If that’s an SS86 or MP44 Optimus then it probably cost more than the Gundam.
MP 44 was when I knew it was time to walk away. MP 10 wasn’t “perfect” but it was a damn fun toy. For bot mode looks, I just bought the Magic Square Not-imus. No way I was paying $400 for the over-engineered TT re-do.
And then the new Bumblebee was Skinny Homer made plastic… and a hundred bucks. The TFW circlejerk kept going on and on about how MP was “premium” now. No, dudes… you’re just being fleeced.
Edit: it also didn’t help that I started getting back into gunpla around that time, bringing my spouse along for the ride. It’s really really difficult to justify the new MP prices when the same money can buy a Perfect Grade (or a raft of HGs).
Though I will say that Skids was a welcome surprise that was a joy to handle and transform. Lots of Hasui design vibes that spanked XTB’s effort with ease.
I never got into MP. I tried to get an MP-10 when they were available at retail but they were sold out when I got to the store. These days I don’t really see the point; every character with an MP also has a decent figure in the mainlines, so it makes more sense to just stick to that scale.
I finally found one the morning that a hurricane was due to come through. Had been stalking TRU for weeks without luck. I skipped the Japanese release because why did I need a smaller Prime? But the US release hit the sweet spot on price, and once I got it in my hands… I understood. Which then lead to going back and picking up Sideswipe and Alert (at inflated prices) and the rest is history.
Agreed on the current state of things. The mainline stuff is a much better bang for your buck. Hell, I’ve even said more than once that if I had to do it over again, I’d ditch MP and go legends scale. Third parties swooped in and made some amazing toys at much smaller scales. But since I was all-in on MP, I stuck with it.
I miss the ones made mostly out of metal. Back when Megatron turned into a handgun. Voltron was also cool. Especially if you had all of them to actually make Voltron.
One of the first things I did once I got a decent job was start buying G1 TFs on ebay. It was a nice nostalgia rush (from like 10 years prior lol) to get the toys I never had. Not long after, TRU had commemorative reissues for much much cheaper. And not long after that, Alternators/Binaltech came out and blew my mind. Then while searching for Alts, I saw the US release of Masterpiece Optimus Prime and lost my shit. MP really picked up steam with Optimus v2 in 2011, and standardized robot mode scale to go with it. These were the best (official) Transformers toys produced IMO, until the line mostly jumped the shark and simultaneously made things less detailed (because toon “accuracy”) and more complicated (lots of false parts to get toon proportions in bot mode) around 2016-2017.
By that time I had sold off all of my G1 stuff. It will always have a special place in my heart, but that golden age of Masterpiece will be hard to beat.
They still make some incredibly cool Transformers toys, as long as you have enormous piles of money to pay for them with.
