Finally got Devastator unboxed and together. Fair warning, I'm going to go into detail with a review. Which means this will be a loooooooong post.
Apologies for the picture quality. I should've done this in a brighter room. the camera flash borked the colors a bit and took away some fo the detail on darker sections. I'll try to get some better shots later or in the next couple of days.
Also because I'm going to refer to them by name:
Long Haul = Dump Truck
Scavenger = Excavator
Bonecrusher = Bulldozer
Scrapper = Front-End Loader
Hook = Crane Truck
Mixmaster = Cement Mixer
Also of note I will use a word you may not have seen unless you browse the TF Wiki or other forums: "kibble." It's a fandom term for when pieces of the alternate (non-robot) mode just sort of obviously hang off of the figure while in robot mode. Sometimes figures dress this up like it's supposed to be armor plating, but other times it looks like it just sort of is "there", separated from the pieces that form the actual robot body. Sometimes it's not a bad thing, as it creates striking design elements like the wings that remain on the backs of Starscream/Thundercracker/Skywarp and the like, or the way the car mode doors sweep out from the shoulders of Jazz or Prowl, or Grimlock's T-rex torso sitting on the robot mode's back like scooped wings. But sometimes it looks lazy and like a cop-out by a designer who couldn't figure out a better way to integrate the structure into both modes without it looking so obvious.
You can read more here if you want.
Vehicle Modes
(clockwise from left): Hook, Long Haul, Mixmaster, Scavenger, Scrapper, Bonecrusher
The 6 constructicons all come in the box in vehicle mode. The immediate thing that's noticeable about all of them is that for the most part they do a good job of hiding all the robot elements so that they look "real." or at least as real as fluorescent green and purple construction vehicles can look.
It's a little disappointing to see that there aren't a lot of smaller detail paint applications to the vehicles though. Moulded parts like ladders and door frames and smokestacks are mostly in the same green, hiding as much of the purple as they can and with only small silver embellishments. I'm also not quite sure why Bonecrusher has green treads instead of purple ones like Scavenger, except for the sake of consistency with the original Bonecrusher's design from the 80s. Also worth noting that neither of the treaded vehicles' treads actually move. Both have small wheels hidden under the body to facilitate rolling.
The other obvious thing is that Long Haul is notably bigger than everyone else, which makes sense considering that he forms the meatiest part of Devastator's torso.
Otherwise, the other significant change from G1 is that Mixmaster is a rarer "front-load" cement mixer (it's not backwards in that picture, it's facing forward to the right like all the others), where the drum tilts up over the cab and faces forward instead of being toward the tail of the truck. I'm sure purists will squawk about that, and I'm not entirely sure why it was done like that considering the rear of the truck maintains a sort of cab-like appearance to maintain the look of Devastator's foot being formed from a boxy portion that looks like a truck cab, but I'm sure there's some reason for the design choice.
Some people may also complain that the vehicle construction implements lack much articulation. Scavenger can move his bucket arm, but the bucket itself has no hinge. Hook's crane arm swings up and down, but the arm has no extension or retraction, and the crane has no swivel at all. There's not even a real hook on the end, it's entirely a closed loop.
The other thing is that in spite of the sizes, they're all quite light to hold. Each one is entirely plastic, including entirely plastic wheels with no rubber and no metal other than screws and hinge pins. That does seem to be par for the course though for transformers from outside the earliest G1 waves in the 80s.
Robot Modes
(L-R): Scavenger, Scrapper, Long Haul, Hook, Bonecrusher, Mixmaster
Robot modes are a bit of a mixed bag.
Scavenger is maybe the best robot mode. There's not a ton of outward evidence of vehicle kibble except for the shovel arm on his back with the bucket up towards the shoulders. But that's consistent with the original design and it still looks good. Articulation is great at the shoulders, elbows, knees, hips, and waist, along with the head being able to swivel at the neck and tilt a little.
Bonecrusher gets what looks like the best upgrade from his G1 robot mode. The original bonecrusher had the gaudy bulldozer blade just sort of sitting on the front of the robot, taking up his entire upper body and making him look very wide and awkward. This one manages to nicely let the blade fold up and become an upper torso with detailed robot mode chest design elements, and creating a smaller obvious waist and larger upper body that looks in line with the rest of the team. The bulldozer cab behind his head is the only super-obvious bit of vehicle kibble left after the transformation (except for an odd black piece that sort of dangles off his back and seems useless until you realize it's necessary for Devastator's arm) and like Scavenger he gets a ton of articulation and movement in his arms and legs.
Scrapper has the 3rd best looking robot mode overall, with the big loader bucket hanging behind his head as the only significant bit of kibble. He's got great feet and legs setup and a uniquely pivoty waist thanks to some necessary inclusions for Devastator mode. But I had a little trouble getting his head to stay in place (unlike the others, which either are cloaked by the position of vehicle bits, or swing out on a hinge, Scrapper's head slides straight up vertically out of the chest on a track, kinda like a whack-a-mole. You can have a little bit of trouble getting it to stay in place when there's no obvious "click" to lock it in. The other big, big issue with Scrapper is that he has no elbow joints at all. Not even gimpy sideways ones like Long Haul (more on that in a minute). So his arms are totally straight all the time.
Long Haul's bulky truck makes him a heftier robot than his comrades, but not a significantly taller one. The squatty legs are a little awkward too, but still manages to have full articulation in the knees, shoulders, ankles, and a sort of sideways articulation at the elbow. That is the one complaint about Long Haul's robot mode: the elbows swing down sideways and hinge there, so there's no ability to bend the arm forward except to rotate at the shoulder. This also makes the arms look awkwardly thin at the middle because of how they stick out under the truck tire shoulders. but he maintains the original Long Haul's distinctive upper torso design (being made from the pulled down nose of the truck, in the fine tradition of all those "hoodboob" transformers like Jazz and Prowl).
Mixmaster has some design bits I'm not crazy about. The feet are made out of the truck cab and the funnel part of the cement drum, so they look kind of awkward and don't have a strong "foot" appearance like the others. The mixer drum is also totally immobile on his back and just sort of there, hanging off him like a bee abdomen (think how Waspinator's bee mode abdomen kind of hung off behind his robot legs, like a bit fat tail). But they kept the "hood" that was formed over his head and the nozzle like constructs on it, which is a nice touch. He's got skinny arms though. He does also get the same extra-flexible waist that Scrapper has (to facilitate Devastator having ankles, though apparently it shouldn't be used much for robot mode action as it isn't the strongest joint.
I left Hook til last because he was the most disappointing for me. He looks well enough like the G1 hook and his animation model from the cartoon, but I had some trouble with the backs of the shoulders (the rear of the vehicle and the crane compartment) setting into palce, also mine appears to have weak ankle joints which can't stand up on their own, forcing Hook to lean back onto the extended crane arm and stand like a tripod. But this is hard to do because the crane isn't quite as long as the full length of his legs, so he sort of has to "sit" backwards with bent knees. I wish I knew how I could tighten the ankle joints a bit so they weren't so easily flexed. His elbows are also a little thin in how they bend, though at least they bend the right direction, unlike Long Haul.
On the whole the robot modes look very nice. They're pretty accurate to the old cartoon character models and have a ton more articulation than any old school transformer. The heads all look great with a ton of detail in them. Mixmaster's head was even altered a little bit so it kind of looks like the Decepticon logo, which is a cool touch.
Transforming them was also not quite as hard as I would've imagined. Most of them are fairly straightforward once you go through the instructions. I didn't like though how often they relied on stiff sort of "arm/hinge" joints that lifted pieces away from the body and then set them back in place (or higher). They took a lot of force to move and for a kid I could see it being quite hard to do. Hell, for an adult it felt quite hard to do without risking breaking anything (though some of the ball joints are designed to separate with excessive force rather than break). When I was little I never felt like I had to really yank on any transformer to move its pieces around and transform it. So doing so on this one was concerning.
Also of note is that this version of the Constructicons doesn't come with individual guns. You can cheat somewhat by using pieces of Devastator's rifle (which splits into 2 components) as large guns for 2 'cons, and the Devastator arms/hands can be made to look like big, boxy rocket launchers for 2 more figures to hold. But it's not perfect.
but really, I know why you guys are here and why you persevered through my rambling review:
DEVASTATOR!
Yep, for comparison those are my trio of G1 Insecticons. Each one is about 4 inches tall. Each one is about the size of a G1 Constructicon too.
Also in spite of the image, the whole thing is properly Constructicon green. The discolored-looking bits above his knees (above the cement mixer drum) are a trick of the light and my camera flash, not inconsistent coloring of the figure itself.
So to first answer the obvious question: Yes, Devastator really is that big. It's quite impressive once you have everything together. Devastator stands a total of 1 1/2 feet tall, and is exactly as big as the loudly proclaimed "ACTUAL SIZE!" illustration on the back of the box. I have the Armada Unicron mentioned earlier and a Masterpiece Optimus Prime. Both are big, bulky toys. This is on another level. If I ever felt compelled to use the term, Devastator is absolutely imposing. He's big, solid, and wonderfully accurate to the old cartoon. It also seems obvious in this mode as to why certain design choices were made. Everything seems to have been geared to making the best Devastator possible, rather than creating 6 individual excellent Transformers that combine into a bricky, immobile Devastator mode. He has articulated ankles, knees, a swivelling waist, shoulders, elbows, some limited wrist movement, fingers (the index finger moves individually, the other 3 fingers together. no thumb movement), and a swivelling neck.
Transforming to Devastator and combining isn't too bad. Every piece except Long Haul starts out best from Vehicle mode (which meant when I unboxed this beast I transformed all of them from vehicle to robot, then had to go back to vehicle to make Devastator, then realized Long Haul should've stayed in robot mode and transformed him again, then did the combiner mode conversions.
), and for the most part they're pretty direct tansformations.
The arms (Scavenger and Bonecrusher) have to unlock and unhinge the piece that becomes the forearm while the legs (Scrapper and Mixmaster) lock pieces into place for feet (Scrapper's arms swing up to make a tripod setup with the locked-in-place loader bucket, Mixmaster extends out the rear of his truck and bends it down to be the foot) and then both of them have their robot mode legs swing out part ways to create an interlocking joint with a tongue-and-groove piece that slides together with Long Haul's legs to hold securely together.
Long Haul himself basically stays in robot mode with his head retracted into the body and without his feet flipped out. His arms also flip out to the sides and are used to secure the vehicle treads from Bonecrusher and Scavenger into place since they lose their anchor points to make the forearms. His waist also pivots around to the orientation used in vehicle mode (what you see on Devastator's waist is basically the butt of Long Haul in robot mode. This is another issue I didn't bring up earlier: that joint is a ratcheting one, so it makes a loud, snappy "clack clack clack" when you turn it. It sounds disconcerting, like you might break something. If you've transformed any of the newer, bigger figures like a Unicron, you'll know that sound)
Hook becomes the upper torso by having a unique joint that splits him in half across the middle of the truck and pivots at that center point so that the front and rear bumpers end up side-by-side, with the crane arm over one of Devastator's shoulder and the truck cab over other. Clasp-like pegs flip down from a pair of hidden compartments to link up with Long-Haul's smokestack and truck cab as anchors between the upper and lower torso, and squared C-joints stick out on either shoulder to hold square openings in the bottom of the arm bots.
Devastator's head is hidden in a compartment on Hook's vehicle back, flipping out and sitting in place rather than having to be attached. The only pieces that actually require attaching once the robots are assembled are the winged chest plate (which covers up the empty space between Hook and Long-Haul on the torso) and the forearms, which have the hands swivel out into place and then have a peg that inserts into a hole formed by the forearm component from Scavenger/Bonecrusher. The chest plate also anchors to the treads on the arm bots, to help hold all of that together. Though not as tightly as I might like. Still, it's nice to see that they accomplished Devastator with like 90% internal parts on the other Constructicons, instead of having to rely on separate kibbly bits that stick on after the transformation (that's something I'm curious about with the other Combiner Wars figures. I have a G1 Hot Spot and it comes with all the Defensor pieces, which includes fists, feet, and chest attachments, with only the Defensor head hidden on Hot Spot's body. I wonder if the old Scramble City combiners that were made for the Combiner Wars line do the same or if they managed to find a way to integrate the gestalt hands and feet into the arm and leg component bots.)
Anyway, in spite of how critical I've been, I love the look of Devastator. It's much more fun to display in combined mode, but I also don't feel like I'm going to have a hell of a time transforming it to other modes later on if I decide to show the individual Constructicons. It's obviously a price acquisition, but if you want a dramatic showpiece Transformer, I can't recommend it highly enough.
Word is that the imported Takara version has things like individual guns for each Constructicon and some slightly better paint applications for each one, but at what might amount to double the price, I'm not sure if it's worth it. This version is great the way it is. Especially since most people are going to want to keep it in Devastator mode anyway.
