So, first thread I've created, but I wanna know, what's your favorite gimmick that's encompassed and defined a toyline, be it a stand-out toy with spectacular execution, or a great concept with mediocre execution? Personally, I LOVED the Mini-Cons in Armada. The little guys themselves were awesome and fun, some of the big guys had interesting executions and Megatron was a fun playset. Sure, that line had some serious bombs (Hot Shot, Side Swipe), but they aren't as prevalent as it'd made out to be. What's yours?
Titans Return. I like the gimmick of head masters in general, and I think TR did it rather well as a line wide gimmick.
Going to go old school and say pretenders. It took the robots in disguise idea to the most absurd conclusion. I love those guys.
Titans Return. The heads don’t distract me in robot mode (with deluxes, anyway) and I love the cockpit storage and standing pegs. Unlike Combiners, which hurt robot mode by taking up space, a detachable head frees up space for better robot and vehicle modes. The mix and match is fun, accessible, and a cheap buy-in.
Honestly, even the Voyagers don't distract me. The head spires are a nice option and I even liked most of the triple changers (Broadside was a... valiant effort..)
I’ll be the the stick in the mud and say I generally prefer when there’s no line-wise gimmick aside from transforming. I’ll give a special shout-out to Automorph from the 07 movie line. Parts moving by themselves during transformation looked pretty cool and didn’t really hinder the figures otherwise. Similarly, Mech Alive from ROTF was cool too.
Currently, it's the Combiner Wars/POTP combiner gimmick. It finally led Hasbro to give us some decent Generations combiners and bring in some characters that needed an update. Just wasn't too thrilled with non-combiner characters getting the combiner treatment. But going back farther, I'd have to say when Beast Wars introduced the Transmetals. Might be a bit blasphemous but I wasn't too thrilled with the organic looking beast modes. Don't get me wrong I did buy some but they just weren't my thing. But when Transmetals came along it was something I could get behind with the robotic beast modes and the third vehicular modes were the icing on the cake. Transmetals was just the thing that kept me in the Transformers game.
Titans Return. I love how the titan masters interact with the much larger figures. from riding the cockpit, manning guns, and hanging out in the base modes.
Well damn, saying Titans Return seems to be the "in" thing. =P I did like the Cyber Key gimmicks in Cybertron. The one downfall was that the key was a seperate, loesable piece. Of all the spring-loaded gimmicks, this was probably some of the least offensive, though. So kudos.
To be fair, Cyber Key gimmicks could be activitated with a screwdriver or a sword accessory, so it isn't like losing the keys is detrimental. But I do love the gimmicks they came up with for GF/C
Guess I’m the only one who liked the Energon combining gimmick? I sure had a lot of fun with it...but I guess I’d go with Titans Return as well. Headmasters are just so cool. Though I was disappointed we didn’t even get the Horrorcons or Scorponok.
I loved the idea with the universal Autobot combination, but I never had any of the toys to play with to form my own opinions and some do look rather limited in combined mode. I hope it gets revisited and done well with today's engineering I agree, the first two had real inventive gimmicks and I loved watching various mech alive features, especially the gears spinning in the likes of Leader Megatron and Deluxe Jolt
Back then I thought Cyber key gimmicks were the coolest thing in world, but looking back now it seemed rather unnecessary. At least the figures weren't severly hampered by this gimmick. Alsoto answer the question, Automorph from the first movie toyline is my personal favorite.
Probably Siege's Weaponizers and the overall gimmick of having 5mm ports over everyone allowing them to be upgraded by any weapon.
