The Transformers Thread (licensed) Next

[JB0]

2 hours ago, davidwhangchoi said:

do these missing link packages comes with the red decoder for the tech specs?

i miss those and without them it's hard to see Grimlock's intelligence rating.  

 

I believe my Optimus Prime did. I'd have to fish box contents out to be certain.

[mikeszekely]

Right now it's Friday night locally, so I hope you guys tune in over the weekend.  Because I'm wrapping up the week with Leader-class Studio Series 86 Soundwave.

Soundwave's giving off the same sort of vibes as Thundercracker... he's taller than the Netflix/Legacy toy, so he scales better with SS86 Megatron, and most of the greebles of the older figure are simply gone.  It's most evident in his shoulders, which are smooth blue slabs, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that he does still have some details, like extra squares on his knees, a little extra details on his shins, and those circular bumps on his forearms.  These are details that seem likely to have been pulled from MP-13, which in turn were likely inspired by the G1 toy.

There are other improvements, though.  His pelvis is shaped more like the cartoon.  His backpack is bigger, but in a way that's actually closer to the Sunbow model.  There's red paint around his forearms and shoulder cannon (the Legacy release had them, but I had to paint the Netflix version myself).  The molded missiles in his shoulder cannon are also painted.  His butt flap is a little smaller, and the backs of his forearms don't have the vestigial Siege landing struts.  The insides of his forearms have flaps so they're not just hollow voids.  Even his calves have traded the textured look for faux volume dial and power switch.

The red paint on his shoulder cannon can also be found on his other accessory, his concussion blaster.  Weirdly, this is a step back from the Siege/Netflix/Legacy version.  The tip, which retracts inside for storage, is turned 90 degrees from what it should be.  Now, there are definitely people on the internet madder about that than I am, but I do think it's a problem that someone should have caught before it went into production.  I am looking at potentially modding it, so the tip extends and then rotates into place, but I can also see why people dropping $60 on a Leader-class toy might be hesitant to mess with it like that.

Soundwave was a Leader in Legacy, too, where he came with an additional gun and a trio of tapes.  Once again, Soundwave gets that Leader price point by being packaged with a trio of tapes.  They're all brand new molds, but here's how they look with the older Micromaster versions.  Like other tapes in the Studio Series like, they also come with add-on bits that the Micromasters didn't.

While Netflix Soundwave came with Laserbeak and Ravage, and Legacy Soundwave came with Buzzsaw, Ravage, and Rumble, SS86 Soundwave comes with Laserbeak, Ravage, and Buzzsaw.  I guess all of us who already bought Netflix Soundwave and SS86 Rumble and then bought Legacy Soundwave just to get Buzzsaw are kicking ourselves.  Well, lets break down the new molds real quick.

Buzzsaw and Laserbeak are similar to their prior versions in that the heads and necks flip out, and the feet fold down.  Rather than have their boosters fold out of their butts we instead have booster packs that plug onto their backs.  The main difference is in the wings.  Instead of simply swinging them out from the sides, they unfold then swing back, sort of like the MP versions.  Some have suggested that the shape of the wings on the Micromasters are more accurate, and I'd say that's both correct and incorrect.  The wings on the Micromasters are shaped more like the G1 toys, but I think the SS86 versions have wings shaped closer to how they were drawn in the cartoon.  One more joint to bend half the wing back more would have really sold it, though.  The new boosters with the guns are also more cartoon accurate, but their chests aren't as open as the Micromasters, so they can't angle their necks as far forward, and since they're not Micromasters they lack the flip-out 5mm pegs that were useful for plugging them onto Siege/Earthrise/Netflix Soundwave and Megatron's forearms.  My biggest gripe, though, reserved specifically for Buzzsaw, is that they didn't paint his beak.  Laserbeak can kind of get away with that, but it's a glaring inaccuracy on Buzzsaw.

And then there's Ravage.  Ravage is an improvement over the previous mold in engineering, proportions, and cartoon accuracy, but that's like saying getting a D this quarter is better than getting an F the previous one.  Like, sure, he's got a tail, and he doesn't have an undersized head and twig-thin forelimbs and paws sprouting from massive biceps and thighs, and sure, his hip rockets aren't vestigial molded details, but he's hardly got a lithe, catlike body, especially with those massive hinges in his neck.  Poor Ravage got the mumps!  There's also the Brazilian butt lift to add a 5mm peg to his tail part, and the fact that his paws still aren't the right color.

I don't think we're here for the tapes, though, so back to Soundwave.  His head seems to be on a ball joint, with a little up/down tilt and swivel but no sideways tilt.  His shoulders can swivel and move laterally over 90 degrees.  Due to his transformation, his shoulders are designed to breakaway from his torso so they can fold back, giving him a backwards butterfly joint, but there's another hinge in there that gives him a forward butterfly joint that nothing to do with his transformation.  It seems to exist just so he can better reach the "buttons" on his pelvis.  Moving on, his biceps swivel, his elbows bend 90 degrees, his wrists swivel, and his fingers (which are all molded together as one part) are hinged so he can open his hands.  His waist swivels, and his hip skirts move so that his hips can go just a little short of 90 degrees forward and backward and just a little over 90 degrees laterally.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees.  His feet can tilt up 90 degrees, but nothing really downward.  His ankles also can swivel and pivot 90 degrees.

Soundwave can hold his gun in either hand, and his missile launcher plugs into a port to the right of his head.  If you don't want Soundwave to hold his gun, you can collapse the tip and plug it into a 5mm port on either side of his backpack.

Of course, pressing the button to the left of Soundwave's head will open the door on his chest.  His new tapes fit inside, as do the older Micromaster ones.  I know some have lamented that he can't accommodate the G1 or MP tapes, but this approach makes more sense, I feel.  For one, there's the matter of proportions.  Soundwave's G1 toy has a much larger torso proportionally, and it's why MP-13 wound up using the same size tapes.  For two, we've already had so many tapes released in the mainlines, both as Siege/Earthrise/Legacy Micromasters as well as SS86 releases.  It's far more important for SS86 Soundwave to be compatible with those.

Speaking of compatibility, you might notice that there are tabs on the outsides of Soundwave's arms near his elbows.  These tabs aren't for alt mode.  As near as I can tell, it's for the condors.  Laserbeak and Buzzsaw both have little notches in their feet that seem designed to fit over the tabs on Soundwave's arms, allowing them to perch there.  I say "seems," though, because the fit is not particularly tight and only marginally better than just balancing them on his arm in the first place.

One more thing to note about the tapes... the booster packs for condors and the tail & rockets for Ravage both have 5mm pegs on them.  They can be swiveled (or the rockets can swivel around them, as it were), so Soundwave can technically use them as weapons on his own.

Soundwave's transformation is a lot like the Netflix/Legacy toy.  Remove his gun and shoulder cannon.  Open the flaps on the sides of his backpack, then pull the backpack (along with the head) back, then tuck the head in and close the backpack.  Plug his weapons into the ports along either side of his backpack, then fold the backpack flaps over so they tab onto the weapons.  Swivel his waist 180 degrees, open his forearms and fold the fists in, close his forearms, then fold his entire arms back alongside his weapons.  Open a pair of flaps on the backs of both legs, swivel his feet 180 degrees, then fold the feet up into his legs.  Fold out the flaps on his heels, then close the larger of the two flaps you opened on the backs of his legs.  Leave the other flap open.  Lift his butt flap, and swivel his thighs 90 degrees.  Move his hips outward 90 degrees, and bend his knees so the backs of his legs plug into the sides of his torso where his arms were.  Speaking of arms, they'll actually tab onto the legs at the shoulder and near the wrist.  Open the two flaps from the inside of the butt flap, then fold it down to fill in the rest of the front.  Finish it off by pushing his knee vents in so the sides of the alt mode are flat.

SS86 Soundwave improves on a lot of the issues I had with the Netflix/Legacy version without totally fixing them, so they're mostly still there.  Like, his arms and backpack don't fill out all the space on the back of Soundwave's alt mode, so there's still gaps, especially between his arms and under the backpack.  But, his backpack at least tries to hide the stored weapons better.  I think a big complaint is that his legs fold the same way as the Netflix/Legacy toy, which is to say backward, so the shins form the sides of the tape deck instead of the backs of his legs.  Thing is, I kind of get why they went this route.  The sides of the tape deck are silver, like (most of) his shins.  The backs of his legs are blue, for cartoon accuracy, which would make the sides of the tape deck blue, which isn't cartoon accurate.  There's also the matter of the waist swivel, and the fact that his pelvis buttons are not the tape deck buttons.  This turns his legs around, so the fronts of the tape deck would have to be the outsides of his legs instead of the insides.  Again, this doesn't work for cartoon accuracy, where the outsides of Soundwave's legs are blue and have bump outs while the insides are silver.  I don't think they absolutely had to do it this way; MP-13, after all, uses his actual pelvis on the front of the tape deck, but I can see how trying to do it on a Leader-class budget, a good portion of which went to the tapes, may have been difficult.  In any case, tucking the feet in and using flaps on the heels to seal the gaps, lining up the legs with the chest better, pushing the knee vents in, and tucking the butt flap in flush with the legs does at least make SS86 flatter, smoother, and tighter.  Again, improvements all around, even if only minor.

Except for one thing that is not improved.  That's the color on the bottom front of the tape deck.  On SS86 Soundwave it's just blue, straight across the bottom.  I thought this looked odd to me, because the Netflix/Legacy toy has silver, the G1 toy has silver, and MP-13 has silver.  To make sure it wasn't a toy thing I looked at his Sunbow control art, and it's silver across the bottom.  Thinking it might be a case of sometimes silver but sometimes not, like the stripe on Prime's cab, I even watched a bit of the '86 movie.  And when Soundwave transforms to play back Laserbeak's recording for Megatron, sure enough, silver on the bottom.  Well that's unfortunate.  Now I feel like I'll have to buy some future store-exclusive or premium Takara version if I want an accurate alt mode deco.  Or, as you guys were cynically suggesting with Thundercracker, wait a few years for Hasbro to run through their popular G1 characters and start over yet again on new molds that are even more slightly (but never perfectly) accurate.

Anyway... not a ton Soundwave can do as an immobile box.  His tape deck door still opens, and you can still insert and remove his tape minions.  There's a pair of 5mm ports on the back of the tape deck that I found I could use to plug in the condors' backpacks or Ravage's tail... except that's two ports for three tapes.  Make's the empty space under the backpack seem a bit wasted... one more 5mm port on the underside of the backpack could have really been useful.

In a lot of ways, Soundwave is a lot like Thundercracker.  Thundercracker has a lot of little improvements due to being a brand new mold instead of an enlarged and improved version of the Classics Seeker mold, but still isn't perfect, and was hardly as groundbreaking as SS86 Megatron or Optimus.  Soundwave has a lot of little improvements due to being a brand new mold instead of being retooled from his Siege toy, but still isn't perfect, and is hardly as groundbreaking as SS86 Megatron or Optimus.  He comes with Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, and Ravage who are all improved a little from their Micromaster versions, but still aren't perfect (especially Ravage).  But, just like Thundercracker, those little improvements are meaningful enough that I can overlook the imperfections and still feel it was worth upgrading.  He gets the recommend from me.  But I totally understand if you're good with what you already have.

[pengbuzz]

22 hours ago, davidwhangchoi said:

do these missing link packages comes with the red decoder for the tech specs?

i miss those and without them it's hard to see Grimlock's intelligence rating.  

 

Mine did, both Convoy and Streak.

[davidwhangchoi]

22 hours ago, JB0 said:

I believe my Optimus Prime did. I'd have to fish box contents out to be certain.

 

2 hours ago, pengbuzz said:

Mine did, both Convoy and Streak.

that's a nice touch they include them.

[M'Kyuun]

On 1/16/2026 at 9:12 PM, mikeszekely said:

Right now it's Friday night locally, so I hope you guys tune in over the weekend.  Because I'm wrapping up the week with Leader-class Studio Series 86 Soundwave.

Soundwave's giving off the same sort of vibes as Thundercracker... he's taller than the Netflix/Legacy toy, so he scales better with SS86 Megatron, and most of the greebles of the older figure are simply gone.  It's most evident in his shoulders, which are smooth blue slabs, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that he does still have some details, like extra squares on his knees, a little extra details on his shins, and those circular bumps on his forearms.  These are details that seem likely to have been pulled from MP-13, which in turn were likely inspired by the G1 toy.

There are other improvements, though.  His pelvis is shaped more like the cartoon.  His backpack is bigger, but in a way that's actually closer to the Sunbow model.  There's red paint around his forearms and shoulder cannon (the Legacy release had them, but I had to paint the Netflix version myself).  The molded missiles in his shoulder cannon are also painted.  His butt flap is a little smaller, and the backs of his forearms don't have the vestigial Siege landing struts.  The insides of his forearms have flaps so they're not just hollow voids.  Even his calves have traded the textured look for faux volume dial and power switch.

The red paint on his shoulder cannon can also be found on his other accessory, his concussion blaster.  Weirdly, this is a step back from the Siege/Netflix/Legacy version.  The tip, which retracts inside for storage, is turned 90 degrees from what it should be.  Now, there are definitely people on the internet madder about that than I am, but I do think it's a problem that someone should have caught before it went into production.  I am looking at potentially modding it, so the tip extends and then rotates into place, but I can also see why people dropping $60 on a Leader-class toy might be hesitant to mess with it like that.

Soundwave was a Leader in Legacy, too, where he came with an additional gun and a trio of tapes.  Once again, Soundwave gets that Leader price point by being packaged with a trio of tapes.  They're all brand new molds, but here's how they look with the older Micromaster versions.  Like other tapes in the Studio Series like, they also come with add-on bits that the Micromasters didn't.

While Netflix Soundwave came with Laserbeak and Ravage, and Legacy Soundwave came with Buzzsaw, Ravage, and Rumble, SS86 Soundwave comes with Laserbeak, Ravage, and Buzzsaw.  I guess all of us who already bought Netflix Soundwave and SS86 Rumble and then bought Legacy Soundwave just to get Buzzsaw are kicking ourselves.  Well, lets break down the new molds real quick.

Buzzsaw and Laserbeak are similar to their prior versions in that the heads and necks flip out, and the feet fold down.  Rather than have their boosters fold out of their butts we instead have booster packs that plug onto their backs.  The main difference is in the wings.  Instead of simply swinging them out from the sides, they unfold then swing back, sort of like the MP versions.  Some have suggested that the shape of the wings on the Micromasters are more accurate, and I'd say that's both correct and incorrect.  The wings on the Micromasters are shaped more like the G1 toys, but I think the SS86 versions have wings shaped closer to how they were drawn in the cartoon.  One more joint to bend half the wing back more would have really sold it, though.  The new boosters with the guns are also more cartoon accurate, but their chests aren't as open as the Micromasters, so they can't angle their necks as far forward, and since they're not Micromasters they lack the flip-out 5mm pegs that were useful for plugging them onto Siege/Earthrise/Netflix Soundwave and Megatron's forearms.  My biggest gripe, though, reserved specifically for Buzzsaw, is that they didn't paint his beak.  Laserbeak can kind of get away with that, but it's a glaring inaccuracy on Buzzsaw.

And then there's Ravage.  Ravage is an improvement over the previous mold in engineering, proportions, and cartoon accuracy, but that's like saying getting a D this quarter is better than getting an F the previous one.  Like, sure, he's got a tail, and he doesn't have an undersized head and twig-thin forelimbs and paws sprouting from massive biceps and thighs, and sure, his hip rockets aren't vestigial molded details, but he's hardly got a lithe, catlike body, especially with those massive hinges in his neck.  Poor Ravage got the mumps!  There's also the Brazilian butt lift to add a 5mm peg to his tail part, and the fact that his paws still aren't the right color.

I don't think we're here for the tapes, though, so back to Soundwave.  His head seems to be on a ball joint, with a little up/down tilt and swivel but no sideways tilt.  His shoulders can swivel and move laterally over 90 degrees.  Due to his transformation, his shoulders are designed to breakaway from his torso so they can fold back, giving him a backwards butterfly joint, but there's another hinge in there that gives him a forward butterfly joint that nothing to do with his transformation.  It seems to exist just so he can better reach the "buttons" on his pelvis.  Moving on, his biceps swivel, his elbows bend 90 degrees, his wrists swivel, and his fingers (which are all molded together as one part) are hinged so he can open his hands.  His waist swivels, and his hip skirts move so that his hips can go just a little short of 90 degrees forward and backward and just a little over 90 degrees laterally.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 90 degrees.  His feet can tilt up 90 degrees, but nothing really downward.  His ankles also can swivel and pivot 90 degrees.

Soundwave can hold his gun in either hand, and his missile launcher plugs into a port to the right of his head.  If you don't want Soundwave to hold his gun, you can collapse the tip and plug it into a 5mm port on either side of his backpack.

Of course, pressing the button to the left of Soundwave's head will open the door on his chest.  His new tapes fit inside, as do the older Micromaster ones.  I know some have lamented that he can't accommodate the G1 or MP tapes, but this approach makes more sense, I feel.  For one, there's the matter of proportions.  Soundwave's G1 toy has a much larger torso proportionally, and it's why MP-13 wound up using the same size tapes.  For two, we've already had so many tapes released in the mainlines, both as Siege/Earthrise/Legacy Micromasters as well as SS86 releases.  It's far more important for SS86 Soundwave to be compatible with those.

Speaking of compatibility, you might notice that there are tabs on the outsides of Soundwave's arms near his elbows.  These tabs aren't for alt mode.  As near as I can tell, it's for the condors.  Laserbeak and Buzzsaw both have little notches in their feet that seem designed to fit over the tabs on Soundwave's arms, allowing them to perch there.  I say "seems," though, because the fit is not particularly tight and only marginally better than just balancing them on his arm in the first place.

One more thing to note about the tapes... the booster packs for condors and the tail & rockets for Ravage both have 5mm pegs on them.  They can be swiveled (or the rockets can swivel around them, as it were), so Soundwave can technically use them as weapons on his own.

Soundwave's transformation is a lot like the Netflix/Legacy toy.  Remove his gun and shoulder cannon.  Open the flaps on the sides of his backpack, then pull the backpack (along with the head) back, then tuck the head in and close the backpack.  Plug his weapons into the ports along either side of his backpack, then fold the backpack flaps over so they tab onto the weapons.  Swivel his waist 180 degrees, open his forearms and fold the fists in, close his forearms, then fold his entire arms back alongside his weapons.  Open a pair of flaps on the backs of both legs, swivel his feet 180 degrees, then fold the feet up into his legs.  Fold out the flaps on his heels, then close the larger of the two flaps you opened on the backs of his legs.  Leave the other flap open.  Lift his butt flap, and swivel his thighs 90 degrees.  Move his hips outward 90 degrees, and bend his knees so the backs of his legs plug into the sides of his torso where his arms were.  Speaking of arms, they'll actually tab onto the legs at the shoulder and near the wrist.  Open the two flaps from the inside of the butt flap, then fold it down to fill in the rest of the front.  Finish it off by pushing his knee vents in so the sides of the alt mode are flat.

SS86 Soundwave improves on a lot of the issues I had with the Netflix/Legacy version without totally fixing them, so they're mostly still there.  Like, his arms and backpack don't fill out all the space on the back of Soundwave's alt mode, so there's still gaps, especially between his arms and under the backpack.  But, his backpack at least tries to hide the stored weapons better.  I think a big complaint is that his legs fold the same way as the Netflix/Legacy toy, which is to say backward, so the shins form the sides of the tape deck instead of the backs of his legs.  Thing is, I kind of get why they went this route.  The sides of the tape deck are silver, like (most of) his shins.  The backs of his legs are blue, for cartoon accuracy, which would make the sides of the tape deck blue, which isn't cartoon accurate.  There's also the matter of the waist swivel, and the fact that his pelvis buttons are not the tape deck buttons.  This turns his legs around, so the fronts of the tape deck would have to be the outsides of his legs instead of the insides.  Again, this doesn't work for cartoon accuracy, where the outsides of Soundwave's legs are blue and have bump outs while the insides are silver.  I don't think they absolutely had to do it this way; MP-13, after all, uses his actual pelvis on the front of the tape deck, but I can see how trying to do it on a Leader-class budget, a good portion of which went to the tapes, may have been difficult.  In any case, tucking the feet in and using flaps on the heels to seal the gaps, lining up the legs with the chest better, pushing the knee vents in, and tucking the butt flap in flush with the legs does at least make SS86 flatter, smoother, and tighter.  Again, improvements all around, even if only minor.

Except for one thing that is not improved.  That's the color on the bottom front of the tape deck.  On SS86 Soundwave it's just blue, straight across the bottom.  I thought this looked odd to me, because the Netflix/Legacy toy has silver, the G1 toy has silver, and MP-13 has silver.  To make sure it wasn't a toy thing I looked at his Sunbow control art, and it's silver across the bottom.  Thinking it might be a case of sometimes silver but sometimes not, like the stripe on Prime's cab, I even watched a bit of the '86 movie.  And when Soundwave transforms to play back Laserbeak's recording for Megatron, sure enough, silver on the bottom.  Well that's unfortunate.  Now I feel like I'll have to buy some future store-exclusive or premium Takara version if I want an accurate alt mode deco.  Or, as you guys were cynically suggesting with Thundercracker, wait a few years for Hasbro to run through their popular G1 characters and start over yet again on new molds that are even more slightly (but never perfectly) accurate.

Anyway... not a ton Soundwave can do as an immobile box.  His tape deck door still opens, and you can still insert and remove his tape minions.  There's a pair of 5mm ports on the back of the tape deck that I found I could use to plug in the condors' backpacks or Ravage's tail... except that's two ports for three tapes.  Make's the empty space under the backpack seem a bit wasted... one more 5mm port on the underside of the backpack could have really been useful.

In a lot of ways, Soundwave is a lot like Thundercracker.  Thundercracker has a lot of little improvements due to being a brand new mold instead of an enlarged and improved version of the Classics Seeker mold, but still isn't perfect, and was hardly as groundbreaking as SS86 Megatron or Optimus.  Soundwave has a lot of little improvements due to being a brand new mold instead of being retooled from his Siege toy, but still isn't perfect, and is hardly as groundbreaking as SS86 Megatron or Optimus.  He comes with Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, and Ravage who are all improved a little from their Micromaster versions, but still aren't perfect (especially Ravage).  But, just like Thundercracker, those little improvements are meaningful enough that I can overlook the imperfections and still feel it was worth upgrading.  He gets the recommend from me.  But I totally understand if you're good with what you already have.

Great review, as always, Mike. I've still not seen this guy in the wild, but as I'm not really a fan of the vanilla toon aesthetic, I wonder if it's for the better should they do a toy-style retool with additional molded details and paint. I'd rather have that over the plain toon styled version.

As a cassette bot fan, I'm not really feeling these ones. There are too many compromises and I'm not at all a fan of the partsforming aspect to complete the robot modes. I can understand just the weapons, but when Ravage, who looks more like a bulldog than a lithe panther, has to have his tail pinned on separately, there's something fundamentally wrong. The G1 toys did it better, and that's the reverse of how it should be. As to the cassettes' weapon storage, it's a shame they didn't borrow from the MP toy's solution and hide them in the hollows of the legs. Speaking of which, I'm not at all crazy about their reusing the Netflix Soundwave's backwards leg transformation; they should have followed the G1 toy's schema, again, like the MP.  It's a bit disheartening when even the legends scaled figs are getting these things right and doing it better overall.  Final nitpick, for now: I wish every version of G1 Soundwave could store his weapons, which should compress into relatively convincing facsimiles of batteries, in his backpack like the G1 toy. The original toy did so much right towards copying RW cassette players and I wish all those salient details were observed in modern iterations.

I concur with your observations regarding Thundercracker: he's an upgrade from the WFC, nee Classics, mold, but honestly not really that much of one when you consider all the inaccuracies and hollow areas in fighter. At least TC's heels are proper augmenters instead of the hinged heel flaps on the WFC mold, but I really wish they'd found a way for his big chonky toes to fold into the legs and out of sight in fighter. The WFC solution at least cleaned up the plane mode in a more appealing manner, even if it was inaccurate. I wish his grey chest panels could swivel into the central gap to fill it in and reduce the fighter's profile. It would have been great, too, if his intake ramps were the proper shape and were mounted on double hinges to allow them to be moved back in bot mode for head clearance. The intakes as molded are ridiculously undersized and the wrong angles compared to the real fighter. I'm also disheartened to see the slight angle change of the trailing edge, which the WFC and Classics mold captured, omitted from the wings. Some folding main gear in the knee pads would've been nice, too instead of just resting the ass-end of the plane on his unconcealed toes.  The only improvement, really, was to skew the robot aesthetic towards the toon, an aesthetic which doesn't appeal to me. I wish there was more balance to the design, with more attention given to fighter, but at this point, I'm pissing into the wind.

Edited Sunday at 03:39 PM by M'Kyuun

[sh9000]

Almost caught up collecting the Generations Autobot cars.  I'd like new release of Mirage and a clean looking Hoist.  

Like @M'Kyuun mentioned before, I would also love the Omnibots to get released.

[M'Kyuun]

2 hours ago, sh9000 said:

Almost caught up collecting the Generations Autobot cars.  I'd like new release of Mirage and a clean looking Hoist.  

Like @M'Kyuun mentioned before, I would also love the Omnibots to get released.

Preach!!!!!!

A completely new Mirage figure that adheres to the look and basic transformation of G! Mirage is a serious omission, at this point, when all of the other G1 characters' toys have been adhering rather faithfully to an amalgamation of toy and toon forms. Classics Mirage is still the closest we have to that, and I love that toy, front wheel backpack notwithstanding. He's still my G1 Mirage until there's something better.

And FFS, make the damned Omnibots already! They're spending budgets on made up Junkions, Weaponizers, creating alt modes for Primes who never had them, and doing deep dives into the lore to make really obscure characters into toys, but the Omnibots were part of G1 as well, even if they never featured in the cartoon, an unfortunate omission IMHO. I think they and Tracks should have all been a team, as they all had weaponized tertiary vehicle modes (MASK before MASK was a glimmer in Kenner's eyes!) and would have possibly started a tangential play theme within Transformers. Had they been utilized as such in the toon and comics, perhaps they would have proven popular and spawned more of the like. We'll never know. I would have been down for it, for one.

[Hikuro]

I think of my Season 1 and Season 2 Autobot cast, I'm really only missing Swoop and Gears.........and everywhere I look they want an astronomical amount of money. I guess technically Skids, but I really don't count him as existing due to his 3 seconds of show time he's ever had. 
My Season 1 and 2 Decepticon cast I believe I'm just missing Rumble (blue......he's ALWAYS BEEN BLUE!) again, Astronomical price. Well I mean there's the new combaticon set but I'm not really counting them cause they're just to out of my price range and I still have combiner wars, and they're decent. 
Sadly even going to top tier places like Toy Dojo, I come up massively short. 

[mikeszekely]

Hound is back up at Target, @M'Kyuun

https://www.target.com/p/-/A-94744441

[rsvictor1976]

I'm amazed the preorder is still up, considering how quickly it disappeared last week.

[M'Kyuun]

1 hour ago, mikeszekely said:

Hound is back up at Target, @M'Kyuun

https://www.target.com/p/-/A-94744441

You're the best, Mike. As it happens, I'm finding your post in retrospect, as I saw it on Target while eating my lunch and just finished my PO before popping in here to find your post. I'm grateful still, as I rarely see these preorders until it's too late and it's a comfort to know you've got me covered.

[M'Kyuun]

20 hours ago, Hikuro said:

I think of my Season 1 and Season 2 Autobot cast, I'm really only missing Swoop and Gears.........and everywhere I look they want an astronomical amount of money. I guess technically Skids, but I really don't count him as existing due to his 3 seconds of show time he's ever had. 
My Season 1 and 2 Decepticon cast I believe I'm just missing Rumble (blue......he's ALWAYS BEEN BLUE!) again, Astronomical price. Well I mean there's the new combaticon set but I'm not really counting them cause they're just to out of my price range and I still have combiner wars, and they're decent. 
Sadly even going to top tier places like Toy Dojo, I come up massively short. 

BBTS has Swoop for $55.99, Skids for $20. Gears is available for just under $35 on this Amazon site. happy hunting!

Edited Wednesday at 07:54 PM by M'Kyuun

[sh9000]

I think one of the reasons Hound sold out at Target last week was because it was on sale for $19.99.  It is now listed for $27.99.

[mikeszekely]

When Hasbro launched their Timelines series with a couple of Hearts of Steel designs it seemed to me like it'd be either be a one-off (we'd get the two 2-packs and that'd be all), or they'd keep going with more Hearts of Steel designs.  So it was a bit of surprise when Hasbro confirmed that, yes, it would just be those four characters... but repeated over and over in different timelines.  But here we are, starting over again in feudal Japan with Optimus Prime.

If I'm being honest, the very first thing I noticed was that Prime seemed a bit on the smaller side.  And sure enough, when I put him with the previous Timelines Optimus and Devastation Optimus he is, in fact, roughly a head shorter.  Not just that, but there's a bit of that unpainted gray plastic.  Yeah, there's some painted accents like the blue on his chest, the silver on his tummy, and the gold on his pelvis and shoulders, but on the whole it seems like he's got less than the Hearts of Steel toy.  I hate to be one of those guys criticizing Hasbro's penny-pinching, but it is a bit frustrating to see a smaller toy with less paint that also costs $8 more than the two Hearts of Steel sets.  You can't shake the feeling that you're paying more for less.

Ok, but remove the comparison to other Deluxe-class Primes and lets just look at the toy on its own merits.  What we've got here is a totally original design, unbeholden to any comic books or cartoons, just a simple idea: what if Optimus Prime, but in feudal Japan?  So, that'd make Prime a Samurai, right?  To that end, Prime's head is sculpted to look like he's wearing a kabuto, his shoulders are dominated by large osode, the backs of his hands have molded tekko, and his shins taper to give the illusion of knee and shin guards above sandaled feet.  I personally think they could have gone a little harder on the samurai motif... his torso and shoulders are still fairly G1 and not particularly armored, and his pelvis flap doesn't really resemble the thigh guards a samurai would wear.  I suppose the flip side of that, though, is that the colors, chest windows, and tummy grill make it very obvious who this robot is at a glance.

Rather than a rifle, Prime comes with this naginata.  I guess they could have given Prime a masakari, but it turns out the battle axes used by samurai and sōhei of the era were not particularly distinct.

Prime's head swivels on a ball joint, with limited up/down/sideways tilt.  His shoulders swivel and can move 90 degrees laterally; the osode are hinged and can move independently and get out of the way.  His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees.  His elbows are ball joints, so they can swivel, but they can also bend inward.  His waist swivels.  His hips can go just under 90 degrees forwards and backward, and a little over 90 degrees laterally.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend a little over 90 degrees.  No up/down tilt on his feet, but his ankles pivot 90 degrees.

To get the naginata into Prime's hands, you have to first pull the blade off, then slide the shaft up through the bottom of Prime's hands.  There are three sections of the shaft that are a little wider, providing points of greater friction for Prime's hands to stop at.

When Prime's not using his naginata, you can store it on his back by plugging a cutout on the blade onto one of the two odd-shaped tabs on his back.  The instructions also make it clear that, if you prefer, you can plug the naginata onto either of the osode, but that's really more for alt mode.

Speaking of alt modes, Prime's transformation is an interesting one.  Begin by swiveling the waist 180 degrees.  Fold out the gray tab in his right calf, bend his knees slightly, and fold back the backs of his thighs so that they tab into place on his calves.  Bend his thighs forward without engaging his hips, and you'll pop little ox legs out of his thighs.  Now use the hips to bring the thighs back down along with the ox legs, and fold his pelvis flap in against his crotch.  Pivot his ankles in, and tab his legs and feet together.  Untab the gray parts from the sides of his torso, bring his arms out, and then use the hinges on his back to swing the arms down and away from the torso.  Open flaps on his chest and back, then rotate the robot head into the torso while bringing the ox head out.  Swing the ox legs out from the sides of his torso, then close the flaps you used to swap the heads.  Rotate his shoulders so that when you double-hinge the osode up on top of his shoulder that they'll tab into slots on the gray parts  Fold out the flaps under the osode, use the ball joints to fold in his hands, then swivel the bicep so that the arms tab into the flaps you just folded out with the fists tucked toward the underside of the osode.  Note that a lot of these tabs will leave parts at angles; that's actually what you want.  Hinges on the gray parts will bring the arms together such that the osode will form the roof of a cart.  Take that roof and bring it down over his legs.  Tabs will go into his thighs, on his legs near the wheels, and his wrists will tab into his toes.

It's kind of neat how Prime's torso turns into an ox, and his limbs turn into a cart, giving us a goshoguruma.  Goshoguruma, literally "Imperial Palace carriage," were used exclusively by the nobility because 1.) Oxen have a slower but steadier gait than horses, which made for a smoother ride, and 2.) peasants weren't allowed to use wheeled vehicles during the Edo period.  Goshoguruma are a very distinctly Japanese mode of transportation, then, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that they were NOT the majority of samurai, who would use either human-carried palanquins or horses to get around.  In any case, we've seen Optimus Prime transform into a lot of different stuff over the years, including trains, pens, and the original PlayStation, but I find this one of the more interesting and inventive alt modes he's been given.

Interesting and inventive... but doesn't do much.  The wheels on the carriage roll, and that's about it.  The ox has no articulation.  You can store Prime's naginata on the roof of the carriage using the pegs I mentioned earlier on his osode.  

I'm honestly not sure what to make of this Prime.  As I said, it's a bit frustrating that he's a little smaller with less paint than Hearts of Steel Optimus, and I was already coming into this disappointed that we seem destined to get the same four characters endlessly re-hashed when we all really wanted Hearts of Steel Shockwave... to say nothing of the fact that, even if they didn't continue Hearts of Steel, it might still be nice to get some other characters like Hot Rod, Grimlock, Soundwave, etc once in awhile.  But I can't stay made at a Samurai Optimus that turns into an ox-drawn cart, including the ox.  It's weird and it's fresh and I'm kind of here for that.  But, he's part of a two-pack, so before you pull the trigger (or not) you might want to tune back in tomorrow to check out his rival.

[tekering]

6 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

I thought that robot mode was oddly-proportioned and ugly, but you managed to find a pose that makes him look cool nonetheless.  Kudos, Mike! 

[mikeszekely]

Just like with the previous Timelines set, in a move that I assume is to keep forcing people to buy both sets, Optimus is once again paired with Starscream instead of the more obvious Megatron.

One would think that doing a Transformers set themed around late Feudal/early Edo Japan all you really need to do is give all your robots a look that suggests samurai armor and call it a day.  But, it's not like samurai wore their armor constantly.  And, obviously, not everyone was a samurai.  Some of the important and influential figures during that time period were merchants, ninja, warrior monks, pirates, and peasant-soldiers called ashigaru.  

Starscream here is probably still a samurai, but rather than armor he's sculpted to look like formal wear called kashimono.  Kashimono consists of three parts.  On the top is the dougi, which is like a short kimono.  We can see elements of the dougi in the overlapping bands on Starscream's chest, creating the illusion of the sides of the dougi folded across his torso, as well as the biceps that look a bit like loose fabric.  Worn over the dougi is the kataginu, a type of vest with broad, stiff shoulders that often bore family or clan crests.  This gives Starscream his triangular shoulders and the sides of his torso, with round elements inside his chest intakes standing in for clan crests.  Lastly, there's pants called hakama.  This one's a bit subtle.  Hakama are usually loose, however, they could be bound at the lower legs for riding a horse.  So I think that's the idea here, with puffier thighs but skinny calves.  Likewise, the loose sleeves of the dougi appear to be bound up under gauntlets called kote.  The look is finished off with silver paint on Starscream's feet suggesting he's wearing traditional zori sandals.

In terms of size and paint, Starscream compares a bit more favorably to his Hearts of Steel counterpart.  I think my biggest gripe though is that all the paint and color seem confined to the front of him.  The red on his wings is only visible from the front; from the back he's a sheet of gray plastic with bits of blue limbs.

Starscream comes with three accessories instead of the usual two.  First, we have a pair of guns designed to look like hinawajū, a Japanese flintlock rifle.  He also comes with a fan.

Starscream's head is on a ball joint, with basically no sideways tilt but pretty good up/down tilt.  His shoulders swivel and move laterally 90 degrees.  His biceps swivel, his elbows bend 90 degrees, and like Prime his wrists are on ball joints so they both swivel and bend inward.  You have to lift a flap on his butt, but he does have a waist swivel.  His hips can move about 90 degrees forward, laterally, and just a little short of that backward.  His thighs swivel, and his knees bend about 160 degrees.  He's got an additional near the bottom of his hinge that you can use to fake a more extreme upward foot tilt, otherwise his ankles are ball joints that swivel and provide a small up/down tilt and limited ankle pivot.

Like most rifles, you'd expect a hinawajū to be held with two hands...

But this is Starscream we're talking about, where you're used to seeing null rays attached to his arms.  And sure enough, there are 5mm ports on the sides of his biceps, allowing you to plug the hinawajū in.  This frees up his hands for him to fan himself by popping the 5mm peg on the end into either of his fists.  Or, for storage, you can plug it into his butt flap, which is where it goes in alt mode.

There are definitely elements of Kingdom Airazor in the transformation here.  Spread his wings, open his back to tuck the robot head in and bring the alt head out.  Scrunch up the legs, use the extra shin joint to get the feet under him, and spin the feet 180 degrees so that the talons are facing forward.  Where things get different is also where things start to go wrong.  There's no torso shift to stretch him out and create a gap for the hands to tuck into.  Instead, the entire pelvis simply hinges down.  The arms do tuck into the sides pretty tightly, but the forearms and wrists bend to curl up behind and under his biceps.  His thighs don't really tuck up and blend with the bird's body the way Airazor's do, either. 

The end result, let's face it, is not a very good bird.  His robot torso makes for a fairly thick and blocky bird torso already, but having his pelvis and thighs below his torso completely throws off the silhouette.  You can't help but think it would have worked better if they could have gotten more of his mass in line with his torso, then you see the massive gap between his elbow thrusters, tail, and pelvis.  I'm not saying Airazor's transformation was perfect and not a bunch of obvious robot parts stuffed up into a bird-ish shape, but that shape is a lot better than this mess.

Oh, and why a bird at all?  Falconry, know in Japanese as takagari, was a sport enjoyed by the most elite in feudal Japanese society.  Samurai during the Kamakura era established distinct schools.  During the Edo period it was promoted as a military art that only samurai were allowed to engage in.

Starscream makes for a crappy hawk, but his knees, mid-shin joints, and ankles do give him a little poseability.  Also, his beak can open and there are a few joints in the bird's neck that allow it to look downward, but not really up, no rotation, and no side-to-side.  The wings have two flapping hinges, and one swivel for fanning out the last section of his wings.  Oh, and there's no partsforming necessary.  You can simply spin the hinawajū 180 degrees in their arm ports, and that's where they go in alt mode.  Likewise, if you already had the fan stored in his butt flap it stays there, becoming the hawk's tail.

This one's tough, you guys.  I do kinda like Starscream's robot mode, and I do kinda like the feudal Japanese theme.  I liked Prime's alt mode for the sheer uniqueness of it.  But Starscream's alt mode is straight trash.  And once you remove the novelty, we're really talking about $68 for two mediocre-to-ok Deluxes, which is a good $12 more than two regular Deluxes even after the recent-economic-factors-induced 2026 price hikes on Transformers.  And, you know, if you can afford it and you like these designs, then by all means go for it, but should you?  Probably not.  I mean, I'm always in it for Optimus, but realistically I'd have preferred they packaged him with Megatron, not Starscream, and then I would probably skip the second (still unreleased) set.  But that's how they get you.

[M'Kyuun]

Points to Takara for their inventiveness, which is still exciting to see even if the final results thereof don't enthrall me, as these do not. I'd rather have seen the budget go towards producing a more G1ish Mirage for Legacy or perhaps some Omnibots. And though they just rereleased the Earth mode Hound, let's face the fact that it doesn't skew at all towards the prevailing cartoon look at all. In fact, it doesn't really look like the G1 toy beyond the front of the jeep forming his chest. As with Mirage, too many liberties taken beggar for more faithful figures to follow.

[Hikuro]

On 1/21/2026 at 1:45 PM, M'Kyuun said:

BBTS has Swoop for $55.99, Skids for $20. Gears is available for just under $35 on this Amazon site. happy hunting!

Gears is still showing sold out right now on amazon. But appreciate it. 

[davidwhangchoi]

7 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

 

 

This one's tough, you guys.  I do kinda like Starscream's robot mode, and I do kinda like the feudal Japanese theme.  I liked Prime's alt mode for the sheer uniqueness of it.  But Starscream's alt mode is straight trash.  And once you remove the novelty, we're really talking about $68 for two mediocre-to-ok Deluxes, which is a good $12 more than two regular Deluxes even after the recent-economic-factors-induced 2026 price hikes on Transformers.  And, you know, if you can afford it and you like these designs, then by all means go for it, but should you?  Probably not.  I mean, I'm always in it for Optimus, but realistically I'd have preferred they packaged him with Megatron, not Starscream, and then I would probably skip the second (still unreleased) set.  But that's how they get you.

looks like 2 predacon alt modes for prime and starscream: