Whereas Transformers Prime was a combination of Animated and
Bayformers, Robots in Disguise 2015, its direct sequel, was a combination of
Prime and Rescue Bots (next week). Doing this one early as I have been keeping
up with RID 2015, so unlike Rescue Bots, it’s the perfect thing to review while
I’m at the Tech Games Fest during this week. So with that out of the way…
It has been years since the events of Predacons Rising. Bumblebee
now leads a new team of rookie Autobots who were called back to earth due to a
crashed Decepticon prison ship, leading to all the convicts it held to escape
onto the planet. Plots varying season by season, but that is the overarching
plot. It’s meant to be loose as the best comparison I can give to it directly
is the G1 cartoon, but it is a bit more detailed and they stick too it more
often than not. Rarely does the show stray too far away from that basic idea.
The thread itself is meant to have a lot of characters be introduced into the
series without the need to explain where they came from. But as a result, it
does give the show an air of “this is just meant to sell toys”, in comparison
to its predecessor which did feel like it was prioritizing the show before the
toys. Only problem with that idea is that, from what I’ve seen, a lot of these
characters don’t have toys and what ones do, tend to get a lot of repaints,
many of them not even being into other characters. It feels like it’s trying to
be G1, but that its going overboard with the character designs so that they can’t
get the toys out in time. Yet somehow the toys can serve as spoilers for who’s
coming? It’s weird how it works.
What’s annoying about it is that the designs are all really
well done, and the amount of variety in the designs is amazing. It actually
overshadows the “wait, how is that supposed to work?” feeling that I get from
something like Bayformers 4. Granted, a part of that is the art style not
trying to be realistic, but more on that in a bit. While the Autobots are all
pretty standard for Transformers, as they’re mostly just different varieties of
car, Grimlock and Windblade being the two exceptions but both of those are
designs we’ve seen before (Windblade’s not changing since her Generations
release). The Decepticons on the other hand go for a “What if the predacons
from RID 2001 actually could blend in?” A werewolf inspired con that turns into
a stylized four-wheel drive, a Sharcticon scientist who’s turning packing
peanuts into explosives that turns into a Submarine, a cybertronian mob boss
with antlers that turns into a tractor. Those are amazing and I want to see
more of them. It has the air of a young kid playing with his toys as the show
doesn’t really want to take itself too seriously. It’s got more maturity then
something like Teen Titans Go does, don’t get me wrong, but it still knows it’s
a show aimed at kids so it doesn’t linger around the dark and heavy moments.
For the most part, it’s as bright as the art style itself, which goes for a
bright, cell shaded like look to it. Visuals wise it is nice to look at, but
for some reason the motions in it feel just a touch stiff. The characters are
very expressive and the motions look smooth, but somehow it still looks just a
touch stiff, like the animations are missing two or three frames. It’s hard to
tell and I may only be imagining it, but to me it is still a slight problem.
Not a fan of the soundtrack though. It’s either bland and
unforgivable, or in the case of the main theme, really, really bad. Not the
full-length song I linked at the start of this post mind you, I personally like
it. I’m talking about the shortened one that is used in almost all the episodes
(I think only episode one uses the long version). It uses vocals meant to be
like the original song, but the music it goes with it just butchers it. It and the
cast of interesting, yet interchangeable cast are the two biggest issues I have
with the show. For the most part, any other problems I have with it are minor
ones I can let slide. Is it as good as Prime? Not really, I’d still rather
watch Prime over RID 2015. But compared to RID 2001, it is a step up and in the
right direction. It falls into that middle ground of shows. Nothing really bad
about it, there are others I’d rather watch over it, and shows I’d rather avoid
more then it. Next week we close the marathon with Rescue Bots.
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