Machine Robo Power Armor 5

Series: Machine Robo
Year: 1984
Allegiance: Guardians

Prelude: A toy set known by many names. This here is the “Machine Robo Power Armor 5” aka “Robo Machine Battle Suit Power System“ 5 aka “Gobots Courageous Guardian Armored Robot Power Warrior” aka “Machine Men Friendly Robot Battle Suit Power System 5”. Oh, and when it’s colored black, it might also be the “Gobots Grungy Renegade Armored Robot Power Warrior” or the “Machine Men Enemy Robot Battle Suit Power System 5”. Got all that memorized? Good, then let’s say go… bots!

Vehicle: The biggest part of the Machine Robo Power Armor 5 Set is the big fighter jet, called “Courageous” in the GoBots cartoon. It’s a big, chunky space ship with definite late 70s / early 80s Anime flair. While it’s clearly the torso of a bigger robot when looked at from underneath, the jet itself doesn’t really show any visible robot bits from other points of view. It includes a sculpted cockpit underneath a (non-opening) canopy and it also has a four point landing gear, though only the front two parts of it are retractable.

There are two big pods underneath the jet’s wings, which are the feet of the larger robot. The pods include a missile launcher each (the missiles are long gone, though) and an opening compartment in the back, where you can store the larger robot’s fists. Nicely done. On the sides of the pods you can read “Battle Armor 5”, so we have yet another name for this set.

The jet’s main body opens up and shows an empty interior with enough room to put any normal-sized GoBot inside (or a G1 Minibot, too). There is nothing really holding the robot in place, though, so it will bump back and forth of you put your jet through too many rough turns.

Overall I like this jet a lot. It has a nice retro look and all the combiner kibble parts are stored on it, too.

Power Suits: Apart from the big jet, the set contains four smaller items, the “Power Armor” or “Battle Suits”. We are looking at four …. well, I wouldn’t really call them suits, as they are really just pods of some kind where you can put a GoBot (or a G1 Minibot) inside and sort of fix them in place by lowering a canopy over their upper bodies. The lower body of each occupant is completely encased (most of these did not have lower body articulation anyway, so that’s not a problem), but they can still move their arms (if they can).

All four suits look slightly different with different canopies and leg pieces. The two suits intended to become the legs of the larger robot are slightly bigger and bulkier, but not by much. So bottom line for the Power Armor suits: not bad, but you’re probably not buying that set just for these.

Combined Mode: The main selling point of this set is, of course, the combined robot. Now GoBots had “normal” combiners, too, where you had multiple transforming robots combining into a larger one (Puzzler comes to mind), but this one here is a bit different. The torso is, of course, the Courageous jet, which is not a smaller robot by itself, and the limbs are the four Power Armor suits (with or without robots inside), which are sort of robots, but not really. The whole thing works, at least in my mind, but it’s not really a Combiner as Transformers fan understand the concept.

The combined robot is basically the jet stood on end, unfolding thighs, and attaching the armor suits to shoulders and knees. You can exchange the limbs left to right, but not leg to arm. The big pods from underneath the wings become the feet and the fists from inside the feet attach to the arms. You’re done. The resulting robot is pretty large (larger than an old school Leader-Class figure) and has basic articulation in that he can swivel his arms at the shoulders and bend the legs forward at the hip. Just be careful, because the joints connecting thighs to the torso are very, very, very tight. The fists can open up, but that’s it in terms of poseability.

Not that much more I can write here. The combined robot looks very cool in a retro-anime sort of way. You can leave the armor suits that become the limbs empty, of course, but it does look a little weird that way. Usually the robot comes with a number of guns that can combine into a larger one for this robot, but I’m missing them. So bottom line: a great combining toy that is not really a combiner, but still fun.

Remarks: Depending on which part of the world you happened to live in during the 80s, you might have seen this set in store as part of the Machine Robo line, the Challenge of the Gobots line, or the Machine Men line. Personally I had the Machine Robo version (the one pictured here), but I only knew it from the Challenge of the Gobots cartoon, where it was called Courageous and had a blue torso instead of a red one. The Courageous was built by the Last Engineer to help the Guardians defeat the Renegades, who had conquered Gobotron with the help of Master Renegade.

This set is very much a product of its time, a Japanese licensed toy that was used in multiple different toy lines that were distributed differently across the world, so there are many different versions of it. Personally I like it a lot, as it reminds me of my childhood, and it works with both GoBots and small Transformers figures, too. Not sure whether it’s attractive to younger fans, but those of my generation will undoubtedly enjoy it, I think.

Rating: B-

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