Retro Review in Progress: Front Mission (Super Famicom)

Hi there!

The shambling resurrection of the blog continues, with various articles on the go. The one that is closest to completion is a review of the painfully obscure Front Mission on the SuperFamicon/SNES. Yes, the original that Front Mission 3 descends from. I'm halfway through it, and I remain undecided as to whether or not I should pull the trigger on it before the final level. Got a twitter thread going on it, if anyone is interested. Also got an article on Space Marines on standby, should I be in a bad mood.

In the meantime, enjoy some screengrabs.

Ten Tips for Playing Front Mission 3

Does it count as a clickbait title when the subject is so obscure? Ehh. Following on from my review of the game proper, here's some advice for playing Front Mission 3. And so you know that I'm not completely useless, here's my end game rankings. Yes, there is some vanity in displaying it.

 

Go on that Intarwebz
While the Internet is the least exciting part of the game, it occasionally can assist missions, and does provide various battle simulators for level grinding. Also, its possible to acquire the most powerful Wanzer by keeping an eye on shady websites. You don't have to check every mission, but don't ignore it.

Never sell your starting Wanzers, just pass em around
Front Mission 3 is rather obtuse about Battle Skills, but most characters have machines that match them rather well. The Zenislev(1) and Kyojun Mrk107 are also notable for having skills that remain unexciting-but-useful throughout the game.

It's best to have lots of little skills
While things get more nuanced later on, it's usually best to stack multiple 1 slot Battle Skills, ideally identical. This is because these trigger and combo more often. In an extreme example, when using a Rifle, it's more or less mandatory to take Zoom 4 times, as it overcomes the problems of being single shot.

Missiles are easy spammed, but Shields are better
Due to their range and damage, Missiles are powerful even in the hands of a novice character. However, this does not last, as your foes improve. Shields however are always useful, and increasingly mandatory. You will almost always be outnumbered, after all.

Be a fiddler crab
You are not obliged to have symmetrical or even attractive Wanzers, so mix and match parts. My goto design was a skinny but precise arm with 2 guns on it, a beefy arm for the shield, and a generator backpack to compensate.

Steal every Wanzer you see
Tactics are ultimately king, but don't let yourself fall behind in the arms race. Boss types can't be pinched, but there's an entire family of high quality Wanzers you can't buy, but you need(2). This can be be greatly eased by....

Buy a Tiadong ASAP
Pilfering Wanzers is hard to do at first, as you have to force units to surrender. You need the luck for them loose morale, and a gentler weapon to force the issue without killing them. The Tiadong arm however has the useful skill Eject Punch, which saves a bit of time, if somewhat unsporting.

Have understudys, but not clones
Front Mission 3 ultimately gifts you with 8 characters, and it wants you to use them. Try to maintain a pair of missile people, and two punchy dudes. Note that Wanzers can fulfil more than one role, and try not to overspecialise.

If in doubt, set your armour to Piercing
Cutscenes will often telegraph what the enemy has, but weapons that cause Piercing damage are the most common. The only force that doesn't favour machine guns or rifles are the regular army of Da Han Zong, where upon you choose Impact.

And finally, go with Ryogo
When he asks. You know, early on.


Foot notes
1) Actually a mistranslation, it should be Zenith Rev.
2) And when you meet their owners, trust me, you'll want to take them out of spite.

Retro Review: Front Mission 3 (PS1)

A depressingly small number of people seem to care about the Front Mission series of video games. I mean, obviously, its established in Japan. Its just when you google it, you get tumble-weeds and Russian-language video clips. There is an entry on Steam, but its so badly received, I've not bothered to play it. I did however pick up Front Mission 3 (FM3) while at a retro-games fair, having happy memories of it. FM3 is what I like to call a "Lego mecha game", where a majority of your time is spent swapping parts, refining a team of giant robots and sending them into battle. It falls into the Strategic RPG genre, in that its turned-based and set on a grid, while have role playing mechanics. Such things aren't hugely common these days, and certainly weren't back then, either. This example is however noteworthy for not being a licensed game, naming its robots “Wanzers”, and for being made by Squaresoft at the height of their Play Station power. Yes, the Final Fantasy people. This franchise should be absolutely HUGE, but it isn't, due to a lack of localised entries. First impressions after 20 odd years, running on my PS3?

Its not exactly a looker.

Making the obvious allowances for age, FM3 is somewhat uneven when it comes to production values. There's no denying the detail and sense of weight that Wanzers have, with some good CG cutscenes at key points, but its not exactly a performance game engine. The image above makes it look better than it does in motion. Its all about brief exchanges of violence, and uses depressively low res sprites for the map screen. The game was criticised for this at the time, IIRC. I've found myself wishing for a HD remake along the lines of Valkyria Chronicles , because while it isn't actually ugly, it does feel like a awkward transitional step like so many of the early polygonal/CD games of its time. And then you remember Armored Core was out 2 years before this, and Final Fantasy 8 was out in the same year..... Of course FM3 probably wasn't meant to be played on a flatscreen. And there's the cleaned up network version that you can play on a Vita, as well as "aftermarket" options. Strategy games aren't really about the graphics, of course, and the game is spectacular on its own terms, but uneven is uneven. Another area where the game has aged poorly is its Internet section, which provides some distractions from the meat of the experience, as well as world building. Sadly, it runs at the speed of dail-up, and doesn't really offer much incentive to keep coming back.

Anyway, despite subjective complaints about presentation, the actual combat system is a pleasing solid one, the kind where simple but elegant concepts get layered atop each other. You can simply just power through the violence like you would with a Final Fantasy, by grinding and simply buying shinier kit, but that's not really clever long term. You need to pay some attention, and experimentation is encouraged. Here's some of the things you need to consider.

1) Wanzers move and attack based on Action Points, which are also used in the enemy turn for defence and counterattack. You therefore have to strike a balance between offence, defence, and positioning.

2) Weapons have differing ranges and AP costs, as well as one of three damage types which a Wanzer could get bonuses against. So, you need the right weapon in the right place.

3) Furthermore, Wanzers have 5 distinct health bars, only one of which being fatal, while weapons alternate between a single big hit or a spray. Again, you need the right weapon in the right place, to wear down, cripple, and finally finish off your target.

4) While having healing items like a common JRPG, these have to be assigned to s specific Wanzer in a dedicated backpack. Certain weapons also have limited ammo, which also have reload items. This will result in design compromises.

5) Punching people is entirely possible due to the high accuracy and low AP cost. Such attacks do however allow the enemy to shoot a Wanzer before it strikes.

6) Finally, Battle Skills break these concepts in various ways, but triggering randomly so you can't rely on them. You can however chain them together for max damage.

I had some immense fun with all that. There's a some some real chunky goodness to all this if you care to look into it. The battles are often scripted, rather than having noteworthy AI, but the game does reward intelligent and adaptive play. I called this a "Lego mecha game" earlier, and that is very much the case. You can and should rebuild your Wanzers as you go, trying to optimise your designs and unlock new skills. However, if you want a character to keep their original Wanzer, you can do that too. Components can be upgradef multiple times, characters often having some handy skill in their starting mecha. The worst I can say is that a FAQ might be useful, because the game obscures that sort of information. Here's a video of what you are in for.

I've talked mainly about combat and how its presented so far, but there is in fact a story. Two of them. FM3 benefits from 2 lengthy narrative campaigns, each being the thick end of 40 hours. Which one you get is based on an innocuous choice, which sees characters switching roles, quite dramatically in some cases, but the broad-strokes remain the same. What starts as an espionage thriller, sees the cast flee Japan, becoming catspaws for a rival superpower, getting involved with a civil war in future-China, before returning to Japan to take on the Real antagonists. There's a lot of realpolitik going on, and there's enough meat to keep you interested, although I regret that its not really possible to go into the full merits here. The unfortunate thing is that this is relayed entirely through cutscences, not gameplay. Its a wall of text, something which I suspect console gamers of the time didn't welcome. Indeed, it's easy to go on autopilot with these sections, and maybe miss a few of the meaningful choices you can make. I did, completely missing one character for 20 odd years. Characters can also blur together after a while, going out of focus as the narrative forgets about them for a bit. There's no actual mechanical difference between them, as skills are based entirely on Wanzer parts, which can be a strength, but if you're gonna have this much freedom, you may as well allow full character creation. Either that, or give characters something unique to hang a hat on. That having been said, the narrative is never less than engaging, and while I like the gameplay more, seeing where the plot would go had its pull.

Conclusion

Front Mission 3 is very good at what it chooses to focus on, but it hasn't aged gracefully. A lot of the complaint s I make boil down to genre convention; you don't buy a game such as this for graphics, you buy it for the turned based combat. That's got a very specific appeal, and while the game makes efforts to present things well, those efforts were not treated well by time. Its not a game that' you'd use to convert someone to a genre, is you get my meaning? Fortunately, the actual gameplay has held up extremely well, and the story holds your attention. If you can get past its dated graphics and you're onboard with giant robots, give it a try. And then wonder where that month went.

Orks in 8th Edition: Command Points & Stratagems

OK, I said that I might write a bit about the newish Ork codex, and here we are. MUCH LATER. Let's start with one of the big ones, Command Points & Stratagems. I must confess I'm a late comer to this entire concept, Orks having extremely limited options until the new book. For the unfamiliar, Command Points (CP) are a resource generated by building your army in a specific way, which can be spent on special rules, Stratagems. Think of them as a hand of cards you can play(1), interrupting the normal turn sequence to affect the game. Orks can do rather well out of Stratagems, because our low cost units can enable a lot of them, granting flexibility to your forces. I'm not going to do a blow-by-blow of those available to Orks, these are fairly self-explanatory, but I will talk about a few highlights and how best to get them. 

The Basic Idea

The stratagem holy trinity is probably Teleportas, Ramming Speed, and Unstoppable Greentide. Basically everything choppy benefits from being teleported in, but it's a gorksend for your Deff Dreads and walkers. This has synergy with Ramming Speed, which can make the teleported vehicle a nasty surprise for people, as well of being handy for the new Speed Freek units. These two allow for what every ork force ultimately wants to do, getting in your opponent's face on your terms. Factor in Da Jump, and you can get a metric ton of stuff in the enemy deployment on turn 2, and this is where Unstoppable Greentide comes in. Not only do you get models back for free, you can redeploy the unit. While it is extremely predictable, a typical Battle Forged Ork force will start with these three stratagems in mind. However, you need CP from somewhere, and a lot of people start with something like this:

HQ

Weirdboy with Da Jump

Weirdboy with Fists of Gork

Troops

10 Gretchin

10 more Gretchin

Another 10 Gretchin

This basic battalion is and easy plug in for an existing force with an infantry element, and is a decent example of how to work more Command Points into your force. It only costs 214 points, grants 5 CP, and while grots are famously crap at actual fighting, even they have a use. The Grot Shields Stratagem allows them to protect other infantry like the famously bullet-prone Lootas, and if not, they can do the boring stuff like hold objectives. The Weirdboyz are also inexpensive, and bring two useful powers, and can Smite stuff in the absence of better ideas. This battalion is obviously not self-contained, and would require there to be a big unit of Boyz or similar to work properly, but it really wouldn't be difficult to add one, and then do exactly what you want with the rest of your points. Alternatively, a more self-reliant battalion might look like this:

HQ

Weirdboy with Da Jump

Big Mek with Shokk Attack Gun

Troops

30 Shoota Boyz, including a Nob with a Big Choppa

10 Shoota Boyz, including a Nob with a Big Choppa

10 Gretchin

This battalion is about footslogging and doing unglamorous jobs like supporting fire and holding objectives. There are two Stratagems you can use here, the aforementioned Unstoppable Greentide, and Mob Up. These are mutually exclusive, so don't mix them up, but using Mob Up to nail two units together and then jumping them somewhere is well-worth considering. Remember Ork units usually work best as big as possible. That said, clan kulture starts to make its presence felt here, requiring some tweaking. Goffs would definitely want to go the Skarboy route here, for example.

Going Further

OK, so you got a battalion, do you need more that? Possibly. Going for 2 battalions gives pretty much all the slots you'd need at under 2000 points and 10 CP, assuming you don't mind taking the mandatory Troop units and HQ. I come from the school that believes ork armies should have at least a hundred models in them, so I don't. This may not however be the case. One thing that tends to turn up a lot in the discourse is the idea of small formations of differing clans, maximising their speciality. Badmoons or Freebooters would like the Spearhead detachment, Evil Sunz would like Outriders, and so on. These do suffer from fairly minimal CP, so variants of the grot battalion seem more popular. Alternatively, if you are a clan purist(2), there's always the brigade. This grants more CP than 2 battalions, and requires one less HQ, but asks that you take a lot of everything. Fulfilling that requirement is tricky, but there is an inexpensive unit for each slot. Unfortunately, Orks don't do the whole “Multiple Small Unit” thing very well(3), so this really isn't sensible below 2000 points. Here's an example of what people are trying.

Bad Moons Battalion

HQ

Weirdboy with Da Jump

Weirdboy with Fists of Gork

Troops

10 Gretchin

10 more Gretchin

Another 10 Gretchin

Heavy Support

15 Lootas

10 Lootas

This is a culmination of what we've talked about so far. You Mob up the 2 Lootas, have them shoot, and them use the Bad Moon specific stratagem “Show-Offs” to make them fire again. Tactical Rerolls and More Dakka also have applications here, to maximise the Dethguns, and Grotshield will protect them from the inevitable attempts at revenge. Of course, this eats CP like me at an all-you-can-eat buffet, which is another reason why this is a battalion.

Wrapping Things Up

This concludes our brief look at the matter of Ork Stratagems. TL;DR try to have as many as possible.

Foot notes

1. Literally, in that you can buy them as cards.
2. Dodgy wording alert!
3. Possibly Deathskulls, but its a push.

The 8th Edition Ork Codex: Hang on, we can shoot now?

This article follows on a footnote in the previous article, a thought that just kept bubbling up when I tried to write about Orks. Shooting. Its a thing we do now. Its a good 90% of what those new models do. Its gone from being something we couldn't consider, to what people earnestly are building armies around. And I've found in the few games I've managed to play, its an element I've been having success with. But is this just novelty? Are we making up for lost time? Or are mistaking crumbs for a feast after a famine? This article discusses the issues.

I will now use the word “shooty” a lot.

Item 1: BS 5+ and Dakka Dakka Dakka
Even under ideal conditions, most Ork models are not marksmen. They hit a third of the time, but as most of their guns are short ranged with the Assault keyword, that often ends up halved. Dakka Dakka Dakka, or DDD for convenience, stops that from dropping to zero due to enemy bullshit like camouflage, but what excites people is the bonus shot a 6 generates. Ork guns put out a lot of shots anyway, so this creates the potential for a ridiculous damage output. Mathematically speaking however, and I'm sorry if you have already grasped this(1), you don't actually get that many actual hits out of it. Say 60 shots, no other modifiers. That's 20 hits, 10 of which generate more dice, and 3.333 ish extra hits. Or, if we treat the DDD bonus shot as improvement to accuracy, its a 5ish% increase on top of the basic 33.333%. Units with higher BS obviously do better, but we'll come back to them. This reality check is important, but it glosses over two important factors. The first is that when the gun is big enough, say a rokkit and above, the pay off is worth it. The second is that this triggers for Overwatch, where any additional shot is welcome, in hope of killing a model that strikes first. The takeaway from this is that DDD doesn't help the rank file that much, although shooty specialists do love it. DDD can be further improved with More Dakka, which is somewhat situational, but does grant 44.4% accuracy if needed.

Item 2: Bad Moons and Other Clans
As the designated shooty clan, Bad Moons obviously excel with guns although not in the way you may think. I honestly had to get help with the sums for this one, but the interaction between DDD and their culture boils down to 46.5% accuracy. This is a hair below "competent", AKA BS 4+, although it does pay dividends if the unit gets a +1 modifier. Bad Moons impress more with the Show-Offs stratagem, which is a straightforward doubling of damage output. Mob up some Lootas or Tankbustas, apply that, and opposition vanishes. So far, this has granted Bad Moons a certain popularity in competitive play, as part of a multi-clan strategy(2). Some other clans do also have shooty aspects, not as immediately powerful as Bad Moons, but enough so ranged units get a bonus without hampering the choppy ones. Deathskulls get many rerolls that help with the more unstable Ork weapons and the Wreckers Strategem. This leads to a lot of Kustom Megablasters and small units to max usage of the rerolls, but also big units of shooty specialists because Lootas are their thing. Also notably, their Opportunist warlord trait allows them to snipe characters. Freebooters inevitably feature Flash Gitz, but also shooty units in general, so as to trigger their Kulture, at which point you are looking at BS 4+ or better. Finally, Evil Suns don't suffer the negative of assault weapons, although that is obviously about going fast rather than dakka.

Item 3: Shooty Units
Ok, we've established that there are reasons to think Orks can be shooty. Do the actual units and their abilities back this up? I mean you get T'au players pointing to Kroot and the Farsight Enclaves as examples of "close range" and "melee", but that's only relatively speaking. Or are Orks more like Tyranids now? Mainly choppy, but quite capable at shooty, if they wish? Lets look at the codex as a whole. We're gonna pick out units that are overtly shooty. Ones that rely on shooting as their primary damage output, have a reasonable option of shooty for the price, or come with so many guns by default it would be dishonest to say they weren't. We are also gonna ignore any Kulture benefits, we're looking for a baseline.

HQ: Shokk Attack Gun, Deffkilla Wartrike, Kaptain Badrukk.
Troops: Shoota Boyz, (including Ard Boyz,) Gretchin.
Elite: Tankbustas, technically Burnaboyz.
Fast Attack: All of it bar Stormboyz, for a total of 7.
Heavy Support: Flashgitz, Gunwagon, Killa Kans, Lootas, Mek Guns and 'Orkanauts.
Fliers: all 4.
Lords of War: The Stompa.

Shooty units: 26.
Total units in codex: 47.

I think we can safely say Orks are shooty.

Is This Actually Wise?
Maybe, but context is important. On the competitive/tourney side of things, those shooty units that seem to be popular are those that fill a specific niche, tie in the aforementioned Bad Moons strategem. or are shooty as secondary function. For example, the Traktor Kannon has gained fans as it solves a historical problem with aircraft, while the Smasha Gun just blows up tanks very cheaply. Those units do have quite major limitations, such as the Gretchin crew preventing many bonuses, but they do the job. By comparison, Shoota Boyz turn up in hordes, going for the old Stalin quote about quantity. Shoota equipped Boyz do shoot, but given their effective range, its more something they do BEFORE they charge. This brings us back to the elephant in the room(3), the self-evident counterargument to any suggestion that Orks should shoot; Orks are really good at punching things. You don't see people talking too much about this as its so obvious. Ork profiles default to WS3+, A2, with a special rule about charging. Ork units typically put out more numerous and more accurate attacks in the Fight Phase than at range, and have numerous reliable delivery systems to get there. Basically all ork vehicles have an explicit melee function too, the only exceptions being supersonic aircraft and artillery. Even Gretchin units, whom have a obvious shooty bias, include Killa Kanz in their number with have 3 unique melee weapons now. Its just a lot harder for ork players to mess up punching than shooting.

The Conclusion
Orks are shooty again, but its about third or forth on the list of things they do. There's certainly the tools to build a compelling shooty army, but you'll run into some tactical preferences baked into the army design. This puts them slightly behind shooty Tyranids in my judgement, as bugs specialise more easily, but Orks can definately play against type better than punchy Astra Militarium or T'au(4). Dakka Dakka Dakka is very much the odd one out of the Ork rules; its an ensemble dark horse, a clearly welcome one, but the big picture for most players is unchanged. For those of you want to shoot though, go right ahead.

Foot Notes

1. Maybe skip a section, or two.
2. This is slightly outside the remit of the article, the idea of taking cheap detachments from different clans for different roles, while maximising Command Points, is a popular one.
3. I call him Dennis.
4. Don't @ me. Once those factions routinely give their Troops swords and pistols, we can talk.

The 8th Edition Codex Orks: My Thoughts

I really should dust this place more often. Yes. I'm back doing this blog again. Yes, its been ages. But, I've not felt like writing about stuff. So, there's been a new Ork Codex with new models. Before that, there was the 7^th ed codex, that sucked. Then 8^th ed happened which was good. Then the Ork index army list aged like a glass of milk left abandoned next to a radiator. Then, much later, we had Orktober. With the ACTUAL CODEX released November. Suffice to say, its been a long and annoying wait. Here are my first impressions, possibly to be followed by further articles.

The codex as a revised Index list
Now, what annoyed me so much about Orks being so late to a codex was that so much of it was obvious and simple. You could have done it in maybe 3 pages in a Chapter Approved. 1 page for discounted prices of about 10%, 1.5 pages for stratagems, and the rest for some kind of shooty rule. So, the first question I have to ask is: did they do the obvious bug fixes? My first instinct is to say yes, as I'm somewhat impressed with the end product. Not everything is as I'd like, but there's enough rebalancing so multiple playstyles are feasible. Its also noteworthy how many little additions have been made that so easily could have been ignored. Case in point, we now have three flavours of Battlewagon, and Kans get multiple different melee weapons. On the flipside, Boyz are now 7 points each, BOO! BOO, I SAY! But I can live with it. This leads us neatly to the next section.

The matter of shooty
Orks never suffered because they lacked close combat ability, they suffered because they lacked reliable tools for shooting. This is simply due to the nature of dice modifiers, which would completely disable such attacks by demanding a 7+ on a six-sided die. Of course Orks were never actually good at shooting, anyone whom claims otherwise is misspeaking at best or cherry-picking data at worst(1), but we shouldn't have been incapable. The result? A very melee-centric army with loads of infantry, and maybe some grot artillery. GW has came in, done the obvious fix, and took it further with the Dakka Dakka Dakka rule. This makes ranged attacks functional again, and fits in very well with existing units. Those of you wishing to make a go of it have plenty of choice too, with the Bad Moons being explicitly a shooty clan, with only Goffs and Snakebites selecting against it. Of course, the other reason for slow & choppy ork forces was overpriced fast stuff, so lets talk about the real reason you are here.


Freeks & new tactics
Orks are the first faction in a while to get new units, excluding beakies, and this brings another concern. GW has a habit of balancing rules to sell new models, which was the match that lit the raging dumpster fire that was the 7th ed codex. The question here is not necessarily do these new units work, its also "did they make something popular suck?" Well, as mentioned they did make boyz more expensive. Mek Guns got reworked too, removing crew shenanigans. And they declined to include a few units without current models, such as, surprise-surprise, the old trakks and buggies. These units seem to be both useful and characterful, a stark contrast to the mishandled launch of the 'Orkanauts. However, its rather difficult not to look at the Evil Suns rules and not say something like, "Yeah, this is too good.". You could easily have one rule removed from the Kulture and it still be powerful, but given how my old favourites Deathskulls turned out, maybe I shouldn't throw stones. Less cynically, the new speedwaagh units seem to be a culmination of something bubbling below the surface in Ork rules: vehicles as close combat units. Its not a new idea, as this can be found as early as 1992 with the old Epic game, and then appearing as dethrollas and wreking balls for more modern kits. Ork vehicles now clearly value the Fight Phase as much as the infantry do. And their role is to drive straight at the enemy lines, firing all the way, and then Tokyo Drift into people. I remain undecided as to which of these new ones are actually the must-haves, if the term can actually be applied to any of them. The Shokkjump Dragsta and Kustom Boostablasta seem to be the most obvious choices, but these models in general are hovering around the 120 points bracket for something with Trukk-like durability. People don't seem to like the Squigbuggy, I dunno. One thing more immediately useful is the Tellyporta strategem, which allows you drop a Gorkanaut anywhere you need it, which did win me a game.

Conclusion

Ehhhh, it looks OK.

Foot Notes

1) Don't even start with your 1^st edition, your Feral Orks or your Lootas. An accuracy of 50% is average, not good, and while you can have shooty orks, you can also have tough Aeldari. It doesn't mean all of them are.

Remembering Transformers Energon

A while back, I wrote an article about Transformers: Armada. That is to say my memories of the toys, its reception at the time, and its legacy. I like Armada a lot. It followed that I had to write about its sequel series, Energon. As you can see from the date tags, this took a while. Part of that is is the thing that biases me, I sell toys professionally these days, part of its the nature of Energon itself. Transformers Energon, known as Superlink in Japan, was following a legitimate success, granting it a big budget and a host of new fans awaiting for new toys. As it was also the 20^th Anniversary series, long term fans also saw tributes and homages. It was a fine position to start. Energon would however suffer from two problems, one stemming from the other. The first was that its play pattern wasn't as financially successful as Armada's, while the supporting media was notably bad. Or to paraphrase a mate of mine: the cartoon was pants, and half the Autobots turned into pants. Did the series deserve such a burn? Read on to find out.

The Energon Cartoon

Putting aside that Japanese exclusive series that cannot be mentioned in polite conversation, few things united the fandom in hatred like the English language version of the Energon cartoon. Every conceivable flaw was present that could be in a show broadcast on Cartoon Network. Make no mistake, the Japanese original was not good, with some major conceptual problems and wasted opportunities, but the localisation pushed it over the edge. Characters were computer animated, but had only 2 frames of facial animation. Character development was ignored. The interesting set-up Armada had provided, such as it was, was quickly dumped. Spelling errors in the titles cards, it goes on, I do recommend you watch it while drunk. The comic? Well, Dreamwave went bankrupt. The net result of this all was that the G1 collector crowd got G1 tributes, but handled badly so they weren't happy, while actual new ideas it did have suffered too.

Sourced from the wiki, the many moods of Ironhide 

Now, I'm not gonna bang on about production values, as that is self-evident. Nor will I mock Kicker Jones, his name does that for me. I will however summarise the good start Energon wasted. Armada, not a good series to be fair, ended with an Autobot/Decepticon alliance. Megatron was dead, but had left orders affirming that alliance, and none of the surviving named Decepticons were of the power hungry type, so it stuck. If you are wondering why Starscream wasn't all over that, well he'd died in a heroic manner, forcing that very alliance. The reason for this union was Unicron, whom was defeated at great cost, but a decade of peace followed. Then one of Unicron's minions, Alpha Quintesson, started taking actions to repair his master and generally started shit-stirring. He resurrected Starscream with amnesia, while Megatron basically rebuilt himself through sheer will. This resulted in conflicted loyalties all round, with some Autobot infighting too, and the potential for interesting character development.

None of this goes anywhere after the first 20 episodes. The series just devolves into repeated ploys to resurrect Unicron or find new Energon supplies. Star Trek: Voyager made a better use of its set up.

The Toyline in General

When writing about Energon toys, I realise that A) they are a minority in my collection, B) I tend towards the negative, and C) those might be connected. A big part of that's the fiction, but its also a matter of the design philosophy, and the first toys we saw. Energon shifted more towards actual articulation and the aforementioned fan-pleasing homage, which was good. It also had a lot in the way of Visible Head Syndrome, bulky electronics, and articulation was inconsistent, which was bad. It did have new ideas, which is good. Executing them? Eeeh, I don't want to say it was bad, but here's some pics of Optimus Prime.

Yeah.....So his altmode doesn't convince, he had no faceplate in early runs, and he's fatter than me on boxing day. These flaws largely arise from his pay pattern, and this sort of set the tone for early releases. Energon had a lot of scifi vehicles with exposed robot heads or other problems arising from gimmickry.

What gimmick was this? Well, it was not just one. Getting right down it, Armada had only really one gimmick, the Mini-Con. How each toy used that play pattern of course varied, and some toys suffered, but it was straightforward, and worked. Energon retained some of the Mini-Con functions, but added 5 gimmicks more, depending on how ya count, split between factions and size classes. This did mean play value was high, if a messy affair. A smaller, but perhaps more successful part of the line were the Energon Chips and Weapons, as carried by the scout-sized Omnibot and Terrorcon subgroups. These were modular translucent parts, usually offering a mix of choppy and shooty weapons which bigger toys could borrow. Said bigger toys had their own versions of this, but did something rather different as their selling point. Most Autobots got the Powerlinx gimmick where they combined as pairs, something to this day I'm not overly fond of. Combination of various forms was the biggest thing in Energon, but as Combiner Wars was a decade in the future, the execution here wasn't brilliant. The binary style was limited to the Autobots, with the combinations being under-articulated and not attractive, while leaving the Decepticons with faintly unconvincing “Hyper Modes”. This brings us back to the failings of the cartoon; it never made the 2 robot combinations look good, and it certainly didn't sell the Decepticon thing or anything else. And when you can't sell the toys, you've missed the point of the exercise.

Sourced from TFU.info, Energon Ironhide and Clifjumper combined.

Sorry, got on the cartoon again.

Meanwhile, there was a bit of a repaint thing going on. Yes kiddies, repaints in Transformers is not a new phenomenon, although with one very notable exception, Energon did simple reskins. Following a trend set by Armada, Energon was in the habit of redoing toys in different colour schemes, often intended to be new characters by Hasbro, but largely treated by Takara as upgrades. This fictional disagreement would come to a head later on, but this didn't do the perception of the line much good either, if only for the fact Armada toys were thrown in, and the showstopping Supreme class was 2/3s repaint. This probably played a big part in Energon's other big problem, shelfwarming. Stores just brought too many after Armada, so unpopular toys tended to stick around Eventually, the five bot “Maximus” combiner teams appeared, thus answering many fanboy prayers, but they suffered from the repaint thing too. Coming out at the tail end of the line, there were 3 teams, but only 9 distinct moulds, and no real hands/feet for the combined mode. These toys were sufficiently well-received that they were getting re-releases circa 2009, but some of the first unofficial add-on kits I ever saw were for these toys, addressing these issues. And yes, the cartoon was so incompetent as to ignore that these were combined teams.

The Highlights

So what did Energon do well? Actually quite a lot, its just Middle Child Syndrome given what Armada and Cybertron managed to do. The style of binary combination basically makes the Autobots exponentially fun if you can get over the look. Dozens of combinations were possible. Maybe hundreds, I can't be arsed to do the sums. Optimus even got Wingsaber to balance him out, in a notable example of 2 wrongs making a right. Deceptions were varied, and still hold up for the most part. The smaller toys of both factions featured some great pocket money transformers. So, lets pick out some interesting ones.

Energon Startscream

For the Combat class, what we would recognise as today as deluxes, an early front runner was Starscream, and probably my favourite iteration of the character. In terms of engineering, he bears a striking resemblance to G2 Smokescreen, so much so people cried retool. No, its a new mould, and while it copies a lot, its copying from a damn good source. He's also got this lovely undead/wraith/ghost/ethereal motif going on, and the option to combine his weapons into a sword as big as he. On the Autobot side there is Tow-Line, a mishmash of Autobot vanformers, whom does something unusual with the binary combination thing. He can, in a gift to adolescent sniggering, powerlinx with himself, or two other Autobots at the same time. A pretty solid toy overall, good for customising. Other noteworthy Combats include: Snowcat, a tubby robot with skis whom copied his altmode from G.I. Joe, and Roadblock, a fairly involved retool of Inferno.

 Tow-Line

The tiny wee toys of the Energon probably are the ones that hold up to the test of time. There's some duffers of course, but the partnership of balljoints and good accessories ages well, many ended up being reissued/repainted at length. The first ACTUAL GODDAMN ARCEE figure came from this price bracket, as did most of the combiner teams, and provided you don't pick one with compromised articulation like Insecticon, you are probably in for a good time. Battle Ravage and Strongarm are two of my favourites here, good allrounders.

 Battle Ravage

On the larger side of things, there's Landmine, one of the rare completely new characters. Transforming into an armoured snowplough, he is notable for his "brute mode", which, well, LOOK AT IT!

An awesome toy I which I regret not having any more. On the decepticon side, well, we got a second boatformer, Mirage. And Megatron carries a weapon seemingly made from his own corpse, which is almost as awesome as Landmine.

 Mega-Dinobot

Because Hasbro was flush with money, we got some unusual side merch. Alpha Quintession got a toy, Kicker got 2 toys, couple of roleplay toys, and we got a Dinobot combiner featuring Grimlock and Swoop. Not hugely good by reputation, that set is notable for being designed by Takara employees, which might explain things.

And finally, the toy that prompted this article, Omega Supreme. The big dude suffered in that he was following Unicron, and is quite uncomplicated,  while giving prioity to an unconvincing optimus combination. That however is not the same as saying he is boring, not by a long, long way. Omega Supreme is assemetrical, splitting into an alledged train and an awesome battleship.  Omega was also a titanmaster before it was cool, and features a tiny reserve head as an adorible back up. He is a bit more Armada than Energon, and has an immense presence. 

Wrapping Things Up

In many respects, Energon can be viewed as a reaction to criticism of Armada from the collectors side of the fanbase. This is evident from the generally improved articulation of these toys, although not quite pre-armada levels, and the sheer number of G1 homages evident. As it was the 20^th Anniversary series, some pandering was inevitable, but legitimately new characters are in the minority, and the vast majority of the returning ones were retrofitted into tributes. It wasn't entirely that way of course; the new form of combination had promise, and perhaps should have found more success with kids. The reason it didn't? I dunno, the cartoon was bad, but there's been plenty of successful Transformers toylines with objectively terrible media, i.e. most of them. But, the cartoon never really made the gimmick look cool, I suppose. And, lets be honest here, if you do a direct sequel to something and largely dump everything that made the original special, it doesn't end well. Just ask Beast Wars fans.

The toys though? Those were good, and that's what matters.

Images are largely sourced from the wiki, and remain the property of their respective holders. Let me know if you want them removed.