The Energon Pub

Hey guys, just thought I'd give my initial impression on the $59.99 Kre-O kit for Optimus Prime. I found him at my local Toys R' Us in a badly beaten and a partially torn box along with the larger Bumblebee and a few others. I only picked up Optimus and Bumblebee, however.

I've only built him into a semi, so I can't give any input on how his Robot mode fares. But I'd say it took me just under 3 hours total to lay out all the pieces, and build him from start to finish as a semi. I wasn't really keeping an accurate time, all I know is, it took me a lot longer than i thought (figured maybe an hour). Granted I was pretty tired when I built him.

I highly recommend this set if you are interested in Kre-O at all. Lots of little extras, very detailed, it was fun (though long) to build, and I could imagine kids having a blast (unless they got ADD or something). The robot Kre-ons are just so sweet!

You guys can easily see what he comes with and what he looks like and other miscellaneous info from other images/links, so I'm just including pics that I took as I built him and things I'd like to point out. If there is something you guys want me to post or mention, just ask. I'm not really good at organizing a well written review so this is just me spouting out thoughts.






Pros:
- I got to build Optimus in Leg... er Kre-O form! Awesome!
-Tight fitting pieces. These are on par with Legos and overall, I am impressed. All pieces have one connection point with a notch in it though... doesn't seem to be any purpose other than to differentiate itself from legos...
- Kre-ons Kre-ons and more Kre-ons! These figures are so cute and awesome. Each Kre-On comes in pieces and needs to be assembled (not to hard), but it kinda makes you appreciate them more. For instance, Optimus has a separate head, helmet, legs, torso, wheels that go on the sides of his legs, pipes that go on his arms, and his blaster. Skywarp comes with his head, helmet, torso, legs, wings that fit between his torso and head, and two blasters for his arms. These guys are adorable!
- Very detailed. There are lots of sections to admire about the truck and all it's compartments and opening doors. You can even fit a kreon inside to drive around. The trailer also opens up so that you store Kreons and other accessories

Cons:
- Instructions get a little vague at times with color. It's hard to differentiate similarly colored pieces sometimes. Also, they tell you to put the stickers on the pieces, but there aren't enough stickers for every piece. If you notice in the picture, there are 8 autobot symbols that run along the middle of the truck and trailer (the ones on the ones on the side are painted on the piece already). My sticker sheet only gives me 7... The box shows that front of the semi should only have 1 sticker, and its smack dab in the middle of the two joining pieces, so you need to either cut the sticker down the middle so you can take it apart later, or place the sticker on only one side for a bit of asymmetry. The instructions to turn him into a robot show you only put the sticker on one side while the instructions for the semi show stickers on both sides... me thinks the latter is false, and the former is the correct way, but it still doesn't match how he looks on the box.

- My kreon optimus came with stressed plastic on his wrists (you can see in the picture). The rest were fine, but right out of the box I noticed something was off about Optimus's wrists, and when i twisted his hands, it got a little worse... not going to touch them too much.

- Length of time it took to assemble... I was expecting it to be long, but not 3 hours long. Makes the desire to disassemble and rebuild in robot form less appealing... but I'll push forth in doing so at some point.
- Leftover, loose parts. I guess this will be a common thing as I saw someones review of Bumblebee and he had leftover parts... I guess i can connect them together and throw em in the trailer, but the kreon accessories (like a shovel, guns, radio, etc) have limited places you can store and attach them, there are bound to be some easily lost pieces.

Notes:
- I noticed my Kre-On optimus isn't what is pictured on the box or the instructions, he has the matrix of leadership painted right on his chest. While I wasn't paying too much attention to botcon, i think these were meant to be limited stand alone release... maybe I got lucky.

- One of his doors is supposed to swing out open from back to front (like most cars), but it looks like they gave me 2 right side back doors, so one swings open from front to back on the left side. I double checked to see if I attacked it upside down or backwards somehow, but nope, I simply was given the wrong piece. It's slightly annoying but I'll live.

- I started to see Optimus's head where there was no Optimus head! You agree?



I guess that about does it for now. Again, any questions or requests, feel free to ask!

The plastic is nice?

yeah, like I mentioned, it's on par with Legos, everything fits snug. All the glossy parts feel just like legos, there are a few soft dull metallic pieces that you can tell are made of a different plastic, but they don't feel cheap. These are quality parts! (minus my ailing Optimus wrists).

A little update on the stress markings on my Kreon Optimus, he's not the only one. All my kreons except Skywarp have some form of stress going on at their wrists, more notably on the kreons with red wrists. Bad molds or issue with certain colored plastics? Either way, I'm a little sad...

I'm a huge Lego collector, so when i heard of building block transformers, i nearly pooped! My biggest fear was the quality wasn't going to be sub par. Good to hear the the parts hold up and are on par with Lego. Other compeditor brands never seem to hold up, so its good to hear that Kre-o's can hold their own.

As a rule, I leave all stickers off my toys. Would the robot mode suffer much for that?

nah, I don't think so. The stickers are kinda tacky in some places... But I like to use every piece given when building these things.

noodles2go wrote:nah, I don't think so. The stickers are kinda tacky in some places... But I like to use every piece given when building these things.

Ah, good. I was afraid his whole face would be a sticker or something.

How's the transition between modes? Do you have to completely disassemble, or does each mode break into specific chunks that you then rearrange?

The transition is painful if you don't like putting them together because you have to start all over from scratch. I haven't attempted building the robot mode, but from the looks of the instructions, you have to disassemble the whole thing and then rebuild.

Update: formally a con of mine was that there were leftover pieces... After much thought (and some slight play), I have concluded the leftover pieces are fun to try and come up with something clever to build. Like I mentioned before, I like using every last piece, and it is a bit of a challenge to come up with concept that will incorporate everything.

Also, all the Kreons from my deluxe bumblebee set have stress marks on their wrists as well. I'm afraid this will be a common occurrence.

I received my set today and also had the Optimus Kreon with the exclusive Matrix print on his chest. Looks like somebody messed up the production run.

Also, Kreon Skywarp is the shiz. <3

This is the first time, possibly the only time, I'm ever going to say this: That KRE-O figure actually doesn't suck.

Has anyone gotten a Prime set with the correct Optimus Prime Kreon yet?

Seibertron wrote:Has anyone gotten a Prime set with the correct Optimus Prime Kreon yet?

According to hasbro and optibotimus, the prime is backordered on HTS and a new batch would be comming out in july with the closed chest prime. As of now... all retail primes have the botcon minifig. That's either good or bad

Man, I hope this big Optimus set goes on steep sale sometime soon, I wants. Both modes look pretty cool to me.