The Energon Pub

Please feel free to post. Also, it wuld be helpful to specify why they suck or kick @ss in quality (materials that don't break if you stare at it funny) or, how the engineering design was groundbreaking or the opposite.

This isn't exactly a "review" as there is already a review section but specify the plus and minus.

Example:

Fans Project City Commander

Despite the limitation of the base toy, the armor was every tf fan's answer to dressing up their "naked" UM. Sure he's got Popeye arms blah blah blah.

PVC/ABS still stands the test of time and the paint apps are topnotch. Too bad the base figure can't hold his BFG up without support.

MMC, I feel is simply the feel the best out their. As i've never read a bad QC on-line review of their products. Have Hexatron, The plastic quality is durable, high sculpting, great joints tech and superb engineering. About the only negative I have for MMC is the mediocre Head sculpts

Fansprojects, Feel is equally on par with MMC. Have a lot of their products. Like MMC everything is top notch. FP also creates some nice head sculpts.

KFC, Think has shown some improvement on all of their Negatives. Thought Citizen Stacks was a top notch toy. KFC showed great Customer service by shipping out those replacements parts for the hips and elbows. With the replacements parts installed, My Citizen Stacks is a superp toy. Like the high sculpting and big scale of Citizen stacks. Looking forward to buying Transistor and Junk King.

Don't yet own any TW or X-T products but have a few on preorder. Will let everyone know my views on these companies when I transform the toys back and forth.

As far as bad companies go, Ordered a Perfect Effect products years ago,PE-01 Shadow Warrior. The connecting tabs broke off extremely easily and certain parts were hard tighly compact and hard to transform. The plastic on the toy seems soft and brittle.

SXS, Liked and bought their beautifully sculpted replacements heads for KFC Citizen stacks and Hasbro 30th Blitzwing.

There are several groups out there that produce top notch work. I'm really surprised with ToyWorld moreso than many others for some reason. Their figures feel like proper Transformers that came out of Hasbro. They're not overly fiddly like FansProject or MakeToys, they don't rely on partsforming like PerfectEffect, and their sculpting is pretty good, with the single exception of Orion's head.

My top 5 groups are (in order):
5) MakeToys - They have good designs, but are very fiddly and complex - still they look really nice.
4) FansProject - Similar to MakeToys, but FP is a step higher because they have a couple lines going simultaeneously, making it feel like where waiting less time between releases.
3) Perfect Effect - There is more partsforming going on here than other 3rd parties, but the end result is very nice.
2) Planet X - Sure there's only been 2 (soon to be 3) releases, but it's been top notch quality each and every time.
1) Mastermind Creations - Brilliant designs that are relatively simple to figure out. They obviously take great care in making sure that everything is proper when released. To top it all off, they actually have a customer service and public relations person.

ToyWorld takes the Honourable Mention Category here because their production has been very slow and they're not good with PR. It looks like that's changing too, so they might move up that list.


That said, who are my least favourite? Also in order they are:
3) KFC - They have run slipshod over QC in an attempt to get stuff to market faster and it shows. There is talk that this is changing, but the proof is in the plastic.
2) TFC - Why are they on this list? It's because everything they do is "close, but no cigar" to what they're trying to homage. It's like they are given a design brief containing colours, features, altmode and robot mode proportions, but no image of the original G1 character. The end result is a bland design that looks more like a knockoff than a homage. Surprisingly there's a large fanbase out there who supports them. The company should have folded IMO.
1) ImpossibleToys - Everything other than their Quintessons failed due to poor design choices and them not understanding what modern TF collectors were looking for. Poor plastic quality for outrageous prices didn't help either. Finally, they had the audacity to blame those fans for their failing business in their "goodbye" speech as well. I'm glad they folded.

Mkall wrote:There are several groups out there that produce top notch work. I'm really surprised with ToyWorld moreso than many others for some reason. Their figures feel like proper Transformers that came out of Hasbro. They're not overly fiddly like FansProject or MakeToys, they don't rely on partsforming like PerfectEffect, and their sculpting is pretty good, with the single exception of Orion's head.

My top 5 groups are (in order):
5) MakeToys - They have good designs, but are very fiddly and complex - still they look really nice.
4) FansProject - Similar to MakeToys, but FP is a step higher because they have a couple lines going simultaeneously, making it feel like where waiting less time between releases.
3) Perfect Effect - There is more partsforming going on here than other 3rd parties, but the end result is very nice.
2) Planet X - Sure there's only been 2 (soon to be 3) releases, but it's been top notch quality each and every time.
1) Mastermind Creations - Brilliant designs that are relatively simple to figure out. They obviously take great care in making sure that everything is proper when released. To top it all off, they actually have a customer service and public relations person.


That said, who are my least favourite? Also in order they are:
3) KFC - They have run slipshod over QC in an attempt to get stuff to market faster and it shows. There is talk that this is changing, but the proof is in the plastic.
2) TFC - Why are they on this list? It's because everything they do is "close, but no cigar" to what they're trying to homage. It's like they are given a design brief containing colours, features, altmode and robot mode proportions, but no image of the original G1 character. The end result is a bland design that looks more like a knockoff than a homage. Surprisingly there's a large fanbase out there who supports them. The company should have folded IMO.
1) ImpossibleToys - Everything other than their Quintessons failed due to poor design choices and them not understanding what modern TF collectors were looking for. Poor plastic quality for outrageous prices didn't help either. Finally, they had the audacity to blame those fans for their failing business in their "goodbye" speech as well. I'm glad they folded.

Forgot all about MakeToys. Have their Green Giant gift set. Thought the sculpts were very accurate to the original toys and cartoons designs. Liked the high sculpts, colors, engineering, joints tech, scale and low prices.

Fanstoys, I felt made a really excellent toy, Which was Quakewave. High sculpt, strong materials, perfect big scale, superb joints and engineering. accurate update to that resembles the original toy and cartoon designs. Priced low for a toy this big and top notch.

Toyworld- quality is good, and engineering is top-notch
MMC- inventive and high quality
I-Gear- their defense and weapons specialists are incredible in terms on engineering, plastic quality is a bit delicate in my view
Planet X- very, very nice work on caelus
X-Transbots- I have Glider, and as much as I like the look of him...well his arms fall off- ball joints are weak

My #1 right now is MMC. Their stuff is always top quality. My only complaint is that their stuff can be a bit fragile. This is especially true with the older HoS line stuff. Predaking was pretty solid all around, so this may have turned around.

#2 Toyworld. As someone else said, their stuff feels like it cam from Hasbro. And not the new thin crap Hasbro is now pumping out, the stuff from 5 years ago that was solid. These are figures I simply enjoy. I've said many times what these guys do is what Hasbro should be giving us.

#3 Planet X. Just like Toyworld, their stuff feels completely solid. They just got dropped a spot because they have fewer releases, but so far I like what I have.

#4 TFC. These are solid figures you can mess around with, just like my #2 & 3 spots. They got a lower score because of some of the joint issues experienced with the combiners. All of which were addressed with replacement parts in following figures.

#5 FP. While I have drifted from really enjoying their aesthetic over the years, there is no denying these guys make quality products. The overly complex designs, thin plastic in some parts, and stylized aesthetic keep these guys from their once mighty #1 spot for me, though.


On the bottom end, with Impossible Toys gone, DACA has picked up the slack.

Their G1 Skyfire looks AWESOME in bot mode ... and thus he shall stay because he has the ABSOLUTE WORST transformation ever!!!!
You have to remove parts, but not in a partsforming way.
More like: Remove this piece, slide these pieces past it, then replace it. And there are a couple places in the transform that do that!!! WTF?!?!?!?!?
It is less of a transform, and more like deboning a chicken.

I would like to add Unique Toys to the list of good 3rd Party companies, I own Mania King and Sound Mixer and could'nt be happier with them.

I'll probably get slated for his but the Igear products I own are also very good, admittidly I only own UFO and the Kup head, so cant speak for the rest of thier products.

As said Toyworld are also very good, Bii is a fantastic figure.

1st- MMC, without a doubt. Good plastic, good value. Now if only their release are as quick as their teasers...

2nd- Maketoys- For me they are pretty much on par with MMC, but gets a close 2nd because some of their ambitious designs causes the final product to be unnecessarily complex and a pain to transform (eg BattleTanker's 180 spin, tight angles on Giant, SonicDrill)

3rd- FansProject- Much like Maketoys, their smaller products tend to include rather complex designs, but on the other hand their Warbot/Headmasters seems to be a complete set of beast.

4th- Toyworld- Simple but effective, just like old Hasbro, nuff said.

5th- DX-09- These guys seems to be doing well for a newcomer, the only problems I have with their products is that they seem to have design their bots to a pixel accurate measurement, which gets screwed up when you add a layer of paint, so you get some really tight fit on the recent EvasionModeOP Armor, and the shoulders on Salmoore/Splinter needing the right angles to transform.

I don't have any from the lower end, because why bother buying if I dislike them, right? But just to list some of my reasons:

TFC- Weird plastic finish (personal, something just seems off about them), but I never did like their boxy designs. Seems to be a hit or miss at time, Hercules/Ares seems great, but Uranos/Prometheus are just meh.

KFC- I've heard mostly bad things, but seems they're trying to change now with their release of Transistor. Though they seem to have abandoned that whole name change thing.

2) TFC - Why are they on this list? It's because everything they do is "close, but no cigar" to what they're trying to homage. It's like they are given a design brief containing colours, features, altmode and robot mode proportions, but no image of the original G1 character. The end result is a bland design that looks more like a knockoff than a homage. Surprisingly there's a large fanbase out there who supports them. The company should have folded IMO.

I don't agree with this one bit. From what I've seen, TFC's "issues" are entirely in the realm of the subjective- they tend to depart a fair bit from the source material, but they feel more like total re-imaginings of/homages to the existing characters rather than a straight-up reproduction- they aren't trying to be spot-on G1, and are definitely very much there own thing. They feel to me more like production-level fanart than totally slavish versions of the G1 designs, which I feel gives them a tad more legitimacy. In many ways they're a relic of the early days of the 3P world, when absolute accuracy was less important than just making cool toys, which shows in their product (which is very "toyetic" compared to the more display-piece products made by other companies).

So while you can say their aestethic doesn't appeal to you, it's not fair to say it's actually bad- beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all.

Also, to the best of my knowledge their releases tend to be really solid and highly playable, with fairly simple but still engaging transformations and thick, chunky plastic- from what I've seen of Hercules (who I reeeeaaallly want!) I'd have no problems giving him to a considerate 12-year-old fan. Their stuff seems like it's meant to be played with, as opposed to stuff like MakeToys' products (which whilst awesome are also very fiddly).

Delta Magnus wrote:

2) TFC - Why are they on this list? It's because everything they do is "close, but no cigar" to what they're trying to homage. It's like they are given a design brief containing colours, features, altmode and robot mode proportions, but no image of the original G1 character. The end result is a bland design that looks more like a knockoff than a homage. Surprisingly there's a large fanbase out there who supports them. The company should have folded IMO.

I don't agree with this one bit. From what I've seen, TFC's "issues" are entirely in the realm of the subjective- they tend to depart a fair bit from the source material, but they feel more like total re-imaginings of/homages to the existing characters rather than a straight-up reproduction- they aren't trying to be spot-on G1, and are definitely very much there own thing. They feel to me more like production-level fanart than totally slavish versions of the G1 designs, which I feel gives them a tad more legitimacy. In many ways they're a relic of the early days of the 3P world, when absolute accuracy was less important than just making cool toys, which shows in their product (which is very "toyetic" compared to the more display-piece products made by other companies).

So while you can say their aestethic doesn't appeal to you, it's not fair to say it's actually bad- beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all.

Also, to the best of my knowledge their releases tend to be really solid and highly playable, with fairly simple but still engaging transformations and thick, chunky plastic- from what I've seen of Hercules (who I reeeeaaallly want!) I'd have no problems giving him to a considerate 12-year-old fan. Their stuff seems like it's meant to be played with, as opposed to stuff like MakeToys' products (which whilst awesome are also very fiddly).

You're right actually. Somewhere along the line (probably between #3 and #2) I went from crummy products to companies who release stuff I don't want. I suppose I could toss FansToys into that list simply because I don't collect MP figs.

I guess I need a new #2 then... I know there are some companies whom I simply haven't purchased from that could go on that list, but that would be simple hearsay. I'll put some thought into it.

Delta Magnus wrote:Also, to the best of my knowledge their releases tend to be really solid and highly playable, with fairly simple but still engaging transformations and thick, chunky plastic- from what I've seen of Hercules (who I reeeeaaallly want!) I'd have no problems giving him to a considerate 12-year-old fan. Their stuff seems like it's meant to be played with, as opposed to stuff like MakeToys' products (which whilst awesome are also very fiddly).

You make a good point here Magnus, and it is what I really like about Toyworld, PX and TFC, these guys CLEARLY embrace their roots as TOYS.

I could give their stuff to my 7 year old, and he could play with them. Transform them, combine them, smack them together like a kid will do, and they would stand up as well or better than any Hasbro product.

I wouldn't, just because they cost 4-5 times as much, but I could.

He LOVES my MMC Predaking, and I let him help me complete it when I got Tigris, but he wanted me to to play with it with him. His idea of play, was (of course) to bang it together with his toys (Classics Rhinox and Waspinator) so they could fight. Not OK with an MMC product. I could have let that type of play go on longer with Herc with no real fear of damage.

i have a bunch of 3P figures, but i dont think i have something from everyone. i dont know if i can rank them, but ill give my opinion based on what ive got.

fansproject: warbot defender, intimidator, explorer/munitioner, city commander, G3 trailer, columpio
as one of the "first" 3P companies you can see a definite learning curve, and have even their springer has even been bested hastak. but theyve only gotten better with time. their combiners look phenomenal, but are delicate. stand alone figures however are really solid. even combiner pieces when separate are really solid and inspiring.

igear: cogz, duneraker, rager, hench, spray, bushwaker, veer, ufo
gotta say, i love me some minibots. and i love igears renditions. i know theres a lot of criticism over some, but they hit the nail on the head for me. hasbros recent swerve and cosmos did replace my veer and ufo, but it doesnt bother me. those were the weakest igear ones anyways.

KFC: boxbomber, rhinohorn, ironpaw, MP10 hands
they can be delicate, but i do like their designs. im willing to give them another shot or two as ive heard theyve stepped up their quality.

maketoys: battle tanker, hyper novae, chaos/paladin
so far, solid figures. their new battle tanker "base" figure is borderline KO, but their original designs are inspired. what gets me though with the figures i own, is the price. for what they are i feel theyre overpriced. my next MT piece will be quantron which is pretty spot on for price, so maybe high prices arent a trend.

mastermind creations: knight morpher commander normal & black version
i know right? thats all i own from MMC? well, their debut piece was pretty good. and the black HOS prime was even nicer. now they werent amazing, but really impressive for a first try. after that, their pieces were too expensive for me at the time. i did want the seekers and shockwave, but that ship has sailed . their predaking isnt my cup of tea, but im planning on getting a handful of azaleas and the reissue hexatron. so ill see.

perfect effect: warden
a really phenomenal figure. must have companion piece to fort max.

planet x: caleus
i wanted to get genesis, but damn that price tag. their swoop is a really nice figure, but the heel on mine snapped off right out of the box and some pieces of him are sharp like a knife! maybe its just mine though. neither of those things stop him from looking great on my shelf though.

tfc: hercules, ares (nemean)
i love my herc, but he's not as solid as id like. im not sure if that just a consequence of being such a large combiner though. i plan to get the rest of ares, but nemean as stand alone figure is pretty nice. solid robot mode, and nicely proportioned lion mode. ugh.. ares sword though...

toyworld: grind rod, aurora, hardbone
if i have a favorite, its probably toyworld. i dont even know if i can describe why though. maybe its the big clunky aesthetics masked with surprising posability. grind rod might be my most favorite 3P figure in my collection. its just a fun *&$#@ing toy!

My FP Chop Shop broke. At the shoulder. I was bummed.

Other than that i've had good luck with my 3rd party stuff.

3rd Part Stuff I own

FP

City Commander and add on weapon set 5 out of 5
G1 Trailer 5 out of 5
Springer 4 out of 5 (his helicopter blades does not fit the design)
Broadside 5 out of 5 (Great re imagining of the character)
Superion Upgrade (limited by the mold but an excellent upgrade) 5 out of 5

All topnotch materials and design

Maketoys

Powerglide
Seaspray

Both are great modernization of theoriginal G1 mold. 5 out of 5

PE

Warden expensive but worth the price! 5 out of 5.

Plan to get FP Quickswitch or Six Knight.

fenrir72 wrote:3rd Part Stuff I own

FP City Commander and add on weapon set 5 out of 5

Had FP City Commander and Protector but got rid of them.

City Commander Just didn't look G-1 enough in either mode. Rate it better than Protector.

Protector looked visually good from miles away. Didn't like that 80% of the trailer didn't combine with the 1.0 Rodimus Robot mode. The super Rodimus Prime robot mode was a joke as it was barely 6 & 1/4 inches tall.

Hoping that 3rd parties improve on the City Commander and Protector ideas and designs.

Like to see a 3rd party create another Protector. This time doing a MP styled Rodimus that has a 7 inch tall robot mode. With a Trailer-armor that attaches to 7 inch MP Rodimus's robot mode to create a 9+ inch leader scaled Rodimus Prime super robot mode.

Love to see a Third part do another City Commander at the Leader scale and that looks more the cancelled CHMS G-1 styled Ultra Magnus in both modes.

Tsutsukakushi wrote:

fenrir72 wrote:3rd Part Stuff I own

FP City Commander and add on weapon set 5 out of 5

Had FP City Commander and Protector but got rid of them.

City Commander Just didn't look G-1 enough in either mode. Rate it better than Protector.

Protector looked visually good from miles away. Didn't like that 80% of the trailer didn't combine with the 1.0 Rodimus Robot mode. The super Rodimus Prime robot mode was a joke as it was barely 6 & 1/4 inches tall.

Hoping that 3rd parties improve on the City Commander and Protector ideas and designs.

Like to see a 3rd party create another Protector. This time doing a MP styled Rodimus that has a 7 inch tall robot mode. With a Trailer-armor that attaches to 7 inch MP Rodimus's robot mode to create a 9+ inch leader scaled Rodimus Prime super robot mode.

Love to see a Third part do another City Commander at the Leader scale and that looks more the cancelled CHMS G-1 styled Ultra Magnus in both modes.

For CC, either it was a way to get around copy right concerns, FP used the base mold's actual arms as the, well arms. It limited the arm reach and gave it a Popeye arms look. Even then, it wowed us enough that FP, after their uber limited CJ upgrade set a very high standard.

If we could rewind back time, they should have used a separate part of the fig as the arms. So my position stands on FP. This is similar to what happened to MP-01. For its time, he was state of the art, now MP-10 floors it in every way.

X is going to love this!

VioMeTriX wrote:I have purchased both hand sets this guy produce. one set was a bad mold job and fingers would just fall off, the other set couldn't hold anything. Keith I hope you are reading this.... great concept, terrible execution... wish I could've returned those hands, but by the time I got around to installing them was like 30 days. my bad for not opening immediately, as I would have returned them.

fenrir72 wrote:This is similar to what happened to MP-01. For its time, he was state of the art, now MP-10 floors it in every way.

I disagree with this.
The truck CAB is better on MP-10, for sure, but the legs/5th wheel connection point to the trailer is WAAAAAAY to thick and looks awful IMO, really hurting the improved truck mode. In fact, I dislike just about everything about the leg design on MP-10, as I think they look pretty bad in bot mode too.

I prefer the look of the bot mode on MP-01 overall, as it looks more cartoon accurate to me, with a more proportionate build. In addition to the leg stuff, MP-10 is a bit pin-headed, and his arms are too long.

Now, these are minor gripes in the grand scheme of things and I admit I'm being a bit nit-picky in my criticism. MP-10 is still a very good figure, but he has not replaced MP-01 as my favorite figure of all time.

I'd like to add Mech Ideas to the list of high quality 3rd Party producers, recived their Apex and Geminus (Topspin and Twintwist) tis week and damn they are good toys!

Saw Vangelus's review of those guys and I kinda want them. They look pretty great.

Delta Magnus wrote:Saw Vangelus's review of those guys and I kinda want them. They look pretty great.

They are such good figures, really well made and very sturdy, nothing feels delicate or scary during the transformation, they are very reminicent of the early Classics figures in terms of their durability, and they look incredible stood with Has/Tak Roadbuster and Whirl. Just need get my Custom Rack N Ruin off the ground and MMC to release their Impactor and my Classics Wreckers are complete!

leakin' lubricant wrote:I'd like to add Mech Ideas to the list of high quality 3rd Party producers, recived their Apex and Geminus (Topspin and Twintwist) tis week and damn they are good toys!

These guys have a relationship with MMC, so it's no surprise the quality is top-notch.

I liked Apex & Gemini so much, I bought the TFcon recolors, which are also super fun.

I have Piston, but haven't opened him yet. Gauntlet is on the way, too .

megatronus wrote:

leakin' lubricant wrote:I'd like to add Mech Ideas to the list of high quality 3rd Party producers, recived their Apex and Geminus (Topspin and Twintwist) tis week and damn they are good toys!

These guys have a relationship with MMC, so it's no surprise the quality is top-notch.

I liked Apex & Gemini so much, I bought the TFcon recolors, which are also super fun.

I have Piston, but haven't opened him yet. Gauntlet is on the way, too .

Gauntlet is awesome!

Everyone here already said everything that needs to be said.

oh one thing. I feel like FP Quality is slipping. With my personal experience with their Sludge and what I've seen with mindwipe (floppy shoulders due to heaviness of wings?) Hope their new stuff has better care! and no more ball jointed hips!!

Threadromancy i know, but speaking of MMC (who to the best of my knowledge have never released a bad figure- in fact I really, really want their Hearts of Steel Seekers) what's the general opinion on Cyclops and the little mini-sub he comes with? I was actually considering getting him and having him as my Legends Shockwave (hear me out- I like the idea of the mini-Shockwave being the "real" Shockwave and Cyclops being a drone/suit that he controls) but he seems to be pretty expensive on the secondary market and I don't know much about the general opinion on him. I know Vangelus found him kinda scary to transform and his mini-Cyclops was a tad loose.

Delta Magnus wrote:Threadromancy i know, but speaking of MMC (who to the best of my knowledge have never released a bad figure- in fact I really, really want their Hearts of Steel Seekers) what's the general opinion on Cyclops and the little mini-sub he comes with? I was actually considering getting him and having him as my Legends Shockwave (hear me out- I like the idea of the mini-Shockwave being the "real" Shockwave and Cyclops being a drone/suit that he controls) but he seems to be pretty expensive on the secondary market and I don't know much about the general opinion on him. I know Vangelus found him kinda scary to transform and his mini-Cyclops was a tad loose.

I have it and I love it, but the transform can be frightening.

Folding the sides of the ship into the "wings" is where the scary bit comes in.
It ALWAYS felt like I was going to snap the plastic.

One of the reviewers (I forget which one) said it only feels that way the first time you transform it, then it loosens up ... I wouldn't know. I opted to go with an alternate transform that does NOT flatten the wings and instead forms square tubes from them. I think it still looks great, and it doesn't feel like it is going to break.

My mini-sub felt fine, but TBH I have not gotten it out in years. I remember wanting the other versions of it though. I never did get them, but I liked it enough that I wanted them.