by Zeedust » Fri Oct 05, 2018 7:53 am
- Motto: "Nothing says more about us than the futures we left behind."
- Weapon: Anti-Thermal Cannon
It's amazing how Bumblebee seems to consistently get the worst toys in every size except One-Step (and even then it's the second-worst) even though he's the main character.
Having the scout class only transform halway is still the worst idea Hasbro's had in a long time. And since it's the cheapest price point (and thus most likely to be bought as an impulse buy or by parents for their kids), I can't help but think it'll hurt sales of the toyline as a whole. Shadow Striker at least manages to look kinda like those toys they used to put in happy meals with the character's head and shoulders sticking out of a tiny car, like she's driving herself, but that may just be because we're not seeing her from the front.
Interesting how these one-steps have autotransform AND action gimmicks. And how it doesn't make them look any worse than previous one-steps (faint praise, I admit). Prowl and Wheeljack look adequate, and Megatron actually looks pretty nice. Hot Rod doesn't look quite as good but having a big buzzsaw still puts him ahead of Prime and Bee in my eyes.
The standard sizes seem to be getting their articulation back, Most of these seem to have knees, elbows, and turning heads. Nice that Slipstream's getting a new mold, gives me hope that future seekers could at least have some retooling to better reflect their individual character designs.
I might be in the minority here, but I like that they've gone back to individualized action gimmicks like they used to have before the DotM toyline, rather than building each size around a single gimmick for everyone. It offers more variety, and in theory it allows better integraion with individual figures (though in practice it seems they might be a little out of practice with doing that). Obviously, some are better than others; Prowl's shoulder guns seem fairly natural an intuitive, but Prime slapping on a giant Autobot symbol in vehicle mode looks kinda stupid, and I'm not entirely sure what Slipstream's is even supposed to be other than a big spinner thing that amuses me for no good reason. Soundwave's is probably the best, it's certainly a clever way of working Laserbeak into a toyline that doesn't have a place for accessories, and the only thing that would make it better is if he launched as he opened up like BW Scorponok's bee or Polar Claw's bat (not that those necessarily were particularly reliable or went very far, but the spirit was there), or at least could be detached, but that seems highly unlikely.
deployed.
