YMMV / Transformers (2004)

• Anti-Climax Boss: Zig-Zagged; While Megatron is no slouch in combat if fought properly, the developers decided to add rocks into the volcano beneath the arena, which, despite the lava, gives players a place to retreat and regain health if they've equipped Buildup. Sure, you can fight him in a traditional brawl, but the fact that of all the game's bosses, it's the fake Final Boss Megatron whose fight suddenly gives the player an Easy Level Trick that somewhat undercuts the drama of fighting The Decepticon Man Behind the Man who you've been chasing the whole game. Averted when playing on the hardest difficulty though; On Commander difficulty, Megatron will equip his own Buildup to regen health if you equip yours, turning the fight into a war of attrition on both sides if you try to exploit the arena.
• Awesome Music:
  • When you fight Tidal Wave and Unicron.
  • The original BGM for the Cyclonus fight is just as awesome as the one used in the final game, and even manages to throw in parts of the Armada theme song. Shame it never made it into the game even as an extra.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • Buildup recharges your health as long as you're not being hit, is found relatively early^note It's inside one of the houses near the (first) Starscream boss fight, and if you know the fight trigger it can be picked up before the fight and only takes up 2 gear slots — it is extremely useful in a game where the only other way to regain health is killing things and picking up the energon they drop. The only reasons not to use it is if you need some other minicon on the same slot to traverse the terrain, or the fight you're preparing for is aggressive enough that Comeback^note A minicon that refills your health upon death, but only once per HQ visit is more useful.
  • Optimus Prime has two extra power slots, meaning that he can equip better gear. While he's intended to be somewhat balanced by his very slow speed, this isn’t an issue since speed is not important in the slightest. Resulting in him having very few flaws and a lot of strengths. Only in a speedrun he's not the best option.
• Demonic Spiders: Jetpack drones - Airborne Mooks who move quickly in erratic patterns making them very hard to hit, while they never stop shooting at you. While they do have a huge weakness in the R2-attached Airburst (which exchanges damage for radius that knocks the buggers out of the sky), said gun is more-or-less tailored to be used against these guys and these guys only, meaning grabbing it for the mission leaves you underpowered against other enemies due to it's below-average damage.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Red Alert gained a bit more popularity following the release of the game.
• Game-Breaker: Not aggressively so but as mentioned under Complacent Gaming Syndrome, there is very little reason to not use Buildup, thanks to its low energy requirement and constant health regen. Having problems beating Megatron? Just stand on a rock underneath the platform and he can't hit you while you recharge.
• Goddamned Bats: Several.
  • The beast-like drones you first encounter in the second Amazon stage: About as fast as you are, have the nasty habit of throwing you around if you even attempt to engage them in close combat (without a melee booster, you will be unable to complete a combo before they throw you), and have a gun-disabling ranged attack that they're smart enough to fire about a second after their previous shot has worn off (if they don't just outright spam it).
  • Roller drones are the worst. Often seen patrolling large swathes of levels, they move very quickly and are therefore very difficult to avoid or outright escape. Once engaged, they will fire an endless barrage of blasts at you that are extremely difficult to avoid due to sheer fire rate, which can quickly drain all your health in seconds at close range. Even worse, they tend to appear in very large numbers, despite each having a decent amount of health.
  • The tiny scanner drones seen in Antarctica and the first half of Starship aren't at all difficult to kill but can prove to be an incredible nuisance in Alaska and a real game-changer in Antarctica. In the latter stage, they scan the snowfields for any hapless players, and once detected, fire a flare-up that usually calls in a drop-ship, before then strafing around the battlefield, regularly taking potshots at the player without ever stopping. In the Starship, they don't have the ability to call in Dropships, but in either case, they are incredibly annoying due to being such small and difficult to hit targets and are a waste to use high powered weapons on.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: The most frequent complaint made about the game is that the difficulty is cranked up really high.
• Narm: If you go underneath the arena where Megatron is fought, he'll still try to hit you. The idea of Megatron, The Dreaded mastermind behind the Decepticons, either having a temper tantrum or genuinely believing he can somehow get a shot in while he's actively bombing his own base inside an active volcano makes him quite a bit less menacing than is probably intended.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: The game is actually pretty dang good, to the point it is often considered to be among the best PS2 games.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Powerlinxing with your Minicon slows downtime and increases your damage... and drains your health as long as it's active. Most enemies fall from a few hits but deal damage quickly, meaning the damage boost isn't that useful, the slowdown isn't slow enough to allow dodging their shots, and the game is difficult enough without a little robotic vampire draining your lifeforce away. In boss fights, the damage boost is moderately more useful, but the health drain, once again, means that already difficult battles become even more so.
• Signature Scene: The Tidal Wave boss fight, portraying him as a gigantic behemoth befitting his aircraft carrier alternate mode, is by far the most remembered part of the game.
• That One Attack: No-one likes the aforementioned EMP attacks from the ape-like drones in Deep Amazon.
• That One Boss: All the bosses are difficult, but Tidal Wave is one of the hardest. On top of the fact that unless you're almost standing in the range of his laser attack, you can't hit him, there are only a select few weapons that can reach him. And if you get too far away, he'll hit you with a missile volley. Thankfully, though that one can be avoided fairly easily by transforming and flooring it... As long as you're on the big island.
• Underused Game Mechanic: In theory, all Autobots have their strengths and weaknesses. Hot Shot is the Fragile Speedster, Red Alert is the Jack of All Stats with the highest defense, and Optimus is the Mighty Glacier with 2 extra Minicon slots. In practice however, since speed affects absolutely nothing in the finished product^note In early plans, there were segments only beatable by a certain Autobot, for example Hot Shot would be the only one who's fast enough to make certain jumps so Prime becomes the best character to play as thanks to his extra equipment space.

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