Transformers Fan Favorite Titans Return Trypticon Revealed – How Does It Compare to G1?

The Transformers fans’ choice for the Titans Return subline has finally been revealed in full. Trypticon made his debut at this past weekend’s 2017 Toy Fair after months of excruciating teases where we got a glimpse here and there of the greebly T-Rex goodness in store.

It was worth the wait. For those that aren’t  familiar with Trypticon, go check out my review of the Platinum Edition re-release of the G1 toy. Suffice to say, a T-Rex that transforms into a city and “battle base” is an odd addition to Transformers lore. But as is often the case with unusual toys from my childhood, it’s the weirdness that makes me love it even more.

The updated Titans Return Trypticon might not challenge Fortress Maximus in size, clocking in at 20 inches (just a hair taller than the 19-inch G1 toy). But it’s about as faithful an homage figure as Hasbro could make. The chunky dino proportions are there, the space bridge knees are still there in city mode, the “spaceship” mode even has the conspicuous false eyes! There are stability tines on the feet of the dino (even though he lacks the Generation 1 toy’s electronics) and the transformation between modes looks to be strikingly similar (though the Titans Return spaceship mode is much better than the G1 battle base). The deco is perfect as well (though I’m already looking forward to seeing what Reprolabels will have in store for the figure), sharing the same color blocking as the original figure throughout.

While Trypticon is missing its electronics, it gets something even better in exchange – being a Titans Return figure, Trypticon’s former drone, Full Tilt, gets a deluxe-sized upgrade (ala Fort Max’s Cerebros) with its own Titan Master, Necro (Sadly, he isn’t Wipe-Out, the autonomous but servile bot who was Trypticon’s partner in the original Marvel Transformers comic). They’re not to scale here, but you can see the new design is a very faithful update to the original.

All that space that was taken up in the original design by electronics can now be dedicated to what’s possibly the best play feature of the entire Titans Return line. Trypticon can “swallow” Titan Masters and store them in his torso! I give enormous credit to the Hasbro design team. The updated sculpt alone would have been more than enough to satisfy dedicated G1 Transformers fans; but they put in the extra work to create a toy that’s fun to play with too. Creating the play feature wasn’t a simple task, however. When asked what the most challenging part of the update was, Hasbro’s designers actually pointed to it as their main sticking point:

The biggest challenge when creating this figure was perfecting the design of its eating feature. It’s easy to say you want to create a giant dinosaur Transformers figure that also eats Titan Masters, but the execution presents some difficulties. In order to create the illusion that Trypticon is eating Titan Masters, we needed to design a throat to reinforce the “eating” feature. There were a number of design and engineering factors that we had to take into account, including the diameter of the neck, while also allowing for high articulation that we know the fans love.

Titans Return Trypticon is a gob-smackingly good update to one of the most distinctive toys of the original Transformers toy line. What struck me when comparing them side-by-side was how a figure that I already thought was “as good as it can get” was almost immediately rendered simplistic. I love G1 Trypticon; but the new Titans Return bot looks like Trypticon does in my memory of the original toy. Retailing at $149 this fall, he’ll be on par with Fortress Maximus for size and price point. Keep an eye out this fall for my full review!

In the meantime, sate yourself with this impressive turnaround footage of the actual figure at Toy Fair 2017, courtesy of GeekDad Matt Blum:

Liked it? Take a second to support GeekDad and GeekMom on Patreon!