It must be hard for Takara to make all those Optimus Prime's and Optimus Primal's(Whoever thought that name up was on something for sure). How exactly can you improve on an already perfect toy? They could release all the Prime's they want, they could give them all super modes and weapons they want, but they'll never manage to make the perfect Prime, not when they already did.
How can you improve on Optimus Prime? You can't, not after the excellent G1 Optimus Prime that was released way back in the '80s. And now Takara has reissued him once again, only this time, they've got it right and made it available to all. This is the real McCoy, this is Optimus Prime, no fancy poses or anything like a cute mini con or automatic transforming trailer, this is the first Transformer. Review time.
Truck mode: Mmmmmmmmmmmm, this is a sweet mode for sure. In this mode, Prime is an articulated truck with ten wheels, a grey plastic trailer that houses a turret with spring loaded missile launchers and a cute scout vehicle that can be fired from a spring loaded launcher, the tab at the front of the trailer fires the scout car, the scout car even has a name-Roller.
Prime is the cab, he's a bright red with blue legs where the trailer connects. He has a white or sliver stripe, I'm a little colour blind with yellow and white, that runs from the front of the cab to the back. Unlike the Hasbro reissues that I've read about, his smoke stacks are fully intact.
The cab is die-cast metal with the plastic nearer the back. The detail is excellent, windscreen wipers under the windows, steps leading up to the main part of the cab, little dots and lights and just oddles of detail. A truly lovely truck mode, a lot of care has clearly gone into the design of this, excellent.
Robot mode: An easy, very easy, transformation later and the Prime all us old time G1 fans remember is standing. The detail is still there and the trailer opens up, manually, no automatic transformation here, and you'll get a small mobile base. The turret and scout car can come into play here, even though you can use them in Prime's truck mode as well, which is fun.
The base can also be used as a repair bay and can be used in truck mode as an assault weapon. So plenty of fun to be had.
Prime's robot mode is classic, no fancy gadgets or anything, just a robot. Slot his hands in(Yes kiddies, more manual transforming work here) and you can either use his gun, or take off one hand and attach his energy axe, just like in the cartoon from '84!
Prime isn't hugely poseable and I think that's a good thing really, this is Prime from the days before Beast Wars and RID and Armada, no mini cons, no animal mode, no falling on his back because that heavy battery makes him unstable, this is just Prime. The perfect Prime. In my opinion.
I best warn you all, Takara reissues are fragile indeed, be gentle with them. They've slightly remade Prime in the sense that if an arm comes off, like it did with me, then you can reattach it. But be gentle, I don't have to stress that enough. G1 toys were and are still fragile and too many hard knocks mean that they'll fall apart, and can't be repaired. Play nice, play gentle and just have fun. Well, if you actually buy Transformers to play with them like I do, seems most people buy them to sell them for higher prices now in ebay(beware the con artists, my fiancee was conned by someone there selling an RID Scourge that she really wants to buy and give to me to add to our collection, he stole her money and never sent Scourge).
Well there, I'm done. Oh, the packaging is excellent as well, nice big box with a very nice picture on the front. Highly recommend, Prime from the old days, I used to own him when I was 8, till my brother decided to give Prime surgery by taking him apart when I was 10, and now I own him once again, or rather me and my fiancee own him. Snap this one up before he's hard to get, he's well worth it, just be gentle with him and the other G1 reissues. Have fun!
Thanks Rmey for proving the Convoy #0 pictures. You can see the complete gallery
HERE.
| Reviewer | Tony Neil Watt |
| Date | May 10th 2003 |
| Score |  (10 out of 10) |
| Reads | 13758 |
Back to Reviews Index
|
