PotP Alchemist Prime & Submarauder **Proofed Skyquake87**

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ganon578
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PotP Alchemist Prime & Submarauder **Proofed Skyquake87**

Post by ganon578 »

Name: Alchemist Prime & Submarauder
Subgroup: Power of the Primes
Size Class: Prime Master

The Prime Master of Alchemist Prime grants bots mystical scientific abilities. How will the Autobots and Decepticons use these vast scientific powers? Anything is possible and everything is at stake when the Power of the Primes is unleashed!

I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to buy any more Prime Masters after Metalhawk. Then after several impulse purchases here and there (hey, for $5 while I’m shopping for other random items, why not?) I ended up with all eight of the main retail Prime Masters. Mind you, I didn’t own any of the originals, nor did I even know they existed back then. But here we are in 2018, and I’ve grown fond of these guys, even though they don’t do a whole lot. My son likes them too, so maybe that’s why I continue to grab them. Submarauder is pretty fun, even though the design itself adds nothing new or special to the Prime Masters line.

Pretender Mode:

There isn’t much to do with these Pretender shells besides standing there with a touch of arm movement… the real judgement comes from sculpted details, paint apps, and likeness to the original. From those points, Submarauder does just fine. The sculpting is well done with little details all over like scales and such, and unlike the inner Prime Master (more on that later) there are some decent paint apps here and there. The shell has some nicely done red eyes, orange ‘gills’, blue torso parts, and a pink belt (with a tiny ‘Con logo as a belt buckle!). The only deco missing from the original is the green spots on the arms and legs. There’s enough here to make the figure look really nice while being a fine update to the original toy.

Weapon Mode:

Submarauder’s weapon mode is a trident. This at least makes sense as far as underwater/oceanic things go, and isn’t some sort of nonsensical deadly garden rake (lookin’ at you Skullgrin & Bomb-burst). I find the trident to be a bit goofy for figures to wield on its own, but when jacked into the ‘buckler’ parts that come with Voyagers, the mode becomes a little more fun and seemingly more useful. At least now there’s a use for those combiner feet when they’re not combined! On the downside, there isn’t much paint around to spruce it up, except for a tiny bit of pink applied to the trident forks.

Alchemist Prime:

Alchemist Prime is standard as far as these little guys go. The molded detail is fine, but paint apps are scarce and leave him looking quite bland – even a painted face would do wonders. The figure is a blend of white and light blue plastic, with some black dabs on his back for this Prime symbol. It’s also disappointing that Alchemist Prime couldn’t have a closer plastic color to the original inner figure, which was mostly pink with light blue. I think that’s a missed opportunity, and an easy one to have been done. This one charts up as a big ‘meh’.

Marks out of ten for the following:

Transformation Design: There really isn’t a transformation, per se. It does what it needs to do. 5/10.
Durability: Solid all around. 8/10.
Fun: You won’t be endlessly occupied, but in the grand scheme of cross-play, Submarauder & AP do fairly well. 7/10.
Aesthetics: Submarauder looks great and is a fine update of the original. More paint apps on Alchemist would have helped a lot. 6/10.
Articulation: These weren’t designed to have articulation, so there isn’t much to judge here. 5/10.
Value/Price: These come on the cheap, but the real joy is found with cross-play with other figures. 6/10.
Overall: Submarauder is better than some of the other Prime Masters, but the bar wasn’t set high. If you have to choose one or two of the set, I would peg Submarauder as a good choice. 7/10.
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Skyquake87
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Post by Skyquake87 »

Great review. Sums up my feelings about this guy too!
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Warcry
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Re: PotP Alchemist Prime & Submarauder **Proofed Skyquake87**

Post by Warcry »

Submarauder's easily the prettiest of the shells, in my opinion.

Does anyone else have trouble with his shell not closing all the way, though? The tabs that are supposed to fit into slots around shoulder height constantly pop out on mine, leaving a crack between the front plate and the back of the shell.
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