In the opening scene we see the Constructions in their vehicle forms navigating around Starscream & Megatron. They all appear to be scale with human vehicles. Later when you fight Devastator as Optimus, he is an absolute monstrosity........Mixmaster (Leg mode) is easily 9x the size of Optimus.

There is some SERIOUS size morphing going on here....has that always been the case with Combiners? (Groove notwithstanding lol)

 

yes

 

I'm assuming he speaks of TF Devastation?

In the cartoon, he often was depicted as much larger than his constituent parts. In fact, the combiner teams, who all consist of either Deluxe or Voyager limbs, grow much bigger in gestalt form in G1.

 

Mass shifting explains everything.

 

Or in Dreamwave's MTMTE bios, "folding panels".

 

Scale? What's scale? This is G1 Transformers, where Devastator could form, and move around, in Astrotrain, where Soundwave can carry a small army, where Megatron shrinks down to a gun…….no wait, in the game he's in his Generations Leader Class Body (see, we get some toy placement right there)

 

It's Mass Shifting. In the old days I think Devastator wasn't so big; the vehicles stayed normal size when combined. Since Dreamwave's influence, the combiners grow to gigantic proportions.

 

To be fair, Predaking always seemed to get much larger than his component parts in the cartoon. Does IDW do the "make my monster grow!" thing with Combiners?

 

Yes.

Of course, it has the flaw of making them dumber and harder to control.

 

In that old episode where Hoist and Grapple build that Solar Power Tower, Devastator is HUGE! I remember the shot of the Autobot cars driving around the tower and Devastator is the background and he's like Galactus to them. LOL

File:MasterBuilders devastator under attack.jpg - Transformers Wiki

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net...est/scale-to-width-down/314?cb=20150319061424

 

I just fought Menasor, and there is some blatant size-changing there, considering Motormaster was only as tall as Prime when I fought him alone.