Prime Wars Trilogy: which was the best toyline?

[GoktimusPrime]

I think the one thing that bugged me about TR was there was no TR Sunstreaker; IDW usually tie their products in nicely with HasTak and I think this was a missed opportunity from the Simon Furman -ations run and Max Dinobots with all the red/white clones. How fun would that've been!!

Totally agree, but from a marketing POV I guess because it was too soon after Combiner Wars Sunstreaker.

[Golden Phoenix]

It was a tight choice between Combiner Wars and Titans Returns for me, but I went with Combiner Wars.

POTP just felt like a combo of both of them thrown together at the last second, or with leftover parts of each one. It just didn't feel cohesive as the other 2.

Titans Returns was good, but I didn't how every character barring scouts we head masters. If you could transform them without taking off the head (like some of the leaders) it would have been better because it would have made the gimmick optional.

Combiners Wars did that, so you could have it as a combiner if you wanted to but it wasn't forced.

[Tha_Phantom]

Love the Prime Wars trilogy, or maybe I should hate it, as it got me back into collecting again after a long hiatus. Anyhow....

Combiner Wars was great, we got a ton of classic characters in a consistent scale together and we even got some surprises like Skylynx.
I understand the need for repaints and retools not just to make money back from a mold, but I can imagine it's not easy to make mold after mold that all meet the same length dimensions when in limb mode. I have 16 combiners on my display currently (that's counting CW, UW and POTP combiners). I don't mind that they aren't perfect, they're good for the price point and I couldn't imagine parting with them.

Titans Return furthered what we got with CW in terms of unique characters. If you had told me ten years ago we would get the jumpstarters in CHUG form I'd have laughed in your face! I don't care for headmasters really, but it's nice that they can pilot the vehicle mode (in most cases). The level of detail and G1 accuracy on the figures from this line was fantastic too and that
titans class Trypticon is pure awesome!

Power of the Primes combined what I loved about both previous lines - combiners, G1 accurate updates and threw in an evolution gimmick too. I know not all like the evolution thing, but I thought it was as well done as it could be for the price point and hey let's throw in an Optimal Optimus with an amazingly gorgeous throne repaint for the sake of it!

All in all, it had it's flaws, but I do appreciate what HasTak did here. My favourite line of the three would have to be POTP, but I love them all. I was sad when I found out POTP was only going to last 3 (or technically 4) waves.

[Lint]

TR for me. For once the gimmick didn't ruin the toy. We did get a couple of stinkers but they weren't headmaster related.

CW was long overdue on paper but the result gave us many truly awful toys all for the sake of combination.

POTP basically felt like leftover/unused/rehashed designs from the first two toylines and being so small can't be fairly compared.


I have to say with possibly the exception of CW the scout/legends class game was strong in the Prime Wars Trilogy. It's really made me pay attention to this size class.

[SharkyMcShark]

I wish they'd run with the evolution gimmick line wide in POTP. It's a cool gimmick.

I have to say with possibly the exception of CW the scout/legends class game was strong in the Prime Wars Trilogy. It's really made me pay attention to this size class.

It hasn't been this strong since ROTF/DOTM days

[M-bot]

I loved each of these 3 lines very much, but picked Titans Returns as I think it was that line that had the most "I can't believe we actually got modern interpretations of these characters" moments.

CWs was a very close second but as much as I loved it too, I feel like we needed to wade through a fair number of mediocre combiner toys in the years previous to get there.

[Lint]

It hasn't been this strong since ROTF/DOTM days

ROTF had some sweet scouts. I don't remember DOTM having scouts, just that legion sized cyberverse nonsense.

[doublespy]

I loved each of these 3 lines very much, but picked Titans Returns as I think it was that line that had the most "I can't believe we actually got modern interpretations of these characters" moments.

I second this. I really appreciate that Hasbro made new figures of this many less-than-popular characters, and they're mostly very faithful to the their G1 representations to boot.

Combiner Wars started very strong but the aesthetic fatigue set in pretty fast too. The combiner port system Takara came up with was absolutely ingenious though.

Titans Return on the other hand offered variety and lots of designs across the board. I actually didn't mind the idea of making traditionally non-headmaster characters headmasters. It's play pattern I'm sure younger fans would enjoy; hell I've had some great times too with vehicles, monsters, weapons and bases etc. that these little dues can all interact with. These are seriously fun toys.

Overall I think Hasbro did extremely well with the Prime Wars trilogy. It's probably been the best 2-3 years for me in terms of main line output. I feel like John Warden really understand how to work the bean counters and please the fans at the same time. And Siege looks to be shaping up to be pretty awesome too.

[GoktimusPrime]

From here

I was amazed and how many characters have gotten new toys!

Yup! This is what I luuuurv about CHUG.
I love building a Neo-G1 collection with modern figures, and the reason I started making those CHUG-G1 catalogues was to show how much of G1 has been realised as CHUGs (I'll update them and make new ones next summer )

And this is why I personally prefer new CHUG figures to be based on characters that have never been made as CHUG before. e.g. when I look at the Siege figures, toys like Optimus Prime, Megatron, Hound, Sideswipe, Soundwave etc. don't really peak my interest. I already have existing CHUG figures on each of those characters. It's the same reason why I skipped toys like CW Sunstreaker, TR Megatron, POTP Optimus Prime etc. - nothing wrong with those toys, but they're just entirely surplus to my needs. But guys like Flywheels, Cog and the Micromasters have been super-excited and I can't wait to get them because they just don't exist in my current CHUG collection.

I personally much prefer CHUG to focus on making 'new' characters (i.e. ones never done before) rather than revisiting ones that I already have.

[MayzaPrime]

And you can bet that there are kids who are losing those Headmasters and we can expect to see a lot of headless TR characters on the secondary market in a few years' time (just as the G1 secondary market must has a lot of headless Headmasters). :/ The cool thing about the CW TFs - even the combining ones - is that even if you lose all of their accessories, they are still fully functional Transformer action figures. They can all transform from robot to alt mode and back. Lose a Headmaster and your robot mode is screwed, unless you buy a replacement independent Titan Master, but even then it doesn't look the same.

Heck, this happened only recently with TaZZerath who lost his TR Grax, and he's an adult collector! I'm not having a go at him, this could happen to any of us - but it highlights the inherent flaw of the Headmaster gimmick. The head is essentially a detachable and transformable accessory (or in the case of Nitro Zeus, non-transformable). A classmate lost my Krunk back in 1988 and my Snapdragon was headless for years and years until I managed to replace it. Totally sucked!

3 out of 4 of my kids have Titan Masters and they love them. We have so far lost 2 heads Top-Spin and Triggerhappy. Fortunately we found Triggerhappy's head in the hedge in my front yard. Luckily I bought my daughter TR Arcee and we have re-purposed Ultra Magnus's head for use on Top-Spin, He is now called Ultra-Spin.

I also have PoTP Dinobots sitting in my walk-in wardrobe which is going to be a gift for my 3rd son's birthday. So it will be interesting how they compare TR with PotP