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Transformers One Review

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All right it’s time for the big origin film that came out recently for Transformers. This one is a film I definitely saw a lot of leading up to the release. People were ready for a full theatrical film without any humans running around. It’s a pretty good film, I had a fun time with it. The action scenes get intense by the end and of course it’s always fun to see Optimus Prime in action. I would definitely be up for a sequel at some point, particularly since the film is at its best when the main character is in Prime mode.

The film starts off by introducing us to Optimus and Megatron but back when they were known by their former names. They work as miners who help excavate and keep the planet running. It’s not a very glamorous job to say the least and most people don’t think too highly of miners either way. These bots don’t have a transformation cog so they are seen as a bit inferior. Prime wants to change this and figures on entering the big race with Megatron which doesn’t go great, but they do get close to winning at one point. This gets them in trouble and sends them deeper into the planet, but there they find out about a conspiracy that could shake the entire planet to its core. Cybertronian history will never be the same.

Since this is a prequel of course we know that Prime and Megatron will be okay. No matter if it’s a new continuity or working to fit in with some others, they wouldn’t bump them off early. The main draw of the story is instead seeing how they used to be friends and what wedged them apart. If you’re watching for this, then you may be disappointed to see that Megatron’s arc happens rather quickly. He isn’t allowed to make quite as much sense as he could which is unfortunate because I would argue that he should be neck and neck with Prime in terms of rationale. Prime takes the soft approach while Megatron goes ultra aggressive. That’s more in line with what I was expecting but it didn’t exactly play out like that.

Megatron is still a fun character though once he enters Megatron mode. I didn’t care for his original personality quite so much, same with Prime’s. The characters are just so much cooler once they enter their main modes. Megatron really deals a lot of damage and throw himself into every fight. That’s great and he really has a savage fighting style. This is one of those continuities where he does appear to be a solid step below Prime in terms of power level but I could definitely see him getting a power up if we ever get Transformers Two.

Naturally once he enters Prime mode, Optimus is the great lead that you always expect to see. He has a commanding presence and is an absolute force on the battlefield. I like his fighting style and the guy was taking on a whole squad and making it look easy. That’s why he is the face of the Autobots, you wouldn’t want anyone else to be taking up that role. The film has a small cast but it works out when you have tow characters like this.

Bumblebee is okay, I’ve seen worse portrayals of him. The constant talking is fine but I don’t feel like he got very clever lines. I’d like to see them touch up his wit just a tad in a future installment. I do like that his fighting skills are legit though. As the scout he should really be able to rough up his opponents so I really appreciated that. Meanwhile Elita looked really solid from the jump. She talks tough the whole time and always delivers on the banter. She’s also not just a big mouth, when it came time for the serious fights she held her own and then some. She is really portrayed as one of the strongest characters and it’s impressive.

On the villain’s side, Soundwave and Shockwave don’t get much to do. Fans of the former should still be okay but Shockwave fans are going to have a brutal time because I would argue he looks flat out bad. I was satisfied with Starscream’s role though. Sure he’s not taking big wins or anything like that but I thought the role was fitting for his character and it’s not like it was a bad role. He’s a big fish in a small pond but can’t keep up with the top tiers. That sounds about right to me.

Airachnid gets a lot of the hype for the villains. It’s a shame that the final fight is so short because she was dominating otherwise. Definitely a really fun addition and you always like to see a villain who is absolutely ruthless and just mows down all of the fighters in her way. Given how impressive she was, I do think she should have been allowed to put up more of a fight in the climax.

Alpha Trion’s okay but not really my favorite character. He talks tough and is useful but when the chips are down he folds rather quickly. I would have liked a better showcase of his abilities despite how old the guy is. Sentinel Prime is a pretty fun character though. He’s always got some fun lines. The guy is about as fake as Booster Gold with the paparazzi but that’s part of what makes the character work. You really can’t take what he says seriously but the guy is still a very powerful warrior.

The animation in the film is pretty good. I’m not a big fan of the character designs for the most part from the second half but I like basically all of the upgraded modes. That means we should be in good shape for the sequel. The fights are solid and fast paced which is really the important part here. The soundtrack’s pretty decent as well although I don’t feel like any of the songs were super misleading. So on a technical level the film holds its own and the pacing is good so it never drags on.

The film’s biggest weakness I’d say is that the first half is just not as engaging. We really just want to get to the meat and potatoes of the story so the first half feels a bit long when it is setting up the stage. I think you could have easily chopped a lot of that and instead used it to really start showing the subtle differences in Megatron and Prime’s ideologies. We saw the difference in their personalities but this is a bit different. It might also just come down to writing.

The concept isn’t bad with the first half being like a buddy cop film and the second half gets serious. The movie just isn’t all that funny to me. At no point is it ever cringey or anything though so I’m super appreciative of that. The second half just feels like a true jump in quality to me, particularly since I really enjoy the lore and seeing what all of the robots were doing in the past. It’s why I think a sequel would be particularly strong since it can really jump into all of this without having to set anything up.

Overall, Transformers One succeeds in its job as being a fun film that you can check out at any time. It’s got a good balance of action and adventure the whole time so fans of either side should have a good time. The movie definitely set up the stage for quite a few future events should they want to continue here and the cast was also extended by the end. There are a whole lot of directions to take the series, they just gotta pick one and commit to it. The sooner they do, the sooner we can get our next animated film in the works.

Overall 7/10

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Review

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Transformers has definitely had a lot of films over the years. The original animated one was excellent but then the live action ones have tended to have a lot of issues for the most part. This one’s here to take us in a new direction and on one hand it’s got a pretty grand plot. On the other hand the fights are severely lacking compared to the old ones so that’s something that I’m hoping can improve pretty soon for the next one. It’s also probably a good idea to not cut out the best scene in the movie.

The film starts with the Maximals being under attack by an incredibly powerful fighter named Scourge. He isn’t a Decepticon nor an Autobot but a Terracon who works for Unicron. He effortlessly destroys one of the fighters and proves why he is a threat to be reckoned with. We then cut to Noah who is our lead here. He’s around some bad influences and once he doesn’t make the cut for the job he applied to, he resorts to a life of crime. Things don’t go well though as the car he tries to steal ends up being an Autobot and he is taken to their base. They want him to take some kind of artifact from a museum and then he can go on his way but the Terracons know about this and want it as well. Can the Autobots take Scourge down and save the planet or will they all be eaten by Unicron?

Okay so lets go with the good, the bad, and the ugly. To start with I will say that the humans plot is handled a lot more gracefully than in older films. None of the characters are pervs, there’s not a ton of comedy running around, and they’re all decent. I wouldn’t say any of the characters are particularly interesting but the plot is played very seriously the whole time and Noah feels like a real character. Perhaps a bit too “real” though as he’s quick to be ready to betray the Autobots even as we get near the end of the film. He’s not someone to be trusted. Now his motivations were reasonable as he wanted to protect his family but betraying the robots is not a great call.

Meanwhile Elena is solid as well. Her boss is always stealing credit and so she hasn’t been able to move up. Perhaps this whole experience can help her finally make a name for herself….provided she survives this at least. I would say the best part of the human plot would definitely be the after credits scene for the film. It’s definitely an excellent moment and gets you hyped for the future. So that’s something the film definitely did really well there. I’d have probably thrown in an extra character or something but there’s a lot of possibilities here.

The robot designs are also on point. Scourge looks really strong right out of the gate. He works well as the main villain and is probably the best villain out of all the live action Transformers villains. The guy has presence and you can feel his power. Optimus Prime has a great personality as well. Like in the Bayverse films this Prime is very bloodthirsty and just wants to destroy everyone. The film cut out his best scene involving this but the guy wasn’t playing around. Prime should be desperate to get back home and stop the villains after all the deaths so the characterization makes a whole lot of sense.

Okay so those are the main positive elements of the film. Now lets talk about some of the negatives here. For the first thing, the fights just aren’t good. They aren’t just the weakest Transformers fights but I would say they are weak movie fights in general. A lot of the times you’re just looking at a quick tackle, a stab, and then the fight is over. That or they’re just blasting each other a while. There’s never a sense of just how strong or weak someone is because they all look really fragile in battle. A good example of this is how effortlessly Prime was defeated by Scourge.

In practice it makes a lot of sense. You want to show how good Scourge is so you clown on Prime a bit but the execution was way off. It just made Prime look like a chump as opposed to making Scourge look like a champ and that’s really my main problem here. It’s absolutely not the way to go about this and there’s now weight to the battles. You have Noah blasting away at Scourge later on and distracting him while the guy was no selling hits from Prime? The power levels were too wonky and yet too one sided at the same time. So even when you had the rest of the robots getting involved it didn’t really do anything for me.

The visuals are good of course but the actual fights were definitely below average. The soundtrack’s also extremely weak but for a movie that’s not a huge deal. You mostly don’t even notice the music in these things anyway. Of course it’d be nice if it was a lot better but I’m just saying I wasn’t expecting a whole lot either way. So the movie has good pacing and you’re engaged during it but you feel a bit sad because the whole Unicron experience can only happen once and now we’ve already used it up. At least the opening battles with Scourge and we can’t get those back again.

Ultimately I just think a bit of a problem here is that without big fights the film can be a little more on the forgettable side. I know everything that happened with the story beats and all but for example I couldn’t tell you quite as much about the individual robots. Of course we had Bumblebee around and he did great near the climax but there wasn’t much to him if you take away the knowledge you already have. Same with most of the other robots as only Mirage got a ton to do.

Now I will say even if on average the fights weren’t top tier, the visual of Bumblebee getting taken out was pretty intense. You will still have some major doubts on the heroes looking so bad there of course but it’s still something that you won’t forget. There is also something to be said for this being a well written film of course. It’s a good title and while it doesn’t have a lot of replay value it definitely did more good things than bad ones. I’d be able to confidently say that I’m a fan of the film, it just has potential to be so much more. I think it’s time to bring in Megatron in the next film for some kind of big team up. Especially with the new characters who will be showing up soon since in theory they should absolutely decimate the Autobots in a straight fight.

Overall, Transformers is always a fun movie to watch. This one does have a lot of action and thrilling scenes. I like seeing the robots smashing each other to bits but it just slacked off on the actual battles a little too hard. The most important thing is the story of course and that’s on point but I really did want some big battles here. A battle with giant robots should always be supremely engaging and if it isn’t then something went terribly wrong. This is not the way that it was supposed to go….not at alllllllll. Also if you’re here for the Maximals, don’t be. There’s a reason why I went the whole review without even mentioning them and that’s because they are completely pointless to the story. They add nothing. None of them are interesting. We don’t even get a proper fight between them and the Autobots. It’s just like how the Dinobots were wasted, I can safely say that these guys were completely wasted too. That said, I am hyped for the sequel and will absolutely be there right away. I’ve still got pretty high hopes there.

Overall 6/10

Transformers The Manga Review

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Now it’s time to take a detailed look at the Transformers manga collection that came out over here. Spread across 3 omnibus volumes this brought in many different Transformers titles. So you’ve got everything from classic G1 to Starsaber and even beyond. It’s definitely a must read for any Transformers fan. The stories are typically fairly quick so they are able to fit a whole lot in here. Each volume also has a lot of artwork at the end which is always fun as well as the final volume having a lot of unused concept art for episodes that we could have gotten. Definitely a shame that they were never animated but this is a lot of Transformers hype right at your fingertips.

I figure I’m going to break this down into each oneshot/series that’s included so lets start from the top. The first miniseries introduces us to Kenji who will end up being a fairly important kid. He wants to help the Autobots as best he can but he’s mainly more like a cheerleader the way Spike and Daniel were before they got their Exo-Suits. It’s always nice to have a human cheering them on though and it beats having to hide who they are all the time. We get several fights against Megatron and co.

A lot of these issues focus on the combiners which is nice as we get to see fights like Trypticon vs Metroplex. If you’re a fan of those big ones including Menasaur and the gang then it’s a nice way to kick things off. This first series has 8 issues so it’s one of the longer ones in the collection. It’s also the most retro I’d say because each issue feels like how a classic Transformers episode would play out. At most you can just see how the fights are shorter since the comic page counts aren’t very large. Typically once the Autobots get serious the Decepticons go down in a page or two.

At the end of the day I’d say Kenji was decent. A kid who can’t really contribute to the story can only go so far but he does try so I’ll give him credit there. He’s also very enthusiastic about the whole mission and stopping Decepticons so that’s good as well. In the manga there are times when the kids can even get Decepticons to see the error of their ways or at least weaken their drive so that can be important.

The second series is a bit shorter with 5 issues but mainly deals with the Galvatron vs Rodimus Prime part of the Transformers mythos. So if you’re a big Rodimus fan then this will probably be the highlight for you. It’s always good to see him. I may be a bigger HotShot fan but Rodimus is fun as well. Galvatron is really outmatched in each story though so it can be easy to forget that he’s supposed to be way stronger than Megatron was. In many ways the Autobots completely outmatch the Decepticons in each of the series here. Maybe Rodimus really was the chosen one and helped keep the Autobots on a higher tier. It’s something to think about at least…

The humans don’t really get to appear in this one. This is one of the more Robot focused stories but the humans would be returning soon so you don’t have to miss them for long. Either way the Robots are doing the heavy lifting so it’s not really a problem if they miss from time to time. Some would say the stories are even better without them. I do like the dynamic with the evil kids later on though so you don’t want to lose out on that.

This next series is even shorter at 3 stories but with a title like the Great Transformers War you can bet that there is a lot of action going on here. Optimus Prime is back by this point which is cool and there is a lot of action going on across the universe. You’ve got the Dark Headmasters as well and I’m always up for a good fight. There may be a bit less in here to stand out among the other stories but it’s got a solid base which is always important. A good story and solid action scenes will always end up making for a solid product and imagining all of this animated would be fun. Daniel also gets to show up here.

There’s a oneshot during the Beastformer saga which was solid. Basically the Decepticons and their animal counterparts decide to attack while White Leo is away so Kane and the others have to defend the place. Kane is so much better than Kenji and the main reason for that is that he can fight. Not just putting up a struggle or something but he has a sword and a mech suit. He can actually deal damage and do more than just be a distraction. That’s exactly what you want to see from the humans when they’re contributing.

With 8 issues, Headmasters is one of the longer series and it makes sense since it was fairly long/important in the cartoons as well. You now have all the good and evil headmasters fighting it out like ChromeDome. The original Autobots don’t appear as much by this point but you should like the new guys well enough. Daniel and friends actually have a sizable role this time as they appear in virtually every issue.

While I thought the actual Autobots from the Headmasters show were always some of the weakest, it’s always good to see them as a change of pace. By this point the series was like Pokemon where it’s difficult to memorize all of the names. Good luck on trying though, it would definitely be impressive if you can remember them all. You get a good amount of action here so it holds up with the rest of them.

After that is the Masterforce adaption and of course that was one of my favorite shows so that was nice. Unfortunately Ginrai’s human host is already gone by the time the manga starts so he doesn’t really get to appear but instead Shuta and Cab get really big roles here as our human characters. They’re pretty solid and get a little more to do than Kenji from earlier. That’s because they actually get to debate with their evil counterparts on the Decepticons side to prove that being a hero is its own reward. They’re later joined by Minerva and the 3 of them are actually given robots so fight with so they can help on the front lines.

Again, that’s always really big in helping make the characters cool because you absolutely need to be able to contribute. It’s only when the characters can’t contribute that I start shaking my head. Masterforce gets 12 whole issues so you can see that the manga is giving it the respect that it deserves. Although on the villains side Zarak and Devil Z aren’t as impressive as their names suggest. The villains in this saga tend to be a little bit whinier at times and maybe that’s a result of having the dark kids with them. Hard to say for sure but they don’t seem as pure evil and heartless as someone like Megatron was.

Victory is next up and I always thought that Starsaber had a really cool design. It reminds me of Protoman and he really stands out for that reason. At 10 issues you definitely don’t want to underestimate this series either. This time the main kid is Jan and his evil counterpart is Solon. It follows a fairly similar format of the kid helping out at times but by now the names for fighters from both forces will probably be totally unfamiliar to you. Fortunately it’s never very hard to tell who is a hero and villain both design wise but also in context. There’s never any doubt with the villains yelling and blasting about destroying the world. The two kids from the last series return but the girl changes as instead Jan’s sister Patty takes up the heroine slot. Her design is almost identical to the last heroine except that she looks a bit older. I always think authors should go out of their way to make sure designs don’t look super similar as long as there is no plot reason for it.

We also have the Transformers Zone adaption and they get to flesh things out a bit which is cool. I always thought that OVA had a ton of potential because it was basically an all star line up of the most powerful Decepticons to ever walk the planet. So now you have them all teaming up? That’s a winning combination if I’ve ever seen one but it’s hard to properly give them all time when it’s so short. Well in the manga version you feel like they all get to fight a bit longer. You also have the human fighters at the ready and so it feels like a fairly climactic battle with a lot of fighters on both sides. This really could have been its own series and it would have worked out really nicely. One day I’d like to see more stories from this part of the saga.

That said, as mentioned the manga does go farther than Zone into some original territory. One of these is the Battlestar one shot. Super Megatron (Cool form btw) ends up fighting with Star Convoy over in space and it’s cool to see all of these powered up modes going at it. From the story pages of unused drafts we see after this, there were really a ton of new forms and stories that were coming in the future. This is a nice preview of what we could have had and it makes sense as each G1 show did keep on increasing the power levels. It only makes sense that the robots would get more advanced each time right?

This was no exception and it was fun. It’s harder to go into detail on the draft parts but Optimus Prime would have been revived for real with a new form, he and Megatron would have had a lot of clashes in space and it all looked super hype. It also seemed more plot focused with a lot of cliffhangers and to be continued segments. One day I’d like to see Transformers get back into stories like that. The modern titles are cool and all of course but when’s the last time we got really high tier space battles with energy sabers and all? I feel like a lot of that died with G1 even if the modern titles are cool in their own ways as well.

With so many stories in the collection they can absolutely start to blend together. I’d compare it to the original DC Justice League comics where there are a lot of adventures and they follow a format each time. New villains and threats but roughly the same steps to getting there. Most of the Transformer stories are very similar in that way and since most of them are effectively stand alones, it’s easy to just pick up and read at any time.

By the same token, none of them are going to leave the same lasting impact on you as a volume from one of the modern titles would. Because those are typically a lot more plot based and tense with different story arcs and fate of the world hanging in the balance. Since these can range from being re-adaptions to side stories within the verse, there usually isn’t a whole lot of danger in the stories. They’re all very consistent though so you’re not likely to run into any weak stories here. They’re all pretty good. None are great but none are bad so it’s a fairly safe spot in there.

The artwork is okay but this is one where I would say that it can get a little messy and chaotic. Particularly during the battle scenes where everyone is blasting at each other. That’s where you can start to get lost in the sauce a little and may need to re read a page or just go slow. The series are fairly old so it makes sense that the art isn’t as polished. The way the panels are lined up and everything even feels more like an old comic. In a way it’s interesting how comics and manga both changed a lot over time into more streamlined designs. I suppose progress is progress no matter where you’re at.

The writing is on point though and it’s definitely nostalgic reading these titles. They definitely feel like real episodes on the printed page, only abridged versions to tell the full story in a small amount of pages. Whether you like Transformers or just want to check out a classic action story then you’ll have fun here. Not only will you get to meet a whole lot of different Transformer characters from over the years but you’ll get to see a lot of them fight and can understand more when people mention how Transformers used to be more about the robots than the humans.

A modern day remake of G1 would definitely be amazing in any format. I’m talking a classic full length series with traditional animation in 2022. No gimmicks or AUs or anything like that, but a straight G1 inspired story for an ongoing. That would be a blast because those titles had a lot of charm and can be modernized pretty well. You’d just switch the more episodic plot into something that’s a little more interconnected and then you’ll be all set. You could probably even include the kids if you want, at least the ones from Masterforce and beyond since they have their own robot suits and can fight.

The plot with the evil kid would work too because it’s especially easy to see how a kid would be taken in by the Decepticon’s lies and would be hard to get back on the good path. You could have a real good plot there provided you don’t let it completely take over the main plot. Robots still need to be the focus and you don’t want to change that but otherwise you’re all good.

Overall, I’d recommend checking out this collection. It’s like reading a Marvel’s Essential or DC Showcase where they bring over 500 pages of content. This one is spread out over 3 volumes but each one is really large and you can probably tell that based on all the stories above. It’s a must read for Transformers fans and it’s really impressive that they grabbed so many stories. I can basically say that I’ve read just about all of the Transformers manga now. There will always be others of course but this was a massive jump considering I hadn’t read much Transformers at all before now. (I’ve read a decent amount of the comics although probably a small drop in that big bucket of materials)

Overall 7/10

Transformers Bumblebee Cyberverse Adventures Season 4 Review

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Well, who’d have thought that Cyberverse would come back? After the show ended, some time passed and then they announced that the show would continue with 2 mini movies. This basically became season 4 with two, two part events. It still feels rather random but who can say no to some more adventures right? I wouldn’t say either episode is quite up there with the best that the show was dishing out in season 3 but they’re fun enough episodes and the nostalgia is the important thing here. So lets take a look at the two stories here.

The first story has the Autobots and Decepticons preparing to finally make the peace between both sides official. It’s been a long time coming after all and this will mark a brighter day for Cybertron. Unfortunately that isn’t to be as the entire planet is frozen solid. The only ones to escape are the Dinobots and Windblade, but she is quickly captured. Grimlock must unite these Dinobots to that they can use a merged form to stop the group of bounty hunters led by the powerful Trypticon. Will they be able to save the day or will it be curtains for Cybertron?

I have to say that the bounty hunter’s ray is really impressive. The fact that it can take out an entire planet in the blink of an eye is terrifying. It reminded me of the whole premise for Dr. Stone. The Dinobots are really just lucky to have gotten out of that one. It was a bold pick to have them be the main characters here but I wouldn’t say it paid off. This has always been my least favorite incarnation of Grimlock and I can’t say that the other Dinobots are much better. As the big premiere to the new season I would have rather had Optimus Prime or Bumblebee at the ready.

The bounty hunter group isn’t bad though. Trypticon makes for a good leader of course. In this version he is portrayed as a tough boss who talks a good game but does care for his subordinates when the chips are down. He seemed like a really practical guy and someone you wouldn’t mind working for. Then you have Soundblaster who gets a rather big role here. You may chuckle a bit at his villainous origin story of why he turned against Soundwave and the others though.

This did mean that Soundwave got to have a true rival though so that was near. There are a few other forgettable members and then you have the last two, Bug Bite and Nightbird. Now these characters were fun as evil versions of Bumblebee and Arcee. It’s not literal but the character designs are the same so why not right? Nightbird had good close combat skills and Bug Bite was good at always moving and keeping everyone on guard.

So as a whole the bounty hunters were a lot more memorable than I would have expected them to be. They made for good antagonists and were easily the highlight of the two part story event. I just wish the heroes could have been as interesting. The whole Dinobots learning how to fuse thing got old fast and none of the Dinobots have enough charisma to hold their own scenes. They’re easily some of my least favorite Autobots and end up holding the special back. So in the end it’s a good two parter but not a great one.

Finally the other 2 part adventure sees the return of the ultimate Decepticons. Out of nowhere they start appearing on Cybertron only they are fighting each other for some reason. It’s difficult to get them to disengage and Cybertron itself may be destroyed at this rate. One of these robots still appears sentient though and explains that the Autobots can help the rest too. They just need to get another legendary relic of the Primes but it can only be opened by someone with the Matrix. It’s obvious that this is a trap so I’ll jump ahead a bit to say Tam (The sentient robot) gets this artifact and is now intent on using it to destroy all of the Autobots. The War for Cybertron has begun anew. Will any Decepticons continue to aid the Autobots or will we go back to square one?

Now this was a big step up from the first story. It’s a massive upgrade on all fronts from the action scenes to even having more of an ensemble cast. This time almost everyone gets a little something to do. Prime, Soundwave, Bumblebee, Windblade, the Dinobots, etc. Everyone has to pitch in and help this time around because the villains are too powerful for anything else. The perfected Decepticon robots are also impressively strong like last time. One on one only someone like Optimus Prime can defeat them. The other fighters don’t stand much of a chance which is why it was so important to try and shut them down.

Soundwave gets a lot of the spotlight here which was unexpected but his fans should be pleased. His story really goes in a vastly different direction from anything I would have predicted. Not only does he get his catchphrase but he’s well prepared for each battle and is willing to put his spark on the line to help his friends. The episode treats him like the new leader for the Decepticons and he was willing to make peace with the Autobots. Soundwave seems like he would make for a very good leader to the team, someone they could all be proud of.

The Dinobots return and get to use their fusion form but not as much as you would think. Too bad since it should in theory be strong enough to really make a difference in these battles. More importantly, Hot Rod gets to appear for a bit and while he doesn’t look super strong, I’ll take any screen time I can get. Optimus Prime gets to step in as well this time. It’s not a huge role but the episode does still acknowledge him as the strongest Autobot with how he is able to take on some of these robots.

Aside from generally having more action and more of a serious plot, the episode also had a great start. When Astro Train comes falling out of the sky it’ll remind you of the old Infinity Gauntlet comics when Silver Surfer crashed in a similar way. It immediately tells you that something big is about to go down and that’s absolutely right. Even if the main twist may have been telegraphed, the fact that the story has twists and turns is fun. It’s just a well written two part adventure and this feels like a true finale.

As for Tam as a villain, I thought he was solid. He isn’t quite as memorable as the bounty hunters from the first story but I still liked him quite a bit. He had a grand plan and did a good job of executing it. The design was on point and he had a good, no nonsense kind of personality. The show really didn’t hold back with the villains in this season. Both stories had good antagonists.

Season 4 seamlessly blends in with the rest of the episodes so it’s like no time has passed. The score may not be as high as the show but that’s in part due to how many adventures the show got to have and how you knew you’d have a consistently solid time. This season is better than the first for sure but would lose to seasons 2 and 3. I have a feeling it could have easily jumped up another star with more episodes. This one’s just over so quickly and with half the show used up on the Dinobots, that meant it didn’t have a lot of extra opportunities. Not everything has to be the next big hit though and at the very least I can say that I think you’ll have a good time with this one.

The animation style is kept the same from the TV show and still looks good. The animation style is colorful and you quickly know what’s going on. I like it well enough for the action scenes although this isn’t that kind of show so don’t expect any big battles. When it comes to the soundtrack, there aren’t really any memorable themes so I wouldn’t get my hopes up on that front. On a technical level the show definitely doesn’t stand out but it looks good enough.

Overall, Transformers got to have some more fun adventures which is nice. I wasn’t a huge fan of the first one but the second delivered. In the end they balance out well enough so I would call season 4 good and in the end that’s what counts. You may not check these adventures out again but now you can proudly say that the show reached 4 seasons and I’m looking forward to seeing what adventure comes around next. The Transformers franchise never takes a break after all so you can bet that it will be back sooner than later! There are even a few items already lined up in the franchise.

Overall 6/10

Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy: Kingdom Review

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Transformers has been quite busy. Since the end of the second part in the trilogy I got to review the Rescue Bots Academy show as well as the recent Battlegrounds game. Well, now we’re at the final part of the trilogy. Part 2 ended off with a ton of plot lines to explore but since each part only has a few episodes I’d say a lot of us expected there would be loose ends. The only question was, would these be in the form of direct cliffhangers or more like threads that aren’t really mentioned but you know they’re out there? I’d say it’s closer to the former to we’ll see if there’s a part 4.

This part pretty much opens with the Autobots and Decepticons crash landing on this mysterious planet. They are greeted by the locals which are the Maximals and Predacons. Unfortunately for the heroes, the Decepticons and Predacons hit it off really quickly. Meanwhile Prime has to figure out a way to defeat the Maximals and to find the All Spark once and for all. If he can get that, then all the sacrifices will have been worth it.

Now you may be wondering about what’s going on with the subplot back on Cybertron but there’s no time for that so we don’t get one. We find out what happened in the aftermath though. The Kingdom saga is only 6 episodes so those are all really spent on this planet as the gang tries to work together. The series has certainly come a long way from the original days of war on Cybertron that’s for sure.

It’s fun to see the Maximals return. It’s been a while since I saw Beast Wars but the old characters are all pretty familiar. Primal and the gang actually do pretty well in the fight. I would even argue they should have beaten the Autobots pretty quickly. The heroes have been running on the last smidges of Energon pretty much since the beginning of the trilogy so I’d expect they would be out of luck by now. I suppose Autobots are naturally tougher than Maximals so it balances out but if the fight kept going they really should lose.

We don’t really get to see the heroes fight much in any part of Transformers so it was a cool skirmish and I wouldn’t have minded if it kept on going for a while longer to be honest. The heroes look good as you would expect. Prime is still calling the shots well. While I may not have always agreed with him in the previous two parts, at this point he is committed so I’m with him on seeing this mission through to the end. Turning back now would just not make any sense and they all know it.

Prime’s so close to the goal after all. The rest of the Autobots are solid as well but Prime really gets the biggest role. Bumblebee also gets his moment to shine as he is acknowledged by Prime as being the best candidate for the Matrix and leadership position. In context I definitely think it’s a stretch since Bumblebee just joined the team but you can also interpret it as a diss to the other members not being ready for this.

For the Maximals, Primal is fun of course. He definitely does not like Nemesis at all which is why it’s hard to work with him at first but gradually he softens up. He doesn’t really have the same commanding presence as Prime but does what he needs to. Then you have Airazor who does the most dangerous jobs for the team. It doesn’t always go well for her but she stays strong and does well at convincing a Predacon to rethink things.

Then on the Predacons side you have three main members. First is Megatron II but I wasn’t a big fan of that guy. He basically worships Megatron and is always mentioning how great the guy is. He doesn’t exactly feel like a leader and acts like a minion. The guy needs to have more self respect to be taken seriously here.

Dinobot was great as always though. He looks very strong and is also reasonable. His decision to go along with Starscream for a while may have been shaky but ultimately he wisened up and got out of there pretty quickly. He was one of the best characters in Beast Wars so I wasn’t surprised that he was great here as well.

Then you have Blackarachnia. There are so many spider themed villains in Transformers that it can be difficult to keep track of them all. Still, she’s a fun member and definitely likes goading Starscream on. Both of them aren’t exactly the most loyal fighters out there so they make for a good team. Both will need to watch their backs though.

As for the Decepticons, Megatron is a fun leader as always but at this point he’s just a complete villain who is running around and trying to destroy things. Gone is the Part 1 Megatron who you could make the case of having a stronger argument than Prime. That’s one thing I miss from the first part which is that we had a whole lot of nuance between both factions. Due to the show skipping the initial outbreak of what set off the war, you really didn’t know who was right. We could assume that Prime was given the entire franchise history but the fact that it was close was interesting.

Megatron insists on using the Matrix in this season but you can’t help and think that it is just holding him back. The matrix doesn’t offer any super abilities and all of the characters let him know that it refuses to be used by a Decepticon. I’d toss it or lock it up if I was him.

Then you have his loyal follower Soundwave who finally gets some action here. He’s definitely not portrayed as a big fighter here but Soundwave still gets his hype. Mainly through Laserbeak who really does good here and takes on several challengers. Finally there is Starscream who has his plans as always. You wonder if he will end up being the main villain since that happens a lot. Either way you’ll be satisfied with his portrayal. He’s as cunning and quick witted as ever.

Throughout the part we have a lot of fights between the 4 factions but gradually we are given more and more hints that something else is coming. Galvatron appeared in the opening episode after all with the golden disc of destiny and there was all the foreshadowing with Unicron early on. Well, here’s where this all comes to play as Nemesis and Galvatron show up. I wish they could have appeared more because to me this was the most interesting part of the whole saga.

In season 2 the show already delved into the idea of a multiverse with the whole Dead Zone aspect. (Which comes into play here) Well, it looks like in one timeline Unicron ended up winning and took both Prime and Megatron as his lackeys. In a Galactus kind of way, Unicron reformatted them so they would work for him as Nemesis and Galvatron. It’s very interesting and cool to see both a Prime and Megatron teaming up like this.

Sure, they may be evil and potentially not in their right minds but it’s a great team up nonetheless. I love it when a show introduces multiple timelines and parallel dimensions. There is so much you can do with that and even if you don’t go the guest star angle, you can still get a lot out of it just through discussion and lore.

Mind you, Netflix sometimes likes to go a little too far with sci-fi lore and there was an instance where I was worried this was going to happen here as well. We do get some info dumps and pondering about the universe but it ends as quickly as it begins so we’re good. The climax is really a big battle as everyone tries to fight these invaders off and it’s pretty epic. Galvatron and Nemesis were pretty outnumbered but otherwise I dare say they would have crushed everyone.

In theory we’ll see them more in a Part 4 if we ever get that. You know how I’m a big fan of cliffhanger endings so of course I had a blast with the ending. If we ever do get a sequel it’ll probably be the best part. Nemesis may not talk but he has a cool aura around him and Galvatron is as fun as ever. I like that he has a lot of plans going and was doing his best to defy Unicron. In a way he’s like Starscream in that respect as Megatron doesn’t like to work for anybody. He’ll likely continue resisting Unicron until he ceases to function.

The graphics are pretty good. It’s CGI so it won’t look quite as clean as all of the animes but you can always tell what is going on and who is who. CGI will likely never quite stack up to hand drawn for me but if you are going to go the CG route, you should always try to be colorful. That way the fight scenes will pop out at you and you can still get a lot of cool visuals. So I’d say the CG here is good because there are definitely a lot of moments where you can pause and what is happening on screen will look pretty good. The soundtrack is more on the underwhelming side though. I couldn’t tell you about a single theme in the show. I’m sure there is music of course but none of it is memorable.

It’s worth mentioning that this is another Transformers title that didn’t need to add any humans. It’s all about the bots and it works well. There’s a whole lot you can do with the franchise without even needing the humans because the Transformers world is incredibly vast. Part of the fun in season 2 was seeing the world with Soundblaster because it was a whole alien culture that the Transformers had to visit. You could make a Star Trek type story just about exploring other planets as well. The battles with Prime and Megatron are classic but those are all other avenues we could explore.

Of course in a Part 4 we need to go into the whole Unicron angle. That said, I think the toughest part about incorporating him into the mix is it’s hard to picture him being defeated. Take this trilogy for example. Both sides are incredibly low on energon and the combined armies had trouble with his heralds. What would they do when the actual Unicron shows up? They would need a bunch of the celestial Transformers and some of those living cities to do much of anything to him and even then I’d find it pretty hard to buy into them winning.

In the end I’d put this one pretty close to the Machinima Transformers show. This one went the more conventional route initially but by the end we had a lot of guest stars and pretty ambitious plot lines. This one wins in terms of it being so much longer than the few minutes per episode and it had time to do more. At the same time, I’d give Mach the edge in terms of the actual story and scale of what was going on. It was cool seeing all of the obscure Transformer characters showing up and doing their thing like the Mistress of Flame. This one wins overall though as the extra length is just too good to pass up. Now we just have to wait and see what the next CGI experience is, hopefully it arrives sooner than later.

Overall, The War for Cybertron trilogy was pretty fun. It does feel like the name was more applicable to the first two parts though as the third was mostly unrelated. I suppose the battles are an extension of what happened previously though so in that sense you can say it was still a war. I don’t think this will go down as one of the more memorable Transformer shows but I am glad they keep pumping out titles left and right. At this point Transformers has so many shows you’d be hard pressed to name them all without thinking about it. If you haven’t checked this one out yet then you definitely should. If you combined all 3 shows you’ve effectively got a full season’s worth of content.

Overall 7/10

Transformers Battlegrounds Review

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When this Transformers game came out there definitely was not a whole lot of fanfare and hype. For the most part people just kept going about their business and that was the end of that. I probably wasn’t going to get it myself for a while but the price was right so why not? It’s a pretty solid strategy game that you just wish was a little longer. It really ends up flying by so you’ll have it completed within a few days. The game isn’t exactly built for replay value either so there isn’t a ton to do afterwards.

The general plot of the game has the Autobots on the run once more. The Decepticons have taken an overwhelming advantage in numbers and are getting closer to finding the All Spark. The Autobots have split up as Prime focuses on finding it first while Bumblebee defends the city. The Autobots realize that they will need to reunite in order to stop Megatron’s ambitions though and will have to fight their way past the other Decepticons in order to do it. Can they pull this off!?

The gameplay is your classic XCom style as each character gets a turn as you move them around the board. You have to decide what action to have them take, whether it’s an attack, hiding for cover, or doing something else. Each character has 3 “actions” they can take per turn so spending them wisely is important. If you don’t have to spend one moving then you can fire off a level 3 attack right away. Alternately you might be too far and will have to waste all of your points on moving.

It’s important to keep in mind your next turn as well since if you move 3 spots and just barely don’t reach the opponent, that’s basically tell him to take a free shot. You don’t want to go too aggressive in these things or it could really end up backfiring on you quite a bit. The game’s difficulty is not that high so you should be fine either way but you don’t want to pick up any bad habits for when you’re challenging more difficult games. At that point you’ll be glad to have picked up some legitimate tactics.

I’ll give the game credit for making each character feel different. These guys aren’t clones and all have very unique abilities and special moves at their disposal. Even their power level ranges quite a lot as Grimlock and Prime can deal 3 damage with even their weakest attacks while the others are stuck at 2. The health points also vary as some characters might have around 7 while others have 20+.

Each character is also customizable. You can use the points you accumulate from your victories in order to buy new weapons/abilities to make your characters real threats out on the field. By the time you beat the game you won’t have nearly enough points to buy all the upgrades but you can buy most. Within 2 paythroughs you will have them all. That being said, I actually preferred the default blasters to a lot of the more unique weapons. The blasters just did the trick, after all with those you can hit someone from long range while a lot of the other attacks require you to be up close and personal. I can’t stress enough how useful long range options are.

For levels where you have a healer on board, definitely keep them to the back. You don’t want them taking too much damage and healing 3-4 points a turn is incredibly valuable. It can turn the tides of any match without a doubt. Then you’ve also got super attacks once you have collected enough energon. You fill up this meter by completing turns and also ending them while still having some action points left. So that’s another thing to consider, sometimes it’s best to leave some turns on the table so to speak because they allow you to fire off more ultimate moves.

Another bonus on that is that the special moves don’t take up any action points. So on the next turn one of your characters will effectively have 4 points. Pretty sweet right? So these are all just things to keep in mind and they’ll eventually help you out if you get yourself into a tough spot.

The graphics are pretty solid. I wouldn’t say they’re anything to write home about but they’re colorful and distinct. The character designs are on point and the levels look good. It’s definitely got a retro look to it and doesn’t appear as detailed at other games but at the same time I never had an issue with it. The colorful atmosphere fits right in with this part of the franchise.

The soundtrack is very uninspired though. You won’t be able to recall any key tunes here as it all feels as generic as possible. The gameplay will have you focusing so hard that you’ll barely hear the music as well. It’s not bad but it doesn’t leave any kind of impact and in some ways that is an issue of its own.

As for replay value, as I mentioned earlier it’s a bit on the small side. You can work on buying the rest of the upgrades I suppose but it’s not like there are extra levels to use them on. You do need to complete the game on hard mode for one of the trophies so I suppose that is a good place to start. Obtaining the Platinum trophy will definitely take a lot of time and adding content is definitely a perk of having trophies.

Overall, Transformers Battleground may not be the most impressive Transformers game but it’s always fun to revisit the XCom gameplay. The title just needed to have a longer story though and give you more things to do. At the end of the day I feel like you would be left very unsatisfied if you bought it at opening price. For $12, it’s not a bad bargain though. The gameplay is strong and the story is fully voice acted which always helps make things feel a lot more grand and official. I’d recommend checking this one out and seeing what you think.

Overall 7/10

Transformers: Rescue Bots Academy Review

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It feels like ages since this show started. It’s already impressive that the original Rescue Bots got a sequel series and even more so that it got 2 seasons. Clearly the series is doing something right and it does feel like we’re back into a renaissance for the franchise. We’ve got a live action film coming up, another TV show, some animated movies, etc. And if you like the Beast War characters then even more so. Now this series is naturally a lot smaller scale than most of the other titles coming up as it’s more of an educational series but it’s fun enough.

The series takes place several years after the original Rescue Bots show. Cody is now a lot older and Heatwave is the main teacher at this academy. The goal of the school is to train a whole new generation of Rescue Bots now that the others are all masters of their craft. It’ll be difficult though because the new kids are ready for action and on its surface, rescuing isn’t quite the same thing. In particular Hot Shot is a global champion in Cube and it’ll be difficult to get him to switch gears. Well, Heatwave and the other bots have their challenge. Now it’s time to watch the journey on getting these recruits to be the best rescue bots ever.

Each episode is around 10 minutes which is definitely a trend in the west. So if you go by that logic then the series has over 100 episodes but I always merge them to be fair so lets say we have 52. That’s still a pretty good run for this show. There’s a lot you can do with that many adventures and a lot of lessons to learn for the kids.

Rescue Bots Academy is a very laid back show so from the start you have to make sure that you’re not expecting big action scenes or anything like that. This is a slice of life adventure that is aimed at a very young crowd after all. Still, it has to stay interesting and have some kind of focus in order to keep a positive score since whether you’re aimed at 1 year olds or 10, there should be a point to the whole thing.

Fortunately Rescue Bots Academy makes for a good watch. I don’t think it’s a title that you will want to marathon a whole lot but each story is very different so that does help. It’s also fun to see the old Transformer characters running about. You could even say that Hot Shot makes for an even better character than Heatwave was back in the day. I do miss the humans a bit here though. Yes, it’s rare but this is one of the few cases where humans help to enhance the experience.

Back to Hot Shot, the reason why he is the best character here is because of his absolute confidence. The guy is a cube champion which you will be reminded of a whole lot. Most of his morals are about learning to trust others and not keeping so many secrets. He’s a hard nut to crack but gradually throughout the show Hot Shot learns what it means to be a true leader. Ultimately he has the clearest character arc out of the whole cast and he never lost his edge. There’s just no way Hot Shot could be anything but the best. Even his transformation ability is the best as he can turn into any kind of vehicle even if he can only do it once a day.

Then we have Whirl who is the second best member of the group. She’s a stickler for the rules so she’s the polar opposite of Hot Shot. She is willing to bend them a whole lot more than Chase though and I suppose that’s why she is a cadet. She’ll probably be much more rigid about it once she grows up. A lot of the times she is the one coming up with plans and as a detective in training you would certainly say she is the brains of the group.

Wedge is the tough guy and in a way tries to be the rival to Hot Shot. He can’t quite keep up but at least he tries right? He has a good amount of power and part of his personality is that he really looks up to Bumblebee. This results in him trying to show off a lot of the time and it ultimately ends up backfiring quite a bit.

Then we get to the final two Rescue Bots who can’t really hold their own with the main 3. Hoist is the most nervous bot of the group and has a lot of self confidence issues. He does his best to get over his fears but that doesn’t really happen until the very end of season 2. Hoist just wasn’t quite able to get into the action like the others for a while which is why for me he was a lot less entertaining. I prefer when the characters just dive in.

As for Medix, I dare say that he’s even more by the book than Whirl. The guy doesn’t really know how to have a good time for the most part. A lot of his morals are about learning how to adapt due to this. It’s always good to have a medical bot on board at least even if nobody ever really gets injured in the show. At best you have Chuck, the indestructible testing bot who gets beat up a ton but the point of his character is that he can’t be injured anyway.

For the humans we have Cody as the main character. Unfortunately you won’t really be seeing Chief Burns or any of the other classic characters beyond a quick cameo or guest star appearance like the mayor. Cody’s a good character but he rarely gets to do much more than say a wise line or two. Cody has a friend named Wes who gets an episode or two to himself. The kid wants to hang out with the Rescue Bots but they’re not the biggest fans of humans yet as they find them to be a bit too weak.

This does lead to one of the cheesiest scenes in the series when Wes actually manages to snag the Cube when it’s tough even for robots to do it. Hmmm, I guess he got his hype though. For the true Autobots, we get a few of them from time to time. Optimus Prime shows up at the beginning and ending of the show to drop some sage advice on the characters. His role is never more than a quick cameo here and there though so don’t expect anything big.

Bumblebee gets a few episodes as we explore what it’s like to be a true scout. Wedge also gets to see his hero in action. We also get to see that he really is faster than Hot Shot when Bumblebee tries to humiliate the little guy. The moral of that episode was about teaching the right way so it was good that he showed Hot Shot what’s up although it would have been fun if Hot Shot had actually won that match. Now that would have put Bee in a rather sticky situation. It was nice to see at least one of the old guard getting to do quite a bit.

Perceptor and Ratchet also get to show up from time to time. Everyone tends to like their classes since they know their stuff and how to make things exciting. Surprisingly we even get Lazerbeak from the Decepticons only the bird has turned over a new leaf now. He’s here to help and support the heroes whenever possible. It’s definitely a pretty emotional sub plot I suppose although his change of heart seemed rather sudden. I suppose he never wanted to be evil and just followed Soundwave around? Hmmm…not sure I buy that one.

From the old Rescue Bots it’s very noticeable that Blades, Boulder, and Chase don’t get a whole lot to do. They may show up for a few episodes here and there but it’s a very rare sight. Especially Blades who is an exceptionally rare guest star. At least we do have Heatwave though and that guy shows up in virtually every episode. It makes sense that he would be the teacher after being the main Rescue Bot. He’s learned a lot of lessons as it is so it’s easier to teach them.

Then we have the Dinobots. Grimlock easily gets the biggest role as he became a Teacher himself which was pretty impressive. Just goes to show that anyone can do it if they put enough effort into the mix. Unfortunately Grimlock was objectively not a good teacher as he would constantly break equipment and even taught the wrong moral by mistake so the kids had to correct him. The guy always tries hard though.

The other Dinobots like Sludge and Snarl don’t do much until the final episodes. They become friends with Hoist which keeps them around as supporting characters since they’re needed for the morals. They’re definitely not the smartest characters which even leads to them being framed. I would say they’re some of the weaker characters personally. Then you have Slash who shows up at the very end of the series. She’s not a fan of humans and seems to be more of a rebel compared to the others.

She’s fun even if she ultimately has to lose her edge really quickly since being a rebel wasn’t going to be tolerated in the academy. Finally you have Scorch who also has a small role but as a rival of sorts to Hot Shot he was a fun character whenever he appeared. Part of why the Cube episodes in the show are the best ones is because I like to see some good competition and for Hot Shot to live up to his hype. To his credit, Hot Shot was not bluffing. He really is a cube master.

While there is never any real action in the show, occasionally we get some moments that at least give you a sense of competition like the Cube episodes and even this one tournament episode that occurred. Hot Shot may not have looked so good there which basically means that humans have built robots that surpass Cybertronians but at least it was cool to see. Who’d have thought this show would have a tournament? It may not be played super seriously but that’s just how it goes.

The writing in the show is good. You clearly see each lesson and moral as the show goes on. It stays interesting enough which is always good. It’s 1 peg below the average title I would say just because it is a little more limited in what it can do. I would sooner pick all of the other Transformer shows which makes sense since they’re allowed to execute on the actual concept of the series which is battles with Decepticons. Naturally this one can’t go quite so far.

As for the animation, I would say it’s fairly below average. You definitely wouldn’t expect to see any cutting edge spectacles here. Shows like Sonic Boom, Kim Possible, and other shows tend to look quite a bit better than this one. I suppose the character designs and environments aren’t bad though. At the very least everything is always clear. Potentially the animation could have gotten a chance to show off if we got some action scenes sort of like My Little Pony, but without those the series just never jumped up like that.

The soundtrack’s a little limited but it’s not bad. Each theme gets across what it was going for in the scene. You have the danger themes, happy ones, etc. It’s all rather by the book but because of that you’re never confused on what the themes are going for.

It would have been fun if the series could have maybe gotten around the no danger rules a bit more though. If the show can’t put anyone in true peril, have some more sport competitions. The fun thing about those is that you’re not in mortal danger but it still ups the stakes because you absolutely don’t want to lose. A mini arc about the Rescue Bots having to put aside their differences to be the best team in the land would have been a lot of fun without a doubt.

Overall, Rescue Bots Academy is a good follow up to the original show. I would say the original one still wins though as it felt like they were able to do a whole lot more. Not only was the cast significantly bigger but they were allowed to have real danger scenes. You had a Decepticon show up once, an evil scientist, characters nearly getting squished, etc. The first show had way more danger than this one so I suppose this one was aiming even younger. Still, if you really like Transformers and don’t mind watching educational type shows then this one makes for a decent watch. There are certainly no real negatives to be found here, it just won’t have any episode that really pops for you.

Overall 6/10

Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy: Earthrise Review

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All right, we’ve made it to season 2 of the War for Cybertron trilogy. The first season started things on a high note as we had some good debates between Prime and Megatron. Both characters were written really well so you could legitimately choose which side you were on. Both of them made moves that even their own sides questioned. This season adds in a lot of extra elements. Both teams have their own plots for most of the season before converging at the end. It’s really hard to say how things will play out from here but one thing’s for sure, it’s definitely going to be interesting to see how this ends.

The season starts off with Megatron’s plot. Since Prime stole the All Spark, Cybertron is slowly dying. Megatron has been stalling the inevitable by using the sparks of robots to power up his rocket ship. He intends to find Prime once and for all to bring the All Spark back or at least avenge his planet. However, this is one of those times where the end doesn’t justify the means. He’s effectively slaughtering many members of his own people as Elita points out and this causes a lot of friction even among the Decepticons. Can Elita stop him or is Cybertron really doomed?

Meanwhile, Prime and his crew exit stasis but find that they have been taken prisoner by a group of bounty hunters. These hunters are going to sell them off to the Quintessons. The Autobots will have to find a way out of this predicament and soon but the issue is that these villains are actually quite powerful. Both Autobots and Decepticons are at their wits end here which ends up leading into the solid climax. It’s clear from the start of the series that there are more Decepticons than Autobots so they have the edge there but they are consistently a lot weaker so it helps balance things out in the end.

I feel like there was more action here than in season 1 although it’s close. We got to actually see Shockwave get his own fight which was really nice. Additionally, we have a guest star show up from the future or another dimension. That’s easily the most intriguing plot for me right now. When this character jumps out of a portal and starts fighting Megatron it’s just really interesting. It’s also rare to see Megatron be dominated so completely but it makes sense that he wouldn’t be able to defeat this opponent. This fighter is one of the stronger Transformer characters out there and he really lives up to the hype. He leaves as suddenly as he appeared but not before leaving something. Personally I take this to be a warning from a possible future as opposed to the present. It would work out well with all the distortions taking place.

Of course, the ending of the season is pretty open at the moment. You can have a lot of different theories on what just happened here. Personally I’m going to assume time travel once more. That’s pretty much always my default response but I feel like it just makes a whole lot of sense. Then there’s an equal debate on if the characters are going to the future or the past. I would say past personally. Of course we should know pretty soon once season 3 starts. There’s so much going on that it’s almost a bit hard to picture the series already coming to a close. Maybe we’ll get a sequel series or something.

There’s one part of the show where the characters enter another dimension where willpower is how you fight. This was pretty neat and reminds me a bit of Accel World’s Incarnate system or even the one SAO invented later on. Megatron really adapted to it quite well. At the same time I was really underwhelmed by another character who was in this universe for a very long time and claimed to have mastered his mind. Despite this, he was easily dispatched in a single move. You’d think that in a world where mental power is absolute experience would be vital. I guess the difference in their abilities was just that drastic though.

The animation here is definitely solid as expected. The designs are very full and detailed so the robots really feel sturdy. You can feel the power behind all of the blows. We get another solid Prime vs Megatron fight here as well as a whole group battle with Scorponok. If we ever get the mental world again, I’d like to see more of the energy effects there. The colors were pretty striking so it worked out quite well. The soundtrack is a little less memorable but it works well enough for the scenes that are present. I certainly had no complaints at least.

There are quite a few character arcs at play here as well. Naturally for Megatron we’re seeing him go on a darker path. He’s slowly going from more of a misunderstood anti-hero to full villain. The instant he decided to destroy an entire factory worth of Cybertronians you knew there was no turning back for him. He doesn’t yet realize it but Megatron is now a villain simply justifying his every move. He is a very interesting villain though and the character arc’s been handled well. As always he is still quite confident and self assured in his own power.

For Prime, his arc is a little different from what you may expect. He’s had to live with the fact that a lot of Autobots don’t support his decision to remove the All Spark and then to search for it, including Elita. These feelings of guilt seem to have made him even more obsessive now such as when he was beating up on Megatron. Prime was really losing control there to the point of going crazy, even begging Megatron to forgive him before murdering the guy. Prime is done taking prisoners although circumstances ensured he didn’t finish things off yet. I’m assuming in the next season Prime will regain control of himself although if he doesn’t then things are really going to get crazy around here.

Naturally we have a lot of other characters on both sides. Some characters like Bumblebee and Soundwave don’t get a whole lot to do this time. Bumblebee already had a good amount of screen time in season 1 though so that’s fair. He is also around in every episode so it’s not like he goes missing. I would say the Autobot with the biggest role after Prime would have to be Elita. Not only does she get her own big fight scene but with Prime gone she is effectively the Autobot leader on Cybertron. She’s also doing a good job in this role as well. She does her best to be fair to everyone and take the villains down without hurting anyone in the middle. Perhaps she can be too trusting in these times of war, but she is focused on not losing her ideals even if it means her defeat and I can certainly respect that.

Jetfire also has a sizable role here. As a former Decepticon he’s definitely not as quick to offer mercy as Elita. He makes a lot of good strategic points. Technically his methods are correct if you simply wish to win the war. Particularly with how the Autobots are totally outgunned in terms of energon and numbers they do need every advantage they can get. Continuing to hit every base to free Decepticons does truthfully sound like a task that will backfire horribly. He continues to help though and never turns away so this guy is quite good.

Naturally Starscream gets quite the role here as always. You’ll probably think he gets off a bit easy and that’s exactly why Starscream continues to pull these stunts. He knows that nobody is going to mess with him. This confidence is part of what makes him such a solid villain. His abilities know no bounds. Then you have Shockwave in what’s his best appearance in a long time. We get to see him using his tech in the field of battle instead of in the lab for a change. He has to be one of the most fearsome opponents to have to face here because of the fact that he has no emotions. He will do whatever it takes in order to claim victory and doesn’t care what the price is. There is no negotiating with this guy.

Quick shoutout to Scorponok as well for being a very interesting villain. He even got his own origin story where we find out that things didn’t go well for his people and then he goes right on the attack. He’s not the kind of villain to get overly sentimental or anything like that. His sheer defenses are also pretty crazy considering just how many opponents he was taking on at once. Right now you would have to put him as the strongest fighter in the series. The Quintessons get a solid mention for being powerful as well. Although in their case it’s more due to prep time and tech than sheer fighting ability. Don’t underestimate them though. There’s a pretty intense scene involving in-fighting among the group and lets just say we definitely know the hierarchy of the group now.

Naturally with so many spoiler filled events here I had to keep things vague. Still, there’s a ton to unpack here and most importantly, the story is just very engaging. Transformers has a lot of lore and characters within the franchise so it’s nice to see the show taking advantage of this. It’s also cool to have a different kind of story line here as opposed to the usual Autobots vs Decepticons story on Earth. That one’s a classic too of course, but with a space setting you’re free to branch out a whole lot. There are enough villains and plots going on now where it’s hard to say who the next opponent will be. The heroes may need some kind of power up to come out on top though.

At most the only thing I would say against the show is that the Decepticons look a little too weak most of the time. Aside from the named bots like Megatron and pals, the rest are treated quite poorly. A single Autobot will beat half a dozen Decepticons with ease. I don’t see why the gap would be so large. It explains why a group of a dozen or so Autobots who are all almost out of energon are beating 5-7 times that amount of fighters on the Decepticon side but I just don’t think it adds up all that well. Particularly since the Decepticons have more energon which powers up most functions. In a way I think this was the easiest way to keep the Autobots in the fight as otherwise they all should have been taken out a long time ago. The show paints a very drastic picture of just how massive a disadvantage the heroes are at. It’s a fairly minor thing in the grand scheme of things though but I wouldn’t mind seeing the Decepticons make a comeback in the third volume.


Overall, Season 2 of the War for Cybertron trilogy continues to take things in the right direction. I would say it even beats the first season. With the introductions and world setting out of the way, this season was able to jump right into the action. Seeing the Quintessons again was fun and the bounty hunters were also pretty interesting even if they didn’t look great in the end. This is exactly why you must never underestimate your opponent and keep your guard up at all times. Scorponok was given a ton of hype here being able to take on the combined forces of Autobots and Decepticons for so long. Now with the ending we can look forward to more characters being introduced to the action. Again, I’m not sure how everything can be addressed in the next season but I look forward to seeing how it plays out.

Overall 8/10

Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy: Siege Review

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It’s time for another Transformers show to enter the fray. This one’s more of a mini series since there are under 10 episodes but it is confirmed to be a trilogy so by the end of it this’ll be like a normal length show. It’s a take on the original Transformer battles from G1 but throwing in some extra elements. It’s like the Final Fantasy VII Remake in that a lot of things are similar but things start changing a bit by the end to the point where you’re confident that the sequels are really going to change things up. It’s definitely pretty solid and I look forward to seeing where the show goes from here.

The show starts us a little after the war has begun. The Decepticons currently have the edge in this war and the remaining Autobots are outnumbered and almost completely out of energon. If they don’t replenish soon then they will die out before the Decepticons even attack. Optimus Prime has gone for more and more risky endeavors to the point where some of his team are losing faith in him. The window for victory is closing rapidly though so Prime decides to take one last gamble to ensure their survival. Meanwhile Megatron knows he needs to squash the Autobots before they do come up with some kind of plan to take him down.

Since the show skips the actual start of the war you’re left to rely on context clues on who to root for. Naturally the Autobots are not as merciless as the Decepticons and don’t just go around blowing everyone up. That said, it does look like they would quickly fall to that level without Prime intervening all the time. We just don’t know what the actual treaty will be. The old system hardly sounds like it was that good with the Decepticons being enslaved. Of course, it looks like they’re just trying to turn the tables and do the same to the Autobots. Megatron doesn’t seem completely off the rails for most of the show though so I feel like there may be some nuance here. Regardless, there’s no way you will be rooting against the Autobots in the meantime. It’ll be up to the Decepticons to prove that their goals aren’t bad.

This show is CG like the last online title. It’s going for more of a War for Cybertron aesthetic whole the former went for a bright PS2 look. Both animation styles are solid and I remember thinking that the old show looked quite a bit better than I expected. CG can absolutely work well as long as the character models are on point and the other show handled that rather well. At the moment I would say the other show had the better animation. Still, the show looks really solid and definitely has a lot of detail. It had some really epic shots and a lot of fun fights. It’ll naturally take some time for this one to get there since we’re at the start of the war so it’s trying to go for a very dialed down approach for now. Everyone has standard power levels at the moment and the fights aren’t the main focus yet. I look forward to seeing the fighters go all out soon.

The character who is most changed from the original show is definitely Bumblebee. Here he is completely disillusioned with the war and does what he can to survive. He scouts out energon and gives it to the highest bidder. It’s an interesting way to keep him as a scout, he just isn’t an Autobot this time around. You sort of know who he will join in the end but I like the idea of making him a wildcard in the beginning. The Autobots are definitely pretty persistent in trying to recruit him though. They certainly have some good points here such as the fact that you can’t just avoid the war forever. The whole planet is involved and at some point you will either join a side or get taken out as a casualty in the end. Not choosing is a choice in itself.

Optimus Prime is a solid Autobot leader as always. He seems a little weaker than Megatron here but that makes sense since he is new to combat while Megatron grew up as a gladiator. It always made sense that Megatron should be stronger initially even if Optimus Prime ends up catching up to him at the end. Prime’s leadership skills also aren’t at the point where they would be later on. He makes a lot of tactical mistakes and continues to push for riskier and riskier plans. If the Decepticons didn’t have the aim of a Storm Trooper his group would have been doomed many times over during the opening episodes. Honestly if the Decepticons played this a little better the war should have been over. There is only so much you can do when you’re out of energon and that’s the status of the Autobots. You may as well go with one last all out assault instead of dragging it out at that point.

Of course we do have some wild cards in the show which help things out. One pretty interesting change here is how the show introduced Soundblaster. You may remember him as Soundwave’s super form in the G1 show but why would he have a super form already? Well, the show takes a different approach and it works out pretty well. Soundblaster is pretty interesting and I’d like to see more of him. The show does a nice job of building the environment in Cybertron so there are already a lot of characters to root for here with different personalities. Not everyone will be a winner of course but it does help you remember them.

For example, this is probably Elita’s biggest role in the series. Surprisingly she doesn’t end up as one of the more supportive characters here. She disagrees with Prime on a whole lot. To an extent this is fair since I agreed with her sentiments for a while. However, once the plan is underway at that point you just have to do your best to make it work. It’s not like you can turn back halfway yet she was still giving Prime a really hard time about everything. I would have liked to have seen her get on board with the plan for the second half. It would have made a nice difference to her character. Then you have Ratchet who definitely isn’t a big fan of the Autobots and feels like this war is a waste. Still, in the end he helps the heroes out. As a medic he prioritizes saving lives above all else so he’s a good ally to have around. He doesn’t forget about the rules of war and makes sure not to cross them.

The characters here all have their own plots which is good. Then you’ve got the Decepticons. I think just about anyone will predict that Starscream will be having a pretty big role coming up. The guy always has a lot of ambition and nothing slows him down. Jetfire really doesn’t help his case much though. He could have explained his side a little better. I don’t think it would have ultimately made much of a difference to be honest since the Decepticons were gradually growing darker and darker but at least it would have helped him out. I also like to think he could have taken out just about all of his opponents in his main fight if he started fighting a little sooner. Jetfire’s a fun character even if he ca be a bit naive so I’d like to see him more.

Soundwave and Shockwave get solid roles as well. Shockwave is the guy who really helps bring Megatron to the dark side. He’s that classic bad influence who keeps suggesting tempting ideas until they eventually get to the guy. He’s a large part of why Megatron ultimately started disregarding the ideals that kept him close to being less of an evil mastermind and just someone who wanted to help. Then you have Soundwave who is a very loyal officer and one that Megatron can count on. The fact of the matter is that the Decepticons have more key players than the Autobots so it’s easy to see why they were winning the war. This side is just very stacked. Then you’ve got Megatron himself. I’ve already talked a bit about him so I’ll keep it brief, but he’s a great villain as always. The slow descent from being a reasonable villain to going more off the rails is always pretty interesting.

From his point of view you can also see why Prime would feel like a villain. Megatron just broke free from society and now Prime is going to blow up the planet? Prime knows that taking the core will likely blow up the planet but sees this as necessary over losing the war. It’s a very drastic step and one you don’t usually see from the heroes. It really underscores that this is a war and both sides are incredibly desperate. They’re willing to make sacrifices in order to win. I imagine in part 2 there is definitely not going to be any mercy or quarter given from the Decepticons. The time for talking is over.

It was already over to an extent though which is why Ultra Magnus was a little annoying here as always. Walking over to the villains to talk never works out well. Naturally they can’t be trusted and will end up doing whatever they want now that you are effectively a glorified hostage. Even if Magnus doesn’t mind risking his life, what he doesn’t understand is that he’s risking everyone else’s lives as well. Magnus does a good job of handling the situation once he’s in there but he should not have gone in the first place. It was just a bad decision through and through.

At the end of the day Transformers just makes for a very interesting show. We’ve already had plenty of shows about them on Earth with the humans so it’s also nice to just have a title where it’s the robots. The writing is absolutely on point and you could definitely have the robots continue to fight for a long time on this planet. Of course Part 2 looks like it’ll change that, I doubt there will be any humans if they do wind up on Earth but if it turns out they arrived in present day that would certainly be a huge twist. I doubt it would be well received, but it would certainly be a twist.

Overall, This was a solid start to the War for Cybertron series. It starts out fast and keeps the pacing up throughout the whole season. There’s never any down time in the action and that makes sense. Part of the point of small seasons like this is that they can be very focused with tight pacing through and through. The Transformers franchise has always delivered with a lot of solid shows and this one will certainly be no different. I’m looking forward to seeing which characters are thrown in for part 2. Personally it would be nice to see Rodimus show up a bit more but as he got a big role in the last CGI title I suppose they may want to give him a break. That’s fair, but it would still be cool of course. If you like Transformers or just enjoy a tense action series then this is a good one for you to check out.

Overall 7/10