The point of the displeasure for the lack of the faction sticker, and the main play feature of the toy. I never meant that the sticker was the main feature of the toy, but it was the main component of the play mechanic. A refresher on how the toy was marketed: YouTube - Battle Beasts Commercial Apparently those of us who have voiced our displeasure here are not the only ones who found the importance of the play mechanic, as that is exactly how they were telling us to play with them. So it shouldn't be unheard of that I find much importance in it. What can I say, habits are hard to break! I see the point you are trying to make, but now I see we obviously played with these in different ways. And yes when I was a child, if a rubsign was lost from a Battle Beast I would no longer play with it. In fact I recall trading those ones away with my friends. I would usually be able to trade 2 without rubsigns for one with. I would always play with the whole "water > fire > wood > water" thing, but sometimes I would team up my fire guys with my Decepticons and Cobras, wood would align with my MOTU good guys, and water hung out with Joes and Autobots. In every scenario I played with them I always grouped them by their element affiliation (or source of power). But in the end I think they're important and you do not, and that's ok by me. I also love the original Headmaster toys and for all I know you could think they are ridiculous. I will admit that I was probably a little harsh in my first judgement with them, and I suppose these Battle Beasts are better than no Battle Beasts at all. I would like some sort of element affiliation though, and I completely agree on the need for some sort of fiction.
I guess I just found the "play mechanic" to be pretty insubstantial, rather than the real raison d'etre for the figures themselves. I never actually based any of my childhood play around the symbols. Why play rock/scissors/paper when you could be playing with cool action figures instead? (especially when you already knew which beasts were which from memory anyway) I guess even at that time, the stickers felt like a superficial gimmick... an embellishment for something that was already plenty cool on its own. I was always the type to take a straight up "action figure" any day, over figures with electronic features, action gimmicks or prescribed "rules" that went with them. Arguably, I suppose this is what Transformers always was from the beginning ("transformation" being the gimmick), but even then, my enthusiasm waned as they became brickier and more focused on Headmasters, Pretenders, spark wheels, pull-back motors, etc... Wow, really?? I wish I had been in your neighborhood back then. I would have traded all my rubsign Beasts away at a 2-for-1 exchange rate! Again, it sure sucks to be the Wood Clan when the Fire Clan comes knockin', eh? Talk about playing with a stacked deck! Headmasters weren't inherently ridiculous, though the surrounding fiction (Marvel and US cartoon) bothered me. But they WERE the beginning of the end from my point of view... though that might also just have been my perspective changing as I got older around then. Pretenders still sucked though. Can we agree on that? Right. And while I certainly don't utterly discount the potential for these because of the lack of rubsigns, I agree that it would be nice if they had incorporated the old Wood/Fire/Water trinity into the concept somewhere... even if it wasn't in a rubsign per se. Like maybe the core body could have a really simply spinner in it that would allow you to set the "sign" for your beast before you put his armour on... and that way you really could play rock/scissors/paper with them, rather than KNOWING from memory which beasts were which. Here's hoping that this preview figure is just Minimates testing the waters, and that they will get more innovative if they decide to fully relaunch the line. zmog
I've got a shitty c5 pre-rub soundwave with a battlebeasts rubsign on. I can't honestly say it's improved his playability a great deal. It did amuse me though.
