Discussion YMMV / TransformersLegacy

Honestly, I’ve kinda gotten the impression that the one adding these, Leonold, is working with either a very limited pool of discussion, or is just inserting his personal opinions and thinking it’s a consensus.

The stuff about Cyberverse Tarn in particular makes me raise an eyebrow, since reception to that figure is either positive or “it’s okay”. At worst the criticism is that his paintjob is kinda meh rather than “being the wrong size”

That one I didn't touch because I can't find much discourse on the figure one way or the other. To be frank, I don't think many people really care about Cyberverse Tarn but I haven't heard anything to the contrary one way or the other.

Some examples absolutely come across as someone inserting their own opinions, even ones that I do believe do have general consensus were still written in a way that felt like someone's personal opinion rather than trying to represent an audience as a whole.

Speaking of Tarn, the entire Cyberverse Improved Second Attempt entries need some addressing:

• When it comes to the Cyberverse figures, all but Tarn^note who is just a redeco of his comics counterpart figure have been considered major improvements:
  • Cyberverse Chromia, while fans are disappointed she's simply a new-head retool of Animated Prowl and lacks her signature weapons, is still a vast improvement over the figure of her Siege incarnation, featuring a more involved transformation, greater posability unhindered by kibble and shellforming, and being based on a fairly well-liked mold rather than being intentionally designed after the incredibly unpopular fembot mold from Power of the Primes despite sharing no parts or even having a combining feature.
  • This is a completely different character. It is, in no conceivable way, a "second attempt." If you count it, then you need to lump in T30 Chromia and even movie Chromia who aren't addressed.
  • Cyberverse Shadow Striker is a similar case to Chromia. The vast majority were disappointed to see that in the end, she was clearly made to be a pre-tool for RID 2000 Side Burn, but even then, the bar was so low to jump it's still agreed to be an improvement compared to the toys she did receive in Cyberverse, one being a tiny Scout Class figure, a line infamous in Cyberverse for the whole point of it being selling characters 'mid-transforming'^note AKA not transforming into their full alternate or beast modes in sacrifice for a gimmick, and an Ultra Class figure that's best described as one of the most egregious shellformers ever◊, despite the class offering decent figures for others like Shockwave or Clobber.
  • This one I'm mostly fine with it being at least true, but I think it's worth addressing that this is pretty much the first attempt for Shadow Striker: there hasn't been a version of Cyberverse Shadow Striker from a non-gimmick line. That could be disqualifying and merits discussion.
  • Cyberverse Windblade is considered just not an improvement over her figures released in Cyberverse, but over every previous incarnation of the character. Be it the original Thrilling 30 figure infamous for its stability issues, the RID 2015 figure which suffered through the standard lower budget limitations of the line, the Titans Return figure that suffered in looks from having to accomodate being a Headmaster and re-using parts of the Highbrow and Scourge of the same line, and the very simplified and accessory-lacking Warrior Class from Cyberverse itself. Compared to them, the United figure posseses better stability, the sacrifices in her proportions aren't big enough to bother most people as she's still recognizable, has the standard high articulation of modern figures, has less of a backpack that would hider her movement, and does come with an accessory.
  • I would say any Windblade figure would be closer to a Broken Base because no one can seem to really agree which is and isn't better.

Hey, I checked the changelog and you said you removed the Cyberverse stuff for Improved Second Attempt for a discussion, but you haven’t posted a discussion about them

Thanks for flagging that, I had drafted it and just not saved.

Looking at the page, I think Improved Second Attempt might need to go entirely. Improved Second Attempt is a bit more complex than the name indicates, it's about taking a storyline that went over poorly and rejiggering the basic ideas for a later storyline and trying to do it "right." Obviously, it's hard to line up an explicitly narrative-based item with a toyline, but it's also complicated by the fact that it's also very much about salvaging the good ideas in a bad storyline and trying again. Many of these examples are just toys that are improvements over older, even beloved ones. Some of the worst examples aren't even that, and just "some aspects of the new version is better than some aspects of the old one" which is... just stunningly shoehorning.