Infernac Universe Bouldercrash Not a Rock Lord, not an Inhumanoid Transformers Legacy United Core Item No.: Asst. F2988 No. F8516 Manufacturer: Hasbro Includes: Sword Action Feature: Transforms from robot to rocky trike to sword Retail: $11.99 Availability: December 2023 Other: Tiny
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We don't get a lot of wholly new characters, and Infernac Universe Bouldercrash riffs on some old ideas to give us a brand-new toy that is, at best, fine. The face is underdesigned, there is no faction symbol, and it has a weapon mode as well as a rocky tricycle mode. I love that it's new and isn't trying to force weird kibble or a chest that doesn't belong. I'm not crazy about the fact that it's basically someone who saw the likes of Stonedar, Rokkon, and the Rock Lords, and said "let's try that again." But then again, as a kid, I thought that a toy that turned into a lumpy rock was a laughable idea and I'm glad Hasbro didn't go down that road.

This toy is a lot more fun than other recent Core-class figures, but since it's stripped of nostalgic character it may not feel worth what is increasingly a premium price. It's twelve bucks for a little guy with no real backstory - this figure lives or dies in its execution as a toy. Thankfully, the quality control is pretty good.

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After taking a break from Transformers as a hobby in the 1990s briefly, I picked up a lot of Fuzors because they were cheap and weird - and that works for me. This guy is weird, but not particularly cheap. Sometimes it seems toys not based on an existing (and on-screen) character struggle, in part because there's no personality in modern toy packaging. There's no mini-comic or file card, so this guy is a blank slate. It's a brown guy with a face mask, a lumpy helmet, and a red bar across his face where the eyes go. This means it's up to you to decide who he is, and I think that's something kids like a lot more than adults, and Legacy is generally designed with olds in mind. The figure's articulation is on par with other Core-class toys, with ball joints that hold together nicely and big thick boots to keep him from falling over carrying his giant blade weapon accessory.

After bony guys, micro playset guys, and guys made of blasters, plus Junkion guys you can pop apart, it seems like a curious swing for the fences to make something new when most waves are largely made up of non-G1 guys. There's no slam-dunk figure in most waves, although I admit I'm not seeing any non-core guys sitting in stores as of my writing this in late February. There are plenty of Bouldercrash to be had, and that makes sense as a lot of fans are still wondering where Rumble and Frenzy were - "here's somebody new" might not click despite rich veins of magma and a distinctive asymmetrical sculpt. I both genuinely appreciate what Hasbro and Takara-Tomy did here, but also fear that this guy is just going to occupy a place on a shelf in my closet. This seems like a concept (and execution) that would be better suited to kids who are going to roll them around on the table and fight with them.

Transformation is pretty easy, and the lumpy trike mode has nicely spinning wheels. I don't believe this figure was designed with "riding" in mind - a pity, really - but at least you can roll it on your desk. Like the robot, it's brown with red highlights. It's supposed to look like lava coming out of a rock, but I've heard other comparisons which were not as generous. The important thing is that you don't already have a rock bike alt-mode in your collection, so you can plop down the $10-$12 and say "this is new." That's exceedingly rare in most toy lines these days - look at last month, pretty much everything was a riff on something you probably already own if you collected He-Man toys. It takes guts to throw all that out the window and say "here's your rock on wheels" during a downturn in the collector market.

I was surprised that this figure had a third mode... and less surprised when it was pretty much the trike mode. The sword blade folds forward and there's a visible 5mm post coming out the backside, so many larger figures can hold this as a sword. It looks like they're holding a pile of rocks with a weird red blade coming out of it. It's not without its charms, but this is the kind of thing I think would be more acceptable if it were part of one of the kid lines because you have to pretend that it's a sword. It's basically a massive hilt with wheels, and it's quite heavy for most figures to carry. It's an ambitious idea and I'm glad to see them try things like this, but as a toymaker Hasbro is probably really counting on adult fans to look at this and just ignore it. I don't particularly like the sword mode, but the idea of a battle bike with a blade I can flip forward and joust with? That's really cool.

As intended, this is not particularly a great toy because there's no character and the sword mode is silly. As an actual toy that you pick up and play with, I like it - it's fun to zoom him along with a battle blade, and the robot mode is distinctive despite not looking at all like a Transformers character. If this were a toy from another company I'd say "Wow, this is really neat!" With Hasbro I think we all have expectations, and this figure decides to ignore most of them. The quality feels good, the parts fit together well, and this figure behaves well as a toy. If you are sitting here wondering if you should get this toy, I'd say look at the pictures - if you like what you see, it will not disappoint you. If you were wanting a G1 guy, well, this isn't a G1 guy. It's a rock bike blade battering ram and that's worth a look. I hope this guy ultimately performs well for Hasbro because while not every new character is going to be a hit, it's important that we see new things to keep the line from becoming the same thing over and over. Not that there's anything wrong with that - preferably in the form of the same molds, at the same or lower prices, until demand is satisfied.

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