Well, I've taken the time to really process everything that happened during SDCC so far and I'm so incredibly disappointed that it is actually depressing me a bit.

Why? Because I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm a grown man getting upset over toys and realizing that's batshit crazy.

However, since I'm still in the midst of all of that and I still love Transformers, I might as well share my thoughts.

Victorion? Sounded great on paper, looked great in the hand drawn art. What we're actually receiving is just awful. It's like a Christmas tree and The Joker had a hatefuck and unfortunately spawned this monstrosity. It's not only ugly in color scheme, but ugly in design as well. It's without a doubt one of the ugliest combiners I've ever seen and I've seen shitty Chinese KO combiners that made ZERO sense. And the fans chose this color scheme. Dafuq, people?

G2 Superion? Fantastic. It was beautiful and I loved the box art. There's a part of me that says I should buy it, but after buying all seven figures in the current Superion lineup (the G1 classics, Alpha Bravo and Powerglide), I can't throw another $100.00+ into the fire at 35, just so I can make 13 year old me happy once again. It's a great thought, but no. If I hadn't bought the original? I'd be all over it like a plague.

G2 Menasor? Finally, further proof that Hasbro did something right beyond G2 Superion. We've waited decades for this to happen and it's finally happening and I'm sure there are quite a few people that are just jumping up and down for joy. It's well deserved, too, they've waited forever.)

Betatron? (I refuse to call that travesty Computron) I thought Hasbro hit their lowest depths when they unveiled Victorion, I was wrong. A barely remolded Silverbolt is what passes for Scattershot now? And not only that, but he has to share Prime's limbs and doesn't get the rest of his team? Who in the hell thought that was good planning? Oh, and it's now 100% proof that Hasbro's being cheap and looking for the easy way out. There's no excuse for this one and you all know it. It's bull and it's Hasbro's forte. Takara to the rescue on this one. Oh, and that Superion head being reused? Now, it should be 100% clear to everyone...Hasbro's cheap, they cut corners, they cut quality, they go for the easiest out and it's disgusting. What a horrible shame.

And I was surprised to see no Groove there, so I'd say it's safe to fully believe that Hasbro will NOT be releasing Groove and that we will have to start importing the Takara versions. That sucks for us, it really does. I shouldn't have to pay $145-160.00 for a combiner that should've been sitting on the pegs at my local store, not some e-store 6,000 miles away. Ridiculous.

I was incredibly disappointed to see that the Hasbro cases were nothing but previously unveiled items and that the showcase was nothing but remolds and repaints. How ridiculous. Not even GOOD repaints and remolds, at that! Plus, I hear that they confirmed there will be NO CW Predaking, is that true? If so, that's just awful and ridiculous. So glad I bought the UT Warlord now. So, so very glad.

First, Hasbro had to compete with the 3rd parties, and they were losing. They decided to come to us with Combiner Wars and we ate it up like candy and it was good, no doubt.

Now, Hasbro's competing with their own partner. They're just looking at us and saying "Here's a magical bank account for Takara Tomy. All you have to do is empty your wallets and fill it. We don't want it, give it to them!" Seriously. CW would give Hasbro the ability to basically print money, and tons of it.

And I just don't get it. It's like they're about to win the gold and at the last second, they hand the medal back and go "What's that? Oh no, I don't want that." It's stupid and it'll never make sense to me.

Hasbro apologists will come forward and white knight and say "Well, they had to make concessions so we could even have these, be grateful!" First of all, save it. You know by now that Hasbro's just bullshitting each and everyone of us and doesn't care.

I know they're using a limited number of molds and that they have to milk 'em for all they're worth, I get it, I really do. This, however, is ridiculous. It's getting to the point where all the do is change the color of the plastic and paint and figure that'll do. We allowed that to happen and we need to put our foot down and stop it.

Takara's sitting over there going "Wow... It's like... You know what? Open another bank account, fanboys are losing their shit and we're about to make some M O N E Y, people!" while Hasbro's all like "YoU LyKE tH!$ dunt YOU?!?! IT's WHAT YOU ASKED US FOR! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Victorion I get, we asked for it, we got it, we're dumb.
G2 versions I absolutely get, those are just a fantastic idea.
Computron no longer exists I will never understand. There are so many ways to reconfigure these existing molds and make something happen.

The tooling is done on Groove, Yuki tweeted a hint about Blast Off coming and I'm sure they'll do right by Computron...why can't Hasbro use those molds and make money? Because they don't want to spend the money in the first place. Cheap, so damned cheap it's disgusting.

Watch, the only way we'll get a proper Blast Off and Groove is when they do Bruticus and Defensor in G2 color schemes. We'll still have to import if we want the G1 colors.

Ridiculous, as well as stupid and cheap planning. I've heard of getting your money's worth, but this is a joke. I've never seen someone squeeze that much out of a penny before. It'd be impressive if it wasn't so insulting.

Congratulations, Hasbro, you just gave away a TON of business. You idiots.

 

Every word written here is the damn TRUTH.

 

I all fairness, BotCon absolutely should be the "real" show. It's the OFFICIAL TF CONVENTION for god's sake, not to mention how much it costs to go these days and all the risk and bs involved from the companies running it. People certainly deserve the best there because they are more than paying for it. They got the balance of new reveals right, except I would have switched the exclusives information for the 2016 Combiner Wars product. Face it, Titan Wars, whatever it is, is a long way off considering we know Combiner Wars goes at least 2 waves into 2016. Showing wave 2 of 2016 product does not constitute showing nothing, that's rather far ahead.

That said, this simply feels like a let down because everything is a repaint or remold of everything else, so much so people are creating spreadsheets just to make sense of it all. And exclusive wise, we at least knew all of that product was coming, so there weren't any new reveals, just clarification. Which is specifically why they should communicate better in the first place, so they can have more oomph at their own shows rather than revealing things we already expect but they've simply ignored.

Also, RiD 2 is apparently going nowhere worth reporting. That doesn't help their showing.