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My first non-transformable toy review! Let’s get in to it after a quick criticism of my photography skills! I should know how to block reflective light better than this!

One side of the box shows us a picture of Fei with his name running across.

The other side of the box has a hefty bit of text.

The year is 9999. On the continent of Ignas, the Aveh and Kislev nations have been fighting a war for 300 years. The mainstay of their armies are “Gears,” giant mechanical battle suits excavated from ancient ruins.

Far removed from the war, a young man named Fei Fong Wong lives in the peaceful village of Lahan. Three years prior, at the age of 15, he was left in the care of the village leader by a mysterious stranger. Although Fei had no memory of his own past, he was quickly accepted by the villagers as one of their own.

One day, unknown forces attack Lahan. During the fighting, Fei climbs into the cockpit of a mysterious Gear named “Weltall” to fend off the attackers. However, he loses control of Weltall and accidentally lays waste to the village he had hoped to save. As a result, a devastated Fei is banished by the surviving villagers. So begins Fei’s journey to find his past, and a place to call home.

And now you know the first like, ten minutes of the game. Twenty if you’re bad at Rock-Paper-Scissors.

The back shows us cool action poses Fei can do and says some things in Japanese that are probably important to the care of this figure. Of course, Square was certain to put “Collect all figures in this series!” in English because that’s the real import thing. This series of cool action poses some how neglects Fei’s famous “sit in a chair and exposit” action pose.

Fei comes with himself, an angry head, three pairs of hands and one lonely right hand, and a can.

He also comes with a very nice stand.  Fei is capable of standing on his own, but it’s nice to have the stand for more dynamic poses.

OH MY GOD THE DETAIL ON THIS THING! His face! His shirt tie! His tummy armor! His stupid sandals!!!

They did a great job painting on his face details. My brother wished that his forelock was on a joint, but alas, it stays in place.

His shoulders are actually attached a bit lower than they should on the torso. However, the bulk from the shirt makes up for this gap and allows his shoulders more rang of motion than if there was a flush attachment

His ponytail is on a ball-joint so we can move that out of the way to get more look at those shirt details.

Actually, let’s just take off his entire head and look at this tiny design on the back of his shirt that I never knew about. 

Look at the details on the bottoms of the sandals!!! Were those always there??? More seriously, that looks like a poor grip and Fei should have been sliding everywhere in the game.

The sculpted his hair tie prong things!!!!

He is very posable and the stand lets us recreate his fighting stance without worrying about how, being a figure, he can’t alter how he distributes his weight.

High kicks!!! He’s read to martial arts!!!

And with the hair mobility, he can look like he’s falling. Even though the forelock kinda ruins the image. Sorry, bro.

And he can yawn, while lamenting that it sure is boring in Lahan.

His head switches out easily and sits in his neck snuggly. Thus letting you recreate Old Man Yells at Cloud (for stealing his budget).

Along with an alternate head, he has three sets of hands...

Actually, let’s talk about his can first. I love the stupid can he comes with.

In the PS1 game, they had limited polygons and couldn’t make a round can. Rather than go “Oh, clearly the can was supposed to be round” the designers said “NOPE HEXAGONAL CAN!” No wonder this can has a pull tab, you couldn’t use a can opener on it.

For added detail, the bottom of the can doesn’t have the pull tab! And what is it a can of?

WHO KNOWS! IT’S A MYSTERY! WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE IN THIS CAN FROM THE SOYLENT SYSTEM? 

Anyway, hands. He has grabby hands so he can hangrily grip his can and try to just bite through the tin. There’s a pull tab on top, Fei.

He also has these knuckle strike hands that probably aren’t for making him say “Nya” but fuck the rules.

Then he has open hands for saluting or palm strikes. Or Sailor Moon poses. Whatever you want!

Now, at the time of taking these pictures, I didn’t have Elly. I have her now as I write the review but, well, I’m not taking kissing photos of them now, especially when I’d have to reuse the images for Elly’s review. So, bereft of Elly, I had to make due. Had to make Yon-due!

THEY’RE SO CLOSE! ALMOST PREFORMING A KISS! Yondu can kiss Fei’s nose I guess...

Okay, well, that box being an endless sea of grey with a blue border isn’t promising...

Ooh, there’s a faint hint of a boy on the side!

And on the back we finally get a preview of what’s to come! 

Hell yeah, giant foam brick and some paper!

Medic is kept safe in a styrofoam cocoon. While it does make for a less dramatic unboxing, it DOES keep him safe and is far less annoying to remove him from that the Hasbro plastic staple prison.

There we go. Medic comes with himself, two guns(?), transformation instructions, a trading card, and two (2) cautionary papers! Despite the papers’ warning, the side view mirrors are not what fell off on my toy.

His card displays the only pose they could come up with for him and a gun he doesn’t have!

Strength: 4 Intelligence: 8 Speed: 4 Endurance: 5 Rank: 7 Courage: 8 Fireblast: 3 Skill: 10

Maybe I’d make his endurance higher, but these stats look fine to me.

Now, technically, he is still a sea of white with some red panties and two Geneva Convention violations on his shoulders, BUT there are lots of pops of grey, blue and red breaking up the white. And the white itself has several sculpted details allowing simple tricks of light to make him less like one solid color.

Outside of the color, Medic is very sturdy and can stand easily! He’s a nice solid toy that’s fun to play with!

TFC Toys did go for the classic black chevron as opposed to the more modern red one. Not my personal preference, but not a bad thing either. His face has an expression that some times looks happy and other times looks like a pained smile, it works for me. Also, look at how bright his eyes are! The light piping is amazing!

His ambulance cab torso gives him a bit of a tummy and this is VERY IMPORTANT.

That giant blue spot on the back of his head is what allows for the piping in his eyes to be so good! It allows a ton of light through and gives him bright eyes that almost look painted! And yay for solid backs on Transformers!

His guns aren’t held in his hands, instead they peg into his arms.

Is this thing even a gun? Wouldn’t it fire too close to his fingers and burn them? Safety first, Medic!

Speaking of fingers, the fingers on his left hand are cupped together and can be moved as one piece. He can either have a grippy hand or a...whatever this is hand.

Yeah hold that... Whatever it is

His right hand has fingers than can more individually allowing you to do this to a poor old man. YOU LET ME DO THIS, TODD.

Lol

More seriously his wiggly fingers do make it difficult for him to get a strong grip with his right hand.

His right arm also has this scope? scanner? thing? Not sure what it is. His gun pegs in to that grey spot on his arm so it probably isn’t a sight. No idea what it is, but he has it.

GUN BUTT GUN BUTT GUN BUTT

One thing that is EXTREMELY nice about Medic is that his hip skirts can flip up and allow a full range of motion on his legs! Go team! His hips do have ratcheting joints, which can hinder nuances in posing, but there seemed to be enough “stopping points” that it didn’t feel limiting.

Front flaps too! And his feet have some articulation at the arch to help with balance.

As an ambulance, he’s quite solid. The transformation was one of the harder ones that I’ve done, but nothing will ever beat the fear and anxiety of transforming Hot Flame. I probably could have squeezed everything together a bit tighter but it felt a bit stiff and I didn’t want anything snapping off. (Least of all the rear view mirrors).

From the front it looks like the ambulance has a face! Also the stubby nature of the cab is more apparently. But I supposed people who want a cool ambulance toys aren’t going to get the one that doubles as a cool robot toy.

Things probably snap tighter...

It could have used a license plate, but I don’t think it’s a major loss.

There’s also a secret Geneva Convention violation on the roof! 

A slight “flaw” of the ambulance mode is that there’s no place to peg in weapons. I supposed he is an ambulance but...gunbulance...

Out of the box, Medic had this tiny silver piece which had fallen off. The corners of his front bumper are hidden away in robot mode, so it took until I transformed him to finally find where the piece had come from. The piece is meant to plug into place, but it doesn’t have a secure grip. I could probably glue it in place without any problem, but feat that this would cause more damage than it’s worth prevents me from doing so.

This trapezoidal window piece fell off after transformation, however it could be places back in securely enough that I don’t feel the need to glue it. Also glue could leave a cloudy or blotchy residue on the translucent plastic.

But now, the real question. Can he kiss Drift?

No. Not my Drift anyway, he’s too short. But Medic CAN condescendingly pat him on the head and call him “kid” and that’s pretty close too. Medic’s tummy probably sticks out too much for kisses anyway. Alas.

Hardhead was something of an impulse buy. But I did give it a day before ordering and he was on $15 so it wasn’t a true impulse buy the way all of my Hot Rod figures are. 

The back of the box says

The AUTOBOTS(tm) unite with TITAN MASTER partners to power up for battle! FUROS gives HARDHEAD a regenerative healing power that instantly repairs armor and systems damage.

I don’t remember this from the cartoon, but it sure sounds useful!

Hardhead comes with himself, two guns, a card, and transformation instructions. 

The art for his hard is fairly unexciting and just shows off his exciting ability to remove his head. Arguably, most of the Hasbro toys can do that...

And of course, his stats (with Furos):

Muscle: 10 (14) Speed: 5 (9) Mind: 6 (9) Missile:8 (11)

If Furos just helps him heal, should Hardhead’s speed, mind, or missile be effected at all? 

The Titans Return figures are all nicely sturdy and stand well. There’s nothing particularly amazing or terrible going on. His torso has a good amount of color and details breaking up color, which does make the solid blocks of his limbs more disappointing. Come on! You could have shoved some yellow or green in there, Hasbro!

His face is decent. I don’t know why they gave him a face plate and not his canonically kissable lips.

Hardhead does have an asymmetrical design in the back so he looks a little different from either side. Overall, he’s nicely balanced, both physically and aesthetically.

Here you can see that asymmetry in the back, the canopy for his tank mode sits to one side. 

Here he is with his gun and me trying to make a cool pose and failing. Please clap.

He also has his bigger gun for bigger targets.

Or he can go mad with gun power. Let loose, you crazy guy.

And here he is as a tank! He looks fine, fairly solid. Oddly he looks like his transformation was that you just push him over and call it a tank, but it is more involved than that! 

Canopy side.

Gun side.

Butt side. You can see obvious joints in the back but nothing so major as like, clearly visible hands or something.

Here he comes.

Like every other Titan Master than isn’t Perceptor, there’s a place for his head friend to sit and catch a ride.

And you can close the canopy while Furos is inside and trap him there for eternity for his crimes. He cries for help which will never come.

Of course, if you thought that his standard tank gun just wasn’t gun enough, you can put a gun on top of his gun and gun more!

AND his big gun has a secret place for Furos to sit so he can operate the smaller gun while sitting in the bigger gun! 

Okay, so the real reason I got Hardhead was to recreate a certain scene from the original cartoon. Can you? No, absolutely not. Generations Blurr does not want to bend backwards and Hardhead doesn’t want to bend forwards without falling. You can sort of switch sides and have Blurr dip Hardhead, but Hardhead’s chest juts out too much for any kissing to happen. Also why would Blurr have to shut Hardhead up? That doesn’t make sense!

If you ever wanted a twink version of Springer, this is the man for you!

At least his chest still sticks out. Like, maybe not enough for First Aid, but enough to make kissing hard.

I don’t love the propellers in robot mode, but I can’t think of anything better to do with them so just chilling in the middle of his back is fine I guess.

He also has a sword for stab time! And two missiles to annoy your siblings with! There used to be a kit online to turn this boy into Whirl, but it has been lost to time. I’m sure a crafty person could still pull it off!

His helmet seems a bit samurai inspired. The back of his head is all clear plastic to allow for some nice light piping. 

He does turn into a very nice helicopter! 

The main body is a bit bulky, but not too bad. 

There’s not smaller propeller on the back but I actually don’t know if that’s a thing that needs to be there. What I DO know is that I like to idly swat at propellers and this deprived me of a swat toy.

And of course you can still fire missiles at your younger sibling while he’s a helicopter.

Sky Shadow is honestly a nice figure. Very sturdy, fun transformation, color scheme is nicely broken up.

His back is a bit heavy, but he can stand without much problem. I wish his wrists had extension/flexion and not just rotation, but that’s a minor gripe.

The jet kibble on his back folds up so it doesn’t look like they just slapped the upper half of a jet to his back.

He’s got a nicely detailed face and his eyes are big enough to look quite nice with light filtering through.

You can still see his arms as a jet, not great but very common with jets.

He does look nice from the front!

His feet are disguised nicely.

And you can peg guns under his wings!

Or make him hold his gun in his fists. SURPRISE!

New colors!

Comes with himself, instructions, a card, two swords, a gun, a buzzsaw/pizza cutter, and two additional face plates.

His card art does feature more than just a recolor! Nice bit of detail.

I still can’t read this, but it hasn’t changed from his red self.

Besides the colors, the other difference between classic Hot Flame and Lost Light Hot Flame is that our blue boy comes with some discussion on the difficulties of making the toy. The original, if you remember, came with a comic to promo not-Nautica.

He still looks very good in robot mode, very sleek. It’s quite impressive that they were able to pull of this design.

His eyes are meant to have a bit of a luminescent effect, but not enough light filters through the clear plastic for it to work. As a result, his eyes are a bit dull. 

He can also grin his teeth and go “grr.”

Or he can grin!

Or you can just remove his face entirely!

I mentioned in the preview review that removing his face was a terrifying experience where I thought I would lose the face plates. Well, if you have somewhat dull tweezers, the whole process becomes much more simple. There’s enough room for you to grip his chin and gently yank off the whole face plate and never worry about it flying off into the abyss. You want the tweezers to be dull so they don’t damage the plastic.

While MMC went for a black and purple color scheme, SXS went with purple and fuchsia. This gives him the look of a toy that’s been redesigned to appeal to girls. Like, Nerf v. Nerf Rebelle. That would have also been a good name, Hot Flame Rebelle.

There’s so little kibble on him, it;s still very impressive.

Another thing I had complained about was that it was hard to give him a secure grip on his weapons. It still was not great, but I did find it easier for him to hold everything. Again, still loose, but not as bad.

Ready to fight crime and slice pizza!

Unlike Calidus v Calidus Luminus, Hot Flame and Hot Flame Lost Light don’t have any differences in their molds. But I do like how the color is broken up on HFLL’s tummy.

Ah, the moment I dreaded. I got myself a beer, put on relaxing music, and went about transforming him very slowly and carefully. Fortunately, I was prepared for the difficulties it was going to give me which made the overall experience less painful. Also, I knew not to over open his shoulder joints, so he is stress-mark free!

Yeah, I didn’t do a perfect job but like, you get the point.

Instead of the shoulders having stress marks, they never closed right. But that doesn’t effect structural integrity so I’m fine with it.

Back is a bit of a mess, but still very impressive.

Shoot forwards.

Shoot upwards.

Stab the sky?

Uhh???

OVERALL I think they actually make some small improvements to his design that make Lost Light Hot Flame more worth picking up than his predecessor. His hands were better and to grab things and his shoulder joints were more loose to make for an easier transformation. Is it an easy transformation? No. No absolutely not. Honestly, he’s changing in shape so much that I’m not surprised that the transformation is as complicated as it is. But I still don’t recommend his if transforming is your favorite part of Transformers.

Bonus:

Honestly, this will be a very short review since I really don’t have much left to say about this mold. 

No major changes to the back of the box. Same poses, new colors.

Comes with the same things, goth Rodimus, goth instructions/comic, goth card, goth gun, goth bow, and extra goth head.

It’s easier to see here than on other pictures, but Goth Rod has different exhaust pipes than regular Calidus.

His stats haven’t changed.

Strength: 6.5 Intelligence: 8.5 Speed: 9 Endurance: 6.5 Caste: 8 Courage: 7.5 Firepower: 5 Skill: 8.5

Obviously, since he’s no longer red, his speed should go down. 

Does this beautiful mold look good in black and purple? You’ll be shocked to learn that, yes! He still looks good! 

Face? Still handsome.

Not sure if an orange windshield is street legal...

His spoiler looks like it would taste good. Which is odd since blue isn’t really a food color...

Yup, holds his weapons real good.

Makes the same LEWD gestures.

Doesn’t have a transformation sequence that makes you want to cry.

Beautiful little compact speed car.

Delicious spoiler probably tastes like cotton candy.

CAR WITH A GUN!!!

There is one thing I missed in my previous reviews. Because his hands are still accessible in car mode, you can make him hold his gun like this. The forbidden gun peg.

And here’s a comparison! Like I said earlier, the exhaust pipes are different on Luminus. They look much more like exhaust pipes and I actually do like them more.

Honestly, the thing that surprised me most about this mutton-chopped friend is that I found him in stores very quickly after his classic colored twin.

The back gives us a hint of all the fun we’re going to have with our new pal.

When the heroic Hot Rod is corrupted by the MATRIX OF CHAOS, he evolves to RODIMUS UNICRONUS, a servant of evil driven by a sole purpose: destroy the MATRIX OF LEADERSHIP(tm).

No mention of his new evil facial hair.

On the side of the box we get a younger evil Hot Rod. Not sure how this fella comes into play in the story line. The evil matrix turns good Hot Rod into evil Rodimus, right? There should be no evil Hot Rod.

Like his good counterpart, he comes with evil instructions, an evil stat card, one evil gun (that can be turn into two evil guns), an evil matrix, and his evil self. 

The card front does feature all new art of Rodimus and isn’t just a recolor of his portrait from his original toy.

I still miss stats.

Rodimus Alchemist Unicronus(tm)

Distills the essence of evil from the Matrix of Chaos

That’s a bit rude, Roddy.

Evil Rodimus is a back heavy, but still has sturdy enough legs that he isn’t always falling over.

Evil Rodimus is supposed to have an evil goatee, reminiscent of Mirror, Mirror Spock. This Rodimus has more of a muttonstasche reminiscent of every biker. His crest is glittery though, that’s nice. Also, when he first came out there was a rumor that his mustache could be removed. It, sadly, cannot.

His evil back kibble is very “I have a trailer stuck to my back.” I wish it became wings or something.

The evil back kibble is mostly hollow so it doesn’t add too much weight.

Evil Rodimus can sort of hold his evil gun as one big gun, but it looks more like he’s going to hand it over.

It looks much more menacing to have his hold two smaller evil guns.

Most of evil Rodimus is “armor” which conceals a smaller evil Hot Rod. Evil Rodimus is just evil Hot Rod wearing stilts and a large coat.

You can also fit the evil matrix in his evil chest.

Evil Hot Rod looks exactly like an edgy teen.

I remember when *I* was a teen and having exhaust pipes on your arm was the hit trend.

Slap the entire roof of a car to your back why not.

As evil Hot Rod, he still can’t hold the giant evil gun in any way that looks right.

But he can have two smaller evil guns. 

I still prefer the Hot Rod form to the Rodimus form, but since I already have Hot Rod on my shelf, I’ll leave the evil one big for display.

Evil Rodimus becomes an evil van. 

I like that his evil chest/hood decoration is all spikey.

Backs of alt modes just aren’t very exciting.

But alt modes with guns? Now those are exciting!

I have seen some complaints online about her being a retool of Starscream but honestly? The mold felt right. Nothing about it made be sigh at how lame it was that Hasbro reused a mold, she felt very much like her own toy. 

The back of the box shows us her two modes and her prime armor and highlights the “shove a box in it” gimmick of this toy line. It also asks:

How will the resourceful and devoted AUTOBOT(tm) warrior wield the POWER OF THE PRIMES(tm)?

Honestly, I’m sad that Elita wasn’t a choice for next prime. She’s the obvious choice.

We get some additional art on the side of the box.

She comes with herself, transformation instructions, a stat card, two pieces of prime armor, two guns, and a box.

We get some nice art of Elita posing. It would be nicer if it was more of an action pose and less of a “Hey, didn’t see you there” pose.

The back of the card says

Solus Elita-1

Forges epic weapons to bring down DECEPTICON(r) Combiners.

It really should say “Elita-1, will murder your face off” but I guess that’s a bit much.

Elita herself is a sturdy lady. She stands nicely and has a good amount of weight to her. I do wish she had more mobility in the legs to allow for more varied poses though. She does have pink on her, and I can understand Hasbro wanting to shy away from “she’s a girl so she must be pink” but I dunno, I would have liked more pink. Still, her colors are nicely broken up with an amount of detail that’s surprising for a Hasbro release.

She also has giant blue optics and no lipstick! Which is good because, as Moonracer taught us, Hasbro doesn’t know how to apply lipstick.

She’s very bulky in the back, but her large calves let her stand easily.

Just shove an entire jet on her back why not. You can see that her knees are simple hinge joints with no swivel and that does hurt her posing options.

She also has no wrists and barely has full hands. Again, really hurting my posing options, Hasbro!

You can peg her armor into her shoulders and then her guns into the top of the armor and make her more top heavy! I don’t like the way those pink pegs stick out of the armor pieces, I wish they could fold flat.

Or she can hold her guns in her hands for the more standard pew pew.

Transformation to a jet wasn’t too bad but there were some pieces that didn’t really tab anywhere and are more held in place by gravity. She was mostly sturdy, but there where places where she was more wobbly.

Jet side

Her feet really didn’t need much transformation to be thrusters.

One thing I LOVE is how many stickers she has! Would paint have been nicer? Yes. Would I have liked to go through the stress of placing the stickers myself? Also yes. BUT! I still love what they add and that they exist at all.

Look at how much nicer that looks than just a sea of red.

She even has a little custom “E1 Elita One - Autobot” decal!

Less good is that her head doesn’t really tab into the front of the jet. There’s a groove where her visor is supposed to fit- and it does- but it’s not a snug fit. Her head kept falling out of it’s hiding space.

You can, of course, peg her armor pieces under her wings. Make her look much less aerodynamic.

Or get rid of the bulky armor and keep the guns.

She’s part of a combiner and she forms the torso and head. This means she has a slightly larger version of her head in his chest and you can just kinda unfold that and give her a head for her crotch.

I remember being so excited about Moonracer getting a toy that I was vibrating in my seat. Then I remember waiting months and months and lurking in forums to see if anyone had actually seen her. I was expecting that she’d be someone that I’d have to buy at double the price on eBay.

The back of the box shows us Moonracer’s 3D mock-up art, which is certainly a decision Hasbro made, and gives us this short blurb:

How will the joyful AUTOBOT sharpshooter wield the POWER OF THE PRIMES(tm)?

So from that, we’ve basically learned all there is to know about Moonracer.

Like others in the POTP line, she comes with herself, a stat card, and those awful long instructions that I hate. She also comes with a gun and some pregnancy armor.

On the front we get Moony’s powerful thighs!

On the back we get 

Quintus Moonracer

Fills the metal of dead worlds with life-giving energon.

Maybe if I read the Optimus Prime comics or watched the Machima series this would mean more to me. Sounds like she’s some kinda planet necromancer.

From the front we can see that they were going for a very sleek feminine silhouette. With gun-gripping hands. 

From the side we can see that she is EXTREMELY back heavy! I can not stress how much she wanted to fall backwards at all times!!!

The back view doesn’t properly convey the hugeness of her back kibble. But it does show that her knees are hinge joints and offer no rotation, which would have helped stabilize her for some poses.

Her face is very cute! Except her lipstick. Hasbro just painted an oval around her mouth and called it good. There’s no lip definition at all. Having no lipstick may have been a better choice and she’s already shapely enough that she really doesn’t need many “WOMAN” markers.

She can of course hold her gun and try and be a sharpshooter while her back kibble makes her almost fall.

Her gun can also peg into her forearm while she fights gravity.

For added stability, her gun can even peg into her left foot! (Note: Doesn’t actually add much stability)

Or, for less stability, just peg the gun into her back kibble. Just keep putting stuff there. 

She also has this “Prime armor” which I always thought looked awful. It looks like she’s wearing a maternity shirt, a very ugly one.

Of course, it does add more bulk to her front, but is it enough to balance all that car in the back? No. She stands a little better, but she still just wants to fall down and nap.

I mistakenly believed that the armor was a needed part of her final car form. It does ruin the sleek design, but I don’t think it looks as bad on her car form as it does on her robot form.

She does have a very nice silhouette that looks fast. Plus, I’m a sucker for teal.

You can see her hands when she’s a car, but they’re less noticeable with all that armor in the way.

Her face doesn’t peek out of the front window and I always appreciate that.

As I said, without the armor, it’s a much smoother look. This is a car you would pretend to be interested in buying so you could drive it on the highway for a few minutes before saying that “you’ll consider it” and then never going to that dealership again.

Of course, what good is a car where you can’t shoot people ahead of you?

Or people above you?!

You know, like nya!

Overall: If you’re very picky about how many cool poses your robots can do, Moonracer may not be a good choice. But, if she’s only ever going to stand in one pose and just needs to look pretty doing it, she’s a great choice! All of her colors are nicely broken up in car and robot form so she never feels like a chunky block of teal and white, and her face is adorable! Not to mention, Hasbro needs to be rewarded for finally making a toy of Moonracer after about 30 years of her existing! 

This will be a fairly quick review since I already gave my opinions on the mold here so this will focus a bit more on the coloring.

As before, the back shows us all the fun we can have with evil Calidus.

A Waluigi

A 3D rendered Waluigi

This gives stores the option of having the toy stock on its back and still have the product be clear!

The front of the box had a flap so you could take a peak and your new evil friend.

He comes with the same things as his red predecessor, himself, a comic/instructions, a card, a gun, a bow, and an extra head. 

I was a little sad to see that this comic he comes with is the same as the original Calidus. But he’s mostly for novelty value, so its fine.

They did change the art on his car to reflect his evil colors.

His stats are higher than Calidus. I guess being evil has its advantages.

Now, I adore Calidus, so I wasn’t expecting Shadow Calidus to disappoint. And he didn’t! His color scheme is less exciting, but the black is broken up with enough silver and purple that it doesn’t get too samey. 

Same fairly sleek profile.

Same giant spoiler. His windshield is red because he’s evil.

He has a tiny evil goatee that frame his tiny evil frown.

He also has a tiny evil goatee to frame his tiny evil smirk!

He can do lewd gestures evily.

Turn into an evil car.

I will say, I was only half reading the transformation instructions and I enjoy how intuitive the transformation is. There are probably a few things that should be tighter, but I’m not unhappy with the result!

Back wheels so tiny and hands so visible.

Still a solid car, even if the tiny back wheels give it a silly profile.

Watch out! He has a gun to shoot people who insult his back wheels!

When you’re so excited for something, you might be willing to forgive its flaws due to your sheer joy over having it. Not that I’m saying that for any particular reason...

On the back of the box, we get some action poses and a peek at vehicle mode.

Sides of the box are nothing special.

On the top of the box, we get another image of the toy! In case you forgot who it was.

Out of the box we have the toy (with a protective layer of foam), a tech spec card, the instructions/comic, and two cannons.

The instructions are clear and I like that they state what the goal of each step is. “Fold the arm” or “untab the wings” things like that. 

The instructions even include this concept art for not-Drift! 

The comic is actually quite brilliant. It outlines Thunderclash and his crew dying, going to heaven, and getting kicked out of heaven all because of Thunderclash’s dumb luck.

On the front of the card, we have more art of Collisus. It would have been nice to have the same artist who drew the comic draw something, but this is fine too.

Ah tech specs. I still don’t know what “Caste” means in this case. He’s so close to perfect 10s, just go for it MMC!

But that’s enough peripherals, let’s get to the toy! 

He is a big and bulky car! He covered the entirety of my palm when I held him. 

For scale, here’s a generic beer bottle.

His colors are all over the place and I love him.

The back of the vehicle brings up something that I should complain about but I’m not overly bothered. The first step in transformation is that you have to remove this rear armor. I’m not big on kibble having to be removed for transformation. But honestly, I was fine.

Here’s the back when you take off the plates. They do help smooth the vehicle design and they’re used in another way that we’ll see later.

And of course, what transformer doesn’t have places to peg guns? Sadly, the top was the only place you could peg guns so there wasn’t much fun to be had with silly gun placement.

Look, stubby guns... 

Meh...

Okay, enough car.

He’s perfect. Review over.  Look at this mess of colors! He’s beautiful!

His back kibble is clunky and awkward which is... not great.

Just don’t display him from the sides, okay?

... Or the back. 

I’m critical, but the front of the toy looks great and that’s what’s important! And the back isn’t hollow, which I always hate.

Unsurprisingly, as a robot he is still big. Here he is again with a generic beer bottle of no particular brand.

His face is good, I like all the helmet detail. I do wish he was happier, but I guess scowling is cool too.

Here’s where his removable kibble from earlier comes into play. You use it to attach his guns to his arms. The kibble pegs into his arms and the guns peg into the kibble. Though there’s no place for the blue parts of his guns to go, sadly.

Pew pew!

Alright, this is an actual problem. As far as I could tell, this was the highest you could raise his arms. 

After this point, there was a notch that prevented the arms from rotating further. Maybe, I could have carefully rotated his arms over the nub, but this is still as high as his arms are meant to rise. No, I don’t have my robots wave their arms in the air in a manner suggesting they don’t care, but I’d like the have the option!

He is very sturdy though! Check out these high kicks!

But because of the limited movement for his arms, he can’t really do lewd gestures. Well, he can do one.

I have so many Rodimii, probably one of them could kiss this Thunderclash. Not MMC Calidus, though. Calidus is too short and was partially lifted by Collisus and standing on the tips of his feet and this was the closest he could get.

Because of the articulation in their hands, Collisus and Calidus can hold hands at least!

And Collisus is so sturdy that he can easily hold Calidus!

Final Thoughts: I was so excited to have this guy in my collection. There are a few things about him that I don’t love, mostly the limited arm movement. But honestly, I’m thrilled to have him and who knows when Hasbro will ever want to make this guy.

Misfire was hard to get in that he never seemed to have an in-store release here and was only ever available online. It felt like his wave was skipped and they went right to Power of the Primes.

I did see Twin Twist, Blitzwing, and Sky Shadow in stores, but never this Barbie Dream Jet.

On the back of the box it says

The DECEPTICONS unite with TITAN MASTER partners to power up for battle! AIMLESS gives MISFIRE an ultra-powerful ion particle fireblast. Unfortunately, it does not improve the low-grade targeting skill of MISFIRE. When they unite, AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS go running for cover.

Now this is a good amount of text, not like the one sentence of Power of the Primes. With the Titan Masters, do they give up their natural head for more power? Did Misfire sacrifice his head to have a more powerful gun? 

He comes with a beautiful art card that has no associated TCG with it. Seems like a missed opportunity. Of course, since Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast, maybe they’re worried about competing with themselves. 

The back of the card does not think highly of Misfire 

His stats (with Aimless)

Muscle: 7 (8) Speed: 6 (8) Mind: 5 (6) Missile: 3 (8)

These are the worst stats I’ve seen. And it raises questions about what the “missile” stat is. It can’t just be firepower or it would be higher. Is it accuracy? But then it would still be bad with Aimless. 

He could use more colors, but he’s fairly monochromatic in the comic too so I can’t be too upset. 

Just shove the whole jet front on his back. I’m not mad about this hollow leg since it’s part of the transformation.

I would love to see a 3rd party take on the Scavengers. But I suppose there isn’t much thrill in making a monoformer like Krok.

They gave him a visor, a frown, and luscious lips. I understand none of these decisions.

He comes with two guns that can be combined into one. Or one that can split into two. But they’re just as pink as the rest of him so they get lost in his design.

Aimless is tiny and pink. I love him.

The back part of his jet form was surprisingly difficult to transform. Aside from that, he was fine. And after Hot Flame, I’m never complaining about transformations.

Barbie’s Dream Jet.

The back doesn’t look amazing, but why would you display him this way?

Like every other Titans Return toy (except Perceptor) there’s a nice spot for their Titan Master to hang out. Here, Aimless takes a seat in the cock pit. Also, Misfire’s guns can clip into the sides so he can miss as a jet too.

If you combine the two guns, you can make this...thing for Aimless to sit in. It doesn’t peg into Misfire. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be a separate jet for Aimless. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to separate from your head for that long.

This is basically two toys in one, or at least two toy reviews in one due to the gimmick that I’ll get into later.

Back of the box shows us all the too-many-things this large boy can do. He can be Rodimus Prime, Hot Rod, a winnebego, a hot rod, or some legs! 

The box says

When the bold AUTOBOT HOT ROD becomes the bearer of the MATRIX OF LEADERSHIP, he evolves to become the courageous leader RODIMUS PRIME.

Obviously, having a shorter description and multiple translations is cheaper for printing since they just have to print one thing for multiple countries, but I do miss the whole paragraph of text.

He comes with himself, a giant gun, a matrix, a card, and transformation instructions that are one long strip as opposed to an 8.5 x 11 inch piece of paper. I do miss those dearly.

(Bad quality photo because I realized I forgot to actually take pictures and had to hastily take some with my phone camera. I’m a professional.) The art work on the cards is beautiful.

The back of the card tells us that his name might actually be Rodimus Prima 

A noble knight unrivaled in strength and courage.

Like, I’ll give them courage, but there was plenty of bots stronger than him.

Out of the box he’s massive and back heavy. He constantly wants to tip backward. 

From the back he looks... like this. And his spoiler reminds me of Kraft cheese.

So chunky.

As Rodimus Prime, he’s got a grumpy old man face that he inherited from Kup.

One of my favorite things about this toy are the little details on the hand. A simple grey wash would let them stand out even more.

Lovely hands.

With a lot of maneuvering, you can open his chest and shove the matrix inside. The movie made it look way easier.

To transform Rodimus Prime into vehicle mode, you need to extract Hot Rod. As you can somewhat see in this shot, Hot Rod’s legs are Rodimus Prime’s arms. This toy is sort of weird.

Hot Rod has terrible looking arms, but overall I think he looks much nicer than Rodimus Prime. It’s the lack of bulk if nothing else.

Neither of them have nice backs, such a shame.

His exhaust pipes are longer than his arms.

With great difficulty, you can have him hold his large gun with both hands. Like this, he can’t aim anywhere that makes sense. Unless shooting next to him is what makes sense I suppose.

OR you can break his gun into two guns! Watch out people in front of him!

Nothing difficult in his transformation. It was like it was made for kids or something!

His exhaust pipes are just so big, what is this? 

Delicious plastic cheese spoiler.

Of course, the real thrill about his alt mode is that you can combine it with his grown up legs to made a winnebago! It pulled nicely, but I think Combiner Wars Ultra Magnus was more satisfying to drive around like a child.

And you can put his guns on the roof. 

In what world is this car in disguise? This thing sticks out like a sore thumb! 

Doesn’t even having towing lights! He’s not even street legal! Awful!

Hot Rod sort of looks like the dorky little brother of Hot Flame and Calidus. Sorry little bro, it’s what happens when you’re mass manufactured by a big company. (on the other hand, he is the only one who can be an autobot)

In his Hot Rod form, he still has Rodimus Prime’s head just kinda hanging out in his ass... So... That’s a thing.

The boy shows art of the actual toy, which I prefer over having renders of the toy.

The back of the box shows us all the cool poses Himed can do! 

Side one shows us Himed’s front

And side two shows us Himed’s back. Simple box but good enough. 

As ever, I enjoyed how easy he was to remove from the box and how easy he was to remove from the plastic shell. I was disappointed that his gun didn’t have a place in his plastic shell and was just sort of thrown in. Oh well.

I don’t love his shoulders, but aside from that he has a good design. Very basic for a more high end toy though. No double elbows or fancy hand poseability.

And his legs are hollow. Of course, he is meant to be the arm of a combiner, so doing things to lessen his weight makes sense even if it does make him a bit more disappointing as a stand alone toy.

I’ve always loved First Aid’s chunky back kibble. I still love it.

He’s got a nice cute face. It’s very simple though, hard to mess up. Up this close, the paint on his visor looks a bit sloppy, but you’re never going to see him from this close.

His gun is so large and chunky. I don’t know if it’s meant to combine with the other protectobot guns to make a super gun.

His wrists turn to allow him to hold his gun in the completely stupid way that he holds his gun in the comics.

He turns into a nice solid ambulance that’s fun to push around the table while you make a siren noise. The transformation is very simple and you practically don’t need the instructions. But this ambulance has a terrible secret...

His head is just kinda...in the front window of the ambulance. Judging you for making siren sounds... I’m not sure if a solid window would have been a great solution since it would have made the overall toy look cheap. Maybe just turning his head around during transformation?

They painted all the other windows... Maybe it would have been okay...

You can peg his gun into his vehicle mode to make the most menacing ambulance that everyone would immediately pull to the side for.

Whirl can pick him up and that’s sort of cute...

But Springer can carry him and that’s very cute. 

The box is beautiful and showcases some lovely embossed artwork of the 3D renders for Hot Flame. At the time I purchased him, 3D renders were all I had seen so I was beginning to fear for the product.

The back of the box tells us what we might expect from the inside of the box. 

A face.

A boy. I like the faint image of Cybertron in the background of the box, shame that it’s hard to see.

Out of the box, we are treated to our boy, a card, and the instructions/comic.

The comic seemed to be a continuation from their previous release, who I don’t have. Also it looks like Swerve has died. What a way to start a comic. It ends with them teasing their upcoming release, Naughty.

Here is the beautiful card he comes with. 

I can’t read what his stats are for! They all seem high though. I’m gonna guess that 7 is for intelligence or something.

Here’s our boy! He comes with three faceplates, two swords, one gun, and one buzzsaw! Way more things than the back of the box promised! As ever, I like how the 3rd Party toys are packaged only between two easy-to-remove pieces of packaging plastic. The toy isn’t damaged and I don’t need to get tiny scissors to remove all the twist-ties! HASBRO! PLEASE DO THIS!!!

Let’s look at our boy! In several ways, he feels more accurate to the MTMTE comics as SXS has maintained Rodimus’ Nick Roche approved twink frame. This is in contrast to the more Jack Lawrence approved twunk frame of Mastermind Creations’ Calidus. 

Looks great from the back, by which I mean there aren’t any hollow plastic bits showing. And you can sort of see the hot pink accents on his rims! Which I very much appreciated!

From the side, we can see that his First-Aid-approved chest will prevent him from smooching bots. 

He has a good posability! And his big ol’ feet make it easy to keep him balanced.

He has double elbows!!! The best kind of elbows!

Look at him nonchalantly wipe dirt off his face while saying an anime “tch.” 

His hand doesn’t have too much movement. His wrist rotates flexes, but his fingers don’t move. Except for his thumb, that moves.

Grr a fearsome fist. With MMC’s take on the character, there was a notch in the hand that allowed for weapons to be held snuggly. Hot Flame doesn’t have this notch so he holds everything sort of limply.

Buzzsaw! Can’t rotate his wrist while he holds this or it will fall!

Gun and the worst action pose anyone has seen. 

Two swords! I don’t think Drift would approve. I don’t think Rodimus has mastered one sword, let alone two.

MMC’s Rodimus toy also featured a swappable face! It was held in by a screw and came out very easily. Hot Flame’s face is pegged into place and you snap it out. It’s really difficult and you’re constantly afraid of losing the face because it kind of goes flying when you finish taking it off. Also, enjoy this image. 

His default face is a big ol’ grin. But here we can see a grimace.

He also has a frown face for serious times.

Here’s a side by side of Hot Flame and Calidus. As I said, I do think Hot Flame has the more comic accurate look. But, we haven’t transformed him yet. So let’s get to it!

Okay! Here he is! Being a car! I have transformed MANY toys. MANY MANY MANY toys! This one? This boy? MOST TERRIFYING TRANSFORMATION! There were maybe two steps where I didn’t think “Oh shit, this is going to break.” Also, that stress mark on his left side? I was watching a video to figure out how to transform him since the instructions weren’t helpful. This meant I was following along and pausing frequently to do the step. Which meant that I paused and followed along when I was told to open up a joint only to unpause and find out that “If you open the joint as much as I did, you’ll get a stress mark. It isn’t meant to open that far.” Whoopsie.

As far as I could tell, this is what he’s supposed to look like. Honestly, I was so stressed from the rest of the transformation that I really didn’t want to fiddle with it too much more.

Back looks reasonable.

Like I said, Hot Flame’s bazonkas prevent kissing. Which is sad because this is absolutely Rodimus’ fantasy kiss right here.

Also, this is the actual first step in transformation. Well, second step. You spread his legs then open his panel. This is why Hasbro can’t market this toy.