MGrotusque wrote:I know you think your being witty and super smart and i'm also a fan of sarcasm. But i think you've completely forgotten how pretty much every new combiner Hasbro has ever done in the past decade was almost a complete abomination of nonsense.
Nope. The Energon combiners were decent and well engineered (to the point where it's possible to get more articulation out of them than was originally designed with zero cutting). The individual robot modes were solid and poseable, with good vehicle modes and nice colours, and the combined modes were actually pretty well proportioned, and decently articulated (especially considering previous offerings). Also they had absolutely no partsforming aside from the hands and feet, which formed some really nice weapons in the uncombined modes (and also resulted in CANNON HANDS).
Sure they weren't exactly Hercules quality, but they were like £6 a limb, and £9 for the torso- and they were made when the line's budget was nearly exhausted. For what they were, they were brilliant. They've aged badly, but then toys do- technology marches on.
FoC Bruticus could have been a lot better, but then he had a lot asked of him- his components had to form an arm AND a leg (or a torso in Onslaught's case) in addition to a vehicle and a robot, based on models that relied on animation magic to transform. Coupled with the economy forcing budget restrictions and the usual stringent safety tests these things have to undergo, I'd say he turned out alright. Blast Off can be compressed into a much better arm-mode, and let us not forget that FOC Bruticus is one of the only combiners ever that (aside from combining the weapons, which is optional) requires absolutely no partsforming whatsoever. Now that's impressive.
The other thing is that the main reason Hasbro hasn't made many good combiners...is because Hasbro hasn't made many combiners full stop. It would be like accusing them of never making any good toys that turn into penguins- there's only been 1 (technically a Takara release but still).
Yes i understand about child safety laws and budget restrictions but that has nothing to do with properly proportioned and aesthetically pleasing combiners.
Actually it has everything to do with that. Making a toy transform into a good-looking, well-articulated robot and a vehicle, and then turn into a part of a larger robot (which often is based on a character from a crappy Saturday morning 80s cartoon who transformed with the power of bad animation), which in turn must look good and be well articulated, takes clever engineering, which requires a lot of effort and, you guessed it, money. Thus, budget restrictions will inevitably hamper the chances of a good-looking combiner. Coupled with the fact that kids probably won't appreciate figures overly intricate figures (especially ones that break through simple play due to the huge amount of hinges and tabs) you can see exactly why those factors have something to do with it.
The combiner formula was established in the 80's and they seemed to have completely forgotten how to do it till just now.
If by the combiner "formula" you mean "robot forms torso, 4 other robots form limbs" then yeah, it was established in the 80s. If you mean "how to make a good toy" then no.
Let's not forget that most of the G1 combiner toys were total shite as well- much worse than anything Hasbro has brought out recently. Half of the combined mode's body was made of extra junk that had nowhere to go when they weren't combined, the combined mode has terrible articulation (and the individual robots were basically tiny bricks), quite often the combined form looked like garbage anyway (Bruticus is ridiculously squat, Devastator is a hideous shade of pastel green and is a gangly mess, Superion has birthing hips, Menasor is wearing a hoodie, Predaking is obese and Computron is a towering block of random techy parts) and the combined forms often had major structural issues (like Superion's oh-so-fragile hips). I'll take Energon Devastator over the G1 toy any day.
Things change. The target audience changes, the economy changes, technology changes. It's not the 80s anymore. Things are different. Not everything has to be G1.
And of course, for all you complain about how Hasbro should accommodate the collectors instead of the children, put yourself in their shoes. On the one hand you have a huge audience who will be happy with anything so long as it looks cool. On the other hand you have a much smaller audience who will denounce your stuff as the worst thing ever if it isn't made exactly to their (often conflicting) specifications- in other words, a nano-engineered spot-on replica of a character from a badly animated, dreadfully-written Saturday-morning merchandising cartoon from the 80s. Now which would you rather cater to?
