When Hasbro announced that it would be making its own line of LEGO-esque building block sets, I was skeptical. When they announced that the first line would feature Transformers, I was more interested in the minifigures, Kreons, than anything else. Unfortunately, the only way to get Kreons was to buy larger sets. More recently, Hasbro has realized that blindpacked individual minifigures is a good way to go, but they have also used the Kreons to market cheap versions of combiners. Devastator is the original, and my favorite of the combiners, so I figured that this version would be a good way to test the waters of Kre-O.
While originally Devastator has been formed from six different robots, this version makes do with only four, as do the rest of the Kre-O combiners. The minifigures are similar to LEGO minifigures, but have enhanced articulation. The shoulders and hips are ball joints, while the hips can swivel. The heads underneath the helmets even have slightly angular shapes for the chins. They somehow feel less solid than LEGO minifigures, but that may in part be due to my being so used to the LEGO versions that something different feels wrong. Three out of the four Constructicons has an armor chest piece which holds on pieces for the back. They're kind of plain looking, which is too bad because the actual chests have designs printed on them which aren't visible in Devastator mode either.
Because these are building toys and not regular action figures, the way to transform the figures from robot to altmode involves rebuilding to some degree. In either mode, there are pieces left over. Mixmaster turns into what is presumably meant to be a cement mixer of some sort, but he doesn't really look like anything. I think Scrapper turns into a Bulldozer, or maybe that's what Bonecrusher is meant to be. Scavenger is one of those cool giant scoopers. The altmodes aren't the greatest thing in the world, but from what I've seen, that holds true of all the Kreons so far. It is still cool that there are minifugures that can transform, though. Tiny construction vehicles aren't the reason I bought this set, though.
After basically pulling everything apart, you can build Devastator, using pieces that weren't used for any of the individual parts (much like the original), and once again leaving other parts unused. It's about the size of a 3.75 or 4 inch figure. With the largely green and purple color scheme, and the overall blockiness, it does a good job of evoking the original Devastator. I think the arms and thighs are a bit thin looking, and I know that some other people have had luck at customizing the build with a better looking result, so I'll have to give that a try. I like the design of the legs best, as it actually uses the legs and torsos of the Kreons, while the arms only incorporate the minifigure legs as its hands.
Also included is a display brick. Perfect for balancing Devastator on one foot with! Overall, I think this is fairly cool. It's a pretty decent value, since it's slightly cheaper than four LEGO minifigures, and about the same price as a standard 3.75 or 4 inch figure these days. There are three other combiners to choose from, so I may get one later on.
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