Toy Review - RODIMUS PRIME (Kingdom)

[christalcase]

Opened mine up yesterday and this is a solid figure, and I actually have a lot of fun with the trailer (all too often, Optimus' trailer feels like an empty box that opens with little additional play value so Rodimus' gun turret is really good in comparison). The vehicle minus the trailer is too chunky to look good, what makes it feel off for me is how the rear juts up compared to the rest of the vehicle, I'm just too used to the sleeker lines of Hot Rod. I didn't really like the transformation, there were several steps that I felt was needlessly fiddly, like they needed to add complexity, so that made it confusing. Otherwise, well worth the sale price of $109 (harder to justify at $149, but I think borderline worthwhile).

[Skyfire]

My copy's calf flaps don't want to clip in, just like my SS86 Hot Rod. Not the same mechanical issue (or fix like I discovered with Hot Rod). I can't yet make out what I'm doing wrong or the mechanical fault. I guess Rodimus really does evolve from Hot Rod...

Edit: well I figured it out - you've got to squeeze (apply pressure) right at the bottom edge of the calf flap, where it clips into the red, rectangular hole.

Christmas at Rodimus's...

[Eazy D]

I certainly think this figure is worth $109 on sale but I wouldn't cough up $150 for it.

The robot mode is fantastic. A small nitpick is that I'd have preferred a dark gray for the boots rather than black.
The space winnebago has pretty much been retconned into a space truck. I'm on the fence about this design choice. Its actually doesn't look bad but I think it was more to justify the price tag. MP-9 nails the space winnebago look.

Having a separate "Hot-Rod style" truck cab seems a bit like a justification for the price tag as well. The cab-mode doesn't tick any box properly. It's too chunky to resemble Hot Rod's sleek vehicle mode and its too car-like to look like a truck cab.
The transformation of the cab to Rodimus Prime also seems like it was made more complicated to justify the price tag and to bump up the parts count.
Altogether, with a little bit of dumbing down this figure could easily have been sold as a Leader which is what I think it should have been.

I'm still very happy to have it though at the Big W sale price.

I am somewhat concerned that in the future Hasbro will try to palm off Voyager/Leader figures as "Commander Class" by making them overly complicated. Seems like a big possibility given they've almost run out of the larger sized Transformers to do who would genuinely justify the Commander scale [Like Sky Lynx and Jetfire]. Fiddly, over-engineered transformers are what the MP line is there for!