After all the hype about Fortress Maximus and the fan-choice Trypticon for the Transformers Titans Return line at Toy Fair this year, I had an undeniable urge to get a city bot of my own. Luckily, Hasbro re-released the Decepticon robo-dino city himself, Trypticon, last year as part of their Platinum Edition line.
Having never owned any of the city bots back in the ’80s, I wasn’t sure how well Trypticon would hold up to today’s toy standards. He’s an aqua, purple, and gray Godzilla/Cybertronian city/battle base. Does this weird mish-mash still work over 25 years later? Surprisingly, it does. Trypticon has a chunky ’80s vibe, perfectly suitable for a walking engine of destruction. Transformation is simplistic; you essentially filet the dino, but the resulting city has tons of visual interest, with towers, ramps, and landing pads. The battle base is slightly less interesting–it’s essentially the mid point between dino and city–but it still manages to add in some new artillery, which is fun.
The one part where Trypticon shows his age? His stickers. There aren’t a lot of them and the ones that are there are pretty basic. Trypticon’s companions, Full Tilt and Brunt, got the worst of this, barely having any deco at all. Also, for whatever reason, whether it be factory application or warehouse storage conditions, the stickers looked pretty rough. I found ragged edges and improperly sticking applications throughout the toy.
But rather than let a few stickers dampen my enjoyment, I did what I often do, dropped a line to Toyhax and had them send me their Reprolabels Trypticon and Full Tilt Upgrade sets. Once they arrived, it was time for a bit of surgery: peeling off the labels and cleaning up with Goo-Gone and a cotton swab what residue was left behind.
I should have taken pictures of the sticker sheets before I applied them because they’re a sea of chrome-y goodness. The chrome really accentuates the chromed accents of the original toy and brings out some of the smaller details on Trypticon’s head. The Full-Tilt upgrades make him much more than a purple blob when he’s serving as the chest plate. Brunt also looks fantastic in tank mode–gaining treads and headlights that are molded into the plastic, but not detailed at all.
City mode is where the upgrade set really shines. All those molded towers get stickers to bring out the windows. The helipad and landing strip get new stickers that are color-coordinated with the toy’s aqua plastic. There are also fun details added in, like bathroom stickers and computer consoles. The space bridges at the ends of the walkways also get labels and new coordinated stickers. Brunt’s upgrade stickers also shine here. Since it gets broken down into towers for the city, it also gets tower window upgrades.
Full Tilt looks like a whole new toy–all the details that get lost in the original mold, like his visor, are chromed out. He even gets some details that the mold skipped over, like proper fists.
The Battle Base, despite being my least favorite mode, gets a major visual upgrade with the addition of a windshield and headlights, diamond deck plating, and chromed gun barrels.
And the whole upgrade looks even better in motion! Motorized Transformers went the way of the cyber-dodo a long time ago, so it’s nice to be able to appreciate a few pounds of Hasbro ingenuity lumbering along:
I’ve enjoyed these Platinum Edition re-releases from Hasbro greatly. Trypticon is no different. With the addition of the Toyhax Reprolabels upgrade, it makes it a toy that I’m excited to display along with my other modern Transformers, not just shove on the shelf for nostalgia’s sake. I can’t wait to see what Hasbro does to upgrade Trypticon for Titans Return, till then my upgraded G1 will fill the gap nicely.
