Encore 20: Devastator

[Dominic]

Reports over at AllSpark are that pictures have been released. Damn, this looks legit.

Dom
-wants this more than one might reasonably expect.

[BWprowl]

Hey, I'm interested too. My KO Dev I had years ago (naturally) didn't last too long (Hook's arms just loved to snap off), so a legit reissue would be pretty cool. I like Devastator a lot more than the Scamble City guys, they always seemed to go backwards: The one with a dedicated combination scheme made out of six guys gives way to a cheatsy format where four dudes just ball up into modular bricks and stick onto a generic central core? What's up with that?

[Onslaught Six]

Admittedly, the Scramble City format made for better toys for children. Think about it--you don't need to get all five components of Bruticus to make Bruticus, you just really need Onslaught and four other dudes from any team. And given how few toys children can regularly get (at least in comparison to those of us who buy damn near everything), that can be a blessing. Timmy can get two Combaticons, a Stunticon, a Protectobot and an Aerialbot and still make Bruticus, whereas with Devastator he needs six construction vehicles that are all coloured the same.

[Dominic]

Speaking as somebody who was a kid back then and did not get everything, the blessing is kind of empty.

It used to piss me off to make half-assed combiners from members of several teams. Yeah, I sort of had a combiner, but I knew is was half-assed and shitty.


Dom
-especially when I crossed factions.

[Onslaught Six]

But you're a neurotic OCD kid.

I seriously think your hatred of kids comes from your own personal experiences.

[Dominic]

What makes you think that I hate kids? I love kids. (I just do not want them beating me to the toy aisle.)

[BWprowl]

Admittedly, the Scramble City format made for better toys for children. Think about it--you don't need to get all five components of Bruticus to make Bruticus, you just really need Onslaught and four other dudes from any team. And given how few toys children can regularly get (at least in comparison to those of us who buy damn near everything), that can be a blessing. Timmy can get two Combaticons, a Stunticon, a Protectobot and an Aerialbot and still make Bruticus, whereas with Devastator he needs six construction vehicles that are all coloured the same.

And THAT is why the Good Lord invented gift-sets, and Christmas!

[Shockwave]

When I was a kid I actually did manage to get all of the combiners but I think I usually got them all at once so cross combination was never an issue for me. The only one I didn't get all at once (sort of) was Devastator. I bought Scrapper with the intention of buying the rest later and then bought a whole set loose for cheap so I wound up getting the whole thing at once anyway.

Now the gift set nueroses for me didn't come about until Energon where you could find all five pieces in the same city but not in the same store. And I wasn't gonna buy half a combiner nor was I gonna mix and match. Damn. Ok, chock that up to two for the ocd crowd.

[Dominic]

I am not sure how it is even unreasonable to want a complete set to be perfectly honest.

[Onslaught Six]

In Adult Collector Terms, it really isn't, but when you're a child? You gotta make do. I remember for a while, RID Bruticus became a reincarnation of Tarantulas because I had no Tarantulas toy, and wanted Tarantulas, as a character, in my playtime. It was easier than pretending Tarantulas was gone that day or something.