It's part of the game's visual aesthetic. The Japanese versions will probably go without, though, going by past examples.

Meta...morphin' ...dudicus?

Ah, so they're keeping the weapon combining gimmick of the original.

Where is that from?

The gimmick from Ruination, you mean.

Lord I love the aesthetic of the WfC/FoC guys. Usually the Cybertron versions of characters look really awkward, but they've managed to hit on something that looks very nice.

Man, I am really going to have to sell off some of my current figures if they keep this up...

Wow, uh, that looks....

Mistransformed.

Whew... For a while there I was afraid I was gonna want this.

I'd guess Swindle and Brawl are TFed right. Onslaught is close with maybe a few little errors, perhaps at the crotch or sides of the chest maybe. And I suspect Blast Off and Vortex are at least partially messed up, or at the very least quite badly posed. Going by the concept art the thruster parts of BO should fold down to the lower arm, or perhaps the lower arm folds up to them looking at it closer.

-ZacWilliam, on the up-side he looks Awesome! I LOVE HIM. Even miss transformed or badly posed he's a wonder that will have a spot of honor among my CHUGUR Cons. Real fists. Yay!

That doesn't look so hot.
A voyager sized torso would do wonders here.

Vortex and Blast-Off look like they're in the completely wrong colors.

Blast-Off looks right, Vortex, on the other hand...

Unfortunately those are pretty much the right colors for the game...


I don't want to judge Bruticus prematurely but I will say that those shoulder connectors look too long and out of place. That's the one thing that's really throwing it off for me.

Its like powercore combiner proportions at a deluxe level.

But I don't think its possible to over stress how severely (mis) transformed that clusterhug is in the arms.

Looks pretty awesome to me. Gimme!

Mike "E"

That's the first thing I thought as well. I imagined haggard toy designers screaming, "It's been too long! This is all we know now!"

Not for their Aligned-continuity selves!

I hope they are sold separately, 'cause Blast-Off looks pretty cool by himself.

I honestly thought that pic was some horrid fan photoshop at first.

They've certainly got my money, but something seems wrong with those arms. Hopefully we see the correct transformation at Toyfair. If that's how it looks, it might be as hard to pose as the Energon combiners... though those purple joint connectors look interesting.

Well Vortex is certainly... red!

Is that how they look in the games? If so, that's pretty disappointing. For one, it seems like an arbitrary change, and two, they have some of my favorite color schemes.

Vortex and Blast Off!

At least my Takara Vortex won't feel threatened.

Blast-Off has stolen Shockwave's chest! The scoundrel.

Those are seriously awesome designs...but those colors are too bad. Hopefully Takara fixes them up.

...huh.

Well, Brawl sure looks awesome.

Oh, that Vortex looks really cool even if he's in the "wrong" colors!

And he has an open combiner hand in one leg... assuming the gun in the Bruticus pic is held by a hand that is closed (like the one on Blast Off) then it's possible he has a closed hand inside the leg we can't see.

Swappable combiner hands!

Possibly.

Vortex sort of reminds me of something...

Looks like Brutcus' left hand is for smackin' bitches!

Unless Vortex has a fist hidden in his left leg which would be rather awesome so you could switch it up!

I think the vehicle mode's nose gun may be folded up there.

I think you're right. Vortex is only there to show people the back of his hand.

That's what I just said!


Oh scrap, I think your right. Oh well... that was a fun minute...

My father had that tendency when he drank.

well, it's still swappable--between a pimpslap hand and a gun.

We need to enact a mighty fusion and arm him with the pimpslap gun.

Its taken how many years (?), but I'm absolutely sick of these overly photoshopped photos.

That's called pistol whipping.

I was sick of them in 2001. RiD has some absolutely atrocious photoshop "enhancement."



No, but we need projectile pimpslaps.

And all the FP Bruticus' breath a sigh of relief.

Seriously? E Ports? Please?

No wonder Blast off found his earth body to be crude

im buying it....Combiners hug YEAH

I hope that's all it is. Cuz now this has gone from OMG to eewww.

Anyone want to try a cleaner Photoshop than this?

The whole Power Ranger combining weapon thing is done badly here.

...in the interests of depicting something the toy most likely can't do? Why?

It's unlikely that the arms could be brought in closer and that the legs can be transformed properly?

I'd say unlikely the arms fit any closer to the body, yes. That's the only change that stands out to me in your quick photoshop.

Yeah, Not happy with Vortex's colors there. Otherwise pretty happy with what we see.

My love for this increases by 200% with shortened shoulders.

I'm not getting my hopes up for that option, but I sure as hell want it to be one.

I'd say the arms are a mistransformed mess and no designer in their right mind would design a combiner to fit together like that and look so bad.