Toy Review - RtS G2 Optimus Prime

[GoktimusPrime]

Yeah well in 1999 the toy would've been marked down to clear dead stock. After all, import collectable stores in Sydney marked down reissue God Ginrai to $20 a pop too after they'd been shelf-warming too long. But discount price =/= retail price. Actually, I think I got my G2 Laser Prime for pretty cheap too... found it at Toyworld in 1998 for $20 too... but I vaguely remember seeing it at full retail for about a hundred or so in 1995 (again, this is only IIRC... which I probably can't ). I had 2 Laser Primes at one stage - one I bought on sale... another one I'm sure I paid full retail for. Gah... too long ago! XD

Let me just start off by saying that I wasn't impressed with the way this guy looked from the initial time I saw the first pics of him.

Aside from the head, I don't mind the look of this guy. He's a pretty good homage to the original toy which is what the "Classicsverse" line is meant to be about. And my lack of liking for the head is purely a subjective thing - there's nothing technically wrong with it, except maybe the poor light piping in the eyes, but RtS Jazz's eye light piping is also really poor too. In fact, a lot of RtSes don't light pipe well.

He may be an okay homage to the original G2 version, but in this era, this guy just stinks.

I think he's a good upgrade of the original toy. He's far more articulate which is impressive considering that it's a substantially smaller figure. The shoulder articulation is a bit constricted by the truck kibble - but they put that there to make to toy look like the original Laser Prime, so I can forgive it. And even then, I can still freely swing his arms about with the shoulders popping out like Perceptor's or having his chest fly up like Jazz.

His transformation is simplistic and a tad bit fiddly but the overall look of this guy is where he suffers the most - get him if you love Hasbro grey since there's an abundance of it.

The transformation is rather fiddly, but I found it to be a lot more complex than I was expecting. I thought it would transform like the original toy, but it's significantly more complex than that. I like the way the fuel tanks tuck away and the tyres actually swing up and tuck in. Gives the robot a more streamlined look compared to the original.

The Hasbro grey looks better than I was expecting... but then again, the original toy has an abundance of Hasbro grey too.

He lacks paint apps in plenty of spots and even the pic on the cardback has been doctored up - it shows red paint on his knee caps whereas on the actual toy, it's left as black plastic....cheap looking black plastic.

I did notice that, but it doesn't bother me that much. It wouldn't surprise me if reprolabel made a sticker set to make this toy look more like the original figure.

The only thing cool about this guy is his sword (and that's only because I love sword-wielding bots).

The fact that the sword also allows the toy to interact with the original toy's trailer is a really cool feature. And that's probably why they sacrificed the red paint on the kneecaps - cos the sword has multiple parts and a moving joint to allow it transform from a sword to a truck cab hitch. I like this idea cos it not only incorporates the sword as part of the alt mode instead of just having it in storage like on the original (or like on Drift), it actually contributes to the toy's play value!