Transformers Animated. Yes, you're reading that right. I despise the Animated toy line. Every toy I bought from it has had a major quality control issue. Horrible paint apps, loose joints, stress marks. Half of the toys I bought from that line I threw out because they broke and it was too late to return them. I loved the show, but that line was pure jive. I think a problem of it was that the designs did not translate well to toys.

I am thankfully glad you're in the minority here.

I'd say Energon. The Autobots were in general subpar, and the Decepticons could've all done with a bit more polish. And of course, G1. So little play value.

I've honestly never had any of those problems, Megs, how odd.

I think the worst toyline is G1.

Blocky, unposable bricks that everyone wants reissues of.

I'll give it credit for starting TFs, though.

None?
Not sure if that's a valid answer.

I like all of the lines I've have toys from, and I don't really know enough of the other lines to really say I hate any of them.

I really tried to like Animated's toy line. Kinda hard when your Waspinator's wing breaks off as soon as you get get it out the package.

Alternators. I'm judging lines based on the time they were released in. Alternators was released concurrently with AEC, all three parts of which had very fun toys. Meanwhile, Alternators were kinda nice looking, but pretty samey, and a nightmare to transform. My only TF purchases I come close to regretting are my two Alternators.

The worst line for me that I most hated?

The Commemorative series. Yes, the G1 reissues. Why? Because they were near enough straight reissues. The stickers were still awkward to apply and didn't always stay on. I would have much preferred "Premium" reissues - tampographed details instead of stickers and new paint applications for toys that would have benefitted from them.

Now maybe some people would rather the toys be exactly as they remember but even that was screwed what with shortened smokestacks, longer missiles, no chrome on some weapons (such as Prowl's gun) so tampographed details and new paint applications shouldn't be that big of a deal especially when they make the toy look nicer.

A few possibilities here. Energon suffers because of the Autobots' gimmick, but is redeemed by most of the Decepticons and especially the Basics. Machine Wars made use of some molds that I love, but most all of them have been repainted to better effect in later lines. G1 suffers in the pre-'86 toys, but is greatly redeemed by the later years. The Titanium line was pretty miserable in its initial execution, but improved greatly by line's end. The Movie 1 line, where there are some good toys, but a lot of just utterly forgettable, unpleasant to play with toys as well.

Which rather aptly describes Alternators as well, a line which isn't buoyed by some pleasantly original vehicle modes and transformations, but rather suffers from uniformity. That has to be my vote.

You must have had terrible luck then, or you're too rough with your toys.

There was some bad QC around Animated/Universe 2.0, but I never ran into anything that bad.(except maybe Universe Galvatron)

I had absolutely terrible luck with Animated, I'm also never too rough with toys, I'm quite cautious when taking toys out the box. I suppose I'm not really being fair basing all my opinions of the line being purely based on how bad my luck was with it.

Energon, it started off well enough but then got depressing.

Probably just G2, but that's because I reallllly dislike the bright colors for the most part; the molds themselves range from "Not bad" to "Excellent". I find RID to be a bit overhyped, too...my favorite molds from that line were actually the guys recycled from G2, G1, BW and Machine Wars; I found the shell-style transformations and the thinness of some of the robots to not be to my liking. Build Team was solid fun, though.

I have to go with Alternators.

It is somewhat unfair of me to say that, since I've never owned any Alts, but they just don't appeal to me at all. I think it's one of the only Transformers lines that I haven't wanted a single figure from.

I really hate the aesthetic of animated.
Some of the transformations look interesting, and I do have a few of them. But the designs are so cartoony, and I hate the faces.

Armada also was pretty crappy at times. Sideswipe... seriously? A lot of that line is bad. Who stole all the articulation? Then again we got some good things, like Tidalwave.

While I don't think I hate any line, I'd have to say Animated is probably my choice. I love the Leaders, and some other figures are great, but not much else.

For me, a lot of it has to do with the fact that the designs didn't translate as well as I'd hope to plastic form. Things like the proportions weren't as nice as I would have hoped.

But all in all, for me it was the colors and plastics used. Take Bumblebee on the show for example, he's a very nice rich yellow with black highlights, with a dark gray face, and a vibrant red Autobot symbol. The toy is a tinged yellow with sloppy black paint, a metallic blue face, and a barely visible silver Autobot symbol on his chest. I just don't think the plastic colors and the flat plastic worked well for the line. I know flat is considered animated style, but I would have preferred glossy. That and the gold and silver symbols was a silly choice to go with despite all of Hasbro's reasoning.

I hope one day that TakaraTomy releases Animated with adjusted colors and additional paint applications to more closely resemble the animation, so I can really appreciate the toys for their high points and not only see the bad parts.

If I had to say one that's close behind, it's Beast Machines. I didn't like the aesthetic for either side of the war.

Randy

I'd have to go with Armada. Even the best figures in that line were seriously flawed.

Universe. I mean, I liked it, especially Hound and Cyclonus, but the colors were a bit too washed-out. I think attempts at realism should stay with the Movie lines. And I liked the Sunnyside Twins, it's just that they were too fiddly. I mean, for some reason, I have no difficulty with ROTF Mixmaster, because the parts don't vy for the same spot and you don't have to massage 'em into place, but with the Sunnyside Twins... Too fiddly. Some of them were too much like their G1 counterparts, while with Classics, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Astrotrain, Rodimus, Cliffjumper, Jetfire, Prime, Mirage, Grimlock, and Megatron were amazing updates. They were like G1, but modernized, whereas the Sunnyside twins and Cyclonus were just updated G1s. Hound, now that's a good mold... Unfortunately the green wasn't bright enough for me. Then you have Dinobot and Cheetor. Dinobot is an excellent mold, and although I don't mind the non-show accurate colors that much, they still made him not as good. Cheetor... Just sucked. And Ironhide, he looked cool, but was pretty bad in vehicle mode and looked like a rejected Movie toy. I liked Classics simplicity and sleek styles and usually bright colors. I mean, just compare Classics 'Screamer, who was the most slavish of the Classics toys, to Universe 'Screamer. Classics 'Screamer is dimmer, but his color layout is more striking and modern. I'm just not big on slavish homages... Which is probably why I'm not that into the Henkei line, and why I liked Animated so much and tend to take liberties with the Animated redesign requests that Gunrage and Corg have drawn for me. (Weremole and MedDMi did a fancharacter for me who's a new disign, pretty much... So yeah.) I know Universe is officially a Classics continuation, buuuuut... I just liked Classics more.

Or maybe I was just too busy paying attention to Animated to really give a care, and wanted less realism and blocky robots with fiddly transformations and more stylized, not-too-simple and not-too-difficult TFs. Eh, Universe just didin't get me... Especially with the reusing of UT molds. I'm just weird!

Alternators, Animated and both Movie lines are all lines of which I've bought a couple figures, quickly disliked them, and didn't bother with after that. For Animated and the Movie, it's just a question of aesthetics. For Alternators, pretty much the points Ersz made - they're all samey, overly complex, and in general not worth the $20 price tag.

For lines which I liked enough to buy a large amount of... well, Energon definitely had some downers... didn't buy a lot of Autobots, and even the Decepticons had some flaws. I think I only bought all of Machine Wars because it was 12 toys total and I was still in my completist stage. Beast Machines had some clunkers as well (Nightscream? Supreme Cheetor? Beast Riders? What was I thinking...?)

Color/paint issues...well, those pretty effectively sum up my dislikes with Animated as a toyline. I'm fine with the molds themselves, they do an admirable job capturing a style that you would think would be unfriendly to being translated to three-dimensional form. But I like when the figures (Mainly repaints) use metallic applications...I feel it improves the look of the figures when they're nice and shiny.

I'll agree with you that Animated has had the most QC problems of any TF toyline I've collected. However, that was mostly early wave toys; those problems seemed to disappear after wave 2 or 3 or so. As a whole, Animated is pretty great.


I guess Machine Wars would be my pick. Many of the molds are merely ok, and the paint schemes are rather uninspiring/inappropriate (that's Thundercracker? Are you sure?)

The only I've ever really had interest in was Megaplex (who I cast as Megatron, based on the colors), and I got him over two years ago. As others note, most of the molds that it introduced to America have been repainted in better colors (Universe Whirl, King Atlas, and Soundwave, for example).

I find it odd that Beast Machines was only mentioned once so far...

Nut Beast Machines had mainly good toys and only a few stinkers. It was the cartoon that people didn't like.


Alternators was good at first but looking back, it got dragged out. I appreciated some forgotten characters got new toys such as Windcharger and Rollbar even if they didn't look like their original toys.


The Animated toyline was mainly filler to me. Universe was my toyline of choice. I only got Animated because of the cartoon. I now have little desire to buy new Animated toys; Waspinator got released here recently along with Samurai Prowl. I can't be bothered getting either. I would buy Shockwave if I ever saw him and also Rodimus out of the ones shown recently. Arcee is too far away to make a decision upon.
Is Hydrodive Bumblebee still getting released or not?



And nobody mentioned 6" Titanium toys yet?

I certainly won't. I'm a big sucker for the line.

And really, it gave us War Within toys, which many would have killed for in, say, 2004 or so. And The Fallen. And G1 Armored Magnus. And so on.

ARMADA

shouldnt even really be a question..

Beast Wars is the line that appeals to me the least. No vehicles=almost no interest.

Armada is the worst misfire of a line that should by all rights appeal to me: realistic Earth vehicles, blocky robots, lots of tiny Transformers. Yet the execution was almost uniformly terrible.

I own fewer toys from those lines than any other major US ones, so I guess they get my votes.

I would like to change my vote to Alternators, please.

Here's another vote for Animated. Ugly, ugly, ugly little things. I spent <$20 throughout this entire line, and I can't even watch the show for what it looks like. Overall it's the worst toy line so far because of the 'human in a suit' body designs, thin little arms and legs that are too easy to break, and the simplistic and boring uniform color schemes.
I like robots to look like robots, not caricatures drawn by that guy in the booth at the mall.

I'm afraid I have to agree. The quality control on Animated was so poor, that not only did I stop buying Animated toys after only having about 6, but I haven't really picked up much of ANYTHING in the past year.. maybe 2 toys, tops.

I never really thought about it consciously turning me off to collecting, but I guess I got tired of wasting my money on broken toys.

Binaltech. As uncreative, redundant, and frustrating as Alternators, but cost three times as much.

I don't know what secondhand factory liquidators some of you guys are buying your TFA stuff from, but I've never had any trouble with any of mine.

The TFA designs I totally passed on. I just didn't like most of them and the ones I did, like Shockwave, I never found in stores.

I'm agreein' with you, and I'ma let you finish.

But Kissplayers was the worst TF toyline of all time.

Of All time.

--Boltax.

The QC on Animated probably sucked thanks to being rushed out to fill the gap (despite being held back, amazingly) between movies and that they utilized a different kind of plastic that hadn't been used on such a wide scale previously. The designs themselves were perfectly fine.

ARMADA

Horrible, horrible toys. I mean, when Hot Shot is one of the best three toys of the line (the other two being Supercon Prime and Unicron), you know you're in trouble. Cybertron did the gimmicks better with very few exceptions while keeping articulation and sculpting intact, which Armada didn't, and Animated injected character into the toys about million times better without having anvilicious s*** like, "He's cocky because he looks like a race driver!"

The mass introduction of Mini-Cons was okay, but I've never been keen on how Hasbro and others have seen fit to try to cram them into other universes like Classics needlessly. Most of the Mini-Cons weren't that great unless they had a higher purpose, like combining or forming weapons (Air Military Team and Emergency Teams are still my favorites). Otherwise, their interactivity with the larger toys was annoyingly forced. "You paid $10 for that car guy, but you can't use all his features unless you cram a smaller car up his ass!" That kind of stuff was just... dumb.

Plus, being that the line followed up Robots In Disguise, it was like a sledgehammer of suck.

All of you claiming Animated are liars. It's impossible for someone to dislike Animated.

G1. Seriously, compared to everything that has come since, it's subpar, and yet too many people want the toys reissued over and over.

In Henkei Screamer's defense, his robot mode is a lot more interesting than the Universe version's.





Ah but it gave us Autorooper, Glit and Ford GT Hot Rodimus.

Randy

Oh, true, the Autotroopers are a cool concept, really liked their use in Animated.

And was Rosanna from Kissplay? Can't say I dislike that character, either.

Funny, I had exactly the opposite experience. Robots in Disguise was such a boring line -- and it was such an abortion of a line in Australia -- that by the time it was rolling slowly, slowly to a close I was just exhausted by it. It didn't help that basically EVERY SINGLE MOULD in the line was a mould re-use from somewhere else. Especially bad if you were already collecting Car Robots from their release the previous year in Japan. That left you with what... some new Spychangers?

Then Armada came along.

Wow... what a breath of fresh air. Fun, innovative toys -- the delight of Mini-cons... it was just such a JOY to be a fan around that time, for me. So amazing. Everything was coming together wonderfully thanks to that toy line.

Too bad about the cartoon -- but you can't have everything.

--Boltax.

binaltech and kiss players. WAY to expensive and really not that great.

I will say animated gave me a few clunkers as far as sloppy paint apps and terribly loose joints.

Well, it was limited by the design and technology limits of the day. Today, yeah, they aren't necessarily worth the money they command on the shelves as reissues... which is why Toys R Us stopped ordering the G1 reissue line after a while and now only release maybe one or two a year and in limited quantities. $30-40 for a G1 Autobot car like Prowl doesn't stand a chance when you can get 3-4 deluxes that are bigger, more complex, and more detailed. And this has been the case for the entire run of G1 reissues in the US, no matter what main line they were released with at the time.

If I had to point at a single line of TFs that failed completely at achieving its goals and created some of the least engaging and effective toys of all time? I'd probably actually point my finger at Action Masters.

--Boltax.
(Because treating G1 like it's a single contiguous toyline is kinda unfair to the line if we're then going to treat Machine Wars like a single complete unit.)

Action Master's goal was to create poseable action figures with cartoon accuracy (for late eighties toys) that could interact with any other characters accessories and vehicles.

Action Masters was the first time that Transformers was treated as a brand name rather than a descriptive title. Although not quite 100% accurate of course, Action Masters wanted to be toys of the cartoon character models which wasn't possible with transformable figures.

Action Masters flaw was that it was the main line in America along with Micro Masters. I believe if America had the same toys that Europe had gotten in the late eighties and early nineties, Action Masters would not be as hated by Americans. I quite love Robot Heroes but I wouldn't want the only Transformers product to be Robot Heroes. Thankfully its not.

I vote for Robot masters because of the colors, the nonsensical weapons and the crappy attempts at new molds they have.

The problem with that, of course, is that they failed to deliver on that basic premise. Action Masters only had seven points of articulation. Had they accomplished greater range of motion, perhaps the trade-off would have felt more worth it.

I don't get this complaint. It's more like "You paid $10 for that big car guy AND the smaller car guy, and there's some cool interaction that will allow you to use all his features!"

I mean, it's not like you had to buy them separately, and if you have to buy two toys, I'd rather see them with some interaction and connection than just being randomly put in the same package.


...huh? I could see the case for G1 simply because of all the sub-series (although this easily applies to just about any other line), but Machine Wars WAS a single complete unit of 12 figures, so I'm not seeing the comparison.

Okay, I'm changing my vote to Kiss Players.

I guess I had repressed the memory from my mind.

1/2 of the last line of G1

Micromasters were awesome... the rest... killed the brand for me until Mainframe saved it.

Animated, aesthetically, did nothing for me. I bought a handful, and generally was disinterested.

RiD, I grumble about. I have all the original molds for the line (as a gift), and found myself only really enjoying the redecos from PREVIOUS lines (RiDecos?)

Alts.

and this is why Hasbro should just make Transformers the way I like them... Robots that transform and don't come with pretender shells

because they can't please the rest of you lol

If you believe Hot Shot is the 3rd best figure in Armada, you really only have 3 Armada figures.

Wheeljack - Not the best figure out there, a bit overhyped because the rest of Armada was bland, but still a dynamic figure, sleek Alternate mode and actually has weapons.

Jetfire - Just a beautiful figure. Has a massive gun, lovely design, and it's mini-con is actually utilized in an alternate mode.

Tidalwave - Perhaps one of the biggest behemoths of a figure, but it looks pretty impressive in any collection

Yeah, I could go over more.. but I don't really need to. All I'm trying to say is that Armada did it's justice for it's on screen characters. Did other toylines do it better? Yes, and maybe not. But Armada's mistakes paved the way for Energon and Cybertron. Without Armada, there wouldn't be the E or the C in AEC.

And comparing E to A.... I f-ing hate Energon. When the bot is meant to be the top half or the bottom half of another.. it's frustrating.