Bot Reviews: Transformers: Studio Series 86 Core Rumble (Blue)

Here’s a release that caused a number of raised eyebrows for a few reasons. Firstly, because it’s a genuine, bonafide Blue Rumble (complete with brackets emphasizing it on the box), instead of a red one. There’s a whole Transformers Wiki article on the subject that I won’t re-litigate, let’s just say that Rumble was supposed to be the red one (and was in the original toys, comics, and ancillary media), but the cartoon switched their color schemes around, and proceeded to give Rumble the most screen-time he’s ever had in anything, sporting Frenzy’s blue colors. HasTak usually goes with the original toy-style red coloration though, possibly because, in Japan, they just swapped the names back in the show’s dub, and the Important Blue Guy was Frenzy. But Studio Series 86’s dedication to animation accuracy means we’ve got a rarely-seen blue version of the little loudmouth. 

The next thing to draw people’s attention was that there’s some size-class malarkey going on with this figure. Rumble’s basically a Micromaster-sized figure being sold as a Core-class figure, with extra accessories and engineering beefing up the price point.  This isn’t the first time this has happened in recent Transformers history, and the results have had highs and lows. (A high would be Studio Series 86 Hot Rod, which was a really good figure, and a low was Studio Series 86 Ironhide, which, frankly, felt like a ripoff), but it is the first time this phenomenon has happened on such a small scale.

And, finally, the third bit of controversy is the reason this review is so far after its release: You couldn’t find the damn thing, at least not in Canada. It’s one of those situations where it sold out everywhere, and was hypothetically spotted at retail, but in practice, never actually seen by human eyes. Luckily, I have a friend down south with connections (i.e. it showed up there).  Me, I wanted to see if Rumble was worth it. I’ve complained in the past about Generations/Legacy/Studio 86’s habit of putting out marginal improvements of classic characters every couple of years, but something about this still appealed to me. Plus, I sold the Generations Selects Frenzy I had, so I needed the Blue One again.

Robot Mode

Okay, to get the question of his size out of the way: Rumble is a little bit taller than the old Siege Micromaster version of this tooling. Specifically, about a head taller, without factoring in his accessories.

However, he’s still way shorter than your average Core-class figure, and really doesn’t have anything in the way of obvious density or complexity, on first impression. 

What he does look like is way more proportionate than Siege’s previous attempt at this design. Siege Rumble was a kind of squashed, stumpy version of the character’s design, whereas this version’s longer legs and torso make him more properly person-shaped, in addition to extra details like flip-out feet, and refinements like a lack of those weird nubs on the ends of his fists the old one had.

This version overall manages to be sculpted more animation-accurate, albeit with some extra greebles and lines here and there. I’m impressed to see them, given how Studio 86 is usually a lot more dogmatic in its character model adherence.

The headsculpt also came out really nice here. The visor, the oddly detailed mouth, it all means that I can hear the whiny cartoon voice coming out of him.

For colors, Rumble’s actually more purple than blue, like his animation model. Specifically, it’s a light purple, with powdery blue on his limbs. There’s some good paintwork on him, including accents of silver, yellow and red. In particular, they managed to tampograph a teeny, tiny purple Decepticon symbol on his stomach, because it’s there on the animation model. Same with his red visor and silver face, it’s very intricate in person. I bet some of that Core budget went into all of this paintwork. For build quality, he’s also nice and solid and stable, all the joints are tight, and his big feet make him stand well.

Rumble’s articulation is the same as the Siege Micromaster, and that’s kind of a low point. See, he nearly has the standard Core-class articulation: Knee and hip joints that are on a ball joint and an omni-directional swivel respectively, ball-jointed shoulders, dipping wrists, and a swiveling neck.

However, he’s missing a waist joint, which doesn’t bug me, and he’s missing elbows, which does bug me, because every other Core-class figure that isn’t a combining Dinobot has articulated elbows. And like I said with Studio Series 86 Ironhide, if you’re going to charge a size class higher for something smaller, I’m going to analyze obvious missing things like that. 

For accessories, this is where the value-add is. Firstly, Rumble’s got his two back-mounted laser…wing…pod…thingies, molded in light gray. I’m glad to see them, because they complete his silhouette. Strangely, he can’t hold them in his hands, which have no peg holes in them. Instead, you can clip them onto his outer arms. 

It’s an odd choice, but at least he can wield them somehow.

The other big, important thing is his trademark piledrivers, which are two separate accessories. Two very large accessories, since each one is nearly as tall as he is!

They’re each two-tone, mostly colored  light blue, with purple towards the front of them, and on the heads of the things. They look good from most angles, but each of them also has a single side where they’re extremely hollow, crisscrossed like a honeycomb, though there’s at least tech detailing in the hollow bits. And for something that’s supposed to make the increased price feel worth it, that hollowness is a bit disappointing. 

To use the piledrivers, you fold his fists in, and cram each arm in sideways, at kind of an odd angle, so that his shoulders are spun backwards. This actually works better than I thought, and instead of neutering his articulation, you can pose him at all sorts of odd angles as he shakes the earth. 

Speaking of that, the piledrivers can’t technically thump, but the bottoms of them are removable, along extra long 5 millimeter rods, so you can sort of slide them down the rods, and position them like they’re thumping.

Aside from the long peg, and port on the removable heads, the backs of each one also have a 5 millimeter hole, and there’s little holes near the back you can mount his weapons on, meaning there’s a lot you can do with these accessories, giving him a bit of an aura of flexibility. 

Transformation

Rumble’s transformation is actually a fair bit different from the Siege version. This time, his head rotates and flips away, his arms do an interesting compression along the shoulder joints to fold up over where the head was, and the legs also do complicated rotation and compression to fill in the sides of the tape. It’s simple, and fun. 

Cassette Mode

So, this is the reason why he’s so small, because he’s the exact same size as the various other War for Cybertron-era Micromaster cassettes, so he can still work with Siege or Netflix Soundwave (or any of his subsequent repaints and re-releases). And, to be fair, he fits in Soundwave really well!

Some of the other cassettes can get stuck in the slot, or even jam it from opening, but Rumble fits like a glove.

This is also probably the most convincing cassette out of all of the toolings so far, even if it’s “by default.”

Like, it’s not fooling you that it’s a real microcassette (and not just because it’s too small), but it’s the closest to doing so. There’s no huge gaps, it’s shaped properly, his robot head is hidden from both sides, and one side has a fairly extensive set of silver and light blue paint apps that look like a tape’s label. On top of that, there’s little spools with teeth cleverly sculpted around a pair of metal pins close to where spools should actually be. 

Flip him around, and he’s still all robot parts though. Funny thing, though, the janky back side is actually animation-accurate, according to unsourced google image searches of his character model. I sound like I’m being mean to this tape mode, but I don’t expect it to be perfect at this scale, and he does a pretty good job.

For features, Rumble is missing the flip-out peg all the other Micromaster Tapes had, where Soundwave could mount them on his arm as a shield, and I kind of miss that silliness, but admit it would have meant his whole torso would have to work differently. 

He does conspicuously have peg holes on both the front and top of the cassette you can mount his guns on, for a pseudo-attack mode, which looks surprisingly good.

It would have been nice if you could also attach his piledrivers in some way, though, because I like it when they try and make these guys work independently. 

Overall

On one hand, this is definitely the best Cassettebot Micromaster they’ve made so far. He’s better than the old Frenzy/Rumble tooling, and has enough going on in terms of transformation, aesthetics, and features to outclass every other one, at least a little bit. 

On the other hand, this does feel rather barren for a Core-class figure. Sure, he’s got the big piledrivers, extra accessories, and extra height, but he still feels anemic for what you’re paying. He’s not as bad as Studio Series 86 Ironhide, though, in that he doesn’t feel like an outright ripoff. I think the big thing is his conspicuously missing elbows in robot mode, when this type of “pay more for something small” size-class futzing really shouldn’t have any obviously missing features, since you’re already paying a premium.

I’ll admit, though, when it comes to his scale futzing, what were they going to do, make him change into a bigger cassette that no current Soundwave could actually use? I’m wracking my brain, and the best I can come up with is HasTak having done him as new two-pack with Frenzy (red) instead of a solo figure, but then we’d have probably lost the extra accessories, at the very least. So, I’d recommend him, but only kinda-sorta, in that I think he’s good, but he’s overpriced, especially since Cores are so oddly expensive these days. And he’s so rare that you’re not likely to find him on sale, if you can find him at all. But there’s a leaked listing for an upcoming Leader-class Soundwave, which some are speculating might be the Netflix Voyager, with a big assortment of cassettes, so maybe he’ll be available there. As for me, I’m going to skip out on the Frenzy (Red) repaint that I’ve already seen on shelves, and keep the older Siege Red Rumble as my Frenzy. Them being different toolings anyway is an interesting visual.

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