Nope, this entire time I've been expressing how my excitement of these guys depends on how the menasor is in hand. That was the final update

 

Magic Square’s designers are freaking sorcerors.

 

I think *nearly* all were expecting pants. I think most were hoping for them. But judging by the comments I'd say very few expected an NA level torso shell. It seems extremely lazy. We had higher expectations for MS. What makes it worse is the slavishly bland toon style of the shell compared to the limbs themselves.

It's one thing if the trailer of Onslaught turns into the shell/frame like Menasor (and has some detail, sheesh) or if the chest shield plugs in like Devastator, but to pull a NA shellformer? Pretty disappointing. I reeeeeally hope that there is another combined mode where Onslaught is the torso with a more minimalist chest shield like most of the other Bruticuses.

 

I’m hoping for quite a lot of customization options, but I also think that’s going to drive the price up a bit. The engineering is clearly above the Stunticon limbs, so if they do limb packs again we’re looking at something closer to the Constructicons in price. Maybe $70 for Brawl and Swindle and $70 for Vortex and Blast Off. and even if they each come with the associated toy style spare accessories and toon accessories, that still leaves Onslaught with the body shell and potentially any toy style replacement parts for the torso. Depending on how far they go, we could end up with another $130 like Motormaster just to account for all this extra stuff. Again just a hypothetical, but if I’m close to right, that’s over $250 for everyone.

 

Menasor is a mixed bag, for MST. Every version of it has had some issues. Having their Devastator, they obviously learned from the problems with Menasor, and I would expect to see that knowledge and experience to be reflected in Bruticus. I can relate to a bad experience souring a brand, though, so I feel you.

I'm shocked to see so many comments about being disappointed with the look of Bruticus. Like, you guys know what this is supposed to look like, right? MST takes G1 character designs, beefs them up a bit, and refines the details. That's what I'm seeing here. You think this is too simple, just wait for NewAge's marshmellowy rendition.

I share in some of the disappointment of the pants suit, but honestly, I don't know how else they would pull off the G1 look without some extra parts like that. Having their Menasor and Devastator, I fully expect that some of the pieces are snap on pieces (chest plate, thigh covers, crotch section) that will have some different options, and what lies beneath will be utilized in some way, when they're not combined.

 

I appreciate the comment, I'm still gonna get these guys and trust that MS have improved. If they don't, ah well. I can just wait for NA versions of the rest of the combiner teams. Options are an amazing concept

 

They truly are. I got into 3P Legends with DX9's Hulkie/Devastor, and the market has come such a long way in terms of options and the figures themselves. We are so fortunate to have multiple companies putting in a lot of work to produce such complex miniature collectibles that give their Masterpiece counterparts a run for their money in shelf-presence.

 

The use of unaltered vehicles as the lower legs makes it resemble Unique Toys Bruticus.

 

Unique toys have in Swindle and Brawn the best renditions to those characters in MP size to date. Period. Sadly the rest of the team wasn't up to that standard.

 

Agreed he’s my favorite Combaticon and he looks damn good even unpainted.

 

the upper torso of the combiner looks great and i'm fairly happy with it. i'm more miffed about the bottom half and mostly with the disconnect between the one right leg versus most of the rest of the combiner. swindle on it's on is the weakest link of the team and looks so out of place compared to the rest of the team with respect to sculpted details and lines.

it's similar to some past examples were a company announces and releases each member of a team in sequence, and each one gets better and more improvements as time progresses, which makes the earlier bot(s) look out of place. swindle is that both as individual bot and now in the combined mode.

i'm not a fan of the pants/suit route for combiners, but i get it and learnt to live with it given i have two NA devy versions, both MS devy versions and Zeta Superion.  

 

Preparing myself for brawl to have the most complex Vehicle to Combiner mode in existence despite looking like he’s unchanged visually. If MixMasters leg mode conversion was as complex as it was just so the cab would face forward. I can see Brawl being the same way for the sake of stability

 

So even worse than pants, a whole seperate body. No thanks, big fat pass on the whole lazy mess.

 

That's what we get for those wanting toon accuracy.
You either get a giant mess of compromises where one mode looks great and others suffer or you get a suit that gives the combined mode the toon look everyone so desperately wants but at the cost of said suit.
Literally seems to be no in-between or pleasing anyone these days. :-/
You know what it feels like?
The Macaroni scene from Courage.
You get what you asked for, Toon accuracy and you just get upset.
I don't understand it.

 

I'm not sure what can be done about Swindle's leg mode when it is just the top of a Jeep. In real life there isn't much there that isn't seats and a steering wheel. Even toy accuracy would just give you the front chest of a slightly compressed robot figure.

 

Bruticus always makes me laugh. I picture the Combaticons discussing their combined form..

Onslaught: Ok, so Brawl and Swindle, you guys will be the legs. Vortex and Blast Off, I want you guys on arm-duty.
Blast Off: But I want to be the chest.
Onslaught: But we need an arm?
Blast Off: I'll do both.
Everyone: ...

 

Literally, we're getting a dang near 100% Bruticus on all 3 modes and yet because the toon is so screwy with how it all works we got as close as we can get without fully compromising all modes like with MMC that looks decent but because it's all in one they really said screw other modes for the combined mode to work.

 

Just be warned, when you order from them, it's a pre-order and they typically take anywhere from six months to a year to fulfill the order (I ordered my second set early 2020 so it took even longer).

I don't think it's "lazy." I think it's the only reasonable way to arrive at their goal, which is a cartoon version of each character that looks good in both modes and a combined mode that is stable and also looks good. With Menasor, there was no way to get that cover without having pretty much the entire body separate from the individual members. You'd need Motormaster to be much much bigger and there'd be all kinds of compromises with his bot mode, and you'd need Menasor to have spindly arms and legs if you wanted him to be a "true" combiner. For Devastator, you either end up with a really wide Wideload like CW or a goofy looking waist with serious stability problems like dx9. For Superion and Bruticus, if you want the stability and the articulation, you need not just a set of pants but one connected to the chest plate (and almost certainly the shoulder joints though I guess we'll have to wait and see in that one). Trying to do otherwise would make for an inferior action figure. Yeah, it's cheating, and I wouldn't tolerate that level of cheating on an individual bot, but for combiners I accept that this is the only way to make it work.

I mean they could've pulled a Warbotron, I suppose, but I'm pretty sure they'd lose a lot of the G1 aesthetic if they did.

 

This 100%

To get G1 accuracy for this you really really have to compromise or just do the pants and cover.

 

Other things to consider with Swindle is even if you ignore the cartoon design, the other ones available are not that much more detailed. There's the unused toy accurate cartoon mode, the Studio OX one, and somewhat the toy style Car Robots Greejeeper. The latter two still have the compressed, almost chibi style to their vehicle mode parts. An actual XR3111 would look similar to a plain jeep in Magic Square's version of the leg mode. With a lot of smaller G1 toys being turned into modern figures, you may be asking designers to invent a lot of new details whole cloth.