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| METROFLEX | SILVERBOLT | ONSLAUGHT | MOTORMASTER | DINOSAURER |
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In 1985 toy company Hasbro released the second year of "The Transformers", a toy line they initially created by recoloring, repackaging, and recreating preexisting toys from Japanese toymaker Takara. It was in this year that Hasbro debuted the "merge group" concept with the Constructicons, a group of six robots that merged together to form Devastator. Each Constructicon formed a specific part of the Devestator giant, and they could not be interchanged. The Constructicon toy molds came from Takara's Diaclone toyline, from a subset called Construction Robo. The Constructicons were the first of the combining robot teams to be released under the Transformer name, and could be purchased individually or all together in a gifset. Takara, who was distributing the Transformer toyline in Japan, also sold the robots individually and as a giftset.
But in 1986 Hasbro released the first of a new type of combining Transformer team. This new type of combiner team featured five robots instead of six. It was this basic design that would dominate the next few years of combining Transformer teams. Basically, the team was comprised of four smaller robots that made up each of the limbs of the giant, plus one larger "team leader" type, who composed the torso and head. The team leaders could also transform into a third mode, usually a launching pad the smaller robots could utilize while in vehicle mode. The launching pad mode didn't do any "launching" at all-in order to launch the smaller vehicles a slight push would have to be applied, much as a slight push is needed to "launch" a Hot Wheels car.
These new teams were the Arielbots, who formed Superion; the Combaticons, who formed Bruticus; the Protectobots, who formed Defensor; and the Stunticons, who formed Menasor. As with the Constructicons, each of the new team members could be purchased individually or in a gifset with their other teammates. Takara followed along, releasing individuals and giftsets, but there was something different about the toys Takara was packaging for release in Japan!
First off, Takara created a subset of Transformers named "Scramble City", and included all of the US released 1986 combiner teams. A few other non-combiner robots also got the Scramble City designation, most notably two larger robots that transformed into cities. But the biggest difference between the US and Japanese versions of the combiner teams wasn't the Scramble City affiliation, it was in the team leader robots. For some strange reason, the Japanese team leaders from the Arielbots, Combaticons, and Stunticons had an extra feature that the American versions did not-their third mode launching pads were spring loaded! No manual pushing was required to launch the smaller vehicles! Not only that, but other features exist (mostly officially undocumented) that Takara and Hasbro never included in the instructions to these "Scramble City" toys!
This SCRAMBLED! page is dedicated to the study of the three Scramble City team leaders with spring loaded launchers and the two large city robots also released under the Scramble City banner in Japan.
