Why is Nova Prime formerly Galaxy Prime formerly Ultra magnus better than Galaxy Prime and Ultra Magnus?

[Irrellius Spamticon]

So I got Nova prime yesterday from a friend who tired of him. I had casually been interested in the toy despite having no connection to the character. The only thing I knew was that he was a comic character that inspired battle Core Optimus from Combiner Wars and a lot of modders liked to mod Battle Core Optimus to Nova Prime, the driving force behind Battle Core Optimus being worth more than twice his original retail some 5 years after.

I've never owned this mold. It looked bad to me as Ultra Magnus, and almost as bad as Galaxy Upgrade Optimus Prime.

But for some reason this is pretty good.

Maybe I hated Siege Magnus because he came out right after we'd all gotten Combiner Wars Prime? I know I hated his lack of being a car carrier made me dislike it.

Maybe I hated Galaxy Upgrade Prime because I'd assembled Cybertron Prime toy and by comparison Galaxy Upgrade Prime has less features?

Maybe I just needed this mold as it's own character to appreciate it? Even though there are many artifacts and remnants from previous characters I like this, even though stowing the shoulder pads in vehicle mode is quite lazy, and a lot of the cab connection method seems strange and to not quite fit right, I like him.

I generally hate partsformers, and I think part of my objection to Galaxy Upgrade Prime was how the cab front came off to make the forearm details instead of being the hands like the original namesake did, making more partsformering, but now Galaxy Prime does it and somehow looks better.

Maybe I just didn't have an expectation requirement. I wanted to like this mold but Hasbro kept connecting it to characters who already had better toys previously, and now that they attach it to a character I objectively did not need, or care about, they'd succeeded in making him a new character.

Even though he has so much left over from his other uses, and I feel like the only method to transform him is to flex his plastic and his tabs always make me feel like I'm on the verge of breaking him.

[Codigo Postal]

Siege/Kingdom Magnus always felt to me like Hasbro doing a knockoff+upgrade of Fansproject's City Commander, only ten years later. It's essentially the same transformation, albeit with the improvements you'd expect from a multinational company versus a 3P outfit.