Transformer: Super Link

When I first saw Energon on TV, I thought it was pretty bad. I found a lot of the main characters to be annoying, poor voice acting, you name it.

Then I was convinced by someone to watch the original Japanese version with subtitles.

Wow! What a difference! Characters who are annoying in Energon are actually very well fleshed out and much more tolerable. The two characters in Energon who I liked least (Ironhide and Kicker), became my two favorites (although Ironhide is called Roadbuster) in Superlink! This makes all the difference, as these two are core members of the cast, and probably the closest things to being main characters.

I also really enjoyed the portrayals of Alpha-Q and Megazarak (Scorponok in Energon). David Kaye is always a treat when he does English voices for Megatron, but I found the Japanese voice actor to be very good as well.

It's a very high-energy show with plenty of action, and a surprising amount of character development.

Also, I hear that the Japanese version has a better quality CGI animation. The version sent to the US for dubbing was about not quite complete, as it had to be sent well ahead of time to get the dubbing process started. The Japanese had plenty of time to clean up the animation and still beat the English dub to TV. I stopped watching Energon, so I can't quite confirm, but I've read this on many sources. I also found no reason to complain about the animation in Superlink, while one of the biggest complaints about Energon was in the animation.

I highly recommend tracking down the Japanese version, if you can tolerate subtitles. It's certainly a different animal than Beast Wars, but I found myself enjoying it just as much in the end.

Since the fantastic Beast Wars, and the decent Beast Machines, Transformers fans have not been very lucky. We've gotten Robots in Disguise, which I never really got into, due to lack of interest. Then, came along, Armada. The action was sparse, the jokes were horrible and I couldn't stand the kids they partnered the "Minicons" with. They had Pokemon'D Transformers.

Now, here comes the light at the end of the tunnel. I was skeptical about Energon, since it was a direct sequel to Armada, but when I started watching I was quite relieved. The fighting and explosions are quite fun to watch, and this time its in a new 3D cell shading form, which at times, can feel awkward, but still is a great addition to the show. Plus, while Armada tired me out with its boring storyline, Energon had me hooked.

And finally, my favorite enhancement, the characters. It seems like they really upped personalities in Energon. A perfect example would be Cyclonus, not so much of an interesting character in the predecessor, but here, he's a Quickstrike-like madman.

While this series isn't the best, its still a nice little candy for us Transformers fans, who have suffered for so, so long.

8/10. Recommended.

I can't fathom how terrible this is stay away! Probably rock bottom for the transformers franchise

If Transformers Armada was a painfully slow climbing theme park ride that came with a satisfyingly good payoff once it picked up momentum, Transformers Energon/Superlink(i watched both English and Japanese versions) would be like a rocket launch disaster; starting off really strong but blowing up halfway and getting reduced to one of the worse Transformers shows in recent years.

Taking place 10 years after Armada, Transformers Energon's opening episodes are extremely well written with many character subplots thrown in and for the first time, the human characters are actually likable.

Kicker has to handle his "coming of age" angst, the added responsibilities that come with growing up and to step out of the shadows of his father and the Autobots. Demolishor has a decent character arc regarding his wavering sense of purpose with the Autobots and his uncertain loyalty to the decepticon cause that he believed no longer existed. Even Ironhide is set up as an impulsive young rookie who grows up learns the true meaning of being a soldier over the course of the episodes.

Great, all the themes and subplots are in place. Then what happens? They all get conveniently forgotten over time, leading to subsequent episodes that have little to no character development or advancement of the subplots. The main plot itself, involving the decepticon's plan to revive unicron seems stretched to breaking point over the course of the 52 episodes. I feels like only 20+ episodes of actual story material sprinkled into 52 episodes. The episodes themselves never actually contain 20+ minutes of story material since A lot of time is wasted on necessary reiteration of plot points via dialogue, rambling monologues, stock footage of battles or transformations and senseless action.

The animation is actually a step up from the final episodes of Transformers Armada. It utilities a mixture of 2D for human characters and Cel shaded 3D animation for the robots. The 2D animation is superb. Vibrant and sharp colors with attractive character designs and a better attention to detail make the humans quite appealing to the eye.

The robots on the other hand do not warrant the same level of praise. Though done in 3D with least 8 years worth of better animation software than what Mainframe had to work with on Beast Wars, the animation here is actually a lot worse that the 1996 Beast Wars. Though character designs are nice to look at due to their insane level of art detail, their movements are extremely stiff, sometimes even stiffer than the 2D animated robots from Transformers Armada. "Body Gestures" just involve the 3D models "snapping" into different positions like still photographs in a slide show and "movement" is just the 3D models pulled across the screen. The 3D characters have no feel of "mass" in the way they move. Other CGI effects like explosions and laser fire look very primitive and are sometimes off model. The action scenes are exciting at first, with large scale yet fully animated fights involving many characters are made do-able with the CGI. But after a while, the uninspired directing and unprofessionally storyboarded battles get real boring, real fast.

Having watched both Japanese and English versions, i must say that both had its good and bad points. The voice acting in the Japanese version seemed a little too "flat". Many of the characters sound alike and the human characters tend to over do a lot of their lines, giving a very "high school stage play" feel to the whole thing. The English version was by far better acted with the voices having very distinct personalities and nuances to them. Basically Lines were more realistically delivered by the actors than the Japanese version. However good acting does not save a horrible script and by golly, the script was a complete mess. The dialogue, once boring or irritating, devolved to the point of senseless babbling and even turned illogical and contradictory. Some characters have up to three different names that interchange between different episodes and sometimes a line is spoken by the wrong voice actor for the wrong character. A terrible, stilted and cliché ridden excuse for a script that sounds worse that the most horrible episodes of Power Rangers. THe Japanese script fares slightly better but is filled to the brim with cheesiness and misplaced humour.

This series is a huge pity. It started off so strong and totally went on a downward spiral into the absurd. Even the Energon comic series which showed so much potential got cut down in its prime and is now left incomplete and open-ended.

This show may make an entertaining watch for anyone below the age of 6, and maybe for the "completist" who MUST watch every single transformers series ever made.

Other than that, Transformers Energon is not worth your money, or your hard drive space.

Energon is as bad as Armada was, the voice acting again sucks because again they decided to make it in Japan and animate it before recording the voices.

Set 10 years after the end of Armada and has the now Adult versions of the 3 brats in Armada, but they must've all skipped puberty because they still sound like they're in their early teens like the where in Armada, Alpha Q (who has had not introduction as to who he is or how he came to be inside of Unicron, since he was not in the Armada series) is Energon's attempt to bring back The Quintessons from G1 and doing a very bad job of it, Alpha Q is a three headed alien inside a robot body which is linked to Unicron via something like an Umbilical cord, he activates a couple of Robot's inside of Unicron, Battle Ravage and Divebomb I believe to go to earth to collect Energon, in order to revive Unicron, Unicron is in a terrible shape apparently, again no explination is given as when we last saw Unicron in Armada he had Transformed back into his Planet mode, when Galvatron sacrificed himself to stop Unicron from comming back to life and Destroying Cybertron, Galvatron was sucked into Unicron, who then just Disappeared, but then appeared from behind a planet at the closing moments of the final Armada episode and looked to be perfectly fine...

The Animation is a mix between CGI and normal Cell Animation but the problem is where the Cell Animation is far superior to that of Armada's, the CGI looks badly done and really doesn't mix well with the other animation, for a start the robot's seem too bright, brighter than the cell animation, and when they move, it's like they move faster than you'd expect a 20 to 30 foot robot to move, the head turning also seems to have this problem, another problem with the CGI is like the previous 2 Transformers show from Japan they Transformers with mouth plates such as Optimus Prime and Tidal Wave, don't actually look like they're talking since their mouth plates don't move at all, unlike G1 where Optimus Prime and the other Transformers with mouth plates would move up and down when they spoke, or in Wheeljack and Warthpath's cases the side lights on the side of their heads would flash when they spoke.

The Problems I feel with Energon that have been brought over from Armada, re-writing the cartoon, the horrible voice effects for The Autobots and Decepticon (neither G1, Beast Wars or Beast Machines had horrible voice effects that made the voice actors sound like they're talking in the bathroom) the horribly lame Transforming sound from Armada (Superlink has the G1 Transforming sound, why can't Energon?) There are more annoying kids, and an even worse Intro and ending theme than Armada's was, Superlink has an awesome intro theme again vastly superior to what Energon has to offer...

In G1 they didn't dub the show, I'm pretty sure they recorded the voices before the show was actually animated and they sure didn't re-write the episodes from Japanese like they've done for the past three Transformers shows now, the story's where written in America for a western audiance.

What's the point of re-writing a story that's already been written? surely someone can translate it and the could just use the same story for the show, it'd be alot easier...

or better still why can't they just write the show in english like they did with G1, Beast Wars and dare I say Beast Machines, and have the voice acting recorded before animating it....

that way the voice acting would'nt be so terrible, they wouldn't need to re-write it and people older than 5 years might actually get into the show and stop hating every new TF series that comes out...

Take Beast Wars, it was animated using CGI by Mainframe in Canada, it had various differen't writers from the states writing the episodes, it had two great executive producers Bob Forward and Larry Ditillio who actually took the time to study the comics and the original cartoon to better prepare themselves for working on the show.

Is Transformers in such a bad state now that it's required to be written and animated in Japan before being sent over to the west I.E. Canada or The U.S to be badly re-written by talentless hacks who do a horrible job at re-writing it, and then is horribly dubbed by people who really prefer recording voices before the show is animated, but don't really like dubbing because it's such a hassle.

Hasbro seem to be that obsessed with saving money and being tight fisted nowadays they might as well do the same with the comics...

Sadly I just don't think that it is possible possible nowadays for Hasbro to bring out a Transformers series that can be watched by kids and adults, the way the series are made they might as well not bother making them at all, because they can't even get it right like they did with G1 and Beast Wars.

Take my advice if you are a true fan of the original G1 Transformers or a Beast Wars fan avoid this and watch Superlink insted, no horrible voice effects, no lame transforming sound, better intro/outro theme.

I honestly don't know why Hasbro have taken this path, this year is the 20th anniversarry of Transformers, but instead of doing a G1 Revival series with the remaining members of the original series,we get Energon, another lame, badly dubbed, re-written show from Japan.

Way to go Hasbro.