Tets goes to Transformers Pop-up Store (again) Aug 2025

 

As you can tell by the title, there was another pop-up store made for the wonderful money vacuum we call the Transformers.  I went to it and will now share what I have.

This one was cleverly called: 

"Transformers Meets Japan"

Age of the Primes Megatronus The Fallen - A text review

 

Well lookee here, my first Age of the Primes figure.  This line is apaprently going to have a focus on the Thirteen Primes, essentially the first guys of Transformers.  Or whatever.  TBH, I care very little about the Thirteen Primes, but they do have some interesting toys.  Er, Well, one?  Is Star Convoy one of the Thirteen?  I have no idea, also I believe they've called him Star Optimus Prime.  Yeah, I know that Str Convoy was a reborn G1 Convoy, so I guess Star Optimus Prime makes perfcet sense, but it just sounds unwieldy.  When I get mine, he will be solely called Star Convoy.

However this is a post about the also unwieldly named "Megatronus The Fallen." So let's have a look.

Misc. Brawlers That Didn't Make the Cut.

(yes, I realise I used an image from the SEGA game "My Hero" but I used it because it looks super generic.  Which describes many of the following games well.)

Continuing my series of brawler flashback reviews, here are the rest of the games on my list that didn't neatly fit into any of the previous categories. 

This post will cover these remaining games:

• Bad Dudes VS Dragon Ninja
• Double Dragon
• Double Dragon II
• Ninja Combat
• Sailor Moon
• The combat Tribes
• Ninja Warriors
• Ninja Warriors Again
• Crude Busters
• Under Cover Cops

Transformers The Ark from Earthrise

 

The best looking ass in all Transformers belongs to this guy.  Admit it, if you're a fan of G1, you've spent more time than you care to admit looking at the glorious ass of the Ark as it sticks up in the air from the base of Mt St. Hillary.  A few years ago, Hasbro decided that the Ark need to become a Titan Transformer.  I've often longed for an Ark playset and so grabbed this guy.  What's he like?

Well, today I intend to reveal that very information to you.

SEGA Brawlers that Didn't Make the Cut

 

So in my series of games stemming from my experience with Brawlers, I'm gonna bang on about the Brawlers from SEGA that didn't make the cut. 

Also for brevity's sake, games that I played on SEGA hardware (arcade, master system, Megadrive, Saturn etc etc) will be included here.  So a game not made by SEGA, but I mainly experienced on a SEGA machine is here.

Awwright?  All right! 

The list:

• Alien Storm
• Altered Beast
• Die Hard Arcade
• Guardian Heroes
• Nekketsu Oyako
• Pu Li Ru La
• Spiderman: The video game
• SOR 3
• The Crow
• The Crows, Battle action

Revisiting LOK Defiance & Blood Omen 2

 After blasting through LOK Soul Reaver 1 & 2 and finding it to be an.... interesting experience (for my feelings), I decided that I would go and play LOK Defiance and Blood Omen 2, just to reconcile my feelings for them.

Again, at the time, I very much enjoyed the experience.  Admittedly I did find Blood Omen 2's controls a little janky and slow, the chunky gameplay and combat all worked well enough, the story seemed engaging and overall it was a decent game.

Defiance, I loved.  I especially remember being impressed with the graphics.  I remember being slightly annoyed with the sound effects. I remember being engaged with the the gameplay.  

How do I find them now?

Tets plays: Fatal Frame II - Part 1 of ??

 So after plaowing through Soul Reaver, kinda plodding through Defiance and Blood Omen Two, and smashing through Jedi Fallen Order, I decided I would give a game a try that I have been thinking about for a long time:

Fatal Frame (series).  I did some googling and general impressions are that 2 is the better of the lot, so I decided to go with this one.  I'm generally not into survival games, I dislike weapon management games intensely so Resident Evil never really grabbed me and  I feel that jump scares are just cheap.

I did thoroughly enjoy Silent Hill 1, 2 and 3 however.  The disturbing surreal nature of those game did tickle my fancy a lot.    I had read that many publications seemed to rank Fatal Frame 2 as the scariest game ever.  Whether this was at the time, or what, I dunno, but I have started it.

Here are my thoughts:

Tets Finishes Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order

 Not so long ago, I was playing Star Wars Fallen Order and I typed this post as I struggled at the start of the game.  The other day I finished it and I shall continue with my thoughts and my final wrap up.

It was decent enough, probably a 7/10 if I were to score it.

Blokees Series 03: Autobot Run Review

 

Once again, I am here with more pictures of my addiction, er collection of Blokees.  This time though, I 'm looking at Series 03, entitled "Autobot Run," for reasons I am not too sure about, but hey, it tickles the memory about the cartoon though, so that ain't bad now is it?

They come in random selection of boxes, but if you buy a case then, you most likely get the whole set.  The case boxes looks like this:

Once again these boxes have a nice metallic sheen to them, which doesn't come off in the above artwork, but have a look at this.

Nice and just for archival's sake (lol, as long as the internet and google are around that is....) here is the chinese catalogue.

This line up consist of a mere 3 Decepticons and 6 Autobots, although 2 of the Autobots are the same dude. They are:

• Soundwave (has a chase version)
• Scrapper
• Bonecrusher
• Red Alert
• Sideswipe
• Ultra Magnus (IDW)
• Bumblebee
• Slag
• Slag (Dino mode)

Okay, let's get on with it then.

Tets goes to "Transformers Pop-up shop" 2025

There was a pop up shop placed in the Modi OIOI (Marui) building in Shibuya during the time of 21st February until the 2nd of March 2025.    Above is the artwork advertising it.  I went there to check it out.  The primary purpose of this pop up shop is to sell credit cards.  Actually the whole building has a very CC selling focus... Just check out this escalator.

Every escalator is like that... It's almost cult-like...

A slight rant

The EPOS card is a Japanese credit card that often has cool artwork on the cards in a variety of flavours and they have just started producing 2 types of Transformers credit card.  One features the comic artwork above and the other is a black card with the Autobot and Decepticon logos on them.  To be honest, the cards looking bloody great.  However the problem with EPOS and other Japanese CC companies is they don't have the reach that companies like VISA/Mastercard have, so really there is no point (They are also kind of expensive with monthly fees and whatnot).  

Obviously I was not so interested in getting a card, already having a few and need only one.  Plus, they are hesitant to offer them to non-Japanese people.  They were offering some freebies if you applied, but you had to be successfully approved and I believe you also had to actually use the card before getting them.  That's a few too many hoops for me to be bothered jumping through, so I didn't bother.  Enough ranting about companies capitalistic tendencies...

 I went to another pop up shop a bunch of years ago, and that one was just a tiny stand, so I wasn't expecting much.

Blokees Wave 02 Galaxy Version - SOS review

 

Here I go with a review of the figures that come with release 02, cleverly called Galaxy Version 02 SOS, I assume a nod to SOS Dinobots episode.  In the review and wave, I'll be looking at:

• Grimlock
• Inferno
• Grapple
• Cliffjumper
• Dino mode Shiny Grimlock (chase version)
• Starscream
• Mixmaster
• Longhaul
• Shattered Glass Optimus (IDW Optimus as they call him)

Not in that order though.

Tets Plays Star Wars Jedi Fallen order

 

Chilling on mah couch.

I like me some light sabre swinging action and would love a game like The Witcher, but Star Wars-y.  Is this the one?

Revisiting LOK Soul Reaver

 

When I was in the peak of my gaming time, a lovely little game captured my imagination and I really, really liked it.  That game was Soul Reaver.  It played somewhat like Tomb Raider, but had a connection to the action-RPG of Legacy Of Kain: Blood Omen(BO), a cool, edgy vampire story.  

Soul Reaver played very differently to BO, but the voice acting of the main characters, was incredible.  The main Characters being Raziel (your guy), The Elder God and Kain.  Their efforts raised what was a fairly simple premise of betrayal and revenge to something much more epic than it had any right to be.

Development was shaky and the game ended up having a lot of stuff cut from it and a "To Be Continued..." ending.  Which is something I always hate.  Nevertheless, I did play it on PS1, and then again on Dreamcast.  The series did this a bunch of times and the story continues over 5 games and is very convoluted as there is time travel and changing of the future and shenanigans going on all over the place.  Even after I finished the final game, I was still fairly unsure of the plot... Who was the main bad guy and what their motivation was to ruin the land of Nosgoth and destroy the Vampire race etc etc.  

The games are:

• LOK: Blood Omen
• Soul Reaver
• Soul Reaver 2
• LOK: Blood Omen 2
• LOK: Defiance

I suspect that there was of course a delay between game releases, would have allowed for me to forget parts of the story which would have added to my confusion.

Optimus and Megatron Blokees - Shining Versions

 

Shining Series 01: Shining Roll Out

I saw some of these guys on a Transformers Discord chat and thought they seemed decent enough and thought I would like to get at least one to experience for myself.  While browsing the website, I saw they actually had a Shattered Glass Optimus Prime version and in the same box is a rather cool looking Grimlock too.  Hrm, I says...

The start of his fall into obsession

And then I had ordered a box with Shatty Prime and this single "Shining Version" of Optimus Prime.  Essentially these guys are blind box purakit figures.  That is, figures that you need to assemble yourself.  I ended up actually using Aliexpress, because these guys don't have a Japanese distributor and even Amazon US seems to have a bit of a spotty range.  And so this arrived in the post one day.

Thus one man's descent into insanity BEGAN!

Tets goes to T-Spark Zone 2025

 

 I don't like going to the Tokyo holy trinity of tourism; Shinjuku, Shibuya and Akihabara because aside from Akiba, there isn't much going on (for me).  The previous weekend I hit all three with a friend form overseas and it was enjoyable enough, but I rather wasn't all that excited about having to hit Akiba again on another weekend.  

Sundays are always worse than Saturdays, so for this wonderful T-spark Zone trip, I chose Saturday.

But what is T-spark?  Well, it is a celebration event of Takaratomy and they have various collaboration products going on, which makes it kind of exciting.  Their very own promotional materials say:

“T-SPARK” is the unified brand name for hobby products for adults developed by TOMY Company. As a hobby brand that offers an experience of boundless energy, the name T-SPARK means innovative and sophisticated adventure. 

I will now chronicle my adventure.