Review – Unofficial Transformers Minions

I recently pointed out a video review of the unofficial Transformers from BTS, Minions Tremor and Frequenzy (review here). Well, now it’s time to give my own thoughts on these two toys — available in a set for $28 from TFSource — and while I wasn’t all that impressed with the other BTS releases that I own I can say that these two cassettes make great additions to any Rumble and Frenzy collection.

Cassettes and Batteries

The photos directly above and below show Tremor and Frequenzy in their cassette modes along with their pile drivers in battery mode. The cassette mode’s greatest strength is that it fits nicely in Generation One Soundwave toys (Encore Soundwave review here) and, unlike the Autoscout Cassette (review here), once one of the cassettes drops into Soundwave’s chest its very easy to remove it. I don’t think there’s any chance that you’ll get one of these guys stuck inside your Soundwave toy.

Unfortunately I have to say that the battery-mode pile drivers do not fit in the Encore Soundwave battery compartment. I was hoping they would so that I could store one set of pile drivers there, but the batteries are just slightly too big. It’s not a disaster, but it is a little annoying since there’s no good place to store the batteries and I was really hoping to display one of the two robots with pile drivers attached and the other with just his arms deployed. Oh well.

Robot Mode

Once fully transformed — which isn’t all that complicated; the head is my favorite trick since the mechanism pulls straight up and then you flip the head into position — these Minions stand about 3-inches tall; about the same height as the classic cassettes (Frenzy review here) and a tad taller than the unofficial Warrior Type-R/Type F toys (review here). And while the robot mode isn’t as nice as the Warrior Type-R/Type-F design by PerfectEffect it feels durable and a lot more playable than I was expecting.

Articulation

These Minions are like most transforming robot toys in that their articulation is designed around the transformation requirements, but they still have better articulation than the classic cassettes and, as you can see in the photos, the poseability and balance is pretty good.

• Arms – Several joints, from swivels and ball-joints at the shoulders to hinged elbows and hands. The elbow hinges allow the arms to swing in rather than out, but that ball-joint and swivel combination at the shoulder really helps with getting the arms positioned.
  
• Waist – Just a simple swivel, but it works.
  
• Legs – There are swivel joints at the hips and thighs, a hinge just below the knee, and each leg has a second hinge-like joint where the knee connects to the open spots in the cassette (the spools). That spool-positioned joint allows the lower leg to swing forward or back a full 90-degrees each direction. Nice.

The only joint I’d say the Minions design is missing is a neck swivel of any sort. The head is locked in place and forever just stares forward. A ball-jointed neck would have been awesome, but for the low price for the set (in relation to other unofficial Transformers toys I have to say that I can accept the missing neck joint. Besides, the way the market works it’s always possible that a fan will create an upgrade kit that gives these two new heads.

Sculpt

These generally make good Transformers Generation One Rumble and Frenzy toys, but the weird shape of the torso combined with the wide waist/hips comes together to make the toy look just slightly off. The head is pretty good, the arms and legs are just fine, but I have to admit that the shape of the torso is just a little too wrong for my tastes. It would have been nice if they had designed panels on the back that would flip open to give the toy a bulkier torso because what we have here is a robot that’s just a little too lean. (Especially relative to the wide shoulders and hips.)

Pile Drivers

These are a really nice addition to the toy and you may have to force the rearmost part to extend when transforming the pile drivers from battery mode. On the four pieces I had one that was jammed and it took some major force to extend the part, but if you’re patient and use controlled force you shouldn’t have any problems. And once extended all you have to do is collapse the hands into the forearms and then snap the pile drivers on. They don’t lock in, but the pile drivers do help balance the robots when you want to try slightly more ambitious poses.

The pile drivers also extend the opposite direction by pressing a button and activating the spring-loaded mechanism. I am thinking that one of the four that I have is faulty; the same battery that was difficult to extend the arm connector also has a spring that isn’t working so well. I can get the battery into its pile driver mode, but I’m finding that each time I transform it from battery to pile driver both ends stick. Just be sure to be careful when transforming these accessories.

Minor Surgery Required

Above shows one of the two Minions assembled wrong (the screws in the chest shouldn’t be there; that’s his back). To fix the problem I had to remove the three screws, separate the two parts of the torso, and then remove the head from the slide mechanism and flip the head and replace it. The plastic slider only fits into the chest one way so it was definitely the head that was attached wrong and not the slide. Fortunately, this turned out to be about a three minute procedure and nothing went wrong during the operation.

NOTE: It also looks to me like each of these has two left arms. Either that, or BTS created only a single arm and used it for both arms even though it makes the right and left arms look slightly different.

Closing Thoughts

If you’re a Soundwave fan and always want more cassettes then these two are must grab toys. The diecast metal feet help the toy’s stand nicely and the plastics feel durable and not cheap like we’ve encountered with some of the unofficial Transformers toys in the past. These two aren’t the best Rumble and Frenzy-inspired toys out there, but at less than $30 for the set they are a great addition to my own shelf of cassette and Soundwave toys.

A step forward for BTS, and playing with these has me feeling a little less concerned about the upcoming Nightfang toy by BTS (first mentioned here).

Philip Reed should take a photo of all of his cassettes. He doesn’t have anywhere near a complete collection, but he has more of Soundwaves minions than he probably should.