Aerial Rivals & Team Leaders

Originally posted at http://slangards.i.ph/ on 05/21/09

Here’s another review of another Target exclusive boxset, the Transformers Universe Legends Class 5-Packs; Aerial Rivals and Special Team Leaders.

For those of you who aren’t giant Transformer geeks, Hasbro started classifying their Transformer toys by complexity, size and price when the Cybertron line came out. They had classes before then (back in G1 days it was limited to the small, medium, and not-so-large bots), but since 2005’s toys, they’ve been pretty standardized. They had the “Legend” at $3, “Scout” at $7, “Deluxe” at $10, “Voyager” at $20, “Ultra” at $25, “Leader” at $35, and “Supreme” at $45 (values are approximate and vary quite alot).



Don’t ask my why they chose those designations; they don’t make any sense to me. Frankly, it would have made alot more sense to call them something that would refer to their size. Instead of “Supreme” call him “Ginormous”. “Humongo”. “Pequeño”, “Medianamente”, and “Grande” would have been good.
“I’m looking for the Pequeño Bumblebee…”

See?

Anyway, here in the PI, Legends Class Transformers go for about p300 now. Thanks to the 50% sale of the line, we can pick up these cute little buggers in single cards for just p150 a pop. Even better, if you choose to buy these two boxsets, you can get it for only p600, just p120 each! Normally I’d say “YEAH! GO GO GO!” if I heard this (though it would take me some time to run the numbers - math is my Kryptonite). But in this case I’d say “STOP!”

You counted the number of figures and divided the price among them, but did you count the number of GOOD figures? Sadly, I only like 2. Ramjet and Thrust are great little figures. While they don’t look anything like their G1 counterparts, the Coneheads, they still look as if they can kick som Autobot tailpipe.

If you have a Cybertron Starscream, or the Voyager Dirge from the Target Exclusive 2-Pack, then you know what these two do. Transformation and features are virtually the same, just smaller. Both have the pop out weapons (without the Cybertron key) and a great simplified transformation scheme. They’ve also got really great leg and foot articulation that allows them to really pose.

And that’s it. Those are really the only bots I’d recommend from both these sets. You can ignore the rest of Thrust and Ramet’s batch. Blades is virtually a statue with almost no useful articulation and Skydive is annoying as hell with clown feet and his useless shield piece that doesn’t know where to go. Air Raid while better than those two still has problems. He stays true to the original Cybertron Jetfire mold, but the small scale means he can’t bend at the knees unless you move his boots into odd positions.

The other set, called the “Special Team Leaders” because it features the names of team captains from various combiner teams in G1, fares even worse. It’s hard to believe that a cool character like Scattershot (and G1 toy by the way) becomes a repaint of the Vector Prime. It looks nice enough, but his lack of articulation means fail. Hot Zone looks ok in robot mode (still no joints), but if you transform him, he’s a truck with a huge bed trailer with nothing on it. You’d think they’d give him a ladder. No such luck. Silverbolt looks nothing like the concorde he used to be. Now he’s just another of the Aerialbots. His vehicle mode looks ok, plus he’s got a gun in robot mode, but he doesn’t look like a “Leader” at all.

Razor Claw and Hun-Gurrr fare the worst. Both are robot/animal transformers so in a bigger form, they would have a lot more parts to move around to make each of the forms look passable. With this little canvas though, both of their forms look half-assed, with bend-me-over-and-your-done changes.

Really, there is a reason these are the last of the Transformers on sale to go. Despite getting 5 toys for only p600, none of them are must haves, or even kinda wants. If you’re a completist, or if you want some bots to fill the spaces on your shelves, okay buy. If you’re looking for quality toys, or if your looking for a gift for some kid, there are far better things to get than these poorly done figures.