Transformers Power of the Primes Lege... um... "Deluxe Class" (?) Battletrap: Can this be considered an upgrade?

While nowadays Hasbro and Takara tend to dedicate an entire year's worth of toys to a gimmick, back in Generation 1 and Generation 2 (it could be said that it was phased out in the Beast Era), gimmicks were given to select few characters, and those could be considered teams for either faction. One of those was the Duocons, two Decepticons that have two alternate modes that combine together to form a robot. The best way to describe them is something like one of the old Power Core Combiners, where once the two pieces are together, spring connections move around to form the "robot". A toy gimmick that limits movement in the toy combined with G1 toy design not letting anything that doesn't need to move to have any movement at all, you can imagine how well G1 Flywheels and Battletrap looked. The thing is though that there isn't a huge amount of love for the Duocons, and many expected Battletrap to get the same treatment Flywheels got, a Titan Master toy by the name of Skytread in Titans Return. Two Legends class toys of two new characters that combine into a new Battletrap? No one was expecting that. Allow me to introduce Battleslash and Roadtrap, today's review subjects.

Let's start with Battleslash, the Legends class Decepticon Helicopter who really shows the sacrifices a Combiner needs to make. The Helicopter mode, while reminiscent of the G1 toy in terms of design cues, its pretty clear that if they thought they could have gotten away with no helicopter mode, they would have. There is no possible way this Helicopter would ever fly. Proportionately, while it does at least hide the robot, the helicopter only takes up a few millimetres of the vehicle mode, and the rest is just undercarriage with a helicopter tail on it. Its also got quite a decent gap in it, and no I am not talking about the obvious combiner port at the front of it. It just gives off a messy looking feel to it. Both Battleslash and Roadtrap also have nowhere for a Titan Master or Prime Master to drive the two of them, unlike almost every other Titans Return and Power of the Primes Legends class figure. It is possible to integrate them in, but the places feel forced in and don't work well with the rest of the toys. For Battleslash, you can plug them in on the back of the tail of the Helicopter (and sacrifice what little clearance there was for the rotor blades), and on Roadtrap, you can plug it in on the top of the car (though that one at least can still be used in Robot mode). Onto Roadtrap's alt mode now, and thankfully this one pulls off the plausible vehicle mode a lot better than his chopper brother. There are still some sacrifices here (don't look at him from the back, he doesn't like it), but this still looks like a feasible blue 4WD with pink windows and a robot chest on the roof. The paint details on both figures do look good, though it is clear that Roadtrap got the bigger share of paint in this mode thanks to the front grill, headlights, pink windows and silver bumper bar. Out of the two vehicle modes, if you can only get one of the two, go for Roadtrap.

Robot modes are where the two kinda flip positions in terms of who is better on their own. While Roadtrap's very basic to transform due to everything on him revolving around the "totally not combined mode legs" engineering, Battleslash, on the other hand, have a very complex transformation for a Legends class toy. Everything moves around on black armatures to change the positions of the arms and lets. Unfortunately, Battleslash still isn't winning the war on kibble and proportions. While Roadtrap is kind of a basic bot with awkwardly place tabs making it impossible to have his arms straight down, Battleslash has got Bayformers Starscream like hips and massive legs with tiny arms. He has not been missing Leg day. The combiner port basically hangs off Battleslash's ass and while he's at least getting some good use out of the Rotor blades, everything else unique about him is for the wrong reasons. Roadtrap is once again the standout, but more because he's a basic bot with the only kibble being some really big feet. However, it's clear that these two exist for one thing, so let's get to the main event.

I would not be surprised if this was a passion project by one of the designers at Hasbro or Takara. Especially after figures like the Decepticon Targetmasters, Topspin and Twin Twist in Titans Return, someone must have a love of somewhat forgotten G1 characters with mixed at best toys, and giving them way more of an upgrade then they really needed. Battletrap is amazing in every sense of the word. Where did this come from? Was there someone on the design team who was not only adamant in making a new Battleslash, but went out of their way to make it one of the best figures in Power of the Primes? And that's not just me saying that. One of the announcements at SDCC last weekend was the winners of the Transformers Hall of Fame for 2018, and Battletrap was the winner of the toy category. It's clear that every sacrifice made between Roadtrap and Battleslash was for this mode. Almost full articulation (no wrist swivel, but he's got an ab crunch thanks to the combiner port kibble on Battleslash), with any limitations, easily be worked around. Roadtrap's lower arms do get in the way a bit, but if its a real problem for you, they're just on ball joints and can be easily removed. A modification I make to the transformation is that I position Battleslash's arms in a way that keeps them close to the back, but still able to freely spin the rotor blades. The only thing lost is the ability to move the arms back, but that's something I'm personally fine with. In combined mode, the two are roughly Deluxe sized, which does further add to the unnecessary, but amazing things that were done in this upgrade.

Quite drastic of an upgrade, huh?

Considering most people would have probably been fine with a glorified one-step changer like the original toy was, this is genuinely impressive to see how much can be done with the character designs now. While we're always going to get another Optimus, another Megatron, another Starscream, and plenty of new versions of the more iconic characters, its figures like this that keep me interested in the Generations line, even if it sticks to G1 a bit too much at times. It's new versions of characters we don't see often, or characters that have never had a toy before that excite me a lot more than the usual cast (why do you think I was hoping for a Power of the Primes Star Saber?). Here's hoping the War For Cybertron toyline can find a way to squeeze in a Flywheels in the next three years (It can't be weirder than a leak showing we might be getting a new Crankcase and Hightower). If you can find them, they're worth picking up. Up next on the main site is the start of reviews for Digimon Adventure tri, and up next on here, we're going to the Clone Wars with a review of the Lego Star Wars: Clone Wars AT-TE.