Dave's Transformers: PRiD Rant - Power Surge Optimus Prime

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Transformers: Robots in Disguise Rant: Power Surge Optimus Prime

Power Surge Optimus Prime & Mini-Con Aerobolt (truck and bird/shield)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/PRiD/PSOptimus

This came out in Japan at about the same time, give or take a week, as
TAV50 Hyper Surge Optimus Prime. I left it on the shelf the first few times
I saw it, but then TRU responded to Amazon's "Prime Day" by having 15% off
and free shipping for a lot of stuff, and I decided it looked worth $45.
Note, the TAV50 one looks more traditionally Optimus in colors, but this
version looks more like the powerup designs in the cartoon.
The Power Surge motif is also found in some $30 Mega figures (Bumblebee
and Sideswipe in the first batch) which also have electronic sound and light
and Weaponizer partners. But they also have Hyperchanger articulation, so
I'm not going to bother with those unless later waves have unusual
characters.


CAPSULE

$50 price point.

Power Surge Optimus Prime & Mini-Con Aerobolt: Ugh. Looks decent in
robot mode, but bits tend to fall off and there's loads of questionable
engineering choices. The transformation is a nightmare of tabs that won't
hold and limbs that fall off, and the altmode is one of the most
Contractually Obligated Altmodes I've seen since Action Master Elites.
Aerobolt is pretty weak, but can be easily improved by taking it apart and
reassembling it mostly backwards and inside out. Total waste of money,
though. If you can find it on super-clearance for $20 it might be worth it
for just the big robot.


RANT

Packaging: The same sort of open-faced box as all the larger PRiD toys
have come in, but with the new lime-green Power Surge trade dress. The box
is rather vulnerable to damage in shipping, as one might expect, but the toy
came through fine.
Square-fronted at 12.75" (32.5cm) on a side, and 4.25" (11cm) deep. The
front is mostly open, with the Transformers logo forming a border on the
right, art of robot mode and photo of vehicle mode along the bottom border.
A cog shape in the upper left shows off the light and sound button and
provides a tiny bit of structure.
The left side has the lower front artwork wrapping around and another
logo. The right side has un-powered-up art of Optimus and Aerobolt separate
from each other. Rather than co-sells of this size class or the smaller
Power Surge toys, there's a co-sell saying it also works with three other
Weaponizers: Bashbreaker (hammer), Lord Doomitron (cestus?), and Tricerashot
(gun). Wonder if we'll actually ever get single-pack Mini-Cons again,
though? There's been several waves released outside of America while waves 1
and 2 rot on the pegs here. Top panel is just the logo.
On the back, the left side has photos of powered up robot and the
vehicle mode, with a speech bubble where Prime says, "Let's settle this in
the sky!" (with the quotation marks in the speech bubble, implying he's
quoting someone else). The right side shows Aerobolt transforming into a
shield and then connecting to Prime's chest to trigger the power up stuff.
It's sort of an Armada callback, with the Mini-Con making gimmicks work.
While it's possible to get the figure out without opening the box, the
really pathetic and small instruction sheet is behind the tray.
The open faced box lets you activate the sound and light in the store,
so depending on how many kids got to yours first, you may need to replace the
batteries pretty soon. (One AA battery.)


AUTOBOT: POWER SURGE OPTIMUS PRIME
MINI-CON: Aerobolt
Altmode: Truck; bird/shield
Transformation Difficulty: 5 steps; 1 step
Previous Name Use: Never with that particular epithet; none
Previous Mold Use: None
Weapon: Decepticon Hunter Sword
Function: Emeritus Autobot Leader
Motto: "Let's settle this in the sky!"

Packaging: While Aerobolt is packaged off to the side, all the power up
gear is deployed save for the left wing. The sword is in his left hand, and
his truck nose is stuffed into a corner because they'd have needed to make
the box twice as deep if they left it on. And for similar reasons, the heels
are folded under.
It's a mix of rattan strings (5), plastic sock ties (4) and rubber bands
around various bits (7). Two sock ties hold Aerobolt in, and one string
holds the vehicle nose.

As an aside, all this really needs is for the regular faceplate to be
repainted gold and this could be RiD Thunderclash.

Robot Mode: In regular mode, your basic leggy Optimus design, with the
waist joint at about 2/3 of the total figure height. Lots of white and
AllSpark blue to emphasize the whole power surge idea, and even without the
extra stuff deployed it's clearly not a regular Optimus Prime. The folded
down wings make for a credible cloak/cape in the spirit of Fortress Maximus.
The only kibble problems are the truck cab hanging behind the head
(seriously, the entire cab is a snap-on extra chunk) and the battlemask
poking up a bit like a popped collar.
Ignoring the cab-backpack, the figure stands about 11.5" (29cm) tall
with the legs spread apart a reasonable amount, a brickish straight-leg pose
makes him a tiny bit taller. It's the usual Optimus Prime set of red, blue,
and light gray, plys a bunch of white and electric blue. Bright blue plastic
is used on the head, forearms, and boots. A slightly lighter blue but not
quite AllSpark blue plastic is used on the pelvis and the backplate, it's
kinda distracting once noticed. (Aerobolt uses the same blue, so when it's
attached there's a little better color balance, but it's still weird.) Light
gray for the feet, thighs, knees, upper arms, shoulder roots, hands, sword
hilt, and the blasters/thrusters stowed on either side of the head. White
plastic is used for the battlemast, shoudlerpads, torso sides, backpack, and
the top halves of the cloak/wing pieces. The cab and the torso core are
bright red plastic. The fake windows in the chest, the abdomen button, the
wingtips, and the sword blade are clear electric blue. The six wheels and
the power surge reset button on the back are black plastic.
There's a bunch of white paint on the front of the chest, around the
fake windows, with AllSpark Blue on the fake headlights and much of the
abdomen. White and electric blue paint are used on the shin details and the
forearm winglets. There's AllSpark blue circuit patterns on the fronts of
the thighs, and airbrushed AllSpark blue on the round details on the fronts
of the shoulders. The faceplate is silver, the eyes and the helmet crest
vent are AllSpark blue. An Autobot symbol code circle is on the center of
the chest.
The articulation is good in principle, but the actual joints have
issues. The head turns a little to either side, the waist turns on a ratchet
but if you turn too far it starts to look like he's breaking in half, as the
actual shaft is at the spine rather than the center. The shoulders are
smooth universal joints (swivel shoulderpad, outward hinge between
shoulderpad and upper arm). No upper arm swivels, which is really telling on
a sword-wielder. The elbows are totally messed up...they seem intended to be
ratchet hinges, but they only seem to ratchet at 90 degree apart positions
while being smooth in between. Both forearms have fallen off several times
during my attempts at transformation, but I'm pretty sure I didn't lose any
pieces or put them back together wrong. They're just poorly designed. The
wrists are smooth swivels. The hips are ratcheting universal joints so stiff
it feels like they're going to break every time I move the legs in or out.
Smooth swivels just above the smooth hinge knees (which are loose enough to
result in the figure falling over backwards pretty easily). The ankles are
side to side hinges. The heel spurs fold out on very loose transformation
hinges, and picking the figure up is likely to result in the heel spurs
flopping down and ended up undeployed when you set the figure back down.
Pushing the chest button triggers a random set of sound and light,
followed a few seconds later by the transformation sound effect and a
vrooming sound. Speech is accompanied by a yellow LED in the center of the
chest flashing, other sound effects are accompanied by red LED's on either
side of the head. The sound combos are: "Power surge!" (zappy sound), "Let's
settle this in the sky!" (take-off sounds), "Transform!" (no sound effect),
(short blast sound), "Roll out!" (vroom), in random order. If you wait until
the transformation sound effect, the button is locked out until the secondary
sequence is done.
Triggering power surge mode turns the cloak into wings and pops out
shoulder cannons while raising the battle mask. The battle mask is white
plastic with silver faceplate and light blue forehead. It does not turn with
the head. The shoulder cannons just sort of flop around and rest on the
upper body. Light gray plastic housing, light clear blue plastic interior,
with silver paint to help reflect the LED light from inside the torso out the
front. I'm pretty sure the cannons are supposed to rest flat on top of the
torso, but they don't emerge all the way from their storage and so end up
pointing up a bit...and often the two point at different angles. The joints
in the wings don't seem intended as anything but a little wiggle room, they
can't fold around the arms or fold back, they just tend to fall off a lot.
The wingspan is 14" (36cm).
The wings can be folded back down on their own, and there's a slider on
the back that retracts the mask and cannons when pulled down. But the mask
and cannons are a set, you can't have the cannons without the mask. Poking
at the mask when stored will make it and the cannons pop out. However, if
you fold the wings down first, it's rather difficult to get the mask and
cannons stowed, and as long as they're out Aerobolt's peg won't deploy the
wings. Badly designed, begging to be broken.
The hands can hold 5mm pegs and have keyhole slots so that they can also
hold 8mm long tabs (or see below). There's a 5mm peg hole on each forearm,
one on the abdomen (meant for Aerobolt to connect in Power Surge mode).
There's also one on the back, but it's blocked by the cab. The underside of
the cab bumper has a 5mm peg hole, so I suppose you could attach something
there, but it only serves to make the cab look stupider hanging partially
down the back. I suppose it IS a place to store Aerobolt when not in use.
The sword is big and impressive and designed so that no one else can use
it. WTCHOP? There's a deliberate key-style nub on the end and keyhole-
shaped fist holes so that Optimus can hold standard 5mm pegs, but no one else
can hold his sword unless you cut off the key tip. It doesn't make the
sword more stable in his hands, it doesn't peg onto anything in vehicle mode,
it only exists to keep anyone else (except for 3/4 circle hands that can be
stretched open to snap the sword in) from borrowing the sword. They can't
even borrow the blade, which is pegged in place rather than glued, since it
has a stabilizing keytab too. It also seems to be a tiny bit thicker than
the standard 5mm, since Prime can't easily hold the blade on its own, gotta
really push it to get it in. (Which is, I hear tell, what she said.) The
sword also has two 5mm peg on either side of the hilt, for alternate vehicle
mode storage, I guess. The forearm wings prevent those holes from being used
for vehicle mode storage, though, and the rooftop ones are blocked by the
raised "trailer," so...kinda useless there too. It can store on the back in
Power Surge mode if you remove the cab chunk, though.

Transformation: It's basically the same as the other Optimus Primes in
this line, only simpler in concept and more fiddly in execution. Gotta be in
non-powered-up mode. Flip backpack truck nose up over the head, rotate waist
and peg legs together (fold heels in), then pull the arms down and peg them
into the sides of the kneecaps. The instructions leave it out, but you're
supposed to get the sword held by a little tab on one fist. But the whole
back end is really finicky and hard to get tabbed together without something
else falling apart (the elbow joints even fall apart on mine), and to get the
sword in as well I had to remove the wings in order to get enough room to
actually peg everything together, since I don't have tiny 5-jointed fingers.
As far as I can tell, transformation does not actually trigger the
transformation sound. I suppose that's why any button press results in the
sound a few seconds later, they figure you'll probably hit a sound button
accidentally during transformation.

Vehicle Mode: After all that effort, not really worth it. I mean, none
of the Optimus Prime truck modes in this line is GREAT, the best of them is
still pretty obvious about being part of a cab dragging robot limbs (and no
actual cab rear wheels), but this one is just insultingly bad at it. We're
talking Action Master Elite levels of badness.
13.75" (35cm) long and a royal mess. The only new paint is silver on
the grill and gunmetal on the windshield. Theres two 5mm peg holes on the
roof, only one of which Aerobolt can attach to, and that only upside
down...no effort was made to give him a perch for bird mode.
A different button is exposed on the roof, with a different set of
sounds. It cycles non-randomly through, "Roll out!" "Power SURGE!" a blasty
sound, and a driveby sound. Regardless of which sound it makes, if you wait
a few seconds without pushing the button, it will then make a transformation
sound and a whoosh, just as with the chest button.
And now I'm going to transform back to robot mode and never, ever, put
this toy in vehicle mode again. Yuck. I mean, I knew from looking at the
package on the store shelf that it would be mostly a writeoff, but it's a lot
worse than it had to be. I'll probably remove the cab piece entirely,
although once it's in it's REALLY in...the one part I want to have fall off,
and it's one of the few that won't.

Aerobolt: Um, it's sort of a robo-bird with VTOL fans in the wings, but
one of the least convincing birdbots since the 1980s cheapo not-Transformers-
not-Gobots toy lines. The legs look marginally acceptable in only one
position (the vulture perching sort of pose), and look outright stupid in
shield mode. The can't even connect to pegs or anything along those lines,
so if you want him to perch on Optimus's arm or shoulder you'll need to use
poster putty or something like that. The head reminds me of a stylized crow
of sorts, or maybe a totem-style hawk. A little like a Murkrow from Pokemon,
but without the hat-like elements.
3.75" (9cm) wingspan, mostly blue and gray. The head, wings, and torso
front are the same brighter blue as Optimus's pelvis, the back and legs are
light gray plastic. The beak is painted yellow, and the molded Autobot
symbol is painted red. The eyes are painted AllSpark blue, although it's not
very obvious. There is no code circle, unlike most Mini-Cons.
The head can tilt up and down, the wings can flap down semi-
realistically, and the leg unit is hinged at the butt. Its connection peg
sticks up from the small of the back, not useful for anything in bird mode.
To transform into shield mode, fold down the wings, fold down the head,
fold up the legs or just pop them off because they look dumb. Putting the
legs back on backwards makes for a sort of X-shield, a slight improvement I
suppose. Leaving the wings folded out also looks a little better as a
chestplate as opposed to a buckler. Hm, as long as I'm modding, popping the
head off and reversing it so that it can stare into Optimus's face and keep
the chest symbol uncovered (covering the symbol with the beak sort of defeats
the purpose of having it there).
Heck. Even the bird mode works better with head and legs reversed!
Birds usually have wings and back the same color instead of making the back
the alternate color, and if you really want the wings to flap properly you
can always swap them too. Here's a picture of Optimus with Aerobolt on his
chest, head and legs reversed but wings left alone:
http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/PSoptimus.JPG
He can't actually peg onto the forearms as a proper shield, because of
the gimmick-trigger extension of his one peg. Drilling through the bottom of
a forearm peg hole would fix that, though (my 3/16" round cutter head made
short work of it). He's a tiny shield for Optimus, which is kinda weak-
looking, and it looks even dumber in his hand. At least there's sort of an
excuse for making the peg non-standard so that only Aerobolt can trigger the
Power Surge mode, but it ends up making the accessory harder for others to
use, not to mention harder for the intended figure to use!
Putting it into the hole in robot mode chest lets all the Power Surge
gear pop out. Mostly. Usually. It's followed by Optimus saying "Thanks for
the power upgrade!" and an eagle cry (well, what we think of as one) and then
a few seconds later by the transforming sound effect because apparently they
couldn't spare a bit of programming forethought to make it not do that this
time. Removing Aerobolt repeats the sounds, but doesn't untransform.
Pressing on Aerobolt while he's in the chest results in the following set of
sounds, each followed by "Thanks for the power upgrade!"/eagle scream/
transform sound/whoosh: "Power surge!" (zappy sound), "Mini-Con power
insert!" (whoosh), "Power surge mode activated!" (sound clash sound),
"Surging fire!" (blast), "Roll out!" (vroom).

Overall: If they shrank this mold down to Voyager size and removed the
sound and light gimmicks, it might work. But at the $50 price point, the low
quality control, weaksauce altmode, and tendency for parts to fall off are a
lot less excusable. Alternately, keep it the same size, but make it a
non-transforming toy, ditch the cab entirely and focus on making it look good
and stay together.


Dave Van Domelen, definitely having Buyer's Regret on this toy.

[connor...@gmail.com]

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