Toy Review: Transformers Generations Studio Series Airachnid (One) (Deluxe)

Review:  #918

Name:  Airachnid

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Decepticon

Line:  Generations - Studio Series

Year of Release:  2026

Size Class:  Deluxe (Wave 30)

Mold Status:  new

VEHICLE MODE:

Based upon her appearance in the Transformers One movie, Airachnid transforms into a drone, with three propellers.

Only the larger rear propeller can rotate / spin.

Given her slight build in robot mode, it is only naturally that she isn't too big here either.  Most of the mass is at the front, given half the length is the rear propeller which are just some slim pieces of plastic.

From the side, you can see how slim her profile is, given the difficulty of this character, it is amazing that the designer managed to get something working, let alone actually being decent.

The only negative here is the front, since they're hollow pieces.  They're actually piece that cover the forearms in robot mode.  Behind these are guns, but the forearm pieces cover that, so it feels a little bit of a letdown here.

Given the slim build, there really was nowhere else for the robot arms to go, so they're quite obvious sitting at the front.

The rear propeller assembly is impressive, since they're thin pieces attached in a circular shape.  You would have expected either one solid piece that's thicker than this due to breakage reasons, but the designer managed to pull it off.

A stellar vehicle mode, considering the limitations of what the designer had to work with.

TRANSFORMATION:

Given the unusual vehicle and robot mode, the transformation isn't too boring either.  The top half of the front are the robot arms, while the bottom halve are the legs (which includes the two smaller propellers).  The rear propeller assembly ends up being a backpack of sorts, but it splits into four sections, that simulate "spider legs" (think in the style of Spiderman).

ROBOT MODE:

Airachnid's robot design would have been touch to pull off, let alone one that has to transform and yet they managed to do such a great job here.

They even managed to pull off the four spider legs off her back in such a convincing manner!  That was the most iconic part of the design so it's great that it was able to be included into this figure.

The head sculpt is fine, although like the rest of the One toys, their facial expressions are too neutral and robotic.

If you look closely, you can see Airachnid's other eyes, and they're all painted purple, a nice bit of detail there.

In terms of size, surprisingly, she is around the height of a normal Deluxe, however, of course, she's a lot slimmer.

The spider arms off her back is her most iconic feature, and it is jointed various places.  It's not perfect though, and it can be tough to get the bottom two legs to actually touch the ground.

She comes with two weapons, and they attach to her forearms as blasters.

Articulation is fine, she has joints for her head, shoulders, elbows, hips and knees.

While her spider arms are jointed, they're not jointed in a particularly useful way.  They look great in a neutral position hanging off her back, but they cannot rotate forward to attack and look good in the process.

While those spider arms are not required to keep the character standing, they are actually strong enough to support the whole figure if need be.

The feet are literal thin pieces of plastic, and they have a heel.  By all rights she should not be able to balance well, and yet she does, and she keeps her balance so easily even when you're posing her in all sorts of ways.

The color palette is a bit drab, given all the grey, and barely any other paint applications to add some contrast.

Her legs are the weakest part of the design, particularly the thick thighs.  It's a shame given that the rest of the robot mode is really good.

Still, the thick thighs can be forgiven, since the robot mode could have been a floppy mess but isn't, and is actually a really nice robot mode to play around with.

OVERALL:

Airachnid is a well designed figure.  You might have doubts given the difficulty of her design, but they managed to pull it off in both modes.  The drone mode is unique and cool, as is her robot mode.  The robot mode's only weakness are the thick thighs and they're an aesthetics thing.  It's a solid toy and one that's well worth getting.

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Astral Chain (Switch)

Astral Chain was developed by PlatinumGames, so you’d know the combat system will be stylish and will be where most of the focus on the game will be. Although the combat does start off very limited in the first few hours, and you’re left wondering if that is it. Get past the first hour and it starts to open up and persist for around three hours before it finally gives you more options and extra variety, to the point where you can start experimenting and enjoying yourself.

The game is set in the future where the world is under attack by these things called chimera. They’re invisible to most people, and they appear whenever red gates appear. They posed such a threat to humanity that they have created an “ark” where the chimera supposedly cannot never reach. Of course, that didn’t completely work out and now humanity needs to fight against these enemies again.

Upon starting up the game, you’ll select either the male or female version of the character. The other gender will become your sibling. Unfortunately, the character you picked will be a silent protagonist, while the other sibling will be fully voiced. It’s a weird design choice. Anyway, your character will soon gain the ability to see the chimera. When you join Neuron, the police taskforce dedicated to fighting the chimera, you’d learn that they come from the Astral Plane, which is basically a gate to another dimension. The only way to fight these enemies is with Legions, which are chimeras that have been chained to the person utilizing them.

The premise may sound interesting, but the initial (and eventual) developments are anything but. The story ends up being overly generic and it takes a long while to get going, even though the graphics are nice to look at. The highly stylized cel-shaded graphics look fantastic. The story is via “files”, which are basically chapters and they’re all structured very similarly to each other. There will be a beginning section where there will either be an investigation section, or a free roam section to do sidequests, followed by the combat section that moves the story forward.

This is an action game and it’s not your typical one. Your character has a basic attack, with the twist here being the Legions. You can summon a Legion with the press of a button and can control them to a degree. Leave them alone and they’ll automatically attack the enemy, however all special attacks will be reliant on your control (whether is a special ability that you activate manually, or a “sync attack” where you press a button when the light flashes). They utilize the chained nature in a way, such as using the right stick to move them around an enemy to immobilize them or pull the chain tight in the trajectory of their charge to trip them over.

Combat may sound and feel awkward at first, and it is, but when you gain more abilities and get a hang of it, it is fast paced and fun. You cannot leave your Legion out all the time as there is a depleting gauge that acts as a countdown timer which forces your Legion to disappear. The Legion is also worked into the platforming segments. Eventually, you’ll gain additional Legions that fight differently, and the ability to upgrade them. Unfortunately, with the fast-paced action, battles are often chaotic and it is hard to keep track of what is happening. There are too many times where you end up fighting in a tight space, and for a game with a problematic camera, this is a big flaw.

The camera often doesn’t quite know what to do. The enemies like to jump around, and the default setting has the camera trying to follow them around. The camera moves around quickly, and it becomes disorientating. You can disable the auto-follow but then you’ll have to manually try to track down the fast-moving enemies. It’s a tough choice as neither option is the perfect solution.

Even though combat is a big focus, a huge chunk of the game is other non-combat stuff. The characters are part of the police force, so they’re often investigating what is happening. Usually, it is something to do with the chimeras, but you walk around and talk to other characters, investigate the scene, and through that, you’ll gain clues to eventually unveil what happened there. There is a view that you can activate to show all the objects of interest in an area.

Sadly, the non-combat stuff ends up being menial as their mechanics are poorly designed. The same goes for the environment and level design. The cyberpunk setting looks great at first, until they constantly reuse the same environments. You’ll come to dread the platforming, stealth and minigames. Everything else feels shoehorned in. The platforming, for example is not precise enough to feel good. It is awkward and you’ll probably lose more health by accidentally falling off a platform than damage from enemies. The non-combat sections break the pacing too much, grinding all action to a halt with their half-baked mechanics.

There is a lot of padding and filler content where it drags the game out with barely any meaningful story content. It wants to be JRPG, but it is an action game, so a lot of the things it tries to do feel out of place. It manages to stretch the game to around 15 to 20 hours to complete the story mode, which has an underwhelming ending that ends quite abruptly, only to then give you some still images with a voiceover as the finale. Sadly, it never reaches any heights with its storytelling as it’s just so bland all the way through.

The postgame is comprised of numerous combat sections, which is also tedious in its own way. The biggest replay factor will be replaying each of the different Files as you are ranked in each of them. Ranking comes from completing all side missions, finding all items, and stylishly defeating enemies. On top of that, there are multiple difficulty options, with the easier ones allowing you to completely ignore all the ranking stuff so that you can progress and enjoy the game for its story.

Overall, Astral Chain had a lot of potential, especially coming after Nier: Automata, and having such an interesting premise. Unfortunately, it falls down on two key areas, that being a bland story, and too much padding and filler content that detract from what makes the game fun. Combat is its saving grace but even then, it takes a while to get into and can be finnicky to master. It will take time and effort to learn, which not all players will have the patience for.

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Toy Review: Transformers Age of the Primes Amalgamous Prime (Voyager)

Review:  #917

Name:  Amalgamous Prime

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Autobot

Line:  Age of the Primes

Year of Release:  2026

Size Class:  Voyager (Wave 4)

Mold Status:  new

TANK MODE:

Amalgamous Prime is a shapeshifter, which is a bit hard to translate into toy form.  Thus, he defaults to a spider tank.

Spider tanks are usually one of the lazier alternate modes a Transformer may have, and it's no exception here.  The robot feet jut out the back since there's nowhere else for it to go.

Amalgamous is a Voyager class figure, although he feels quite light for the size.  Most of the budget went into his gimmick, which we'll get to later.

He balances on four legs, which are the robot arms.  Although the hands are permanently sculpted like that, so they don't feel like legs at all in this mode.

It's also a really odd tank.  The front doesn't really have much of a cockpit, and the two orange things on either sides are weird (and at first glance, they can be mistaken for eyes).

The robot scythe forms the cannon, but it's not great either.  The handle sticks out the back, and the cannon itself feels too small.

However, the gimmick here, and this ties into the shapeshifting nature of the character, is that he's like a Weaponizer, and can break into many many pieces.

Each piece has various vehicular sculpting, and you can mix and match to create new alternate forms.

The instructions start you off with five other configurations using the various parts, including an armored train and mini tanks.

Some of them require imagination, but on the whole, this gimmick actually works really well, especially if you are the creative type.

It's an impressive amount of engineering to design the various pegs and ports, and vehicular sculpting to pull this off.

TRANSFORMATION:

Amalgamous Prime requires some partsforming to get into robot mode, and given his odd alternate mode and robot mode, it may not be the most intuitive on what goes where without using the instructions.  In summary, the legs of the spider tank form the four arms.  The back of the bank form the legs, and the core of the tank form the torso.

ROBOT MODE:

Amalgamous is... an odd robot.  He's oddly proportioned, with four arms, and large feet, all in a hunchback shape.

However despite that, he has a certain amount of chart to his design, and you gotta give him points for being super unique.

The head sculpt is good, although it is very reminiscent of Shockwave (redeco him into purple and he'll pass off fine enough as Shockwave).

Due to his hunchback and wide stance, he's shorter than most Voyagers.  He feels lighter too given the prevalence of hollowness in all his parts.

Articulation is fine, he has joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

However, his arms are jointed in a really weird way so that it is not immediately intuitive in posing them and moving them to where you'd want them to be.

A gimmick here is that his head is detachable, and his eye is actually his artefact (complete with his insignia).  It's tough to pull out though given it is round, small and smooth, so it's difficult getting your grip on it.

His robot weapon is a scythe, with some clear plastic elements, making it look really cool.  He has hold it in any of his four hands.

The other weapon is a small grey pistol which he can also hold in his hand.

The pistol can attach to the back of his scythe, and there's another small plastic knob that attaches to the end of the handle too.

He has the backwards facing knees (aka chicken feet from the live action movies), which is not ideal either.

An absolutely unique robot mode that's sure to stand out.

OVERALL:

Amalgamous Prime is an intriguing figure.  Given the shapeshifting ability of the character, the designer has done a fantastic job of translating it into toy form.  Having him able to break apart, with plenty of attachment points and vehicular kibble, means that there are tons of options (especially if you get multiple of him).  The same goes for robot mode, since you're not fixed on just having that default form, but even if those two modes are all you will leave him with, he's still an interesting enough toy to get.

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