Bot Reviews: Transformers: Retro Perceptor

I’d thought I was out of the Transformers Retro toyline, but Soundwave (reviewed here) and Blaster (ditto) pulled me back into it! Through them, I got the revelation that, apparently, G1 Transformers toys that were taken from Microman, as opposed to Diaclone, were quite good, actually. And so, I decided to go back and check out Perceptor, another G1 toy I’d never handled, who’d also gotten the G1-tooling-in-cartoon-colors treatment that Retro’s been doing. I still see him haunting Wal-Marts as of this writing, but I happened to get him at a convention for a bit of a discount, which certainly helped.

So, Perceptor! This 1985, Season 2 Autobot filled the important role of “the Science Guy,” a role which was already occupied by Wheeljack. The main distinguishing thing between them (aside from different accents, Perceptor being a Brit, and Jackie being a New Yorker), was that Perceptor was more of a big-idea, theoretical, big-words-saying scientist, whereas Wheeljack was more of a hands-on inventor. Joke’s on Jackie, though, since Wheejack wound up dying in the movie without a single line (he eventually got better, according to Transformers Victory), whereas Perceptor got an important supporting role in the film, and the third season.

Like Blaster, Perceptor also had a starkly different portrayal in the Marvel comics, where he was the commander of Blaster’s resistance cell on Cybertron, with his scientific nature being rewritten into him being a cold, pragmatic decision-maker, to contrast Blaster’s emotional idealism. And he did all of this while turning into a microscope, of all things! But, since this reissue is packaged in robot mode (unlike a lot of the Retro stuff), we’ll save that bit for later.

Robot Mode

Like other Microman guys in the Retro line, Perceptor’s pretty big, about the size of a modern Voyager, even if he doesn’t give the same impression of largeness.

He’s also about as tall as a Hasbro 6-incher, although he’s a bit bulkier. 

Percy’s from the “boxman” school of retro robot design, a man made of rectangles. And it’s a very clean humanoid design, something that’s always impressive from a G1 figure, when the original toyline often tended to twist its robots into stranger shapes.

The only obvious altmode parts are the knobs on his arms, and the big scope on his shoulder, and those feel deliberate. Speaking of that scope, all of his animated appearances (and the box art here) tell you to put it on his left shoulder. But there’s actually sculpted detail that prevents it from resting evenly there, so you really want it on his right side. 

Beyond that, Perceptor’s got a decently animation-accurate sculpt for a G1 figure, or rather, the animation didn’t change very much from the toy sculpt. Uptop, the only big difference is he’s got a mouthplate on him, instead of a mouth. Really, the whole presentation’s got good retro-robot vibes. This guy is like, 80’s Robot.jpg. 

Like the rest of the Retro collection, Perceptor’s decked out in new, animation-accurate colors. That mostly just means hue-shifting his primary blues and reds into lighter, more pastel shades (I’m assuming. I don’t have a G1 original, I’m comparing him to the Titans Return version I have, which was aiming for toy colors).

Really, the only big, obvious differences are painting his eyes blue, removing most of his stickers, replacing a few of them with black paint apps (like on his thighs), and swapping out his chrome for a combination of silver paint, and flat gray, a choice that looks better here than on some of the previous releases. It’s an oddly friendly set of colors, heroic, but not aggressive, befitting of a bot of science.

In terms of construction, Perceptor is a satisfyingly chunky, rock-solid slab of a figure, like Hot Rod or Soundwave, with a bunch of weight coming from a surprisingly extensive amount of diecast parts.

From what I can tell, the front-facing half of his red upper torso and black pelvis are all diecast, with a seam at his armpits switching it to plastic on the back. The effect is that when you pick him up, you’re probably going to touch his torso, so he feels metallically cool to the touch, which I assume is the appeal of using the material. That, and his general build quality, make him very durable-feeling, and very good at staying standing. The only real issue is that his shoulder cannon doesn’t like to lock in, even when it’s on the correct side. Like Blaster, he could have used a peg or something there to really secure it, it just kind of rests there. That, and if you push down on his head, it’ll start to retract into his torso, like a turtle. But that one’s kinda funny, really. 

So, I think out of all the Retro releases I’ve reviewed, Perceptor is the most articulated, bendable enough to make him drift into feeling less like an impressive G1 figure, and more like a below-average normal action figure. For his upper torso, his head and waist are locked in, but his arms have swivels at both the shoulders, and the elbows. Down below, his legs have proper knee joints, and shockingly, thigh swivels. His hips, meanwhile, are like Blaster’s, in that they can only do the splits, and not move forwards or backwards. He’s so, so close to having the Standard Action Figure Suite, if only his hips had one extra axis of motion (and, I guess, if his head and waist could move).

Still, it’s pretty radical by G1 standards, and I can actually get some proper poses out of him, which I can’t say for many others out of this line so far. 

Percy’s got two guns for his accessories, which he holds well. One’s a solid red laser, and the other one is a dark gray and red missile launcher, with three red missiles on a sprue. However, the launcher’s been neutered (and has been since the original Hasbro release), despite there being a switch there, so you can really just plug the missile in, and let it rest there, until you feel like popping it out. The absence of the gimmick, combined with them still putting three missiles on a sprue always intrigued me. Why bother including the missiles if they don’t do anything? Still, I appreciate the original-release accuracy, as opposed to Retro Starscream’s gigantic safe-for-America missiles and overpowered launcher. 

For an additional, probably-unintended feature, you can pop the dials on his forearms off, and have him hold them like….well, nothing, really, unless you have him hold both in one hand, like a barbell.

But if you want, you can plug his guns into the ports instead, giving him wrist-weapons.

Annoyingly, the holes are just a little too wide for modern 5 Millimeter accessories, so you can’t deck him out with Legacy weapons. 

Transformation

Perceptor’s transformation is nice and simple, and it turns out that most of his articulation is really just transformation joints. Basically, you lift up his scope, hide his head with an amusingly ornate crank-wheel on the back of him, flip and compress his arms, open his chest, and do a bunch of leg rotations. What makes it a good transformation, to me, is just how satisfying all those big motions and rotations feel. There’s not as many pleasant clicking noises as Hot Rod or Blaster, but it’s still up there with those transformations in terms of feeling good. 

Microscope Mode

Yeah, it’s a microscope. I had one of these as a kid! It’s not a specific model, as far as I can tell, but it basically looks right. It’s maybe a bit on the small side for a proper scientific one, but I remember the cheaper ones I used as a child being around this scale, making him something like 1:1 sized, which is still pretty big for modern Transformers, especially when you compare him to one of his modern updates. 

There’s almost not much to say here, since he’s pretty clearly just a re-arranged robot mode, colors and all. Not that he’s not convincing as a microscope. He looks like what he’s supposed to be, you’ve got the lens, the knobs, the tray, what else do you want?

Okay, some stability would help, because once again, he’s missing what ought to be some critical connections. It feels like his forearms should plug into the top of  the scope, but they don’t, and the whole assembly just kind of hangs there, loosely, in a way that’s very unstable-feeling.

Again, I don’t know why there isn’t a tab or something there to lock the whole thing in. You can move his scope up and down, too, and it feels like you should be able to move it from side to side, but really, you’re just bending the loose ligature it’s mounted on against the folded-up arms that it doesn’t plug into. 

For features, you can twist the knob on his scope, to “zoom” the lens, making a gray projection on the front of the scope move in or out (he could do this in robot mode, too, it was just less relevant.) 

Look through the scope, though, and you see a feature seemingly neutered for this release: The lens. All you can make out is blurry light, and adjusting the knob won’t help. I double-checked on Twitter, and a helpful user with a vintage copy of Perceptor noted that, on previous releases, you could actually see through the lens, and even zoom it in and out a little bit. I’ve got no idea why it no longer works on the Retro release, but that’s a big disappointment, considering that some of my favorite elements of Blaster and Soundwave were  the realistic features on their altmode. I really don’t get what happened here.

Meanwhile, for unrealistic features, you can always pop the knobs on either side of the microscope off, again, and mount his weapons there, if you feel like he needs to protect himself while failing to look at his experiment. 

Transformation to Tank Mode

So, Perceptor actually has a third mode, but for whatever reason, it’s not mentioned at all in the instructions of this reissue, possibly because it wasn’t ever really featured in the cartoon or movie. But the original toy’s instructions showed you how to get to it, and it’s not exactly hard to figure out from photos. Basically, you’re reversing the legs from where they are in the microscope mode, removing the knobs on the sides, and folding the scope’s body backwards, between the legs. Omitting this mode is particularly puzzling, because there’s a bunch of parts specifically dedicated to it, including wheels you fold out of his feet. 

Tank Mode

Following the classic instructions, Perceptor changes into a big square slab, with his scope in front of him, and an open-canopy seat up top. And, like I said above, there’s a lot of dedicated engineering to this mode, between the treads sculpted on his sides, the two wheels in front, and the one on his back. It doesn’t look like any sort of real tank, but it’s got kind of a nifty sci-fi hover-tank vibe to it. Also, while there’s still a lack of pegs when it comes to the assembly, all of the important joints in this mode are tight enough that it feels satisfyingly sturdy, to say nothing of his impressive size and heft. 

For features, he rolls very well on his three wheels. As for the seat on top of him, this tank was seemingly meant for vintage Microman action figures, and finding a modern figure that fits can be a bit of a challenge, but not impossible.

That whole open-canopy design is kind of a funny setup, because the cannon goes right at crotch level if you try and sit a figure in there.

You can also convert this tank into an “artillery mode” by raising up the main body, between the tread-legs.

A neat bit of engineering comes into play here, where the back wheel of the tank is moved out of its rolling position, locking the artillery form into place on the table. From there, the driver (if you’re using one) can look skyward, while the scope presumably fires mortar rounds, or something. Raising him up like this also exposes the ports his knobs go on, letting you arm him up with his guns, again.

Seriously, I don’t know why they left this mode out of the instructions on this version, it’s arguably more fun than the Microscope mode is.

Overall

Like Blaster and Soundwave before him, I’m really fond of this simple, boxy retro robot. He’s just got good vibes to him.

But more concretely, he’s solidly chunky in a way that feels good, he’s fun to transform and fiddle with, and has way more articulation than I expected. And if you count his redacted tank mode, he’s got a lot more going on than his design would suggest. 

It’s hard to overlook how that neutered microscope lens is immensely disappointing, though, as a complete unforced error that removes a unique feature, for no clear reason. That’s his main flaw (with a slight side-order of some bits that really should have tabbed together), but it’s a hard one to ignore. Still, the rest of him’s really fun, and this particular version’s got enough going on to be well worth the $40-ish Canadian I paid for him. 

You know, though, I’d almost say it’s more worth it to track down one of the older versions of the tooling, if you can get it for a decent price, if only because the scope will work on that one, since, once again, this Retro repaint isn’t otherwise terribly different from those vintage ones, aside from the nerfed gimmick. 

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