The Energon Pub

Counterpunch wrote:So, am I the only one who is kind of salty about how Universe 2.0 played out?

I was half and half with Universe, honestly. The 2.0 slate of toys wasn't up to the original 'placeholder' line, in terms of quality. We got some nice new molds like Sunstreaker and Onslaught and I didn't mind the repaints so much, but thought it slightly strange that Blaster and Heavy Load were the ones the launched with. Blades and Dropshot, for better or worse, were better than the first two.
I'm not a big fan of the Henki chrome, so that doesn't bother me. What bugs me is what seems like cruddy character choices. I loves the Seekers, but we really dont need Acid Storm.
15 seconds in a G1 episode don't make you an iconic figure. If that's the only real criteria for a big time character, then I predict this years Botcon set to be grey painted, half transformed Autobots to finally allow us to recreate that scene in The Immobilizer episode. Lord knows how long we've all been clamoring for a grey half transformed G1 Gears, and how Hasblo can't seem to give us one that's accurate enough.
Seriously though, Hound was nice and I don't care for Hound as a character, and the Ravage was a nice addition, but we just got Ravage-for-real like a year before with the TRU Soundwave. I was alright with the Galvatron we got, but wasn't overly feeling one way or the other about him. Then came the non-G1s and I was losing interest.
Why redo Hot Shot? Honestly. The BW guys just got reissued also, so why update them? Additionally, those were the three crappiest figures of the whole line. I don't know, I guess someone thought it was a good idea.
I guess I wasn't salty, but luke-warm may be the best way to put it.

Forgot about Shockwave. Wreck-gar would definitely be nice too.

Well, if anything apparently I gave you guys room to vent out some frustration concerning 2.0.
Watch closely, Hasbro, these are your customers, they want to give you oodles of dollars... Just be smart now, and give us what we want. I promise it'll work out for you!

Alphonse wrote:Well, if anything apparently I gave you guys room to vent out some frustration concerning 2.0.
Watch closely, Hasbro, these are your customers, they want to give you oodles of dollars... Just be smart now, and give us what we want. I promise it'll work out for you!

what he said! i have spent over $200 in TFs this year! give or take, but if you guys up @ hasbro mad these figures, and made them good, you would have soooooooooo much more customers than you already do! and i mean a lot!

Doubledealer25 wrote:

Alphonse wrote:Well, if anything apparently I gave you guys room to vent out some frustration concerning 2.0.
Watch closely, Hasbro, these are your customers, they want to give you oodles of dollars... Just be smart now, and give us what we want. I promise it'll work out for you!

what he said! i have spent over $200 in TFs this year! give or take, but if you guys up @ hasbro mad these figures, and made them good, you would have soooooooooo much more customers than you already do! and i mean a lot!

You don't even want to know what I've spent...

I'm with CP on this one. Grey Silverbolt? Unarmed Hot Shot? No Red Alert?

It's an embarrassment to Hasbro that they needed Takara to do it right second time.

I didn't mind the Voyager-class repaints, since no one's forcing me to buy them...and I'm actually kind of fond of a couple of them, Darkwind and Hardhead in particular. I'd rather Trailbreaker had a new mold myself, but I would not be averse to a nice repaint of Armada Red Alert to fit that bill.

universe 3.0 predaking that would make my whole year nay decade!!

If Hasbro takes anything from the movie, they could re-release Prime and make a new figure to combine with him, like a new Jetfire or maybe just a power master version.

It surprises me many of us feel unsatisfied and disappointed. Universe 2.0 wasn't perfect, so what? How many sequels are better than the originals (Don't answer that! I'm generalizing here!)

Thanks to Wal-Mart and Target, I only paid $8 for just about every frickin' Deluxe in that line. That was awesome!

Did Japan get Acid Storm? No. They didn't. Japan got Wildrider: a mediocre black repaint of Rodimus that would have looked better if he was rocking facial hair like his Botcon toy.

And I don't know about this Darkside Skyfire, Clear Starscream, Crystal Convoy stuff. I feel pretty burned by the quality of Henkei Thundercracker. And I would love to make some off-color remarks regarding that, but I wouldn't know who to blame.

Personally, I like Hasbro's paint schemes better than Takara's. They complement the toys rather than going with what's been done before and resting on the laurels of 1980s nostalgia. Plus, all that chrome just looks unnecessary and tacky on a rinky-dink, cheapo toy. Besides, I would have had to be out of my mind to pay $25-$30 for a Henkei deluxe after paying $8 for the Hasbro version. (I'm not judging you if you bought both, trust me, I empathize with you if for some reason you can't possibly rationalize why you feel compelled to just buy everything)

I don't expect perfection from Hasbro. They try their best. As much as it upsets me that I never saw Wave 5 legends on store shelves - that's not entirely their fault. Ironhide didn't have a silver face... whoops! A silver sharpie can fix that. Galvatron is too small. OK, Hasbro admits he should have been a deluxe. But in my eyes, they can always make things right with another Voyager+ sized Decepticon general

Let's look at we got this year and last: about a dozen kick-butt deluxes, 1 brand new voyager in Inferno, and several brand new Legends molds for the original minibots (plus a handful of others) AND more Cybertron repaints... if you're into that. And that really should be the bottom line, shouldn't it? The products we got, instead of the ones we didn't.

Diem wrote:I'm with CP on this one. Grey Silverbolt? Unarmed Hot Shot? No Red Alert?

It's an embarrassment to Hasbro that they needed Takara to do it right second time.

Hasbro is likely saving Red Alert for 3.0

Really I expect the same from the current line to transfer over to the new, some really good figures, some bad, some "huh? ah come on!!"...

I can get pass repaints and some iffy new molds because I can just not buy them but CP has it right there was definitely some WTF moments in this line. I think that universe Dinobot is a great great mold, who ever designed him really knew what the spirit of the line is all about, but who ever decided on his color scheme (Hasbro) had to have been high (I think I actually would have preferred pink and chocolate like his original mold). And don't get me started on my beloved Cheetor...

Anyways I'm prepared for the good, the bad and the WTF but I'm hoping for a little less WTF.

Oh and as for actual characters, well I could guess but thats pointless, I'm sure we'll be very surprised though.

I feel giddy like a 14-year old at the prospect of new classic figures this year, I just hope for a just and timely repartition of stock between Europe and the US, I'm tired of getting figures three months after the bulk of you guys, and also in ridiculous quantities even our local Toys'rUs have trouble supplying.

It Is Him wrote:Thanks to Wal-Mart and Target, I only paid $8 for just about every frickin' Deluxe in that line. That was awesome!

My issue, is that we should be getting the same grade of product that Japan is. Somewhere, someone is making decisions that result in the following:

It Is Him wrote:Did Japan get Acid Storm? No. They didn't. Japan got Wildrider: a mediocre black repaint of Rodimus that would have looked better if he was rocking facial hair like his Botcon toy.

Well, Wildrider is actually really really nicely done.



Given the opportunity? I’d take that over Acid Storm…

It Is Him wrote:And I don't know about this Darkside Skyfire, Clear Starscream, Crystal Convoy stuff. I feel pretty burned by the quality of Henkei Thundercracker. And I would love to make some off-color remarks regarding that, but I wouldn't know who to blame.

Henkei Thundercracker is an isolated incident. No one had any problems with ElectroDisrupter Mirage, Strafe, Wildrider, Thrust, Dirge, Skywarp (maybe) or any of Takara’s earlier exclusive releases.

It Is Him wrote:Personally, I like Hasbro's paint schemes better than Takara's. They complement the toys rather than going with what's been done before and resting on the laurels of 1980s nostalgia. Plus, all that chrome just looks unnecessary and tacky on a rinky-dink, cheapo toy. Besides, I would have had to be out of my mind to pay $25-$30 for a Henkei deluxe after paying $8 for the Hasbro version. (I'm not judging you if you bought both, trust me, I empathize with you if for some reason you can't possibly rationalize why you feel compelled to just buy everything)

Regarding the price, we agree and it’s the crux of my argument. Though, we really should stop referencing the sale price of $8 and go with the retail price of $13.

About the chrome? Can you point out where it actually looks bad in the pictures I posted? Surprisingly the chrome applications have all been really well done and added to the figures I bought from Japan.

Counterpunch wrote:So, am I the only one who is kind of salty about how Universe 2.0 played out?

You didn't forget me just cause I'm not on much lately did you?

As the 25th anniversary of Transformers this was a pretty terrible year. Universe 2.0 was disappointing in my opinion also.

You see, out of the first wave of toys, only one of them looked decent in terms of paint, that being Tankor. Acid Storm was great, but kind of forgettable. Galvatron is a... erm... lovely toy right? Oh, and by the way, the Henkei version looks sooo much better sans those bits on Mister Orange Joints. We either got mediocre molds or bad paint jobs. Don't even get me started on character choices ('Cause I really had been crying for non-functional combiner team leaders over a properly sized Galvatron).

I think Soundwave is kind of overdue, but I'd be happy with pretty much anything if they did it right.

To be honest, from a mold standpoint, I found the Universe 2.0 line to be superior to the first Classics line overall, and I guess to me that's the most imprortant thing, but I do see the frustration when it would be so easy to just do the paint jobs "right." Although I don't think it's necessarily a 2.0 thing...it existed with the Classics line, too. Megs is the obvious. Prime & Astrotrain stand out. I'm sure there are others...

I have no expectations. If it happens, (remember, there's been no confirmation yet) I will take each character as it comes. Expectations lead to dashed hopes and thus bad reviews and biased comments.

Mkall wrote:I have no expectations. If it happens, (remember, there's been no confirmation yet) I will take each character as it comes. Expectations lead to dashed hopes and thus bad reviews and biased comments.

Quoted for Truth. Hasbro still caters mainly to children and families, we come dead last.

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

Mkall wrote:I have no expectations. If it happens, (remember, there's been no confirmation yet) I will take each character as it comes. Expectations lead to dashed hopes and thus bad reviews and biased comments.

Quoted for Truth. Hasbro still caters mainly to children and families, we come dead last.

The point is, if you're going to bother doing it, do it right.

Take Smokescreen up above for instance.

Kids won't care if he's the right color blue or if the big number '38' is patterned after the original or not. They won't care if he has the appropriate white legs and they won't care if his gun is red.

But someone at Hasbro obviously knows that 'WE' want a Smokescreen figure as a remake. So...why not get it right? I mean, it's not really as if they were going for some interesting re-design of the character and toy. He's still Smokescreen, blue, red, door-wings, etc... but somehow they managed to make a main line product look like a knock off.

Takara mysteriously gets it right?

Hasbro's response between US and Japanese product is that they make and market what is appropriate to their different markets? Right? We've all heard that line. (For the record, Henkei! is marketed towards children in Japan...)

So...the appropriate product for the US market is the inferior product?

Also...this is the third iteration of the mold in the US. Were the costs not recouped enough for some proper paint apps?

Man, I didn't realize how pissed off I was about some of the decisions on these toys till I started writing it down. It's not like I only bought one of them and I'm trying to justify my own purchasing habits either. This is science at work my friends.

What has SCIENCE! done...?

Counterpunch wrote:The point is, if you're going to bother doing it, do it right.

Take Smokescreen up above for instance.

Kids won't care if he's the right color blue or if the big number '38' is patterned after the original or not. They won't care if he has the appropriate white legs and they won't care if his gun is red.

But someone at Hasbro obviously knows that 'WE' want a Smokescreen figure as a remake. So...why not get it right? I mean, it's not really as if they were going for some interesting re-design of the character and toy. He's still Smokescreen, blue, red, door-wings, etc... but somehow they managed to make a main line product look like a knock off.

Takara mysteriously gets it right?

Hasbro's response between US and Japanese product is that they make and market what is appropriate to their different markets? Right? We've all heard that line. (For the record, Henkei! is marketed towards children in Japan...)

So...the appropriate product for the US market is the inferior product?

Also...this is the third iteration of the mold in the US. Were the costs not recouped enough for some proper paint apps?

Man, I didn't realize how pissed off I was about some of the decisions on these toys till I started writing it down. It's not like I only bought one of them and I'm trying to justify my own purchasing habits either. This is science at work my friends.

What has SCIENCE! done...?

I agree with you that Hasbro dropped the ball on some figures, like Dinobot's US deco and Hot Shot's lack of guns. But like you said, the kids won't care. Fine, their (and our) loss since we'll look at Takara for those figures. All fine and dandy to them.

I have to agree with this:

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:The point is, if you're going to bother doing it, do it right.

Why is it Hasbro can't get a correct paint scheme? The molds are good. why not give them proper paint schemes?

I would think the cost is the same whether you use one shade of brown or a darker more accurate one. Or whether you use Purple or Blue.

Overcracker wrote:I have to agree with this:

Counterpunch wrote:The point is, if you're going to bother doing it, do it right.

Why is it Hasbro can't get a correct paint scheme? The molds are good. why not give them proper paint schemes?

I would think the cost is the same whether you use one shade of brown or a darker more accurate one. Or whether you use Purple or Blue.[/quote]

Exactly.

Pink-ish red G1 Reissue Prime anyone?

Nice quotage

Anyhow, I'd say the number of possible paint apps and plastic color is limited if you're looking at overall costs per figure. It's not like they can say "Ok, we'll take the profit from this figure and use it to improve that one". That doesn't make sense really, and it conflicts with the set budget of the line. How long does it take for changes in plans to be implemented?
I can also imagine certain colors being utterly unavailable, who knows?

JelZe GoldRabbit wrote:Nice quotage

Anyhow, I'd say the number of possible paint apps and plastic color is limited if you're looking at overall costs per figure. It's not like they can say "Ok, we'll take the profit from this figure and use it to improve that one". That doesn't make sense really, and it conflicts with the set budget of the line. How long does it take for changes in plans to be implemented?

Actually, there is well documented evidence of this happening in other lines.

Look at Energon and Cybertron.

The redeco editions of previously released figures ALWAYS have better and more paint apss.

Energon Bulkhead vs Quickstrike.
Energon Landmine vs Landquake
Cybertron Red Alert vs Cannonball
Cybertron Crumplezone vs Darkcrumplezone
Cybertron HotShot vs Excellion

I'm not keeping up the argument just to do so btw. S'all friendly.

Except for Hasbro, who has some s'plaining to do.

Counterpunch wrote:Except for Hasbro, who has some s'plaining to do.

And you have to wonder who at Hasbro is the guilty party. I can't imagine the designers saying "Wow, let's make Smokescreen, but let's adjust his palette to really piss off the collectors." I just don't want to believe there is malicious intent behind some of these decisions. But, then that presents more questions: if the designers create the "right" deco, what happens to it? If the designers create the "bad" decos, why?

Counterpunch wrote:

It Is Him wrote:Thanks to Wal-Mart and Target, I only paid $8 for just about every frickin' Deluxe in that line. That was awesome!

My issue, is that we should be getting the same grade of product that Japan is. Somewhere, someone is making decisions that result in the following:

With Hot Shot, Japan gets a definite win. The rest of them really comes down to preference. I don't need my Classics to look like the original toys, so I like the paint apps we get.

Granted, I don't have the Henkei toys in hand to compare to the Universe ones, but I haven't noticed anything on mine to lead me to believe Hasbro made decisions to compromise quality. If anything, the QC got better further down the line.

Counterpunch wrote:

It Is Him wrote:Did Japan get Acid Storm? No. They didn't. Japan got Wildrider: a mediocre black repaint of Rodimus that would have looked better if he was rocking facial hair like his Botcon toy.

Well, Wildrider is actually really really nicely done.

Given the opportunity? I’d take that over Acid Storm…

You know what, comparing Wildrider to Acid Storm was unfair. Inserting Acid Storm into the Universe line was a pretty creative use of the mold and the G1 TV show. Wildrider is still pretty cool, but the (unclear) point I was trying to make was that Wildrider wasn't nearly creative as Acid Storm or SG Rodimus.

Counterpunch wrote:

It Is Him wrote:And I don't know about this Darkside Skyfire, Clear Starscream, Crystal Convoy stuff. I feel pretty burned by the quality of Henkei Thundercracker. And I would love to make some off-color remarks regarding that, but I wouldn't know who to blame.

Henkei Thundercracker is an isolated incident. No one had any problems with ElectroDisrupter Mirage, Strafe, Wildrider, Thrust, Dirge, Skywarp (maybe) or any of Takara’s earlier exclusive releases.

Skywarp I believe had problems, too. Also, I'm cranky.

counterpunch wrote:

It Is Him wrote:Personally, I like Hasbro's paint schemes better than Takara's. They complement the toys rather than going with what's been done before and resting on the laurels of 1980s nostalgia. Plus, all that chrome just looks unnecessary and tacky on a rinky-dink, cheapo toy. Besides, I would have had to be out of my mind to pay $25-$30 for a Henkei deluxe after paying $8 for the Hasbro version. (I'm not judging you if you bought both, trust me, I empathize with you if for some reason you can't possibly rationalize why you feel compelled to just buy everything)

Regarding the price, we agree and it’s the crux of my argument. Though, we really should stop referencing the sale price of $8 and go with the retail price of $13.

About the chrome? Can you point out where it actually looks bad in the pictures I posted? Surprisingly the chrome applications have all been really well done and added to the figures I bought from Japan.

You're right about the sale price stuff. Classics 3.0 will be a different story. And yeah, maybe I'm being unfair to Takara, (again, I was cranky when I typed up my post). But it makes me think of tin foil whenever I look at these pictures

As for the chrome...

Grimlock = ick!



Bumblebee - I'm not sure if I dislike the chrome, so much as I REALLY like Universe 2.0 BB

Galvatron - Another one I'm not to keen on



Cyclonus - The Targetmasters never originally had chrome... why do they need it now?



Dinobot - While the paint apps are more TV show accurate, which I totally think is cooler. The sword/missile chrome looks funny to me

Razorclaw0000 wrote:

Counterpunch wrote:Except for Hasbro, who has some s'plaining to do.

And you have to wonder who at Hasbro is the guilty party. I can't imagine the designers saying "Wow, let's make Smokescreen, but let's adjust his palette to really piss off the collectors." I just don't want to believe there is malicious intent behind some of these decisions. But, then that presents more questions: if the designers create the "right" deco, what happens to it? If the designers create the "bad" decos, why?

I like Universe Smokescreen's deco.

::shrug::