Fourteenth Anniversary

I said last year that it seemed as though there was a good chance that the Third Parties were going to become the only worthwhile thing about collecting TransFormers and, in the intervening time - particularly with the disappointingly inconsistent War For Cybertron Trilogy coming to an end, and the introduction of the generally disappointing TransFormers Legacy line - I have yet to see anything that will change my opinion for the better.

At this point, Studio Series is basically carrying the full weight of my expectations as a collector and, while some of the toys released over the last year have been great, there has been a discernible drop in quality in others, both in terms of design and materials. Worse still, with the introduction of Studio Series '86 - effectively a dumping ground for figures they couldn't squeeze into Kingdom - and the addition of Core class to the line, even this flagship brand is beginning to look a little dubious.

I have a set of Third Party figures on order or preorder, but, for one reason or another, none arrived in time to make this list... but hopefully it gives me a head start on next year's.

So, let's get this sad little show on the road...

Once again, I have some Dishonourable Mentions, so I'll start with them... My main issue with Hasbro's output has been its mediocrity, but these are the only toys which I consider to be well beyond merely mediocre, and into outright bad, especially considering the rising costs.

Studio Series #88 Sideways
I was really hoping that I was going to like this more than I was starting to expect, based on early
reviews and, while his transformation is pretty good and his vehicle mode looks decent (considering
they were, once again, unable to obtain a license from Audi), the reliance on ball joints for most of the
articulation really lets this figure down, and the holes in the legs are an absolute eyesore.

TransFormers Collaborative: Jurassic Park X TransFormers Tyrannocon Rex & Dickie Attenbot
When this set first emerged, it was priced at about £120. Considering I felt Kingdom Megatron, upon whom Tyrannocon is based,
was overpriced at a mere £50, the idea that so basic a toy as JP93 (licensed though he may be) could be worth the additional £70
was ludicrous. Nevertheless, I liked the idea of Tyrannocon - a more 'realistically' painted beast mode, and a homage to the G1 Dinobots
in her robot mode colourscheme - so, when both Zavvi and Amazon slashed the price by £70, I decided to order... Only to still feel a little
disappointed by the mediocre beastformer and outright disgusted by the simplistic engineering and nouveau-G1 stylings applied to the
licensed vehicle mode.

TransFormers Legacy Tarantulas
One of those toys I really wanted to like, not just because I'd never owned any of the previous
Tarantulas toys, but because it was (theoretically) just riding the coat-tails of Kingdom Blackarachnia.
Sadly, the finished figure feels cheap, while the paint job is wasteful and underwhelming.

War for Cybertron: Kingdom / Golden Disk Collection Terrorsaur
Derived from one of last year's favourites, even now, I'm baffled that they chose not to reverse the
engineering on this one, so we're stuck with a fake tail on his chest while the real tail hangs off the
robot's backside. This could so easily have been better.

So, on to the good stuff... though it is, unfortunately, another Top 9 due to the number of Dishonourable Mentions eating into the available content. Even then, several of the toys here are nothing particularly special. I guess that's the problem when I made a list entirely based on my own purchases since last year, and I just haven't made many new purchases. These, then, are the toys which I felt were, at least, as good as I had expected:

9. War for Cybertron: Kingdom / Battle Across Time Collection Skywarp
Mostly just a repaint of Airazor, Skywarp is a reference to one of the components of the Maximal
gestalt Magnaboss. Sold as part of a boxed set with yet another Sideswipe variant, which I honestly
couldn't have cared less about. Thankfully, not everyone on eBay was looking to recoup the full price
of the original boxed set with only one of its components... Skywarp is a decent repaint with a great
new head sculpt.

8. War for Cybertron: Kingdom Slammer
Considering I really wasn't sold on the idea of Weaponisers at first, I've ended up buying most of them.
Slammer, being an update on the G1 Metroplex accessory, was pretty much a required purchase,
even though I don't own the Generations toy. Like the other Weaponisers, he's a fun little bot in his
own right... Just as well, as I don't have many War for Cybertron figures to accessorise with
Weaponiser components...

7. Studio Series #83 Soundwave (+ Ravage)
Loads of people are fixated on this toy's bonkers vehicle mode, and disappointed to find that an alien
vehicle doesn't have to look like a terrestrial vehicle of any discernible purpose. Personally, I'm willing
to give its vehicle mode the benefit of the doubt, if only because the robot mode turned out so well.
My only complaint was that, rather than solus releases of a Voyager class Soundwave and a Core
class Ravage, they should have been packaged as a Leader class set... Ravage is a far better
accessory than the weapons Soundwave comes with.

6: Studio Series #82 Ratchet / #84 Ironhide
The strangest thing about this pair was that I didn't exactly have high hopes for either of them, possibly because their War for Cybertron
toys had been so dire. As it turned out, apart from a couple of slightly loose joints, this mold is one of my favourites from the Bumblebee
movie selection, not just because they're decent renditions of the movie CGI in robot mode, but because of their novel and interesting
transformations and the solid vehicle mode. Neither has an ideal paint job, but Ironhide comes out the better of the pair.

5. Buzzworthy Bumblebee: Worlds Collide Blackarachnia
The original Kingdom Blackarachnia was one of my favourites from last year, so it was essentially
a foregone conclusion that a loosely toy-inspired repaint would be something I'd want to acquire.
Of course, the end result is perhaps a little more lurid than the original toy, and the leopard-print bra is
perhaps missing the mark somewhat (since it's somehow intended to represent the mottled texture of
the Beast Wars toy), but the end result is still pretty darned cool, not least thanks to the head sculpt
based on the box art from the original.

4. Studio Series #80 Brawn
Since G1 Brawn was one of my first few TransFormers toy purchases, back in the 1980s, I've always
had a bit of a soft spot for the character, and was thrilled to see him appear - albeit briefly - in the
Bumblebee solo movie's Cybertron scene, even though it's more an adaptation of the animation model
than the toy. His transformation may be comparatively simplistic, but this Studio Series toy is the best
new Brawn figure since the original.

3. Studio Series #81 Wheeljack
Wheeljack has almost consistently got a bit of a raw deal since G1, with very few new toys, few of
which have had the right sort of feel... and his appearance in Dark of the Moon was... unusual, to put
it politely. Thankfully, the all-new aesthetic presented by the Bumblebee movie provided the closest
 interpretation we've seen since G1. The toy has its quirks, but the inventive transformation and
awesome vehicle mode more than make up for these.

2. Studio Series #85 Arcee
What? An Arcee figure that isn't absurdly sexualised? What gives? Well, for starters, an excellent
design from the Bumblebee movie... Throw in a brilliant concept artist and a pair of super-talented
engineer/toy designers and you have what would undoubtedly have been one of the best new Studio
Series figures... if it weren't for the fact that the robot's upper body is left, virtually untouched, at the
back of her vehicle mode, with only a pair of pistols masquerading as exhaust pipes to disguise them.
Still one of the best official versions of Arcee I've had the pleasure of owning, though.

1. War for Cybertron: Kingdom Tigatron
After images of Cheetor emerged, I didn't hold out much hope for Tigatron until it was announced he'd
be a Voyager class figure, not a Deluxe. The increased size and some tweaks to the engineering
worked wonders, and created a fantastic homage to the CGI from the TV show. It's not quite a
miniature Masterpiece... but it's a fraction of the cost, and so offers much better value for money.

And a handful of Honourable Mentions this year, though one of them is only an upgrade to a figure rather than a figure in and of itself...

Studio Series #75 Jolt
No-one will ever suggest that this figure is a mini-Masterpiece, not least because of its paneltastic
design and positively insane amounts of vehicle kibble on the robot mode... but it's certainly a fun toy,
and the best version of the character so far, with an interesting - if wasteful - transformation. With a
better paint job, this would have been on the main list.

DNA Design DK-18 SS56 Upgrade Kits
Ignoring the nonsense 'vehicle' mode given to Studio Series Shockwave, it was let down by a lack of
features on his gun arm and an excess of rubber parts. DNA Design's upgrade kit addressed the worst
of these errors, but I wasn't as completely blown away by it as I had hoped.

Big Firebird Toy EX-01+ Mooka/Mocha
Given how much I enjoyed Nicee, it was a foregone conclusion that I'd order Big Firebird's remix of
that figure... And if my finances were more stable, I may even have ordered one or two of the KOs
that emerged this year (in particular, the one based upon Play Arts Kai Variant Catwoman). Mooka is
pitched as something along the spectrum from a loli-anime-style maid and a Racing Queen, has a
glorious colourscheme, and refines the original mold by making more parts detachable and giving her
some additional vehicle mode parts. Had this been based on a TransFormers character, she would have
toppled Tigatron from his top spot on the main list.

It probably comes as no surprise that this year's list is essentially the tail end of War for Cybertron and the latest from Studio Series. Last year, I had noted a discernible decline in quality among Hasbro's output, and that has certainly continued. Studio Series designs have remained largely strong, but even there, on some figures, the materials feel substandard, and the one and only Legacy toy I've picked up so far feels pretty awful in-hand. Legacy is not a game-changer, nor is it the stellar toyline that I felt Hasbro needed to produce after concluding the War for Cybertron Trilogy... it's more of the same, not least in the sense of being poorly thought out, and it's not a patch on anything they released under the Thrilling 30 banner back in 2014.

In can understand the attraction in the idea of a toyline 'celebrating the many continuities of TransFormers' - that's basically what Generations was all about, particularly back when the 30th Anniversary arrived - but to do so by making everything G1-style was a grievous error in judgement. When I think of characters like Bulkhead and Knock Out from TransFormers Prime, the last thing I want from a new version of them is the ugly, blocky G1 aesthetic. But then, there are already signs that Hasbro aren't even going to be consistent about that approach: Legacy 'Armada Universe' Starscream is an upscaled and improved version of the 8-year-old Deluxe class toy from the Generations/Thrilling 30 line, resulting in an upgrade of the original Armada toy, rather than a G1-ified version.

With Legacy set to be around for at least the next couple of years, I still don't see myself buying a great deal from the main toyline... and with the discernible drop in quality and increased costs, I'm likely to become even more choosy when it comes to Studio Series. To be honest, though, I think they're running out of movie figures to produce... so unless they go back and remake figures of characters who didn't progress beyond the concept art stage, that line may end up being yet another dumping ground for more G1 thanks to the Studio Series '86 branch. It now seems that the well-regarded video games by High Moon Studios are about to get the Studio Series treatment, which might prove interesting. On the whole, though, Hasbro's reluctance to do something new and original with the brand has all but killed my interest.

I've been saying for several years that my collecting is going to slow down, and that this blog will eventually turn to my back catalogue of original G1 toys... and, since I'm still very fond of all of them, part of me is looking forward to that... For the most part, I'm looking forward to a time when I'm not feeling so enervated by Hasbro's decisions and their output, but I don't see that day coming soon. However, in the last few years, my collecting has only slowed down, not stopped outright... and perhaps there's a ray of hope in that.