Post by Philip Ayres on Jun 24, 2009 9:42:32 GMT
Optimus Prime
This year's Optimus comes in a nice upright box packaged in robot mode with the accessories strewn round it. Op looks quite like the his Cybertron form in the early Armada episodes to my eye..... Good articulation all over - barring the lack of a waist - with hands that open. One nice big gun for him to hold that acts as a missile launcher, nice and chunky and a probable role play weapon in the future. Chest panels swing sideways to reveal the matrix, which can be removed. Head has a mouth, but also has a very cool visor that can be raised or lowered but still allows the head to turn - nice touch this. Pulling back on the shoulders and folding the arms behind his back reveals similar connectors to those found on Megatron for attaching extra arms etc - see bellow for how these are used. Prime comes with a unique planet key shaped like The Matrix from the Transformers The Movie, moulded in clear light blue plastic with an Autobot symbol in the middle.
The extra stuff in the box consists of a wing assembly and 2 pieces with cannons - these can be combined to form a weapon station for Op.
From this basic mode you can flip the backs of his legs down - nice hinged and slightly extending joints here - and under his feet as some extra height (as per God Bomber's legs) The 2 pieces with cannons attach to the back of the legs, with the cannons pointing out the side. The wing assembly on the backpack attaches to him with pieces under and over the armpits locking in front. The wings have 2 (different) cannons which can be mounted under his wings or up his back smokestack style. One cannon is a laser type, with lights and sound set off by a planet key.. The other uses a planet key to flip 2 missile launchers out the side, and can have the missile launcher gun mounted on the end of it. Both the wings and the cannons are mounted on pivots which gives lots of room for posing as you like ! No limits are placed on the smaller robot's articulation by the added armour.
From basic Optimus figure - minus the extra bits - the TF is quite simple: fold the shoulders back onto his back, fold the forearms up and pull the legs up to his chest ala Powermaster Prime, and fold out the legs extensions. This makes a passable Prime cab - something that RID Prime/Car Robots Super Fire Convoy didn't do. From here you can strap on the missile launchers as extra weapons - folding the over the top with the tips pointing forward produces a Magnus like look. Around the back of this you can then attach the wings and cannons to complete the fire engine.
The fire engine itself is of the water cannon variety and with a sort of futuristic look. All the cannon gimmicks are intact. You could quite easily repaint this in black and pretend it was a military vehicle ! Holds together quite well which is good for something made out of separate pieces. There's also a final "jet" mode to be had with the wings and cannons folded out the side but this looks odd - reminds me of the Micromaster leader base ! - and due to the slope of the cab roof it looks like the cab is falling off.
So..... It's posable which is an improvement over the Armada Op, but still reasonably feature laden. It's mainly red and is well proportioned in both modes which beats Energon Op but still has expansion sockets. If I'm nitpicking the big vehicle mode doesn't look terribly realistic, but it's meant to be futuristic (same can be said for both Armada and Energon Ops)..... so in this respect it loose out to RID OP/CR SFC which it compares to due to them both being fire engines. And to be very picky there's also a sort of plasticness to it (which is common to many big toys, especially in red) which I don't think you notice so much in the RID version due to it being more realistic. It's a great toy, well worth having, and an improvement on several recent efforts as a stand alone Prime.
More Pictures can be found at Remy's Galaxy Force Convoy Galleries: Act 298, Act 299 and Act 300
Cybertron Optimus Prime was sold in Japan as GC-01 Galaxy Force Convoy. The main difference between the two toys is that Galaxy Force Convoy has a Planet Key painted with gold edging making it look more like the Matrix.
Combined Modes
Optimus Prime combines with two other toys:
Leo Breaker
Leo Breaker has a third mode however - he serves as a "power up" arm for both Prime and Megatron. Instructions are included for Transforming Prime and Megs to take the arms - Prime's is easiest - fold one of his arms behind his back like it's the front of the truck. Megs is more of a challenge and has some arm origami involved which leaves an orange spike sticking up out his shoulder. So we'll stick to using Prime.
To TF to arm mode start from robot mode. Fold the head down, fold the arms to the sides and straighten and straighten the legs. Unplug the arms just below the shoulders - yes they do unplug though EXTREME FORCE may be necessary. Peg them onto the front of the leg. Remove Prime's backpack, and clip on using the connector on his back. Fiddle the connector about depending on which side you're mounted - it moves slightly to allow the arm to be forward slightly when mounted - and then lock the backpack up.
Arm looks a little odd at first - the organics don't meld with Prime's angular look. But it's a decent enough arm. Claw gimmick still works. He can hold Prime's gun (if he's a right arm) or the tail sword using the peg holes on the robot hands. And on the lion/robot knee joint there's a std size hole, so you can use that to gift him wonders like the Star Sabre or Requiem Blaster. In fact there's a 2nd hole - one for a screw - slightly lower down that fulfils the same purpose :-) He's got an elbow that turns in courtesy of the hip joints. A waist joint on the larger robot would have given him a bicep but that's not a huge loss.
One of the main problems I have with Cybertron is that the replacement arm mode feature on Prime & Megatron is rather wasted - Leo Breaker (and his repaints) are the only Cybertron toys that can form an arm. Surely other Voyagers - Mudflap, Quickmix and Cybertron Defence Scattorshot - or even deluxe toys could have made useful limb modes ?
Wing Saber
Wing Saber's other function (beyond robot and jet mode) is to act as a combiner with Cybertron Optimus Prime: Prime should be in super mode, but remove the wing & gun assembly. From Wing Saber's robot mode remove both swords and missile launchers, and place the nose cone of the jet onto his back. Take the missile launcher and clip onto the sides and back of Prime's feet - the curious S shape of them now adds heel spurs to Optimus. Fold the head in. Raise the arms up at the shoulders and straighten out. Extend all 6 gun barrels. Fold the chest plate up so it's level with his neck, and then further so it's upside down over where his head would be - they'll be 2 grey supporting struts at neck level. Pull the chest panel up so the struts unfold, and then bend down at the top of the chest panel so the panel is pointing forwards. Rotate the waist 180 degrees and fold up the feet. Fold the legs into a kneeling position and swing to the sides. If you so desire fold the wings out to extend the wing span - I prefer them in but you need to decide before combining. There will be a yellow clip visibly in the chest cavity and 2 raised blocks above and to the sides of it. These recess into the head raising lever slot and shoulder blade panels on Optimus. The grey arms fold over his shoulders, and the crest over Prime's chest. The sides of the crest slide apart, and the swords - via posts on the handles - peg into Prime's fists.
The resulting super mode ticks many of the Optimus Super Mode boxes - it adds a pair of over the shoulder cannons - smaller than Overload's, but these are 6 barrelled :-). He gets wings - don't forget original Prime was commander of a flying squadron. There's some extra missiles and armour, and of course some swords.
Now the swords come in two parts - sword blade complete with standard size per that any toy with a standard size fist hole can hold - and handles/adaptors that allow them to be mounted on Wing Saber and held by Optimus. This means the sword handles have standard size peg holes when the sword's aren't mounted in them. So you can remove the swords and either reattach them to Wing Saber's wings so they don't get lost or loan them to a passing warrior robot. You're left with 2 handles that form an adaptor for Prime's rather odd but articulated hands so Prime can now hold the standard size weapons - Star/Energon sabre, Requiem Blaster, Skyboom shield, Robotmaster missile launchers, Minicons Overrun, Rollout and Prowl and many other weapons are now available for Prime to use. And since the handles aren't needed for Wing Saber's jet mode, and the blades can be stored on Wing Saber the only time Prime need loose them is when Wing Saber wants to hold his swords. A small touch but quite brilliantly enhancing the play value of the Cybertron Op.
In fact the only real problem I have with the Wing Saber add on is that it can't be used concurrently with having Leo Breaker attached as an arm.
EX-02 Sonic Convoy Giftset
The Sonic Convoy giftset contains a slightly repainted Sonic Bomber (see Cybertron Wing Saber's Review), Cody's Ramble (see Cybertron Scrapmetal) and a Galaxy Force Convoy repaint. All the red & blue plastic on the robot become clear with the wings & back pack remaining solid red and the guns which end up on the Super Robot legs getting a coating of red chrome.
Great looking repaint, would have been even better if the wings had got the clear plastic treatment too.
"Galaxy Force" Optimus Prime
This repaint of Cybertron Optimus Prime - not released in Japan or the UK - swaps all the blue - including the head - and the grey of the upper limbs for black. The grey of the hand gun and the end of the electronic large weapon become red. The clear blue of the windscreen now becomes a dark smoked colour and the cab gets decals showing all four of planet symbols - speed, earth, beast and giant planets.
This is quite a minor repaint maintaining the general Primeness of the colours. It did however make it onto a Legends Version and a re-release of Armada Supercon Optimus Prime
Legends Repaints
Optimus Prime has a Legends version which has been repainted numerous times. The "Galaxy Force" version came first swapping blue for black and adding the planet symbols to the cab. He then became the grey & black Menasor (Motormaster) and finally the light blue Hotzone (Hotspot)
Possible Future Repaints
Cybertron Optimus Prime has never had an Ultra Magnus repaint - either all white or white with a red & blue trailer - or an all black Nemesis Prime/Scourge repaint.
This year's Optimus comes in a nice upright box packaged in robot mode with the accessories strewn round it. Op looks quite like the his Cybertron form in the early Armada episodes to my eye..... Good articulation all over - barring the lack of a waist - with hands that open. One nice big gun for him to hold that acts as a missile launcher, nice and chunky and a probable role play weapon in the future. Chest panels swing sideways to reveal the matrix, which can be removed. Head has a mouth, but also has a very cool visor that can be raised or lowered but still allows the head to turn - nice touch this. Pulling back on the shoulders and folding the arms behind his back reveals similar connectors to those found on Megatron for attaching extra arms etc - see bellow for how these are used. Prime comes with a unique planet key shaped like The Matrix from the Transformers The Movie, moulded in clear light blue plastic with an Autobot symbol in the middle.
The extra stuff in the box consists of a wing assembly and 2 pieces with cannons - these can be combined to form a weapon station for Op.
From this basic mode you can flip the backs of his legs down - nice hinged and slightly extending joints here - and under his feet as some extra height (as per God Bomber's legs) The 2 pieces with cannons attach to the back of the legs, with the cannons pointing out the side. The wing assembly on the backpack attaches to him with pieces under and over the armpits locking in front. The wings have 2 (different) cannons which can be mounted under his wings or up his back smokestack style. One cannon is a laser type, with lights and sound set off by a planet key.. The other uses a planet key to flip 2 missile launchers out the side, and can have the missile launcher gun mounted on the end of it. Both the wings and the cannons are mounted on pivots which gives lots of room for posing as you like ! No limits are placed on the smaller robot's articulation by the added armour.
From basic Optimus figure - minus the extra bits - the TF is quite simple: fold the shoulders back onto his back, fold the forearms up and pull the legs up to his chest ala Powermaster Prime, and fold out the legs extensions. This makes a passable Prime cab - something that RID Prime/Car Robots Super Fire Convoy didn't do. From here you can strap on the missile launchers as extra weapons - folding the over the top with the tips pointing forward produces a Magnus like look. Around the back of this you can then attach the wings and cannons to complete the fire engine.
The fire engine itself is of the water cannon variety and with a sort of futuristic look. All the cannon gimmicks are intact. You could quite easily repaint this in black and pretend it was a military vehicle ! Holds together quite well which is good for something made out of separate pieces. There's also a final "jet" mode to be had with the wings and cannons folded out the side but this looks odd - reminds me of the Micromaster leader base ! - and due to the slope of the cab roof it looks like the cab is falling off.
So..... It's posable which is an improvement over the Armada Op, but still reasonably feature laden. It's mainly red and is well proportioned in both modes which beats Energon Op but still has expansion sockets. If I'm nitpicking the big vehicle mode doesn't look terribly realistic, but it's meant to be futuristic (same can be said for both Armada and Energon Ops)..... so in this respect it loose out to RID OP/CR SFC which it compares to due to them both being fire engines. And to be very picky there's also a sort of plasticness to it (which is common to many big toys, especially in red) which I don't think you notice so much in the RID version due to it being more realistic. It's a great toy, well worth having, and an improvement on several recent efforts as a stand alone Prime.
More Pictures can be found at Remy's Galaxy Force Convoy Galleries: Act 298, Act 299 and Act 300
Cybertron Optimus Prime was sold in Japan as GC-01 Galaxy Force Convoy. The main difference between the two toys is that Galaxy Force Convoy has a Planet Key painted with gold edging making it look more like the Matrix.
Combined Modes
Optimus Prime combines with two other toys:
Leo Breaker
Leo Breaker has a third mode however - he serves as a "power up" arm for both Prime and Megatron. Instructions are included for Transforming Prime and Megs to take the arms - Prime's is easiest - fold one of his arms behind his back like it's the front of the truck. Megs is more of a challenge and has some arm origami involved which leaves an orange spike sticking up out his shoulder. So we'll stick to using Prime.
To TF to arm mode start from robot mode. Fold the head down, fold the arms to the sides and straighten and straighten the legs. Unplug the arms just below the shoulders - yes they do unplug though EXTREME FORCE may be necessary. Peg them onto the front of the leg. Remove Prime's backpack, and clip on using the connector on his back. Fiddle the connector about depending on which side you're mounted - it moves slightly to allow the arm to be forward slightly when mounted - and then lock the backpack up.
Arm looks a little odd at first - the organics don't meld with Prime's angular look. But it's a decent enough arm. Claw gimmick still works. He can hold Prime's gun (if he's a right arm) or the tail sword using the peg holes on the robot hands. And on the lion/robot knee joint there's a std size hole, so you can use that to gift him wonders like the Star Sabre or Requiem Blaster. In fact there's a 2nd hole - one for a screw - slightly lower down that fulfils the same purpose :-) He's got an elbow that turns in courtesy of the hip joints. A waist joint on the larger robot would have given him a bicep but that's not a huge loss.
One of the main problems I have with Cybertron is that the replacement arm mode feature on Prime & Megatron is rather wasted - Leo Breaker (and his repaints) are the only Cybertron toys that can form an arm. Surely other Voyagers - Mudflap, Quickmix and Cybertron Defence Scattorshot - or even deluxe toys could have made useful limb modes ?
Wing Saber
Wing Saber's other function (beyond robot and jet mode) is to act as a combiner with Cybertron Optimus Prime: Prime should be in super mode, but remove the wing & gun assembly. From Wing Saber's robot mode remove both swords and missile launchers, and place the nose cone of the jet onto his back. Take the missile launcher and clip onto the sides and back of Prime's feet - the curious S shape of them now adds heel spurs to Optimus. Fold the head in. Raise the arms up at the shoulders and straighten out. Extend all 6 gun barrels. Fold the chest plate up so it's level with his neck, and then further so it's upside down over where his head would be - they'll be 2 grey supporting struts at neck level. Pull the chest panel up so the struts unfold, and then bend down at the top of the chest panel so the panel is pointing forwards. Rotate the waist 180 degrees and fold up the feet. Fold the legs into a kneeling position and swing to the sides. If you so desire fold the wings out to extend the wing span - I prefer them in but you need to decide before combining. There will be a yellow clip visibly in the chest cavity and 2 raised blocks above and to the sides of it. These recess into the head raising lever slot and shoulder blade panels on Optimus. The grey arms fold over his shoulders, and the crest over Prime's chest. The sides of the crest slide apart, and the swords - via posts on the handles - peg into Prime's fists.
The resulting super mode ticks many of the Optimus Super Mode boxes - it adds a pair of over the shoulder cannons - smaller than Overload's, but these are 6 barrelled :-). He gets wings - don't forget original Prime was commander of a flying squadron. There's some extra missiles and armour, and of course some swords.
Now the swords come in two parts - sword blade complete with standard size per that any toy with a standard size fist hole can hold - and handles/adaptors that allow them to be mounted on Wing Saber and held by Optimus. This means the sword handles have standard size peg holes when the sword's aren't mounted in them. So you can remove the swords and either reattach them to Wing Saber's wings so they don't get lost or loan them to a passing warrior robot. You're left with 2 handles that form an adaptor for Prime's rather odd but articulated hands so Prime can now hold the standard size weapons - Star/Energon sabre, Requiem Blaster, Skyboom shield, Robotmaster missile launchers, Minicons Overrun, Rollout and Prowl and many other weapons are now available for Prime to use. And since the handles aren't needed for Wing Saber's jet mode, and the blades can be stored on Wing Saber the only time Prime need loose them is when Wing Saber wants to hold his swords. A small touch but quite brilliantly enhancing the play value of the Cybertron Op.
In fact the only real problem I have with the Wing Saber add on is that it can't be used concurrently with having Leo Breaker attached as an arm.
EX-02 Sonic Convoy Giftset
The Sonic Convoy giftset contains a slightly repainted Sonic Bomber (see Cybertron Wing Saber's Review), Cody's Ramble (see Cybertron Scrapmetal) and a Galaxy Force Convoy repaint. All the red & blue plastic on the robot become clear with the wings & back pack remaining solid red and the guns which end up on the Super Robot legs getting a coating of red chrome.
Great looking repaint, would have been even better if the wings had got the clear plastic treatment too.
"Galaxy Force" Optimus Prime
This repaint of Cybertron Optimus Prime - not released in Japan or the UK - swaps all the blue - including the head - and the grey of the upper limbs for black. The grey of the hand gun and the end of the electronic large weapon become red. The clear blue of the windscreen now becomes a dark smoked colour and the cab gets decals showing all four of planet symbols - speed, earth, beast and giant planets.
This is quite a minor repaint maintaining the general Primeness of the colours. It did however make it onto a Legends Version and a re-release of Armada Supercon Optimus Prime
Legends Repaints
Optimus Prime has a Legends version which has been repainted numerous times. The "Galaxy Force" version came first swapping blue for black and adding the planet symbols to the cab. He then became the grey & black Menasor (Motormaster) and finally the light blue Hotzone (Hotspot)
Possible Future Repaints
Cybertron Optimus Prime has never had an Ultra Magnus repaint - either all white or white with a red & blue trailer - or an all black Nemesis Prime/Scourge repaint.
