Bot Reviews: Transformers One Robot Battlers Optimus Prime vs. Megatron

It’s been 18 years since the first modern Transformers movie, and the first movie toyline. If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed in all that time, it’s that there’s always a range of strange little gimmick toys to go along with the regular mainline Deluxes and Voyagers and whatnot.

Cyber Slammers, Stealth Force, One-Step Changers, Energon Igniters, whatever they’re called, these movie gimmick toys are always simpler, revolve around a single basic feature, and always seem to shelfwarm long after the rest of the movie product is gone.

I assume they have to make money, though, given that even last year’s Transformers One movie toyline still had a range of them, many of which you can still find on local shelves. Robot Battlers are one of Transformers One’s gimmick toylines, and are sort of a spin on Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots. They’re also infamous for being the only range of figures in the Transformers One toyline to have a near-complete assortment of movie characters, including bots like Elita-1 and Starscream that have little or no plastic representation outside of this.

Most of the Robot Battlers are sold on their own, but since it’s a player-versus-player kind of gimmick, there was also a two-pack starter set, with Optimus and Megatron facing off.  And lo and behold, I got a chance to check that set out, after some friends of mine gifted it to me. I love gifts like this, because it gives me a chance to look at something weird I wouldn’t have gotten on my own. 

Robot Modes

I was struggling to convey the scale of these two bots, bigger than Cores, smaller than Deluxes, the size of old Beast Wars Basics, and then I realized there was a good modern way to explain it: Do you own Legacy Gears, or one of his two repaints? He’s a great figure, you ought to. These two Robot Battlers are nearly the exact same height as him.

Of course, they’re a lot simpler, with a lot less plastic and partscount.

In terms of aesthetics, like most gimmick toys, they’re both a bit stylized and exaggerated, since all Robot Battlers need to have the same barrel-chested proportions.

Optimus’s details match the Studio Series figure of his final form in the movie, just stretched, compressed and warped a bit, with big shoulderpads made of truck parts at his arms.

Looking at his head, though, it feels like the designers angled more for a generic Evergreen Optimus head, than his specific film design.

Megatron, meanwhile, has more of a hybrid design.

His detailing is also mostly a stretched and squeezed rendition of his final-form Studio Series figure, but he’s got a Decepticon logo sculpted into his chest with a bunch of scratches over it, loosely recalling the carved-on symbol given to him when he was in his Cogged D-16 form.

Both figures are decent-looking, until you turn them around and see that they’re both completely hollow from the back, including empty heads.

Optimus definitely has it worse out of the two, Megatron’s altmode treads kind of fill him in more. 

For colors, both bots have more on them than I’d expect. They don’t hit all their onscreen details, but their designs are already exaggerated, so they also don’t read as incomplete.

Optimus is in his reds, blues and grays, with a painted chest window, and silver on his headsculpt. I’d say it’s only his legs that immediately feel like they need more color.

Megatron feels like the more colorful one of the pair, with a bunch of different shades of gray and silver on him, plus red highlights, and the very detailed pattern of scratches on his chest being also done entirely by deco.

For build quality, I’ll give them this: Both bots are incredibly hollow, but they managed to make them feel way more durable than I expected, instead of fragile and flimsy. Megatron’s the heftier of the pair by a long shot, though. Still, considering that their whole gimmick involves bashing them together, I’m glad to see that they’ll be able to survive more than a few fights. 

Articulation is, of course mostly nil, even by G1 brick standards. You can move their arms out sideways at the shoulder, like they’re t-posing…except the joints are loose enough that their arms don’t hold the pose. This is entirely to facilitate their gimmick, though, so I don’t hold it against them.

For accessories, each bot comes with two handheld weapons. Optimus has a large gray axe, loosely recalling his energy weapon from the film’s finale.

Megatron, meanwhile, has an odd kind of cowling that fits around his arm.

I think it’s meant to recall his fusion cannon, but instead looks like he morphed his whole arm into a gun. On top of those, they both have the same generic weapon, which is a sculpted, solid-colored blast effect with a sword hilt at the end, like a really chunky lightsaber, with Optimus’s in blue, and Megatron’s in red.

I understand every Robot Battler comes with one of these.

One interesting thing about these accessories is that they’re 5-millimeter compatible, so you can totally give them to mainline figures, who can use them a lot better than these two.

And these bots can, in turn, hold and use mainline accessories of their own, though the fact that they can’t point their arms forward limits what’s useful. 

Now, onto the big gimmick, the Robot Battling. Each of these bots comes with a big stand, with two pegs in the middle of a rotating platform that go into holes on their feet.

The hero and the villain have different-shaped stands, with Megatron’s being a Decepticon silhouette in red (like Shattered Glass?), and Optimus’s being…his head, I think? In blue. Both stands have a pair of loops at the end, with sculpted-in wiring, that look to me like the handles for scissors.

To use the stand, you loop your fingers through the hoops….

…and move the left handle out and in as fast as you can, which spins the base, and the robot on it, making their loose arms (with their weapons) wave around dangerously. Here’s a video demonstration. From there, you bash the bots together, and the first one to fall off the platform loses.

And, straight up, It’s fun. I’ve played matches against other people, and there’s some good, frantic energy to it. Sometimes, Optimus or Megatron might lose an accessory in the process, but that feels like a feature, and not a bug.

I do kind of think Optimus has an unfair advantage, though, because Megatron’s gun-arm doesn’t have the same reach as Prime’s axe, so I think they’re setting him up to lose.

Either way, this seems like something a younger kid would enjoy, and me, an adult man, still finds it entertaining. You know what else I realized? These bases use 5-millimeter pegs, so if you’ve got any modern Transformers with 5-millimeter ports on their feet, you can mount them on the bases, too. Ironically enough, Studio Optimus and Megs can’t fit on them, because they don’t have ports on their feet.

When it comes to who does fit, I’ve found that a lot of bigger, heavier figures don’t stay on them as well, though, and are prone to just flinging themselves off the base once you spin them around too quickly. Still, for an unintended feature, it’s fun. But, that’s not all these two do!

Transformations

That’s right, they transform! It feels like a 50/50 shot if a Movie Gimmick Toy actually includes a transformation, so it’s great to see it here. Neither one of their conversions is terribly complicated, though, not that they have to be. With Optimus, you flip his head and chest up and away, and close his shoulders together to form his truck cab, and then just flop him onto his back.

Megatron’s is way more involved, though, and oddly satisfying. He does this really interesting thing where you basically turn his whole torso inside out to move his treads and arms into place, and it’s a pleasant step to do.

From there, you fold his feet up to the back of the treads, and pop his head away to pop his tank barrel out, and you’re done. Really, just the fact that they transform at all is novel, and I’m impressed at the amount of effort here. 

Vehicle Modes

The most interesting thing about both of these vehicle modes is that they’re less exaggerated, and more screen-accurate than the robot modes.

Optimus is missing his smokestacks, has a bunch of ugly hollow bits in his bumper, and has his robot fists poking out of the back of his cab, but I think he comes out looking cleaner than the actual Studio Series toy of the design, and a bit less like a robot lying down.

Only a bit, though. Megatron is, again, the bigger success here.

His tank barrel’s kind of short, and his robot fists are just out underneath it, but it imitates the shape of the long-treaded sci-fi tank of the film really well. His visible hollowness is at the back of his treads, where it’s less obvious.

He also expands a lot in this mode, and starts to get close to the Studio Series Deluxe in size, whereas Optimus is still the size of Legacy Gears. 

These are definitely the modes hit hardest by a lack of color. Optimus is very plain, mostly solid red, blue, and gray, with only the painted truck windows for deco on the front of him. They did splurge for some silver paint on the sides of the truck that are only visible in this mode, which I guess is something. The fact that Megatron is already supposed to be all those different shades of gray, black and silver means that he doesn’t need any extra paint apps, though, and still manages to look less plain. 

For features, both figures have pinned-in wheels that let them roll really well. This is impressive for two reasons. Firstly: The robot modes are the point of these, so it feels like they went the extra mile, and secondly, the larger Studio Series Megatron actually can’t roll, so this little one does something he doesn’t! He also does something the little Optimus can’t: His tank barrel has a 5-millimeter port on the end, so you can stick one of the blast-effect-sword-thingies in there, or any other accessory.

I do wish there was some way for them to interact with the bases in this form, though, since transforming these means they can’t engage with the robot-battling gimmick at all, or even use most of their accessories. Maybe I’m being greedy here, given the objectives of both figures, but it feels like some kind of missed opportunity. 

Overall

While these are purely simple gimmick toys, I think they’re fun for what they are, and are surprisingly well-designed and executed. They’re both decent little replicas of the movie characters, and their big main feature is genuinely pretty fun. The fact that they properly transform is particularly impressive, making it feel like whoever was behind these gimmick toys was trying to give them as much value as possible. They don’t feel like cheapo tat.

Still, if you’re not a little kid, and aren’t easily amused by funny little gimmicks, I’ll admit there’s not much here for the serious collector, beyond the novelty. Me, I like the novelty, and I’m glad I got the chance to own them. I will say, this is about as much of this ecosystem as I’m getting into, though. I could complete a full movie cast if I wanted, but just the leaders are good, especially since I can replicate the film’s big final fight whenever I want, just a bit more awkwardly. 

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