Dave's Transformers Cyberverse Rant: Smash Changer Optimus Prime

Optimus Prime (armored truck)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Cyberverser/SmashOptimus

This is a bit of an oddball toy, it was originally announced as part of
the Rise of the Beasts toy line, hence having movieverse detailing rather
than Cyberverse. My assumption here is that they already had the toys made,
and when the movie got pushed wayyyy back decided it'd be cheaper to make new
Cyberverse-branded packaging and ship 'em instead use up warehouse space for
another six months to a year.
This is technically the vanguard of a new gimmick, I guess the rest of
the Smash Changers weren't far enough along to get released this way.

CAPSULE

$34 at Walmart.

Optimus Prime:

RANT

Packaging: Open-window box in Cyberverse trade dress, with a Cyberverse
art style version of the toy as the art under the opening. 9" (23cm) tall,
8" (20cm) wide, 3" (7.5cm) deep. The inner tray has a green space background
with stars and a yellow-green burst behind the figure.

AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME
Assortment: F8067
Altmode: Armored Truck
Transformation Difficulty: 4 steps (or one smash, I guess)
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
Epithet/Gimmick: Smash Changer
Function: Noble Leader

Packaging: Rattan strings tied around the waist and shins, a plastic tie
on each arm, one around the neck.

Robot Mode: As noted above, it's definitely a movie bot, with lots of
little tech greebles in between the armor plates, but like other Bumblebee-
subuniverse bots it's not full Bayformer either. The differences are
significant enough to make it clear that this was never intended for the
Cyberverse line, though. The legs are fused together and there's a sort of
cape going on, but it's not too horrible looking for a "one step" toy.
There's two wheels on each arm, but the one at the elbow is molded onto the
arm shell and does not move. There's also the usual two wheels on each boot,
with the upper ones able to wiggle a little but not actually spin.
8" (20cm) tall at the head, a little bit taller at the roof hatch behind
the head, in the usual Optimus Prime colors. Bright red plastic is used for
the collar, the torso, and most of each arm. The biceps, elbows, and some of
the internal trigger bits are medium gray plastic. The head, cape, and legs
are dark blue plastic. The real wheels (all but the elbow ones) are dark
gray plastic.
There's silver on the faceplate, the chest window borders, some odd
piping details on the lower chest, and the bumpers on the shell pieces over
the fists. Gunmetal paint is on the upper surfaces of the forearms and fists
(the inner faces are hollow, the undersides are unpainted), the abdomen, and
the fronts of the pelvis, thighs, and knees. Not the sides of the thighs,
though...this is basically a deco that looks okay from the front but not form
any other angle. The eyes are bright blue, the lights on the top of the
chest, the bottom center of the chest, and the headlights on the fist shells
are painted yellow. The fake wheels at the elbows and the spare tire on the
cape are paitned dark gray, a decent match to the plastic. The chest windows
and windshield wipers are gloss black, and there's white Autobot symbols on
the fronts of each shoulder.
It's a brick. The head turns, and the elbows bend, that's basically
it. There's upper bicep swivels, but those are spring-loaded. The fists can
hold 5mm pegs, and the spare tire on the cape has a 5mm socket in its center,
although it's a tiny bit too small due to the paint layer on it.

Transformation: Going to robot mode is far from simple, in large part
because of all the springs that have to be pulled into place. The main
things are bending the elbows first, and then manually pulling the back
panels out before trying to shove the arms back against the sides. After a
couple of tries, I got to where I could do it pretty quickly.
As for the gimmick? You'd think that something like this wouldn't need
instructions, just push button and it transforms? Um, not so much. I think
the theory is that if you push the top botton on the truck at the same time
as you press down hard on the back will make it all transform at once, but
that didn't work the half dozen or so times I tried. Instead, you need to
push down on the back first to make the side panels in back pop out, THEN
pushing the button on the cab works more or less as intended. Or...not. I
can't get it to reliably work in any order, sometimes one order works and
sometimes it takes another. Ugh. I think that they didn't want it to
spontaneously transform during truck-mode play, but ended up making it a
little too hard to transform on purpose. Also, designs that work great in
the modeling files can fail badly when executed with the quality control
tolerances of Hasbro's usual factories.

Vehicle Mode: My first impression was that this was a garbage truck, but
it's more like the movie Hound or Legacy Bulkhead, an 8-wheeled armored box
(although only the front and rear pairs of wheels roll). Unfortunately, due
to the need to have the robot back be red, the side panels change from red to
blue partway back, resulting in a pretty muddled color scheme for this mode.
It'd work better if they did it all in green and gave it Bulkhead's or
Hound's head.
6.25" (16cm) long in an unevenly divided red in front and blue in back
color scheme. No paints or plastics not already described, the cape ends up
as the roof of the back end.
It rolls okay on the four real wheels, and as noted above is a little
too solid. The spare tire socket lets you mount a borrowed gun on top if its
peg is a little under 5mm (or you're willing to scrape out the paint).

Overall: Avoid this turkey. Maybe the later Smash Changers will work
better, maybe I got a bad copy in the first place, but even if it worked
perfectly it's a bit expensive for a "one step" Transformer that requires
multiple fiddly steps. If it's gonna be a brick, it needs a satisfying
gimmick, and this is a frustrating gimmick.

Dave Van Domelen, at least wasn't so turned off as to give up on the
review and just do a capsule?

Oops, posted before writing the Capsule. "It's a brick with a
disappointing and unreliable gimmick. Avoid."

Dave Van Domelen, was kinda in a hurry to be done with this one.