Review of Transformers: Armada Metamorphosis Volume 2

Introduction

Ah Transformers! The very name brings back a flood of childhood memories of giant robots stomping around changing into ordinary everyday cars, planes and, er…tape decks. Ah the joy of spending ages trying to explain to your parent the exact sequence of actions needed to turn your humble toy car into a robot killing machine, they never did get them! As you may have guessed as a kid I loved these so when this turned up on my doorstep amongst the bundle of review discs I couldn`t really resist!

Transformers Armada is the newest revision of the Transformers brand name. It features a few familiar names (Optimus Prime, Megatron etc) but has been brought up to date for the kids of today.

So is this new take on a classic series really a good thing???

Video

As this is an animated TV series my expectations weren`t that high really to be honest, they`re always much lower quality using more static imagery than the majority of the anime movies I tend to watch. I wasn`t far off; the quality of the animation tends to vary but is just below average for something of this ilk for the most part. Far too many static shots with minimal movement etc, I`d expect this off of a 20 year old animation not a recent one.

One thing I did like is that it did make use of the classic swirling Autobot/Decepticon logos for scene cuts which harks back to the original series.

Audio

Again the sound is average really, part of the TV series package though really as the budget obviously has to be spread out more over a longer period. The sound is a fairly standard DD2.0 affair, the SFX are typical sound library stuff. Music features some familiar tunes slightly remixed for fans of the original series which again was another nice little touch but it is overused somewhat.

Features

Extra features are pretty much non-existent unfortunately. In addition to the 4 episodes of the series that you get on the disc you`re also given a fact file on the various characters and a rather poor "shoot-em-up" style Catch the Mini-Con game. The Mini-Con game is a pretty sluggish affair due to the fact it has to load an animated sequence off the DVD almost anytime you do something. Also as you can only move the cursor to certain pre-determined points on the screen that aren`t always where you`d expect them it becomes easy to loose interest very quickly!

The Fact files as well are very sparse, if you remember the original toys they came with a set of stats on the back of their boxes. Well the fact file is basically the equivalent of that only without the red plastic thing to look through, kinda takes the fun out of it really! The only other info you get is their favourite phrase, no background info or that at all…

Conclusion

This is where I have to be brutally honest…as a fan of the original I hated it! For kids nowadays who`ve grown up on Pokemon it will hold some interest however it`s a very poor cousin compared to the original. The storyline and characterisation is somewhat lacking, it essentially consists of both sides playing hunt the mini-con in a new location each week.

One of the things I hated most about it just how tamed down it`s become. In the original series you had battles and you saw the effects it had on the characters. Obviously they`re robots and can be repaired but they were damaged, they fought huge battles etc. In this however they have huge cannons which do nothing much and they stand around talking constantly to each other…oh dear!

In terms of characters this series again falls flat! There are a few familiar names, Optimus Prime and Starscream amongst others who haven`t changed much. Megatron however has been turn from an evil mastermind into something that sounds more like their voice would be suited to an Austin Powers bad guy complete with "Muwahaha" laugh. There are 8 Transformers in the series I`ve counted so far and that`s it! The rest are the Mini-cons and 3 annoying human teen characters. (And since when was Laserbeak an Autobot; such a weedy one at that???)

For fans of the original series, forget it! Go buy the original series and movie which are already out on DVD. For kids of today, they will probably enjoy it until they trot out the next big thing in order to sell more merchandising. The original series was and still is a timeless classic; this however is essentially Pokemon with robots.