Toy Review - RID Combiner Force Crash Combiners - Beeside & Primestrong

[lfpnrg]

Toy Review - Sideswipe & Bumblebee (Beeside), Strongarm & Optimus Prime (Primestrong)
Series – Robots In Disguise (15)
Sub-line – Combiner Force
Size/class – Crash Combiners
New/remould/redeco – New
Wave – Wave 1, 2017
Released here - Yes
Approximate Retail Price - $24 each
Approximate Size – ~7-8cm (Individual), ~14-15cm (Combined)
Allegiance – Autobot (all)
Alt-mode – Car (Bumblebee, Sideswipe), Police Car (Strongarm), Truck (Optimus Prime)
Main Features/Gimmicks – Characters are able to combine
Main Colours – Yellow (Bumblebee), Red (Sideswipe), Blue & White (Strongarm), Blue & Red (Optimus Prime)
Main Accessories – None


Packaging Photos:

Standard Robots In Disguise packaging with the 2017 "Combiner Force" subline logo, the toys are packaged in vehicle mode and the front of the packaging shows an illustration of the combined form of the figures. The back of the package is info heavy regarding the RID mobile app, along with pictures of the toys in combined mode and the actual combined name - Beeside and/or Primestrong.

Vehicle Modes:

The vehicle modes are quite basic, in essence they remain faithful to previous versions of the characters in this line, however Optimus Prime struggles to resemble a truck in my opinion. Vehicle sizes are similar to the Battle Pack vehicles from 2016, around the same size as Legion Class vehicles but much more simple.

Robot Modes:

Robot modes are also very simple with next to no articulation, and again similar in size to a Legion Class figure (maybe slightly bigger) but much more basic. Transformation for all involves flipping down a chest panel to flip the robot head, pulling the arms outwards and separating the legs, certainly nothing difficult.

Combined Modes:

These are called Crash Combiner because to combine them you literally crash the front of one vehicle into the back of another, which initiates a spring loaded transformation. Feet and shoulders then need to be folded up or down and there you have it, once again quite simple, but it is advertised as a one-step transformation so it is what it is. The heads of the combined form are different from the individual robot heads, but the combiners aren't any more articulated.

Strongarm and Sidewipe both form combiner legs, while Optimus Prime and Bumblebee both form the upper bodies, which makes the combined duos interchangeable, forming "Beestrong" and "Primeside" (I guess). The two sets of legs and two sets of torso can also technically combine, but thats just silly (or awesome I suppose, depending on your perspective).

Overall:

An interesting new gimmick for Robots In Disguise, but the figures are nothing to get excited about - an $8 Legion Class figure would be better than one of these for $12 value wise, so I guess you are just paying for the gimmick itself really. If you're not into the RID line, probably avoid, but I'm a completist so have welcomed Beeside and Primestrong to my collection.

[GoktimusPrime]

An interesting new gimmick for Robots In Disguise

...that was first seen in 1989, only now it seems worse.

This is the second time that we've seen Hasbro try and rehash the G1 Multi Force gimmick (the first time was TF Energon's Powerlinx), and neither attempt really managed to improve on the original - but I'll just focus on the Crash Combiners here rather than ranting on about Energon's Powerlinx. I will give Crash Combiners one point of improvement over Powerlinx - at least the combined robots have a different head. Energon never had this. But of course, Multi Force did, so it's not a new thing.

So how are Multi Force any better than Crash Combiners?

* Articulation! Each Multi Force Autobot had at least 6 points of articulation. The arms moved up and down and each leg could kick out sideways and the knees could bend side to side... each Multi Forcer could approximate a Riding Horse Stance. Okay, granted that these were all articulation points that were really built for the toy's transformation and by this standard we could argue that the Crash Combiners all have at least 2 points of articulation (arms look like they can flap a bit). But remember that we're comparing toys released in 1989 vs 2017. Multi Force have reasonable articulation by G1 standards whereas the Crash Combiners have poor articulation by 2017 standards.

* Better looking vehicles. I'm not liking the inverted chest plates on Prime and Bumblebee, and their connector ports are really big and obvious whereas they're more downplayed on Multi Force (albeit there is no crash gimmick). There's also a greater variety of vehicles covering land, sea, air and space.

* Accessories. Each Multi Forcer came with two accessories - a gun for the individual robot and a gestalt component which was used as a vehicle weapon (except for Mach who's component became the vehicle's wings). The guns can all combine into one huge gestalt gun. I don't see any accessories on these Crash Combiners.

* Multiple combinations. Each Multi Force member can become the top or bottom. With 6 members they can form up to THIRTY different combinations! It appears that the Crash Combiners cannot switch between top and bottom (e.g. Sideswipe on top, Bumblebee on the bottom etc.). Also, the Multiforcers take on different identities and names according to these combinations; e.g. Dashtackle, Wingdash, Tackerwaver, Tacklemach, Machwing, Wingtacker etc.

* UNITE! And of course, all of the Multi Forcers can combine into one big gestalt robot - Landcross.

Yeah, I have no interest in getting any of these toys considering that Takara did a better job with this concept 28 years ago.

[lfpnrg]

Cheers for the history lesson, wasn't aware of any of that

[FatalityPitt]

Thing about this toy that surprises me is that the recommended age is 6+.

I think the younglings (kids aged 4 to 8) will probably enjoy these, but it's not for me.

[shockNwave]

Thing about this toy that surprises me is that the recommended age is 6+.

I think the younglings (kids aged 4 to 8) will probably enjoy these, but it's not for me.

A very good point. At times (such as now) I think RID'15 is a companion series to the Rescue Bots series.

[Megatran]

Decepticons are calling the Bumblebee & Sideswipe combiner mode as Bumwipe.

[GoktimusPrime]

Decepticons are calling the Bumblebee & Sideswipe combiner mode as Bumwipe.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Well done.

[MayzaPrime]

Decepticons are calling the Bumblebee & Sideswipe combiner mode as Bumwipe.

Hahahaha... thats hilarious, I will never be able to look at this combiner the same way again.

Hahaha... Bumwipe, classic

[GoktimusPrime]

For those who may not know, in G1 the Multi Force's combined mode's name were simply made by the name of the Autobot on top + the name of the Autobot on the bottom. So the three regular combinations (as sold by Takara in 2 packs and also prominently featured in the cartoon) were:
Wing + Waver = Wingwaver
Dash + Tacker = Dashtacker
Mach + Tackle = Machtackle
There was one episode where Mach and Tackle switched places and formed Tacklemach, but otherwise they just stuck with the three nominal configurations even though there were 26 other possible combinations.

Anyway, in 2001 I travelled down to Melbourne with some TF fans from Sydney to meet up with fans from Melbourne an Adelaide. At our accommodation, dirge was mucking around with his Multi Force toys where he attacked Tackle on top of Waver then cried out, "Look at my Tacklewaver!" - then dirge, Sofaman and myself burst out in laughter. A Japanese fan was also with us and I had to awkwardly explain to him what the alternate slang meaning of "tackle" was.

In fact... *dig.dig.dig* ah, here's a group photo taken from that meet. You can see dirge (2nd from left) holding Tacklewaver!