Sabrblade wrote:ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Sabrblade wrote:(and, bafflingly, Cyberverse Shadow Striker) that they really G1-ified
It's not so baffling if you look at her as a twofer homage... and as an obvious pretool of Side Burn.
Except Cyberverse Shadow Striker has nothing to do with her Universe namesake, so there was no reason to try and shoehorn a Side Burn pretool into her that made her look nothing like her Cyberverse self in robot mode from the neck down, especially since Cyberverse Shadow Striker's cartoon model was already blocky like the G1 aesthetic.
Hmm. I'm probably wrong about the twofer homage part then, I forgot the original Roulette and SS changed the heads vs. However, as far as Side Burn goes... Cyberverse Shadow Striker has a clearly Side Burn inspired head, so there's that. It's also possible someone originally tried to have the pretool be Universe Shadow Striker, and either wires got crossed or some stupid higher up said "No, do
Cyberverse Shadow Striker instead because she's more relevant."
In any case, I'd say it's
Shadow Striker who's the shoehorn here since Side Burn is undoubtedly the mold's main raison d'etre. And in fairness, the original molds for the Autobot Brothers
did kinda suffer a critical existence failure.
Sabrblade wrote:It would be like if they had tried to also force a helicopter mode into the Legacy Bulkhead figure in an attempt to make him a dual update to both Energon Bulkhead and Prime Bulkhead, just because Energon Bulkhead was the first Bulkhead.
No, I'd say it's closer to what was pulled with the Minerva-Elita hybridizing mess (only a bit more justified), or from a more positive perspective it could be compared to TR Black Shadow.
Sabrblade wrote:ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Mmm... I wouldn't say Black Zarak is niche. At least not to adult collectors. Masterforce is relatively popular,
You'd be surprised how many adults in this fandom have never watched Masterforce, especially when you consider how many kids who grew up on the first live-action movies, Animated, and Prime are either in or nearing adulthood right now. Prime alone started airing about 14 years ago, so those who saw it in their preteens or early teens are now at least in their Twenties. Not to mention all the folks who refuse to watch anything with only subtitles. Not everyone in this fandom is into hardcore anime.
Even if they've never watched Masterforce, many will still have heard of Black Zarak from fans who've been around longer due to the longtime status of his OG toy in the fandom. Probably more than will have heard of Cybertron Metroplex without having watched Cybertron.
Sabrblade wrote:ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:They really freaking did.
The lack of full shoulder rotation is completely and totally inexcusable. With the fundamental tradeoff of the figure being giving up gimmicks for articulation... there is absolutely no excuse for frakking up a fundamental basic area of articulation like that - especially when it's one the original version
did have.
Apparently, it was for the sake of cartoon-accuracy, since his shoulder treads tended to always stay vertical no matter what directions his arms moved and stretched in the show.
A pitiful excuse for gimping the articulation of a figure whose existence is mainly justified
by articulation.
Sabrblade wrote:ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:Which brings me to: then there's the idiotic blocking of the turret from being able to rotate 360 degrees (luckily, it's not too hard to open up the turret and cut off the offending tumor of plastic),
Not the first time Hasbro's altered the original function of an aspect of an existing design in an attempt to prevent
Penis Mode.
It's not even very effective at that, so it's just dumb.
Sabrblade wrote:ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:And of course, losing those gimmicks is a definite bummer
This one goes out not strictly to you, Zelda, but to everyone who's brought this up. I personally am fine with Legacy Armada Megatron nixing most of the original toy's gimmicks because, IMHO, most of those original gimmicks were either pointless at best or ludicrous at worst.
- The ramp with the capture claw in his leg? Nearly every single Mini-Con was too big for this feature.
Ground-based ones could at least drive up and down it, and WFC Micromasters would probably play nicely with it.
Sabrblade wrote:- The "launch runway" for Mini-Cons on his shoulder? Couldn't actually "launch" anything.
It couldn't spring-catapult them into the air, but you could certainly play out launching them with it manually. Rather like SIEGE shoulder launchers.
Sabrblade wrote:- The three spring-loaded prongs with Mini-Con ports on his other shoulder? These did nothing.
They did do something: Give him more Mini-Con ports so he could attach more Mini-Cons for extra power (And weapons, depending on which you attached).
Sabrblade wrote:- The "chomping action" of the horns? Made them easier to accidentally pop off the figure.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA, laughable point to bring up in comparison with
this version. At least on the original, the horns actually tab in firmly. On this version, they're still detachable (instead of just being, say, a single molded piece held between the halves of the head) even though that gimmick isn't a thing anymore, and they don't stay pegged in super-well.
Sabrblade wrote:- The double-barreled missile launcher on his turret activated by a Mini-Con port? The gears inside kept getting stuck.
1. Never had that happen myself 2. The spring-loaded deployment of the launcher isn't what I'm being particularly sad about losing, here. It's more the original's range of movement (and it would have been nice if the missiles were separate pieces).
Sabrblade wrote:- Full Blast Mode? The main turret wasn't designed to even point forward, so this is something the Legacy toy actually got right!
Perhaps, but it's a small thing.
Sabrblade wrote:And the double missiles had to be adjusted halfway in order to get them to point forward, further messing with the spring-loaded gear mechanisms inside the toy.
1. Again, not something I've found to cause too much grief, at least not yet. 2. Since the double launcher on this
isn't dealing with gears and springs, it only being able to swing as far as the Full Blast Mode position is just plain sloppy. Rather like Putzwing's barrel not actually allowing free elevating without modification
Sabrblade wrote:- The shiv hidden inside his arm? Sure, it looked cool, but you couldn't actually DO much of anything with it due to the toy's severely limited articulation
He had full shoulder rotation and elbow joints, plus sideways arm movement thanks to transformation. I've found that to be plenty to slash with it. The only weakness of the original's arm articulation is a lack of bicep swivels. It was the legs that were the real stinkers articulation-wise (something for which I blame the stability complaints about Omega Prime).
And of course, there's his not having the Leader-1. Which leaves Full Blast Mode incomplete.
Sabrblade wrote:I don't disagree that what they did to the Legacy figure's shoulders sucked, but even with the shoulders neutered before I got the upgrade kit, the Legacy figure was far FAR closer to what I had wanted out of the original figure as a kid, as I always felt the original figure was too ambitious for its own good, with too much raw spectacle over functional practicality.
I've personally enjoyed messing around with its (well, Galvatron's) play features a fair bit and find them fun and functional. Whereas I found the Legacy version's neutered shoulder rotation without an upgrade kit severely limited the alternate playability it
should have brought. And it was such an inexcusably dumb decision...
Sabrblade wrote:ZeldaTheSwordsman wrote:[Where'd you get your SamMakesToys kit from?
From Sam himself at TFCon Orlando 2023. He was there in person and was selling kits to those who wanted them. Luckily for me he accepted PayPal since it was at a point when I had run out of cash to spend.
Ah. That was very lucky for you, then.
Anyone know a place to order his stuff besides eBay? $35 shipping on a such a small thing is stupid.
EDIT: Forgot to say this last night. In fairness to Legacy Armada Megatron, with the shoulders de-neutered and the turret freed he's actually fairly fun. And I'm kinda hoping we see a
Universe Megazarak redeco of him.
If we don't, I may get a second one for repainting purposes.
The Burning Megatron combo is going to be a bit sad tho, especially the aircraft carrier component (it's flat and lacks the claw!). Not as sad as it looks in the misconfiguration on the box (Oh Hasbro), but still.
I still feel like combining with Megatron should maybe have been left to a secondary smaller Tidal Wave figure; it's kind of annoying to have to buy a Titan for the combination (especially when his being a Titan means the combination has to be via watered-down half-dummy components).
Maybe we'll get 3P replacements for the battleship and aircraft carrier components... I'd say "Or maybe a 3P smaller Tidal Wave" but we all know 3P almost never do figures meant to go with the official ones anymore (at least, not non-MP official ones).
