It goes quiet again for several years till Beast Machines. We then get Primal as a Dlx, Mega and Supreme, Jetstorm as a Dlx & Ultra, Cheetor as a Mega, Supreme & Dlx, Tankor as an Ultra & Basic, Thrust as a Dlx & Basic and Megatron as a Mega version of a previously issued Ultra toy. (and you can argue that Silverbolt aught to have been a Mega/Ultra instead of a Basic, Rattrap as a Basic/Deluxe instead of Mega and similarly Nightscream instead of an Ultra) Some characters gravitate towards a certain size and doing bigger versions of them just doesn't work Supreme Cheetor I'm looking at you !
The next range - Robots in Disguise - was where Hasbro got it right. Putting out some unused G2 Gobots they noticed that they were similar to dlx sized toys and named them the same, going on to produce several new smaller versions of larger toys including Scourge, X-Brawn, Optimus Prime & Ultra Magnus. These are probably the most direct antecedents of LoC. Armada then features a dlx version of the large Optimus Prime toy, as did Energon which also had Megatron in 2 sizes and an upscaled HighWire minicon that the Kicker action figure could use.
Legends of Cybertron - Galaxy Force EZ (pronouned E-Zee) collection in Japan.
Obviously something has been lost in the downsizing of these toys. None of them have a key gimmick or electronics and there is some loss of articulation.
Optimus Prime suffers the most of all the Legends as he's lost the entire trailer off the back of him. The "cab mode" is shown on the instructions but I don't recall seeing it outside of theat. He's mainly cast in dark blue plastic with the cab paintred red and some silver on the legs. A small ammount of grey plastic is also used on the foot joint, waist, shoulders and elbows but this is all hidden away in vehicle mode. I've heard it said that Optimus Prime is either a futristic truck or Fire Engine. I've got no idea and I'm afraid the repaints of this toy only confuse the matter.
TF is virtually the same as the larger version: Fold the back three quarters of the truck under the cab then bend the back quarter of the truck back up down the back of the robot legs. Fold the waist plate on the back of the cab down. Fold down the grill under the cab. Fold the grill halves 90 degrees in towards the middle - excessive force may be required. Split the cab in two and fold slightly out to the sides. Pull the head up - to get it to stay up you may need to pull it right the way out by sticking a screw driver into one of the holes on the back of the head
His robot mode - the smaller of the 2 Cybertron Prime robots - has elbows, shoulders that swing back and hips - nothing else.
Nice representation of the smaller Prime, essentially a mini statue. The design would only need minor modification to add on the larger robot feet - make the piece connecting the foot to the leg longer with it sliding on the peg on the leg and more of it recessed in the leg. This would then pull out, the back of the truck fold forward to form the Super Mode feet and the extended strut would be recessed in a slot in the back of the foot.
Wow, new stuff is showing up in the UK tick and fast at the moment ! Liz got 3 of the Wave 4 toys for me from the local Asda Walmart, but they've also been seen at Tescos. 3 of them are repaints of Wave 1 toys but one is a brand new sculpt.
Optimus Prime - this is the one Liz didn't come back with - she said she couldn't find it - but it's the least interesting of the 3 having a simple colour swap taking the blue and making it black. Since I already have 2 Ops - LoC Wave 1 and the Megalo Convoy pack in I may feel safe skipping this. But at £3.00 if it's on the shelf it's mine.
UPDATED: I now have him: This isn't a straight repaint of the Wave 1 toy as I thought, a lot of the detail is changed. The red is replaced with a more strawberry pink red, and the blue with a dark blue/black. His knees become metallic blue, the detail on his waist plate silver, and the area from windows to waist turns white. He looses the Autobot logo (!) to be replaced by the planet symbols - Beast and Speed on his right shoulder, Earth and Giant on his left. At £3.00 it not bad at all though I wouldn't pay for the full size version with so little changes.
I'm told that like Fireflight they wanted another names for Menasor (Powerglide and Motormaster respectively) but couldn't get it due to trademark problems. He's an odd merging of the Ultra Magnus and Nemesis Prime colour schemes produces an odd looking toy, and one of the first "Prime" toys with different colours for their chest and robot fronts. Most of the toy is moulded in grey, with Prime's grey parts becoming purple. As per the original Motormaster the cab is painted black. The pink on the windscreens is odd. Once in hand I find it is much improved over the preview photos the grey is much darker and the purple more vibrant than shown. Very nice effect.
The mould's use as Menasor (Motormaster) would say it was a truck, but using it as Hotspot says fire engine ! What they've done with the paint makes it a decent representation of the Hotspot robot but it's crying out for a ladder in vehicle mode.