Originally Posted by
Sutton
You're correct, I read the same thing in an interview at some point, it also applied to Generations figures as well - some of those were fiddly to the point of frustration. I love transformations with 'cool moves' in them, but I love a confident transformation more. That is, I want to be clear that the part I've moved is where it needs to be, lined up flush and preferably with a satisfying click or firm tab. Blackout doesn't quite have that everywhere, but there's enough of those 'cool moves' to make me happy.
Slightly off-topic, but I think Hasbro did a really shrewd maneuver when they did the 'Combiner Wars' line, those figures by necessity needed to be more simplistic as they needed to be stable enough to be legs - therefore no torso transformations and limited leg transformations. That meant reduced part counts and costs but it had a good structural reason so fans (mostly) accepted it. After a couple of years of those figures and the fanbase/kids getting used to them, they were able to go ahead with Titans Returns, with those figures also having a similar level of simplification despite less structural justification for it - I can't think of many Titans Returns deluxes off the top of my head that have particularly tricky transformations.
Meanwhile the movie line has also simplified, with the 'Last Knight' figures in particular hitting most of the right notes - Voyager Prime, Megatron and Bulkhead come to mind as being really good at the 'Cool Move/Confident Click' thing.
Which is why these figures are so surprising - after spending the last 5 or 6 years trying to reduce the complexity and part counts in their designs, they go and make this line of figures that seems to fly in the face of their own brand direction, even going as far as to dramatically increase part/plastic content between figures at the same price point, in the same series, in the name of scale and screen accuracy. All very left-field but I'm definitely not complaining.