Transformers: A Hidden Gem in Disguise.

How I came to discover this is really funny since I just came across a video where Sonic Frontiers’s boss theme songs played in other final bosses where I saw Break through it All playing in the space fight between Optimus Prime vs Megatron. The action combat looked really cool, so it came to surprise me that Platinum Games actually worked on it and they work on a lot of licensed games. Finally playing it for myself and man it does not disappoint.

This game looks really pretty, adopting the comics art style with some gorgeous cel-shading, really selling the feeling of playing a comic book with how faithful the characters look to the original cartoon. I say this but I don’t actually know much about the Transformers franchise besides the Michael Bay movies and Transformers Animated by Derrick J Wyatt, but I’d say this is a welcome addition to more Transformers media. Though very simple, the narrative serves well to platform the cool action gameplay with a surprisingly interesting narrative idea of conflict between Optimus Prime and Megatron’s ideal for Cybertron. It’s actually quite compelling to hear their dialogue on Optimus believing to adapt with humans on Earth while Megatron wants to claim the world for Cybertronians. Reminds me a lot of Xavier and Magneto’s conflict with how Mutants should live though very contextually different. This story really isn’t complex enough that I wouldn’t fault anyone to just outright skip the cutscenes, but I appreciate that they still wrote something worth telling for a video game showing the passion the team must have for this project.

Why anyone would play this though is for its very simple combat scheme being only relegated to 2 buttons with a dodge mechanic in its shoulder button. This sounds incredibly simple, but somehow the game manages to really flesh this out with the different types of damage and projectiles creating an interesting challenge in maneuvering over fights. Not to mention, it just looks cool as hell since the combat always looks very active yet clear. However, sometimes the camera can get annoying with it being completely manual to control which makes it difficult for certain sequences if an object is blocking the character you’re controlling. Speaking of which, the game itself lets you play as five different characters for the main campaign and they all feel very unique despite having the same loadouts and weapons, with characters like Bumblebee being agile or someone heavy but a good damage dealer like the Dinobot dude. Biggest issue to all this is just the fact that the bosses get really damage spongy on normal and above, while the AI becomes a tad too easy on lower difficulties meaning that there might not be a sweet spot for many players.

Platinum Games really put they’re all into making the game as fun as they could make it. Despite being a licensed game, this could easily be put into competition with a lot of action hack-and-slash games with how robust the overall experience is. It's a short game though, so I’d best recommend it if you just want a quick game to enjoy some Transformers action without anything too complex, story or gameplay wise. I assume this game is for kids after all, but nonetheless definitely made with respect to both the audience and the franchise its using in mind.

Transformer Devastation... is anything but devastating... this is an absolutely fantastic hidden gem of a Transformers game.

Created by the amazing Platinum Games known for Bayonetta 1-3 and Origns, Wonderful 101, MADWORLD (Wii Only), Vanquish, and of course... the amazing METAL GEAR RISING REVENGENCE! and many others!

This game is a fun mini adventure based on the Transformers G1 show. Though you are not required to watch said show it gets you invested mostly likely wanting to go back and watch the show for yourself.

The game works as follows, it's a Platinum Games beat em up with the uniqueness of Transformers where each of the 5 characters has 4 weapons in their load outs, 1 Standard melee depending on who you choose, 3 range weapons.

There are 5 characters in the game:

Optimus Prime - Leader of the Autobots - Optimus uses his iconic axe to fight along with his ion blaster and 2 optional weapons to go along side his standard. He transforms into a truck, and his special attack is transforming and doing a strong power slide. His ultimate attack is a giant smash attack to the ground causing enemies around to take damage.

Bumblebee - Second in Command, Optimus Best Friend - Bumblebee uses a gauntlet that has 2 uses: 1 melee standard and 2 melee that shoots out a small attack that primarily happens when fighting in a combo. He has his iconic dual blasters as his range weapon, along with 2 optional weapons range or melee that you can add to him. He transforms into a Volkswagen Beetle. His special attack is he goes under an enemies legs and attacks them from behind. Bumblebee's Ultimate attack is chucking a bunch of grenades across the battle field causing an area explosion doing damage to several enemies.

SideSwipe - Soldier of Optimus Prime, Smooth as hell - Side Swipe fights his dual swords like a badass. He uses a standard machine gun and a missile launcher as his range weapons. He transforms into Lamborghini Countach. His special move is sliding forward quickly, this combined with his fast gameplay allow for longer strings of combos. His ultimate attack is pulling out a grenade launcher and blowing up enemies in front of him.

Wheel Jack - The engineer scientist of the Autobots - WheelJack uses his wrenches to fight as his melee attack, and uses a grenade launcher as his ranged attack. He transforms into a Lancia Stratos Turbo. His special attack is more so for defense as he uses a energy shield in order to have higher defense. His ultimate attack is where he builds a small bomb that he throws causing massive damage!

Grimlock - LEADER OF THE DINOBOTS... also no thoughts head empty Dinobot- Grimlock is a dinobot who has both of his forms that fight in unique ways, he has his dino form which consists of Grimlock fighting with his dinomouth to attack, and uses a flame breath as his ranged attack when in Dino mode. When Grimlock switches to his Transformer mode thats where he uses his fists as standard melee and has a rocket launcher as his ranged. His special attack consists of him grabbing the enemy and performing an attack in either Dino or Transformer mode. His ultimate attack is where Grimlock uses a giant heat blast similar to GODZILLA's Atomic breath.


Each character is unique to where you want to try out all of them as it is an enjoyment to use all of them.

Another amazing thing are all the villians that appear:

Megatron - Leader of the Decepticons - in this game he doesn't transform into a gun like in G1 but instead transforms into a tank.

StarScream - Follower of Megatron... though is constantly insulted for his incompetence - transforms into a jet

Soundwave - Right hand man of Megatron - doesn't transform in this game but he a cassette player, however what's cool is that he has his casette minicons: Frenzy, Rumble, Laserbeak, Buzzsaw, and Ravage. Frenzy and Rumble being mini soundwaves with hydrolic press arms, Laserbeak and Buzzsaw being minicon birds, and Ravage being a minicon jaguar.

Blitzwing - Triple-Changer Decepticon - Unique decepticon who has the unique ability of transforming into 2 different vehicles a jet and a tank. He has the best theme in the game.

Motormaster - Decepticon who's cooler when he fuses - Motormaster is a black truck transformer who transforms into a giant constructicons named Menasor.

Menasor - constructicons with a thunder sword with Motormaster as the main part controlling the entire mech.

Devastator - Green constructicon made of 6 constructicons made of construction equipment.


The game has 7 chapters revolving around a mysterious ship that Megatron and the other decepticons have gained access to by an ancient autobot named NOVA PRIME, Megatron learns that the ship contains an item that would allow him to Terraform Earth into a new Cybertron, the Autobots go throughout the entire game trying to stop him and the decepticons leading to an epic final battle against Megatron in Space with you playing as Optimus prime with an epic remix of Megatrons theme from Transformers G1.

The gameplay, the action, the MUSIC are all godly, along with the voice acting of Peter Cullens as Optimus, and Frank Welker as Megatron giving amazing performances!

The ost of this game is out of this world, the themes are absolutely amazing, if I had to pick my favorites:


1. Blitzwing's Theme
2. Megatron's Final Theme
3. Starscreams Theme
4. MotorMaster theme

Now these are MY FAVORITES, but all of the songs in this game are fantastic.

This game is a true gem, and while it does have a sequel bait at the end... if only 1 day they decide to ever make a sequel I hope it comes... it's a shame if it never does.

This is a fantastic fun beat em up with the Transformer license and it's an absolute treat to play, I highly recommend this game even if you are not a Transformers fan... because this will make you one!


100% I recommend Transformers Devastation! :D

Weak combat mechanics and repetitive level design bogged down even further by looter-shooter grinding mechanics.

If you start Commander (the highest default difficulty) vanilla, you will sit there and hack away at the early bosses for five minutes straight just doing the same combo dozens of times to remove a couple pixels from the health bar at a time. So then you grind and do all the looter shooter bullshit like leveling up a million different stats (for every character no less), farming weapons, grinding weapon upgrades, grinding TECH upgrades, and also farming consumable items. Now, after all that grinding, you can basically one-shot everything everything in the game while also having endless consumables that you can spam to double damage output, halve damage taken, revive you upon death, or restore your energy.

The actual combat consists of lock-on ranged attacks as well as spamming either parry into basic combo or vehicle rush attack into basic combo, with generous timing windows and near-constant i-frame uptime. Even the SS-ranks never require anything more than this as they don't cap points from repeatedly spamming moves.

It's probably the most unbalanced game I've ever seen. Really poor design for an action game, and the looter-shooter mechanics are just compensating for the extremely simplistic combat system and uninspired bossfights. Because the actual design and mechanics aren't interesting or well designed enough to actually encourage replay value (like an arcade game would for example), they resort to meta systems of mindless skinner-box grinding.

Transformers was one of my favorites as a kid, and the Platinum Games brand of action games is one of my favorites now, so this game goes out of its way to please the me of all ages. I truly enjoyed my time with this, and it definitely rekindled my dormant love of G1 Transformers.

My complaints are minor but worth noting. The second half is much more linear than the first half. A few more characters, even as cameos, would have been nice. The weapon/upgrade system isn’t nearly as bad as it is made out to be, but delving into it is only really necessary on higher difficulties. Just use what you find on the standard difficulty and you’ll be just fine.

Everything else about this game got knocked out of the park. The action is fun, with character and weapon options to customize to one’s preference, the graphics and art style matches the on screen action and source material perfectly, and the soundtrack is top tier. And my favorite character had an awesome fight and battle theme as well.

The ending sets up another game that, sadly, has virtually zero chance of ever happening due to licensing issues. The game has long been delisted from digital storefronts because of this, so I would recommend anybody that is interested to pick up a physical copy sooner rather than later, lest all of the discs out there eventually end up in the hands of people like me who aren’t likely to part with them.