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So, what's happening?

Agabyss is the company behind the distribution of Metal Cardbot in the United States. They announced their partnership at the New York Toy Fair on March 1, 2025, and since then, they've released 6 toys from Season 1, with another 4 toys arriving in September 2026. (In Korea, there are currently 39 toys released and 1 available for preorder.)

From interviews, it seemed like this partnership was incidental. Agabyss reached out first, and SAMG was looking for an American partner at the time. SAMG has been notoriously hands-off in overseas localizations in the past, so this lines up with how they usually treat international releases.

But since their partnership was announced, Agabyss has been hyperfixated on making Metal Cardbot look appealing to adult Transformers collectors. Why is this, you may ask?

Agabyss is a company that primarily produces and distributes Transformers toys; they've designed quite a few third party toys of their own, in fact. Given this, it's understandable that they tend to gravitate towards their main audience: adult collectors. But that experience in producing TF has turned into forcing TF into an IP that doesn't need nor want it.

Change for the sake of change

There's no better place to see this than in how they present Metal Cardbot to the masses. On multiple occasions, Agabyss has attempted to rewrite the story and characters of the show to be more appealing to a Transformers audience. Just look at what they're naming them:

(The original names are already in English, by the way. They also didn't change all of them; Fleta Z, Shadow X, Buffalo Crush, and Heavy Iron remain the same.)

This would maybe be acceptable if they also redubbed the show with the new names, so it's not confusing to new fans that their favorite characters are suddenly being called something different. But Agabyss didn't redub the show for cost reasons, and only gave vague hints that they might look into it if it "does well"... and I don't know how much affiliation they have with Season 2's English dub (done by a different Canadian studio), so... guys??? Why???

They've also developed entirely new box art that's less colorful and looks much more similar to other Transformers toys:

Agabyss has even gone so far as to try and rewrite the actual story in the past, but they've thankfully backtracked on that. At one point, they started calling Jun's group of Cardbots the "New Star Guardians", which directly clashes with the current plot of the show (and I KNOW they've watched the show, they literally posted a screenshot from my sub site!). Agabyss later quietly edited their own posts to back out of this direction.

I've polled other fans on this, and the sentiment on these changes seem to be "I hate it!" and "I don't really care". I've hardly seen anyone think these names are better (besides Blue Star).

So then, I ask: why the hell are we changing the names if your current fans hate them and you don't have enough money to redub the show that the toys are from so that they actually make sense??

Now, I don't know how much of this is Agabyss's doing, and how much is SAMG. But the person in charge of bringing Metal Cardbot to the US is Jesse Wittnoto, who was previously a TF magazine editor and seems to take pride in naming Transformers toys, so I suspect a lot of these changes are under his direction.

Unfortunately, Jesse seems to be responding to fan backlash by doubling down on his decisions, which is extremely depressing. I mean, c'mon. Which toy do you think looks more show accurate? Left or right?

(The left one was created specifically to match the show.)

To me, all these changes feel arrogant. It comes across like Agabyss is saying "I know the show better than the original creators do", which is just insulting.

These choices aren't without consequence. When you have prospective buyers already looking for certain characters, your "own spin on Metal Cardbot" gets perceived as a cheap knockoff that gets devalued in search results and obscured from all but the most diehard fans. And given that it seems like Season 2's first toys will be delayed to mid-2027, I have to think these changes are slowing production down for no benefit.

Accessibility

Let's say you're a little kid who likes robots. You probably found Metal Cardbot through countless TikTok reuploads of the show, or the English Metal Cardbot YouTube channel. Now, you want more - there's a new season? And there's toys? That's so cool, you need them!

Except, you can't. The only way to get Metal Cardbot toys is on Agabyss's own storefront-- where I assume they have higher margins-- and Big Bad Toy Store, at a 10% markup. You can't even get them on Amazon, which is one of the easiest retailers to get anything onto! Let alone any physical retailers where people actually buy toys.

I know they've said they've been exploring their options on this, but how do you honestly expect people to buy Cardbots if they don't even know you're selling them? A bunch of people are into MCB that don't even know you exist. And if you can't get into Target, Walmart, or actual toy stores, do you even exist for a kid?

Now, let's say you're an adult collector. What you really love is the toys - you don't really care about the show, and you probably found out about it through a toy reviewer (like That Toy Guy) or the TFW2005 thread. These SAMG people have some seriously cool stuff - Blastrain's a sick ass train that combines? Flame Nova is so massive! They even made a combiner that has its own transforming weapons?!

But none of these toys are available in the USA, and it doesn't look like they'll be out anytime soon. Adult collectors aren't just waiting patiently for Agabyss to maybe get around to distributing them in 2-3 years. Why wait for Glober (sorry, Wayfinder) to release at $37.95 sometime in the future when you can just buy it on Amazon right now for $59.60 and have it next week? There are no real timelines for when the toys that people actually want will release, and this seems to come up in the replies every time that they post something.

Setting up supply chains takes time, and the fact that preorders for Wave 1 went "really well" is honestly fantastic. But if Agabyss wants to put their money where their mouth is, they need expansion in areas that aren't just their own store - and they need it fast. We can't have Tachy releasing in 2029, guys.

Communication

For a while, Agabyss only posted Metal Cardbot updates in two places: the official Metal Cardbot Facebook page, and the BotCon (??) Twitter account. They did make an official Metal Cardbot US Twitter account recently, but the 11 real posts it does have are mostly Facebook posts with information removed. When the bulk of the fanbase and all of the production staff are on Twitter, this seems... backwards? They also have no traction on Instagram, BlueSky, or TikTok (the latter of which is where a lot of younger fans are discovering the show).

There is also an official English metalcardbotTV YouTube channel that posts episode clips, but I am not sure if Agabyss has access to this. It seems like they don't, since no mention of toys have ever showed up on this account - and they've been stuck reuploading clips of the same Season 1 episodes since December 2025. (This YouTube account has also made some baffling decisions, but that's a story for another time.)

Agabyss is not very good at communicating things. Ignoring some sloppily-made AI generated advertisements that they only changed after being called out on it - did you know they raised prices on all of the toys by about 5-10% yesterday? Yup-- it turns out the original prices were actually "introductory prices" and not the actual retail price, despite their website not reflecting this at the time of Wave 1's release. The only mention of this is in a Facebook post the day before it happened, and a newsletter sent out two days before. They even made Twitter posts during that time that omitted this information! Is that not insane?

How things could be

I've been very negative in this post, so let me show you what a real Metal Cardbot distributor looks like.

Let's look at JUMPGO, the distributor for Metal Cardbot in China. They started about two years earlier than Agabyss, and in that time:

It's surpassed 500 million cumulative views and topped viewership charts on streaming services

It's ranked #1 for robot-related searches on Taobao (China's equivalent of Amazon)

They've held multiple in-person events for kids and adults

They've created three entire mascot costumes, and post original Metal Cardbot comics on their social media accounts

They're on season 2 of their own Metal Cardbot live-action spinoff that has its own toys

I know this isn't an apples to apples comparison. Agabyss is much smaller than JUMPGO, and JUMPGO has a unique position in that they're also the manufacturer of the toys. But it just shows you how much reach the series can get if given the chance, and it saddens me that Metal Cardbot won't ever achieve this level of prominence in the United States.

What to do

If someone at Agabyss is reading this and somehow sat through my angry rambling, here's what I wish as a completely uninformed crazy man that's mad people can't get their hands on plastic toys.

Put your toys on actual shelves. This is hard, I know, but you get no sales if you don't exist. Most people are buying them on Amazon and eBay, so start there. (If I search "metal cardbot mega trucker" on Google after seeing him in Episode 1 of your own dub, I should not have to go to page 10 to find the first real store listing. And it's not even an Agabyss.com listing!)

Meet your fans where they are. Your top priority should be getting toys out, not changing things. Engage with fans on Twitter and TikTok, and understand what they like about MCB. Integrate the show better with the toys you are selling, so people naturally know where to look after watching it.

Keep fans updated. Your current English fanbase is avidly watching the Korean release as it happens, so tap into that hype! (And no, retweeting the MF/MC Development Twitter account doesn't count.)

STOP CHANGING STUFF! We're not 4Kids, guys. Why are you doing this. Stop trying to act like you know the show better than the production team!

I'm glad Metal Cardbot is coming to the USA, in any capacity. But if we want the show to get the recognition it deserves, we need to do more than the bare minimum, and not make it appear like it's yet another Transformers clone.

Conclusion

Metal Cardbot will always have its roots in Transformers. The director, Seoro Oh (aka OSRO), got his start making Transformers animations on YouTube, and you can draw direct inspirations from TF to characters like Heavy Iron.

But what makes Cardbot special is that it's not Transformers. Just look at any toy review online - they'll say that Cardbot is a breath of fresh air with toys that are fun to play with and ripe to compete with Transformers if given the chance.

But Agabyss just isn't giving them the chance. It seems like they'd rather keep trying to fit a Cardbot-shaped peg into a Transformers-shaped hole, and sloppily at that. That's what makes it so frustrating as a fan.

I know they've said in many interviews that they're trying, and global tensions aren't helping them ship stuff from Asia. And I get that - but it's been over a year and we don't even have a release date for the end of season 1. To me, Agabyss seems more preoccupied with stomping on the creativity of the production team rather than releasing toys that fans actually want and giving the show the spotlight it deserves.

If they continue like this, I don't have any hope for Metal Cardbot in the United States.

Okay, so what are our options?

Having no major skips doesn't mean there's no glitches at our disposal. Even though Astral Chain is a relatively well built game, there's still some glitches that abuse the Legion system.

In fact, using a technique known as superclimbing, you can gain almost infinite height. While airborne, if you summon the Arrow Legion at the peak of your jump and chain jump, dismiss, and resummon them, you can repeatedly gain height almost anywhere you choose.

Superclimb clearly has potential, but another glitch known as Arrow Storage makes it so much stronger. Arrow Storage allows you to keep your Legion summoned even in areas that don't normally allow it, including the Police HQ, Hal's Hideout, on ladders, and even the character select screen in File 01.

So with speedrunners being able to essentially infinite jump anywhere they please, why can't we skip major sections of the game?

The game's structure isn't kind to major skips

Astral Chain is an incredibly linear game. As such, it relies heavily on a global story progression counter (internally "File_Scenario"), which increments as you progress through the game.

Almost all in-game logic (playing cutscenes, loading new areas, summoning enemies, etc) are done using quests, a system that not only codes red and blue cases, but also story progression and the entirety of the Astral Plane. The game loads these quests on a file-by-file basis depending on what environment you're currently in.

Inside these quests are scripts called tasks, which are responsible for the game logic listed above. Tasks are difficult to explain, but here's the gist:

Each task is made up of individual lists of code blocks called LineLists.

LineLists are made up of IF and EXEC blocks. IF blocks check a certain condition in the game (such as if enemies in an enemy set have been defeated), while EXEC blocks run game functions (such as setting flags and spawning enemies).

In each task, LineList 0 constantly loops over and over until a block tells it to move somewhere else.

Due to the structure of the game, all quests in an environment are ran at once. Basically, every quest has to individually check the global story progression counter before running their logic.

[Scratch blocks are a great way to represent these tasks!]

For example, these enemies are only loaded and unloaded when the global "File_Scenario" flag is in the correct position (between two points in File 02). This makes skipping even just a single story trigger impossible.

You can see this in game: if you try skipping over a section, like a trigger in File 07, everything after it (cases, cutscenes, story triggers) won't load, even if you stand in the areas where they should be.

This programming decision is the main reason why major parts of Astral Chain can't be skipped. The game just refuses to do anything if you're not in the right story position!

The game's environments use extremely tall, hardcoded invisible walls

If you've ever tried superclimbing over the railing on the Helipad of the Police HQ, or over the edges of the rooftop of Zone 36, you'll notice it's impossible. That's because these sections use tall invisible walls.

Like... extremely tall.

These walls are hardcoded into the game's environments. The developers clearly did not want you to get out of bounds here, so they created giant walls to keep you out.

"But we can jump over a bunch of invisible walls in the speedrun. Why are these different?" you may ask.

Walls that are temporary (such as the "no entry" police barrier you see throughout the game) is a dynamic object created by a quest. Since this barrier object is used hundreds of times throughout the game, it has a fixed (and relatively short) height to ensure they don't accidentally block something above or below.

As it is, we don't have a reliable way to clip through solid walls. So if you were looking to clip out of the playing area to skip a trigger, it probably won't work.

So how do Astral Plane skips work?

If you've ever watched the speedrun of this game, you'll notice that Astral Plane sections are broken wide open. What makes these areas so exploitable?

There are three major reasons why most skips are in the Astral Plane:

The Astral Plane is generated by quests! 90% of the Astral Plane sections in the game are just a collection of blocks fit together like puzzle pieces, in contrast to the Ark environments that are loaded from a single model file. Thus, the Astral Plane doesn't have extremely tall invisible walls-- all invisible walls used are dynamic objects and can easily be superclimbed over.

Story progression is never incremented nor checked in the Astral Plane. If you can get to the final area in an Astral Plane section, the final cutscene or portal will automatically spawn.

Astral Plane sections are often extremely nested with many exposed holes and gaps, makes traversing into areas you're not supposed to go very easy for speedrunners.

For these reasons, skipping the Beast fight and Hal sections are exploited to great extent in full-game speedruns.

Well, that's depressing. What can we do?

Not all hope is lost! It's entirely possible that there are glitches just waiting to be discovered. The quest system could have flaws that allow us to skip instructions, or we could find ways to clip through walls. There are some instances where story progression isn't checked at all-- it's possible there could be new ways to skip these that we haven't found yet.

Along with this, case-specific progression can be completely separate from the global story progression counter, so there could be ways to avoid doing the full extent of a required case.

In all, most of the tasks increment the global story progression counter rather than set it to a certain value, so it's possible we could find a repeatable quest that could rapidly advance our story position.

Outside of glitches, another ultra-skip intended by the developer would be to find the game's "Final Secret", implemented in many Platinum Games titles by inputting the Platinum Code (↑ ↓ ↑ → ← X B Y A). Although initially not thought to be in the game, datamines have revealed sound effects seemingly related to this final secret:

I guess all that's left is to find this secret, right?

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Updated May 28, 2024 to add additional insights in Astral Chain quest research - we know what the story progression counters are called now!