(NOV-2013) Aligned Era - Rate it

[griffin]

November is the Aligned Continuity month, featuring TFPrime, but also including Rescue Bots and WFC/FOC games, comics and books.

Details of the Aligned Continuity can be found here.

The Entire Era/Series as a whole (you can include the Japanese versions if you want), how does it rate in the world of Transformers:

- Best Ever
- One of the better ones
- Average
- Not very good
- I refuse to have anything to do with it

[UltraMarginal]

BEST EVER.

While it feels wierd saying this as without G1 there probably wouldn't be transformers today.

I've enjoyed both FOC and WFC, haven't really played any of the multiplayer just the campaigns. The Wii version of Cybertron Adventures is very much on rails and more of an arcade shooter, not particularly engaging.

The Transformers Prime Series has been the best of all in my opinion, Great animation, fight coreography, character models, story, humour, the list goes on. it's by no means the best overall but comparing it to other childrens programs it's way up there.
comparing it to other Transformers series, well, in most cases there is no comparison.

Toy wise this is a great series that has managed to cover most of the critical onscreen characters and some extras during the toy run. Two different Ultramagnus toys has been a bit wierd. Satisfyingly though it's possible to get a toy representation of most of the characters that have appeared on screen if in some cases only by importing from Japan.
I have found the majority of the toys to have a good combination of entertaining transformation, and solid vehicle and robot modes. Exceptions will be discussed in the toy thread.

Game toys while smaller and lighter than hoped in some cases have been solid interpretations of their on-screen counterparts.

While the Unity of the alligned continuity is vague and contradictory at times there are other "easter eggs" that tie it together nicely.

An example:
the Prime series seemed to suffer from Power reduction of the Insecticons, the first couple times they appeared they were apparently "super powerful" taking a lot of effort to kill/maim but as the seiries progressed they appeared easier to at least disable. There are observations to be made about this but something that I came across in the FOC game supports the apparently vast differences in their strength.

In the game there is a point where you are travelling through Shockwaves laboratory, one of the records you access has shockwave specifically describing how the first batch of his insecticons were quite formidable but successive batches that have been essentially further removed in generation from the original RNA used have proven to be less inteligent, dextrous and powerful.
this supports the strongest insecticon being a close match to Megatron where single shots from autobots can at least knock one out of the air for a moment.

The books while not pulitzer winners have been an enjoyable read and it's great to have a toy of a character that has only appeared in a Novel. That has to be a first in transformers history.

What comics I've read i've enjoyed, gave me an excuse to open and re-purpose a figure into Serket.

It's by no means a perfect era but I sure as hell would have been happy to have this as my G1.

[BigTransformerTrev]

I rated as of the better ones. But as in how it breaks down for me:

*Cartoons: Some of S3 of TFPrime have been some of the best TF cartoons I have ever seen. I rate those ep's on an equal footing with my fav ep's of Animated and overall only second to G1. I've only seen a couple of ep's of Rescue Bots though I do have them downloaded. I'm saving them for when my boy gets old enough to watch them

*Comics: Meh. See my review in that thread.

*Books: The aligned books have been fairly poor in my opinion in comparison to the Keepers Trilogy from the DW universe. Lazy writing from authors trying to knit too many disparate strands of the TF Multiverse together (Blurr lives on the Speed Planet from the Cybertron series?!? I dont think so!) and not enough focus on character development, or even decent descriptions of their alt-modes.

*Toys: Some really fantastic ones, I've been genuinely impressed with some of the TFPrime figures and of course the WFC/FOC figures on the whole have been excellent. Depending on if you want to rate Metroplex as FOC or Generations, you could say the toys have been spectacular!

*Games: WFC was awesome. FOC? The mother-fraggin bomb! I cant express enough how much I loved this game and its storyline full of unending homages to G1. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The TFPrime Wii game however - kinda average.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

I've plugged the whole era into Average.

The thing is, it's a mish mash of all sorts of stuff. While I really love FOC and WFC, Prime and Beast Hunters were fairly bland. The books were pretty horrid, so really the complete coolness of the games is dragged down by the awfulness of the other parts.

Same goes for the toys. I found the FE Prime toys and WFC toys to be rather nice. Shame about the regular Prime toys and most of the FOC toys that really left a lot to be desired.

[Trent]

I've plugged the whole era into Average.

The thing is, it's a mish mash of all sorts of stuff. While I really love FOC and WFC, Prime and Beast Hunters were fairly bland. The books were pretty horrid, so really the complete coolness of the games is dragged down by the awfulness of the other parts.

Same goes for the toys. I found the FE Prime toys and WFC toys to be rather nice. Shame about the regular Prime toys and most of the FOC toys that really left a lot to be desired.

This more or less sums up my thoughts. I'm still working throughout the cartoons and had a crack at one of the books but only lasted about 5 pages.

The games were good. I rate WFC very highly due to the never ending Escalation mode, but FOC failed miserably in that regard. Both stories were pretty good.

Toys are ok I suppose. The only toy I own from that era is Abominus, purely because combiner

[Jinto]

I put it down as one of the better ones. As a whole it's pretty incongruous, but I like a lot of the separate elements in their own right.
The WFC / FOC games were awesome, I couldn't agree with BigTransformerTrev more.

The Prime cartoon had phenomenal animation (maybe even better than my all time favorite, Beat Wars ) and season 1 really hooked me and reassessed so much potential, but I feel it dropped the ball somewhere along the way. Still pretty good though.
I haven't read the books or comics but I'd like to get around to them at some point. Not in a huge hurry since I haven't heard great reviews.

Most of the video game toys were great but a few, like FOC Prime were kinda junk. What is with those knees? There were absolute gems in there too; FE Starscream, for example.

So yeah, pretty good.