From Newsgroup: alt.toys.transformers

Transformers X USA Soccer Collaborative

Breakaway (soccer ball)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Collab/Breakaway

This is not the first Transformers toy that turns into a soccer ball,
that would be Kikmee from BotBots. And if you stretch Transformers to
include the Brave series Takara put out between G1 and Beast Wars, J-Decker
had a character who came with a soccer ball (soccer was a significant subplot in the J-Decker anime, IIRC). Still, there's not a LOT of Soccer
Transformers, and this one is pitched both as a World Cup tie-in and as part
of the 250th birthday of the United States.
Note, this character has no connection to any previous Breakaway toy,
most of whom have been kinda obscure toy-only or media-only characters, generally redecos. Once the name was used because they'd temporarily lost
the rights to Getaway (back in Titans Return). Instead, this character is named after the soccer/football move.


CAPSULE

$28 at Hasbro Pulse.

Breakaway: An interesting if perhaps a little frustrating as puzzle transformers go, turning a tall Deluxe into a ball smaller than a baseball.
The result is also a robot who is alternately spindly and bulbous to make
this work. An interesting novelty, but only okay once you get past that. Mildly recommended.


RANT

Packaging: A blister card rather than a box, although the card is made from thin corrugated cardboard rather than simple cardstock, and it wraps around the bottom third of the blister. The blister part itself is roughly
7" (18cm) square and 2.75" (7cm) thick. The backing card is a few
millimeters wider than the blister, and 10" (25cm) tall. The background of
the card is mostly red, with the same stadium background as on the NFL Collaboratives, but in red monochrome.
The front of the cardback has the USA Soccer logo in the upper left and
a big white outline Autobot symbol in the upper right. The Transformers logo and character name are on the card wrapper along the bottom of the blister, wigh a render of the soccer ball mode on the raised upper bit of the front.
The short left border has the USA Soccer logo, and the taller right side has the "bust" area of the robot mode in front of the Autobot logo. The bust is just a cropped version of the full body render of robot mode on the card
back, and the soccer ball mode is the same view as on front. The back also
has a generic Collaborative logo in the upper right, a holofoil Official USA Soccer Merchandise sticker in the lower left. (If you count the logos on the toy and pictures of it, there's 9 visible Autobot symbols without opening the package, and 13 USA Soccer logos.)
The instructions are folded up between the inner and outer plastic blisters on the bottom side, mostly hidden by the cardboard. Inside the blister, the robot is in a "about to kick something to the right" pose, although the small soccer ball accessory is to the left, so Breakaway appears to be rather inobservant.


AUTOBOT: BREAKAWAY
Crossover: USA Soccer
Altmode: Soccer Ball
Transformation Difficulty: 33 steps
Previous Name Use: Movie1, RotF, Gen:TR
Previous Mold Use: None

Packaging: Five plastic ties and the shape of the blister hold the robot into the inner tray, plus one tie each on the soccer ball accessory, the display base, and the bit of altmode shell that partforms. In addition to
the funky pose, the robot's heels are not folded out.
The instructions do not cover the heel spurs in the "out of the box assembly" section, but do have where to attach the extra bit of shell (it doesn't stay on well), as well as how to attach the soccer ball accessory to the robot (feet only!) or open it up to store under the base.

Robot Mode: The legs are kinda weird, with skinny thighs, big bulbous calves, then skinny ankles and feet. The arms have big shoulderpads as if it was an American football player rather than a rest-of-the-world football
player (and you need to make sure the in-shoulderpad hinge is positioned correctly or the arms look too short). The helmet seems intended to have an Optimus Prime silhouette, but the crest is different and the face is open
with a saturnine look and pointy chin. Between that and the coincidental alignment of the colors, it feels like they wanted this to evoke Optimus
Prime without BEING Optimus Prime. (Most Collaborative/Crossover toys that involve IP that Hasbro doesn't solidly own make up new names, the exceptions might involve companies that actually want to be associated with Optimus
Prime et al. In which case Optimus Prime is almost always one of the toys.)
5.75" (14.5cm) tall, which is a bit tall for a Deluxe these days, but
he's lanky. Colored in mostly silvery gray, shiny blue, and red, with a
little white and black. Okay, a lot of black, but it's mostly in joints and stuff so doesn't look as prominent. Black plastic is used for the neck
shaft, shoulder joint roots and struts, biceps, fists, some transformation struts on the lower torso that look kind of like suspenders under a crop top, bit above the waist joint, hip joints, ankle joints, and heels. A somewhat dark and shiny blue plastic is used for the head, torso front and back,
pelvis, forearm cores, thighs, kneecaps, and feet. Silvery gray plastic is pretty much only used for bits that are soccer ball parts, including the two shell pieces on the back (one removable), the shoulderpads, forearm aromr and the rest of the boots.
All of the red on this toy is paint (or printed). The pecs, part of a red/white/blue pattern on each shoulderpad (on parts that get covered up in ball mode), bits on the forearm armor (likewise not visible in ball mode),
and thighpads. The face is silver with bright blue eyes, there's slightly metallic blue paint on the shoulderpads with white between that and the red. The kneepad spikesand details on the pelvis front are painted metallic dark gray (not as dark as the black plastic). On the right pec is a printed white Autobot symbol (solid, not outline), and on the left pec is a printed white
USA Soccer logo. The outer faces of the ball mode shell pieces are printed with various soccer logos as well as a big red Autobot symbol that's in the center of the back when the shell piece is connected.
The neck is a ball joint with the socket in the head and very little
range of motion other than turning, but the base of the neck is a transformation hinge. The waist is a smooth swivel, but the hips do bump up against the backpack shell. Balljoint shoulders, bicep swivels just below
the transformation hinges mentioned earlier, hinge elbows, and wrists that
are ball and socket but can only really swivel except for the folding away during transformation step. All the leg joints are pretty stiff so that dynamic one-legged stances using the base (see below) can be stable. Pinned hinge and swivel hips, upper thigh swivels, knee hinges that bend to 90 degrees. The ankles are particularly funky due to the transformation
process. Side to side hinges at the top, then fowards-backwards hinges, then very stiff ball joints. The backpack has a little bit of range of motion on its transformation hinge, which lets it move out of the way of the hips when the waist turns.
The fists can hold 5mm pegs, and there's 3mm sockets under the toes. There's 3mm studs on top of the toes for holding the soccer ball accessory. That's pretty much it, and it's not like the toy comes with a 5mm peg
accessory anyway. The shell piece is tabbed onto the back with nonstandard pegs and tabs, and they didn't bother making it possible for it to attach to the forearm as a shield.
While mostly meant for the altmode, there's a blue plastic base about 2" (5cm) wide with a curved top for the soccer ball mode and two 3mm pegs on top on either side. They're not quite centered, looks like they're supposed to
be on the rear side. I don't really recommend having the figure fully stand
on it, it's not really that wide or deep, but using it as a step for some blocking a la MST3K works pretty well. One foot on the base, and then the
ball on the other peg or on a toe. Hm, while it's not so obvious on the
robot, here it's pretty clear there's some metalflake swirl going on.
After more searching online than I'd have thought was necessary, the official FIFA Adidas Trionda balls for 2026 are 8.75" (22.25cm) in diameter. That makes the 2.0cm ball accessory about 1:11 or 1:12 scale. It's made of
all silvery gray plastic with the USA Soccer logo printed in blue on one
side. The site opposite the logo has a 3mm socket for attachment to either
the robot toes or the base piece. If you open up the ball on its hinge (I
need to use a knife to start it, my nails aren't strong enough) there's a 4mm peg on the inside that goes into the socket in the middle of the base, on the underside. This is the altmode storage location for the ball. Why they
didn't make these also 3mm, I dunno.

Transformation: Well, I got sort of close without instructions, but this is definitely not the sort of transformation you can just fiddle around and figure out. Everything's packed super tight and needs to be done in the
right order, even looking at the instructions I had to spend a lot of time scrutinizing them. Is it impossible to figure it out without the
instructions? I mean, nothing is impossible, but I gave up after a half hour of fiddling around and looked at the instructions. Even getting the feet folded away (almost the last step, they do NOT tuck inside the shins)
involves several fairly precise steps. On the second try I didn't need the instructions, but I still had to fiddle with the feet a lot to get the removable panel to properly fit over them...maybe as much time as I spent on the rest of the transformation.
Going back to robot mode, the ankle joints LOCK the legs in position and you can't transform the legs until the feet have been transformed, but the swivel is stiff enough (it has to be to support robot mode poses that are desired) that I ended up needing to jam a screwdriver in there to get them rotated to unlocked position. I also had to use a knife to get the head out
of the chest. The removable shell (best to remove this early in the process, BTW) theoretically has six separate tabs to hold it into the back when you're done, but I find that really only the two in the bottom corners actually hold on mine. Maybe the lower of the two long tabs in the middle, but definitely not any of the upper three tabs.

Altmode: It's a silvery gray soccer ball with four copies of a "star
with stripes and swooshes and more stars" MURICA design, one copy of the US Soccer logo, and one Autobot symbol. The seams are a bit gappy, probably because I didn't get everything in EXACTLY the right positions during transformation, and even massaging the shell doesn't do enough.
6.0cm (between 2.25" and 2.5") in diameter, with all of the visible plastic being the silvery gray stuff. Using the previously mentioned
official FIFA game ball size, this is 1:3.7 scale. Might've been intended to be 1:4 scale or maybe they just prioritized a certain robot size and worked from there. This suggests a 45-50cm tall figure would be roughly to scale
with this as a game ball...so, Titan League Football. (I think when I'm done with the review, I'll see which of my Titans can hold it in their hand...goalie, of course).
Printed details as mentioned above, no connection points. It rests in
the base without anything locking it in place. Not much more to say about
this mode...it's a ball.

Overall: It's an interesting novelty, but the super-compact altmode does mean that you really need to get everything in exactly the right places, something the stiff joints doesn't make easy. If you like your Transformers
to be more puzzle-like, you'll probably like this one, but in the event
there's redecos I wouldn't recommend picking up a second copy.


Dave Van Domelen, now to decide which Titan gets to hold onto this as goalie. Of COURSE you put a Titan in front of the goal if you can!

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