Sunday, 17 February 2019

News Roundup: Toy Fair News Part 2: Cyberverse



As I wait for more info to come out in regards to the Generations Line, let's take a detour to what's turning into a surprise sleeper hit this Toy Fair, Transformers Cyberverse... I'm just as shocked as you to be saying that.

Starting with the Scout Class toys, and while the Optimus Prime toy is nothing exciting (I honestly don't get the point of these half transformed figures. the Scraplet does interest me because no one saw this thing coming (something that I get the feeling is going to be a theme for the next season). While I do wish it was more rounded, it's hard to tell if this is based on a design in the show, or a design inspired by the shows art style, and it does all that it needs to do considering what Scraplets are known for. Hope this thing isn't impossible to find at stores... who am I kidding, it probably will be here...

The two One Step changers we see here are a new Shockwave, and a new Skybite and both of them don't look very good. It's cool to see firing missiles return for Shockwave, but he transforms into nothing, whereas Skybite has a good looking shark mode, but an awkward looking robot mode due to the one step changer requirements. Never personally been a fan of most one step changes, and these don't change that. Next!

Warrior Class Deadlock and... Gnaw?! Unfortunately, there's not much excitement here either. I am not a fan of Deadlocks locked in arms for the sake of the swords, and Gnaw looks like he's an upscale of the Legends Class Gnaw from Titans Return, just with sharper points on him to go with the more angular look of the show. It might not be entirely true due to gimmick engineering, the torso is new after all, but the engineering looks to be the same. It's kinda funny to see that out of all the Decepticons to get a Warrior Class toy, they go for Gnaw.

I'll loop back to the Battle Armour in a moment, but I first want to cover the Ultra and Ultimate class toys, Alpha Trion and Grimlock respectively. Grimlock... No version of Cyberverse Grimlock released so far as toys have been interesting to me. While I like the show's robot design, the t rex mode has always felt off. To me, it's the legs, because while they look fine in robot mode, they're so far away from the body in T-Rex mode that it doesn't look right, especially as they go for the more accurate T rex stance. The tail blade gimmick is also pretty weak as it doesn't do much for any mode.

Alpha Trion though, I'll admit that this does look pretty good. The small guns in the space jet mode are quite pathetic, but the kibble they cause in robot mode does pass off a convincing cape. I can't help but get the feeling that this is going to suffer a lot from Robot under Jet syndrome, though the look of the jet could make the robot junk work. It's hard to tell in these images. Pick up? Maybe if I can get it on sale, cause these are not cheap for what they are.

Now then, the new gimmick for this line, Battle Armour, some figures come with a small vehicle that can be broken up, plugged onto them and they can wear it as armour. It's dumb, really, really dumb, yet I love it. I hope that these can be interchanged to a degree because I'm genuinely considering getting these. There's something I find absurd, yet charming about Optimus Prime wearing The Ark as power armour, or Skybite, a flying shark, wearing a mining drill while Starscream wears a bulldozer. The one I find the most awkward though is Bumblebee wearing a navel battleship. Granted, the Ark is even more rediculous when you think about it, but this is still a car using a navel battleship as a second pair of arms. Broadside didn't take the criticism he got in Titans Return too well. "See you again in 30 ish years Broadside!"

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