The Energon Pub

This set was on sale so I pulled the trigger.

Ginrai is an honest to goodness downgrade from the original mode. the deco looks nice no doubt but the engineering doesn't hold up at all. For reasons that will never make sense to me Takara re-engineered the legs so the feet were more like the old toy. The result not only looks silly but is a floopy mess. The legs, which always held just fine on the original figure, can't stay together at all in combined mode or the standard robot mode. Besides the thighs being crazy tight, just holding the figure causes the legs to unpeg and become a wobbly mess. The arms look nicer in robot mode but because of their design they cannot hold up in vehicle mode as the trailer roof. Again the original figure did not have this problem at all.

God Bomber is more of the same. He looks good in both modes and having the other two Cybertron headmaster jrs is nice especially when they can all ride in the cock pit. But the arms, my God the arms. They don't hold on in vehicle mode or robot mode. I used to think reviewers were just handling it too rough but they really aren't connected well at all and slip off with the slightest bump. It especially bothers me because it's the same basic concept RID Magnus used which was also done by Takara, and there were no issues there.

I actually like the base modes, simple as they are. I am looking forward to displaying then with fort max to make a real Autobot City.

Combined mode is a let down to me. The conversion process for the chest piece is needlessly complicated and very difficult to apply. The feet are too heavy and a floopy mess (with again Ginrai's legs flopping around because the come unpegged with every slight breeze). He can't really strike any poses because of serious balance issues. He looks nice, but he might as well be a brick like the original.

Final verdict is the same across the board. The set looks fantastic however you display them, but the engineering is a complete flop. Given that Titans Return Powermaster Optimus Prime and Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus, for all their flaws, were at least solid in each mode, this just looks bad. On the bright side he scales well with his castmates. Combined mode is about the size of a Combiner so shapes up well with leokaiser. Individual modes look really good with Overlord as well. It's fun to finally be able to recreate some of these scenarios from the Japanese shows (with some liberties).

Do to the poor engineering I can't really recommend this set unless you are a huge fan of Powermaster Optimus prime/Ginrai and really want a set that combined, in which case you should probably also invest in the third party upgrade kits. On its own it really isn't worth the $150 it's going to cost you.