Cynics in my audience might have expected that getting back into full-time
employment back in January of this year might dispel the sense of ennui I've
had for the last few years of TransFormers... but, if anything, it's made it
worse. Sure, I have some disposable income now, but the ever-increasing prices
and ever-decreasing quality of the merchandise leaves me largely without any compelling
reason to spend my money on Hasbro's mainstream output. Not to say I haven't
bought anything since last September, but you'll see what I mean when I get to
the list.
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Legacy Evolution Antagony I had no intention of buying this because I considered the base mold - Legacy Evolution Inferno - utterly lazy and a huge downgrade on the original. While not significantly smaller, it loses or simplifies every gimmick and gains nothing but a show-accurate head sculpt and fewer ball joints, granting beast mode greater stability at the expense of its articulation. However, the arrival of a conversion kit, specifically for Antagony, made the repaint just attractive enough to pick up on discount at Game while on holiday. |
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| Yolopark AMK Series Cogged Bot Mode Elita-1 Flame Toys' model kits have been great fun due to the therapeutic effect of building a model, so the fact that Yolopark's so-called Advanced Model Kit series takes that out of the equation automatically makes them a disappointment. The level of detail is certainly impressive, the paint job is significantly better than Hasbro's own toys, and the level of articulation is on a par with other 'proper' model kits... but there's something soulless about Elita-1, and the drab purple plastic does not adequately represent the movie's CGI. |
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| Studio Series #117 Hatchet One of the major contributing factors to my ongoing re-evaluation of my expenditure on toys, Hatchet is by far the worst of the Chevy Suburban figures to come out of Studio Series, and that's even including Crankcase, which re-used the wrong mold. The figure is simplistic in the extreme, egregiously hollow, pitifully articulated and doesn't even look like the CGI. |
And, considering how few purchases I've made since last year, the 'Best Of' is
pretty paltry once again, but does include some absolute bangers...
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| 5. Magic Square/Mukudo MS-G03 Blueberry Girl I honestly thought I'd missed out on this figure as it released at a time where my income was basically nonexistent. Thankfully, eBay came to the rescue. Her vehicle mode is a bit of a disaster (though arguably still better than most of Hasbro's lazy retools of lowest common denominator molds) but her robot mode is totes adorbs. |
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| 4. Masterpiece Movie Bonecrusher Fantastic engineering let down by the most miserly paint job I've yet seen on a Masterpiece figure. I quite liked the original Deluxe, let alone the Studio Series version, but this is absolutely the definitive Bonecrusher figure... until one of the Third Party companies fixes the flaws and omissions. |
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| 3. APC Toys Air General It's no secret that I love the TransFormers Prime/RID2015 Vehicon mold, and I already own multiple iterations... but, since the official Jet Vehicon General has become harder to find (and consequently more expensive to acquire), this guy went straight onto my Birthday/Christmas List, and my sister ordered him for me. The paint job is vastly better than any of the Hasbro versions of this mold... but that surely goes without saying these days |
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| 2. Masterpiece Movie Brawl Considering the crummy paint job of Bonecrusher, my expectations for Brawl were quite low, but he turned out to be much closer to what I'd hoped for in a movie Masterpiece figure: great engineering coupled with a paint job that, while not opulent, is certainly more than sufficient. |
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| 1. Unique Toys R-09 Red Destroyer At this point, accomplishing minor miracles has become pretty much the least fans can expect from Unique Toys. Their latest isn't perfect, but it shows how consistently their output has improved since Peru Kill, their take on AoE Lockdown. Hasbro did a surprisingly good job of their Deluxe class Stinger, but it really took a Masterpiece-adjacent scale to do the design full justice. |
So, yet another disappointing year with only a top five - one of which arrived less than a week before this post was published - but there are a handful of Honourable Mentions. Each one comes with some caveats that might easily have landed them on the Dishonourable Mentions list were there not unexpected or unintentional positive aspects:
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| Retro G1 Gears Based on the Legacy mold, but with a mostly toy-accurate head, I wasn't expecting much from this mold, and it certainly didn't delivery anything beyond those expectations. Transformation is interesting, albeit lazy, and the rear end of his vehicle mode is a disaster. I really wish someone would just take the original concepts of the G1 Mini Autobots, scale them up to our current Deluxe (or even Scout- equivalent) and create whole new transformations that result in more realistic-looking robots... |
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| Age of the Primes Onyx Prime About the only one of The Thirteen that I was at all interested in, but because it fits the style of The Last Knight Megatron as a Science Fantasy cyborg centaur/dragon thing, not because it fits into TransFormers in any way, shape or form. I'm aware that, according to the Lore, Onyx Prime is supposed to be the first Beastformer, and so his appearance reflects all Beastformer possibilities, but its proportions are wrong in all the usual ways, its engineering is clumsy, and its weapons are really poorly thought out. |
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| Dima Core x Mechanical Skull Studio DC-01 Antagoness Upgrade Kit Evolution Yes, I'm somewhat stretching the definition here, but the end result of applying this kit is very much akin to a whole new figure... and this is my list, damnit! While seemingly 3D-printed, the kit is of fairly good quality. The new chest and head look great, the new weapon is awesome... ...those stilettos, though? They're a bit much. |
It was sorely tempting to add a couple of other recent purchases - specifically Studio Series KSI Widow and TFOne Elita-1 - as honourable mentions but, upon reflection, they're really not outstanding enough to qualify, let alone bulk up the 'Top Figures' list. I bought them more because they're Femme-Bots than because of any particular qualities in their character or their engineering. Quite the opposite, really, as both are heavily compromised in their own ways. It's quite sad how simplistic both of them are, given the length of time Hasbro and Takara Tomy have been creating these toys. It's a further sign - as if any were needed - that the £25 Deluxe class pricepoint is now an absolute joke. The increased cost cannot be said to translate to consistent improvements. There are toys this year that don't have wrist rotation, or waist joints, or ankle tilts... Widow, for example, has none of those.
The new reveals from the Age of the Primes line have done nothing to warm my feelings toward Hasbro's output. It's getting to the point, I fear, that expecting anything more than the least effort from their designers is utterly pointless. Meanwhile, Third Parties - those that persist, at least - continue to go from strength to strength, developing transforming figures that Hasbro would never be able to match, and selling them at reasonable costs. For years, fans have bemoaned the expense of Third Party figures due to their far smaller production runs but, as Hasbro jack up their prices - as they did just days ago - the difference in value-for-money between their output and that of the Third Parties continues to erode. At the level of Masterpiece-analogues, Third Party figures are almost always cheaper, as well as better by almost any metric one might care to measure.
Just lately, I've been looking back at some of the older figures in my collection, bought since I got back into TransFormers via MP01 and Binaltech - particularly mediocrities like the Classics Seekers - and seriously considering getting rid of them, if only to recover some shelf space for newer, better entries in my collection. Most of the stuff I'm hoping to acquire in future is Third Party, because Hasbro's output seems dull and hollow (in every sense of the word) by comparison.
It's interesting to reflect on the fact that, this time last year, I was lamenting the return of John Warden to the brand, after his stint on Power Rangers... only for him to be unceremoniously booted out not long after. Hasbro has been ditching great swathes of its workforce and attempting to embrace AI in both Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if Chris Cocks has already considered getting AI to design TransFormers toys so they don't have to pay all these pesky human designers. It's unlikely that Takara Tomy will follow suit, at least in the short term, but they will transfer their designers and engineers to alternate - or new - properties.
And the announcement that Paramount are bringing Michael Bay back to direct the next movie isn't exactly inspiring me with confidence either.
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