Controversial opinion: this trilogy was more consistently good than the WFC trilogy. Yes, Siege is peak and Kingdom has its moments, but Prime Wars managed to pull off every combiner between Devastator and Abominus, introduced a bunch of newbies (not just the replacement limbs, but also most of the Titan Masters, the Torchbearers, Slash, and Viper), the remainder of the Mini-Bots, Pretenders, Triple Changers, and a crap ton of 1987-1988 representation that happened because IDW just so happened to be using those characters in the comics at the time and the 1986 movie turning 30. Fight me.
@@jalengatton Counterpoint to "most of those points I listed being Titans Return": Power of the Primes had Cindersaur, Battletrap, Dreadwind, Darkwing, the and the Terrorcons as 87-88 rep, Combiner Wars did the 86 gestalts and Computron while incorporating elements of IDW into select figures, and the mini-bots were split across the trilogy,. Regarding Studio Series, I'll concede that it's quite nice... provided we're talking about everything from 2020 onward. 2018 and 2019, while there are bright points, are pretty rough by Generations standards. If most of what was released in those first two years was remade, that'd be greeeeeat. (we're getting there if BBM Bumblebee 2 is anything to go by). Not only that, but SS's focus has been all over the place. AOE and TLK have been woefully underrepresented in SS while slots that could've gone to those films' characters go to characters from video games you can no longer play or concept art that the general public doesn't know about. I understand that the recency and low quality of the latter Bay films was what kept those characters out of Studio Series early on, but it's shameful the most that Drift has in SS is just a repaint of his awful TLK toy. Admittedly, Gamer Edition Sideswipe and Concept Art Sunstreaker are pretty neat (and I'm excited for Widowmaker next year), but when AOE Galvatron and TLK Hot Rod show how far the design team has come in regards to capturing designs really not designed with toys in mind, the lack of later Bay rep in SS kinda hurts. We're almost done with the original Bay trilogy and 86 is only two years away from being done (most I can see being done before 2026 are Starscream and Soundwave); why not take the opportunity to finish out the remainder of the Bayverse?!
I remember going to every store I could on my birthday the year Power of the Primes was on shelves and blew all of my cash on quite a few figures including voyager Prime and the Walgreens Brainstorm. I had a blast with the compatibility between everything and I don't really remember having that much fun with any other part of this trilogy besides maybe the initial hype for Combiner Wars.
I have very fond memories of that era (and was my peak in Transformers collecting). I also know from some forum sites of rumored lists of upcoming figures that were either cancelled or postponed.
Titans Return should have been a whole trilogy! :p It was great and I loved the little Titanmasters. Shuffler was AMAZING. Power of the Prime was garbo though and I barely got any toys from it. It was just really unfocus and the prime armors were bad. I love Slash though.
Titan Masters is still my favorite TF line. I wish Power Of The Primes had been more like Power Masters, with them unlocking something. And as long as I'm wishing, I wish Combiner Wars hadn't insisted on making every limb usable as an arm or a leg. Having toys that can only be arms, and other toys that can only be legs, would have made given the individual Transformers more variety and given the combined forms more heroic proportions.
I really enjoyed the scramble-city playstyle for Combiner Wars: while I do like the Devastator & Predaking we got, I'm also a bit disappointed that they weren't also deluxe/voyagers, so we could throw Constructicon & Predacon limbs on other combiners (not to mention repaints etc). I also adored the Titan Masters & Prime Masters with their wee little vehicles/pretender shells, because I love wee little Transformers. (Still bitterly disappointed the WfC Micromasters didn't apparently sell well enough to prompt more of them, I'd love to see modern versions of Greaser, Hubs, the duo teams, the Monster Truck Patrol, and especially Fixit (no, I'm *not* buying Deathsaurus just so I can have Pipo!).
My country skipped over the entire Prime Trilogy, so I went for the combiner boxsets and Leaders and Legends when importing. The Leaders were the last traditionally big bots but their plastic density was really feeling stretched thin.
I wish we got a full Headmaster Arcee figure from the TR or Retro Headmaster line. Give it the Arcee head and Chromedome body. They also could have done more with all the Titan Masters sold individually, who don’t have corresponding bodies, like Horri-Bull.
I remember buying victorion for 40 bucks. selling it for 120. and regretting it now that it is about 300. I also enjoyed most of the teams getting a new member.
@@frenchfriedbagel7035 i hope that of all of them. i regret getting hasbro's technobots when takaras are SO much better. i also missed the predacons. i'm most looking forward to defensor and he's at least a year away
@@frenchfriedbagel7035 studio is hard to figure out. but they've been talking about expanding studio into a more general line now that much of the original movie cast is done (weirdly brought up game and comic characters... which aren't really studio) so maybe they'll sneak it in there. can't remember if they were in the scramble city short. or maybe they will count the return of optimus as a movie
It’s weird I distinctly remember I couldn’t find the rest of the arial bots and to this day my superion remains incomplete and I’m determined to get the full set of the new ones
The nice thing with the Scramble City style is you can sub someone in. Missed a Protectobot? Well that Prowl works to fill in, even if you end up with two police cars.
I wonder what the others might've looked like in the matrix fan vote. Arcee, Hound and Deathsaurus are the most interesting to me as they've never had an upgraded form. For Arcee maybe reimagine her car mode as a side car for a giant motorcycle that turns into her prime form, not unlile the mega pretender Vroom. For Hound, maybe turns into a more movie inspired look? No ideas for Deathsaurus.
I did have one of the more recent Mind Wipe figures out of Titans Return, until parts of his alt mode started breaking off due to how many times I transformed the figure, but I still have the headmaster for the figure so there's that, I guess.
With the reveal of the new Megatronus, I kinda created this little headcannon regarding their symbols & the Pretenders that were associated with them. Basically, the Pretenders incorporate their symbols on their bodies like hieroglyphs or tattoos because the Primes have certain beliefs & values that they agree, stand by or in some cases, worship over. Although which pretenders would've used the symbols of Prima, Nexus, Onyx, Amalgamous or The Arisen?
I loved this era, but PotP did feel like a random hodge-podge of ideas. Personally, I'd have designed the Prime Master play pattern at the centre of the line and done Powermasters.
Battletrap make me want a figure of dreadwing that does the something similar where it's not just a combined jet mode but they can form a robot mode too preferably with g2 dreadwings head.
A bit of a silly but understandable idea, whichever is better in the Japanese Unite Warriors Devastator compared to the Hasbro release and vice versa, you combine the two for the ultimate Devastator before we get to see it again in Studio Series 86 for the whole 2025. Also, with concerns about Power of the Primes... WHY NOT INCLUDE BUSTER AND HYDRA TITAN MASTERS IN POWER OF THE PRIMES TO FIT WITH BLACKWING AND DREADWIND!? You know me and my Masterforce bias, but it's still silly.
Combiner wars while a lot of repaints which was dull after a bit but was nice to get combiner updates some better or worse than others but nice updates and the scramble city style done pretty well will say the hand/foot thing was kinda bad for a foot very hard to balance some combiners. The leaders were interesting Magnus was probably the best if that bunch a very fun figure Titans return pretty fun a lot of enjoyable figures the deluxes for the most part, voyagers being all triple changers gave those characters updates nice yet the others that got the change was fun too, leaders interesting but good overload really nice leader popular as well Power of the primes was alright kinda felt like combiner wars 2. The legends pretty good, volcanicus while that figure was wonky was cool to see a Dinobot combiner but abominus very cool, predaking was also pretty cool to see, the leaders were fun Optimus then the nemesis figure pretty good and a hot rod that became Rodimus was a fun idea Some I’ve been hunting is abominus, computron, and overload I’ve been tempted by that special Optimus primal but hunting all those cores not fun tried looking but gave up
TR Blitzwing was good, but he desperately needs some customization. Like extra TFAnimated accurate heads, a silver painted sword, and the stickers suck
I have a bunch of TR and PoTP toys.. I like Windblade. I spent alot of money to get almost all the Primes ( From what I seen, the Botcon Optimal Prime does not have Onyx prime, I could be wrong ). I do like the Lore of this series. I wished Hasbro made a new Unicron or Primus. ( I know Hasbro DID made Unicron but that price tag killed my interest lol )
Personal opinion, some of the new members for Combiner teams like Alpha Bravo I’m all for keeping as for like the Aerialbots it’s kind of boring that their all Jets/planes and Alpha Bravo adds more diversity to the lineup.
Adding diversity doesn’t mean having to alter or exclude the existing guys. I’d rather have Alpha Bravo as the sixth member of the team, not a replacement member.
@ I can agree with that, the main point was that groups like the Aerialbots with their alt modes lack of diversification being all jets and that having a Helicopter or another type of Aerial vehicle breaks up the formula and makes them more unique.
@@nycholasrandolph9780 I like the idea of Teams having substitute members, just in case. Blame Deathcobra from Victory, even if the poor guy never got to be an arm.
I don't really know anything about the Prime Wars toyline. I just know this as having a terrible web show that was also Frank Todaro's first time voicing Starscream. He didn't do a good job here but was really good afterward.
I remember it for being the show where DashieGames somehow managed to flipflop between the goofiest Menasor and the PERFECT Menasor based exclusively around whether they let him raise his voice or not. When he was just speaking he sounded like he'd be voicing Breakdown rather than the whole thing. When he got loud, he sounded like he was trying to talk over the noise in his own head and it worked.
Victorion… very dislikeable character in the Prime Wars Trilogy by Machinima… also love my Volcanicus with upgrade kit to fill him out and super sword him
@@frenchfriedbagel7035 Definitly not a take on them I' liked. Furman actually wrote short bios of them that didn't have any of that, and were more fitting with the sea of rust origin. I tended to treat mine as survivors of some lost city in the Sea of Rust.
As a unicron trilogy kid, This is the line that got me collecting again
Prime Wars feels like the bridge between old school Generations and the modern toyline
Overlord was an amazing figure. Crazy how his VA in the show also plays Dio from Jojo.
I was worried I'd miss out on him, but thankfully he showed up at Ollies for me. He was good enough, I regret I missed out on Black Shadow.
My grandpa got me blurr and that’s when I got obsessed
Predaking is definitely my favorite, even if he is just ok until you get the DNA upgrade kit.
It was a rolicoster of a toy line with fun and unique figure and some that Flop. But it lade the foundation for what's to come in the future.
Controversial opinion: this trilogy was more consistently good than the WFC trilogy. Yes, Siege is peak and Kingdom has its moments, but Prime Wars managed to pull off every combiner between Devastator and Abominus, introduced a bunch of newbies (not just the replacement limbs, but also most of the Titan Masters, the Torchbearers, Slash, and Viper), the remainder of the Mini-Bots, Pretenders, Triple Changers, and a crap ton of 1987-1988 representation that happened because IDW just so happened to be using those characters in the comics at the time and the 1986 movie turning 30. Fight me.
We got a modern Sixshot.
And most of those points you listed are Titans Return. I still think that Studio Series and Titans Return are the best lines we've ever received.
@@jalengatton Counterpoint to "most of those points I listed being Titans Return": Power of the Primes had Cindersaur, Battletrap, Dreadwind, Darkwing, the and the Terrorcons as 87-88 rep, Combiner Wars did the 86 gestalts and Computron while incorporating elements of IDW into select figures, and the mini-bots were split across the trilogy,.
Regarding Studio Series, I'll concede that it's quite nice... provided we're talking about everything from 2020 onward. 2018 and 2019, while there are bright points, are pretty rough by Generations standards. If most of what was released in those first two years was remade, that'd be greeeeeat. (we're getting there if BBM Bumblebee 2 is anything to go by).
Not only that, but SS's focus has been all over the place. AOE and TLK have been woefully underrepresented in SS while slots that could've gone to those films' characters go to characters from video games you can no longer play or concept art that the general public doesn't know about. I understand that the recency and low quality of the latter Bay films was what kept those characters out of Studio Series early on, but it's shameful the most that Drift has in SS is just a repaint of his awful TLK toy.
Admittedly, Gamer Edition Sideswipe and Concept Art Sunstreaker are pretty neat (and I'm excited for Widowmaker next year), but when AOE Galvatron and TLK Hot Rod show how far the design team has come in regards to capturing designs really not designed with toys in mind, the lack of later Bay rep in SS kinda hurts. We're almost done with the original Bay trilogy and 86 is only two years away from being done (most I can see being done before 2026 are Starscream and Soundwave); why not take the opportunity to finish out the remainder of the Bayverse?!
Computron was a fun figure. Plus he was voiced by matpat!
That's my all time funny and favourite fact about one of my favourite caracters
Overlord’s VA in that show is Dio from Jojo
I really hope we see Rook return as a member of Defensor. Yes, Grove is iconic but a motorcycle just doesn't make sense as a combiner limb.
It's okay to have an backup! Liokaiser had one with Deathcobra!
I remember going to every store I could on my birthday the year Power of the Primes was on shelves and blew all of my cash on quite a few figures including voyager Prime and the Walgreens Brainstorm. I had a blast with the compatibility between everything and I don't really remember having that much fun with any other part of this trilogy besides maybe the initial hype for Combiner Wars.
My ranking of the Prime Wars Trilogy toy line :
1. Titans Return
2. Power of The Primes
3.Combiner Wars
Really looking forward to the AOTP Aerial Bots and Superion. First combiner I am going to collect for.
I still wish all TFs had that titan master head port for customization. So many movie toys only need a head swap to be awesome imo
I have very fond memories of that era (and was my peak in Transformers collecting).
I also know from some forum sites of rumored lists of upcoming figures that were either cancelled or postponed.
Titans Return should have been a whole trilogy! :p It was great and I loved the little Titanmasters. Shuffler was AMAZING. Power of the Prime was garbo though and I barely got any toys from it. It was just really unfocus and the prime armors were bad. I love Slash though.
Honestly, my strongest opinion is that the legend classes from the Prime Wars trilogy was the best thing to come out of them
Titan Masters is still my favorite TF line.
I wish Power Of The Primes had been more like Power Masters, with them unlocking something.
And as long as I'm wishing, I wish Combiner Wars hadn't insisted on making every limb usable as an arm or a leg. Having toys that can only be arms, and other toys that can only be legs, would have made given the individual Transformers more variety and given the combined forms more heroic proportions.
I love the Micronus prime titan master as a functioning head
Titans Return in my opinion is the best toy line in The Prime Wars Trilogy.
I talked to Pete Sinclair on Twitter one time that some of those unreleased & odd recolors would make sense in their "Of Masters & Mayhem" continuity.
I really enjoyed the scramble-city playstyle for Combiner Wars: while I do like the Devastator & Predaking we got, I'm also a bit disappointed that they weren't also deluxe/voyagers, so we could throw Constructicon & Predacon limbs on other combiners (not to mention repaints etc). I also adored the Titan Masters & Prime Masters with their wee little vehicles/pretender shells, because I love wee little Transformers. (Still bitterly disappointed the WfC Micromasters didn't apparently sell well enough to prompt more of them, I'd love to see modern versions of Greaser, Hubs, the duo teams, the Monster Truck Patrol, and especially Fixit (no, I'm *not* buying Deathsaurus just so I can have Pipo!).
My country skipped over the entire Prime Trilogy, so I went for the combiner boxsets and Leaders and Legends when importing. The Leaders were the last traditionally big bots but their plastic density was really feeling stretched thin.
I wish we got a full Headmaster Arcee figure from the TR or Retro Headmaster line. Give it the Arcee head and Chromedome body. They also could have done more with all the Titan Masters sold individually, who don’t have corresponding bodies, like Horri-Bull.
I remember buying victorion for 40 bucks. selling it for 120. and regretting it now that it is about 300. I also enjoyed most of the teams getting a new member.
I got her for $200 earlier this year.
I’m honestly just hoping we get a new one in the future.
@@frenchfriedbagel7035 i hope that of all of them. i regret getting hasbro's technobots when takaras are SO much better. i also missed the predacons. i'm most looking forward to defensor and he's at least a year away
@ IDK what the studio series commanders will be. But I know what the Generations ones will have to be.
Silverbolt 2025
Onslaught 2026
Nexus Prime 2027
@@frenchfriedbagel7035 studio is hard to figure out. but they've been talking about expanding studio into a more general line now that much of the original movie cast is done (weirdly brought up game and comic characters... which aren't really studio) so maybe they'll sneak it in there. can't remember if they were in the scramble city short. or maybe they will count the return of optimus as a movie
@@frenchfriedbagel7035 i just checked nexus prime (i'm not completely up on my primes) and i'm willing to be he's a titan class.
I got to tell you TJ, with all the doomscrolling there is on RUclips, your show is a very welcome change of pace, thank you.
I prefer non-combining Dinobots. But if they exist, where is the Insecticon combiner?
It’s weird I distinctly remember I couldn’t find the rest of the arial bots and to this day my superion remains incomplete and I’m determined to get the full set of the new ones
Just get a ko limb
Optimus Prime was a combiner torso about a decade earlier, in Energon.
With combiners, the similar colors is WAY mitigated by "gotta collect 'em all!"
wrong audience, thats from POKEMON.
@@TFGourmet That's "catch"
@@lynngreen7978 I know, just trying to be funny, teasing you 😜
The nice thing with the Scramble City style is you can sub someone in. Missed a Protectobot? Well that Prowl works to fill in, even if you end up with two police cars.
The prime wars trilogy and robots in disguise 2015 were the two series that I started collecting Transformers during.
I wonder what the others might've looked like in the matrix fan vote.
Arcee, Hound and Deathsaurus are the most interesting to me as they've never had an upgraded form.
For Arcee maybe reimagine her car mode as a side car for a giant motorcycle that turns into her prime form, not unlile the mega pretender Vroom.
For Hound, maybe turns into a more movie inspired look? No ideas for Deathsaurus.
Can't wait for your reviews of Earthspark season 3.
I did have one of the more recent Mind Wipe figures out of Titans Return, until parts of his alt mode started breaking off due to how many times I transformed the figure, but I still have the headmaster for the figure so there's that, I guess.
Aside from Menasor, I enjoyed the combiners even if most were resued molds.
With the reveal of the new Megatronus, I kinda created this little headcannon regarding their symbols & the Pretenders that were associated with them.
Basically, the Pretenders incorporate their symbols on their bodies like hieroglyphs or tattoos because the Primes have certain beliefs & values that they agree, stand by or in some cases, worship over.
Although which pretenders would've used the symbols of Prima, Nexus, Onyx, Amalgamous or The Arisen?
Weren’t the pretender shells for the prime masters literally just shells to disguise the primes?
@@frenchfriedbagel7035 Going by their official bios & promo descriptions, yes.
One of these days I'll meet someone else that likes that Broadside
I loved this era, but PotP did feel like a random hodge-podge of ideas. Personally, I'd have designed the Prime Master play pattern at the centre of the line and done Powermasters.
Battletrap make me want a figure of dreadwing that does the something similar where it's not just a combined jet mode but they can form a robot mode too preferably with g2 dreadwings head.
A bit of a silly but understandable idea, whichever is better in the Japanese Unite Warriors Devastator compared to the Hasbro release and vice versa, you combine the two for the ultimate Devastator before we get to see it again in Studio Series 86 for the whole 2025.
Also, with concerns about Power of the Primes... WHY NOT INCLUDE BUSTER AND HYDRA TITAN MASTERS IN POWER OF THE PRIMES TO FIT WITH BLACKWING AND DREADWIND!? You know me and my Masterforce bias, but it's still silly.
Combiner wars while a lot of repaints which was dull after a bit but was nice to get combiner updates some better or worse than others but nice updates and the scramble city style done pretty well will say the hand/foot thing was kinda bad for a foot very hard to balance some combiners. The leaders were interesting Magnus was probably the best if that bunch a very fun figure
Titans return pretty fun a lot of enjoyable figures the deluxes for the most part, voyagers being all triple changers gave those characters updates nice yet the others that got the change was fun too, leaders interesting but good overload really nice leader popular as well
Power of the primes was alright kinda felt like combiner wars 2. The legends pretty good, volcanicus while that figure was wonky was cool to see a Dinobot combiner but abominus very cool, predaking was also pretty cool to see, the leaders were fun Optimus then the nemesis figure pretty good and a hot rod that became Rodimus was a fun idea
Some I’ve been hunting is abominus, computron, and overload I’ve been tempted by that special Optimus primal but hunting all those cores not fun tried looking but gave up
The POTP Dinobots were really good as individual figures, but yeah, that combined mode was awful.
27:46 At least from what I've seen, that's usually not true.
Hello
TR Blitzwing was good, but he desperately needs some customization. Like extra TFAnimated accurate heads, a silver painted sword, and the stickers suck
I agree with you on how Combiner Wars was yuck, TR was good, PoTP was Filler for trademarks.
I have a bunch of TR and PoTP toys.. I like Windblade. I spent alot of money to get almost all the Primes ( From what I seen, the Botcon Optimal Prime does not have Onyx prime, I could be wrong ). I do like the Lore of this series. I wished Hasbro made a new Unicron or Primus. ( I know Hasbro DID made Unicron but that price tag killed my interest lol )
Honestly imo this era was the worst toyline for TF i barely bought anything, what we have now in legacy is so much better
Power of the Primes struck me as a cheap means of incorporating the Powermaster gimmick, without the downsides of that gimmick.
Personal opinion, some of the new members for Combiner teams like Alpha Bravo I’m all for keeping as for like the Aerialbots it’s kind of boring that their all Jets/planes and Alpha Bravo adds more diversity to the lineup.
Adding diversity doesn’t mean having to alter or exclude the existing guys. I’d rather have Alpha Bravo as the sixth member of the team, not a replacement member.
@ I can agree with that, the main point was that groups like the Aerialbots with their alt modes lack of diversification being all jets and that having a Helicopter or another type of Aerial vehicle breaks up the formula and makes them more unique.
@@nycholasrandolph9780 I like the idea of Teams having substitute members, just in case. Blame Deathcobra from Victory, even if the poor guy never got to be an arm.
I don't really know anything about the Prime Wars toyline. I just know this as having a terrible web show that was also Frank Todaro's first time voicing Starscream. He didn't do a good job here but was really good afterward.
I remember it for being the show where DashieGames somehow managed to flipflop between the goofiest Menasor and the PERFECT Menasor based exclusively around whether they let him raise his voice or not.
When he was just speaking he sounded like he'd be voicing Breakdown rather than the whole thing. When he got loud, he sounded like he was trying to talk over the noise in his own head and it worked.
Victorion… very dislikeable character in the Prime Wars Trilogy by Machinima… also love my Volcanicus with upgrade kit to fill him out and super sword him
Dislikeable, or simply not really notable as a character?
@@bobmorbidI mean the Torch bearers are fanatical zealots. I’d argue their concept is more interesting that their actual character writing.
@@frenchfriedbagel7035 Definitly not a take on them I' liked. Furman actually wrote short bios of them that didn't have any of that, and were more fitting with the sea of rust origin. I tended to treat mine as survivors of some lost city in the Sea of Rust.
I view at one minute. Bro fell off (this is a joke. Please do not take any offense)