Bamboozled.

I got this KO for Christmas back in 2008. He only cost RM50 ($13) way back then.

I was so excited since for the life of me no one could get their hands on an original Armada Optimus Prime. Getting even a KO of it would be great!

I opened it. Lo and behold it was simplified in two major ways. First, they gutted the automatic trailer transformation. I expected that so no problem. The second simplification was what shocked me. They gutted the insides of the trailer. Without the parts they took cut out, the base mode was just sad.

There were other simplifications that I didn’t notice for years. Like they took out the moving mouth feature, the Matrix and the light up hand. Also, they didn’t include his Mini-Con. They actually added some things though. They put in their own lights and sound gimmicks in his super mode chest and gave him two massive combining guns that he can’t use.

It sounds like I’m being negative about Optimus here but honestly I love him. Even with all of his simplifications he was still a good toy that I had a great time with. His plastic was dense and heavy for a KO. His joints were tight and all his posability was still there. He could still transform into all his modes. And the most important part. His super mode was still massive and imposing. Optimus here was the undisputed emperor of my Unicron Trilogy KOs.

My copy is broken in a couple of places after years of play. Half his massive gun was painted silver in a botched custom attempt. And also his joints were tight before. Now they’re floppy in some places. I wanna get around to restoring Optimus at some point.

Super robot mode

Robot mode

Base mode

Vehicle mode