One thing I absolutely adore about the Transformers franchise is that it has literally millions of characters spanning from first to verse. Not only that, so many unique forms and iterations of said characters so good that they can stand as their own characters and carry a respected name. I remember when i was a kid watching Armada for the first time and the idea of Minicons always appealed to me. So your saying we have billions of mini micro mechs that harness unique powers and have the capacity to be independent in the war vs Bots and Cons? It's like Pokemon for the Transformers, gotta find them and catch em for yourself and then pit them against others. As the series went on i know the idea was getting alittle repetitive so I do kind of understand why they never carried on after the Unicron trilogy but I dunno why they just couldn't be improved. Even today I think they have so much untapped potential for lore, abilities, and transformations. Imagine- a rag tag team of Minicons venture to the skies to just...look for stuff. Explore, find different planets and galaxies, basically be as far away from earth as humanly possible. On their travels they'll learn about the war, and decide if they wanna remain independent or pick a side. Comedy, drama, betrayel, adventure galore.
Actually, I kinda like the ideas involving the minicons as well. There's something about Armada and their whole partner aesthetic, some even being uniform with each other, and being gang molded is rather nice, like i would love to see more of that in a future toyline where you get a Deluxe and/or Voyager sized figure(s) that come with minicon partners that come with weapon modes while the bulks come with battle station modes for the minicons. Sorta like how Siege handled micromasters, And larger Leader Class figures come with Armada-style gimmicks without needing to compromise anything. Plus i love getting two figures in one. That's always fun.
They did, but not in the traditional sense. They happened to take form things like Disks (Drift), Spheres (Crazybolt) and Rockets/Torpedoes (Fracture) and they weren't part of a universal 5mm-port system until the Weaponizer retools where they take more Targetmaster-like forms.
IMO, the really compelling aspect of the Mini-Cons is how in Armada they originated as Unicron's emotionless antibody cells, and intended to infiltrate the Cybertronian race as helpers and one day turn on them so Unicron could consume them, but were given a soul and free will by a human from the future and rebelled against their creator to live in peace. It's especially disturbing with how it's presented; for the majority of the show their origin is a mystery, and they're characterized as an innocent and abused race, and suddenly we learn of their dark purpose that would've eradicated the Cybertronian race and empowered Unicron, but still they reject this and unite against him, and send an inspiring message to the Cybertronian race (which here is characterized towards the end as a violent race of savages that crave battle and exist in perpetual war) that they can be as compassionate and peaceful as they choose and aren't defined by their history. This is why I hate Micronus Prime, he completely erases their dark past for yet another copy-and-paste Thirteen Primes descendant origin. I guess it wouldn't be a surprise reveal anymore anyway, but even just having them be pre-established as refugees from Unicron that have been accepted into society (or better yet, haven't been accepted and face discrimination and racism for their lineage) would be more interesting. The Armada Mini-Cons were the best interpretation because, although they exist in toy form as hit-or-miss gimmicks and are obviously trying to sell toys, the whole story of Armada was built around them, and it was actually a really good story.
Agreed! The Unicron origin could work as a great reimagining of Micronus’ backstory. His struggles as a descendant of Unicron appointed to Primehood would be very interesting.
I'm watching The Armada cartoon now (getting close to half-way) and... I'm not liking the concept as presented in the cartoon all that much. Tiny Transformers that are super-powered doesn't work for me. I would have preferred a concept of the standard Transformers getting in a situation where their full power was somehow castrated, and the mini-cons would be needed to unlock that potential, instead of them being a power-up like they did.
I mean, if you think about it, that kind of is what's happening. Hot Shot's entire rear axle assembly just so happens to be able to have the transformation to unfold into a giant cannon, but he can't normally access it without a mini-con.
I never liked the minicons being needed to unlock weapons. Just seemed stupid the Transformers were walking around with all these weapons built into them for thousands of years and not being able to use them. Same with the toys. Maybe I just want to play with the larger bot and not have to find a minicon to activate the gimmick. Was extra annoying on those few toys that needed the specific one for the gimmick. I would have preferred them just plugging onto the robots and the fiction said they boosted the larger robot's abilities. Maybe some would give a speed boosts, some would make them stronger, some make the weapons more powerful. Basically, the Minicons would give a boost to the various tech-spec stats. Each minicon could have had a little symbol on it showing what it boosted. You could even have ones that gave a more specialized power. For example, a minicon that gave the bot teleporting power like Skywarp or Mirage's invisibility.
