DeathReviews wrote:To my mind, Legacy Metroplex even has an unfortunate name. He's not a city-former, or even a base-former. He has 2 robot modes, and one vehicle mode. And a construction vehicle at that - albeit a very large one. I know they had their reasons for the name shift when it was carried over from Japan, but he should have been named "Dig-a-tron", or "Earthquake" or something. Metroplex implies that he's supposed to be a city - or at least a subdivision.
I think it perfectly fits for the leader of a planet that's a massive, ever-expanding city.
Anyway, I
finally have time to properly go through these last news, so here's a quick rundown of my first impressions:
- Elita-1: at least it actually transforms so it's already much better than the last Arcee remold. Robot mode looks accurate enought, even if I can see the obvious Minerva pretool. Given they only had the front of the vehicle mode as reference, I think they did a good job at designing a full model.
- Tarantulas: looks great, and adding the Transmetal buzzsaw (
without removing the original weapon, thank you Cheetor
) is a nice touch. The hands/mandibles being so pronounced in beast mode looks a little odd, though; were they like that in the cartoon?
- Prime Knock Out: *sigh* this is why I don't like the G1-ifying of other universes' designs; it takes most of the personality and identity of the original. At least it
mostly looks like Knock Out in both modes (especially in car mode), unlike Bulkhead.
- G2 Jhiaxus: YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!
- Soundwave reissue: eh, I already have
Siege and I wasn't as bothered by the battle damage paint as everyone else seems to be, so pass.
- Blitzwing: robot mode is okay, and I actually welcome the Hulk hands; vehicle modes seem
way too accurate to the cartoon, especially on the goofs (did you really have to copy the protuding cockpit in tank mode?), but aren't a strong enough deterrent for me.
- Motormaster/Wild Rider/Menasor: as I said before, I could see this combination style working for a new character, or a new continuity's version of Menasor. My main hang-up is sacrificing a far more interesting gimmick of the original design (interchangeable limbs) for what's basically accuracy to a glorified animation error. Still, the engineering and play features seems solid and very fun, and the
CW compatibility (even if it's just for the legs) is promising. Not sure if it'll justify replacing my current
CW version (which I'm still building, because 5/6ths of the team never shipped to Portugal), but it raised my interest.
- Cybertron Metroplex: I actually like this one. The robot and vehicle modes are very accurate, it has cool features, and the "brute mode" is a good example of deviating from the original design, since it improves on a lackluster feature. Still, I don't really care much for scale (I actually find it rather limiting, since it prevents really large or really small characters from being considered), it doesn't have Drill Bit (yet, probably, maybe) nor a Cyber Planet Key, and the Sparkdrinker doesn't seem to split into axe mode, so I'll probably stick to the original anyway.
- Possible BW Inferno: YESYESYESYESYESYESYES!!