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Thread: Transformers throughout the 2010s; Thoughts on a Decade

  1. #1
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    27th Dec 2007
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    Default Transformers throughout the 2010s; Thoughts on a Decade

    How has TF collecting been for you in the 2010s? Give us a year-by-year description of what it's been like for you.

    For me...

    2010
    • Suddenly Transformers were released in packaging that didn't initially seem to have a clear-cut series and sub-series name. Some of them were Movieformers while others appear to be the continuation of Classicsverse. We now call this overall line "Transformers 2010," but there are sub lines which can belong to the Movieverse (e.g. HFTD) or Classicsverse (e.g. RTS). Other toys like Sea Spray and Bludgeon were more ambiguous; some fans cite that they are Classicsverse due to authorial intent, whereas others say that they're Movieverse due to established canon.

    • More toys are released for Classicsverse in a new line called "Generations," and thus fans create the term "CHUGUR," which is eventually shortened to "CHUG."

    • The War For Cybertron game is released. This was the first online multiplayer Transformer game that I'd ever played, which was exciting.

    • The War For Cybertron figures released in CHUG got me super excited as I was finally able to collect official representations of G1 Transformers in their pre-Earth Cybertronian forms! WFC hadn't been retconned as part of the Aligned Continuity yet, so at this time they were still G1 AFAIK.


    2011
    • Transformers toys start getting smaller.

    • 11th of March -- Japan is hit by disastrous earthquakes and tsunami. I later learnt that about a third of Polygon's staff were lost, resulting in the flashback sequences in the first season of Transformers Prime to be animated in still paintings instead of CGI. Hasbro were so impressed with this that they decided to keep this style for future flashback sequences.

    • I hadn't been burnt out by Bayformers yet, so I was excited to see Dark of the Moon, especially Shockwave! I quickly grabbed the toy and read the prequel comics... I was so looking forward to seeing this emotionless yet highly intelligent logic fiend in action on the big screen. What could possibly go wrong? Met up with 1AZRAEL1, Mknell etc. for a midnight screening. Had the Shockwave toy with me and we played Transformers Monopoly in the foyer before the movie started. Good times.

    • Oh wow, Hasbro's now decided to compete with Lego with Kre-Os... and... huh? These kinda... suck...

    • Ever wanted to have gestalt robots where only the core robot can transform but the limbs are just drones without robot modes? Well too bad, because the Power Core Combiners are here! And all the combining ports are baby blue because why not! I initially included these characters as part of CHUG but have since just lumped them in on their own.

    • Transformers Prime begins airing, combining the aesthetics of Movieverse with Animated, but now with Japanese CG animation. In an odd move, the show begins airing months before any toys are ever released (First Edition), and none of those toys are released here. I ended up getting mine from Hong Kong and Japan. And now the Aligned Continuity is officially a thing and it's absorbed War For Cybertron (although to this day I don't recognise it; in the Gokiverse WFC/FOC are still G1/CHUG). Wow, "Transformers Prime" -- such creativity with the title here.

    • Oh cool, Rescue Bots have arrived. I would say that having a 3 year old at the time was the reason for why I started buying these toys, but uh... I would've bought them regardless I collected My First Transformers when I was school-aged kid and I bought the PlaySkool Go-Bots and 1-2-3 Transformers in 2002. But having an actual infant to enjoy these toys with now made them more special. I also really liked the TV show! It had decent stories that involved the Transformers solving plot complications without the need for violence. It was a unique and interesting take on Transformers given its very young demographic, and it's now become the single longest running Transformers series EVAH!

    • Yay, more Reveal the Shield and Generations toys! Although some of the Generations toys took a long time to hit my local stores. I ended up getting a lot of them from overseas; Generations Wheeljack proved impossible to find so I bought the United version of him while overseas. And shortly after returning to Australia I see all of these Generations toys everywhere at my local shops.

    • MP goes with a "soft reboot" (I guess) with MP10 and MP11, both of which I personally skipped. MP1/3(HAS)/6/7 are good enough for me.


    2012
    • I returned to Japan for the first time since 1997 and met up with fans in Osaka, including Ode To A Grasshopper.

    • The first MP Autobot Car in the form of MP12 Lambor is released and funnily enough I couldn't believe that even with pre-order discount that I had paid fifty bucks for a toy that I didn't think was worth that price compared to a Binaltech car (similar RRP). Now I look at my MP Hound and chuckle.

    • Fall of Cybertron comes out, finally prompting me to buy a PS3. I'm not much of a gamer and I'd bought WFC (from griffin!) on PC. But there was no PC version of FOC and I didn't have a Blu Ray player anyway so... I bit the bulllet and just bought a PS3. The worst thing about the PS3 version is that you cannot mute other players. "I love listening to other players banter," said no sane person ever.

    • FOC toys dominated Generations and were the bulk of what I considered CHUG, but I guess officially this was a quiet year for CHUG. I know FOC Bruticus cops a lot of flak, but I think the toy was quite ambitious. While he's since been eclipsed by CW/UW Bruticus, unlike those toys, FOC Bruticus has 100% self contained parts whereas CW/UW relies on detachable hands and feet. And each of the limb robots have L-R hands and feet built into them. Not a bad effort! The Autobot redecoes finally gave us a mass retail Impactor toy, and I suppose a sort-of (not quite) toy representation of Xaaron with Ruination's head... meh.

    • Ever wanted to play scissors paper rock with Transformers toys? No? Well too bad, because here are the Bot Shots! The Super-Bot variants were pretty funny though.

    • Ooh, TF Prime's Hyperspeed Wheeljack is a clever nod to Marlboor Diaclone Wheeljack. There's no way that this idea could possibly go wrong!


    2013
    • Wow, that Beast Hunters theme song really rocks! The toys are hit and miss... I wasn't a fan of the bestialised vehicles, but some of the other figures were nice. We finally got cartoon-like versions of Ultra Magnus too.

    • TakaraTOMY releases Transformers Go! which gives us different versions of some of the Beast Hunters toys as well as some new toys... and a ridiculous new cartoon. *sigh*

    • The Alternity line goes off with the GT sub-line. I got caught up with the politics behind this line (which I'm guessing most non-Japanese speaking fans would be blissfully unaware of (be glad)) and decided against buying any of them.

    • I started doing online shopping! Yes, after years of resisting, a combination of the wonderfully strong AUD plus Australian stores not stocking Thrilling 30 toys finally saw me cave and enter the world of online shopping. I made an account on some web site called "Amazon."


    2014
    • Some Thrilling 30 toys start hitting local stores (yay) while others don't (boo). Although I pre-ordered Metroplex from Amazon which turned out to be more expensive than the later Target release (d'oh!). Ah well. Later in this year I would learn that the reason why we skipped so many T30 toys was because retail buyers didn't put in any orders; Hasbro AU did have sample stock and did offer it to retail buyers, but a lot of them didn't bite.

    • Age of Extinction toys are out... and... wha--? These toys seem to have gone backwards in the quality of design and engineering. There's a lot more shellforming. The Leader Class Optimus Prime is a massive disappointment, especially considering that Leader OP from the first 3 movies were all pretty good toys, each improving on the previous. A later better version would be released, but still a big backpack-former and still not as good as the Leader OPs from the first 3 movie toylines IMO.

    • After Dark of the Moon I now had Bayformers burn out. I refused to pay to see AOE so I made a point to use a voucher instead. I also didn't bother going to a midnight session but just saw an evening session organised by 5FDP. Boy was this movie a disappointment.

    • MP Bumblebee and Wheeljack are released here with bios and instructions in Engli... wait, what is this language? It looks like English but it's not! Did someone just punch the text through Google Translate several times? And is that Wheeljack's art on Bumblebee's instruction sheet?

    • Hasbro becomes aware that the translation quality on the first two MP imports were fantastic so they enlisted me to take over. They would also import some non MP toys like LG Arcee and Lost Age Deluxe Stinger.

    • Huh... I can't seem to access TakaraTOMY's online survey site. Oh, other people can't either. What? Did they just geoblock the site? Lemme call TakaraTOMY and see what's going on. Public holiday on 24/12? Oh right, Emperor's Birthday. Lemme call again on 25/12... yes, it has been geoblocked. Please pass on my request to have the geoblock lifted. It appears that my request was denied.

    • The organisers of the Parramatta Collectables Fair, a regular event which had become a major drawing point for large Sydney meets (that would attract interstate fans and at least one Hasbro designer!), become caught up in a scandal and that very sadly begins the end of the Parra Fair meets.


    2015
    • Combiner Wars, bay-bee! Hasbro asks me to help them promote the toys later that year at the EB Games Expo and I translated the instructions for Unite Warriors Superion.

    • TakaraTOMY begins releasing pre-tooled Diaclone-based characters such as Road Rage and Exhaust. I know we had others like Tiger Tracks before, but that was a straight repaint whereas these toys had retooling done. I pre-ordered my Exhaust from HLJ, but this toy saw limited or zero release outside of Japan. Road Rage was a freebie from Hasbro.

    • Transformers Prime's sequel series Robots In Disguise (such clever names!) is released. These toys are... meh. The show is also pretty meh. Meh!


    2016
    • Premium Collectables stop delivering my pre-orders. I'm sure this will be resolved soon. Still waiting.

    • Combiner Wars wraps up and behold - Titans Return. But whereas Combiner Wars was a combination (heh) of gestalts and non-gestalts (e.g. Ultra Magnus, Megatron etc.), Titans Return saw almost everyone (except for Scouts) becoming Headmasters. While it gave us a lot of cool toys, many of them really did not need to be Headmasters. Especially Galvatron who suffered from being retconned as a Headmaster late into its development.

    • Went to Japan again and met up with fans in Tokyo and Osaka. Although being a work trip they were very brief meets.


    2017
    • Thanks to griffin and Hasbro AU, I attended a special reveal meet at Hasbro's new building where we got to have a sneak peek and play with Power of the Primes. So glad to see that everyone's not a Headmaster anymore! Can't wait to get these Dinobots!

    • Personal trip to Japan this time, but unfortunately was unable to meet up with any TF fans. (our stars didn't align)

    • Transformers The Last Knight. Most of the toys are pretty underwhelming and the movie was even worse than I had braced myself for. But that cliffhanger(ish) ending will mean more sequels, because there's no way that Bay would just leave the story hanging like that.

    • Okay, wow... the RID cartoon finished on a strong note. I quite like that ending.

    • RIP Wally Burr and Dick Gautier


    2018
    • Ooh, Studio Series. This is like the CHUG to Movieformers.

    • Bot-Bots comes and gives us a lot of unique alt modes (it still does). The initial wave was cool because it hadn't been swamped with repaints yet.

    • Transformers Seige! Some really nice toys but uh... what's with these horrible splatter marks? Gah! What a pain to remove. Surely they won't keep this up for much longer.

    • GAH! What is this Cyberverse crap?!? Why are these toys so bad??

    • Toys "R" Us closes and the last toy that I had translated for Hasbro, MP Shadow Panther, goes unreleased for a long time until I think Mr Toys got it a year later? I still don't have this toy.

    • Hasbro arranges for me and griffin to be interviewed as part of promoting the upcoming Bumblebee movie.

    • Bumblebee movie is out - yay, a Transformers live action movie with likable characters that doesn't regurgitate the Bayformers plot!


    2019
    • Yay, more Seegi! Gah, now the splatter marks are tampographed instead of painted on? But that just makes them harder to scrub off! Several litres of rubbing alcohol and hours of scrubbing later...

    • Getting sick of BotBots now... just selectively grabbing a figure here and there.

    • Studio Series is giving us Constructicons... now to slowly start building the set.

    • RIP Larry DiTillio

    • These MPs are getting expensive! MP44 becomes the most expensive TF ever, which I skipped, but I did get MP Hound which is the most expensive MP Autobot Car ever.


    My collection...

    L: in 2010, R: in 2019

    Quick year by year snapshots of my participation in the fandom...

    * 2010: I made Shane McCarthy salute my Henkei Megatron. All Hail Megatron indeed!
    * 2011: attending a fan meet at the Parramatta Collectables Fair
    * 2012: attending a fan meet in Osaka Japan
    * 2013: attending another fan meet at Parramatta
    * 2014: meeting Chris Ryall at Sydney SupaNova.
    * 2015: helping Hasbro to promote Combiner Wars at the EB Games Expo
    * 2016: attending another fan meet in Osaka Japan
    * 2017: attending yet another fan meet in Parramatta -- North!
    * 2018: helping Hasbro promote Bumblebee
    * 2019: attending a fan meet at Sydney Olympic Park

  2. #2
    Join Date
    8th Jun 2012
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    Default

    FOC came out on PC via Steam. I ran it on my crappy spec laptop and it was passable. Sadly both it, WFC and Devastation were taken down, and can’t be purchased anymore. There is virtually no one online anymore too, which sucks.
    Seeking the Following:
    - CW Brawl
    - Earthrise Runabout
    - Earthrise Thrust

  3. #3
    Join Date
    27th Dec 2007
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Bidoofdude View Post
    Sadly both it, WFC and Devastation were taken down, and can’t be purchased anymore. There is virtually no one online anymore too, which sucks.
    Yeah, I gotta say that that's the sucky thing about those games -- there's no decent "mindless violence" single player mode. Just the story mode. It'd be neat if you could have an option where, like say Counter-Strike, you could populate a map with Bots and just run around shooting them. It'd be a nice way for noobs to hone some skills rather than being effortlessly wasted by experienced players all the time, but also it would allow players to play the multiplayer modes without the need for other players. Story Mode is fine, but really, there are so many times you can play it before that novelty wears off, whereas sometimes you're just in the mood for some mindless violence. I do like how Devastation incorporated the alt modes into gameplay and attacks.

    I'd like to see a decent Street Fighter style TF game; I know Nintendo developed something like that for Beast Wars Metals which I heard wasn't very good. But imagine something like Devastation but you can select any player in a 2 person beat 'em up with transformations included as part of their techniques and/or special attacks.

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