Tapeformers return: Rewind

I bit the bullet, took the plunge, took a gamble and won, mostly.
With Buzzsaw nearly killing my appetite for Titans Returns as a whole it took handling some of the toys in hand before I dared to make another attempt at one of the former tapes.

Visually he looks quite tempting. The IDW inspired head gets a lot of love as well. The only minor nitpick there is the lack if a little red paint in his head camera.
Coming in robot mode all the nostalgia points are hit. The included gun can be handheld or mounted on the arm recallung the G1 toy. Rewind in this incarnation however only comes with a single gun.

The only thing really hinting at Rewind's new life are the legs. I dislike the tankdetail and the small feet offering somewhat lacking stability. It almost feels like the upper body was done in 90% of the design time with the legs being done as an afterthought.
Now these details do come in to play later along. No longer a tape we now get a little tank like vehicle as one of the modus of this new design.

Honestly this mode feels a lot like something thrown in because Hasbro simply did not believe a dataslug, tablet or smartphone altmode would sell. It's hard to ignore all the stickers and the way the arms and gun connect for the turret makes me fear a lot for those fragile applications as well. This will most likely be the first and last time mine ever appears as such.
In short, cute that they included but the real altmode is here:

A nice touch is is using an image of his old mode as a background image for the phone/tablet. To my happy surprise the gun also neatly integrates to the side.

Now for the part that almost did me in on the first dataslug. The stickers. Well the good news is you don't have to apply them yourself despite what the instructions say.

The bad news though is that while slightly better applied the stickers are still prone to peeling and feel very very flimsy. Not something I feel included to handle much, give to my son or launch from Blaster.

All in all he has the looks but he'll be a shelf bot to look at and not a toy to fiddle with. Considering Blaster is very much a handson toy that is truly a shame.

Powermasters return

Well now. This is a tribute a long time in the making. In a world where many a G2 tribute has been done for the big guy nobody went back to that very first body switch. Not untill now that is.

Something that also does not happen all that often is that this guy is actually a retool of an existing Ultra Magnus instead of the other way around. Owning this Magnus I did have some misgivings as to how well this attempt was going to pan out but I can tell you, boy did it ever!

Making a bit of a flashback to original design plans for the original version of this character this time around Prime is a headmaster, of sorts. I'll admit to personally rather liking the helmet. Without a master the empty eyesockets make him look like an empty battlesuit.

This toy really drives home just how hard the design team is working on making sure we have unique looking characters while still fullfilling their retool quota. Something we might dislike but also something that is the hard reality for keeping costs down while still giving the fans what they want at retail prices.

Being a retool also mean we can recycle a bit even giving Magnus a bit of that Maximus Ambus look he recently rocked in the comics.

The main draw for this line however is just how much interaction the figures can have with the masters and the smaller and bigger vehicles.

Not that the big guy needs it but you can power up this master quite a bit even with the line just getting started.

For the connectors of these new masters it seems the design team stole some bits from the recent Brainstorm we saw as a Headmaster.

One if the better things taken out of that design is using a balljoint on the neck of the master to articulate the head. The nicely done smooth head look though is dropped in favor for a very generic build structure between all the masters. How much a face suffers from this will vary from toy to toy but those with helmets or an originalky blocky head will obviously come out best.

The new heads are a little smaller as well making them incompatible with G1 as well as their very recent cousin.

Back to Prime though. In truck mode he pulls off a pretty solid looking truck combo look. He opens up from the back and smalker vehicles can go in easily enough.

From a nostalgia perspective the truck, like the robot mode, hits all the right buttons. For the new generation the same seems to be true as my son instantly took a major liking to this Prime proclaiming it to be his. :)

So far this guy seems pretty damn nice but there is a little less stellar mode still left. Not that the G1 base mode was a lot to look at of course. Still, this could have used a little more work.



Now visually I can forgive it some things but the fact that nothing can go up and down those ramps due to the arms sticking in the way? Do notice the nice detailibg there though.

All in all this guy is a winner through and through. 

Just as a friendly tip for those strugling with the neck attachments, use this angle:

A place for the ramblings of a bitter fanboy...

... or an old sod or whatever suits your bloody fancy really :)

It's been a good few years since I updated the Domus Mundi. A good few years from a time when hot new reissue Transformers were first spotted at my crappy, done in notepad by hand, website.
As the years go on, the plastic mountains grow higher and the climbers more desparate.

Join me as we explore this vast new world and boldy go where.... Oh hell no!

Join me!