Another fun episode! Definitely a great way to start the week.
I still haven't started back into Masterforce yet, but after hearing the complete story, I'm even more eager to get back into it.
Anyhow, what I really wanted to give my two cents on was the whole PCC mini-con topic. That said, the only mini-con in my collection is Safeguard, so I guess I'll just go from my experiences with tiny transformers in general. And, for the most part, I loved the "Masters". But to me, it was always based on how well they fit in with their larger brethren.
Micromasters were great since they didn't rely on being a part of another robot and did the vehicle to robot thing quite well for the time - their fun was self-contained. I loved Headmasters too since the gimmick felt unobtrusive - when they weren't a perfectly good head, they were piloting the vehicle - I
loved that!
With Powermasters (I
just about said Godmasters
). I felt that it was just OK. Having them as the engine worked out fine, but then you'd bring them to robot mode and, to me they felt useless (well, unless Hi-Q was manning the turrets in Prime's base mode). So, for the most part, I left them attached to the larger vehicle, where they integrated quite well.
So, to me, the Targetmasters felt weakest of all. Not only did they have what I felt was a useless robot mode, I always hated them plugged into the larger robot (in both modes) because they were so ungainly looking compared to their (often more sleekly designed) partners. In fact, I'm going to invite some flak and state for the record that I wish that Universe Cyclonus didn't come with Nightstick, and instead had a blaster of some kind that flowed with the design of the jet mode because, to me, Nightstick just didn't look right with him.
But, when I see the pics of Smolder and Chopster, I'm genuinely excited since it looks to me like Hasbro finally figured out a way to integrate the partner with the larger figure. I mean, looking at them, not only does Chopster look like a nice axe in Smolder's hands, but the gun mode on the truck looks like it fits into place really nicely. Then the fact that there's a robot mode just seems to be a nice bonus, but not made to be essential to the enjoyment of the figure. So yeah, I'm really eager to see how the line as a whole turns out because I think they're really getting it right now!
Grand knowledge of all things Transformers
[{o}] Till all are One
