Jarugar and Trypticon (Transformers: Age of Extinction Kre-O Microchangers)

Some months ago, I reviewed a few characters from the Transformers 4: Age of Extinction blind-bagged Kreons. But I bought several others too – so let’s look at two Decepticons today, Jarguar and Trypticon.

Jarugar changes into a car. This is unfortunate, as I hate the Kreon cars. While some of them look good, the articulation of the arms and legs on the Kreon body makes them quite flimsy, and they don’t hold together particularly well. Move it slightly and wheels start popping off, pieces don’t hold…it’s a pain in the butt. You’ll also notice that there’s no photo of him in alt mode, but if you’re really keen you can see it here. As you’ll read on that link, building him in alt mode works even more poorly than normal cars in this line.   

Nonetheless, he’s a cool-looking grey bot. His burgundy dual-wielded guns are particularly flash, and he makes for a solid, if unspectacular addition to my Decepticon forces.

Trypticon is a little more interesting, given that he is a giant purple tyrannosaurus rex. How could that possibly go wrong? Oh, wait…

Obvious jokes aside, Trypticon is fun in his T-Rex mode, and perfectly serviceable in his bot mode. I’d love to see more of this design in different colourways. My only real issue (and this applies to Jarguar too) is that their paintjobs have clearly been inspired by the Michael Bay style of Transformer, where there are zillions of moving parts -- this works fine for the movies, but for this style of figure, I tend to think simpler is better.  

Essentially, neither of these guys really blew me away, but Trypticon in particular is a fun addition to my small collection. 

It seems that the Microchangers theme has come to an end, but we will see another blind-bagged Kreons line sometime in 2015, re-branded as Kreon Warriors. Will they make it to Australia? Given that these guys are still pretty easy to find almost a year after the movie came out and that Collection 2 of the Age of Extinction Microchangers never made it here, I'm a little sceptical. But it's been a reasonably fun ride while it has lasted.