Transformers Review: Fall of Cybertron Jazz

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“I’ll be the best Ape ever!” (Tarzan) 

Transformers Review: Generations FoC Jazz
Size: Deluxe
OUT NOW
A TF review written exclusively for Inside Pulse by Rikkomba
 

I never realized how popular Jazz was until I saw it as a Bayformer on the big screen. Some continuities apparently make Jazz the second in command of the Autobots! Fall of Cybertron follows the trend, making Jazz one of the main characters, blazing around the battlefield like a real Cybertronian Batman. Or maybe not.

 

Converts from Car to Gorilla and back!

Gone are the days when Jazz converted into an elegant racing car. Today FoC Jazz has a modern, snihy Cybertronian Racer alternate mode, or, more realistically, a Cybertronian Soap Bar On Wheels.

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 Actually, a Cybertronian Soap bar of Wheels with robot hands hanging on the back. Meh.

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Jazz nowadays rolls on six wheels, actually. As a desperate way of being faithful to the videogame character, FoC Jazz sports a pair of fake wheels at the ankles, with the real ones being “hidden” inside the chest. Such solutions scream “bad design”. Now only a car to robot conversion has been done countless times with better results in the past, but here is looks like the designer tried to be original at all costs and gave up halfway through. The fact that we are got here after almost 30 years of innovations in TF design is quite insulting.

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Hasbro and Takaratomy can do much more than this, and they have been showing it over and over, not only with Masterpiece and Binaltech toys but even with many of the more “mainstream” releases. So, it is really disappointing to see one of the most recent releases receive such a lazy design.

 

Kipling would be proud

FoC Jazz not only fakes its transformation, but its conversion abuses of our patience through a completely useless origami-like folding of chest and spine into the car’s main body. This leaves FoC Jazz without a real neck, with the head hovering on a rift worth of Pacific Rim. Moreover, all this useless folding comes at the cost of hip articuation, making it impossible to reproduce the breakdance-like transformation seen in Fall of Cybertron. Of course, most poses are hampered or made impossible by this, and as a result we are left with a Cybertronian Duelist in the most optimistic case.

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 A Cybertronian Duelist with a Peashooter. For one of the most dynamic characters seen in the history of the franchise, this toy is really a bad joke.

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Bay was right

Fall of Cybertron Jazz is a mediocre toy with a boring alternate mode and a half-baked robot mode, plus a faked transformation. The lack of painted details and decent accessories only adds insult to injury. I paid mine 8 USD, and I am not sure it was worth it.

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Until next time,
Rikkomba