One of the most common problems with the Real Gear Robots line was that it was a combination of extremely basic engineering and the need to ensure the alternate mode was instantly recognisable as the gadget it was intended to represent. Given that many of the gadgets chosen for the line were either awkwardly shaped, or essentially small boxes with buttons.
Over the years, Hasbro and Takara have come up with some genuinely ingenious ways of transforming rectangular blocks of various thicknesses into reasonable-looking robots but, on balance, I'd say they've probably had more misses than hits.
But which category does Power Up VT6 fall into? Read on, and find out..!
All things considered, a handheld gaming system is not the least likely disguise for a TransFormers toy. The Real Gear Robots line was pretty much focussed on small and unlikely forms for robots to adopt - things that all of us carry around in bags and pockets - and the only real issue with most of them was how to handle buttons. Unsurprisingly, they weren't particularly consistent in their approach - some were fixed, sculpted detail, some were separate pieces glued in place, others had some 'travel'. Power Up VT6 features a D-pad that's essentially a single button without the nuance to properly simulate directional movement, while the coloured action buttons are... also a single button, seemingly sprung in the middle, so pushing down on any one of them also moves the others. The two buttons below the screen are sculpted, painted detail, but the two shoulder buttons - being the robot's hands - have some travel. On mine, the righthand button works better than the left which, for no readily apparent reason, seems to stick down.
The main decoration here is a large sticker representing the system's screen, which depicts an aerial battle between the player (a Decepticon in some kind of 'plane' vehicle mode according to the on-screen details) and Galaxy Force Dreadrock/Cybertron Jetfire, in a scene that seems somewhat unlikely for a handheld gaming system back in 2007. Curiously, much like Speed Dial 800, the only Decepticon insignia on the entire toy is the one in the bottom right corner of the 'screen' sticker.
Aside from the painted action buttons on the righthand side, there's a lot of matte black paint on both sides of the system, but I tend to think that it should have either been glossy black or matte paint on textured plastic... as it stands, it looks rather bland and artificial. There's also what appears to be a speaker grille sculpted in below the screen but, without any paint, it doesn't stand out very effectively. Similarly, the upper corners each have four grooves sculpted into them that appear to be purely decorative. The rear face is authentically bland, featuring bevelled indentations where the user's fingers would naturally grasp, and there's a similar, oval-shaped indentation in the middle, surrounded by screw holes.
Other than that, it's a fairly authentic-looking handheld console, somewhere between a Sega Game Gear and an Atari Lynx, but with a SNES-like colourscheme.
Robot Mode:
The Real Gear Robots line is populated by odd-looking robots, but most of them manage to look like official TransFormers toy. Power Up VT6 fails to manage even that, coming across as being more akin to those Takara Kronoform transforming watches that Hasbro eventually licensed. His weird, spindly arms and end in 'hands' that are equal part flippers and claws, his legs are somehow both chunky and hollow, and the body is a disproportionate block to accommodate the complete screen of his alternate mode. I get that Soundwave is iconic among TransFormers toys, but this is taking the basic structure to a ridiculous extreme, with less than stellar results.
For starters, the smoothness and plainness of his alternate mode has led to a very lacklustre robot. The forearms are of a slightly unusual shape, and feature the grooves from the upper corners of the device, coupled with stick-thin biceps, chunky, almost featureless shoulders and those flipper-claws, but the torso is just an oversized screen with a couple of buttons below it, perched atop a dinky, hollow pelvis and what has to be the most disproportionate legs the toyline offered. The thighs are small, squared-off, and feature only perfunctory detail on both the purple and the black plastic parts, while the lower legs are oversized and largely hollow. The visible detail is even more perfunctory than on his thighs - indented areas that are unpainted apart from the wash of acidic green on the lumps that pass for 'feet' - which makes it all the more infuriating that the inner faces feature more intricate sculpting than is present anywhere else, but it's very difficult to actually see, to the point where it may as well not be there. He almost looks better with his lower legs rotated 180°, because the little nubs on the lower corners of his device mode make equally effective 'feet', and the hollows of his lower legs are then disguised. Sure, he looks plainer that way - the D-pad and buttons end up facing inward, there's no sculpted detail or paintwork on the backs of his legs, and his knees look even more ridiculous - but he also looks marginally more solid.
One of the most puzzling aspects of this toy is that the secondary paint colour is green, and a whole different shade to the one used on the action buttons. Given that three colours of plastic are already in use, and a lot of the budget has been spent matching the surface of parts molded in one colour of plastic to the other colour of plastic, a more neutral colour - perhaps something metallic - would have been a more aesthetically pleasing and unifying choice. As it stands, he has that incongruous acidic green in just two blocks at the very bottom of his robot mode, on the head... and nowhere else.
Which then brings us to the head sculpt... which honestly looks more like the kind of mask or helmet worn by a Marvel comics villain or an off-brand Power Ranger than any kind of robot. If I was being generous, I might admit that it has something of the vibe of a wind-up robot toy from the 1970s, but the overall effect is uncomfortably close to a gimp mask. The sculpted lips within what might otherwise have been a battlemask is very Super Sentai, fits the movie aesthetic even less well than it would have the Cybertron style. Green paint is applied to the central part of his forehead and over the lower part of his face, and translucent green paint is applied to his eyes... which are light-piped via the clear, colourless plastic that makes up the entire back of his head, and which gives it the appearance of a secondary face sporting a weird, somewhat skeletal mask, reminiscent of Takara's old Henshin Cyborg toyline.
Power Up VT5's transformation is as simple as it is symmetrical, while also featuring superficial similarities to elements of both Spyshot 6 and Speed Dial 800. It's also very reminiscent of G1 Rumble and Frenzy, with hints of Soundwave. Essentially, everything is secured together by the lower legs, which accordion up from the split pelvis, clipping in underneath the arms which compress in at the shoulders while outstretched to the sides. The hands become shoulder buttons, and the head automorphs in and out of the body during the process. It's a sensible enough structure, but it leaves the legs looking hideous, with gaping chasms between the feet at the knees.
On the plus side, articulation is excellent for a figure of its time. The head is mounted on a ball joint, but its shape limits its movement to 360° rotation. The shoulders can tilt up and down through a range of about 60° and rotate a full 360°. The upper arm swings out through a little over 90°, and the elbow is a ball joint, serving the dual function of bicep swivel and bending, though the sculpting of the forearm is such that it has to be rotated round - revealing its hollow interior - to bend forward rather than in toward the torso, and the wrists are simply hinged with a range of about 90°. Transformation would have precluded a waist joint, even if they were common at the time, but the hips swing freely through 180° front to back, and a little over 90° out to the sides. There's an unrestricted rotation joint on the upper thigh, and the knee can bend 90° (more if you include the opposite direction, required for transformation), but the feet are solid parts of the lower leg. They offer good stability in simple poses, but he's certainly not built for doing high kicks without some kind of stand.
The bottom line here is that this doesn't feel like a TransFormers toy in any way, shape or form. It feels like a knockoff of a TransFormers toy. Much has been said, over the last few years, about the TransFormers X GI Joe crossover toys being ugly and simplistic, apparently because they're designed by the GI Joe team rather than the TransFormers team. Power Up VT6 has a very similar vibe... like it was designed by someone who understood the concept of TransFormers, but not the engineering or aesthetic preferences... Which is odd, because some of the others are objectively pretty decent as TransFormers. Perhaps if Real Gear Robots been launched when originally intended - as an offshoot from the TransFormers Cybertron toyline - he wouldn't appear quite so bad... but, branded as a tangent from the movie line, Power Up VT6 is terrible, both in and of himself, and in comparison to the likes of High Score 100, or even Spyshot 6.
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