mikeszekely

Alright, we're wrapping up the Transformers Go! Shinobi Swordbot Team with a look at the combined modes... all three! Like DaiKenzan and DaiGekisou the guy on top is the identity of the gestalt, so we'll just go in order. Gekisoumaru gets in the top mode we saw in DaiGekisou, Hishoumaru becomes the middle, and Sensuimaru becomes the pants. Then Gekisoumaru's kabuto locks into Gekisoumaru's back, Hishoumaru's torso flap, and the backs of Hishoumaru's legs before flipping over Gekisoumaru's head. As combined modes go, GoGekisou isn't too bad. Sure, his hips are a little narrow and his legs are a little thin, but otherwise he's fairly proportional. As is the case with these guys, Hishoumaru is really more backpack than body, but he's far from the worst we've seen, and I like the way his wings form hip skirts. Sensuimaru's pinwheel splits in half, and one half fits onto the pegs on either side of Gekisoumaru's whip. The whip then plugs into Hishoumaru's fan/sword, and Gekisoumaru's swords plug onto the pegs sticking out the sides of Hishoumaru's fan/sword. As for Hishoumaru and Sensuimaru's unused kabuto, they can attach to each other. GoGekisou's head doesn't move. His shoulders swivel, and they ratchet laterally over 90 degrees. His biceps swivel. His elbows ratchet a little under 90 degrees. His wrists don't swivel, but due to how they transform he's got some up/down bend at the wrists. No waist swivel. His his can go 90 degrees forward or laterally on ratchets, but only a little bit backward because of the shark head on his butt. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on ratchets. He lacks any foot articulation, though, and with all that mass on top he'll be tricky to balance in more dynamic poses. His combined weapon can be held in one hand, while the combined kabuto becomes a gun/shield in the other. Neither looks particularly impressive, but I do like that there are no leftover parts (whereas DaiKenzan and DaiGekisou only used Optimus Exprime's accessories and left Kenzan and Gekisoumaru's off to the side). Now we're basically shuffling everyone up one spot... Hishoumaru moves up to the top, Sensuimaru moves up to the middle, and Gekisoumaru loops back around to become the pants (the same pants that we used on DaiKenzan, btw). And since Hishoumaru is the top, we attach Hishoumaru's kabuto to form GoHishou. GoHishou is a bit of downgrade after GoGekisou. If you could only focus on the parts made from Hishoumaru and Gekisoumaru he wouldn't be too bad, but Sensuimaru is almost entirely back kibble. From the front, that makes GoHishou look thicker than he really is, and from the sides and back you can see how Sensuimaru's arms are just kind of floating between his legs and Hishoumaru, and while Sensuimaru's legs tab into each other they don't lock onto any part of Hishoumaru or Gekisoumaru, making GoHishou seem just a bit sloppy. I also think using Hishoumaru's wings as shoulderpads instead of, well, wings, is a missed opportunity. GoHishou uses the same combined weapon, and this time we can connect Gekisoumaru's kabuto to Sensuimaru's. GoHishou's articulation is largely the same as GoGekisou's- no head, waist, or feet articulation, swivels and ratcheted lateral movement in the shoulders, ratcheted elbow bends, bicep swivels, hand with a little up/down bend but no swivel, hips that ratchet forward and laterally but lack the room to move backward, thigh swivels, and ratcheted knee bends. But, we are about to run into another problem that makes GoHishou my least favorite of the combined modes. While he holds the combined weapon ok, the peg holes on his hands are too open, causing the kabuto to fall out of his grasp. This is compounded with the fact that the hinge on Sensuimaru's kabuto is kind of loose, so even if you do get it pegged into GoHishou's hand the whole thing is going to flop down anyway. Shuffle everyone up one more time, so Hishoumaru loops around to the pants, Gekisoumaru moves to the middle, and Sensuimaru gets on top. Cap it all off with Sensuimaru's kabuto and we've got GoSensui. As gestalts go, GoSensui is somewhere in the middle. His arms are a little too thick, and I'm not loving the way the purple clashes with the orange. Actually, the skinny orange legs under a top-heavy body with avian toes is giving me serious Big Bird vibes. And, like GoHishou, he's carrying a ton of backpack, with Gekisoumaru's lion head dangling down behind GoSensui's butt. Between that and the gap between his back and backpack he's doing a bit of a Michael Jackson lean. However, the backpack itself seems a bit more solid on GoSensui, and Hishoumaru is the only one with fold out heels in pants mode, so he's pretty stable even with the weight on his back. We also get a return of the wing hip skirts I liked on GoGekisou. Same combined weapon, and again the unused kabuto combine to form a gun/shield. By now you're probably getting a sense that all three Shinobi Swordbots used similar engineering in their legs, using some extra joints that are ostensibly part of the individual torsos to lengthen the legs in pants mode and to bend and spread into the arms of the top modes. So, again, articulation is basically the same, with the same challenges balancing a very top heavy robot on feet with no ankles in more dynamic poses. The only thing ne and noteworthy here is that GoSensui actually has closed 5mm port rings in his lands, sort of like Commander-class Jetfire's. So he holds his accessories much better than GoHishou. After the somewhat messy combined modes that were DaiKenzan and DaiGekisou, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Triple Combination gimmick was executed a bit better when you leave Optimus Exprime out of it and focus on just the Shinobi Swordbots. While definitely not he best Transformers on their own, for display purposes I actually think GoGekisou is the way to go. Is GoGekisou worth the cash and effort to track down all three Shinobi Swordbots? Do I recommend them? Objectively, again, probably not. But, representing a show where Autobot ninjas travel in time to the Sengoku period and combine to keep Legend Discs from falling into the hands of Predacon oni? It's a wild, ultra-Japanese footnote in Transformers history that's been kind of overlooked, and I kind of love it for what it is. So, while I maybe can't recommend these figures, I don't regret purchasing them, and there's definitely room for GoGekisou on my shelves.

Unveiled today, but no preorders yet. Shattered Glass Grimlock. I dunno. I know that Hasbro's gonna milk their molds, but I'd kind of prefer if they did a red-eyed, translucent plastic toy-colors Grimlock or a G2 blue Grimlock instead. Coloring Grimlock like Trypticon and calling it SG was always lazy. Core-class Swoop: Aside from the fingers on his rockets he's potentially looking like one of the better Core-class Dinobots. Core-class Skar: Ankylosaurus. Called it.

Got my preorders in. Interesting that Ironhide appears to have a new pelvis in addition to a new head. Anyway, I got some more Rise of the Beasts stuff coming in this week, so lets finish up with the Transformers Go! Shinobi Swordbots with a look at G20 Sensuimaru. It's kind of funny that Hishoumaru was one of the better-looking robots in the Go! line, but, while working with the exact same constraints, Sensuimaru might be one of (if not the) worst. His head is on a flap that has it look like it's floating slightly behind his torso rather than on top of it. Kibble on the insides of his legs forces him into an A-stance, but like Hishoumaru the ostensible robot mode hip joints do not have any lateral movement, which forces you to use the combined-mode joints behind his torso. As a consequence, not only are those joints always peaking out from behind, his arms can't really relax at his sides. Then there's the fact that the bulk of his torso is a shark's head with a flap dangling from it's chin to hide the void between his legs. Or the fact that his shins are dominated by kibble that sticks out as far as his feet do. But, hey, he's a ninja! Oh, and I guess we should be thankful that there's no visible combiner hands for heels this time. Sensuimaru comes with two pickaxe-looking things. And, of course, his kabuto. Sensuimaru's head swivels, no tilt. His shoulders have butterfly joints where they connect to the torso, and a ball joint for swiveling and a little under 90 degrees of lateral movement. His biceps swivel, and his double-jointed elbows can bend 180 degrees. No wrist swivel, and no waist swivel (is it even fair to say he's got a waist?). As I mentioned earlier, the only lateral hip movement he has is just under his shoulders. You can get 90 degrees on ratchets before his legs and arms collide, but I recommend using it as little as possible as it ruins any illusion that he has an actual torso. His intended robot hips have ratchets that go 90 degrees forward and backward. He has a thigh swivel above his thigh and above his knee. His knees bend 90 degrees on a ratchet. His feet have a slight up/down tilt, but no pivot (the bottoms are angled for an A-stance). While Sensuimaru can technically hold one pickaxe in either hand, they're actually meant to be combined using a small peg on one that fits into a small hole on the other, to make something more like a pinwheel. And, as has been the case, the kabuto has a 5mm peg and can be held as a gun. Or, you can fold the kabuto up and use the peg to fit into a hole on his back, giving him something like back-mounted missiles. While still far less complicated than even some of the Predacons and Beast Hunter figures that wound up under the Transformers Go! brand in Japan, Sensuimaru has one of the more involved transformations among the Swordbots. His head must be lived up and out of his torso before being folding back in. His arms butterfly back to form part of the back and the dorsal fin. Then his legs, which need to be positioned just right, open and fold over the arms to form the sides and the rest of the back, with some kibble that was on the insides of his legs meeting to form part of his tail. The shin kibble spins and then shifts up to his alt mode chest, and the flap that pretended to be the front of his torso half slides into his shark chin, half folds up. While combined, one of the parts of his pinwheel weapon spins 180 degrees, creating ta thick tab that plugs into his tail and forming his caudal fins. As bad as Sensuimaru's robot mode is, I kind of love this alt mode. It's an awesome design for a mecha-shark, with big missile launchers on his chest between his pectoral fins, the suggestion of ridged segments so the tail could move (although it doesn't), and vents on the sides that I'd imagine take in water to force out the rear for propulsion. I do wish his feet could tuck in a bit better, but the points on his toes make for anatomically-accurate pelvic fins. And once everything is locked together it's a very solid figure in this mode. It doesn't do much, though. His jaws can open and close, and that's about it. As I said, his pinwheel weapon becomes his tail. There are slots on his chest where you can attach his kabuto to his underside, but it feels like an afterthought as he can't even sit level with it attached. At this point, I'm probably beating a dead horse, but it's the same story again and again. Sensuimaru objectively isn't a great figure and I don't actually recommend tracking one down, but I kind of love him anyway for what he ultimately is- a little part of the footnote that is Transformers Go!, the most Japanese the Transformers brand has ever been.

So... you know how I bought Kenzan and Gekisoumaru out of some notion that I needed them to get the full Optimus Exprime experience? That got me thinking that I'd actually need all the Swordbots to make sure I wasn't missing out on part of Kenzan or Gekisoumaru's experiences. Yeah... I may have a problem. Since I'm still waiting for one of the Samurai Swordbots to arrive I guess we'll start with the Shinobi Swordbot team. So this is G10 Hishoumaru. Hishoumaru is ostensibly continuing the ninja motif, and you can see it in the silver forehead and some of the textures on his shoulder joints and shins, I suppose. But his details are a bit more subtle, and his bright orange color doesn't exactly scream "stealth". Like the other figures in the line we've looked at he's sporting a bit of kibble on his legs, but unlike those other three Hishoumaru doesn't have any electronics. So, in a static pose from the front, he actually doesn't look too bad. Sure, his head is a little small, his arms are a little out from his torso, and his legs are a little big, but we've seen much worse. From the sides and back we see a few more issues, though. For one, he's got the whole unfortunate "use combined-mode hands as heels" thing going on. Also, you can see that his torso is really a flap over his front side. From behind his legs are attached to his body almost directly under his shoulders, which will be a problem when we get to articulation. Which we will as soon as we cover his accessories. There's a weapon that's either a sword of a fan, I'm not clear on what it's really supposed to be. And of course you've got his kabuto. Ok, so that articulation. His head swivels, no tilt. His shoulders shoulders swivel and have an excellent forward butterfly. They can move laterally 90 degrees, but the joint is on the inside of the swivel, which I hate. His elbows are ball joints, curling 140 degrees or so and pulling double-duty as bicep swivels. No wrist or waist swivels. Now, his hips... there's a ratchet that goes 90 degrees forward or backward where his hip should be, anatomically, but no lateral joint there. The only lateral joint is the top one, which will swing his leg out until, at 90 degrees, it's sticking out where his arms go, having pushed them up and out of the way. His thighs swivel, both above and below his thigh, and his knees bend 120 degrees on ratchets. His feet can tilt downward due to transformation, but not up, and he lacks ankle pivots. Hishoumaru can hold his weapon in his hands, and if you fold the head on the kabuto in there's a 5mm peg that'll let him hold it as a gun. There's also a peg hole behind his head that allows the kabuto to be worn on his back. Hishoumaru's transformation is fairly simple, standard stuff. Actually, it's a bit like Gekisoumaru's, in that the robot legs fold over onto his back, his alt mode legs come out of the kibble on his robot legs, and his weapon becomes his tail. The alt head folds out of his chest and turns 180 degrees, though, making his robot back his alt mode stomach, and I rather like the way his arms curl up into his shoulders to become part of his wings. I think he's supposed to be a phoenix, given the fiery colors and the shape of his tail, but then again I've never seen a blue lion and I could be reading too much into the colors. Falconry or takagiri was a popular pastime of the samurai class, after all, and it might just be that Hishoumaru is simply a falcon. In any case, his alt mode is ok. A little chunky with thigh thighs, I suppose, and there's not a lot of articulation in his legs. There's a hinge on his tail that lets it bend up (but not down), and the shoulder swivels, lateral joints, and butterfly joints give his wings a pretty solid range of articulation. Plus his head can tilt downward where his head connects to his neck, it can tilt up where his neck connects to his body, it can swivel where his neck meets his body, and his beak can open. As mentioned, his sword/fan/thing attaches to become his tail. You simply plug the handle into a port on the bottom of his torso flap. You can fold up his kabuto and plug it into a 5mm port on his back to have him carry it in his avian mode. I think Hishoumaru is honestly one of the better figures we've seen in this line, but he's far from perfect. His biggest issue is the lack of lateral hip joints where his robot hips are supposed to be; if he had that the bits of leg above his robot hips could reasonably be ignored as robot torso. In other words, despite not having to deal electronics, he's still compromised by his combined mode and therefore below the standards of Transformers at the time, let alone modern Transformers. So I still wouldn't recommend picking up Hishoumaru as a cool toy on his own, but as part of a set that's a unique bit of Transformers history he's been one of the better figures of the bunch.

I bought it on the Christmas sale, but haven't actually played it yet. My friend liked it... but he like The Avengers, too, so what does he know?

Why so few? Metroid Prime Remastered (with 2 and 3 reportedly on the way), Metroid Prime 4, and Metroid Dread is five, and that's assuming you only care about Metroid. I had a blast with Breath of the Wild and can't wait for Tears of the Kingdom (and I say that as someone who generally doesn't care for the 3D Zelda games), and Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario 3D World, and Super Mario Bros U Delxue are all good times if you like Mario. Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Yoshi's Crafted World were both chill, fun times. If you like Omega Force's Warriors games the Switch has Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity as exclusives that I loved. And if you like JRPGs for some reason Shin Megami Tensei V is Switch-exclusive (though I really hope it gets a PC port). And those are just some Switch exclusives I personally like, which doesn't even count stuff like Mario Kart, Smash Bros, Pokemon, Splatoon, Xenoblade, or Animal Crossing.

Well, you still have the lock-on from the original, and you can still dash sideways while locked on. The main advantages of the twin stick layout is that you don't have to be locked on to strafe, easier free-look/aim, and an easier time turning while moving. For me it hasn't made combat hugely different, but traversal and platforming is much more fluid.

If you've played and replayed Metroid Prime dozens of times but have eschewed console shooters otherwise I guess you might find the change a bit jarring. But if you've played other shooters on consoles (and for me not even recently, as I prefer to play on PC with a mouse and keyboard) the new controls are far more intuitive.

So about that Metroid Prime Remastered... Yeah, if you have a Switch you 100% should buy it. If you don't have a Switch you should strongly consider buying one to play Metroid Prime Remastered. It's everything that made the original one of the best games of that console generation- superb level design, an excellent soundtrack, the way they delivered that "alone on an alien world" atmosphere. But then they went and polished up the graphics and presented it in a modern 16:9 format, and new accessibility options. But, best of all, there's the new control scheme. It's easy to forget if you haven't played the original in awhile, but the controls were a tad awkward. Even more so with a modern controller that doesn't have a giant A button nestled smack in the middle of a little B button and little bean-shaped X and Y buttons. While Remastered still lets you use the Classic controls, if you like, or even Prime 3's Wiimote motion controls, the new control scheme is the way to go, as it ditches the original's single-stick controls for the now-standard twin stick FPS controls. Oh, and for those like myself disappointed that only the first game was Remastered, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that sources say the other two are definitely coming to Switch, and they'll probably have the new twin stick controls. The bad news is that they apparently will NOT have the graphics overhaul that the first game got. I gotta be honest, while new graphics would be super I'll be happy enough to play them on a modern console with improved controls.

Well, I bought Optimus Exprime because he was a neat (and very Japanese) Optimus that I wanted for my collection of Optimuses... Optimusi? And then I bought Kenzan and Gekisoumaru out of some notion that they were necessary to get the full Optimus Exprime experience. After all, the show is Triple Combination Transformers Go!, so let's do some triple combining. Per the rules of Transformers Go!, whoever wears the kabuto is the combined form's identity. So, even though Exprime's combined modes use his kabuto only, Exprime only has torso modes and we're starting with the configuration known as DaiKenzan. We're going to put Kenzan in this mode, where he forms the arms and chest, and Gekisoumaru will become the legs and pelvis. Exprime is the middle torso, which is a generous way of saying he's a little bit of DaiKenzan's abs and a ton of backpack. You stack them as above. Then you unfold the red kabuto, but before you attach it you're supposed to attach his swords to the wings like so. Notice that he doesn't really do this in the cartoon, but it's sort of necessary as the train kibble on Exprime's arms will lock into place by plugging into small holes on the sword. So here's DaiKenzan combined and... huh. I've seen figures that are compromised in robot mode to make for a better combined mode, and I've seen combined modes that aren't so great because they didn't compromise the individual modes before. I figured with the weird proportions, joints, and kibble on Exprime, Kenzan, and Gekisoumaru were sacrifices to a greater combined mode. But DaiKenzan's kind of a mess, isn't he? His pelvis, such as it is, is far too narrow, and his entire lower body seems too small for all the bulk above his waist. On that note, his arms seem too long, but I think they might actually be proportional with his body above the waist, it really is just that his legs and pelvis are far too small. I'll ignore the lion's head that's on his butt for a minute... I mean, it's not ideal, but what about the mess of kibble all over his back? The fact is, Exprime contributes very little to the DaiKenzan gestalt. As I mentioned, in the cartoon DaiKenzan fought with Exprime's big swords, but they're kind of necessary for keeping his kibble together. The instructions only tell you to have him hold Exprime's other kabuto. It doesn't look much like a shield, but maybe the dragon head is like a flamethrower? I dunno. The 5mm pegs that were on Gekisoumaru's shoulders allow you to store Gekisoumaru's swords on DaiKenzan's hips, and I suppose he could hold one of Kenzan's swords. As far as articulation goes, truthfully you're not going to have DaiKenzan do much more than stand around, as he's very top heavy and prone to falling. But if you must know, no head articulation. His shoulders swivel and can ratchet at least 90 degrees laterally. His biceps swivel, and his elbow ratchets a little over 90 degrees. His wrists swivel, and they can bend upward a bit. His fingers and thumbs are hinged at the base which allows them to open sort of like a Combiner Wars hand, but mostly so they can fold in and hide away for Kenzan's other modes. No waist articulation. His hips ratchet 90 degrees forward, but not really any room to go backward. They also ratchet a little under 45 degrees laterally, but you can do up to 90 if you untab Gekisoumaru's shoulders and move his arms out of the way. His thighs swivel. His knees are double-jointed, both ratcheted, and combine to 180 degrees. He has no foot articulation. Now, we can pull him apart and this time we'll put Gekisoumaru into a top mode, Kenzan into the pants, and Exprime turns into a different mid-torso mode. Since Gekisoumaru is on top, this time the combined mode is DaiGekisou. They stack like this. And we're using Exprime's other kabuto, with the blue dragon head. Unfurl it, and open the dragon's mouth to reveal a face. DaiGekisou also winds up having proportion issues. This time, though, his pelvis does seem a bit wider, and his arms are a bit shorter, which makes it look more like his upper torso is too long. Like, maybe this would almost work if you left Exprime out of the equation. Really, all Exprime is doing is making it look like a train crashed into a giant robot's back. At least DaiGekisou's heels are better able at supporting his backpack. In fact, his robot arms don't even lock in the way to do with the swords in DaiKenzan mode. Rather, small cutouts are supposed to fit over the stems on the ball joints in Gekisoumaru's elbows, and the fit is kind of loose. Between that and Exprime's legs forcing DaiGekisou's arms out to the sides a bit Exprime really detracts more than he adds to this combination, and although far from perfect I think I prefer DaiKenzan. Since Exprime's swords aren't part of the gestalt, the instructions indicate that you should put them into this scissors mode, and Exprime's other kabuto becomes a shield. I don't know of any way to use Kenzan's or Gekisoumaru's accessories with DaiGekisou. For the record, again in the cartoon DaiGekisou just fought with both of Exprime's swords, one in each hand. As for articulation, nothing in the head, shoulders swivel and can ratchet laterally 90 degrees. Biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees on ratchets. His wrists have a little up/down waggle, but no swivels. No waist swivel. His hips can go two clicks, a little under 45 degrees, forward on their ratchets, and a single click backward, and 90 degrees laterally (also on a ratchet). His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees on ratchets. Due to his transformation his feet can swivel, but there's no tilt or ankle pivots. Honestly, I'm not sure what went wrong here. Was there not enough budget in their transformations? Was the solid chunk of batteries and electronics too much to work around? Are five modes a piece simply too many (robot, train, dragon, and two different torso modes for Exprime, while Kenzan and Gekisoumaru each have a torso mode we haven't covered yet). As I noted in their individual reviews, these three (especially Kenzan and Gekisoumaru) suffered from a number of compromises already that I'd hoped would make for better combined modes, but DaiKenzan and DaiGekisou are aesthetically worse than Optimus Exprime on his own, I think. I mean, I do like the kabuto heads, but the weird proportions and mess of back kibble gives them a monstrous appearance, rather than the samurai and ninja vibes they give off on their own, and that causes the gestalts to lose a lot of the charm they had as individuals. If, like me, you found yourself intrigued by the unique character of the individual robots I'd say that combining them isn't really worth the effort.

I went ahead and watched all of Transformers Go!, and it was... ok. It's Japanese kids fare, no deep plots or anything, mostly battles that involve bad guys using incompetent minions that get destroyed by heroes yelling the names of their special attacks. At just ten 15-minute episodes it doesn't drag or overstay its welcome, either. Mostly I can say that watching it gave me an appreciation for what the deal is with the characters and all, so I can say at least I know what's going on with this guy- G05 Gekisoumaru. Gekisoumaru, like the other Swordbots in this line, I can now say is roughly a tall Voyager. Here he is next to Darksteel, who was colored red, given a new head, and released in Japan as G08 Budora in the Go! line. As the leader of the Shinobi Swordbot team, he's meant to look more like a ninja than a samurai. And sure, I can see it. Proportions are going to wind up being an issue across the line, I think. Once again, it's obvious that his head's a bit too small, and while the cartoon depicts him as being built sort of like Razorclaw, with a lion's head on his chest, on the toy the lion's head absolutely dominates his torso. This is because, you guessed it, he's got lights and sounds and the battery compartment is in the lion's head. But aside from some proportion issues he looks almost normal, if you can overlook the kibble on the sides of his legs. Of course, that is if you're looking at the front. Once you start to look around the figure we're going to notice a few more issues. Like the fact that the lion head on his chest as thicker than the rest of the robot it's attached to. Or how his heel spurs are hands. Or how his back is almost empty. But I think the worst thing is his legs. Like I said, from the front they look ok. The lion head covers where you'd imagine his pelvis should be, and those big hinges you can see from the front should be his hips, right? From the back, though, you can see he's got sort of a whole thigh on top of his thigh, and his actual pelvis is just below his chest. Gekisoumaru comes with two rubbery swords and something like a non-bendy whip with a kunai on the end. He also comes with his kabuto, which is the smallest and least obtrusive we've seen so far. Gekisoumaru's head swivels, but there's no tilt. His shoulders are on ball joints that can swivel and move laterally a little under 90 degrees. You can also move them around the joint as a limited butterfly, or fake a greater butterfly joint by untabbing the orange part they're on and swinging it outward. Unfortunately, he has no bicep swivel. His elbows bend 90 degrees, but they don't fully straighten. No wrist or waist swivels. What I'd consider his robot hips, the big hinges visible from the front, can go 90 degrees forward and backward on ratchets (if you move them out and around the lion head, otherwise 60 degrees forward). However, there's no lateral movement at that joint. To get lateral movement you have to use the upper joint, behind his back. It's ratcheted and gets 90 degrees. His thighs can swivel just below the joints behind his back, or just above his knee joint. Speaking of his knee, it's ratcheted and bends over 90 degrees. His feet can tilt down, but not up, and he doesn't have any ankle pivot. Gekisoumaru can hold either his swords or his whip in his hands. The swords have holes on them that allow them to be plugged into pegs on his shoulders, but there doesn't seem to be a place to store the whip. Because it's a thing he does in the cartoon, you can also use the holes on the swords to attach them to the whip. As for his kabuto, it has some slots that fit over tabs on his back. Although it seems tight, I find it a bit easy to knock it off. Much like Kenzan vs Smokescreen, Gekisoumaru's transformation is super simple compared to a contemporary figure like Darksteel, who himself wasn't super complicated. You fold his head down, then fold his fists down to unfold his front paws. You're already halfway done! Open his calves, tuck in the other hands, then bend his legs at the behind-his-back joints and his knees so that his feet can tab into his back. Unfold the back legs from the kibble that was on his robot legs and you're basically done. Gekisoumaru looks fairly ok as a lion, it's just that his head is a bit too big. His swords become part of his mane, and his whip becomes his tail- you know I like it when accessories are well-incorporated in alt mode. I'm not a big fan of the visible robot hands on the backs of his front legs, though. I'm also not a fan of the way his tail connects. Basically, there are slots on the handle. With his robot legs tabbed together, there's still a gap with little ridges between them. The slots on the tail slide over the ridges, but even with his legs firmly tabbed together the tail connection is fairly loose. His mouth can open, and the lion limbs can move a bit at the shoulders, hips, and elbows, but he's not super posable in lion mode. I guess Takara mandated that every part can be carried in every mode, so there is a way for the lion to carry the kabuto. First, you have to remove the swords from his back and move them to his shoulders. Then, there's a 5mm peg on the kabuto that plugs into a port behind his robot head. I guess we can pretend it's some kind of back-mounted gun? Not the prettiest, but better than nothing. Oddly, there are two other 5mm pegs on the sides of the clear part of the kabuto. Not sure what they're for (at this time). My thought was that maybe the swords could plug in there and be stored on Gekisoumaru's back when he's in robot mode, but the swords stick out too far and won't allow the kabuto to each the slots on his back that way. Well, we've only looked at three of these Japanese-exclusive Go! figures, but a pattern is definitely emerging. We've got another chunky, kibbly figure below the standards of even contemporary transformers, compromised by electronics and combining gimmicks, that I cannot objectively recommend. And yet I still find myself enamored with the way Gekisoumaru is designed to appeal to ten year old Japanese boys. There's a freedom here, of not caring what Hasbro thinks or what the adult collector market wants.

Well, to get the full Optimus Exprime experience I should at least get the two guys that combine with him, right? So, this would be Transformers Go! G01 Kenzan, the leader of the Samurai Swordbot team. Right out of the gate, Kenzan is giving me vibes that remind me of those large, chunky, cheap and simple Chinese toys you might see in the pharmacy toy aisle. Like M.A.R.S Converters or something similar. To be totally fair, I did consider that this figure is actually about a decade old now. Maybe I'm just spoiled by the post-Siege engineering in modern Transformers. So I decided to compare him with Beast Hunters Smokescreen, who in Japan was ostensibly part of the same Transformers Go! line. And, well, Smokescreen is certainly no modern figure. He's a tad fiddly, he's backing a lot of kibble on his arms, legs, and feet, and he's lacking some of the modern standards for articulation, but he's also better-proportioned and quite a bit more complex despite his smaller side and, I assume, lower price point. I mean, I've actually seen some of the Transformers Go! cartoon now (you can find it on Youtube). And in some ways Kenzan is very faithful the cartoon, because the cartoon had no qualms about copying kibble like the sides of his shins, the backs of his hands, the backs of his shoulders, and his massive kneepads. But the cartoon at least presents Kenzan as having normal, heroic proportions. That's definitely not the case with the toy. His head is comically small. He has no pelvis at all, and even the lower part of his torso is more implied by the kusuzuri-style flap between his legs. You're supposed to think of Kenzan's legs beginning with the white part, but the blue parts above it are actually attached to the bottom of his chest with a gap between them. I think it might have helped if there was something, anything there for the uppermost blue parts to plug into for this mode, to really drive home the idea that what very much seems to be his hips are actually supposed to be part of his torso. He's also got a massive backpack, because he also has lights and sounds that I'm not digging up batteries for. Despite his glaring flaws, there's some cool stuff going on here. I like how his body is molded to look like he's wearing samurai armor. Indeed, if you look at the back of his head he's even got a little topknot. Much like Exprime, Kenzan has two unpainted swords made of a rubbery plastic, and just a single kabuto. I dig the molded symbols on it- it's like the Autobot insignia wearing a kabuto of its own. Kenzan's head is on a ball joint with the requisite swivel and a small amount of up/down/sideways tilt. His shoulders swivel, and the shoulder itself can move laterally inside the blue shoulder armor a little over 90 degrees. The entire thing can also move about 90 degrees for transformation. No dedicated bicep swivel, but his elbow is a ball joint that swivels and gets 90 degrees of bend. No wrist articulation. He also doesn't have a waist swivel... or really a waist. And this is where things get a bit awkward. His thighs swivel where they connect to the bottom of his chest. If everything is turned correctly, his hips can go 90 degrees forward and backward on ratchets by moving the white part of his thigh around the blue part. To get lateral movement, though, you have to use the joint above this thighs. They're ratcheted and get 90 degrees. There's another thigh swivel at the base of the white part, then his ratcheted knees bend a little over 90 degrees. His feet lack any articulation. Kenzan can dual-wield his swords by sliding one into each fist. His kabuto can use slots on one side to grab onto tabs on the sides of his backpack, becoming a sort of over-the-shoulders gun. Alternatively, you can use a peg to have him hold the kabuto as a very awkward-looking gun, and the swords have slots on the sides that can attach to the tabs on his backpack. Because they use the same tabs, he can't store all his accessories on his back at the same time. Kenzan's transformation is super simple. His head folds into his chest (don't forget to fold his topknot down), and his arms curl up. Then his backpack folds up over his head, with his arms folding up to meet it. His feet fold up, making most of the sides of the car. Fold his kusazuri up, turn his shins inward, open his calves, then bend his knees so that his legs come together to form the font of the car. He's a pretty huge car! He's also a chunky, totally fictional car with simple painted spots for lights and minimal details, further reinforcing that Chinese drug store transforming toy vibe. He does have some translucent plastic for his windshield and lightbar. His rear is dominated by his battery compartment. Kenzan's kabuto can be carried in this mode by plugging the 5mm peg on it into a port on top of his backpack (weirdly, there are several other ports on him). As for his swords, they store under the car by using plugging them onto the same tabs that lock the backpack onto his back. Much like Optimus Exprime, I can't exactly recommend Kenzan. Objectively, he's not that great of a figure with a simple transformation, wonky articulation, and a chunky design with chunky materials that really don't feel like contemporary Transformers figures. Takara kneecapped him by forcing him to essentially have five modes (we'll get to the other three another time), hit him again with a cludgy accessory based around a gimmick, then dealt him the finishing blow by adding lights and sounds that demand something like 25% of his mass be a battery compartment. Subjectively, there's a certain charming character to this figure, a samurai police car in what is undoubtedly the most Japanese Transformers series to date, and I'm actually curious to see where we go with this.

Well, Arcee wasn't the only Rise of the Beasts figure Amazon sent already. I also have Voyager-class Cheetor. Cheetor, as a Voyager-class, seems weird. In G1 the Maximals are supposed to be smaller than the Autobots already, and Cheetor was one of the smaller Maximals. Even in Kingdom Cheetor was pretty much in-line with the Deluxe cars, but this Cheetor is slightly taller than Kingdom Tigatron. I'll be curious to see if he's a bigger guy in the movie, or if this is entirely about getting a giant robo-cheetah to run alongside a certain offroad Camaro to recreate that scene from that trailer. Is it film-accurate? I honestly don't know, I don't think I've seen the CGI for the robot mode yet. The coppery color does seem to match the CGI of the alt mode, I suppose. I'm not really sure how I feel about it, otherwise. There's elements of his chest that look like the eyes and the top of a a cheetah head kind of flattened out, and he's got the suggestion of ear points and a head crest. Oh, and he's got spots! But nothing else really screaming "this is Cheetor!" Indeed, while he's got a butt flap and a tail along his spine, he's devoid of the wings and legs dangling off his back that I associate with Cheetor. All-in-all, I'd say the design is ok. Better than the Bayverse stuff, but kind of generic compared to Beast Wars. Note that I'm not sure how his shoulders are supposed to look in the movie, but the shoulder armor his hinged and can move out to the sides. I rather like that look. Cheetor comes with this two little spears. No gut guns or tail whips or anything like that. Cheetor's head is on a ball joint with some fairly adequate up/down/sideways tilt. His shoulders swivel, and he's got two joints for lateral movement. The one is really a for transformation, and it's on the wrong side of the swivel. It'll go about 45 degrees before his shoulders bang into his head. The other is on the correct side of the swivel, and it'll go a little under 90 degrees. You can combine them to go past 90. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. His wrists swivel. He does actually have a waist swivel, it's just a little lower than you'd first expect and his butt flap can get in the way. His hips go 90 degrees forward and laterally, and about 60 degrees backward (if you move the butt flap). His thighs swivel just above the knees, which bend 90 degrees. His toes can tilt up due to transformation, but nothing down. His ankles pivot about 90 degrees, both in and out. The two smaller spears are meant to combine into a larger spear. You slide the end the three spikes into the top of his hand, then plug the other end into the first under his hand. That being said, both ends have enough of a 5mm port that he can hold them as two weapons. Or if you'd rather store them, they have tabs on them that fit into slots on his back. Despite his larger class, Cheetor's transformation isn't particularly complicated. Both his back and his chest open- opening his chest allows you to fold in his robot head, opening his back allows you to fold out the cheetah head. And the rest of the transformation is pretty much just arranging his robot limbs to be cat limbs. For the front legs that's pretty uninteresting. His shoulders lock onto the cat's neck, then you turn the bicep and the wrist so elbows bend the right way and the claws are pointed forward. Transforming his rear legs is a bit more interesting and works really well. It's not exactly novel, as it's extremely similar to Titans Return Weirdwolf in that you shift his shins up to unlock a mid-thigh digitigrade bend. The main difference is that you rotate his thigh 180 degrees first, so that his shin tabs into the back of his robot thigh and the digitigrade bend goes the other way. As near as I can tell, Cheetor looks decently accurate to the CGI of him running with Bumblebee. I mean, he's missing some of that gunmetal paint on some of his mechanical details, sure, and some panel lining would have helped, too, but it's a overall a very good catlike shape. There's some molded fur where the CGI model has some, but it's the same color as the rest of him and molded so lightly I didn't even realize it was fur until I looked at the CGI. Really, my biggest aesthetic complaint is the visible robot hands on the backs of his front paws. Well, my actual biggest complaint with his alt mode is actually articulation, which is kind of limited. His cat head is on a ball joint, but there isn't clearance for more than the slightest wiggle left/right/up/down. He can swivel his head on the joint, but that just tilts his head like he's confused. His jaw opens. His shoulders are actually locked to his cat neck, so he's got no shoulder rotation or lateral movement. His front legs are limited to a bicep swivel, 90 degrees of elbow bend, wrist swivels, and a little bit of up/down paw tilt. His butt plate locks his waist swivel in cat mode. His rear legs do a bit better. His hips don't have the clearance to move too much forward or backward, but he retains the lateral spread. His thigh swivel is locked in this mode, but his knees can still bend and now he's also got the digitigrade joint His feet have a little up/down tilt, but they still retail the entire pivot range. His tail is hinged so it can move up/down at the base, but it has no additional articulation. As with robot mode, the spear can be stored on his cat mode by splitting it into two parts and tabbing them into slots on his back. Fortunately, Cheetor makes a much better impression than Arcee (but at triple the price it better!). His robot mode articulation is good, and although I wish his cat mode had better articulation it looks pretty good. Speaking of looks, my complaints with his robot mode are likely more complaints with his design in the film than with the figure itself. The most I can really say is that it probably could have used a bit more paint and some panel lining. All-in-all, he's a decent figure that's worth checking out if you're curious about the new movie toys.

Some more 2024 leaks, this time Studio Series. This isn't from my usual source, but another one who's proved reliable in the past... but I have questions. The list looks like this: TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES CORE MV5 MOHAWK TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES CORE MV6 RUMBLE TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES CORE MV6 STARSCREAM TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES DLX TF7 SCORPINOCK TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES DLX MV6 SUNSTREAKE TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES DLX WFC SIDESWIPE TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES VOY WFC STARSCREAM TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES VOY 86 SCRAPHEAP TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES VOY MV6 SHOCKWAVE TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES LDR MV6 MEGATRON TRA GEN STUDIO SERIES LDR AST TF86 SWOOP OK, well, we knew Swoop was coming, we were just waiting to here when (I really wish Hasbro would stop screwing around and release more than one Dinobot a year). And some of these make sense. A core-class Mohawk? Sure, Hasbro loves doing motorcycles lately. I've been hearing rumblings that War For Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron (the games) were joining Studio Series, so Starscream and Sideswipe are reasonable picks. 86 Scrapheap? That'd be another Wreck-Gar retool, the Junkion with the red head and yellow torso. TF7 is Rise of the Beasts, is Scorponok going to be in that one and we just haven't heard about it yet? Now here's where I start having questions. MV6 is Bumblebee. Rumble wasn't in Bumblebee. Megatron wasn't in Bumblebee. Sunstreaker wasn't in Bumblebee. Someone suggested that it's a misprint, that they're probably 86s (which would make Rumble a package refresh). Sunstreaker was briefly in 86, flying Optimus' shuttle. If true, curious to see what they'd do that they didn't with the Earthrise figure. And while fans have suggested that they'd love a Studio Series Megatron that's a better toy than the Siege-retooled Earthrise figure, it's pretty much a fact that he can't have his G1 alt mode. Do I really want another G1-ish Megatron compromised by a tank alt mode? Also, if those guys are typos, what about the other two Bumblebee figures on the list? Are they supposed to be typos, too? Given that we already have a Core-class G1 Starscream from the Kingdom it seems unlikely that another Core-class release would get the budget to make any significant changes, so a Core-class Bumblebee Starscream seems more likely to me. Likewise, while I think Hasbro could make a more accurate 86 Shockwave than Siege, fans have wanted a Voyager-class Bumblebee Shockwave since they released the Core-class version. But if those listings are correct, then it calls the notion that the others aren't into question. I mean, we know Megatron at least had concept art for Bumblebee. And we do have a Soundwave and Ravage from Bumblebee. Is there some concept art for Rumble and Sunstreaker in Bumblebee out there?

Or a Ferrari, like they did the last time Mirage (or Dino, if you prefer) was in a live-action movie. No, what bothers me about Mirage isn't that they changed his alt mode. They've been doing that since the very first film with Hummer Ratchet, truck Ironhide, and Camaro Bumblebee. What bothers me is that they made a CGI model for a robot that looks an awful lot like Jazz that turns into a car that looks an awful lot like Jazz then named him after a prominent Season 1 Autobot that is NOT Jazz.😒 Speaking of Rise of the Beasts, it seems that the toys are starting to trickle out early. I myself happen to have a copy here of Studio Series Core-class Arcee. In some ways it seems like Arcee's having a bit of a renaissance these days. She was one of the handful of characters to get a Deluxe-class release for Cyberverse. We got a G1-inspired release in Earthrise (and repackaging in Kingdom) and a Prime-inspired Legacy version. And when people complained the Earthrise version wasn't good enough we had a G1 do-over in Studio Series, one of now four Arcees in Studio Series line along with these three. Despite Hasbro's enthusiasm for Arcee of late, it seems that after getting a major upgrade from the Revenge of the Fallen figure to the Bumblebee figure she's suffering a bit of a downgrade for Rise of the Beasts. I assume the decision to make this release a Core-class was about scale, but limited budge for paint and parts is doing her no favors. It's hard to tell from the screen caps of trailers that have been revealed so far, but in very broad strokes her colors are mostly OK. White head, white chest, pink shoulders and biceps, red pelvis and thighs, red forearms, white shins and feet... this all checks out. Her pink face is kind of off, though, as it should be white- apparently they were working off an older design, which is why I firmly believe that new movies should have their own line and not enter the Studio Series until later, as inaccuracies on Bumblebee and the car version of Shatter from Bumblebee were also due to the toys' designers working on unfinished movie designs. Other issues are down to class, though. Her entire midsection is black, lacking the white and silver mechanical details of the CGI model. Her forearms are missing some white on the undersides, as well as silver fingers. He thighs are missing mechanical details, as well as the Ducati branding. Then there's the kibble. The front of her alt mode is sticking off her butt, and her calves are dominated by wheels. The wheels on her calves almost get a pass. As near as I can tell the CGI model has them tucked away somewhere when she's just standing around, but action shots have her using the wheels like skates and I think that's the look they're going for. Good luck getting her to stand, but you can even fold them out and down a bit. The front of the bike is a bit more egregious. I mean, the front of the bike is clearly her chest on the CGI model (to the extent that the toy's chest has painted lights that the CGI model doesn't). The CGI does have a wheel on her back, though... two, in fact. I can't tell from the trailers if she has two wheels on her back that move to her legs for skating mode, or if the idea is that one wheel splits and stores in her thighs, deploying for skating, and the other splits into two "wings" on her back. It looks like it might be the former (you can see wheels on her back and nothing on her legs in the Stonehenge shot, and wheels on her legs but just fenders on her back in the scene where she's skating and falls backward into Wheeljack to avoid a missile). Arcee does have an accessory, and it's this... object. I suppose it does look a little like the blaster she's got in the skating with Wheeljack scene in the trailer. Note that her front wheel is also packaged with her blaster in the box and not attached. It just plugs into the bike's nose via a peg. Arcee's head seems to be on a ball joint, and she can swivel and look down a bit, but no real sideways or upward tilt. He shoulders are on ball joints that swivel and give her 90 degrees of lateral movement. However, they don't actually tab into her sides and there's a hinge for transformation that you can use for more lateral movement. No bicep swivel, but her elbow ball joint swivels in addition to providing a little over 90 degrees of bend. No wrist articulation. Her waist swivels, though. Her hips are ball joints, and they can kind of go forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees, although practically her butt kibble gets in the way. Her only thigh swivel is the limited amount that her leg can turn around the ball joints in her hips. Her knees can bend about 90 degrees, even with the wheels folded up. She has no foot or ankle articulation. She can hold her blaster by plugging the peg into either of her fists. Technically, the peg on her front wheel will also fit in her fists, in case she needs a pizza cutter. I suppose going Core-class for Arcee is about robot scale. While smaller than her Bumblebee Deluxe counterpart, her bike mode is larger than Revenge of the Fallen Arcee's. And I'm pretty sure that if you put ROTF Arcee next to, say, ROTF Bumblebee, and figure out how big a human would be in each one, that ROTF Arcee was already on the big side. As a Core-class, the transformation is pretty simple. Rotate her at the waist, bend her head forward, bend arms up above her so they meet, make her do the splits, flip the front of the bike between her legs, fold out the wheels and double hinge the knees so that the top of her foot sits where her knee should be, then fold her legs under her so the halves of the rear wheel meet. Arcee transforms into a Ducati 916, which actually does bring us some continuity with Revenge of the Fallen since she was a Ducati there, too (and 848). She's a bit of a mess, though. You've got a mostly-visible robot head, visible robot hands where her exhaust should be, and a seat broken up by her robot shoulders. The tail is red when it should be mostly white, and the nose is mostly white when the red should rum the while way up the sides, over the mirrors. The smooth, curved sides of the real bike are flat and marred with mechanical details that don't belong. Unlike the myriad of other motorcycle Transformers Hasbro's been releasing of late, Arcee doesn't have a kickstand and can't stand up on her own in bike mode. This is where her blaster comes in, though. You'll notice two grooves on the top. This allows the blaster to grab onto some tabs as you wedge it between her feet under the bike. Little flared protrusions on the bottom of the gun act as a stand to keep the bike upright. And since the front wheel is pegged in place you can swivel it. Both tires spin. That's about it. Arcee is not a good first impression for the Rise of the Beasts toys. And I find it curious, because Hasbro is releasing figures in both the Studio Series line and a separate Rise of the Beasts line. We've already seen leaks, in fact, of a planned Deluxe-class Cheetor in the Rise of the Beasts line that's retooled from the Kingdom toy, but the revealed Studio Series toy you can preorder is a more screen-accurate, all-new Voyager mold. The impression I was getting is that Hasbro was going to cheap on the main ROTB line (much they way they do with Earthspark, offering "Deluxes" that are a bit less than what you'd get in a Legacy Deluxe, for example), while making the Studio Series releases the more accurate, more premium versions. But Studio Series Arcee is a messy, ugly figure that I can't honestly recommend. I'd suggest waiting and seeing if she doesn't get a better Deluxe-class toy in the regular Rise of the Beasts line.

Yes, SS86 Magnus is coming. This year, I think. And no, it shouldn't be a repackaged Kingdom. My sources say it's Commander-class which means it should have nearly double the budget.

As far as upgrade kits or anything? Not that I'm aware of, save a few 3D-printed gap fillers (I have one in his shoulder pylons, but I couldn't be bothered to find some that matched Delta Magnus). The only things I'd seen were ways to cover his hands in truck mode. There's basically two I'd seen. For the first, all you need is the figure you have. You want to open up the trailer, then you want to grab the arm covers and pull them back off. Swing his arms out, and turn the fists so they're back in the robot mode position. Open the arm covers, and slide the peg inside into the top of his fist, so that when you turn his arm back in that the long edge is facing out and the short edge is facing in. Note that there's not enough clearance around the fist to fully close the bottom of the armor, just do your best. Now his hands are totally hidden. Sure, his arms are still sticking out of the back, but if you squint the parts that's covered in blue now almost looks like it's part of the trailer. The only downside is that the clearances of the slightly-open armor made it a bit tricky to keep his arms lined up properly, giving it a crooked look. Which brings us to the second option. For this, you want to get some kind of accessory you're not using from another figure. In my case, I've got the part of the bazooka that came with Earthrise Cliffjumper, since A.) I replaced him with the more cartoon-accurate Buzzworthy Bumblebee version, and B.) even if I hadn't, a cartoon-style gun for him came with the Gen Selects Centurion drone so I didn't need the bazooka anyway. But you can try this with other accessories, as long as they fit, cover most of his hand, and are basically symmetric. Then, with his hands in the usual "I'm riding a motorcycle" position, just plug the accessories into his hands. Again, it's not a perfect solution, and his hands are still technically visible, but it does a fair job of obscuring them. I have the guns angled like this because that's how they fit best. If I squint, maybe I can pretend they're like fuel tanks. If you don't mind the roof not coming down the whole way you could haven turn them sideways and pretend that they're air filters instead. Whatever works.

Guess what? Robots in Disguise (2015) is not the only sequel to Transformers Prime. I'm not exactly sure, but I heard something along the lines that Prime was designed with a massive story bible and a plan to run for three seasons, but the writers burned through all the material in the story bible in two. The beast focus in Season 3 was kind of a last minute thing that, in the West, lead to the whole "Beast Hunters" imprint and a lot of toys that didn't make it into the cartoons until the Predacons Rising finale movie (if ever). I don't know if Takara didn't know what Hasbro was doing or what, but they created their own OVA cartoon they bundled with magazines to promote the new toys, called Sanjō Gattai: Transformer Go! (Triple Combination: Transformers Go!). And while the initial wave was made up of toys that would appear on Western shelves it would go on to include a number of figures based on new characters from the Transformers Go! OVA. You know what that means? Another Optimus for my collection. 😆 So I went and grabbed this guy, who surprisingly doesn't go by "Convoy"... this is Transformers Go! G26 Optimus Exprime. Exprime is a pretty tall fella... I don't think Takara divides everything up into classes the way Hasbro does (or at least, they didn't), but he's taller than Earthrise Optimus or (not pictured) Prime "First Edition" Optimus Prime (who was already taller than Prime "Robots In Disguise" Optimus Prime). And he's got some very recognizable Optimus elements, like silver thighs, blue feet and hands, red on the torso with a chest windows and an ab grill, and a blue head with a silver mask, antenna ears, and a vented forehead crest. But... to call Exprime "awkward" might be understating things a bit. Large flaps hover over shoulders that stick way too far out from his torso. Likewise, there's a ridiculous overhang above his chest windows, and massive kibble armor on the outsides of his arms. His pelvis is covered by a single-piece apron of a hip skirt that actually plugs into his crotch. He's got an absolutely mammoth backpack, and you'd think with all that backpack they'd have a better way of hiding that flap that's just laying on top of it, but they didn't. Probably because the backpack is a battery box and speaker for lights and sounds that I haven't tested because I don't feel like opening him up and looking for batteries. Exprime comes with a few accessories, and none of them are guns. You get two pretty massive swords, for starters. But what's probably drawing your attention are the blue, red, and gold things. I've heard them referred to as kabuto, which is Japanese for a samurai's helmet. Which might seem confusing, because on his own Exprime does not wear them on his head. So, Exprime's head is on a swivel. Technically, he shouldn't have any tilt, but the head folds into the chest for transformation and that transformation hinge can fake a little downward tilt. His shoulders swivel, and they could in theory do something like 180 degrees of lateral movement, but in practice you're going to get a little over 90 straight up before his forearm kibble meets his shoulder flaps, or about 90 if you raised his arm before engaging the lateral joint before his arm kibble starts hitting his backpack. His biceps swivel. His elbows bend a little under 90 degrees, and there's no wrist swivel (in fact, his kibble is attached to the backs of his hands and then plugs into his forearms, so even if he did have swivels you'd be pinning them in place). No waist swivel, either. Plugging his hip skirt in helps hold him together, but you'll have to unplug it if you want any forward hip movement- they can go forward 90 degrees on a ratchet, backward a little less than that because his thigh armor hits his backpack. His hips go laterally a little over 90, also on ratchets. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend about 45 degrees on a ratchet. If you fold open the red flap on his calves you can bend his knees farther. His feet have some up and down tilt, but no ankle pivots. For starters, he can hold his swords fine in either hand. It's a simple sort of look. You can spruce him up by using either kabuto as a shield- they have 5mm pegs that just plug into his hand. The other can plug onto his back to give him wings. I've seen snippets from the cartoon where Exprime looks like the first picture, with the segmented wings. While a kabuto is occupying one hand, you can slide one sword out of his hand halfway, then plug the other sword into the underside of the same hand. Alternatively, if the other kabuto is on his back, you can plug the swords onto his wings for storage... although the kabuto with the blue doesn't look as much like a shield. Unless, that is, you don't want anything on his back. Then the kabuto combine into a larger shield. And, because it's apparently a thing in the cartoon, his swords have small pegs and holes on the sides so they can combine into something like giant scissors. So, it turns out that Exprime's excessive kibble is largely due to the fact that he's a shellformer. His pelvis disconnects and shifts so that it's behind his back, then his legs open up and fold over his thighs, and his head folds down into his chest. From there it's just about arranging kibble. His arms tuck under his chest so that the forearm kibble and shoulder flaps cover up, then the flap on the top of his backpack flips over to complete the front half. From there it's just a matter of taking some flaps that were on his shins and swinging them on a double hinge to fill in the remaining gaps. And yeah, as you can see, Optimus Exprime is no truck. Instead, he turns into a shinkansen, a Japanese bullet train. This might actually be his best mode. As near as I can tell, it's fairly accurate to the show (it just needs a little more light blue paint on the door windows), and from most angles it definitely looks like a train. It's only when you spin it around and look at the rear that he's a bit unfinished. The train can carry all his accessories by combining the kabuto into their larger shield mode, and then plugging the swords onto it. Tabs on the very back of the train plug into slots on the blue kabuto. At this point, you might be thinking that the swords are kind of cool, but the kabuto seem like more trouble then they're worth and are wondering why you need them. Well, maybe you need them for dragon mode! You need to put his legs into robot mode, open the top flap, and start to fold out his arms, but stop before you shift his pelvis down, fold back the arm kibble, or flip out his head. Instead, take the arm kibble and spin it 180 degrees, then push the translucent lights in so the translucent part spins around, revealing some claws. Unfold the blue kabuto so the head is in the front and the wings are stretch back, and it'll plug into a hole on the front of Exprime's chest. The other kabuto stays folded up, and uses two slots on the underside connect to a pair to tabs on Exprime's back flap. The swords plug into it, and... it's a dragon! I guess? I kind of think maybe it'd look better if the wings on the red kabuto were unfolded, but that might be my Western bias as Japanese dragons were typically wingless. Still, Exprime's legs don't make a very convincing dragon tail, and aside from a little arm articulation it's not like the dragon mode does much. But even the dragon mode isn't exactly the point of the kabuto. Recall at the beginning of the review I said the full name of the show is Triple Combination Transformers Go! Exprime doesn't turn up until late in the story, which actually revolves around two teams of Autobots fighting the Predacons. There's the Swordbot Samurai Team, led by a police car named Kenzan. Kenzan combines with the other two member of his team to form GoKenzan. The other team is the Swordbot Shinobi team, led by a lion named Gekisoumaru. And, of course, he combines with the other two members of his team to form GoGekisou. But once Exprime joints the fight, Kenzan and Gekisoumaru combine with him to form DaiKenzan or DaiGekisou, depending on who forms the top and who forms the bottom (Exprime is always the torso). And this is where Exprime's kabuto really come into play. Gekisoumaru is on top, Exprime's blue kabuto goes on top, with the dragon's mouth opening to reveal the face of DaiGekisou. When Kenzan's on top the red kabuto forms the chest and the actual helmet swivels up to become the head of Daikenzan. And... well, you're not missing much. If I may borrow some pictures from Transformers Universe... DaiGekisou DaiKenzan. Yeah... they've got weird proportions and look kind of rickety, although as I don't have them I can't test the combination for myself. I imagine the design process for Optimus Exprime at Takara when something like this: Boss: Transformers is great, and Optimus Prime is cool, but he fights with a gun and turns into a truck. That's so American. How can we make him more Japanese? Employee 1: What if he turned into a shinkansen? Employee 2: Gattai! Japanese robots should combine! Employee 3: Give him swords! And samurai armor! Boss: Brilliant! We'll do all those things! Unfortunately, the toy isn't the best. The robot is an awkward, kibble-covered thing, with rather limited articulation. The kabuto are finnicky and do little to add to Exprime's solo modes, and the combined modes have weird proportions (to say nothing of the fact that you have to buy, at minimum, two other figures that'll wind up becoming six if you want the options for those two to also combine into GoKenzan and GoGekisou). On an objective, rational level I can't actually recommend Optimus Exprime. That said, I kind of love him. The concept and design are just so over-the-top Japanese that I can't help but admire it. Heck, I'm even thinking about tracking down the other six Go! Autobots to complete the experience.

When I shop at stores that don't have free shipping I prefer to buy more at a time. So, when I grabbed Bumblebee from Transformerland, I decided to grab Robots in Disguise (2015) Warrior-class Optimus Prime, too. Most immediately out of the gate, Prime is around the same size as Bumblebee. This is because, well, they're both Warrior-class. Thing is, I don't think that's actually the correct size. He's much smaller than Prime First Edition Optimus, who he's supposed to be the same character as. He's around the same size as Cyberverse Deluxe-class Prime. But, sure, in Cyberverse everyone is sort of the same size- Prime's maybe a head taller than Bumblebee. But I'm not sure that's the case in RiD15. It certainly wasn't in Prime. Beyond the size difference, there's the lack of painted detail that has him coming across as a bit bland. There's molded detail on his chest, but aside from the main chest window none of the windows or lights are painted. Some of his torso should actually be silver, too. Likewise, his hips have hip skirts molded directly onto them, but the entire part is cast in blue plastic and painted silver, while the molded skirts should be black. His hands and his knee pads should be black, too. He's carrying a bit more alt mode kibble on his forearms and back, too. What's kind of odd is that wheels that should be part of his back kibble aren't, they're on his arm. And his smokestacks are missing entirely, at least from this mode. All-in-all, the sculpt seems right enough, but you can definitely tell this is a toy with a lower budget, and he comes across as just a bit worse than Bumblebee did. Prime's sole accessory is this axe. It's got some nice paint on the blade. I didn't watch enough of RiD15 to know what all weapons he used in the cartoon, but this seems like it's at least appropriate. Not sure why there's a hole in it, though. Prime's head is on a swivel, no tilt. His shoulders can swivel, but he's got no lateral movement. His elbows are ball joints, doing double-duty as a bicep swivel and a little over 90 degrees of bend. No wrist articulation. His waist swivels, though. His hips go forward or laterally 90 degrees, and just a little shy of that backward. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees. He has no foot or ankle articulation. His axe fits into either hand. As with Bumblebee, transformation is fairly simple. His arms curl up and then meet over his head to form the cab sort of like G1 Star Convoy. Then his waist rotates 180 degrees, he legs tab together near his ankles, and the sides of his legs fold up to cover his thighs and sides. It's interesting, because it's a transformation that incorporates his trailer, but the result is kind of tiny. He looks small, even compared to the Cyberverse Deluxe, but next to FE Prime or RiD15 Bumblebee he looks way out of scale. The truck is, at least, kind of accurate. He actually does have painted headlights, and he manages to get some smokestacks for alt mode. He's missing some black around the unpainted marker lights on the roof of his cab and where the cab meets the trailer. The trailer itself is fine on the sides, minus some light blue glow and a missing Autobot insignia. The top is blue and gappy, though, due to being his legs, which aren't really covered. The rear is also gappy for the same reason, and missing painted taillights, and from some angles you can see his feet just sticking up on the back. Prime can carry his axe in truck mode... by stuffing it into the gap between his legs, actually. There's a notch on his back kibble that the axe's pommel slides into, and some grooves where the yellow blade meets the black part of the axe fit over some tabs on the insides of Prime's shins. This leaves the fin on the back of the axe sticking up. RiD15 Prime is a kind of mediocre figure. Like, given the constraints of the Warrior-class budget it's OK, but you can't help but think about how it could be better if it had been a larger, more expensive figure (which is likely why in Japan he actually did get a larger, more screen-accurate toy but we just never got it here). If you just want something, anything to represent RiD15 Prime in your collection he'll do in a pinch, and only runs about $15 even on the secondary market. "Better" is going to come with a premium, as the Japanese figure (TAV21) can go for $100 or more used without the original packaging, and upwards of $150 new in box.

A little while ago I posted the entire rest of the Legacy Evolution line. Well, same source leaked some of next years line (which I suspect, but don't know for sure, will be Legacy Universe). And... well, you know how I complained that Evolution is a bit less exciting than Legacy, and Legacy was a bit less exciting than the War for Cybertron stuff? There are some choices here that are so "what were they thinking?" that I'd swear that someone was trolling with a fake list if this wasn't coming from a trusted source. First, let's start with the good. G1 is still getting some love... we're finally going to get a Deluxe-class Gears! And Pointblank is going to be joined by fellow Targetmaster Sureshot. And... well, that's it. At least for what's been leaked, which is only two waves worth of Deluxes and some Cores. Then there's the mixed. Windblade and Chromia are both getting new toys, based on their Cyberverse versions. I'm fairly ok with that. I think Cyberverse was one of the better Windblade designs, if they can just give her a more WFC/Legacy-ish, less cartoony head (which has largely been their MO) I can dig it. Athough... isn't a G1-ish Cyberverse Chromia basically the Thrilling 30 toy? And Animated will continue to get some attention with Animated Bumblebee. Frankly, they're losing me here. Animated Bumblebee without Derek Wyatt's style is basically G1 Bumblebee with a more generic alt mode, and Animated has to be one of my least favorite versions of the character. I'd rather they did Cyberverse Bumblebee or a new take on Thrilling 30 Bumblebee. As for the "what where they thinking?" there are two listings labeled "Rock 1" and "Rock 2". My guess is that this will be the Weaponizer/Fossilizer/Junkion gimmick for the year, but the real question is, what is it? New Rock Lords? Or the abandoned Rock Bots concept that was originally going to be in G2, that featured Transformers that turned into musical instruments? Something else? And then there's the last of the leaked Deluxes... Chase. From friggin' Rescue Bots. Now, on paper, I'm totally cool with Rescue Bots as a show to get really young kids into Transformers. But, are there any kids who started on Rescue Bots old enough and still into the brand enough that they actually want characters from Rescue Bots in a line that's aimed at adult collectors? I mean, I was on the verge of quitting Hasbro's mainline Transformers before Siege, and they totally sucked me back in by putting out some really awesome, cartoony, G1-inspired figures, and while I've said I don't mind them branching out into the other shows (I've actually enjoyed picking up some of the main-cast characters from Beast Wars and Armada), I think Rescue Bots might be a bridge too far for me. Continuing with the WTF-ness, we have the leaked Core-class releases. Whatever Rock is, it's continuing there with one release labeled "Rock 1." If it's the old Rock Bots concept, I'm thinking something like one of the Deluxes turns into a guitar, and maybe the Core turns into an amp? The original proposal had a guitar/amp combo pack. Then there's Energon Megatron, which... like, yeah, I'm cool with an Energon Megatron. Maybe a lot of fans are. But, y'know, in a Voyager or Leader class. Why Core? And we conclude the leaked Cores with Tasmanian Kid. Who's Tasmanian Kid, you ask? Well, rather than put out a few more Core-class Decepticon Pretenders like Submarauder or Octopunch, or release some more improved versions of Soundwave and Blaster's cassettes, Hasbro thought they'd go back to the Japan-only Beast Wars II well.

It's an impressive feat of engineering that's just too far from the Predaking mark for my tastes.

An outdated sub-Deluxe probably isn't the most exciting figure for a review, but it's what I got. This is Robots in Disguise (2015) Warrior-class Bumblebee. Until this point, the only RiD15 figure I'd bought was Warrior-class Grimlock, and that's because in the 15-ish episodes I watched Grimlock was easily the highlight. Does the show get better? I wouldn't know, because Netflix only has the first of four seasons, and if I wanted to watch the rest I'd have to buy them... on Apple TV (which I don't have), because Amazon only goes to season 3. Streaming Transformers right now is a mess, but I digress. So, yeah, I realized I have a big box filled with just Bumblebee figures (probably half of them from Studio Series alone!), but RiD15, which stars Bumblebee as the leader of the Autobots on Earth, wasn't represented. Thanks to Transformerland.com, I was able to rectify that with Warrior-class Bumblebee. I'm pleasantly surprised! After finding the new Earthspark Deluxes a bit underwhelming compared to the Legacy stuff I was a little afraid to go down to the Warrior-class, but apparently "Warrior" back in the RiD 15 days is closer to "Deluxe" by Earthspark standards. I mean, he's clearly a much simpler figure than the Prime and Cyberverse Deluxe-class Bumblebees, but not too far off the Earthspark one. The main thing working against Bumblebee at the Warrior budget seems to be paint. They managed to slather some black paint over his shins, which included painting over some details that actually should be yellow, but none of that made it to his feet, which should be mostly black with a little gray. His pelvis should also be be black, and his abs should be gray and silver instead of unpainted yellow. Blue headlights are missing from his chest, and some red details on his shoulders are also missing. Other inaccuracies could be chalked up to the relatively simple design of the figure, but arguably also to the fact that the chunky, heroic proportions Bee had in the cartoon don't realistically lend themselves to transforming into a sports car at even a Deluxe or Voyager budget. His arms, shoulders, and chest are much narrower than the cartoon. A swivel to get his door wings to face forward would have been nice, and his smaller black wings are simply omitted. He's got a bit of a backpack formed by the rear of the car, which irritatingly doesn't really lock into place, and the roof is hanging from his calves- it doesn't even plug in, but at least it stays put. A lack of any heel spurs means he has to lean forward a bit or risk falling over backward. Bee's sole accessory is a translucent blue sword, and considering he's a Warrior-class it's not bad! It's a bit longer, and the plastic a bit thicker, than the translucent blue sworld that comes with Leader-class Legacy Laser Optimus. Bee's articulation is held back a bit by his low-end nature. His head is on a ball joint that swivels and tilts up a bit and slightly to the sides, not really down. His shoulders are also on ball joints, but where they connect to his torso. That provides him with a swivel, a bit of shrug/slump, and a slight forward/backward butterfly. A dedicated hinge gives him nearly 90 degrees of lateral movement. Refreshingly for the class, he has a dedicated bicep swivel and hinged elbows that bend 90 degrees. No wrist swivels, but he does have a waist swivel. His hips (also NOT ball joints) can go 90 degrees forward, and a little less than that backwards and laterally. His thighs swivel. His knees get a little under 90 degrees of bend, surprisingly due to the shape of his leg and not the roof kibble on his calves. His feet tilt up due to transformation, but not down, and he lacks ankle pivots. He holds his sword in either hand by sliding the handle into his grip. Transformation is simple- spin the waist 180, tab his legs together, fold his feet up, lift his backpack over his head, slump his shoulders so his arms are tight against his sides, rock the roof back and into place, then fold his wings down until the doors cover his arms. As I said, simpler than the Deluxe-class Prime Bumblebee that came before or the Cyberverse Deluxe-class that came after, but not far off the current Earthspark Deluxe. I'm kind of tempted to check out an Earthspark Warrior-class toy just to see how bad they've gotten. I really dig Bumblebee's alt mode. The hard lines reflect RiD15's animation style, mostly, but I think they also make for an aggressive, retro-futuristic look that sets the design apart from the more rounder recent Bumblebees. Overall the shape of the car is very accurate to the cartoon without much visible robot kibble. Once again, the main thing working against the figure is just paint. They put some black on the hood and nose, and they painted the blue headlights, but that's it. The turn signals and marker lights on the front aren't painted, and the stripes on the sides are missing. His rear is missing the taillights and A LOT of black... like, it should be almost all black except for the raised bit and the trapezoidal stuff at the bottom. I actually decided to order the Toyhax labels for this one. The underside of the car doesn't show as much car as you'd think, and there's storage for his sword under there. Basically there are two hollow gaps in the blade that fit over matching tabs on the underside of the car. RiD15 Bumblebee is not on par with a modern Legacy Deluxe... but unlike the "Deluxe"-class Earthspark figures he wasn't supposed or priced to be, so I find that I can forgive his simplicity easier. I think he's actually a pretty decent figure, and I'd give him a recommend, especially if you don't mind painting some of the missing detail yourself.

Eh, unpopular opinion, maybe, but I actually like the newer ones better. The original ones tried to hard to be serious but not only are they not trying to be serious now, they're not even pretending. They flew a car into space in the last one! These movies play out like a kid on a sugar rush playing with Hot Wheels, and I'm there for that.

Can I flip them? I'm a little thin on top, but my chest hair is full and luxurious. Does the key have a hole to go on a key ring? I kind of dig it. Not sure what I'd do with the license plate, though. My car doesn't have a bracket for a front plate.

That strikes me as such an unusual take, but honestly, I think I'm just old, and I expect that your scenario is going to be more and more common. I mean, basically nobody I know owns a desktop computer anymore unless they use it for gaming. And my wife, (who's on her phone so often she had a toilet paper holder installed in the downstairs bathroom with a little shelf for you to set your phone down on when you while you wipe) does the majority of her internet life on her phone. She only turns on her laptop these days when she wants to do banking, since she keeps all sorts of financial stuff in Excel. My daughter's going to be 8 this year, and she's a pro with an iPad but hasn't shown any interest in anything with a keyboard. That said I've grown to prefer PC gaming, personally. My computer desk is a more personal space where I can get away when I need a break from the world, and it's a far better platform for game preservation. I'm definitely not anti-console, though. Like I said, I've owned pretty much every Nintendo console and handheld, and I'm going through a phase where I'm super nostalgic for the NES. I've owned every generation of PlayStation, although now that Sony's bringing their 1st-party stuff to PC a PlayStation console isn't as necessary as it used to be for exclusives. And I've owned every generation of Xbox, and I have to say, while I barely touched the Xbox One I'm actually getting decent use out of the Series X. Game Pass is a real game changer, and I mentioned before that Microsoft's cloud makes alternating between playing on PC and playing on the console super easy. Speaking of Game Pass, I saw they added SD Gundam: Battle Alliance. I'd actually bought the game already on Steam, as I'm a Gundam fan, and I don't regret it. But if you have Game Pass it's definitely worth checking out. It's pretty easy to pick up, and not exactly the deepest game. I've heard it referred to as an action RPG, and I don't know that I'd agree. Yeah, your pilot levels up and learns new passive skills you can equip. And yeah, your mobile suit has stats that you can increase by spending capital. And yes, you can get plans for new mobile suits that'll have you grinding the same level multiple times until you can build said mobile suit. But that's kind of it. It's mostly running through levels, attacking with a primary ranged attack, primary melee attack, and two special attacks. The story is nothing amazing, but it is set up in a way that you get to play through missions from lots of different Gundam shows, not strictly One Year War or Cosmic Era or whatever.