yes. armada is meh at first, gets cool at the end, energon is overall mediocre save for the few times they switched animation techniques to make it look good, and cybertron is overall okay and unoffensive. heck, the last one is just a fun good old cartoon with lots of stock footage.

 

Armada is well worth the ride, my favorite series period.

 

Avoid Energon at all costs.

 

I'd say the first few episodes of Energon are worth watching once. Scorponok, Starscream, and Megatron are actually seen as pretty threatening for a change unlike the slap stick almost Hanna-Barbera levels of incompetence from the Armada introduction. Also the build up to Rodimus was the best Hot Rod fan service (god that looks terrible when typed out) until Nick Roche got a hold of the character.

Sadly things start to go down hill pretty fast after that.

 

I'd say it becomes watchable around the time the Requiem Blaster shows up, which I thought was a little while before they go into space. My recollection is fuzzy though.

Energon has a few decent moments early on. SuperLink is generally decent for maybe the first half of the series, if you can tolerate the Destrons' various annoying quirks. Both versions would be better without Kicker's sullen moping. The god of awesome transforming robots has chosen me as his special human emissary... my life is so lame.

Cybertron is decent, but it has enough super-robot-isms that it feels more right in Japanese. The issues introduced by trying to force the show back into continuity don't help the US version either.

 

Watch Armada and then stop.

 

The beginning of Armada is pretty bad. Not just in terms of the story being repetitive and the characters being annoying, but also in terms of technical aspects like the dialogue errors and the animation problems. The second half (or so) is a lot better and the story gets more interesting. I seem to recall the point where the quality improved being around the time of Optimus' traditional once-per-series death, but it's been awhile since I watched the series.

Energon is garbage. It's up there with TF/Visionaries, The Beast, Kiss Players and the Keepers Trilogy as one of the worst pieces of TF-associated media. The characters are annoying, the animation is poor and the dialogue is terrible. In addition, the show has *maybe* 13 episodes worth of actual plot but through dragging out the story and repeating plot points multiple times, they stretch it out to 52 episodes. Avoid this series.

Cybertron is okay. The technical aspects are better than both Armada and Energon, there are fewer annoying characters and the story is more interesting. The main problem with it is, like Energon, they don't have anywhere near enough plot to fill 52 episodes. The answer to that is to drag out the story, particularly in the first half of the show. I think if this series had been edited down to 26 fast-paced episodes, it would actually be pretty good. As is, it's just mediocre.

Personally, I like to just ignore Energon and pretend Cybertron is a direct sequel to Armada. It's not a perfect solution but, IMO, it works just as well as trying to reconcile Cybertron being a direct sequel to Energon.

 

I love Armada. If you think the kids are annoying you probably shouldn't watch the UT.

 

The first half of Superlink is actually the best of the trilogy, imo. Better than either Armada or Cybertron as a whole. But that's Superlink, not the Energon version.

After the first half of Superlink, the next best part of the trilogy is the second half of Armada (either language) as others have mentioned above. As for Cybertron, it's popular here with some, but for me it never got better than "forgettable", other than the fantastic Optimus design which became one of the best Optimus Prime figures ever made.

 

Armada's first half is... slow, but after they leave Earth shit gets real good. Energon has a good start, but then... yeah, nah. Cybertron is my all time favourite. It was the first series I ever watched from beginning to end when it aired on Cartoon Network.

 

Armada is decent, but Cybertron is better in my opinion. I watched Energon, but it wasn’t that good to keep my attention.

If you like dubs, Armada is decent as well, and again, Cybertron goes beyond that to good. The VA team had a bit of fun with the stock sequences too, leading to some funny banter.

Subs I never watched, but if you like that, then that’s fine as well.

What I am trying to say is that you would like Armada and Cybertron, but ignore watching Energon.

 

I enjoy the Unicron trilogy and miss it in a way to be honest. I grew up with it for the most part so there is some nostalgia.

Armada I would say is the 4th be TF show behind G1, Beast Wars, and Prime in my opinion. Some people would say only the last 13 or 26 episodes are good. To me really the only rough episodes are the first episode and the Carnival one. Besides that the first 12 episodes are fine and really it picks up episode 13. I think the designs are awesome and would love to see an new Optimus in that style. Really the only real problem I have is the shaky animation because Cartoon Network rushed the production. But the show has a story to tell. Optimus is awesome in the show and Hot Shot was my first favorite Transformer back in the day. Starscream has a great arc. The rest of the characters are good and make/made me want to buy the toys when watching. The annoying bad characters are Fred and Billy. Rad and Carlos have some annoying moment but nothing too bad.

Energon to me is enjoyable. I have said this many times in the past few years but I will defend it as a guilty pleasure. The first half of the show has an actual story to tell with some cool characters like Rodimus or Demolisher but sadly they do just become background characters to sell toys as it goes on. But still enjoy Optimus, Hotshot, and Jetfire being back. Ironhide is a huge name slap but I do my best to ignore this because it was made in 2004 where there were a lot of name slaps on characters before the 2007 movie I feel. The animation I enjoy although must don't but again it makes everything look like the toys which is cool in a way. I really do not hate Kicker. He is a brat at first but grows over time and is better then Miko, the Cybertron kids, and any human seen in RID2015. I would say watch it after for Armada but know it is a let down character wise but does good world building and makes it a Space Opera.

Cybertron is the one I watched the most as a kid because I feel like I could actually find on TV where it did not have horrible time slots... well until the second half. But it the one I visit the least now just because the kids bug me and I liked Hot Shot old voice better. But it is all together an average show and has enough characters to fill out the ranks again not the best for character development but good to sell toys.

 

I agree 100% the Japanese versions are much better with Superlink being the weakest.

 

Cybertron is one of my favorite TF shows, I'd highly recommend it probably one of the better series too IMO. Armada is decent, has my favorite interpretation of Starscream which has yet to be topped. But Energon is pretty forgettable, an easy skip.

 

Engeron wasn't so great to me, but that's my opinion. Cybertron seems good. Not for sure about the Armada.

 

They never were  

Sorry, even as a kid (I was 14 when it premiered) I was just like “no.. just no. This is dumb” lol.

And I wasn’t even just an edgy teen “growing out” of cartoons, either.

 

Pretty much agreeing with everyone. Armada starts out really bad (basically the Pokémon of Transformers), but half way through, it does get better. I'm in the minority of people who really liked Energon, but the 2nd half kinda fizzles a little. Basically the story is, we gotta stop Unicron, Unicron is destroyed, Unicron comes back, we gotta stop Unicron, Unicron is destroyed. It really felt like they just didn't have enough story for the full series. Cybertron is good but like the rest of the unicron trilogy, it feels very much like a big toy commercial. Throughout all of the Unicron trilogy, we get unneeded power up modes which basically do nothing for the story, but give the characters new paint jobs so kids will buy new figures. At least in Cybertron, the power up modes were new forms beyond just a paint job. The weird part of Cybertron is, a lot of the voices are different for no real reason. Considering that the voice actors for the same characters in Armada and Energon are still voice actors in Cybertron, but not voicing the same characters makes it a little jarring at first.

 

Supposedly, the series was originally planned for half the length. What seems like a series ending at the mid-point of Superlink was actually supposed to be the ending, from my understanding. That's why the second half seems like a thrown-together repeat and I suggest stopping at the mid-point.

 

The unicron trilogy almost requires a nostalgic connection.

 

Armada is actually pretty good. I can't watch most of the shows anymore but Armada holds up pretty well. I have nostalgia for Energon so I enjoyed it for what it was despite its flaws. Cybertron is just a complete snoozefest.