoulders don't look too great, and his hands aren't really hiding at all. On the other hand, he's got a nice white bumper and grill, with painted blue headlights and windows, and even painted windshield wipers. He's even got some white paint on the skid plating above his rear wheels. Although they're not painted, the sirens are molded onto the top of the cab. The white plastic used for the hoses, ear wings, and ladder also looks a bit better than the gray Hasbro used for the Earthrise toy. Fire Ladder's ladder can swivel and be raised up. And if you're looking for a place to store his accessory, look no further! It simply clips on the smaller molded nozzle at the end of the ladder. I've been a big fan of these little Dr Wu figures from the get go, and Fire Ladder's definitely another hit for the good doctor. Sure, a little more articulation would have been nice, maybe hide the hands in the alt mode, but we gotta remember just how tiny these guys are. I showed him next to Earthrise Inferno, but even if you put him next to a figure like NewAge or Magic Square's Optimus and Fire Ladder is still not even reaching Prime's crotch. And they're cheap to boot! Fire Ladder ran me about $20. That's in the ballpark of a Hasbro Deluxe, which doesn't seem too bad for a figure that still looks better than most of Hasbro's Core-class figures. It's also half (or less) the price of Magic Square or NewAge's versions of Inferno. Honestly, it's also about half of what I spent taking my wife and daughter to Wendy's, so I'd say it's comfortably in impulse buy territory. So I'll happily recommend Fire Ladder, I look forward to the inevitable Grapple retool (and possibly even Artfire, Roadhauler, and maybe Bulkhead), and quite frankly I hope Dr. Wu continues to crank out at least the entire S1-S3 cast.

Happy New Year, friends! And what better way to start the year than with the last of 2024's first-wave Legacy United figures (which arrived at the last minute in 2023)? This, friends, is Leader-class Tigerhawk. This one's a bit of a weird one that requires a bit of quick Beast Wars recap for the geewun, trukk-not-munky crowd. Although ties to the original Transformers cartoon was kept deliberately vague at first, by the end of the first season it's established that Beast Wars is meant to take place in the same continuity as the original cartoon, with the show's characters coming from some time in Cybertron's future before traveling back in time in Earth's prehistory. Beast Wars also introduced us to the Vok, a race of aliens who were doing stuff on Earth because... well, I don't think their origins or motives were ever fully explained. But one of the things they did in the second season was abduct Tigatron and Airazor. Now, skip ahead all way to the end of season 3, and the Vok are kind of miffed that the Maximals and Predacons are screwing with time, so they rebuild Tigatron and Airazor into one robot, Tigerhawk. At first Tigerhawk worked something like a mech suit for the Vok, who used him to attack the Predacons, but he was narrowly stopped by Tarantulas. Tarantulas managed to get the Vok out (killing himself in the process), which allowed the sparks of Tigatron and Airazor to take back over, which caused Tigerhawk to briefly join the Maximals before being killed in the series finale. Put another way, Tigerhawk was a character that appeared in just three episodes of the cartoon. All that being said, Tigerhawk looks pretty cartoon-accurate. He's got cartoon purple instead of the original toy's blue, and he's got the the copper/gold accents present in the cartoon that weren't on the original toy. And he's a big boy, too, standing significantly taller than the Voyager-class Tigatron and Deluxe-class Airazor he's supposedly made from, with enormous wings. Perhaps not as evident from his back and sides, but Tigerhawk's got a somewhat asymmetric design. I mean, sure, his shoulders are obviously different, but if you look a bit closer his whole arms are, with something like tubing on his right arm but pistons on his left. The greebles on the white part of his chest are different. His kneepads are different; the one on his right is thicker at the bottom, the one on the left is thicker at the top. His right foot has a more mechanical appearance with a more organic heel, and his left foot is more organic with a more mechanical heel. Even the sides of his helmet are subtly different. To be clear, I'm not certain how cartoon-accurate this asymmetry is, though it's subtle enough that you might not even notice it at first. I will say that I like it, though... it helps illustrate his origin as an amalgamation of two other characters. Really, my only serious complaint with how Tigerhawk looks is that the underside of his wings (that is, the side facing forward in bot mode) are hollowed out. Tigerhawk comes with a few accessories, and they're particularly well-integrated on this figure. In fact, they were all in the previous pictures. We've got two feathery swords, two big cannons, and a smaller double-barreled gun. Tigerhawk's head is on a ball joint that can look down until his chin touches his chest, but has minimal sideways tilt and nothing really upward. His right shoulder rotates and the translucent part opens to allow it to move 90 degrees laterally. His left arm is a bit more of a pain. In theory, it too rotates, and the top of the tiger head opens to allow 90 degrees of lateral movement, too. In practice, the entire shoulder wants to pull up from the torso (as it does for transformation). Once you get the shoulder extended, when you try to bring it down his bicep wants to disconnect from the shoulder instead of swiveling it back in. Regardless, both biceps swivel and both elbows bend a little over 90 degrees, but neither wrist swivels. His waist does swivel, but it's limited to about 45 degrees to either side, and the feathery flap over his crotch moves with his upper torso. His hips ratchet forward and backward over 90 degrees, and use friction joints to move 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. His feet don't really tilt up or down without starting the process of transforming them to alt mode, but they do have 90 degrees of pivot. Tigerhawk can hold his feather swords in either hand. They also have ports on them that allow them to be placed on the tips of his wings, where they blend in with the other molded and painted feathers. He can also hold the double-barreled pistol in either hand, or plug it into the 5mm port on his left arm... ...but the best place for it is the 5mm port on his right arm, because then you don't even have to remove it to transform him. If you do leave it on his arm, you can always arm him up with the cannons instead, as they use 5mm pegs to plug into his fists. But, they also have ports on them, which allows them to be stored in the nacelles on his wings. And while they're part of his nacelles, they can flip around to be deployed from his back, though this is really more of an alt mode thing. Tigerhawk's transformation is as different as you'd expect from an alt mode like that. If we start with a reference frame that says his wings don't actually move, then his beast legs have to come off of his shoulders, his chest opens up, and his pelvis splits in half. Then his head and the purple part of his chest have to go where his crotch is, the inside of his torso has to spin 45 degrees so that his right shoulder is on his front and his left shoulder is on his back, the white halves of his chest have to encapsulate his right arm, then his hips come up to where his shoulders were originally, all semi-simultaneously. Once you've sorted all that out things get easier as you sort the left arm into his back, arrange his rear beast legs to your liking, then transform his robot legs into his front beast legs. Tigerhawk seems reasonably accurate in beast mode. Perhaps, if I'm being picky, he could have used a bit more white on his shoulders and the rear legs, but it's definitely the front half of a tiger with the wings and rear of a hawk. I do have to complain about the weird purple growths on his forearms, though. They're not present in either the cartoon nor the original toy, and it's because they're his robot heels, which don't quite fold in all the way. But... why do his heels need to fold in? Why do his robot feet need to transform at all? I don't know if they did on the original toy or not, but here is beast feet (which fold out of his calves as his robot feet fold into his shins) look basically like his robot feet, but longer. Seems like the design of the character intended that his robot feet and his beast feet were the same feet. Note that the swords are still in the wings, and the cannons are in the nacelles. In this basic configuration, the nacelles have gatling guns facing forward. One departure from the original toy is that he's got gold armor over his eyes, where the original toy simply had a tiger head with a blue helmet sort of hovering over it. The original toy was meant to have an attack mode; the helmet drops down over the tiger's face, the wings angle forward to fire feather missiles, and the cannons in the nacelles flip out. Legacy Tigerhawk can bend the wings forward and flip the cannons out, but the blue helmet is missing. For what it's worth, though, the gold armor over the eyes instead is more cartoon-accurate. Meanwhile, if you left his double-barreled gun on his right arm like I told you it'll already be in its alt-mode spot... sticking out the back of his underside like double-barreled genitals. In beast mode, Tigerhawk's head has a decent up/down tilt, with the back of his head opening as needed for clearance, but no sideways tilt or swivel. His jaws can open. His shoulders work the same as his robot hips. His elbows bend less than 90 degrees, but as his front paws don't bend up a whole lot you're kind of stuck with his elbows at maximum bend just to get his front feet semi-flat. At least they have swivels. This will give his front feet ankle pivots. In theory, you could try to pose him so that he's swiping with the claws, but in practice the ball joints in his rear hips and the friction hinges in the knees, ankles, and paws of his digitigrade rear laws aren't strong enough to support Tigerhawk's weight without both of his front paws on the ground. Due to the shape of his robot chest directly under them, his tail feathers are constantly angled upward with the ability to tilt slightly more upward. His wings, which we neglected to talk about in robot mode, are hinged to flap up/down at the base, with an additional up/down hinge on the outside of the nacelles. Then there are hinges in the translucent green discs that sweep the wings forward or backward. I have seriously mixed feelings about Tigerhawk. Like, even though I'm ok with giving other Transformers shows some representation, I find the inclusion of a character that appeared in just three episodes (and was killed off at Hasbro's direction, because they were seriously thinking about not releasing the original Tigerhawk toy in the first place) over Quickstrike, Depth Charge, or Rampage* to be a questionable choice, let alone some of the missing G1 characters or some of the more popular characters from other Transformers media, especially when he's eating up the only new Leader slot in the wave. And Tigerhawk's definitely a figure with a few issues, mostly in the alt mode articulation and the tolerances of some of the tabs on holding his arms together in robot mode. But I have to admit that the figure winds up being an ambitious design with an interesting transformation that could only have been pulled off with a Leader budget and engineering. And, hey, at least Tigerhawk appeared in more episodes than Devcon, whom we also got a figure of in Legacy. So if you're a Beast Wars fan I'd go ahead and recommend this one. Even if you're not it's still a pretty interesting toy, just one of a relatively minor character. *Didn't mention Silverbolt because we know he's coming... he's already been solicited in Japan, and he should be part of Wave 2 in the West.

Did anyone here see Asteroid City? I remember the previews for it looked kind of weird, but maybe a good kind of weird. Worth the time to watch it on Prime?

Still waiting for the one and only new Leader-class (the other being a repackaged Laser Optimus, remember?) to finish up the first wave of Legacy United. Haven't gotten it yet, but it looks like the first batch of 2024 Studio Series figures are starting to go out. Or at the very least, Voyager-Class Gamer Edition Starscream did. This is an interesting case, because this is the first time the Studio Series Gamer Edition has really gone up against Planet X, a brand whose bread and butter has largely been unlicensed toys from High Moon's War For Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron games. Planet X never did Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, or Barricade, and while they did do Optimus and Megatron they did the Fall of Cybertron versions while Hasbro did the War For Cybertron ones. And... well, of course Planet X's looks better! It retailed for nearly triple, and that was before pandemic inflation. I think, instead of focusing on how Hasbro did it worse, it's better to point out where Hasbro went right. I mean, his arms could use a touch more mechanical detail, maybe a bit darker gray on the biceps, and some purple glow on the shoulders, but his limbs are fine, for the most part. He's got the intakes behind his head like he should, and I dare say that I prefer Hasbro's head over Planet X's. It's really the torso where things start to go screwy. Like, he's got the collar parts (which are not attached out of the box), but they're kind of small and don't flow into the front of the torso. Speaking of, Planet X looks like they tried to put some effort into getting his torso right, while Hasbro kind of slapped some red lines on some fairly flat gray spaces and called it a day. But the thing that most people are going to notice first is the cockpit. It's like twice the size it should be! Honestly, fresh out of the box I don't think it bothered me too much, but when I started looking at concept art, screenshots, and the game CAD files it became super apparent how chunky the toy's cockpit is. Frankly, next to Planet X's the official Starscream looks like he's pregnant. A common refrain I here about messy backpacks is, "Who cares, who poses their figures with the back facing you?" Thing is, as the games were third-person shooters you spent a lot of time looking at the characters backs, and I appreciate that Hasbro did put some effort into keeping things accurate here. Like, sure, the tapered bottom with the blue exhausts did come out a bit better on Planet X, but Hasbro at least molded and painted the exhausts onto the more squarish backpack they created. And one thing they actually did better is to include the tail on the backpack. I'm not entirely sure why they put the little blue fins on the sides of his legs, though. Starscream comes with a single rifle, and a mace in two parts. The rifle is pretty different than the rifle(s) that Planet X included with theirs, but that's ok. While it could have used more paint, the one that came with Hasbro's Starscream is a fairly accurate Null Ray from the War for Cybertron game, while Planet X's were based on the Nucleon Charge Rifle from Fall of Cybertron. As for the mace, the spikes are better on Planet X's, and they have more accurate gunmetal bits around the purple. But the shape of the mace is better on Hasbro's, with a pattern on the inner bits that seems more game accurate. Starscream's head is on a ball joint. He's got negligible sideways tilt and a slight downward tilt, but a pretty good upward tilt and swivel. His shoulders rotate and move laterally almost 90 degrees. His biceps swivel. His elbows are double-jointed and bend a good 180 degrees. His wrists swivel. It's a bit limited, but he does have waist swivel. His hips go forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees. His thighs swivel and his knees bend a bit over 90 degrees. No real up/down foot tilt (his front toe bends down for transformation), but he does have 45 degrees of ankle pivot. Starscream can hold his mace in either hand. And, based on customer feedback, Starscream's Null Ray has a 5mm port on the bottom so he can hold it in his hand as well. Apparently this will be the standard going forward. They haven't abandoned the gimmick, though. You can still remove Starscream's right arm to reveal a 5mm stump. That stump plugs into a port on the back of the Null Ray for the arm-turned-gun game look. When not using his weapons, both the Null Ray and the mace can be stored on 5mm ports on Starscream's back. I couldn't find anywhere to store his arm when Starscream is using the Null Ray instead of an arm, though. In a totally undocumented feature, Starscream's cockpit tummy can be opened while he's in bot mode, and the cavernous interior has plenty of room for storing the Matrix that came with GE Optimus. All hail Screamus Prime! One thing that Hasbro's definitely doing a bit better than Planet X is the transformation. This isn't to say that Planet X's was bad, but it is a bit more complex, more like the transformation you'd find on a Masterpiece figure, while Hasbro's is the kind of typical Voyager fare that you can keep on a desk and flip back and forth fairly easily. About half the transformation is just unfolding the backpack into what will become the wings, tail, and a good chunk of the fuselage. The front of his torso lifts up, and his head folds into the cockpit (which is why it had to be so wide in the first place. Meanwhile, his legs open up so his lower legs can fold up and wrap around his thighs, sort of Combiner Wars-style, but sideways instead of front-and-back. Now, sure, I have my gripes. The cockpit is still too fat, and there's actually a small hollow gap behind it that his forearms don't entirely fill. The quartet of intakes on his back need some blue paint, and the blue fins I was complaining about on the robot mode really aren't present in the game. I'm also not loving the hollow bottoms of his feet. Technically these would be his engine exhausts, and in the game they're pretty open, but subjectively I think the translucent purple Planet X used looks better. Speaking of Planet X... Hasbro's actually got the more accurate alt mode. The wider rear and the main wing placement is more accurate. Subjectively, I might argue that proportionally bigger wings look better on Planet X's, but I double-checked the in-game models and sure enough Starscream really did have stumpy wings like that. It's not pretty (or really game accurate), but Starscream can carry his weapons on his alt mode. There's a 5mm port on either side of his tail, and you use the 5mm handle on the Null Ray or the extra 5mm peg on the handle of the mace to plug them right in. Strictly speaking, as a display piece Planet X's figure looks better in bot mode on a shelf, especially with other Planet X figures (which run a bit larger than Hasbro's). And Starscream's baby bump is a major contributing factor to that. But given the limitations of Hasbro's Voyager budget these days, GE Starscream is a surprisingly good figure. He's probably the best Gamer Edition figure after Optimus, although in a sub-line that delivered what is probably the worst of Hasbro's releases last year (GE Barricade) I'm not sure how much weight that actually carries. Still, we're talking about a figure that's got good articulation, is reasonably accurate in both modes (if you ignore the extra-large canopy and the need for just a few more paint apps), a transformation that's pleasant and straightforward, and adequate accessories that give you the option of replacing his arm but don't require it. I'd say this one actually does get the recommed from me.

Tales of Arise is on PC and Xbox as well. The Persona games I mentioned are in PS4/5, Xbox, PC, and Switch.

Well, I've actually been sitting on this guy for a few days now, but I use our guest room for photography but we had guests using the room for the holiday, so he had to wait. I'm finishing up the Legacy United wave 1 Core-class figures with Energon Megatron. Not gonna lie, Megatron was actually my most-anticipated Core-class figure. I know that the Unicron Trilogy doesn't get a lot of love from G1 fans, and Energon seems to be regarded as a particularly low point, but it was actually my favorite of the three Unicron Trilogy shows (although maybe because I watched the Japanese Super Link version?). I mean, we went from three human kids in Armada to just the one, and frankly Kicker was less annoying. Even better, a lot of the character designs in Energon were more G1-inspired than Armada. Such is the case with Megatron, who is like 85% G1 Galvatron in toy colors... which makes sense, since a.) in the Japanese versions, Megatron didn't become Galvatron in Armada then back to Megatron in Energon, he was always Megatron in Armada and always Galvatron in Energon, and b.) just as Megatron powered up and turned purple in Armada, he'd later power up (in Japan)/turn into Galvatron (in the US... again) and get the G1 cartoon colors. And, at least aesthetically, Hasbro did a pretty good job with this figure. As a Core-class he's lacking the budget for some of the yellow/orange paint to accent his shoulders, knees, toes, and the vernier-looking circles on his hips and torso, plus some of his shin details have been simplified. But overall the sculpt is pretty strong, and the solid green on his wings is a better match for the cartoon than the translucent plastic of the original toys. More than the lack of paint, the most obvious visual cue to Megatron's lack of budget is actually on his back, where his backpack is largely an empty shell. The backs of his legs are also pretty hollow, though they do have to accommodate his heels, as is the back of his head. Megatron comes with at trio of accessories. One is a tank with a blade sticking out of it; these were separate pieces on the original toy. While this tiny tank is simply copying what the original toy did before it, one of my favorite things about this tank is that it's meant to be Armada Megatron's tank mode. The other accessories are a pair of neon green cannons... cannons that were attached to the original toy. Megatron's head swivels, but it has no tilt. His shoulders are ball joints that swivel and get about 45 degrees of lateral movement, if I'm being generous. His elbows are also ball joints, acting as bicep swivels and bending 90 degrees. No wrist or waist articulation. His hips are ball joints that can go 90 degrees forward or laterally, but he's got no backward movement. He's got dedicated thigh swivels, and knees that bend probably a good 160 degrees. However, his lower legs are just friction clipped on, and on my copy they're kind of loose and prone to falling off. Hasbro really should have sprung for pins here. Due to his transformation his feet can tilt down plenty and ever-so-slightly up, but he lacks ankle pivots. Megatron's hands have the smaller 3mm ports, and his green cannons have them so he could theoretically hold them like pistols. They're meant to plug into ports on top of his shoulders, though. In a stark example of Hasbro cheapening out on this figure, the original's cannons were hinged on his shoulders so they could point straight up when not in use or be angled forward to fire. Here, we either use a peg on the back of the cannons to attach them so they're pointed straight up, or you remove them and use another peg on the bottom to have them pointing 90 degrees forward. As for his tank, there's a 5mm port on the bottom, and a 5mm peg on either forearm. You can plug the tank onto either arm, with either the blade pointing out or the tank barrel. The original Megatron toy didn't have the most complicated transformation, and it's even more simple here. Spin his head, and fold the nose up over it. Rotate his backpack 180, then turn his forearms 180 and bend them at the elbow- his biceps should tab into his sides. Make him do a split, then turn the thigh swivels so his knees are pointing down. Then fold in his feet and bend at the knees so that tabs near his feet plug into his shoulders. I kind of liked Energon Megatron/Galvatron's spaceship mode. It was a reprieve from the tanks that'd become standard post-gun alt modes, and an upgrade from G1 Galvatron's artillery mode. But it's a bit disappointingly done here. His feet don't fold and collapse the same way, which throws off the intakes. His wingspan is a little short, and it lacks the X-Wing-esque attack mode flaps. The lack of paint on his knees makes them less convincing as engine exhausts. But worst of all, instead of tucking in neatly to his sides, his forearms are sticking up with visible fists punching his own wings. The green cannons remain in place on Megatron's shoulders and do not have to be removed for transformation. While Megatron doesn't have the full attack mode the original toy had, the tank accessory can tab into place between his wings. Megatron, like pretty much the rest of the Wave 1 Cores, is a bit of a let down. He looks good in stoic poses as a robot, but limited shoulders, bulky wings, and accessories that stick out from his arm and shoulders kind of limits how you can pose him. He's missing paint apps, his transformation has been too-simplified, and it leads to a hollow, ugly imitation of the original toy's spaceship mode. Plus his shoulder cannons aren't articulated and his lower legs keep falling off. I really can't recommend him. But, let's be honest, this isn't what I really wanted, anyway. What I want is the original toy, scaled with WFC/Legacy and with improved articulation. And for that we need an Energon Megatron that's at least a Voyager, maybe a Leader.

Interesting that this was leaked but we haven't even seen Triple T Kup with Sgt. Slaughter yet. EDIT: Also news, Hasbro is doing a Transformers Tuesday on January 16th at 10:00am Pacific. 99% sure it's for Tidal Wave, and hopefully preorders will go up same day.

Oh, so we're not just talking about PS5 exclusives? Tales of Arise is alright. I have a friend who's into the Tales games who seems to think it's one of the better ones. Personally, I have a hard time getting into them. I tried Arise, and it's very anime, which is cool if you're into the story, but also kind of on the easy side and very linear. If you want really good JRPGs, go for Persona 4 Golden and Persona 5 Royal.

The Spider-Man trio, the pair of God of War games, Ghost of Tsushima, and Gran Turismo 7 would be my personal top PS5 exclusives.

I dunno what's the holdup with the remaining two, but I do have one more Legacy United figure to talk about for now. It's Core-class Tasmanian Kid. OK, so what's up with the name "Tasmanian Kid"? In Japan, where he appeared in the Beast Wars II anime, it's just "Tasmania Kid." "But Mike," you say, "Tasmanian Kid is probably just them fixing it for English." "But reader," I'll remind you, "while not appearing in any fiction, this character was released in the West, and his name was Snarl." Eh, I digress. As a Core-class he scales pretty well with other Core-class figures, and is only marginally shorter (but simpler) than his wavemate, Animated Bumblebee. And while he did have a Beast Wars toy back in, oh, 1997 or so, I get that the design team considers him a Japanese character and has some concerns about using a more expensive slot on him (but not on rock guys and Rescue Bots, go figure). Still, I'm not sure the simple engineering is doing him any favors. For one, although I don't own Beast Wars Snarl, from what I can gather the Legacy toy is a similar size to the original. But, two, the new figure is less anime-accurate. The gray color on his biceps should come down further on his arms, and the gray on his thighs should really be his entire torso behind the jaw that makes up his chest and abs. Spinning him around, at a glance you might think he's got the look down. Beast head for feet, back kibble, it's the same, right? Well, his feet are smaller, with his ankles coming up through the top of the head instead of behind it. The lower jaw on his chest turns out to be fake; the real lower jaw has become heel spurs that replace the gray spikes he ought to have. And the beast legs are on the upper outside of his kibble cape, instead of on the lower inside. Weirdly, he's got holes in place of the hinges that folded the original's legs to inside. Although still made from his tail, his weapon is also a downgrade. First and foremost, it's the wrong color. Whether you're talking the '97 toy or the Beast Wars II cartoon, his tail should be gray. The barrel of the gun has been significantly shortened, too, and the bottom his hollowed out. Then we come to articulation. The head is on a ball joint, but with the ball in the chest instead of in the head. It swivels and can look up slightly, but there's now downward or sideways tilt. Shoulders are ball joints that go 90 degrees laterally. Elbows are ball joints that give him 90 degrees of bend and serve as his bicep swivels. His wrists are also ball joints, giving him swivels and an upward tilt. No waist swivel. Hips are ball joints that go 90 degrees forward, almost 90 degrees laterally, but under 45 degrees backward due to his back kibble. Knees are still more ball joints, acting as thigh swivels and bending 90 degrees. His ankles are, you guess it, even more ball joints. Despite their ball-ness, the cutouts allow him to bend his feet down 90 degrees but no upward tilt, no ankle pivots, and no ankle swivels. Now, for those of you curious, the original Snarl toy also used a lot of ball joints. Tasmanian Kid's head articulation winds up being the same, shoulders have the same rotation but a bit better lateral movement. Elbows/bicep swivels are the same, wrists are similar but the ball bends inward on the original instead of upward. Hip, knee, and ankle articulation are the same. Generally, I expect new toys to have better articulation than ones from 26 years ago, but aside from slightly better lateral shoulder range and a more anime-style head, the original toy has pretty much the same articulation and is more accurate overall. Plus, there's how he uses his weapon. Similar to the original toy, he can't actually hold it, so it plugs into his arm. Thing is, on the original toy it's on top of his forearm. And if you look at promo photos of him, or even my picture of him above, you might think that's exactly what we're doing with Tasmanian Kid here. But, look at the elbow. Yeah, the 5mm port for mounting his weapon is actually on the under side of his forearm. To pose him with his weapon on top of his arm, you have to rotate his elbow backward and his arm is stuck straight. Were they afraid having a big 5mm port on the front of his arm would look bad? Why not use a 3mm port, then, like the original toy or, I dunno... basically every other Core-class figure. The weird thing is, Tasmania Kid does have 3mm ports... in his palms. So you can plug the barrel (blast-effect compatible, at least) into his palm. I don't know why you would, but you can. And then we come to the transformation. For a Core-class, it's needlessly complicated. On the original toy, you had to bend him at the hips to get his legs behind his back so that his feet were behind his head to form the top of his beast mode head, and you have to do that here, too. The difference is, on the original toy it was fairly simple to do because, aside from folding his chest up to form the lower jaw, that's pretty much all you had to do to the torso on the original figure; his arms became the front legs, his backpack folded around to form the body and rear legs. Hasbro decided to get cute with Tasmania Kid and make his arms turn into the rear legs instead. So now you have to shift his shoulders down and work his rear legs up and under with minimal clearances until things settle into place before folding his backpack around him to form the sides and his front legs. Since his heels are the lower jaw, Tasmanian Kid's faux jaw is still just hanging out on the underside. And what, may I ask, was the point of the musical limbs? To make Tasmanian kid more accurate to a real Tasmanian Devil? Nah, the head and ears are still the wrong shape, and too small compared to his body. To make Tasmanian kid more anime-accurate? Again, no, because then he'd have bigger ears, a more cat-like face, solid brown rear legs, gray on his underbelly and tail (actually, all his gray would be more like dark brown), and he wouldn't have those stupid holes on his flanks where his robo-hips are poking through. The icing on the cake is the the top of Legacy Tasmania Kid's beast mode head is a flap that doesn't quite want to lock in tight. It looks like someone lobotomized him and didn't put the lid back on all the way. Perhaps Tasmanian kid as better alt mode articulation? Well, not really. He can open his jaw, but so could the original. His front legs can swivel at the shoulders... much as the original's could swivel at the hips. Meanwhile, the not-quite-digitigrade rear legs are actually tabbed in place at the robot shoulder, leaving him with just his robot elbows and wrists to work with on the rear legs. The original toy had access to the ball joints in his robot shoulders, elbows, and wrists, and they were the more useful front legs there. The Core-classes in this first wave are not off to a good start when I tell you that the overly-kibbly rock guy that I was fairly unimpressed with is better than Tasmanian Kid. Honestly, Hasbro could have reissued the original Snarl toy when they were doing Beast Wars reissues at Walmart, and that would have been a better figure than Tasmanian Kid. I really don't know why Hasbro even bothered, except that I think he was one of the main Beast Wars II Maximals so you could buddy him with Legacy Leo Prime, and that like Leo Prime there's a built-in Nemesis repaint. The only reason I can think of to pick this figure up is you're one of the rare fans of Beast Wars II so you really want a toy of Tasmania Kid but you don't feel like paying the $25-ish or so the original toy goes for on the secondary market. If that's not you, and statistically it isn't, then Tasmanian Kid is a super easy pass.

Agree, but the Zero Mission remake is solid.

I can't comment on the "inconvenient time" or "not every member got an email" stuff. I don't have any exact numbers, but nothing was reissued. It was, per the invitation, "very limited quantities" from Haslab's "reserve vault." And if quantities were that limited (a $600 Unicron sold out in under 30 seconds) it makes sense to limit the pool of potential buyers- less people competing for limited inventory, and Hasbro gets to market the whole idea as another perk of their premium membership. The invitation email with the link went out a hour or so before, which does sound like no real time to react, but they sent a more vague email about a special event for Pulse Premium members a week or so before, so it wasn't exactly a surprise. Even if people weren't getting emails the usual TF news sites covered it, and it was discussed on the board-that-shan't-be-named. And yes, while it wasn't a raffle or an auction, the proceeds went to Hasbro Children's Hospital, so this was a charity thing. So, yeah, I'm not really arguing against the idea that Hasbro could have handled it differently, and I'm definitely not trying to diminish the justified anger of the Zavvi debacle. Just wanted to clarify a few facts. Anyway, bitter as I am that Hasbro told me I had a chance to buy Unicron that I never actually had, it's probably better for me to focus on the present than to dwell on the past. And the present is Legacy United, so let's wrap up the Deluxes with a look at Windblade. Legacy's Windblade is specifically supposed to be Cyberverse Windblade, which I think is a good thing. See, when she debuted in IDW comics I hated her. While she was ostensibly the product of a fan vote, the fan input was mostly limited to stuff like female, Autobot, primarily red, uses a sword, turns into a jet. The Japanese fetish look is squarely on the design team, primarily one Lenny Panzica. And while she technically debuted in the "Dark Cybertron" story arc, her role in that story was fairly limited to her being a Cityspeaker (a Cybertronian with the ability to communicate with Titans, and a weak justification for the Japanese fetish look by writing as the ceremonial look of Cityspeakers on the planet Caminus). Her personality wasn't really fleshed out until her first limited series, where Mairghread Scott wrote her as the worst kind of Mary Sue (female outsider happens to be brave, smart, and capable enough to be the only one who can save the day). Cyberverse made her one of the main characters in the first season, and she was written much better there. She was brave and capable, but she knew her limits. She was a loyal friend who both helped Bumblebee and was helped by Bumblebee. Their friendship came across as a genuine bond from shared experiences, not as props in the story of a self-insert MC. The Cyberverse design definitely informed a lot of her aesthetic choices. It's the blue X on her chest, the big red-rimmed knee pads, and the lower legs that flare out like boots with sensible feet. However, she's not simply the Cyberverse Warrior-class with more budget. To make her fit the Legacy aesthetic they added a ton of linework, shrunk her eyes, made her face less round, and tweaked her headdress. As a Legacy figure, I think most collectors will see her as an alternative to the previous pseudo-G1 Windblade figures, not necessarily Cyberverse specifically. To that end, Legacy Windblade is still probably your best choice. Although her lower legs lack the slimmer, high-heeled appearance, her shoulder pads are red instead of black, and her chest is a bit different that the art popularized by Saren Stone and Sara Pitre-Durocher, overall she has a better head sculpt and more accurate bot-mode colors than the old Generations toy, and all-around better proportions than the Titans Return figure. Windblade is far from perfect, though. The "front" side of her wings are riddled with hollow spots, and none of the black you'd see on pretty much every version of Windblade, Cyberverse or otherwise. And her backpack is pretty massive. Granted, that's been true for most Windblade figures, but in this case her backpack is like the first third of her alt mode, not just the nose, and while it folds in on itself it winds up sticking out pretty far. That said, it's just friction clipped on, and you can yank the whole thing off pretty easily if you don't mind partsforming. Heck, you can pull her wings off just as easily to nearly recreate the wings-retracted look of the cartoon. Windblade's accessories are perfectly adequate. She comes with her Stormfall sword, which is better than the weird things the Titans Return figure came with or the nothing the Cyberverse Warrior came with. The translucent purple blade has a flame shape, and the hilt is nicely painted, but it's not quite as accurate and lacks the scabbard that the Generations toy had. She also comes with her hairpiece, which is removable because the original Generations Windblade's was removable, presumably. Windblade's head is on a ball joint with good up/down range, very limited sideways tilt, and a limited swivel due to her collar. Her shoulders rotate and move 90 degrees laterally. Her biceps swivel, and her elbows bend just under 90 degrees. Her wrists, waist, and thighs swivel, hips go 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally, and her knees bend 90 degrees. Her feet can tilt down due to transformation but not up, and her ankles can pivot around 60 degrees. Her wings have hinges that allow them to fold back and angle upward, but how far back they fold is limited by her backpack. The fans in her wings do not spin, but they can flip around. This lets you position them so the only painted side is facing forward. Windblade can hold Stormfall in either hand, no problem. She can even hold her hairpiece... maybe she uses it like Kitana's fan in Mortal Kombat? If you're like me you'll plug it into the back of her head and leave it there forever. It doesn't need to be removed for transformation, after all. You may have noticed that Stormfall has a 3mm peg on the hilt. You can use it to plug the sword onto her hips. Less useful for her own accessories, but maybe handy if you want to armor her up with a rock guy, she's got two 5mm ports on the front of each wing, one on the back of each shoulder, one on the back of each forearm, one on the side of each leg, and two under each foot. Transforming Windblade to jet mode is similar to the Cyberverse Warrior-class, but with a bit of extra engineering. Like, yes, the backpack folds up to cover her head, but it has to split apart and unfold first. Her waist rotates and her shins have to double-hinge up over her thighs, but her calves also flip over to cover on the bottom. Her feet transform a little differently, meaning you have to flip out the horizontal stabilizers separately and giving her a more accurate single vertical stab. I can't really say that Windblade's jet mode is good. Her cockpit uses clear plastic and gets lost in the underlying red... I wish they'd used translucent blue, which would be more Cyberverse accurate, or even yellow like most other versions of Windblade. The primarily red color with black underneath is mostly cartoon-accurate, minus the black space in the middle and the all-black stabilizers, but she's totally lacking the sleekness of the cartoon's jet mode. The proportions are closer to the IDW version, but with less black and none of the white, plus her tail is chunkier due to having the Cyberverse boots instead of the slimmer IDW legs. And that blocky fuselage is just yuck, no matter which version of Windblade we're talking about. The fact that her shoulders are still kind of visible and her arms are just laying against her sides isn't doing her any favors. As noted, the fans in her wings can swivel, allowing you to angle them forward for flight (as she does in the cartoon). There's fold-out landing gear in her nose, while her back rests on always-present fins. Stormfall stores in her alt mode by using the 3mm pegs on the hilt to plug into ports between the exhausts on her heels, with the blade pointed out like a flame from a booster. Windblade is a frustrating release. Her bot mode, even with the back kibble, is quite good IMHO. Her transformation is lazy, though, leading to an ugly jet mode, but one that's honestly still better than all but the original Generations toy. But since the Generations toy is kind of fiddly, has an ugly head, and a hard time standing up straight I'm forced to conclude that Legacy Windblade is ultimately the best Windblade toy Hasbro released so far. Reluctantly, I'm going to recommend her while also hoping that maybe in a few years they'll revisit Windblade with a more comic-accurate design that turns into a jet that doesn't suck.

So glad it did, I just barely managed to catch it. An excellent film. I was worried for a bit that it was going in a Grave of the Fireflies sort of direction, but then it turned a more critical eye toward the Japanese government's own failings during the war, provided genuine character growth, and wrapped up in a very satisfying way. It's definitely up there for me as one of the best films in the franchise (my other favorites being the 1954 original, Shin Godzilla, and Godzilla vs King Ghidorah).

I suspect that won't be my last Yolopark review, but don't worry. Transforming figures are still my jam. In fact, I'm switching gears back to the first wave of Legacy United with a look at Deluxe-class Bumblebee. Once again, we've got an Animated character getting a geewunny makeover to fit with the other WFC/Legacy bots, and once again I want to ask, "Why?" I mean, they did some stuff well. I like the head sculpt, and his chest is made from (some of) the car's roof without using faux parts. But gone is Derek Wyatt's exaggerated lines, replaced with more generic boxes that includes a bit of extra kibble on his arms and legs. Speaking of legs, his thighs are solid black, missing the yellow of the cartoon. Likewise, his fists are solid black, lacking the yellow fingers. His feet have molded headlights, but they're left unpainted, and the bottom of his feet don't have the black treads the cartoon did. Annoyingly, his feet are faux parts. More annoying still, the actual front of the car that is feet are supposed to be made from are on his heels. Like, could Hasbro seriously not design the figure to rotate at the waist and have the knees bend the other way? There's no reason the front of the car couldn't be his actual feet. Bee's also sporting a bit of a backpack, but so did the original Animated Deluxe, so I'll let that slide. Bee comes with exactly the accessories you'd want; his two stingers, done nicely in a vibrant blue translucent plastic with silver paint, and his two rocket boosters, done significantly less well in clear plastic for some reason, with no paint at all. Like, OK, the original toy had translucent blue plastic, but with silver paint, and in the cartoon they were actually black and yellow. Are we supposed to pretend Bumblebee's rockets are invisible? I think I'm going to have to paint mine some other color. Even if I do silver or gunmetal, they won't be cartoon-accurate but they won't be less accurate than friggin' clear. Bee's head is on a hinged ball joint. He can't really look down or tilt his head sideways, but he can look up very well and swivel his head. His shoulders are funky. Like far too many modern Hasbro figures, they have hinges that allow them to move laterally 90 degrees, but only when his arms are at his sides. There's a swivel in the shoulder, but it can only raise his arm about 90 degrees. Then, for some reason, there's a second swivel that connects his arm to his shoulder that can raise his arm a little further. Below that is a bicep swivel, then an elbow joint that bends about 90 degrees. No wrist swivel. His waist does swivel, though, and his hips can go forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend about 120 degrees or so. His feet have a little upward tilt, but nothing down. At first I thought his ankle pivot was kind of limited, but it gets caught on the kibble. Once you get it free, he actually has about 45 degrees of ankle pivot. The G1-ified way to arm Bumblebee is to plug the stingers into the boosters, using tiny pegs on the backs of the stingers and tiny holes on the backs of the boosters, then allowing Bee to hold them via the 5mm pegs. If you care to pretend that the stingers are like blast effects, you can also use a pair of ports on Bee's back to plug the boosters on like a jet pack. It's worth noting that the holes in the boosters are NOT 5mm, so they don't work with blast effects. If you want a more traditional Animated look, you can fold Bee's hands in to reveal little holes. The stingers plug into those holes, although they're at a significant angle. That angle does allow you to bring his arms close enough that he two stingers can tab into each other, but the combined nub at the end still isn't compatible with blast effects. In addition to his fists and the pair of ports on his back, Bee has 5mm ports on either side of his backpack and on the sides of his legs near his ankles. Bee's transformation isn't exactly like the Animated cartoon, but there's definite shades of it. His chest and head have to flip up to connect with the rest of the roof on his back, his waist has to spin 180 degrees, and there's a bit of work to be done with his legs to fold in his feet and get the hood from his shins to his calves. One you've done that, though, he does fold at the waist the way the cartoon did. His arms tuck into his sides to make the doors and rear fenders, then his backpack unfolds to fill in the rear. Bee makes for a tiny car. The Animated pedigree is still there, including a molded siren on the roof (gonna make this one harder to remold, eh?), and I do appreciate the silver paint on the rims (an area Hasbro likes to skimp on). But he almost seems like a different model year of the same car. He's a bit more angular. There's an ugly black spot on either side where the shoulder joint is exposed, no rear side windows (though there's a slot molded for them), and molded but unpainted taillights and the rear window on the back. It's ok, I guess. It's in the ballpark. Bee's alt mode kind of gives you two options. You can use the 5mm ports where the rear side windows should be to place the rocket boosters as, well, boosters, with the stingers serving as blast effect parts. Alternatively, you can put the rocket boosters in the 5mm ports just behind the front wheels, with the stingers facing forward, in an attack mode. The only other 5mm ports are on the rear. They angle slightly upward, and aren't much use for storing his accessories, but you could at least plug in some (not included) blast effects. The kind that don't work with his weapons. Like I said at the beginning, "Why?" For one, if you want a new Bumblebee toy, why not Cyberverse, or IDW? Get a good G1-ified version of a larger muscle car Bee. Or, as I keep saying, if they want to do new Animated figures, why not just go all-in on making new cartoon-accurate ones instead of G1-ing them? Because Hasbro seems to think that to fit into WFC/Legacy they have to replace Derek Wyatt's exaggerated style with something more G1-ish. This kind of unified aesthetic kind of works for popular characters that weren't already in G1, like Bulkhead or Knockout (or, hey, how about a Legacy Blackout?), but they don't seem to get that Animated Bee was already basically G1 Bumblebee drawn in Wyatt's exaggerated style. We already have that, it's G1 Bumblebee. With that in mind, I have the Netflix VW Bee and the Cliffjumper repaint from the Target pack; I have half a mind to see if I can't get the head from the multipack Bee onto Legacy Bee, then maybe track down a Bumper head I can use on mutipack Bee's body. Regardless, Legacy Bumblebee is a mostly ok figure hampered by poorly designed shoulders that's too Animated for G1 but too G1 for Animated. I'd call this one a pass.

It's my understanding from talking to a few people that Hasbro basically made a couple extra of each Haslab specifically to deal with QC issues and orders that were lost or damaged in shipping. This sale was basically them acknowledging that the warranty period is up and clearing out the warehouse. Kind of stupid to run the sale for 24 hours when almost everything was sold out in ten minutes (and I wonder if they even actually had any Unicrons), but it is what is is. I wish I had more info for you on what happened with Zavvi (and another German store, from what I've heard), but no one I've talked to seems to know for sure. I've heard it suggested that there were issues with Zavvi's order (or orders), but I've also heard rumors that there were QC issues with early batches so Hasbro cut the allotment to some stores to make good on their own Pulse orders. Since you asked nicely, here's Yolopark's AMK Pro G1 Megatron. So, Yolopark is billing these as "model kits," but if you've ever built a Gundam model or a Flame Toys Furai Model, well, this isn't like that. There are no runners. You don't clip anything off of a sprue. There's no decals, and nothing to paint. Everything in the box is already painted, complete with dry brushed weathering and a wash on some parts. And stuff's kind of already built. Sure, you've got a head, torso, pelvis, shoulders, arms, hands, and legs that all need to be connected, but the more complex stuff is already done. Aside from the parts that make up Megatron's body, you've got the gun barrel for his back, his fusion cannon, two alternate faces, his energon mace, a battle damaged chest, the key to Vector Sigma, the beam saber and pistol he used in the '86 movie, and the parts to make a stand. OK, a little backstory here... I'm not a huge fan of Earthrise Megatron. Deep down, I don't want a G1 Megatron that turns into tank (that's a G2 upgrade). What I want is a more accurate robot mode, even if the figure doesn't transform at all. After all, in the cartoon he always mass-shifted into a gun that Starscream could wield, and between the one that came with the Centurion pack and the even nicer one that came with a reissue Starscream I have Megatron guns that Starscream can hold. So I cut his tread-backpack off, I added a little paint, and I used one of the weird guns that came with various Soundwave figures to stick a gun barrel on his back. But I've always been on the lookout for a better option, especially since (Sunbow scale be damned) I don't mind a Megatron that's a little taller than Optimus, and ER Megatron was starting to get dwarfed by Galvatron, Beast Wars and Transmetal 2 Megatron, and most recently Armada Megatron. R.E.D. Megatron was obviously too small, but Yolopark's Megatron was going to be bigger. Well... shoot. Yolopark's Megatron is indeed taller, but a little too much for me. He's at least two heads taller than ER Megatron, and over a head taller than Armada Megatron. I feel like they maybe could have re-worked his legs a bit... they have a ton of flare at the bottoms, with very large feet. If they could have found a way to shave even a centimeter off he could have been ideal. Because otherwise, I really like what Yolopark is doing here. I mean, this is clearly G1 Megatron, right? But, where some companies like Super 7 or Hasbro's own RED line have gone hard into Sunbow territory, Yolopark included plenty of sculpted detail, even stuff like the swing bar for the barrel's transformation into gun mode (despite the fact that this figure doesn't transform). Combined with the weathered paint, and you've got the sense that you're looking at Megatron as he might appear if he were a real life robot, and not an attempt to capture a 40 year old cartoon in three-dimensional plastic. Oh, and yes, my copy is missing a part of his left heel. I sent Yolopark a message about it, and they responded within an hour or two that they'd be sending a replacement part. So far that seems like good customer service, but we'll see how they follow through on it. Another advantage of not having to transform, and one that not everyone seems to take advantage of (looking at you, Super 7 Ultimates), is that every joint exists only to provide articulation, rather than having to work in tandem with the engineering required to transform it. Which is an awkward way of saying Yolopark Megatron has great articulation. Is head is on a ball joint with plenty of up/down/sideways tilt on its own, but the ball joint is on a hinged bit as well so he can look even further down, or kind of crane his neck forward. His shoulders rotate and can extend 90 degrees laterally, plus he's got butterfly joints that bring his arms about 60 degrees forward. His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed and bend nearly 180 degrees. His wrists swivel, and they have hinges that allow him to bend his hands inward. His thumb has a hinge at the base. His fingers have two hinged knuckles each, with his index finger being separate from the other three. There's what I assume is a ball joint in his torso, between the upper block of his chest and the mechanical details that are his abs. This allows him to lean back, crunch his abs, and even teapot lean to the sides. He swivels at the waist, plus there's a little bit of a hinge that helps with his ab crunch. The skirts on the front and sides of his pelvis are hinged, allowing him to bend his hips forward 90 degrees, backward 45 degrees, and laterally 90 degrees. His thighs swivel. His knees are double-jointed and bend nearly 180 degrees. His feet have a slight downward tilt, and an even slighter upward tilt, although the toes themselves are hinged and bend about 30 degrees up. They also have a limited swivel, a little over 45 degrees of the usual ankle pivot, plus a limited outward ankle pivot. There's a tab on the fusion cannon, and matching slots on either of Megatron's forearms. The fit is quite snug. The gun barrel connects to his back in a similar fashion, although the tab/slot is bigger. There's a battery compartment inside the fusion cannon, and a button on top turns an LED light on and off. If you take apart his head you'll find another LED module. This one is magnetic. There's a magnet in the bottom of the gun barrel. Pop it off his back, and touch it to his forehead to activate the LEDs in his eyes. It'll cycle through three modes- steady on, rapid blinking, and a breathing mode that's on for a few second before fading off, then fading back on for a few seconds. Some of his accessories didn't get quite the same love as the rest of Megatron. The sculpt of the pistol is fine, but Yolopark didn't paint it so the colors are off. Likewise, the beam saber is made entirely of translucent plastic. Both of those weapons fit into his hands, but they don't lock or tab in, they just rely on the friction of his fingers to hold them in place. The mace is also translucent plastic, but I think that's a bit more appropriate here. To use it you remove a hand then plug the mace into the socket. Rather than being a piece, or having an actual chain, the sculpted chain has four hinges to allow you to pose Megatron mid strike. To swap faces or chest place, you simple pull the old ones off. Nothing too exciting to see in his head, besides a reminder for what battery goes in there. Yolopark put some really nice mechanical detail inside the chest, though. The first face has more detailed line work on it. In some ways I like it; it seems to add to the "this is a real robot, not a cartoon" look. But it also reminds me a bit of the Bumblebee design, like it's just too busy to be G1 Megatron. As for the third face, sure, Megatron made that maniacal laughing face enough in the cartoon. I just prefer something a bit more stoic, so I'll never use it. In a similar vein, the sculpt and paint on the battle damaged chest looks great, but I'll stick with the stock. The Key to Vector Sigma is also fine. No special way to hold it. Painted gold with a black wash to bring out the line work. It's going back in the box now. The stand is functional. You build it by taking the main arm, plugging the included Decepticon badge into it, then plugging it into the base. There's a joint that you plug into the top of the main arm, and a claw goes onto the joint. The main arm has a joint in the middle, giving you two to work with, and if you want to unscrew it you can even take the main arm apart and reattach at a lower position. Ultimately, though, it works by making the claw grip Megatron around the waist. At the end of the day I'm not really sure how I feel about Yolopark's Megatron. The materials are a lot better than most "model kits," but he ultimately feels a little less solid than an action figure. He looks and poses great, which makes him an excellent display piece. At a very reasonable $50-$60 (depending on shipping), I can definitely recommend Yolopark's Megatron if a non-transforming display piece is what you're after. But, aside from Megatron and maybe a few others, I do prefer Transformers than, y'know, transform, so I'm not sure I'd be interesting in collecting a whole line of these Yolopark figures. And he's just a bit too big for me to sub him into my Generations/Siege/Legacy stuff in place of Earthrise Megatron.

Victory Saber sold out very shortly after I posted. Everything but Hero Quest is gone now.

Pulse Premium members, Hasbro is opening for one day a chance to buy the previous Haslabs. Good time to get a Victory Saber to go with Deathsaurus. Too bad in logged in right at noon and Unicron was already sold out.

Wife and I watched Barbie last night. Or, more accurately, my wife did. I quit after an hour. I don't get the hype. I mean, the performances we got out of the cast ranged from solid to great, but the writing was unsubtle, unfunny, and frankly boring.

I just got their Megatron. Is this the kind of thing you guys would like a review for?

At long last, it's time for the review I thought would be my last for the year (but if Pulse or Amazon would hurry up and send the other half of United wave 1, who knows?). It's HasLab Deathsaurus! First off, let me start by saying, "Dang!" The original G1 Deathsarus toy was a bit chunkier, with a blocky body and a bigger head, and while the control sheet and box art maintained that look the Victory anime did as anime does, shrinking the torso and head and lengthening the legs to create a more dynamic silhouette. The HasLab team nailed the anime proportions. What they didn't copy from the anime was the simplified details. Details that were stickers on the original toy are not just painted here but sculpted right into the plastic. Seriously, I'm looking for something to critique, and I technically could say something like "well, his shin details didn't have the gold vents at the bottom in the anime" or "the toy had dark blue thighs," but the simple fact is that, IMHO, this figure walks a perfect balance between toy and anime, at a size that's bigger than Star Saber and even with the combined Victory Saber (and just a smidge shorter than Siege Jetfire). Back and sides are mostly clean, aside from his alt mode feet on the backs of his arms and the alt mode head on his back. Toy-accurate, I suppose, while they simply vanished in the anime. While I suppose it's theoretically possible that they could have been engineered to fold away somehow I think it's fine. I just wish that the kaiju head actually tabbed into place; it's just gravity and friction keeping it there, and I've noticed that while manipulating Deathsaurus that I'd sometimes push it up and out of place. Having met all the funding goals, Deathsaurus comes with a ton of accessories. You get a base, a throne, the Living Metal Destroying Cannon, a shield, two Micromasters, two Breastmasters (or Chestmasters, as I think is now Hasbro's official English name for them), an arrow, a sword, a flail, a stand, a stand adapter, and six effect parts. Let's start with the Micromasters. They don't actually have anything to do with Deathsaurus. Rather, when Siege was going on Hasbro released Stakeout and Red Heat, updates of half the G1 Rescue Patrol. As the Japanese version of the Rescue Patrol featured heavily in the Victory anime, anime-accurate redecos as their Victory counterparts Holi and Fire became stretch goals for Victory Saber. At some point someone decided that we should have the whole team, so brand new molds were created for the other two and packed in with Deathsaurus. They weren't even a stretch goal, it was just a "hey, we're doing this" after Deathsaurus was already funded. So we've got the ambulance, Pipo, and the boat, Boater. Like the Siege Micromasters they're pretty simple figures- Boater has a head swivel, a Pipo might but I can't get a finger in there to manipulate it. They both have ball joints at the shoulders for rotation and limited lateral movement on Pipo and nearly 90 degrees on Boater. No other arm or waist articulation. Hips are ball joints that go 90 degrees forward and 45 degrees laterally on both, with limited backward movement on Pipo and about 90 degrees backward on Boater. Pipo has hinged knees that bend 90 degrees, while Boater has ball joints for knees that bend 90 degrees and act as thigh swivels. The main thing to really take note of is that, as brand new molds just for this project, they a bit more accurate to the G1 Micromasters and they don't have the 5mm pegs or the half-hearted "they're accessories for bigger characters!" gimmicks the Siege Micromasters did. This makes them some of the best Micromasters Hasbro's done in modern times. The Breastmasters are the other small figures that come in this set. Tigerbreast is the star here. His head is on a ball joint and a slider, so he can look up and down, tilt his head 45 degrees, and even turn his head slightly. Plus his jaws open, his tail has a pair of hinges, and all four of his legs have hinges at the hips and knees. Eaglebreast can open his mouth, and he's got a pair of hinges in his neck for up/down tilt, but he can't turn or tilt his head sideways. His hips are ball joints and his feet ankles have hinges for up/down tilt. His wings have a pair of hinges, but they're really for transformation. They're not designed to fold back to get very dynamic flapping poses. Eaglebreast folds up until a box, basically. You can stuff him into Deathsaurus' chest, which pushes in a spring-loaded door. Push it in far enough and you'll also be able to wedge the underside of Tigerbreast in there to give Deathsaurus the chest you're probably more familiar with. I'm not totally sure about Deathsaurus' neck joint. He can look up pretty well, but not so much down, and nothing sideways. His shoulders rotate on ratchets, and they can move laterally on friction hinges 90 degrees. You can also unlock the shoulders and bring them forward 90 degrees on butterfly joints (the wings on Tigerbreast are hinged and can move forward out of the way). His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend a little over 90 degrees. His wrists swivel. His fingers are kind of odd... they're hinged at the base and molded into a permanent curl, similar to an MP carbot. However, his fingers are not one solid piece, but rather two. The odd part is that it's not his index finger as one part and the other three as the other. Instead, his index and middle finger is one part, and the ring and pinky the other. Moving on, his waist swivels, and he's got a small ab crunch. His hip skirts hinge out of the way so that his hips can ratchet forward, backward, or laterally 90 degrees. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on ratchets. The ratchets actually can click forward into a slightly hyperextended position as well. His feet can't tilt up, and although the front half can tilt downward it forces the heels down as well. His ankles pivot about 45 degrees. Whereas even Victory Saber and Commander-class figures like Menasor and Jetfire have still used standard 5mm ports for accessories, Deathsaurus goes with a more MP-style approach. Accessories like his sword have tabs on the handles, and there's an adapter part for the shield as well. Plug it into the shield with the handle facing out, then open Deathsaurus' hand, line up the tabs with the slot in the palm, then close his hand up. Or, you can plug the adapter in so that the handle is flat against the shield. This will leave a 5mm peg sticking out. Deathsaurus' right shoulder has a 5mm port that you can flip out and plug the shield into, similar to the G1 toy. Sadly, the left shoulder lacks this feature. The flail works like the sword, tabs in the handle, slots in the palm. Tabs in the handle, slots in the palm is also how Deathsaurus holds his Living Metal Destroying Cannon. The butterfly joints in the shoulders really help when posing Deathsaurus with this gargantuan thing. I was even able to get him to grab the handle on the side with his feet hand. Of course, the barrel is compatible with the blast effects, but there's also a port on the rear for them. Swords, flails, and giant guns are all well and good, but the Breastforce gimmick was that the Breastmasters come off the chest and turn into not just animals but weapons as well. For Eaglebreast, you mostly leave him in chest mode, but you fold the tail out a bit and you fold out the shoulder guns before tuck him all back up. The tail becomes a handle for Deathsaurus to hold, and the shoulder guns become something more akin to pistol barrels. Those shoulder guns are also compatible with effect parts. Tigerbreast is a bit more involved. You need to flip over a panel behind his head to reveal a tab. Fold the underside of Tigerbreast and tab it into his chin, and extend his wings on sliders. Deathsaurus doesn't actually hold Tigerbreast with his hand. Instead, there's a pair of tabs on the underside of Tigerbreast that plug into a pair of slots on the inside of Deathsaurus' wrist. Then, grab the arrow accessory. A tab near the arrowhead fits into the slot we uncovered when we flipped over the panel behind Tigerbreast's head. Another tab in the middle of the arrow's shaft can be used to store the arrow into one of the slots on Deathsaurus' back on either side of the kaiju head. The sword has a cutout on one side of the hilt that fits a trapezoidal peg on the kaiju neck so the sword can also be stored on his back. It's kind of a weak "feature," but the instructions also indicate that you can store the flail by simply dumping it into the hollow space inside the kaiju head/neck. Like his rival, Deathsaurus comes with a stand. Slide the stand into the base so that it looks like this. A peg will fit into the screw hole on the bottom of Deathsaurus' butt, with a supporting chunk sticking out for him to rest his grundle on. The stand does a good job supporting the weight of the figure. However, you might not want to use it as a stand at all. Without the stand attached, you can use the four holes on it to plug the throne into the base. The throne has a little cavity with a slit. You have to unlock Deathsaurus' knees and bend them at the transformation joint, not the ratchets, and the kaiju head on his back will fit into the cavity with his spines sliding into the slit. It's a minor complaint, but if you look from the side you'll see that even then Deathsaurus isn't actually sitting on the throne. His butt hovers just above it, like he's trying to poop in a dirty public toilet. The real utility of the throne isn't for sitting, though. It's a place to store most of Deathsaurus' accessories. The flail locks in on both the handle and the ball, the arrow and sword goes on the sides, and the Living Metal Destroying Cannon folds up and fits onto the bottom. With the blue handle in the "plug it into the shoulder" mode, the shield goes on last, covering most of the stuff back there. Oh, and there's a pair of 3mm ports on top of the throne. These match with ports on Eaglebreast's feet, allowing him to perch above Deathsaurus as he schemes in his throne. So for those of you keeping score, the only accessories that don't store on the throne are the Micromasters (which aren't for Deathsaurus anyway), Tigerbreast, the stand, and the effect parts. It's a bit of a shame that Hasbro could find a way to store the effect parts or at the very least the stand under the base. As big as Deathsaurus is, he's got a refreshingly simple transformation. Pinch in Deathsaurus' ears, then fold his kaiju head up and over his robot one. Unlock the gold bits on his knees, rearrange some flaps on his shins, then fold his lower legs over his thighs. Pull his arms out from his torso, then swing them around and lock them back into tabs near his ankles. Double hinge his wings from his robot back to his kaiju back, then open the bits that were on the edges of his back and shift them to the middle, revealing his kaiju arms, which you then shift into place. Officially*, rotate his biceps 180 degrees then collapse them. Open the fronts of his forearms and fold his hands inside, folding out the kaiju feet as you do. Spin the feet around and splay the toes. Finally, fold his shield up into the tail and plug it in, using the gold knee pads to lock it all into place. Instead of using Victory Saber for a comparison, this time we're switching to SS86 Grimlock. Apparently, there was at one point Hasbro was considering retooling Grimlock into a Leader-class Deathsaurus. Boy, am I glad they didn't! Deathsaurus has been called many things... a dragon, a space chicken, etc. I think it's safe to assume that Takara meant for Deathsaurus to be some kind of kaiju. For the most part, I think he looks fine. He's maybe a little gappy on the back, where the flaps don't entirely cover his knee joints, pelvis, and the tops of his thighs, and I do wish his robot feet folded in or away a bit better. His kaiju arms are also kind of small. They're pretty accurate to the G1 toy, but I'd have liked articulated wrists with individual claws more like the anime. I'll also note that there's no covers for his robot fists in this mode. *And about that officially. So, the official transformation will give Deathsaurus legs that are accurate to the G1 toy and, as near as I can tell, the anime. Good enough, right? But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that collapsing the bicep doesn't actually lock the elbows. So, if you don't rotate the bicep before collapsing it and you don't rotate the kaiju foot, you can bend the elbow 90 degrees and suddenly you've given Deathsaurus true digitigrade legs. Sweet! In kaiju mode, Deathsaurus' head has excellent up/down tilt with a hinged bit on his neck that you can move to keep the joint hidden, plus his head swivels. His jaws open. His shoulders are hinged swivels for rotating and moving 90 degrees laterally, plus he's got bicep swivels and hinged elbows. His shoulders became his hips, so they've got ratcheted rotation and lateral friction hinges. No thigh swivels, though, since his bicep swivels are locked while collapsed. He's got limited hinges for the kaiju knee/ankle (at his robot wrists), then swivels and hinges for good up/down tilt at the top of the kaiju feet. No kaiju ankle pivots, though. His ab crunch becomes a bit of a back bend, to help the lower body be the pelvis and tail while keeping the upper body upright. No tail articulation, but the wings have hinges for folding the wings back, and swivels to spread them out. Since it was a thing in the anime, the kaiju mode can't use most of the accessories like the sword and flail, but it can use the Living Metal Destroying Cannon. There's a tab on the cannon that can plug into a slot on either shoulder, since the little claws can't do much with it. Eaglebreast can still store inside, and Tigerbreast can attach to the kaiju's back. The kaiju mode also works with the stand. This time, you slot it in at an angle. The adapter pieces plugs into the kaiju's belly, into a hole between his robot feet. The other end of the adapter fits into an octagonal post on the stand. With Deathsaurus in a flight pose on the stand, it's a good time to mention that there are three 5mm ports under each of his kaiju feet, plus the little nubs for effects parts in the middle of each foot. Another 5mm port is inside Deathsaurus' mouth, allowing you to plug an effect part in there as well. In some ways I'm inclined to think that Victory Saber gave a little more bang for the buck, what with him being a figure that combined with a "trailer" to make a bigger figure, that also came with another figure that combined to make an even bigger super mode. But in hand, Deathsaurus is simply bigger, and he doesn't have some of the hollow spots that Victory Saber did. He feels more solid and less fiddly, making him a bit more fun to play with. And he's got so much more presence. I don't mean this to slight Victory Saber, who was my favorite official figure and one of my favorite figures overall last year. I'm impressed that Hasbro managed to follow Victory Saber's HasLab so quickly with one that managed to surpass it. I have very little to complain about with Deathsaurus, and the complaints I do have are exceedingly minor things like wishing the kaiju head locked into place in bot mode, that the kaiju arms were just a bit better, or that he came with his G1 toy gun. When Armada Optimus hit I was thinking that it was likely going to be my toy of the year. I was pleasantly surprised when SS86 Ultra Magnus managed to top it. Now I'm really hoping you all backed the Deathsaurus HasLab, because Deathsaurus trumps Prime and Magnus. Combined.

Just finished taking pictures, going to edit them before I turn in for the day. Big review tomorrow.

Turns out I cut my finger badly enough that I cut into the nail. Doesn't really hurt, though, just hard to type with a bandage. Oh well, we can get through this... Legacy United Deluxe-class Chase. As an old geewunner, I have no ties to Rescue Bots. I tried getting my daughter to watch an episode or two when she was maybe two or three- she wasn't having it, and it was definitely too into the Play-Skool crowd for my tastes. That said, the show's 12 years old now, and a tot that watched Rescue Bots as a kid is quite possibly hitting the age where adult collecting begins, and I could see that hypothetical kid being quite charmed to see their favorite characters with a more grown-up style. Because really, the designers did a bang up job taking the core elements of the Rescue Bots design and translating it into something that fits the pseudo-G1 style of WFC/Legacy. Sure, broad strokes, he's got the roof chest with the yellow window, he's got the head that looks sort of like cop shades and a police cap with a Bulkhead chin. He's got the wheels in his shoulders, the white arms, the blue legs and feet. He's even got the lightbar behind his head. But there's some real attention to details. The headlights just above his feet, the vents on his toes, and the knee pads are all part of his Rescue Bots design. Chase doesn't even suffer much in the way of hollow spots, though he does have two tiny wings on his back. I'm not sure if that's a design element from the original cartoon I never watched or toy I never played with, but I find myself wishing they had more articulation. Chase comes with a translucent blue box, a pair of translucent hooks, and two silver bits, one with a blue end and one with a red end. Unlike most police and rescue vehicles since Siege, the lightbar you see on the figure is actually part of the figure, not an accessory that plugs into a 5mm port on the roof. Chase's head is on a ball joint, adequate sideways tilt, minimal up/down tilt. His shoulders rotate, but once again the rotation is on the wrong side of the lateral hinge. So he can move his arms out 45 degrees when they're at his sides, but they're stuck pointing straight forward if he raises his arms. He does have bicep swivels, though, and elbows that bend about 90 degrees. Weirdly, his hands have hinges that are not used for transformation that allow him to bend his wrists inward, but they don't swivel. His waist does, though. His hips can go 150 degrees forward, 45 degrees backward, and 90 degrees laterally. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a little over 90 degrees. No up or down foot tilt, and he's got a little under 45 degrees of ankle pivot. So, the the hooks have 5mm ends, and they're meant to plug into a pair of 5mm ports on the translucent box to form Chase's "Capture Claw." I assume this is like his signature thing from the cartoon... at least one of his Rescue Bots toys has something like it. Although the box has a 5mm peg on it, and you could plug it into some port on him, the box is actually designed to fit snugly over his entire hand. Oh, and since the hooks have 5mm ends, Chase can hold them in his hands like some kind of knives or something if you prefer. As for the silver bits, they're meant to plug into 5mm ports on his forearms, red on the right arm and blue on the left. This further replicates his appearance from the show, but as they themselves use 5mm pegs they could be carried in his hands like pistols. Really, with their 5mm port "barrels," you could even attach a (not included) blast effect, or have him firing the hooks. Whatever floats your boat. In addition to his hands and forearms, Chase also has 5mm ports on his shoulders, and the side of each leg just below the knee, in the middle of his back, and under each foot. Chase's transformation is more interesting than I expected. A flap opens on his chest so that the entire chest can lift over his head, tucking under the lightbar. His legs stretch and open up with his feet tucking in to form the front of the car. You rotate his arms so his hands are above his head, then shift them down so his shoulders are by his hips. Speaking of hips, you bend his legs at hips so that the windshield, now on his back, tucks under the car's hood. The winglets on his back fold down to fill in the gaps between his shoulders and forearms. What we've got here is, again, is pretty much what you'd expect if you took the chonky Play-Skool car from the original toy/cartoon and translated it into a more realistic car that fits the WFC/Legacy aesthetic. Like the cartoon, it's mostly blue and white, evocative of a Mustang without getting a license from Ford. I may point out that the Rescue Bots style Autobot badge on the grill is just a flat blue space, and the vents on the bumper are unpainted. They added fog lights, and there's no silver on the hood due to his legs not poking through. Probably could have used some paint on the (again, very Mustang) taillights. One detail that sort of stands out are the exhaust pipes on the sides, just in front of the rear wheels. As near as I can tell, it's not a detail from any iteration of Chase's Rescue Bots design. The early speculation is that this mold could be used to make a Legacy Prime Cliffjumper. In a trilogy that's given us Rescue Bots, Prime characters that were toys but not in the cartoon, and G1 super deep cuts like Devcon I certainly wouldn't put a Prime Cliffjumper past them. All I can say is that it'd take some doing to get the horns on the hood and to get rid of the lightbar, and that Cliffjumper is not on the schedule for a 2024 mainline release (but I don't have a list of the Gen Selects or store-exclusives for next year). To really replicate the cartoon look, you'll want to leave the silver parts on his arms, and they'll end up on his doors in alt mode. The Capture Claw, meanwhile, uses that 5mm peg to plug into the port on his back, which is now his rear window. There are also 5mm ports available just behind each of his four wheels. Chase might be a character that means nothing to me, but he is a major character in what is technically the longest-running Transformers cartoon, even if it's not a show I can get into. So I can't really begrudge him his place in the lineup the way I can with rock dudes. And unlike a lot of the Animated and Prime Legacy updates, Chase's strikes me as a pretty good G1-ification (though now I kind of want an actual G1 Chase of the Throttlebot variety). Plus I like Transformers who are cops that turn into police cars, making Chase the first Legacy United figure that I feel like I can really recommend, even if he's got a few articulation issues. All that being said, now that I have him in hand, it's not a Prime Cliffjumper repaint I want out of him. Swap the blue to black, maybe make the yellow translucent plastic clear or light purple, give him a new head and different accessories, and this is actually the G1-ified Barricade I really wanted instead of the lazy Prowl repaint. If Hasbro gives me a Barricade out of this mold they can have all my money.

Yeah. Not like we did back in the prime of the genre, but every year around Thanksgiving a group of my friends get together to drink and play Rock Band (currently 4, Xbox One version). It's a holiday tradition. We still occasionally buy new songs for it, though the updates went from weekly content from across the ages to mostly stuff released this decade I've never heard of.