mikeszekely

I'm in. Put me down for an E, too.

Well, I managed to find a couple things at a Walmart near my friend's house. For now, if any of you guys happen to be at Walmart and find Sideswipe or Dead End, feel free to grab one for me.

I'm 99% certain that someone bought up all the Toxitron figures, bought a bunch of shelfwarmers (maybe on clearance?), took the Toxitron figures out of their boxes, stuffed the shelfwarmers into those boxes, then returned them to Walmart, either keeping the Toxitron figures or (more likely) scalping them sans boxes. In addition to the Crosscuts in Dead End, Sideswipe, and Jazz boxes there was a Laser Cycle box with Legacy Prowl in it and a Mirage box with a Legacy Crankcase.

I'm going to have a hard time finding these Toxitron figures, aren't I?

I just saw it. I'm not saying that it was a great movie, but considering I had extremely low expectations, especially as I'm not a fan of Ezra Miller in general or Ezra Miller's Flash specifically (based on Justice League), I thought it was pretty good. Aside from the awful CGI.

I get your point, and I agree, to the extent that I prefer robots with obvious alt mode parts, and transformations that don't use faux parts. But hey, Magic Square figured out how to make a transforming Optimus Prime that does use the same grill for truck and robot mode, yet somehow made probably the most cartoon-accurate Optimus available. Some of the wonkiness in the G1 toys was that they were designed as human-piloted mecha, not alien robot lifeforms, but as alien robot lifeforms I expect them to have functional, articulate, proportional bodies. I guess what I'm saying is that the G1 Optimus toy is very iconic as a toy, but not necessarily the character. That said, I'm kind of interested in this Missing Link Optimus, simply because the G1 toy was so iconic and I think it'd be interesting to see it with modern accessories and articulation. I'm just not sure I'm in for an entire line of "G1 but with articulation" Missing Link toys.

I preordered all the wave 4 stuff, but I passed on Menasor. I do like the toy-style tampos on the cars and might have bought been willing to buy them separately, but without remolded heads for the Stunticons and a remolded head and chest for Menasor I can't really justify another $190 on Menasor.

Well... I've had a Nintendo Switch since launch. I actually replaced my original one with the revised model that had better battery life before flying to visit my in-laws in Beijing. When the Switch OLED came out I read the reviews, and the gist seemed to be that the new screen was good and if you didn't have a Switch the OLED was the one to get, but that if you already had a Switch it wasn't worth upgrading. And for years I didn't. Then the other day I'm in Target, and they have a demo running on all three Switch models. I set them all to show Tears of the Kingdom, and dang! The reviews are (subjectively) wrong. For one, I didn't appreciate how bad the bezels are on the Switch until I got a Steam Deck. The Switch OLED has a slightly larger screen than the original Switch, but the console itself is the same size simply because Nintendo shrunk the bezels. But the difference in the quality of the screens in absurd. If you think of the OLED as if you're looking at colorful flowers in bright sunlight, the original Switch is like looking at those same flowers at night with fingerprint-covered glasses. Of course, this only makes a difference if you're playing in handheld mode. The chipset is the same, so both models will display content identically when hooked up to the same TV. But with all the activities I have to take my 8yo to I do find myself handheld gaming a bit, so I splurged on the OLED. I'll let my daughter play with my older Switch.

Tell me about it. I made a chart to keep track of everything I have preordered, where I preordered it, and when the release date is.

The deco is based on artwork released by a former Hasbro employee that only depicted robot mode. I guess it's accurate, btu I wouldn't have minded seeing the tiger stripes on his back (which you couldn't see in the robot artwork anyway).

War Dawn is up for Pulse Premium members. If there's any left they'll be available to non-premium members at 1:00pm EDT.

Not enough neon yellow.

I think the blue G2 Grimlock is more well-known, but (and maybe this is a bit hypocritical given how much I don't like some of the other decos in this Walmart line) there's someone about a neon yellow tiger-striped T-Rex that just appeals to me.

Thanks, been waiting for that one. Grimlock and Dead End were the only ones I really wanted. War Dawn will go up Friday.

And if you want the Menasor gift set it'll be available to preorder on August 1st.

Honestly? Because Bayverse (and technically the game stuff) exist in the Studio Series line, which is focused on accurately representing the source material (within the confines of the budget allotted). Armada, Beast Wars, etc already kind of fit with the G1 aesthetic. Animated and Prime are the only ones that really stand out. I rather expect that if they did decide to do Bayverse within Legacy it'd get the G1-ified aesthetic. I'm not exactly beat up about it, though. We've had this discussion before, but while I enjoyed the Animated cartoon and think the style is fine for a 2D medium I think it looks awful translated to 3D. I wouldn't mind seeing unique characters from Animated getting the Legacy treatment, like Lugnut and Lockdown, but even with my large collection of Bumblebees and Primes I already know that's two slots next year I wish were taken by almost anything else. I mean, yeah, technically the most egregious, sure. But it's not like a locomotive and a space shuttle, an oil tanker and a passenger plane, or a dune buggy and a helicopter don't have their own crazy size discrepancies. In a world where a giant robot turns into a human-sized tape deck or a different giant robot turns into a handgun to be used by his smaller allies I think most of us just accept the mass shifting and use the scale chart for their relative robot sizes. I'm not sure if Broadside appeared on any official scale guide, but I think based on his appearances in the cartoon a Jetfire-sized Commander-class should be enough. I mean, to be fair, this Code Red looks to be remolded from the Deluxe toy, not the Studio Series one. That's a $25 figure with a $45 price tag, then. That's where your budget for remolding, paint, and accessories goes. The crossovers benefit from not having to be stuffed into a specific size class. I feel you on Ironhide and Ratchet, though, especially since they're the same size as the Delxues. I get the extra Voyager budget paid for much better engineering, but a little paint would have been nice. Oh well, I'm sure I'll get the Reprolabels for Ratchet, same as I did for Ironhide.

Stranger Things X Transformers Code Red. $45, available later this year.

Which one? Way too many don't wake the Switch. I tried a Gulikit one everyone raved about because it has Hall effect joysticks. And, sure, the sticks were good... but the face buttons were trash that kept sticking. A part of me wants to grab the new 8bitdo one. I've bought a couple 8bitdo controllers for other stuff and I dig them a lot, but the price on the new Switch one is the same price as Nintendo's own Switch Pro controller.

Ugh, of course Pulse sold out of Dead End before I could get online. And they didn't even bother to put up Grimlock. Those are the only two I actually care about. Pulse also sold out of the Amazon Javelin & Kaskade pack and Nacelle, but you can still preorder Nova Prime. https://hasbropulse.com/collections/new/products/transformers-legacy-evolution-leader-class-nova-prime Or you can still get all three packs at Amazon (like I did). https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BDHHBXMZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BDJ5T6H4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BDGLX8HL/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Nothing yet for the Shattered Glass or Studio Series stuff. Powerlinx Hot Shot is going to be a Pulsecon thing.

I can't confirm any of this yet, but... Pulsecon is September 22nd, and I'm expecting them to reveal the title and first wave of the third part of the Legacy trilogy. That announcement should include Gears, for an early 2024 release. I don't want to get your hopes up, because I haven't heard anything about 2024's Titan* (which, if it even exists, I really hope is the last one). But Hasbro's definitely not done with Animated. In fact, I'm being told that Animated Bumblebee will be joining Gears in that first wave of Deluxes, and Animated Prime will be one of the Voyagers in that wave. *Nothing on the Titan, but supposedly Armada Tidal Wave will be the Commander-class for next year.

Yeah, that's my big problem with the Toxitron stuff. Nacho cheese Jazz is kind of ugly, I'm not sure why they didn't use the actually released G2 colors. And Mirage... well, he really needs a new mold that isn't a repaint of a figure that was kind of awkward in the first place. But something about that neon yellow Grimlock just sings to me. I very much want to get him. Dead End mostly because I do have Shadowstrip. I ordered Cloudcover online because he looks kind of nice. The rest are something I might pick up if I see them on the shelves, but if I miss 'em I won't be bothered. It's a bit of a bummer for me, since I had Magnus as a kid (and I still have a G1 Magnus!), and the white Optimus was a HUGE deal to 7yo me. I'm willing to forgive it, though, because Magnus looks fantastic. Like, maybe better than the MP good. I think it does, in a manner that's probably similar to CW Magnus. It definitely turns at least a bit. If I may borrow some pics from another board... Eh, while I'm over there... Anyway, like I said before, I'm definitely in for the Amazon comic packs and all the Studio Series stuff. I'm leaning toward yes on Hot Shot and the Shattered Glass pack, but I think I'm out on the Menasor gift set. I think if they'd put a little effort into remolding Menasor's head and chest to look more like the toy, and maybe gave the cars their toy-style heads, I'd have bought it for sure, but just changing the colors a bit and adding some tampos isn't really selling it for me (especially since the first releases of Dragstrip and Dead End already have some toy-style stripes). I'm hearing that the Amazon stuff will go up for preorder some time Friday. Not sure about the rest of it, or when the War Dawn pack will go up.

I'm in for all the Studio Series stuff. I'm probably passing on Towline and Medix. I'm also in for the other Amazon sets. On the fence for the Shattered Glass set, the Menasor set, and Hot Shot. I'm not sure about the Toxitron stuff. If I see them I might buy them, but aside from Grimlock and Dead End I'm not going to go out of my way to get them.

Not a ton of surprises at SDCC. As expected, they announced the Commander-class SS86 Ultra Magnus as well as expected SS86 repaints Frenzy (red) and Ratchet. Also in Studio Series, we got some looks at Core-class Exo-suit Noah Novakane (a repaint of Freezer) and Nightbird (who looks kibbly, but better than the previous non-SS Deluxe). Moving into Generations there's going to be a Pulse-exclusive repaint of Hot Shot in his red Powerlinx colors who looks to come with more accessories than the original, including Jolt. I wonder if there will be more Powerlinx Gen Selects with Minicons? a Shattered Glass set of Rodimus and Whisper (Rodimus being SS86 Hot Rod, and Whisper looks like a repaint of Earth-mode Sideswipe) and a Menasor gift set in toy colors. They also showed Towline, a Target-exclusive repaint of Scraphook that was already up for prerorders and sold out on Pulse, and Medix, who I'm not sure what his deal is. I think he was originally going to be a Walgreen's exclusive. They showed off the remaining three Amazon comic book sets. They are Nacelle, yet another repaint of the Siege Seeker mold. Javelin and Kaskade. Javelin is a retool of Studio Series Bumblebee Arcee, and Kaskade is a light retool of Siege Chromia. And Nova Prime, who's a not-extensive-enough retool of Siege Galaxy Upgrade Optimus Prime. Finally, they showed off the Walmart Toxitron figures. I think most of them have leaked, and some have started showing up in stores ( got my hands on two of them, but not the one I REALLY want). They are: Toxitron (repaint of Laser Optimus) Grimlock (repaint of SS86 Grimlock) Jazz (a repaint of SS86 Jazz) Sideswipe (repaint of earth-mode Sideswipe) Mirage (repaint of earth-mode Mirage) Dead End (G2 repaint of Dead End) Laser Cycle (repaint of Road Rocket) Cloudcover (repaint of Ramjet) Not shown was the War Dawn set that's supposed to be the SDCC exclusive. And no preorders for anything yet that I could find. BTW, if anyone happens to see G2 Grimlock at Walmart grab one for me.

Commander is the only class with a once-a-year release. Tonight we're looking at the other annual figure, Legacy Evolution Titan-class Nemesis. We're going to do this review backward, because reasons. The Ark was an interesting choice for Kingdom's Titan... they'd run out of the really big G1 characters, and the mainline hadn't really branched out from G1 yet. But as the ship they crashed into a volcano and the Autobots used for their home for the first two seasons, the Ark was sort of a character in its own right. Sure, it didn't transform in the cartoon, but why do robots that turn into vehicles need a larger vehicle? And even if they do, Omega Supreme, Jetfire, and Sky Lynx already set a precedent for the Transformers transportation also transforming. Who's to say that the Ark doesn't transform (although, with hindsight I might have argued that they could have done Animated-Universe Omega Supreme instead). With the Ark now existing in Titan form, it does make a certain amount of sense to do the Nemesis, too, despite being less well-known. Some background, I'm guessing most of you know that the Nemesis was the ship the Decepticons used to chase after the Ark. It, too, crashed on Earth, and its discovery in South America kicks off the season 2 episode "Microbots." It was also a plot element in the Beast Wars episodes "Nemesis" (parts 1 and 2), where Tarantulas actually discovers the Nemesis in the ocean and Megatron uses it to attack Mount Saint Hillary before Rhinox crashes a shuttle into it, presumably sending it crashing what would become South America. Unlike the Ark, the Nemesis was never the Decepticon's base. Rather, in the three-part "More Than Meets the Eye" series that kicked the cartoon off, the Decepticons were gathering materials to build a new ship to take them back to Cybertron. That ship, retroactively named the Victory, was sabotaged by Mirage and crashed into the ocean. It's the Victory that becomes part of the Decepticon's undersea home for most of the first two seasons. One of the design features of the Nemesis is that four wings oriented around the rear of the ship. Having them all here makes the toy accurate in that sense (and probably works fine in the void of space), but chances are you're going to want to sit this thing flat. We can do this by splitting the bottom wing and splaying it out. What I find interesting is how similar the designs of the Nemesis and the Victory were. Both have the four winged arrangement, primary hulls that taper toward the nose, canards on the front, rounded sections on the bottom, and conning towers or bridges opposite the round parts. That said, although it's a bit narrower and has a more hooked nose in the cartoon, the smoother hull, the rounded leading edge on the upper wing, the fins on the left and right wings, and the lack of engine pods above those wings definitely mark this ship as the Nemesis, not the Victory. The only element that doesn't really match the cartoon is the rear, which is depicted in "Microbots" as as having two engine bells set a bit apart from each other and a pair of fins in between. I can see why that element wouldn't really have worked here, though. Aside from a little trouble getting some panels to stay tabbed in place, I really dig the ship mode. Something about the shape in hand reminds me of a shark. So, accessories. Unlike the Ark, the Nemesis doesn't have a lot. Most disappointingly there's no smaller robot included as there has been with most of other Titans, including the Ark. But we shouldn't be surprised, last year's Legacy Metroplex also lacked a smaller robot despite the original coming with a Minicon. Anyway, what you do get is a gray sprue, and the sprue contains a trio of squarish triple-barreled guns, a trio of round double-barreled guns, and a quartet of tiny Seekers. To my knowledge, the Seekers are Thrust, Ramjet, Earthrise Starscream, and Siege Skywarp. To install the guns, the round ones go in a trio of pegs on top of the ship. Just behind them are two little cutouts for two of the square ones. The third square one goes on top of the bridge tower; there's actually two ports up there. The one in the front is for the guns, the one in the back is for the top of the tower, which isn't attached in the box. On the sides of the ship, behind the canards, you'll find little doors that flip up to reveal retractable gray platforms. The platforms have the Earthrise connectors we saw on stuff like Battlemasters, Prime's trailer, and various ramps on Omega Supreme, Scorponok, and Sky Lynx (but don't work with Trypticon, Fortress Maximus, or the Power of the Primes bases). These platforms have little bumps on them that allow you to attach the tiny Seekers. The platforms can be retracted while the Seekers are attached. There's also a ramp on the back. It also has the base connector, but it and the space inside are much smaller than the Ark's. You can toss a loose Seeker slug in there, but you may find that even a Micromaster is a cramped in there. Like the Ark before it, the Titan-class Nemesis was given a robot mode. The designers meant for her to be a bit more monstrous than the Ark, drawing her with long, spindly limbs and kind of a hunched posture. I'm not sure she needs to hunch. In some ways, the design has kind of grown on me. I dig the big, pointy shoulders, thin torso, and clawed hands. As the Ark's face was meant to be that of the Last Autobot from the Marvel comics, and the Last Autobot's face was designed to basically be the Autobot symbol, the designers wanted the Nemesis' face to be a Decepticon symbol. To avoid making her look like Tarn, though, they gave her face more of an armored design than a mask like Tarn's, with the middle of her brow being inspired by Starscream's crown from the '86 movie. She's got a few issues, though, that I think are a lot less excusable on a $200 toy of this size than they are on a $20 Deluxe or even a $30 Voyager. All of her wings when unfolded prove to be hollow on the inside/bottom. It's not exactly the end of the world for the wings coming off her calves, or the one that makes up her backpack, but some of those waffles are plainly visible on her shins and the sides of the canards facing forward on her shoulders. The kibble that folds back along her knees isn't the prettiest, but I can live with it. Worse is the flaps dangling off her elbows. $200 and the best they can do is have it rotate so it sweeps back a little? They couldn't double hinge it to fold up against her shoulders or anything? Nemesis' head is on a hinged swivel, with really good up/down range. The base is at an angle, though, so turning her head simultaneously gives it a sideways tilt. Her shoulders rotate on ratchets, nothing unusual there. What's a bit more unusual is the lateral movement. There's a ratchet inside the purple part, but it only moves a click or so laterally. A second, also-ratcheted hinge just above her elbow allows it to move out at that point, too, but even combined we're talking about just 45 degrees or so of range. If you want more, you can unlock the shoulders and use the transformation hinge to swivel the entire gray armature, but that joint is on the wrong side of the swivel. Moving on, her biceps swivel. Her elbows are double-jointed and bend 180 degrees combined, but both joints are friction joints. Her wrists swivel. The fingers and thumbs are hinged at the base, but they don't have any additional knuckles and all her fingers are one piece. Her waist swivels on a ratchet. Her hips ratchet forward about 90 degrees, backward a bit less than that due to kibble getting in the way, and laterally over 90 degrees if you can manage to get her arms out of the way. Her thighs swivel on ratchets, and if you move some kibble out of the way her knees bend on ratchets a little over 90 degrees. Her feet don't have any up/down tilt, but her ankles swivel on ratchets, and they have about 30-ish degrees of pivot. If you were keeping score, that's ratchets in her waist swivel, thigh swivels, and ankle swivels where they probably weren't strictly needed, but none in her elbows. Remember that. While the Ark is just supposed to punch stuff, I guess, Nemesis can actually arm herself. You can yank her canards off and wrap her fingers around them to give her comically tiny axes. Alternatively, you can pull the wings off her shins. One end has a barrel that flips out, and inside the edge there's a handle. The handle has tabs that plug into her palms, allowing her to turn the shin armor/wings into guns. But, remember those friction elbows? They can't really support the weight on of the guns on my copy. Her upper left elbow seems especially weak, even after I tried tightening the screw there. Not using a ratchet in at least one of the two elbow joints on either side is a serious design flaw, and my single biggest issue with the figure. As for the other accessories, they pretty much stay where they are. The round guns just chill on her chest and tummy. Two of the square guns wind up on the backs of her shoulders. Somewhat amusingly, the third square gun winds up pointed at the back of her own head. Maybe that's Megatron's failsafe for keeping her under control? It'd have been nice to have spots to redeploy them to be more useful in robot mode, but I can't really find any. As for the Seekers, they're in her forearms now. You can still open the doors and slide the platforms out, and it actually works even better in robot mode because there's a little slider you can use to move the platforms in and out. I think it safe to say I'm having somewhat mixed feelings about Nemesis. On the one hand, she does look kind of cool in bot mode, and I think they did a really good job attempting to capture that weird (presumably Floro Dery) G1 animation design in a package that also transforms into a robot. I'd go so far as to suggest that if you have the Ark you should probably go ahead and pick up the Nemesis as a companion piece. But if you don't have the Ark you're probably better off skipping the Nemesis. Like Metroplex, Nemesis has seen a price increase over the War for Cybertron Titans, including the Ark. That in and of itself wouldn't necessarily be a problem, but that price increase seems to be buying less actual toy. As noted, her wings are all hollowed inside, and aside from a few slugs she doesn't come with any accessories or smaller figures. While not noticeably different from Metroplex or the Ark, the plastic does feel thinner and bendier than Scorponok or Omega Supreme, and the lack of ratchets in her elbows drops her robot mode from a solid B to a C-. And it's at this point that I'll offer an opinion that's probably going to be a bit more well-received here than a certain Transformers message board I won't name- I think it's time for Hasbro to retire the Titan class. Consider the following points: 1. Hasbro's struggled to make Titans profitable. I don't know if they've admitted it openly, but I've heard as much from reliable inside sources. This has forced Hasbro to raises prices on the class, doubling from $100 to $200 since Thrilling 30 Metroplex ten years ago. That's way beyond impulse buy pricing, and while the success of the Masterpiece line has shown that adult collectors are willing to spend a lot on premium toys, "big" is not a synonym for "premium" and unfortunately the other way that Hasbro's tried to make Titans more profitable has been to reduce costs. I don't care how big she is, Nemesis doesn't feel like a $200 toy, and that's going to make people even more hesitant to buy. Anecdotally, I'll point out that you can still buy both of the previous Titans, the Ark and Metroplex, from sellers on Amazon for under $200. 2. Titans are kind of too big. I mean, yeah, guys like Metroplex and Fortress Maximus are supposed to be huge (unless we're talking Marvel comics), but even with fairly simple engineering just picking them up off the shelf and transforming them is a chore that requires a good bit of room. Speaking of room, not counting combiners like Predaking and Devastator, I've got nine Titans on display now, and they take up an enormous amount of space. I Black Zarak in a difference spot, but the other eight are on a table and they take up basically enough surface area for me to display the entire Season 1 cast in a combination of Deluxe, Voyager, and Leader (including Dinobots), plus Jetfire. On a shelf their vertical height would take up the same space as two shelves of smaller figures. 3. What really big characters are even left to make? I know Tidal Wave from Armada is often suggested, but I've heard that Hasbro is planning on doing Tidal Wave as a Commander-class and retaining the original toy's ability to interact with Megatron. If Hasbro wants to keep turning ships into robots I suppose you could do the Autobot shuttle, the Revenge, the Minnow, or the Quintesson ship from the '86 movie. Maybe the Axalon and the Darksyde from Beast Wars. I think as you go down the list of ships, though, interest in transforming Titan-class versions probably goes down (although I'd low-key love a toy of the Revenge). Beyond that, maybe the aforementioned Animated-universe Omega Supreme, and that's about all I could come up with. What I think Hasbro could/should do instead of Titans is do more Commanders. Again, there probably aren't a ton of robots big enough on their own to be a Commander (although, off the top of my head, Tidal Wave and Broadside). But Hasbro has shown that the Commander-class is a good price point for the torsos of combiners that can come with whatever kibble they need for the gestalt, characters that combine with part of their alt mode for a super mode (which alone could be another four Optimus Primes- Power Master, RiD 2000, Energon, and Cybertron), etc. Even if we start adding Commanders to Studio Series (as Hasbro is set to do when they announce Ultra Magnus this week) two a year seems like it'll take forever to cover every character that could benefit from the extra budget that the Commander-class affords.

Robosen Grimlock looks really good, but for $1500 I think I'd rather get a big curved ultra-wide monitor.