hiya! i was looking at xeno's sig and it occured to me, despite the flak megalo gets for his transformation, even in g1 the bots were doing that, as exemplified by fort max. so is the grief where giving the large bots with simple transformation fair? dicsuss. (also, i was wondering if some of you have done some neat fan modes for megalo that can make his alt mode more convincing. i wanna really like the guy.)
I think Fort Max was sold on its size rather than its alt modes. Theres a lot of larger figures out there with weak alt modes, probably relying on their size rather than convincing alt modes or detail to get people's interest; problem is, the more large figures there are out there, the less novelty there is to being a "big figure", thus the more we begin to feel cheated by them.
Although I know he's got a lot of fans, this is the first thing I thought of when I saw Energon Shockwave/shockblast. I mean, his limbs are pretty easy to distinguish when he's in his so-called "alternate" modes and those modes don't even really resemble anything. A rolling, tank-treaded, laser-gun-spouting...thing? What the hell? Old G1 Galvatron also suffered from this. His enourmous co--er, trigger is the only thing that seems to aid the untrained eye and make someone go "Oh, he's a gun." Other than that, he's a vague pseudo-humanoid-cannon thingy...with tank treads. Once again, adding tank treads has made this guy capable of an alternate mode. GENIUS! BRILLIANT! G1 Perceptor also suffers from "add treads for the win" syndrome, but his alt mode is relatively sound in terms of at least resembling a microscope. Metroplex is sorta guilty of "you can still make out my limbs" syndrome, but he hides it well in city mode. As a matter of fact, I'd say Trypticon does a BETTER job of transforming from one distinct mode to another than Metroplex does. I dunno, I keep trying to come up with more examples, but most the TFs I've purchased that are over the Deluxe size are, well...of sound design. I usually don't pick up the "treads-on-my-legs-allow-me-to-be-in-disguise" Transformers.
Have you seen the fan-modes at the bottom of this gallery? http://ooebi.sakura.ne.jp/toys/TF/GF/GC23/gc23.htm I like them.
I've always maintained that Cyb. Metroplex is basically a big Pretender without a shell. Take the bot mode, fold it in half, stick an accessory on the top, and voila! Instant vehicle.
In all fairness, Perceptor "suffers from 'add treads for the win' syndrome" as you put it only because he was originally from the Micro Change line of Takara's New Microman series. His third mode was a tank/mobile artillery platform upon which a Microman figure could be seated.
As demonstrated by the eHobby reissue of him, Magnificus & Gamede Where his tank mode is for Gamede to travel around on.
I see it as this kinda (cartoon/story wise). Basically when you are a smaller bot you have smaller servos and pistons and what not. This allows you to transform a little faster than your larger friends. What you lack in power you make up in quickness in transformation. Since you are smaller you can be a little more complex in your design. Now the larger you go, the larger the piston andservos. It now takes a little longer to transform. Plus the more mass you have the less sluggish you are. Now some one like Hot Shot can transform and shoot a gun off before Cyb. Menasor can fully transform. This gives him an advantage. But Menasor will have the greater strength and firepower, giving him an advantage one he is transformed. Now the more complex Menasor's (or Metroplex's) transformation the slower he is to transform and defend himself. That is why someone like Metroplex has a simplistic transformmation. It helps speed up the time it takes to transform and defend themselves. Honestly what would happen the decepticon army attacked metroplex and he had a supercomplex transformation like an alternator or something. He would be taking up valuable time being vulnerable to transform. With the simple transformation all he really has to do is stand up. Now when you are say the size of Primus or Unicron you can take your sweet time because you have noone your size or powerful enough to really worry about.
Here's the pic in question, since it's no longer in my sig btw: The reason I feel it's OK to gripe about that kind of alt mode now but not for G1 is because I believe today's figures are better than that. There's no reason that a larger Transformer can't have as complex a transformation as a smaller one. And it should be more cost affective to make a transformation like that at a large scale than a smaller one. I love his bot mode though!
Those aren't too bad...the carrier mode actually looks pretty good...the 'city' mode definitely looks like a fan mode of course, but overall not bad
(not) sorry this is so long Having looked at the pics on that link, I have to say that this guy went from "if I see him on clearance" to "I wonder where I should preorder from..." His alt mode still isn't the best, but he's freakin' huge even for the leader class. And all the fun things he can do with minicons finally makes them worth having besides ornaments for unicron's ring. It also occurs to me that if you're going to be that big, your alt mode doesn't exactly need to hide you; just provide some different functionality. I love the big saw thing and I'm glad it's only plugged into the top; getting sick of all these weird limbs because the weapons have to integrated. Despite all that, it still looks like someone told metroplex to bend over so he could get f!@#ed in the a$$ with a big saw. Ah, I look forward to putting him on display in a very inapproriate manner.
That, and the toy actually WAS a working microscope. I mean, how many TF's can you say that about? -XCN-
It's kind of sad that the fan made carrior and city modes look far better than the real Earth mover mode.
