Energon: Ironhide

Welcome to the return of Cybertron Philippines’ Character of the Month. And on this month we are featuring Ironhide.

And in celebration of this, I would be reviewing a few Ironhide toys that were released for the many universes of the Transformers Mythos.

And for our first review, we have Ironhide from the Energon series!

(Note: Ironhide was known as Roadbuster on the Japanese Superlink series.)

——————

Ironhide. The little brother ‘bot of the Energon era. You wouldn’t suspect that this big burly robot is the youngster of the Autobots faction. Ironhide serves as both friend and partner of the human, Kicker.

Though more than meets the eye, Ironhide grew both in maturity and in power. Having to deal with his new partner (Kicker), betrayal of a former ally (Demolishor) and the corruption of Scorponok, he grew up quickly and understood a lot about himself and others.

He was upgraded by the last part of the series, turning his color scheme to green.

Review

I will review Ironhide in three categories:

- Sculpt (Form and Color)
- Articulation (Movable Parts and how can it be moved)
- Fun Factor (How did I enjoy it)

Sculpt

SUV Mode:

Ironhide’s alternate mode is a Blue SUV with a red roof top attachment.

The sculpt includes opaque windshields and windows, plastic black tires, sculpted on front seats and steering wheel, sculpted water container attached to the sides and to my suprise, sculpted on suspensions.

The vehicle is colored primarily blue with white trimming and some black color details on the door, making it look a SUV built for off-road travel. On it’s roof is something quite weird, a red thing that resembles mounted lights. Cool, not just for off-roading, also useful for night driving. And with the two blasters attached, it’s also a run-by vehicle…

If you look at the front of the vehicle you would notice it’s huge front bumper complete with mounted lights and support bars. On the upper part of the windshield is a mounted shade for the four light under it (Focusing the light to the hood of the vehicle.) This SUV is indeed built to travel, anytime and anywhere!

Though after checking the details something may strike you odd… The vehicle looks cartoony and nothing like the real SUVs you will see around. It maybe because it came from a cartoon or simply because it lacked real detail (such as transparent parts for the windows and windshield) and the lack of additional detail. And maybe the red roof top attachment makes it look even more cartoony. Hmmm, let’s check that again.

Wait… What is that thing in the middle of his two blasters. Looks familiar and awfully odd. Do you know what that is?

Thats Ironhide’s head.

Yes folks, his head is right-smack in the top of the vehicle and almost unhidden… With the only way to hide it is to cover Ironhide’s eyes with his helmet. They should have dug the head into the body. Wow, looks like Hasbro dropped the ball on this one… Well, yeah… but not really.

You see the show itself depicts Ironhide’s head to show like that on vehicle mode. So why design the TF that way, I’ll explain later.

Robot mode:

Ironhide’s Robot mode.Robot mode shows Ironhide as the way he looked on the show. It looks like they really did design the toy before they made the cartoon (Which is possible since they could have build a 3D design for Ironhide first, since the cartoon depicts the Transformers in 3d form).

When in this mode, more of the read appears, while the blue parts remains on his “wings”, forearms and legs. Hardpoints on his arms are used to attach Energon stars to the TF. (Energon Stars and small translucent plastic parts that comes with Omnicons and Terrocons that attaches itself to the TFs, these stars represent Energon that was refined by Omnicons and Terrocons that are used to power-up the fighting TFs.)

Ironhide stands up at around 9 inches tall and is around 4 inches wide from shoulder to shoulder and 7.5 inches when counting the “wing-span”.

There’s is another semi-mode that you can do with Ironhide, because of Ironhide’s gimmick (See Fun Factor), he has another set of feet. These feet are used for his “gimmick”. When these feet is used for Ironhide, it increases Ironhide’s height by a full inch, making him taller and IMHO better looking.

When in this mode, he stretches up to 10 inches tall. One point I would like to add is, though he looks good and is taller, his bending knees will be misaligned.

Articulation

I love posability, as you may have already known reading my other reviews. The thing is posability gives it more playability and it helps its owner to recreate those crucial scenes he/she has seen on the show.

Posability also gauges how creative the designing and engineer team are.

And Ironhide… oh baby… he’s quite poseable. With ball joints for elbows and ratchet joints for knees. He can move in the same way the cartoon does. Sweet!

The posability alone, makes me wanna forget about his half-hearted hidden head when in car mode. Or does it? Hmm… But sure, once posability is concern… he’s a keeper.

Rohml’s Kick Test

KICK TEST TIME!

After a while I discovered that toys that cannot necessarily pass the kick test means they are not balanced. Truthfully a toy that can pass the Kick test is pretty cool and shows you that they can stand on only one foot, but it alone is not the defining factor for a toy’s balance.

But… ain’t it fun to try to make them stand on one foot.

On normal mode, Ironhide’s foot cannot take the strain, apparently his foot is composed of a toe and a heel that acts much like a claw and one foot alone cannot support Ironhide. So I turned

Fun Factor

Here we go, the Fun Factor.

Energon’s gimmick is it’s Autobot TFs can combine with each other, aka Powerlinking. One TF will form the upper body part, while another forms the lower body part. Most of the Deluxe Autobots Powerlink with each other, making more than a dozen combinations. However, Megas are different deal. Only Ironhide and Jetfire powerlink with each other, making the combination a sad 2 types only… (4 if you count powerlinking to self.)

Now do you still remember me telling you that I’ll explain Ironhide’s half-hearted hidden head? It’s because of this gimmick, Hasbro can’t hide the head into the body since the body will be required to fold when in Powerlinking mode. (See the Powerlinked modes below)

Ironhide is on Bottom.
In this mode their Superlink version is nice to look at. It rises up to 9.75 inches to the shoulder. And 11 inches to the tip.

Ironhide is on Top.
This is kinda weird. It rises up to 9 inches in height.

Overall
Iron hide from the Energon series is a nice toy to have

. It looks and functions much like that in the series. It’s only short coming is it’s half-hearted head and it’s rather cartoony vehicle mode. Get pass that and it’s a toy worth getting.

Pros
- Nice Robot Mode
- Good Articulation
- Nice Series to Toy Conversion

Cons
- Half-hearted attempt at hiding the head when in Vehicle Mode.
- Vehicle mode looks a bit cartoony

Rating: B+

1 Comment to “ENERGON IRONHIDE”

1. Jim — June 5, 2007 @ 2:32 am
   

   Thanks for your review, do your IronHide’s “wings” every fall off?

   Thanks

Write a comment

Name

E-mail (will not be shown)

Website