primenova
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
Posts: 6,057
|
Post by primenova on Feb 6, 2015 12:33:02 GMT
What where your thoughts on this line which is mainly now the Legends toy size
The start of the line was to have small & commander toys & play sets that featured characters from G1 to Movies that you could play with. When the line changed to Legends we got those TFP play sets to go with the CV Ark.
Guzzle is a great toy.
|
|
|
|
Post by Toph on Feb 6, 2015 15:04:39 GMT
While I never had many, I loved them. Most of the initial releases were like... A third market exclusive. Drug stores only, which kept me from getting in on it from the start. Then from there on, by the time it was expanded to more accessible retailers it was into repainting the handful of original molds. Generally getting weirder and weirder (hotshot into bumblebee type weird), and were just getting to be boring.
I lost interest when they were taken over by the movie. The non-movie legends were really hard to find.
Then by the time they came out of the movie, and into Prime... I originally had more interest in the newly rechristened Cyberverse than I did in the actual Prime mainline. But unfortunately they were now priced way above what they were actually worth.
While the prime mainline were pretty crappy toys, after buying a legion and commander, and spending almost $20 usd, i realized these two at that price were not as good as a bad deluxe.
(I've since aquired most prime cybverse in clearance sales, and am much more satisfied.)
The Prime commanders were almost as much as a true scout, significantly smaller, with legend engineering. I'd rather spend the extra money for a true scout.
Then when the commanders were renamed Legends, and had a poor quality minicon added in, the price got raised to be equal to scouts. Now the minicons are dropped, and it's full scout price for a commander, and they're trying to shoehorn them into the mainline.
My personal feelings are that all potential the cyberverse line and scale had, has been weeded out. The original point of it were to be cheap checkout stand transformers that only cost three or four bucks. An impulse purchase in it's most basic form. They stood alone as neat little pocketformers, and had potential to bring to life an entire new Micromaster style world, with playsets, and cities.
Hasbro never fully realized this, and never developed this beyond a couple awkward vehicles.
And now they've priced them well above what the toy is actually worth. And now they're trying to pass off these guys as mainline figures resulting in some rediculous scale issues, and pretty much destroying any chance at proper renditions of those characters.
That's my feeling on the line.
It had way more potential than was exploited, it was handled poorly, and became the most dramatically overpriced pricerange in the modern franchise. (Though deluxe is catching up to taking that title of most overpriced).
|
|
|
|
Post by legios on Feb 6, 2015 15:24:05 GMT
I have a lot of sympathy with your position there. I remember being quite taken by the Cyberverse stuff initially - in fact until this year the Stabbimus Prime in that scale was the only Movie Prime I had - and in fact I got rid of the larger Dreadwing because I felt that the Cyberverse version of him did everything I really wanted it to do and had the advantage of having a smaller storage footprint.
They were, at one stage the epitome of the "pocket money" toy - and I do find things like that tend to make for good impulse purchases. Whereas when things reach a tenner my thinking part actually kicks in, when they were at the lower price point there was more chance of me going "ah, why not".
Karl
|
|
|
|
Post by Llama God on Feb 6, 2015 17:42:22 GMT
Agreed - they're now far too expensive. Which is a shame, because I really, really love these little guys. I don't know why, but there's something irresistible about these smaller form-factor versions of the characters. I have most of the Prime characters in Cyberverse scales, and after picking up the DotM Ark I then went and got most of G1 Legends so I could use the Ark as the G1 Marvel Ark. I'd agree that, really, the line was never fully properly realised.
And it's a real shame. Because as well as being inexpensive to buy, one would have assumed that they'd be less expensive to make. After the IDW Prime, 'Bee, Starscream and Megs I really thought that we might end up with a set of IDW-esque characters. But alas, no. And as far as I can see no more Cyberverse playsets coming out in the near future. They're just over-priced combiner accessories now. Which is a real shame.
|
|
|
|
Post by Philip Ayres on Feb 6, 2015 18:57:28 GMT
What where your thoughts on this line which is mainly now the Legends toy size The current Legends line is in no way Cyberverse. Generations Legends are the smaller toys for the Generations Deluxe scale. Cyberverse's origins are back in 2005s Legends of Cybertron line which continues through Classics, Universe (including Animated), the first two Movies, HFTD and RTS. It's after RTS that Cyberverse emerges with Legends being renamed Legions and being smaller version of Deluxe and Commanders being downsized Voyagers. The defining point of Cyberverse is they're smaller versions of larger characters nd that they use the 3mm peg weapons. So the current Legends aren't Cyberverse. Cyberverse covers DOTM, Prime, Beast Hunters, some retooled (earlier) Legends for Generations and some recycled moulds from all lines for AoE. I bought all the DOTM Cyberverse sets and then all the figures & sets from then on. The only Cyberverse set I don't have is the Bumblebee Energon Driller (if anyone sees one lmk!) It had the potential to be a Micromaster Base style line but the base and connection aspect just wasn't exploited enough. The figures are generally good. No absoloute stinkers. There's some real exceptional ones in there: Prime Ironhide is waaaay better than the deluxe version. So he'd be my best Commander. Legions..... The Terrorcons Legions are all fab but it's hard to separate any out. Sets: the DOTM BB for the Base/vehicle, and the Bumblebee Powersuit which is just awesome. The Ark is good, but could have done with the floor plating being complete on both sides. It would have been nice to throw us a bone by adding Micromaster base connectors. Optimus Maximus is fun but my life that's some horrible plastic quality |
|
|
|
Post by Llama God on Feb 6, 2015 20:02:00 GMT
You make a very good point about the current Legends versus Cyberverse. Which I think really just reinforces my point - as I said, I love the Prime Cyberverse toys, and I just wish they'd carried that play pattern through to Generations and then RiD. But clearly it wasn't working for Hasbro, since they just gave up on it with AoE. A shame.
As to my favourites (which I'd failed to notice whilst I was posting), yeah, Ironhide's pretty damned good, and once I finally unpack all my Transformers he'll be joining my G1 crew. Is he my favourite though..? Yeah, probably. Although DotM Commander Ironhide comes a close second - there's just something about that toy that I can't resist. My favourite Legion class would have to be Wheeljack. Again, I'm not sure why, but the design is so clean and simple, and it's fun to handle - has to be my favourite. With the added bonus of coming with a Jackhammer. Which was nice.
|
|
|
|
Post by Pinwig on Feb 6, 2015 22:20:22 GMT
Air Vehicon. That was the figure that made me pay attention to this smaller scale. I'd ignored it till I came across one of those. It's perfect for the size.
|
|
|
|
Post by Llama God on Feb 7, 2015 0:35:05 GMT
Oh Primus, how could I forget Air Vehicon? So good I have both that and the Ace Vehicon version. It's almost perfect. But still not *quite* as perfect as Jackie.
|
|
primenova
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
Posts: 6,057
|
Post by primenova on Feb 7, 2015 7:22:38 GMT
One thing Hasbro missed for Movie 4 - Lockdown ship playset Cyberverse. But with thinking about this it does also seem that Kreo took over from CV playsets too
|
|
|
|
Post by Pinwig on Feb 7, 2015 8:39:42 GMT
Oh Primus, how could I forget Air Vehicon? So good I have both that and the Ace Vehicon version. It's almost perfect. But still not *quite* as perfect as Jackie. Indeed. That one £3.50 find in a Wilkinsons I think led me not only onto the Ace Vehicon, but the Takara deluxe sized version and then the Botcon Pounce & Wingspan set. That figure is probably the least Transformer like of any of the Prime ones, but I luuuurve it. I've never really liked the Decepticon 'minion' forces idea, because they're just canon fodder for Autobots to shoot each week meaning no named characters get hurt, but because the Prime Vehicons were so close to being Cylons it seemed to work that Megatron would have a crew of characterless henchmen with limited intelligence to keep them subservient. |
|
|
|
Post by Philip Ayres on Feb 7, 2015 8:43:32 GMT
You know there's a black Air Vehicon Legion in the Takara line? And a purple car Vehicon?
|
|
|
|
Post by Benn on Feb 7, 2015 9:34:28 GMT
I never bought him, but I did like the look of Prime Trailbreaker.
|
|
|
|
Post by Philip Ayres on Feb 7, 2015 9:44:44 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Philip Ayres on Feb 7, 2015 10:02:02 GMT
|
|
|
|
Post by Toph on Feb 7, 2015 10:20:41 GMT
Oh Primus, how could I forget Air Vehicon? So good I have both that and the Ace Vehicon version. It's almost perfect. But still not *quite* as perfect as Jackie. Indeed. That one £3.50 find in a Wilkinsons I think led me not only onto the Ace Vehicon, but the Takara deluxe sized version and then the Botcon Pounce & Wingspan set. That figure is probably the least Transformer like of any of the Prime ones, but I luuuurve it. I've never really liked the Decepticon 'minion' forces idea, because they're just canon fodder for Autobots to shoot each week meaning no named characters get hurt, but because the Prime Vehicons were so close to being Cylons it seemed to work that Megatron would have a crew of characterless henchmen with limited intelligence to keep them subservient. One reason I HATE Prime as a show is the writers were soooo incompetent. They missed soooo many opportunities to make something brilliant. And the vehicons were one of the biggest missed opportunities. Clone Wars wasn't much different. Generic troops, that reused the same animation models over and over again. Yet, the clone trooper episodes were the best written of tge series, with the troopers themselve just simply shining way brighter than the jedi stars. The Vehicons were set up this way. With minimal effort they could have written a slew of stuff that made characters out of this generic animation model. From complex deep plots that had individuals questioning why they go out to get slaughtered by the autobots, down to the henchmen humor that they turned Starscream into. |
|
|
|
Post by Pinwig on Feb 7, 2015 12:03:45 GMT
You know there's a black Air Vehicon Legion in the Takara line? And a purple car Vehicon? Yes. The black air vehicon is on my list of 'if I ever come across one at a reasonable price' list. As is the first edition Prime deluxe vehicon, which doesn't look anywhere as nice as the second version. |
|
