Review – Transformers Subscription Service 2.0 Barricade
I’ve not had the best experiences with the Transformers Prime toys (Amazon.com search*). For some reason I cannot explain many of the toys I’ve bought have been built from many, many ball joints . . . and those ball joints refuse to cooperate. There’s no better way to suck the fun from a toy than for it to constantly fall apart.
With the Transformers Subscription Service (Amazon.com search*) the official club has found a way to offer some cool character and toy designs to Transformers fans. Unfortunately, the Transformers Subscription Service 2.0 Barricade may be the most frustrating and annoying of Hasbro’s official Transformers toys that I’ve touched in the last few years. Not a strong start to this year’s Transformers Subscription Service.
Arms that won’t stay attached.
A redeco of the Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Prowl*, Barricade looks awesome. Great colors, a fantastic vehicle mode, and a really cool robot mode make this one toy I love to look at. Unfortunately, the ball-jointed shoulders are constantly popping apart when I’m posing or transforming the toy, and it is during the transformation process that this becomes a serious issue.
Worse still, the arms must be aligned specifically for the robot to transform into car mode, which means that the popping arms left me spending almost thirty minutes getting the robot back into vehicle mode. I’d get things aligned just right and BAP! the arm would fall off, leaving me with the mess of awkward and disconnected plastic parts. The instructions didn’t help at all — I’ve spoken about modern Transformers documentation before in “Transformers: Modern Instructions Inferior, Vintage Instructions Superior” — but the biggest complaint I’ve got with the transformation process is that the arms love to fall off.
Toys should be fun
Ball-joints on action figures can be great things, but when those joints are on transforming robot toys the joints had better be perfect or else trouble is sure to find you. As has been discussed at battlegrip.com before, the modern Transformers found at yard sales and flea markets are often unrecognizable masses of plastic that exist in their current state solely because kids and parents grew frustrated and quit even trying to transform the toy.
Barricade is an example of when the transformation process goes terribly wrong. Rather than the satisfying joy of transforming the toy — which I still get with several Transformers toys — I was instead left annoyed that the instructions were not at all helpful in keeping the arms on the toy. I never bought the Transformers Prime Beast Hunters Prowl* when it was in stores, but after Barricade I’m willing to believe any parent out there who points to this toy as a reason why they’ve ceased buying Transformers toys for their kids.
Hasbro cannot afford to lose buyers.
A recent New York Post article (expect me to write more about this later) talks about the decline of action figure sales, stating:
“The toys licensed around the next “Transformers†film is nearly 50 percent below levels seen before the release of the previous franchise film in 2011, Johnson notes.”
The article’s reasoning for the decline is that kids already have these characters in the toybox, but I honestly believe that the larger issue for Transformers toys is the unnecessary complexity of the designs. Someone at Hasbro needs to figure out that toys are for kids, and toys that cannot be enjoyed simply will not be appreciated or purchased.
Barricade is transformed wrong.
He sure is. The purple neck part should be locked into the chest plate, but try as I might that part kept flopping loose and refusing to lock in . . . just one more example of how this overly-complex design fails as a toy. I know this review has far less to do with the sculpt, articulation, and paint of the Barricade toy than many of my previous Transformers reviews have, but the problems are so significant that all I can think of when I play with the toy is:
“When will this arm fall off?”
Closing Thoughts
I can admit that I am likely being far harsher to this Transformers Subscription Service (Amazon.com search*) release than I should be, but I feel that the arms disconnecting from the body negatively impacts my enjoyment of the toy.
Hasbro, please take a closer look at your entire Transformers line and find a way to make transforming robot toys that are fun to transform. I cannot see many kids out there putting up with this, and from sales numbers it sounds to me like kids are not putting up with this.
Something needs to change.
Nah, its totally fair to be harsh on a subscription service of toys that are at a decently higher price than what the same molds cost at retail. I know there’s legit reasons for why their more limited runs cost more and they want to make sure people are all in on buying them, but you’d think they could at least avoid using problematic molds so people can be happy with their toys.
@Chris – To be fair, I cannot say with certainty the mold is the problem. I don’t have the Prowl. BUT I can say that Barricade doesn’t like to stay together, and it’s bad enough I’m not at all tempted to buy Prowl and compare the two.
That’s a shame to end up being so frustrated with a new transformer. What’s particularly sad to me is that all your pictures make Barricade look so cool.
@clark – Thanks! The pics took a little work, especially when I’d get things aligned and accidentally knocked an arm off when I bumped the toy.
Is this precise reason not why they based the final batch of Beast Hunters Deluxes on their Cyberverse line? They’re now simpler, albeit clever in many places, and still chunky (though some of their decisions on what articulation to include/exclude on them is up for debate).
I’ve only had one Transformer from an FSS, Slipstream, but I’ve also been on the last 2 GI Joe FSSs, and I find I have to hold them to a higher standard because they’re a $10 toy that costs $40. I understand that price is partly down to the development cost and limited production run, but these are also marketed at collectors and therefore need to provide something more than a mass produced figure might.
@Kev H – I’m not sure, but I would guess you’re 100% correct in thinking Hasbro made the decisions that they did based on costs and the complexity of some of these molds.
And yeah, the collector figures through the club probably should have a higher QC. I don’t think they do. (In fact, it sometimes seems like less money is spent on QC for these toys. I remember BotCon a few years ago when a bunch of toys had weird issues.)
There was TFCC’s Side Burn… not only damaged spoilers but also a specific paint application to the face that was… variable in results, shall we say? 🙂 http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Side_Burn_(G1)#Toys
@Kev H – That’s right! My Sideburn has one bent spoiler and is a bit wonky. I’d forgotten him.
I completely agree with you regarding the unnecessary complexity of Transformers these days. I don’t buy TFs anymore for that reason. You’re not really transforming say, Wheeljack into a car, it’s more like you’re sculpting and compressing the robot into a car shape. I doubt that the whole transforming process is feasible during playtime and most of the recent TFs are probably geared towards collectors.
Fortunately, it looks like Hasbro has caught on to this problem. There are a lot of toys for the new Transformers movie that have simpler transformations, so I might pick some of those up.
I’m actually a big fan of this mold. I have the Smokescreen and the Prowl, and now I have Barricade. He is by far the fiddliest of any of the deluxes from that line. I’m used to it now, so the transformation process isn’t as bad for me.
I completely agree that the toys were getting too complicated. I have heard nothing but nightmare stories for toys like the ROTF Leader Prime or Ultra Mammoth. Despite them looking gorgeous, there’s no way I’d enjoy a transformation that complicated.
Personally, I don’t really like the oversimplified toys that are obviously aimed at kids, but I love them for what they are doing. I want more kids to fall in love with Transformers so that the line continues forever. That only happens if they enjoy the toys. Sure, there are lots of collectors who are upset that the toys have been simplified, but they have lost sight of the fact that these are kids toys first. I think that it is these disgruntled collectors that have led to the momentary decline in transformers sales. Once the movie comes out, the kids will flood the stores again and Hasbro’s sales will enjoy a lovely shot in the arm.
I knew this was a fiddly mold going into it. I think he looks great as a bot and I love how the purple is revealed during transformation. The Frenzy Arms Micron is a nice bonus too.
I think Transformers are confusing in how complex they can be. I think this mold is harder to transform correctly than recent Masterpieces where the complexity is in the engineering and not what it makes you do to transform it.
I was scared by ROTF Leader Prime and I finally picked up the Jetwing version from TRU this last Black Friday. The first couple of times were awful and now I don’t think it is bad at all and wish I was not scared off before. That may simply be liking a mold enough to spend more time tinkering with it.
The AOE deluxes I have so far (Slug and Scorn) seem perfectly fine to me. They are fun to transform and not too difficult.