While their designs leave a lot to be desired, these babies make for very fun deskbots that you can transform/combine back and forth multiple times a day..
Sledge is also a fantastic one! Don’t forget him! (He’s the only one I actually have at the moment but I wanna get more Cus they all look kinda cool in their own way)
Smolder is one of the only PCC figures that I have that has not shattered into pieces over time, so yeah he is definitely one of the best simply because he is durable compared to the others
I had an Icepick figure for a long time without anything else, bought the Bombshock 5-pack later on to make it a full combiner. Was pretty disappointed with it after the "wow this is neat" wore off. I did however buy a Heavytread and those TFC Iron Army drones and love them. Fully transformable drone sized figures that can also be articulated arms and legs and in WWII vehicles, those were worth it. Side note, I checked since you mentioned it and the normal drones are about the size of a Hotwheels car.
Oh my gosh I almost completely forgot I owned a power core buffer I loved that thing when I was a kid because he turned into a truck and I didn’t have an Optimus at the time
I really liked these figures but they had so many design flaws - overly tight or loose joints, plastic that was just a bit too thin for the stress they have to endure, clearance issues... A bit of refinement and they wouldn't be so prone to breaking. But I still have my Bruticus wanna be.
Actually, rather than Bruticus, I should clarify that I use Bombshock as my personal collection stand-in for Nexus Prime. I got the right vehicles for all of his limbs from a couple other sets (some of which lost their torsos due to breakage - pain) and the overall look is a lot better IMO than the hard candy red and blue translucent that his official toy was made in.
I can still remember the first time I saw Powercore Combiners back when they new. I thought the concept was so cool and I bought the military and aerial teams on the spot. ...then I got them home... Honestly, I don't think I've ever gone from excitement to disappointment so hard. The the torsos are to their credit still pretty nice figures, especially at their scale, but the drones.... the drones just fail so miserably, and most of the fault lays in the damn auto-transforming gimmick. They just end up a mess of levers and springs, sorta fun to combine the first couple of times, but not worth loss in possibility and playability. In the end you're left with a figure that maybe looks okay sitting on desk, but that's about all those combined modes are good for.
I loved the energon power link combiners. It was so cool having a figure be able to turn into either half of another figure and form a bigger robot with another figure. They need to bring that gimmick back.
When I was younger I had the decepticon version of that huffer figure and the autobot ambulance Stakeout (the protectobot set) and both Crankcase and the jet drone limb part he came with decided to quit life like one of your figures,but stakeout is very solid,his color scheme also uses that allspark blue on the combiner pegs so they don’t stand out.
I was so excited when I first saw these when they released, I was like 10 I think. I had a lot of fun with them, and I distinctly remember going to TRU and seeing the big sets and going crazy (I never got to go to TRU so it was always a huge treat when I did)
Nah, upscaling would defeat the entire concept of combiners on a budget. The only change they need is to drop the auto-transform gimmick on the drones and replace it with some actual articulation in limb mode.
Something I kind of hope would happen eventually would be something similar to this where the torso pieces is the only one “alive” and all the limbs are mindless drones, except the torso leader bot has an almost endless army of drones so he can swap between the limbs at will with whatever is better suited for the current task
I really liked Power Core Combiners. I went completionist on the Hasbro line and also got some of the Japanese Unite EX releases because of the cool colors. It really helped when they went on clearance so it was inexpensive to complete them. I even got two Over-Runs and I peeled-off all the stickers on one so I'd have a mint in box Spastic.
I feel like pcc figures would be a great thing to bring back to make Victorion available at a reasonable price. Perhaps even some of the other combiners. It's not a perfect idea but I feel like there's potential there for the characters who are known for their combined forms like computron. (Perhaps they could work like the giant devastator figure from rotf where the components didn't have robot forms, just vehicle and body part forms)
As a concept, I'd love to see Hasbro take another crack at "budget" combiners, but for the love of primus, drop the auto-transform gimmick! The drones don't need individual robot modes at this scale, but please, please give them actual joints in limb mode so the combined form can be posed and doesn't just fall over if you look at it funny.
I think it's funny that the scout class/size is now "Core". Imagine if we got Core-scale combiners. Maybe call them "Power Cores" or something. Wait...
i remember when these came out. I was so torn on it. i was excited for the combining element. but the drones were so iffy. and the cores were only ok. the dino team looked really fun though
I remember seeing these guys years ago, was kinda interested in them but didn't get many. I only got sledge and leadfoot, sadly both are not in the best condition. Leadfoot broke his arm years ago, those managed to glue it back on but then eventually the panel that held his head broke off but I think I can glue it back on. Might not be the same for Sledge. First the socket for the arm broke, then the panel that said arm was attached to also broke off. Again might be possible to fix but could also be tricky. Never did get any of the 5 packs but I probably would've gotten the rallybots and constructicons for both to match. Shame to know these guys are a lot more prone to breaking now a days. Still though, they were fun for what they were.
i had got the original Grimstone power core combiner 5 pack back when it had first come out. it was one of my first transformers and i still have him today
I have power core Steamhammer, I remember my mom getting him for me at Marshals when I was little. Not exactly the transformers to really get me into Transformers, nor do I plan on keeping him, but still little me was over the moon with him
I have Huffer and smolder. Huffer’s tight hips are crumbling and smolder is one of my favorite characters in my collection! Especially when using his combiner head for his main head
I actually kind of like weird spindly crab claw arms. In general, I liked that part of the early Bayverse decepticon aesthetic; making the alien robots seem more… alien was just a really cool Idea. We've had a lot of years of humanoid piles of boxes… Not that I hate on boxy G1:ers, I love the heck out of them. But Bayverse just added some nice diversity in forms, not being as tied to strict humanoid shapes.
Aesthetically I actually like Powercore. It's got some of that "alien" vibe without going full walking scrapyard. If only the auto-transform gimmick didn't leave the drones with little too no articulation in limb mode, Powercore could have been one of my favorite sub-lines.
Pretty much sums up most of my thoughts on them. Of the ones I have, I'd say Bombshock is the best, Huffer is okay (though his tabs are tight when going from truck to robot), Searchlight looks cool... when his blades aren't interfering with his clumsy design, and Double Clutch... exists. The best thing they can do is scale pretty close to the DOTM Cyberverse figures. Unless you're Double Clutch.
I remember getting the gristle set as a kid at full price and then the mudslinger and icepick 5pack sets together for like 15 dollars as a kid and I loved it. I had to sell them but I still have the grimstone set
If I may say something, the best set to come out of this line would be the dinobot guy and his drones. They all have the G1 dinobot colors, best alt modes all being dinosaurs and one dimetrodon, plus the combined mode is the best one visually.
The drones do fit well among hot wheels as a kid I had the dinosaur set and the 4 drones that you had on huffer missing the scout. Those drones I got with a big tub of hot wheels from a garage sale
if I recalled correctly the Japanese versions has the connectors not in All-Spark blue but in matching colors depending on the figure thus blending them more well.
I'd suggest getting Heavytread and Undertow if you can find them cheap. They, and Grimstone, were released at the end of the line and seem to have far better quality control/survivability where the designers seem to have learnt from all the previous mistakes.
To get Menasor I got crankcase and the rally bots. Worked good till I got combiner wars. Remember this line gave us the first American Dinobot combiner.
I started collecting these last year for some reason and I enjoy them. Not my favorite by any means but their gimmick is fun. I have the boat one with the diver helmet in combined mode on my shelf.
When I was little, my parents made a deal with me that if I did one chore each day Monday through Friday, they would buy me a Transformer. The Steamhammer set was the first, and only one I ever got.
I have mudslinger and the autobot version of dirtboss, they're definitely weird, but mudslinger's drones work well in gas lands,(a hot wheels scale mad Max style racing game)
the construction one ive seen many times at MixGoods in Green Bay, but its on the top shelf like 9 feet off the ground with a bunch of stuff in front of it, i barely reached beast hunters sky lynx without knocking everything over and it was two shelves lower, gripes aside i am really upset that they are closing down the perkins plaza location in favor of one on the east side of town, because it'll be across the river as opposed to 5 blocks away
I wish Power Core Combiners was brought back, just make the drones manual transformation, add some extra changes, keep the interchangeability and these would be great box sets
I kinda have a soft spot for the power cores. They were goofy as all get out, but I remember as a kid we couldn't get much but my parent always tried to get me either transformers or legos for the holidays. (You should've seen me when kreo transformers was announced.) Anyways, I got the Crankcase, which for all intents and purposes, was just a black and grey repaint of Huffer with different limbs. But I ADORED this goofy mess. It was the first combiner- like toy I've ever gotten and I was more than happy to receive it. It did confuse me a bit bc I distinctly remembered Crankcase from DOTM, which keep in mind at the time I was a kid and didn't understand the concept of timelines. Still, I love these weird little goofballs.
8:12 There was also A Monster Truck Optimus Prime that released in the rescue bots toyline, which I know you don't collect, but I did and I have it, so just letting you know
0:24 I found this video 2 years later and I take offense to this. Some of these were NOT fine. I got ROTF (re-used energon mold) superion and he had the worst limb designs. Superion head kept falling off because silverbolts entire cockpit detaches for some reason, the two helicopters were not stable (they’re goggles kept coming off and getting lost), two of the hands/feet were entirely clear plastic and the whole thing couldn’t stand on them because they weren’t designed properly. The only good parts were airazor and air-raid as standalone figures
In my mind, the combiners that resembled these were way better. Energon Steamhammer being my favorite. Look it up. They are actually cool in my opinion.
I despised (and still do) the exact same drone in this video with Bombshock because it really just wouldn’t stay in place and I just kept getting frustrated with it. I do wish these things were revisited and improved but I can see why they decided against bringing them back.
Don't really care for the Drones, I just hope there's like a tutorial about how to get the blue parts on the scout out of the figures so that I can use the Minicon Targetmaster instead.
For some reason kid me only bought the booster pack scout bots, never the limbs. He was also often confused why they all became torsos and never limbs 🤦
Hasbro could have probaly made this work, had they gone with how Energon Optimus did his super mode. Just fold up the feet, T-Pose the core figure, and put the drones on like they were sleeves and boots. The resulting combiner would at least look more solid.
I really think the drones being manually-transformable would be a lot better than automorph, and allows that mold/engineering re-usage that Hasbro really loves to do. Making them automorph just... doesn't really seem to work? It sounds like a good idea, but you can engineer a simple manual transformation for limbs much more easily than an automorphing spring pylon thing. Even if they were partially automorph that would be fine. I honestly don't mind having small, desk-toy sized combiners, especially ones that don't do the stupid amounts of overengineering that third-parties often do. Honestly, if these were released today without the automorph gimmicks (or a reduced emphasis) and had the compatibility with the blast effects and 5mm ports of the main generations line, they'd make for fun little toys.
I had 2 Mudslingers break their legs, one broke its left leg and the other broke its right leg. Used the first one to salvage the second one and now someone else owns him and his drones after I sold it. Ah, PCC.
In my opinion Hasbro should have put out packs of just drones. And I think Hasbro missed out on some names like Fortress Maximus and the Head Masters or Leader-1 and the Guardians.
I remember Powercore it was a time when I was 12 had no money and had yet to get back into transformers I would see these at my local Toys’R’Us and what was weird the area they had these guys was very dimly lite so ya it was kind of odd.