Transformers: Generations: Netflix War for Cybertron Trilogy Deluxe Sideswipe

The Netflix Siege series represents everything that is wrong with Hasbro these days. Unimaginative repaints, abysmal quality control, and deplorable distribution. The first two are self explanatory, and you can read more about them in my reviews. Walmart put these up for preorder after/during Toy Fair. They were to be released April 1st (I think, or close to that, beginning of April for sure). I ordered mine that first week. Now I realize that Covid-19 screwed up distribution of all kinds of things, but that didn’t become a big deal in the US until the middle of March. These toys should have been well on their way to distribution by then. The toys should have shipped when they were supposed to. I got e-mails right around the release date saying they would be delayed until May (Ultra Magnus) and July (the rest). I ended up finding all of them but Ultra Magnus in store long before the expected ship date. I’m sure some will blame Walmart for the distribution problems, but if Hasbro is going to announce a release date and the vendor is not going to make good on that, then they shouldn’t give them exclusives. They can sell all their exclusives through Pulse. No reason to make things exclusive to companies that won’t deliver on time.

Sideswipe

Previous Mold Use: Siege Sideswipe, Siege Red Alert, Siege Covert Clone Sideswipe

I’m not sure this should even qualify as a repaint. The colors are altered slightly to make him darker, and then more battle damage than her originally had was added. They still can’t paint this mold correctly. There is still a black section behind his front wheel wells that should be red. He also still doesn’t come with all the weapons he should have. I would be celebrating if they had given us a properly painted non-battle damaged version, but that is apparently never going to happen. I don’t get it. You do an exclusive line of toys based on the new cartoon, and give us basically the same toy we got previously with some black paint splattered on it? That’s really the best they could do? What a waste. At least they could have done a line of repaints with some silly name prefix, like Power Shock Sideswipe, or Secret Mission Sideswipe, or Still Not Properly Painted . At least the last one would be honest.

Overall: I give up.

Thanks for reading!