Generation Selects King Poseidon Review

King Poseidon is the latest (as of April 2020) Scamble City combiner.
Announced in mid-2019, its members were released in three waves between February and April 2020.
Western collectors who managed to preorder its parts probably paid a minimum of $35 per deluxe limb, plus $55 for the Voyager torso. As it was in high demand, preorders sold out everywhere quickly, with an escalating secondary market.

For those of us lucky enough to obtain all six Seacons, was it worth it?



In short: yes. Each Seacon has great personality, demanding attention thanks to generous paint applications, good engineering and great accessories, managing to fully translate the G1 toys into a Classic rendition.
Even if they were not combining, the six members would have deserved to be bought on their own, because of their uniqueness.

It is amazing how far the original molds have come:

Turtler, from CW Silverbolt.
Gulf, from PotP Blot (from PotP Rippersnapper).
Lobclaw, from PotP Blot (from PotP Rippersnapper).
Kraken, from PotP Cutthroat (from PotP Swoop).
Tentakil, from PotP Moonracer.
Overbite, from PotP Rippersnapper.

The designers went the extra mile to make sure all accessories and modes were given life.

You can get creative with the leftover guns and parts, but I personally prefer setting them aside to avoid making King Poseidon too busy, and too heavy.



But when it comes to the combiner, this gestalt is truly more than the sum of its parts.

The targetmaster feature of the G1 Seacons has been kept, but the connectors (not even the limbs' knee joints) cannot hold a pose where King Poseidon is shooting straight.

Any of the five limbs could become the targetmaster gun, but it's clear that Overbite is the preferred choice - as it's the only member whose gun allows King Poseidon to effectively walk aided by a stick.
It's not ideal, but OTOH, if the combiner joint had been strong enough to bear all that weight, there would have been little playability, with an extremely stiff shoulder - and these are, after all, still toys.

The new hands are excellent: they improve on the PotP design, and attach on the back of the feet for added stability - which is not really needed, as King Poseidon tends to lean forward, something that most CW-style combiners unfortunately do.

The new feet provide great stability and do their job well, but they are not enough by themselves to prevent the leaning.

Update 27/4/20
Mixing up limbs works very well - these are just two examples. Overbite is probably best limited to Targetmaster duty, though.



King Poseidon is an excellent addition to any TF collection, especially if you enjoy combiners. It's a swan song for a very special era of Transformers design, and we can only hope future combiners will maintain this incredible balance between complexity, playability and G1 faithfulness.

Transformation 10/10
Paint applications 10/10
Engineering 8/10 (more had to be done to prevent the leaning)
G1 faithfulness 7/10 (to be really faithful it had to have worse proportions - it's actually better than the G1)
Stability 7/10 (the leaning is there, but it's not as bad as with other combiners, especially those with a Hotspot torso)
Accessories 10/10 (all accessories serve a purpose, nothing is wasted, and there's plenty of options)
Price 5/10 (fair price during initial preorders, but high demand meant prohibitive secondary market prices)

Overall 8/10
King Poseidon is not the perfect combiner, that will always be CW Superion. But considering the ambitions of the original design, Generation Selects King Poseidon succeeds on most fronts. If you love combiners and are not intimidated by secondary market prices, you can bump it to a 10/10.

 

No, at least not in my copy.

 

They are indeed very enjoyable on their own, lots of personality.

 

As someone who's happy with TFC Poseidon, this looks awesome and totally worth the prices that were on Pulse or other retail shops.

My biggest beef is I hate the chicken thighs that come with the CW Silverbolt mold. It's just too skinny. It's fine for Superion since the jets are slimmer than most limbs. But everything else is...no right for me.

Congrats on those who have this though.

 

never been a fan of this guy, and not regretting I didnt jump in. Glad you guys that wanted it got it though!

 

How do the guns combine together?

 

Turtler's gun has a large number of connections, see second picture in the review.

 

So there isnt a set way to do it

 

correct, if there is I didn't catch it in the instructions

 

How about the sword? I like that the connection points are for the most part unpainted, but what about where Turtler's sword connects to make the combined sword's tip? Any scary connecting?

 

As far as I can see, there are no evident scratches where the two sword from Gulf and Overbite connect to Turtler's sword.

 

Really looking forward to finishing up the set. Snaptrap/Skalor look amazing and I'm honestly pretty happy with their beast modes, legs on Skalor aside. I was hoping Abominus would be the vibrant Decepticon combiner since I don't collect titan class, but Poseidon definitely scratches that itch

 

So I received Tentakil and Overbite today so finally my Piranacon is complete! I have no attachment to these characters, their original toys or anything from them being in media apart from the odd episode or clips I've seen of Masterforce. But be damned if I don't love these figures and characters now! I loved Combiner Wars and feel like these are a great continuation of that series. I would enjoy displaying these guys in any of their modes on my shelves and find myself continuously picking them up, transforming and playing with them much more than any of my other Combiners I have (Abominus has always been my go to pick up and play around with combiner) I love the wacky colours and alt modes and some of these figures have the best headsculpts I've seen personally.

I am interested in potential upgrades, specifically some new ratchets for Piranacon's hips as he is a bit on the floppy side (like his shared molds before him) I love the design of his hands and feet but if Perfect Effect did some bigger/slightly more stable ones I may be interested, cost depending.

The biggest downfall though, and I knew it would be from the get go, he really struggles to hold his sixth member as a Targetmaster, even with putting a layer of super glue on the hips of all the deluxes, he still struggles to hold the extra member in gun mode, even dual wielding them he cannot hold it up. Its fortunate that he comes with a plethora of other weapons which he can easily wield due to them being lighter, his trident looks boss in particular!

Overall I'm really glad I picked up these guys, Nautilator and Snaptrap being my personal favourites! Nautilator's headsculpt is killer.

 

Really love this set, but there is no way I'm putting the 6th guy as a gun for him.

He leans far too much forward for my liking, to the extent that I've currently got him on the floor, being supported by a box. I won't be putting him properly on display till I can get some anchoring string between him and the wall.

 

Anyone got a best to worst ranking of the six?

 

just my 2 cents...

Best: Tentakil, the embodiment of the Seacons' spirit.
2nd: Gulf, no real flaws.
3rd: Lobclaw, fun but not spectacular.
4th: Kraken, OK but based on a weak mold (Swoop).
5th: Overbite, nice paint application but overly simplistic. It's just there.

Turtler is its own category, and it's OK I'd say. Stability issues, carrying lots of stuff all the time.

 

I made the decision to separate the figures, as I watched and read a few reviews last night, and saw evidence of combiner ports stressing and on one case actually cracking, so didn't want to run the risk of that happening whilst King Poseidon is leaning forward.

However from the brief play with these figures, I am really impressed, and if Hasbro do a combined set of them, then I'm likely to doube-dip, something I've never done with any of the other combiners. I can justify all bar Turtler because there were loads of them in Masterforce. Right?

If Hasbro do release them away from Pulse, they're likely to cheapen them slightly. so they'll probably end up being my Piranacon, but I'll see what happens.

Phill

 

Out of interest, is there any way to attach Seawing to the back of the combiner - instead of as a gun - and give Piranhacon some wings?