Age of the Primes Gen Selects Trypticon
Our Gen Selects Titan for Age of the Primes, Trypticon stomps onto the scene as a redeco of the Titans Return figure in a cartoon color scheme, and with fixed ratchets that won’t explode.
First thing, the colors on this guy are SO pretty. The charcoal black is gorgeous, and is complimented delightfully by the teal and pale purple. I’d like to extend a similar sentiment to the box art, it’s very striking. The pops of translucent orange provide great highlights. Colors aside, he still looks great, with plenty of sculpted detail that doesn’t get washed out and lost in the black, and there’s a lot of both. He is, understandably, MASSIVE, but that’s not just height. He’s pretty wide, and even longer with his tail. He takes up a lot of room, yeah. Which, on that note, I don’t have anything to say on the city mode, partially because it was entirely too big for my setup. Wouldn’t have done much for me even if I did have the space, but.
In terms of articulation, Trypticon… doesn’t have a whole lot. He’s not a complete brick, but there’s still only so much you can do with him. He gets a LOT in his legs, with knees, ankles, and some pretty involved hips, but what few other limbs he does have are pretty limited. He gets universal joints for his shoulders, and then only hinges for his elbows and claws. Not a swivel to be found. His head can look up and his jaw can open, and you can maybe swivel the whole thing if you bring the cannons up. His tail can hinge pretty far upward, though it’s maybe a bit loose on my copy…
While this new Titan class rendition of the character was produced before the big articulation boom of SIEGE… what can you do for Trypticon? He’s a big lizard, that doesn’t leave a lot of room for things like a waist swivel, or an ab crunch if you want to get really fancy. Though, while somewhat static articulation is to be a bit expected for any animal based transformer, you also have to consider that this is Trypticon’s robot mode. This isn’t a dinobot or insecticon or maximal or predacon or anything of the sort. He starts as a totally not godzilla-esque dinosaur. This should be the opportunity to take the posing potential of a nonstandard robot form to its limit. Max out his arms, go NUTS with the legs, and let him turn his goddamn head.
Full-Tilt maybe fares a bit better, but that’s mostly by virtue of being a normal looking robot, and that still only amounts to “entirely average Titans Return deluxe”. Knees, thighs, hips, shoulders, elbows, biceps, and no wrists, waist, or ankles. You can certainly get him to shmoove but there’s also only so much you can do.
Trypticon makes a fun little companion piece to The Ark, and almost matches him better than The Nemesis? He has a Nemesis spaceship mode of his own (even beat her to the punch!), he gets a partner figure, who in turn has an even smaller buddy of their own. Granted, they ultimately go for very different things and have some very different play patterns, and I will fully admit the spaceship mode is rather dubious, at best, but still. I think it’s neat. There’s something there.
By and large, Trypticon is really fun to handle. Very hefty, and you do have to be mindful of his size, but the sheer chunk on offer is a delight in hand. Most of your enjoyment from this guy is probably going to come from his play features or mere presence, most of which are things that are pretty plainly presented. In that vein, I love the blaster on the bridge of his snout. He’s always had it but the way it springs up and even pushes back down is just so delightful. You can get him into some sick poses, but they are night exclusively in the range of “big honking lizard doing big lizard stuff”. There’s not a whole lot of deeper discussion to be had about what he can do because you can see most of it from the get-go.
That does not, however, mean that there wasn’t more to discover, as I had a whole slew of issues to find on my copy :>
The big one, and the worst offender, is that one of the pins in his legs is missing, and I don’t know if you noticed, but he’s got some hefty fuckin legs so it’s a big deal. The hinge that his legs connect to when you’re putting him together out of the box, and that bring them up and down for transformation, isn’t pinned on the right side, like it is on the left. His legs do lock in place when he’s fully transformed, which helps amend the issue, but it doesn’t absolve it, as the leg is still less secure than it otherwise would be and can still pop out of the sockets.
Of lesser concern but still annoying is that the chest panel comes undone rather easily, but apparently that’s the same as it was in Titans Return. So. Not great, but. I’m not alone there, at least. Furthermore, the left side flap isn’t as snug as the right, but that’s even more minor and I might just be a bit insane. I’m mentioning it either way.
Full-Tilt wasn’t free from all this either, as he has some fairly gnarly stress marks at his hips. Also of note is that his headlights were swapped, though considering they aren’t pinned in place or anything it’s easy enough to swap them around. Almost a non issue, but considering the bigger problems present I think I have room to bitch about petty shit, too.
