Twenty years later, Melbourne House’s game holds up.
Did you know that Transformers will be 40 years old next year?
Y’know, if they were people and not cartoons and toys and whatnot.
Transformers Armada is one of those things.
The show was absolute bobbins, even before taking into account a lot of jank triggered by production problems.
There is one part of the Transformers Armada media blitz that was bloody great and still holds up today.
It’s classic video game action superbly executed.
Of course you’re not limited to combat on two legs either.
Hit-and-run tactics can be very effective and there’s frequently nothing stopping you from just driving around them.
The large levels and predictable enemy patrols lend themselves to this kind of forward planning.
The Transformers brand has always been a convoluted mix of Japanese and American parts.
The original toys were Japanese, licensed and rebranded by Hasbro and marketed with American-made cartoons and comics.
Transformers Armada was the first true collaboration between Hasbro and Takara.
More importantly, it introduced the diminutive Minicons.
Tiny Transformers weren’t new to the franchise, but this time the whole thing revolved around them.
The cartoon was a scramble to grab as many of the little blighters as possible before the Decepticons did.
The toys came with Minicon partners that could be plugged into various ports to activate the aforementioned gimmicks.
In the game, Minicons were classic power ups.
Scattered across each level were a number of collectables, some of which contained unlockable art and such.
These range from replacements for your basic blaster, to rockets, grenades and shields.
Some can dramatically boost certain playstyles when used in concert.
Gotta catch ‘em all!
It’s intense, close quarters combat and a lot of fun.
Who you now have to fight, despite him being considerably larger than you.
It is, once again, classic video game stuff married perfectly to the source material.
This is the heart of what makes Transformers such a gem.
Released at a time when everything had a hastily thrown-together video game tie-in, it was easy to miss.
