Cartoon Review - Cyberverse

[BigTransformerTrev]

Well with Hasbro releasing the first two episodes on their Youtube channel we finally get a proper look at the new cartoon - Cyberverse.

Contrary to popular belief, this appears not the next installment of the universe that contains Prime, Rescue Bots and Robots in Disguise (15). This appears to be a whole new universe.

The two episodes released only go for a bit over 10 minutes. One has to wonder if this will mean it will be aired the same on television or whether it will be your average 23 minute cartoon and they are just splitting them now for the net release previews.


PLOT
It appears that with the release of the Bumblebee movie at the end of this year, the powers that be are trying to steer Bumblebee back towards his movie persona. In particular he speaks through the radio, is no longer a leader, has a sports car alt-mode (though that was in other cartoons as well) and is on Earth looking for the Allspark.

Bumblebee has amnesia in this series, one has to wonder if that means he is going to have amnesia in the upcoming movie as well.

There is lots of G1 shout outs here, in particular the fact the Autobots are leaving for Earth on the Ark, which also looks very G1/FOC in style.

A synopsis of the first two Ep's is quite easy: Windblade has come to Earth, looking for the crew of The Ark as well as the Allspark. Of course so have the Con's. Windblade finds Bee, Thundercracker finds them, they fight Cracker, Cracker comes back with Slipstream, the Bots get away and find the Cons scout ship. That's pretty much it for what we have seen so far.


VISUAL STYLE
The animation is.... OK. Personally i'm not a fan but it may grow on me, it seems a bit too simplistic. Then many said the same about the 'Animated' cartoon and that turned into one of my all-time favorite series.

Visual wise they are heading back towards G1 with the brief glimpses we have seen of Thundercracker, Megatron and Starscream. Even Bee himself has a G1 head. Other characters who are more 'Generations' than G1 are done in the same style.

Characters seen in the first two episodes:
Bumblebee - a cross between G1 and Movieverse
Windblade - much like the RID and TR cartoons
Thundercracker - the most G1 we have seen in a cartoon in years!
Slipstream - looks more G1'ish than she did in Animated
Megatron (via flashback) - very G1
Starscream (via flashback) - very G1
Strika (via flashback) - a new slim look for her
Perceptor (via flashback) - much like his IDW incarnation based on the Transformers 2010 toyline, rather than G1'ish like in the TR cartoon
Optimus (via flashback) - in good health, positively glowing!
Prowl (opening credits) - a G1'esque cop car again
Hot Rod (opening credits) - a G1'esque sports car (wonder if he will sound French?)


There is not much else to say at this point until we see more. I don't think the plot here is going to hold any major surprises and the only thing the first two episodes have left me wondering is if we will see a new Perceptor toy. Besides that, my impression is that this cartoon will be like the related toyline: simplistic and aimed at a much younger audience.

[BigTransformerTrev]

Ep 3 is online.

The whole thing is pretty much a flashback sequence, showing how the Allspark came to leave Cybertron. Of note:

*Neither Welker or Cullen are doing the voices, though the new voice actors do a reasonable job of impersonating them.
*The Seekers seem to be going to be used like the Vehicons were in Prime, as in there are tons of them to be destroyed. Saw some in completely new colours and there were tons all in Sunstorm'ish colours.
*More evidence that this is not the same continuity as beforegiven that Soundwave talks and Grimlock looks nothing like the RID version bar that he has a mouth. Also Windblade was friends with Bee on Cybertron and not Earth. The only way it could be the same as the Prime/RB/RID universe is if a LOT has happened between the end of RID and this.
*The animation seems less impressive than before when you see it try to represent bigger fight scenes.

So overall, underwhelming.

[GoktimusPrime]

Storywise ... not much to go off. There's potential for it to be good, but so far it's everything shrouded in mystery. But I think the real issue I have with the story is the lack of initial engagement. It's currently the story of an amnesiac and his friend on a quest for a Cosmic MacGuffin, while the amnesiac is struggling to remember what the MacGuffin is. It's clearly 1D20 and he rolled a series of natural 1s a while back. :p Mystery is cool and all, but I feel that there's too much mystery - especially given that these are like 10 minute mini-eps. There's nothing terribly compelling to make me care about the characters or invest in the story at this stage -- but the pilot episode is where making the audience engage is the most crucial point. The early eps need to persuade the audience to keep watching, or you risk pulling a Voldemort Collectables and turning people off from coming back to you. Cos right now I'm still waiting for this series to give me a reason to care.

Most other TF series establish this at even the basic level of having humans around and presenting the Decepticons as an imminent threat to humanity. The audience is persuaded to keep watching future episodes to see how the Autobots' struggle to defend Earth and its people against the Decepticons will unfold. The first episode of Transformers Prime dropped a huge bomb by killing off Cliffjumper! TF Prime made damn sure that the audience felt that this was a consequential war. And they avoided the trope of resurrecting Cliffjumper -- if anything, they played right against this by having his corpse being reanimated as a zombie. G1 did the same thing by introducing us to the Witwickies and the recent RID series also did something similar with the Clays and other local humans. Heck, even Bayformers manages to do this. TF1 and AOE were the Autobots trying to prevent the rise of the Decepticons, and ROTF, DOTM and TLK all dealt with Earth-shattering events. Bayformers did present plot complications that had some element of an imminent threat -- okay, the execution of how the story came to resolve these plot points wasn't the greatest, but the plot points were still there. Maybe upcoming eps will make the imminent threat clearer, but we're 3 episodes in and I'm still not persuaded to emotionally invest in this story. :/

Beast Wars managed to present imminent threats without involving humans until late Season 2. :) So they don't have to have humans in the story, but there needs to be some sort of clear impetus that the audience can perceive in order to care about what these characters are doing. Although being set on what is presumably modern day Earth, one would assume that modern humans are around. Unless Bumblebee and the others are just traipsing around in their Cybertronian modes and this is Earth in the distant past or future (i.e. pre or post human civilisation). Cos we see Bumblebee transforming into the same type of car in flashbacks on Cybertron. Probably post humanity given that he has radio voice samples - unless they're archived transmissions from Cybertron. It's not like Bayformers where he's using actual dialogue from known movies, shows etc. And clearly it's tuned in to the same station with the same DJ all the time.

Animation: Actually well executed. Note that I'm purely talking about the animation here, not the art designs or style. But I haven't noticed any glaring technical errors, unlike say early episodes of G1 where characters frequently swapped colour palettes (but this also means that yellow Cliffjumper does appear in MTMTE Part 1 and other eps! :D). I don't think that the animation is exceptional - kinda looks like a high budget flash animation. One thing I don't like about the animation is how everyone has only 3 fingers. This is an animation decision rather than an art decision because animators draw or use models with 3 fingers because it's cheaper to animate. It's why Hanna-Barbera so notoriously used it. Mainframe did it for characters like Rhinox, but he was a rarity -- most BW TFs had 5 digits on their hands. The lack of detail on the characters themselves might be an artistic choice, but removing their pinkies is a cost decision. It looks literally cheap.

Art: Yeah, nah. Don't like it. And I admit that it's totally subjective. There's nothing inherently wrong with them having light in detail designs or very cartoonish looks. But ya know, the standard design aesthetic for Transformers is the Japanese Mecha look. It's what G1 was based on and has become the metric for Transformers designs, and whenever a TF series deviates from this it's going to trigger our confirmation biases and make us initially dislike it. But if the story is any good, and also if the toys are good, we can quickly overlook this. Look at what happened with Beast Wars. A lot of people were initially hesitant because it was such a far departure away from the Japanese Mecha aesthetic of G1 and G2. But the quality of the toys and the show soon won fans over. The toys have failed to win me over and I'm still undecided about the show.

But ultimately, it is the toys that needs to succeed over the show. Transformers is, at its heart, a toy franchise, not a cartoon franchise. I could list many cases of this, but this post has already well exceeded its "TL;DR" point 3 paragraphs ago so I'll stop now. :p

[BigTransformerTrev]

Just watched episodes 4 to 8. A few observations:

Oh and of course SPOILERS

*Seems they have earth-style modes before they went to Earth. You see Bee driving round as a sportscar and Optimus on an asteroid as a truck.

*The female purple Seeker from the first few episodes isn't Slipstream - she shows up to command that one as well as Thundercracker. Wonder if we will ever find out that Seekers name. Also a green Seeker shows up you assume to be Acid Storm but answers 'yes commander' in a female voice so must not be him. You never see it in robot mode so who knows - looks like most Seekers are just going to be generic palette swaps.

*Dirge and Ramjet show up in a flashback and are Coneheads and referred to by name - hopefully will see some decent toys of them (well - one can dream anyway).

*Grimlock doesn't sound like either his G1 or RID counterparts. Instead he speaks like a refined gentleman.

*Get to see a bit of history through Bumblebee's multiple flashbacks of Megatron as a gladiator and the rift between him and Optimus that causes the war.

*Shockwave seems to be an amoral scientist again and is seen experimenting on giving a Seeker two heads. Also he commands lots of drones that sport his alt-mode

*Cybertron is not isolated. Windblade is from Caminus and there is (yet another) flashback of Bee and Hot Rod where they are visiting Veloictron.

*Don't hold out hopes for a Blurr toy thats better than the 1-step changer recolour we have so far - he dies, along with Veolictron itself from the Rust Plague (much like Cosmic Rust from G1).


So overall it's still a bit hard to peg this cartoon. There are times when juvenile-amnesiac Bumblebee is truly annoying and the cartoon seems its aimed at 5-year olds. Yet we get so see Blurr die, Megs rip Bee's voicebox out and Shockwave experiment so there are some darker elements being introduced as well.

[BigTransformerTrev]

The two episodes released only go for a bit over 10 minutes. One has to wonder if this will mean it will be aired the same on television or whether it will be your average 23 minute cartoon and they are just splitting them now for the net release previews.

Yup, it aired on Go! this morning and went for the full half hour (which included commercials). So two net episodes must equal one TV episode.

[griffin]

Even though I watched the first four episodes on youtube (through an IP router), I recorded and watched the episodes that were on today.
It's a slow start... I think it could have had more "flashback" as the first scenes, to generate more hype and interest in the larger cast of characters, instead of focusing on just two (of the most annoying) characters for most of the episodes I have seen so far.
The overall premise is interesting, and probably original for Transformers (like a mystery novel that slowly works towards what answers, that both the characters and audience are in the dark over).... but it really could have used any two other characters to make it less cringe-worthy.


I also found it ironic that the first Decepticon to be featured (not a millisecond flashback) is a toy that is not expected to be released in the mainline of the toyline (Thundercracker). Even if ToysRUs didn't shut down in several countries (including here), a feature character shouldn't become a limited store exclusive just because that store was probably paying the toy company for the privilege... it just annoys collectors, as it did with Movie Hotrod and Movie Stinger - both of which were Walmart exclusives in America, so didn't end up being released in the regular toylines in other stores... which affects other countries if no retailer has the budget to take on extra exclusives.

As such, we aren't likely to see Cyberverse Thundercracker here either... making it hard for kids to want to play out the premiere episode... and harder for parents to find the character toy their child has on their christmas wish-list this year.


Back to the cartoon... I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the season, as some of the titles and descriptions are intriguing... and I hope it doesn't disappoint.
If they continue playing two episodes every saturday, we will have the entire "chapter 1" of 18 episodes played by the last Saturday of the year.

[reillyd]

First episode is now on NineGo's app for streaming

[BigTransformerTrev]

Was interesting to see Rack'n'Ruin make a very brieft cameo on the episodes on the weekend.

Oh, and to see Arcee and Chromia side by side. Confirmation that Arcee is not the blue motorbike character weve seen far in the background.

[griffin]

The cartoon has had high and low points to it... being fairly inconsistent. The earth scenes, especially with bumblebee & windblade, are getting annoying, and almost worth fast-forwarding just to see the flashback scenes.

It has been interesting watching the Cybertron and Velocitron scenes... the high points, with the cameos of various classic characters.
Maccadam was interesting... based on the more recent IDW version of him possibly being an original Prime.
And yes, the Rack-n-Ruin cameo had me all excited for a minute for the potential of an official toy after 30-something years... but then realised how poorly engineered and over-gimmicked the Cyberverse toys are, ruining any RNR toy they could give us.
According to tfwiki, there's only another 6 half-episodes left, which is just 3 more Saturdays... and they still haven't found any Autobots, or a clue as to where they might be.

[BigTransformerTrev]

And yes, the Rack-n-Ruin cameo had me all excited for a minute for the potential of an official toy after 30-something years... but then realised how poorly engineered and over-gimmicked the Cyberverse toys are, ruining any RNR toy they could give us.


I’d probably still buy it to round out my Wreckers display :o:D

[GoktimusPrime]

I've watched up to Episode IV so far and I must say that I was pretty impressed. Wow... Blurr's Infinity War moment was pretty harsh! But I agree with what griff's said -- most of the good stuff seems to be happening in Bumblebee's flashbacks and the current day Earth stuff is pretty lame thus far. So yeah, the episodes are pretty hot and cold - only that it switches from being hot and cold within the same ep (i.e. flashback vs current time).

[BigTransformerTrev]

Well S1 is over already. So my thoughts on the characters as they panned out in the first season:


Autobots
Optimus: Pretty atypical - tough, brave, honorable, removable mouthplate etc. Will be interesting to see him in more than just flashbacks in S2.
Wheeljack: Despite the lack of faceplate I kinda like this Wheeljack, going back to his 'mad-inventor' roots
Perceptor: Only seen in flashbacks, not much to comment on yet
Prowl: Look forward to seeing him actually do something more than get shot in S2
Arcee: Hasn't done much yet
Chromia: Hasn't done much yet
Blurr: Quite liked him, shame he is dead. There goes the chance for a toy of him that wasn't recycled from RID
Hot Rod: Kinda cool, want to see more of him
Bumblebee: Pretty annoying to be honest, but the humour of him appeals to the kids I suppose, my son is loving this rendition of him.
Windblade: Lets face it, you can't have anything Transformers without Windblade these days. Not badly done.
Grimlock (http://www.bigangrytrev.com/toys-review-cyberverse-grimlock-shockwave/): Kinda like Aquaman from Batman: Brave & the Bold. I must admit, I did see the twist coming with him going from super articulate and friendly to becoming the older version who is angry and with a speech impediment. What I didn't see was that he would be both, Angry and speech-challenged as a T-Rex, but his former self as a robot. I kinda like it, its a bit like how he was in Monstrosity.
Rack'n'Ruin: An official toy please! Even if its a crappy Cyberverse one.
Ratchet: Hasn't done much yet

Decepticons
Megatron: Only seen in flashbacks, interesting to and fro between him and Optimus as things lead up to the war.
Soundwave: Like the powers, like the look, like the voice, hated him dancing
Shockwave (http://www.bigangrytrev.com/toys-review-cyberverse-grimlock-shockwave/): Logical, kinda angrier looking than usual, an odd but kinda cool altmode and conducts twisted scientific experiments. Nicely done!
Shadow Striker: They have changed the character quite a bit, will be interesting to see where it leads or if she will simply continue to hate Bumblebee and not develop further.
Seekers
Starscream: They got the arrogance downpat. And its good to see him go one-on-one with Optimus and actually hold his own for a while, as well as intimidate other Cons and fufill his role as a proper Commander of the Decepticons (under Megs). Better than the usual 'whiny backstabber' he often gets portrayed as.
Slipstream: Subcommander of the Seekers. One of the more fleshed out characters with her hatred of Windblade and her nervousness of failing Shockwave and Starscream.
Thundercracker: Working under Slipstream, not much characterization
Acid Storm (http://www.bigangrytrev.com/toy-review-cyberverse-acid-storm/): Is he a she or she a he? (Discussed here (http://www.bigangrytrev.com/toy-review-cyberverse-acid-storm/))
Dirge: Looked really cool, hoping for a toy
Ramjet: Looked really cool, hoping for a toy
Thrust: No longer a Conehead? Why?
Nova Storm: Different colour AND different gender. Odd.

Other
Maccaddams: Pretty cool portrayl of him as super powerful and able to foretell the future but just wants to run his bar. Hope he crops up again!
Teletraan-1: Pretty much replaced by the newer-quirkier backup version of itself, don't know if I like or hate to be honest.


I'll leave others to sum up what they thought of the plot and how season 1 ended. I've got a feeling season 2 should (hopefully) be an improvement.

[KELPIE]

I kinda feel cheated when they mentioned 90 cameo's... and it doesn't help that 50% of the characters are random seekers.

[BigTransformerTrev]

Wow - the first two episodes of Season 2 were actually really good! :eek::D

[griffin]

Wow - the first two episodes of Season 2 were actually really good! :eek::D

Indeed... there was more action in those 2 episodes than the entire first season. I didn't like the prolonged bashing of Starscream by Megatron... the physical violence on a weaker individual seemed excessive for a kids cartoon, particularly when a simple cannon blast could have had the same result.
It's nice to have Bumblebee talking normally too.

I just remembered - MORE Rack-n-Ruin! The more they use him, the more chance we have of a toy... even if it is a crappy gimmicky Cyberverse toy, it is one of those UK comic characters who never got a toy.

[BigTransformerTrev]

Indeed... there was more action in those 2 episodes than the entire first season. I didn't like the prolonged bashing of Starscream by Megatron... the physical violence on a weaker individual seemed excessive for a kids cartoon, particularly when a simple cannon blast could have had the same result.
It's nice to have Bumblebee talking normally too.

I counted and Megs either hits or throws Screamer about a dozen times, more throws than punches. For me I found Starscream bashing an already unconscious Megatron in the face several times while laughing to be more confronting.

I lost count of how many different coloured Seekers there are now, they seem to give them all random palette swap colours and chuck them in randomly. I swear Optimus bashed at least a couple of different Thrusts when running down a hallway with yet another Thrust waiting in the control room. I saw a Seeker jet coloured like Dirge but no Conehead robot of him like appeared in S1. I saw a few white Seekers but none of them were Ramjet.



I just remembered - MORE Rack-n-Ruin! The more they use him, the more chance we have of a toy... even if it is a crappy gimmicky Cyberverse toy, it is one of those UK comic characters who never got a toy.

While in no way am I the biggest Cyberverse toy fan, some of the robot modes on the bigger Ultra-class toys don't look half bad, even if somewhat simplistic. The Slipstream and Alpha Trion are pretty good - I wouldn't mind getting a Rack'n'Ruin like that, though maybe a Warrior-Class figure would scale better with the mainline Wrecker figures.

Question is: what would he/they transform into?

[BigTransformerTrev]

My favourite character in the six S2 eps that have aired so far is Wheeljack. He’s really funny and likeable and they are really playing up his G1 mad inventor origins. I don’t even mind too much he has a mouth as when it’s closed his face still looks very G1’ish

[griffin]

So apparently, the second season is set "decades" after the end of the first season... which didn't seem necessary. There was a little bit of a jump with Megatron suddenly being there, and Bumblebee having his voice back, but nothing else seems to need a long gap of time. We had a cliffhanger at the end of season one, and now we don't see how it was resolved.

The appearance of Lockdown and "Lugnut" as a duo from the Animated series seemed a bit random (like having the one beast bot Cheetor), and could have been interesting if we had 22 minute episodes that could focus on characters more. Bludgeon was a surprise as well. It seems that the cast is mostly "Gen1" with some random ring-ins that the writers or Hasbro wanted to have included.

A LOT of cannon fodder troops on both sides... and I don't know if it was an animation error, but Slipstream couldn't find any Seekers at the Decepticon base (she found them at a distant missile silo), so when the Autobots arrive and Megatron tells his troops to attack, there are several randomly coloured Seekers in front of him.

The plot device of Optimus and Megatron getting "Spark Armor" seemed really pointless... obviously the writers were told to feature the new toys on the cartoon and that was the best they could come up with. Starscream getting Armour was even more unnecessary.

(it's a shame that Lugnut has a new name... maybe because they changed it to a female... but Clobber doesn't seem right as its name, as she doesn't seem to do any hitting, and Clobber was the name of the Grimlock head from Titans Return)

[BigTransformerTrev]

(it's a shame that Lugnut has a new name... maybe because they changed it to a female... but Clobber doesn't seem right as its name, as she doesn't seem to do any hitting, and Clobber was the name of the Grimlock head from Titans Return)

I just figure its a whole new character that happens to look a lot like Lugnut. Yes its a distinctive style but lets face it, there are a million different Seeker characters that look very similar, no reason there cant be a few in that style too :)

[griffin]

Another four episodes this weekend on 9Go - episodes 7 to 10. (according to TFwiki (https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers:_Cyberverse_(cartoon)) foxtel had episodes 11 to 14 this weekend)

Ep 7 - I wasn't sure until it was noted in a later episode, but Bludgeon actually kills Slipstream (the reason isn't obvious in this episode, but is noted in episode 10 that he did it because Slipstream was turning to the Autobots for help... which was necessary as the Decepticons didn't want anything to do with her). It is also odd as she has multiple toys to sell, while some Seekers don't even have one yet.

Ep 8 - this could have been a great episode if it was a full 22 minutes, but cut down to just 11 minutes meant that it had to be resolved really quickly and simply. The Scraplets are a nasty little swarm of critters... and I'd love to see some in-scale Scraplets that you can get a dozen or so of. (the Cyberverse toy is too big)

Ep 9 - a wasted episode just to give Cheetor an official role that he kinda already had.

Ep 10 - Now this was the best episode yet... it was so funny, I recommend it to others.
Shockwave captures Wheeljack to help him work out a way of using the Scraplets to track down Starscream, but Wheeljack manages to escape very easily. The fun started when we actually see that Shockwave actually does have two hands... but his second hand is a separate entity that hovers around and seems to have a mind of its own, until Wheeljack takes control of the floating hand with a remote control device.
The side story had Windblade showing up and picks a fight with Bludgeon, but ends up being out-matched. There's something of a backstory with Bludgeon that we are yet to find out, as she makes a point of him never talking.

[griffin]

The downside of having much better stories this season, is that the shorter episode length means that the stories suffer - as with a few of the season 2 episodes so far, both of today's episodes set up very interesting situations, only to have them quickly resolved before too much really happens.
After wondering where Jetfire and Skybyte were in this season (since they both have a couple toys already), they both suddenly show up in the first episode today, which suggested that they were both super powerful characters who have been rivals throughout the cosmos for millennia. The plot device of the episode had them showing off their Spark Armor, but like the previous Spark Armor toys, the Spark Armor was gone by the next episode. I guess that episode did the job of advertising their two Spark Armor toys, and now future episodes will just focus on advertising their regular toys.
I liked the accents the voice actors gave Skybyte and Jetfire.... and Skybyte is definitely a rocket shark.

The second episode appeared to have all of the Seekers killed off by Starscream, after Slipstream was killed a few episodes ago... which should leave Starscream as the last seeker type jet if there aren't any animation or writing errors.
In this episode, Optimus appeared to use the Matrix as a weapon, to shoot down Starscream (or neutralise his Allspark power)... which is actually "advertising" the Ultimate Class Optimus toy from last year, which has the gimmick of revealing the Matrix out of the chest and appearing as if it is being used as a weapon.

[BigTransformerTrev]

The second episode appeared to have all of the Seekers killed off by Starscream, after Slipstream was killed a few episodes ago... which should leave Starscream as the last seeker type jet if there aren't any animation or writing errors.

Certainly Acid Storm, Nova Storm, Thundercracker and Thrust were killed. As were a bunch of no-name Seekers. However Dirge and Ramjet were not present so they should still be alive (Ramjet has only been seen in a flashback episode and Dirge that same episode and in S2E01 on the moon). Also I don't think every Seeker had joined Starscream as I'd seen ones fighting for Megatron at the Nemesis after Starscream and the others had already buggered off with Vector Sigma.



In this episode, Optimus appeared to use the Matrix as a weapon, to shoot down Starscream (or neutralise his Allspark power)... which is actually "advertising" the Ultimate Class Optimus toy from last year, which has the gimmick of revealing the Matrix out of the chest and appearing as if it is being used as a weapon.

It's been kinda cool to see Vector Sigma, The Matrix and The Allspark all used. Using Vector Sigma to program The Allspark was clever (and a good showcase of Acid Storms computer skills - his/her lesser known talent). And Optimus using The Matrix to defeat Starscream using The Allspark - bit of a G1 over Movieverse victory moment there :D

[griffin]

It shouldn't be necessary to mention in a review topic, but there are spoilers here for the end of season 2...

It has been hard to comment on the final four episodes (not just because this board was down most of last weekend), because it was such a letdown.
We have all of this exciting, and sometimes funny, things happening in season 2, making it miles above the first season... but once they hop on the Ark and head off for Cybertron, it just feels like such an anticlimax. Almost like the departure could have made a better cliffhanger, or was meant to be, but they had to add in another 5 episodes.

I'll also comment on the two episodes from the week before the final weekend...

Episode 13 - Escape from Earth.
With another year until more episodes to come out which will advertise next year's toys, I get the feeling that the back of Alpha Trion was as much as we will see of him to advertise that toy.
One funny thing with this episode was "Red 5". The moment he was introduced among several big name characters to be part of the diversion, any fan of Star Trek knew what was going to happen to the "red shirt"... and to give him a Star Wars X-wing name was a double homage to two different scifi shows.
It's hard to be disappointed that he didn't die, as it was such an obvious set up to have another sad moment in the cartoon (like when we lost Blurr in season 1).
You'd think that Soundwave would have detected the transmissions that operated the drone ships, and jam it to reveal the ruse.
This was the episode that the Autobots left Earth for Cybertron, but have to go the long way, as they think that the Spacebridge was destroyed... which it wasn't, so the Decepticons go through and have weeks/months/years(?) of time to wait for the Ark to arrive.

Episode 14 - Party Down.
Pretty much a filler episode, in which nothing really happens that relates to the ongoing story.

Episode 15 - Wiped Out.
Another episode that could well be a nothing episode, featuring Sharkticons and their homeworld, but since this is an 11 minute episode, we don't learn much about them or why their world is destroyed... or if they will be a future threat or show up later at all. If Unicron is ever introduced into Cyberverse in season 3 (which would be good timing for the release of the big toy in early 2021), maybe he was the cause... but that would just be fan speculation. If we never see the Sharkticons again, this really would be another filler episode.
It was interesting to see two different types of Sharkticons, but we only got one toy... and it doesn't really reflect well on the cartoon Sharkticons, who had 3 tribes and different war-paint for each tribe.

Episode 16 - Ghost Town.
A lot of stuff had to be included in this 11 minute episode, and because of that, it was very rushed and condensed. Probably one episode that had a couple of plot elements that will come back in Season 3, including a Titan, an unknown alien force that was powerful enough to destroy the colony and almost kill the Titan (but not "eat" the planet, so not likely to be Unicron), and we have Starscream disappear with the Titan... which could result in him taking control of it, as a future threat to the Transformers on Cybertron.
(TFwiki suggests that the unknown force could be Quintessons, due to the similarities of the ship in the flashback)
The name of the Titan "Croatan" is a reference to a tribe of Native Americans... but why would a Cybertronian, created millions/thousands of years earlier be named after a group of humans on a distant planet?

Episode 17 - Perfect Storm.
Another filler episode in which nothing happens... almost quite literally for most of the Autobots.
We have a cameo appearance of "Air Hammers", which are a flock of space creatures in this series, as opposed to a Maximal in Beast Wars. Grimlock also mentions a heard of Bantors, which was another Maximal in Beast Wars that seems to be a species in this series.

Episode 18 - Crossroads.
We end up with five episodes with little or no Decepticons, so it was disappointing to not have them featured in the final episode of the season. I was hoping that they arrived at Cybertron at the start of this episode, and then had a bit of a confrontation with the Decepticons, before the short 11 minute episode ended on a cliffhanger. Instead, we get this very confusing, unnecessary plot device of negative space, that ends up consuming a couple of Autobot ships from parallel universes (which means those universes have Decepticons no longer having any Autobots to stop them). We get this (attempt at humour) plot device of trying to get back to the real universe, and some how none of the Autobots get mixed up or confused as to which ship they are from when they meet up on one Ark. (not to mention there only being one exit portal, but everyone seems to return to their separate universes)
Very disappointing, for being unnecessarily confusing.
I really hope we don't have another time gap between season 2 and 3... with us just having to guess what happened next.

Another thing that annoyed me with the last few episodes, is how the Allspark ended up being the Duct-Tape of the Transformers. Not only can it make body armour temporarily stick to bots (in the earlier episodes), but it can rebuild a planet (the Sharkticon world), it can recharge a Titan (Croatan), it can give Autobots a power boost (the Party episode), and create portals between universes (the final episode).
What sort of magical device is it? I know that the Movie Allspark was never properly explained as to how it works, but it only did one thing - create mechanical life. This Cyberverse Allspark just seems to be the magic fix to any problem that can't be easily solved by other means in an 11 minute episode... which I think is why it ends up being the go-to plot device to solve problems.

[SMHFConvoy]

The allspark was responsible for the portals that Cheetor used to travel around the world and to the moon in the first few episodes of season 2, it didn't transport the Ark to the space between universes, that was a malfunctioning space bridge, it *was* used to power a tear in space to get everyone home.

Honestly I don't see how this is a problem, the matrix has been used in much the same way, especially in Transformers Prime.

[griffin]

Season 2 has now started here, and some quick thoughts from last week...

Ep 1-4 - Battle For Cybertron
A four part story of the Autobots landing on Cybertron to retake it from the Decepticons. Against the odds, they succeed. (how did they win??? The Decepticons were there for ages to get ready for the Autobots, and they had giant Shockwave tanks, air superiority, weapons that could destroy a giant spaceship... )
We get to see the Repugnus beasts, which will be the ones in the store-exclusive Cyberverse pack (which we shouldn't be coming here).
Drift being a traitor was interesting, and a reversal of the usual version of characters with this name. And for some strange reason, he had red eyes that Hotrod noted, while he was an Autobot, but then had blue eyes later when he was in the process of betraying them. You'd also think that if he was really a Decepticon, Megatron would have known that the Ark was empty and would have focussed his attention on an ambush of the shuttles. It is possible that Drift is gone now.
With Vector Sigma and Bludgeon sent to the unspace between space, they should both be erased by now... if the writers don't use either of them again and forgot that plot device from season 1.
The end of Cheetor was understandable, as there was only the one limited-edition toy done of him, but the end of Shockwave with all his toys, was a real surprise.
Sad to see the Ark destroyed... and so easily as well, when it wasn't really necessary. At least Rack-n-Ruin no longer have to worry about stacking those crates anymore. :p
Perceptor being permanently blinded is a strange plot element.
And Prowl seemed to be an unnecessary and avoidable death. Why run and dive to take a shot that is aimed at Optimus, when it would be much quicker to just shoot Shadowstriker with a gun or his shoulder guns.
And did we see the death of Teletran-X? That would be a shame, not just for comedic relief, but for being such a vital element in the second half of the 1st season.
I think we had a pretty significant death count in this 44 minute block of episodes.
The thing I didn't realise, is that Perceptor and Chromia appear to have been on Cybertron by themselves for a very loooong time (after the Ark left thousands of years ago). The same thing happened in the Gen1 cartoon, but I would have expected more thought put into the implausibility of that, by now.
Megatron appears to be eaten by the Scraplets, but we know that that wouldn't be true, as he has to be around for the rest of the season. Or does he? The RID cartoon had a short-lived appearance of a Megatronus chracter, while TFPrime had Megatron absent for a fair bit of time.


Ep 5 - The Loop
This is so wrong, and sad, to be copying the Matrix movie just because the young kids that it is aimed at won't notice... complete with the race enslaved in a virtual world, access ports in the back of their heads, and "sentinels" flying around to catch those who have escaped.
There is no indication of how much time has passed between episode 4 and 5, as Cybertron was just restored, and suddenly it is all dark again with almost everyone captured and enslaved.
After a while it felt like that Groundhog Day movie.
Hotrod's black colours is explained in the next episode, but it seems like a pointless way of selling several redeco Hotrod toys.
Speaking of stupid... isn't it a bit strange that the Cyberverse Quintesson multi-pack (US Target exclusive) has Prowl and Shockwave packed with a Quintesson, but they are two of the small number of characters killed off before the Quintessons are introduced. Of all of the characters still alive, did Hasbro not know that those two were not even alive at the time of the Quintessons in this season.
An error that I think I picked up on - if Hotrod can only see other Autobots inside the simulation, and Clobber only sees Decepticons, how did Hotrod come across Clobber to manage to get her out of the simulation (before the episode started). Unless there are two separate simulations to keep the allegiances separated, and they are only accessing the one of their own allegiance to be safe from being attacked... but then, why would Hotrod risk going into the Decepticon simulation.
What happened to Chromia (was in the same prison as Perceptor in the last episode), and why hasn't Perceptor managed to fix his eyes in all of this time?


Ep 6 - Dead End
The title had me expecting Dead End to appear, but I was surprised that it was featuring in a main role for this part of the story, since it only has a small Scout toy. It does kinda homage the Cybertron series, which had Lugnut (Clobber) and Dead End as a constant duo.
Maccadam returns - his earlier appearances were flashbacks to the past. He seems really smug and mysterious.
The hood/helmet in the Cyberverse Quintesson multi-pack now makes sense.


Ep 7 - The Sleeper
Whirl gets out of the Matrix... um, out of the Loop.
We get introduced to Iaconus... another Titan. It is a shame that the toy is nothing like it, or even anywhere near as impressive.


Ep 8 - The Citizen
We see Skullcruncher... which for the Americans watching the cartoon back in March, is a toy that took 6 months to come out, after the cartoon ended.
The team go through 500 rounds of training. Surely that would have taken days, and Perceptor didn't come find them before that?
And why was Maccadam so willing to allow them to just wander around inside Iaconus, help themselves to powerful weapons, and yet fears them waking up Iaconus.
Maccadam and Iaconus are explained. Iaconus is a "War Titan", built to transport thousands of soldiers to battle off-world, and fight with them, but after they ran out of people to fight, it returned to Cybertron and had to be taken down by those whom it transported... including Maccadam, who says he is the last one left. (a bit over-dramatic, to have just one left alive out of thousands, and yet, managed to outlast a Titan)

[griffin]

Comments on this week's episodes.

Ep 9 - The Trial.
The 5th episode of the 13 episode story arc about the Quintesson invasion of Cybertron... we are introduced to the 5-face judge. A similar concept to the one in the 1986 Movie, but with 2 female faces and a crazy face.
The team inside Iaconus figure out that they need Windblade as a city-speaker, to be able to wake up the Titan, so they go back to try to free her, but they end up freeing Soundwave, who isn't removed from the virtual world completely.
We get another comment about Hound being another one that they tried removing from the virtual world, but something went wrong, and it sounds like he must have died.
We saw some more Sharkticons, but it is strange that they are not really linked to their season 2 appearance, as they are now working for the Quintessons and don't care about the Autobots they befriended.
The Judge tells us that they are multi-verse travellers, going to every Universe to destroy each one (the trials are meaningless as they are always found guilty)... which seems a little pointless, since they also said that there are infinite Universes, so the mission will never end. I also don't think they explained believably why they are doing it, and this sort of concept was the purpose of Unicron in Gen1 comics.

Ep 10 - The Prisoner.
Soundwave tries to take command of the group, as he would probably be the highest ranking person on both sides, but uses a mission to capture a Sharkticon to force Clobber to try to kill Hotrod. Soundwave's glitches are getting worse, while the captured Sharkticon tells them that they need to talk to the Quintesson Scientist.

Ep 11 - The Scientist.
For some strange reason, we get a prologue flashback of Soundwave capturing Laserbeak sometime in the past, because Laserbeak was now going to feature a fair bit over the next few episodes... and yet, Laserbeak had appeared in two previous episodes, so it seems strange that we get this big introduction for a character that has already been in the show at that stage. It is also strange that Laserbeak gets so much attention, but doesn't even have a Cyberverse toy... only a gimmick pop-out thing in one of the Soundwave toys. It's like Dead End, who is one of the main cast for several episodes, but only has a single Scout toy. (and then we have Astrotrain in a few episodes time, which looks like a very impressive toy on the cartoon, but doesn't actually get a toy at all)
The Scientist is a strange creature, who reproduces bodies when one is shot... another similarity to the Matrix movies, in which the Agents could reappear inside the body of another person whenever they are killed.
We get to see a LOT of Soundwaves from other universes, each in a different colour. If Cyberverse was a popular series or supported fan-focussed exclusives, we could have seen a number of redeco Soundwave toys.
The team finally manage to get everyone out of the virtual world (they were seen to be dying as their sparks were completely drained to feed the new Judge that was growing in the Scientist's lab), and Soundwave's glitches are fixed.
The "new Judge" is said to be the judge for this universe, as the main judge only overseas the operations as the travel to each universe.

Ep 12 - The Alliance.
The Autobots and Decepticons have to work together to destroy the Quintesson ship because it is still draining the Allspark in the centre of the planet... but Megatron doesn't want to join in. To help each side to work together, they go into the Iaconus training rooms in groups, and practice until they like working together.
Windblade tries to wake up Iaconus and fails, so everyone goes in-force to the Quintesson ship to take on the forces guarding the ship.
The attack fails and the alliance retreats, and Windblade tries to wake Iaconus again. He starts rising from the ground, but Maccadam stops her.

Ep 13 - The Judge.
The alliance tries to attack the Quintesson ship again, but decide that they need a distraction, and turn off the cloaking device on the Titan, forcing almost all of the Quintessons, including the main Judge, to launch an attack on the Titan.
Meanwhile, Dead End has gone off to tell Megatron something about the plan.
With the Quintesson ship mostly empty, a small team go inside and attempt to reprogram the Multiverse Drive so that the ship will be sent to another Universe. (That doesn't seem like an Autobot thing to do, sending a deadly force onto other innocent victims)
Just as they are about to deal with the Multiverse Drive, Megatron appears and with Dead End's help, takes it and flies off into a portal to another Universe.
Meanwhile, the alliance has managed to take down the main Judge, who crashes into the rest of the Quintesson ship, destroying it... seemingly, with Optimus, Bumblebee and Wheeljack inside.
Out of the wreckage, the new Judge for this Universe awakens, and we find that one of the 3 faces is Starscream.

Ep 14-17 - The End of the Universe parts 1-4.
This four part story is being narated by Kup for some reason.
Starscream and the Titan (Croaton) that he was stuck on in season 2 came across the Quintessons, who disabled and captured the Titan.
Now to me, this is the main error of this story arc - Starscream convinces the Quintessons to spare him if he shows them the way to a vast power source on Cybertron... but the thing is, the Quintessons already know about Cybertron, because they have already destroyed dozens of them (the Scientist has a collection of Soundwaves, one from each Universe). So why wouldn't they already know about Cybertron, or know where it is.
We learn that Optimus, Bumblebee and Wheeljack ended up escaping the exploding ship by jumping through a portal to another Universe, which turns off when they jump through. But somehow, Wheeljack is able to turn it back on.
Wheeljack manages to kill the Scientist when they return, who ended up being a little creature that was animating all of those Scientist drones.
Iaconus finally rises, and fights Croaton, who arrives under the control of the Quintessons... which Windblade has to break the control after Starscream manages to kill Iaconus by disolving his head with un-space.
Iaconus transforms to a city where he lands.
Sad to see Maccadam die... and so easily too, as he could have just moved to one side to avoid being hit. (he also transforms to fight off Quintessons, but we don't see it)
Croaton flies off after the battle, taking an unconcious Windblade with him.
The Autobots and Decepticons take half of the planet each, and agree not to tresspass into the other half - that's an original idea (I think) to allow the story to continue without constant fighting.
Megatron returns and says that he has been hopping across the different Universes, aquiring new powers, and a Matrix it seems.
(Megatron saves the day, and Optimus even says that he ows him for it... that's surely going to bite him in the ass later.)
The new power-up gimmick that Megatron brings back feels like a toy gimmick, but I don't easily recognise it - if it is the clear plastic flip-up armour toys we had this year, they don't match up to the ones that get powered up on screen.
He brings back Insecticons... more things that are drawn with more detail than a generic bot, to look like they were based on a toy, but we didn't end up getting one.
Astrotrain looks impressive.
Starscream appears to be destroyed by the power of the matrix (two actually, as Megatron captured one from another universe), but as I've noted previously somewhere else (I think it was in Cyberverse too), that the Matrix is not a projectile weapon. It did seem to have the power to destroy Unicron in the 1986 movie, but it is supposed to be a reservoir or sparks or intelligence.

Ep 18 - Enemy Line.
Windblade is rescued by Bumblebee from the Decepticons... and Megatron (like the Beast Wars Megatron) says that he has more important things to worry about than Autobot intruders. Sounds ominous.
So... Windblade was carried off by Croaton, which appears to now be a city within the Decepticon half of the planet.
Clobber is now an Autobot.... and Hotrod has now returned to being red all of a sudden.
It also looks like some Decepticons are still on friendly terms with the Autobots, after the planet-saving alliance.

[griffin]

The final 8 episodes... and the ending in one word - disappointing.
The last few episodes desperately crammed in a lot of new toys before the series ended (to help sell the toys during repeats), by featuring a new one in a significant role in just about every episode.
Meanwhile, we get very little involvement of the Autobot leader, who spends a fair bit of the post-Quintesson part of the season, personally involved in the reconstruction.

Ep 19 - Thunderhowl.
Gee, I wonder what this episode is focussing on, with a new toy in the title.
The story element of "Crystal City" is used in this episode (a Gen1 cartoon concept), and then destroyed. It is strange that the city has been there for millions of years, and was not yet bombarded or destroyed from a war that ravaged the rest of the planet.
Thunderhowl is noted as being a Cybertronian Knight, from a time before Optimus was a Prime, as he said that he served other Primes but never heard of Optimus before. That would mean he has been trapped in the Crystal City for a very long time, as Optimus was in command during the wars that were occurring for years before the Ark left Cybertron, which apparently crashed on Earth millions of years ago.

Ep 20 - Wild Wild Wheel.
Gee, again, I wonder what this episode is focussing on, with a new toy in the title.
The title is also a modification of the "wild wild west" expression.
I didn't like this episode for a number of reasons.
- Cattle on Cybertron... why? They don't eat them... and beasts on the planet are usually just the alt-mode of Cybertronians, even the less intelligent "animals".
- Wildwheel is an Autobot that felt abandoned so turned evil... that doesn't sound very "Autobot", and means they were quite defeatist, giving up on a rescue or trying to find a way home (constructing a ship, even if it took a while to create the parts during the 19th century). Even if he had to interact with humans during the wild west, an Autobot would have been an instrument of law enforcement and justice... not an outlaw "to survive". Survive what? He obviously was able to build something or contact another alien to leave Earth before modern day, so just why would that short amount of time on Earth force him to turn evil? (short amount of time, because even if he was on earth for 100 years before he was able to leave, that's a blink of an eye in terms of most Cybertronians who have been alive for millions of years, and only a handful of Autobots were in stasis on the Ark, but were still around for thousands of years before that)
- There were several Autobots in stasis pods that were lost with Wildwheel... what happened to all of the others? If this was the same breach that lost Bumblebee and Grimlock, what happened to the others, and why didn't the rest of the Ark crew or Teletraan-X care enough to track down the rest of the passengers after the end of Season One had the Autobots and the Ark back to active duty? Obviously the writers didn't know about Wildwheel back then, but to now retcon it as if the entire time the Autobots were on Earth in Season two, no one even bothered to check the manifest to see who was still missing, and try to find them. All that time Wildwheel was on Earth he was interacting with humans as a giant alien robot and being documented in photos, and yet his existence was not known to modern day society (which the Autobots would have then known about it).
- Perceptor is still blind... that is so stupid, and it is a plot device that is no longer necessary. They can rebuild a city and planet, but can't repair or replace the optics on one bot?
- The Autobots are suddenly a bunch of wusses... easily beaten or intimidated by one Decepticon, and only Optimus can save them.

Ep 21 - Alien Hunt! With Meteorfire and Cosmos.
Gee, once again.... yeah, you know the drill. :p
As Australians, we should be pretty proud of the fact that our accent is the one most used in Transformers that isn't American, as Meteorfire has a very poorly attempted Australian accent (the sort of fake Australian accent you see in American shows). This is in addition to Outback in the Original Series, and Jetfire in the Cybertron series. The only other accents I can think of off-hand are in Michael Bay Movies.
Meteorfire is written up to be a Crocodile Hunter type of character, who has a TV show that tracks down beasts and nasties... along with a sidekick, Cosmos, who is a female in Cyberverse, and is drawn to look like it was based on a toy.
A scene when Meteorfire is possessed has his head turn 180 degrees was funny.

Ep 22 - Journey to the Valley of Repugnus.
This one better advertised the Repugnus multipack (which is not coming to Australia), as it featured small Repugnus beasts and larger robot modes. The theme behind it was a good one, with a rich elite draining resources from others, and those who are in "poverty" are discarded as insignificant and inferior.
We have a brief shot of a swarm of flying beasts that look exactly like the beast mode of the Beast Wars Fuzor Injector (a wasp/fish cross).

Ep 23 - Rack 'n' Ruin 'n' Ratchet.
The running joke of stacking boxes returns one last time.
Astrotrain proves to be a really interesting character and "toy", and it is really disappointing that we didn't get a toy of this.
This episode sets up the finale, as the Decepticons are finalising the completion of a weapon to protect themselves from the alternate Universe Megatron... and we see that he is only working with a small inner circle, as other Decepticons are essentially being left to themselves, leaderless.
The Autobots keep breaking the divided Cybertron treaty, with this being the second of three breaches, while the Decepticons are honouring the treaty, even without a leader stopping them from doing anything unruly.

Ep 24 - Dweller in the Depths.
This episode had potential, but as with most in this last part of the season, it didn't have enough time to explore the concept of an evil Titan possessing Transformers, which could have spanned several episodes. And the Titan is still there in the depths of Cybertron, so could easily capture more Transformers in the future.
Maccadam is revealed to also be a Prime (Alchemist Prime), which seems a bit pointless, as it isn't necessary for this plot, but is more there as a nod to the concept of the first 13 in the TFPrime universe. He tells Optimus in a vision inside the Matrix that he needs to destroy the Matrix that Megatron brought back from the other Universe... which he doesn't say why, and if it was the only thing to save them from the Quintessons, why destroy something so powerful when they are expecting the arrival of a super powerful version of Megatron.
The title is a reused title from the Original Series episode from season 3.

Ep 25 - Silent Strike.
This episode is more like a prelude to the next episode, as it doesn't stand on its own as a stand-alone story, and just has fragments of plot that gets followed up in the next episode. Aside from a flashback to Megatron in the other Universe, bringing back his captured Matrix and Insecticons, there isn't really anything too significant to mention.
It is implied that the barrier between the two halves of Cybertron was created by Megatron, which he is able to have extend all around his half of Cybertron as a shield. It doesn't seem very plausible that Optimus or the Autobots would be trusting Megatron to build a "fence" without being involved, or knowing that it is something sinister (or even just expecting it to be sinister because it is by Megatron, who originally wanted to capture Cybertron and destroy all Autobots).

Ep 26 - The Other One.
Before this episode started I was already disappointed, because there was only 11 minutes left of the series, and we still didn't have Megatron from the other universe show up yet, and if the series was to have an ending (no cliffhanger) that doesn't leave much time to plausibly fight and defeat "the most powerful Decepticon"... AND wrap up the story arc involving Windblade and a divided Cybertron.
Similarly quick is the apparent death of this Universe's Megatron, despite all his planning and power.
Quick question - if Megatron X (the other Megatron) is so powerful that even this universe's Megatron is afraid of him, how did he steal his Matrix in the first place?
The Perfect Decepticons (the troops created by Megatron X) are quite impressive looking, with Decepticon symbols as faces... which I guess replaced all of the regular Decepticons. That Megatron X was the result of a "what if" Megatron killed Optimus back at the beginning of the war, so he was able to have his own Matrix (taken from the corpse of Optimus), destroy the Autobots, create perfect Decepticons with the Allspark and Vector Sigma, repel the Quintessons, and upgrade himself into the most powerful Transformer ever.
Another question - if Megatron X has such little interest in regular Decepticons to reject them when they want to join him, why would he care to waste time telling them his story. I know that the audience needs to know, but then, that's why we have had so many flashbacks in the 3rd season. Why wasn't this done as a flashback as well, as it was out of character for Megatron X to tell his story to what he considers insignificant insects.
Another out of character element was Astrotrain returning at the end to take the unconscious Megatron X with him to other Universes... as Megatron X wasn't killed, nor was his powerful abilities removed, so when he wakes up, why would Astrotrain who fears him enough to escape to another Universe twice, want to have him with him. That just doesn't make sense. What would have made more sense was if Astrotrain showed up and said that he was dumping the unconcious Megatron X into un-space, which would disintegrate him, destroying the thing that he most feared.
Then we have the closing scene, that isn't as bad as the end of Beast Machines, but just as uncomfortable and lame.


Several times throughout this series, we had sudden time jumps, and most of the time it was unexplained, almost as if they were writing the episodes in blocks without any real oversight to smoothly transition from one block to the next... and as such, the ending felt very rushed, almost like they were told by Hasbro that it was the last season to avoid a cliffhanger, but weren't able to wrap up everything that was already in motion. For example, we have this multi-verse concept that has led to cross-contamination (Astrotrain & Insecticons from another Universe), a super-powerful Megatron from another Universe with super-powerful warriors trying to conquer this Universe (and probably others), and a fractured Cybertron with two divided halves on the surface that won't last long separated, as well as two worlds below the surface containing Repugnus "beasts" that no longer need to be underground and an evil Titan that is still down there. With the last story arc of the 3rd season focusing on tracking down the Windblade parts, it didn't leave enough time to focus on wrapping up the main story of the series.

This series will end up being one of my least favourite, and most of its events will be easily forgotten within a few years.