Toy Review - RID-15 Galvatronus

GALVATRONUS
Series – Robots In Disguise
Sub-line - Combiner Force
New/remould/redeco - New
Released here – September 2017
Approximate retail price: $59
Approximate size: 19.5cm
Allegiance - Decepticons
Alt-mode – 3 aircrafts & 2 off-road vehicles
Main Features/Gimmicks - Gestalt
Main Accessories – gun

SUPER CRAP

The end.

Still reading? I always started my reviews by stating positive things about a toy, but there are virtually no redeeming features about any of these figures that I can think of. Really. So, uh... on with some details about just how crap these figures are.

Cyberwarp and Skyjack - the arms

They transform into these Cybertronian VTOL pods which reminds me of what we sometimes see in dystopian scifi stories, so I guess that's kinda neat. They also have nice metallic colours in the plastic. And that's where my compliments end. :p The over style, design and engineering of these toys are just so Happy Meal. The robot modes feature all the articulation of a Triggerbot... only without a flip out gun gimmick. The prow can't even fold back all the way nor does it have any means of locking into place.

Oh, and the best part is that Cyberwarp has green highlights on the toy but yellow highlights in the cartoon, whereas Skyjack has yellow highlights on the toy but green highlights in the cartoon! Move over, FIRRIB, cos CIYSIG is the new fan-rage in town! Reprolabels to the rescue? :p

Riotgear and Treadshock - the arms

Again, neat enough looking vehicle modes which has that dystopian future flavour to it (which is quite fitting considering who these characters are), but that's where any coolness ends. The transformation is hilariously basic. There are Happy Meal Transformers with more complex transformation than these guys, and I'm not even exaggerating. The transformation to leg mode is actually more interesting than between robot to vehicle mode. At least the colours on the toys match the show.

Cyclonus

As with all the others in this set, Cyclonus has an embarrassingly limited number of articulation points. The jet mode is... passable... I guess. Looks more like Luke's Landspeeder with wings to me. Hey, remember those other silly kids who used to lose their G1 fists? (not me, I kept good care of mine) Cyclonus doesn't even have any fists! He has self-uncontained hands. Good news, kids - no hands to lose! Oh, and the trigger that activates the Galvatronus head is on a hair trigger, so expect to accidentally deploy it about a hundred times.

Galvatronus

This gestalt form sucks even by G1 standards. Seriously. If this toy were released in the 1980s, you would honestly think that it was crap. This toy rivals Raiden in terms of instability in combined form. I appreciate that it has 100% self contained parts, but still... Liokaiser did a much better job in 1989. I guess that'd be the sole redeeming quality of this gestalt if it'd been released in the Eighties - it doesn't rely on any accessories in gestalt mode. Yay? But the trade-off is terrible (whereas Liokaiser doesn't lose anything). But here are a few areas where Galvatronus is worse than any 80s gestalt:

• Limb blandness. The arms and legs look identical. This makes a gestalt look really bland as opposed to greater diversity in the look of each individual component robot.

• This really isn't a set of 5 Decepticons, it's really a set of one Decepticon whose body happens to split apart into smaller transforming robots. The G1 gestalts are really sets of 5~6 actual Transformers. Imagine if these robots were sold separately and let's say a child were to receive just ONE of these toys and that's all they had for a while. That toy would suck. Even if it were just Cyclonus, the biggest and best of the set, it would still be a pretty damn underwhelming figure. Compare this with G1, and in Australia most of us got the gestalts one figure at a time because the gift sets were never sold here. You got just one robot, like say Breakdown. That was a pretty cool toy in its own right and you could play with it and love it as a toy on its own even without his teammates. Any of the torso robots were pretty cool robots in their own right (e.g. Hot Spot, Motormaster, Razorclaw etc.). Each G1 gestalt robot has play value as an individual robot. Cyclonus here has very limited individual value and the limbformers are just laughable. They have no individual play value - they're just transforming accessories to be added onto Cyclonus to form Galvatronus. Hasbro released Liokaiser's components separately and removed the team's ability to combine, and yet they're still pretty neat and solid toys on their own. Same with the Motorvators and the 1992 Constructicons. Imagine if you released these toys individually without their ability to combine. They would suck even harder than they do now. The fact that G1 gestalt teams like the Constructicons, Autobot Rescue Force and the Motorvators were still serviceable toys without their ability to combine shows you how good they were as toys on their own. The fact that these RiD Combiner Force gestalts wouldn't stand a chance of a fart in a whirlwind shows you just how pathetic each toy is.

On top of all that, Cyclonus' arms have no locking mechanism and are prone to displacement when you move Galvatronus' arms. The G2 Cyberjets have tabs and pegs to lock parts into place, and they were released in 1995
> when the internet was still in its infancy! <laughs>

PICTURES

I cannot be bothered. Google them yourself. Or walk into a store where these things are still shelfwarming and laugh at them through the packaging.

Overall

These toys are classic examples of what happens when toys become compromised by their gimmicks -- very, very compromised. These figures are so slave to their gimmicks that they barely rate as Transformers action figures in their own right. Avoid.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22..._jaam_pain.gif

My condolences to Galvatron and Cyclonus for having their names associated with this turd and extra condolence to Cyclonus who has to transform into a space ship from an Atari 2600/Vic 20 shoot-em up.