An annoying trend that practically every 3rd-party combiner follows...
Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2014 4:20 pm
One thing I've noticed with a lot of 3rd-party combiners is their over-reliance on partsforming and combiner kibble.
Basically every single 3rd-party combiner relies on separate parts to complete the combined mode, which often have nowhere to go on the individual toys (or they do have somewhere to go but it looks daft). The feet will inevitably be separate parts (although to their credit, the 2 not-Devastators avoided this and integrated the feet into the leg robots), the hands are always extra parts, and often other integral parts of the combiner (forearms, shoulders etc) are kibble.
I own the Fansproject Bruticus set, and whilst I love it to bits, I do find the over-reliance on kibble annoying. Thanks to the distribution of parts between figures, when they're separate they all have to either be in vehicle or robot mode thanks to the parts-swapping shenanigans. Also it results in Onslaught's shoulders being hindered by the colossal foot blocks, which fall off ALL THE TIME. Now granted, they were making an upgrade kit to an existing set of Hasbro figures, but...eh, it bugs me.
Another example is the Rage of Hercules set (note: I don't own Herc or the ROH set). The set is unique in that aside from the fists (which can be used as GIANT POWER FISTS or mounted on the vehicle mode as...vehicle hands?) there is practically no partsforming. The transformation is entirely integrated, the treads form the forearms, the feet are built in...It's almost perfect. The ROH set, however, adds shoulder blocks, new forearms and a new gun to the set which essentially end up as kibble in the separate modes with some very tenuous weapon configurations. It slightly improves the combined form, but makes the overall combination dynamic much worse.
So, why on earth don't these companies try harder to integrate the combiner parts rather than having them as kibble junk? The hands I can understand having as extra pieces, as a giant hand is hard to disguise in the separate modes (although I could argue that combiners, being temporary forms used purely for destruction, don't actually need hands and would do just as well with weapon mounts) and the feet just need to be slightly moveable flat surfaces. Heck, hasbro has managed to do "integrated" combiner parts fairly well- the Energon combiners's only kibble was the hands and feet, which were the limb's own weapons (thus resulting in no weapon-swapping) and the FOC Bruticus has all his combiner parts fully integrated. Surely if Hasbro can do it on "toy" budgets then 3rd parties can do it, and do it better?
Basically every single 3rd-party combiner relies on separate parts to complete the combined mode, which often have nowhere to go on the individual toys (or they do have somewhere to go but it looks daft). The feet will inevitably be separate parts (although to their credit, the 2 not-Devastators avoided this and integrated the feet into the leg robots), the hands are always extra parts, and often other integral parts of the combiner (forearms, shoulders etc) are kibble.
I own the Fansproject Bruticus set, and whilst I love it to bits, I do find the over-reliance on kibble annoying. Thanks to the distribution of parts between figures, when they're separate they all have to either be in vehicle or robot mode thanks to the parts-swapping shenanigans. Also it results in Onslaught's shoulders being hindered by the colossal foot blocks, which fall off ALL THE TIME. Now granted, they were making an upgrade kit to an existing set of Hasbro figures, but...eh, it bugs me.
Another example is the Rage of Hercules set (note: I don't own Herc or the ROH set). The set is unique in that aside from the fists (which can be used as GIANT POWER FISTS or mounted on the vehicle mode as...vehicle hands?) there is practically no partsforming. The transformation is entirely integrated, the treads form the forearms, the feet are built in...It's almost perfect. The ROH set, however, adds shoulder blocks, new forearms and a new gun to the set which essentially end up as kibble in the separate modes with some very tenuous weapon configurations. It slightly improves the combined form, but makes the overall combination dynamic much worse.
So, why on earth don't these companies try harder to integrate the combiner parts rather than having them as kibble junk? The hands I can understand having as extra pieces, as a giant hand is hard to disguise in the separate modes (although I could argue that combiners, being temporary forms used purely for destruction, don't actually need hands and would do just as well with weapon mounts) and the feet just need to be slightly moveable flat surfaces. Heck, hasbro has managed to do "integrated" combiner parts fairly well- the Energon combiners's only kibble was the hands and feet, which were the limb's own weapons (thus resulting in no weapon-swapping) and the FOC Bruticus has all his combiner parts fully integrated. Surely if Hasbro can do it on "toy" budgets then 3rd parties can do it, and do it better?