Fortress Maximus was one of TWO Titan Class figures that Hasbro put out in Titans Return, the other being Trypticon. We'll get to him some other time, but to go over a guy like this, we need to discuss about how heavy of a retool he is from Thrilling 30's Metroplex. This figure aims to be as faithful to the G1 toy while still limiting itself to a different design. While I wish that we had a more faithful Fort Max update, I wouldn't be surprised if Hasbro would make one soon in the future. But until then, I have to thank one of my friends, Ernie, for letting me own this figure much earlier than Hasbro's reissue normally would. Now let's review the giant Autobot who either was used by Spike in the US or a super-warrior kind of guy in Japan.
Here we have Fortress Maximus in his city mode. This doesn't look accurate to the G1 design, which I wouldn't mind if it weren't for how mistransformed it looks. The ramps are already noticeable thanks to how short they are; they stop at the knuckles of the robot hands when they should extend past that area, while the legs should help form city-like buildings to make it taller than its current wide stance. In fact, if the legs were redesigned even further than using the same engineering that Metroplex has, it could allow the base mode to better match the G1 toy's design than it currently does. At the very least, you do have a decent number of tiny nubs for the Titan Masters to peg into. The red flaps near the shoulders allow you to connect this figure to the base modes of Titans Return Leader Class figures such as Blaster and Powermaster Optimus Prime.
One of the arms has an opening compartment that is vaguely reminiscent of the jail cell that is missing context here because of how basic it is. Since it was originally Metroplex, there was an arm cannon that has since been removed, and it kind of shows. At the very least, you do have a ramp that is meant for Legends scale figures, though Grommet could barely fit. Grommet being the lower half of Cog, not the dog from the claymation series.
The ramps on the arms are at least big enough for a Deluxe to be placed on there, as we have with the combined altmode for Cog, and hey, the chest can open to reveal a cannon for Emissary to sit in. And we'll get to that name in a moment, The chest compartment where the cannon previously was in could double as a garage of some sort.
Before we get to Spaceship Bruce, you can somewhat make a city mode that looks closer to the G1 design by transforming the leg differently. You still can open the legs as you previously did with Metroplex to and orienting the leg joints differently in order to have the legs point upwards and use the back sections as additional towers. It's not 100% perfect, and I could probably hinge the legs a bit upwards even more, but the fact that these legs were not redesigned for this character makes me wonder how held back Hasbro was with the retooling.
Transforming the body into the spaceship mode basically has the arms pointing the back, the tower halves connected, and the legs straight down. You can possibly roll this figure on a surface similarly to the transport mode of Metroplex. This mode isn't anything that mind-blowing, which is likely a case of it being a midpoint mode that the toy designers usually come up with in order to make the toy look like it can do more modes than it needed to. This mode is definitely the more accurate one compared to the base mode. The tower mode that Cerebros turns into has a variety of sound effects, usually powering up and powering down sound effects; other sound effects include the blasts, spaceship noises, and either a monotone robotic voice saying "Cerebros" or the tower-mode exclusive "Emissary" that sounds a little more lively.
Here we have Emissary, who is colored to look like the G1 toy that Spike Witwicky had for the original Fort Max. The sculpted details of these figures always impress me, even if they tend to be either underpainted or a solid color. This little guy at least has a nicely painted face, and I think the eyes are picked out, too. The back faceplate matches Cerebros from the G1 cartoon, though it should be mentioned that Emissary is specifically based on the Prime Wars series where Jason David Frank voiced him. And saying that upsets me that he was in the Mashitima series instead of a proper Power Rangers/Transformers crossover.
Transforming the Transtector is very basic, as you turn a boxy looking thing into a humanoid shape with the hinges from the torso to attach the arms while the legs are straightened with hinges above the knees that usually bend outwards. The toes and heels are also hinged down, so you don't get ankle pivot. The resulting robot mode looks about what I'd expect from a design like this, as a somewhat bulky robot that is non-descript due to it turning into a head for a much larger robot. The design is meant to match the colors of the Sunbow character model, though the blue shoulders are not accurate. It is interesting how the elbows are ball-jointed instead of there being hinges, though speaking of...
Articulation consists of a ball jointed neck, shoulder rotation, outward arm movement, ball-jointed elbows, hip articulation for front and back movement as well as in and out movement, thigh swivels, and knee bends. You can have him use the turret from the base mode while also arming him with the miniature sword used from the Master Sword. And yes, we'll get to the Master Sword in a moment.
For a size comparison, he is much taller than both Cog and Zarak, the latter who took the Headmaster-with-a-Headmaster gimmick that was originally from Cerebros. Oh, and Cerebros has a light-up right nipple.
And now for the head modes, where Fort Max ends up having sculpted details comparable to Scorponok, though the former has a more defined mouth while the latter looks more droid-like, including the opaque visor. The head is also much larger thanks to the electronics included, such as when you get the transformation sound everytime you click the forehead in different positions for either Cerebros or Fort Max modes.
And now, for the piece-to-resistance. Or whatever that term is. The titan mode that Fortress Macimus has is tall and heavy, as he definitely has somewhat denser plastic than a lot of the other Titans we got. The coloration is said to not be 100% accurate, which we'll get to for a lot of the other variants of this mold. It is here in this mode that Fort Max has the crotch and hands of Fort Max in addition to the legs, with the former being funny. See, originally, the front section on Fort Max is actually Metroplex's butt given the four screw holes being visible in the front when they normally shouldn't. At the very least, the asymmetrical chest, the red on the shins, and the usual color scheme of Fort Max make up for it. However, the hinge that is normally used for Metroplex's base modes is more visible here.
While we went over the head sculpt, the eyes can light up when you press the button on the chest. New sound effects included for this mode include "Fortress Maximus!", "Autobot!", and "Decepticon!"; in other words, Hasbro's attempt at avoiding language barriers. The articulation for this mode includes a head swivel, ratchets for the shoulder joints, elbow joints, rotation in-between, the waist swivel, the hip articulation, rotation above the knees, and the knees themselves. No ankle articulation, but the wrists rotate, curl inward, and the fingers can articulate individually but are curled somewhat while the thumb is on a hunge.
One of his options for arsenal includes removing the cannons from the shins, which seems somewhat like you're not supposed to given the ugly cuts for the inside of the plastic.
Cog can be disassembled into numerous pieces for Fort Max to use, which is always appreciative when it comes to integrating a little guy like him on a giant toy in spite of being made 3 years apart.
However, because my friend Ernie is so awesome, his Fort Max comes with not just the Master Sword which was a Hasbro Asia exclusive but also the DNA Design gun that has a handle with an annoyingly tight hinge when you want to have it back into gun mode. This should have been what we got in the first place regardless for a vanilla release. Hell, Hasbro's reissue is not adding any Takara improvements like the aforementioned Master Sword or anything else to justify the price hike that the figure got due to inflation. IIRC, Titans used to cost nearly $150 before they got up to $200. So the fact that we don't get any bonuses is a shame for the 2024 release. At least there wasn't much to change for the Siege Jetfire and Earthrise Sky Lynx reissues since the War for Cybertron line was fairly present in fans minds even after Kingdom ended, while Fort Max's reissue was announced 7 years since the line ended.
As far as reuses are concerned, the SDCC version appears to have an additional sticker or paint app detailing that is somewhat more saturated than the regular version of the toy, but it comes with the Master Sword as well as a Headmasters-accurate head sculpt for Fortress's regular body. Holding the button features a G1 theme snippet.
TakaraTomy's Fortress Maximus vetter matches the G1 coloring, especially in The Headmasters as we see here for the Titan mode and with Fortress's Headmaster unit. You can see the head much better in this image, as it doesn't have the visor and mouthplate combo that American Cerebros has. The Japanese Legends release also comes with the Master Sword (not pictured in these photos), but the electronics are newly recorded with voice clips courtesy of Ikuya Sawaki, who recited lines from the series for better personality than the generic Hasbro sounds.
And this is Grand Maximus, who is a logical next step for TakTom to repaint after Fort Max popped up. It's also complimentary for the fairly prominent Super God Masterforce characters getting attention in the Legends line, though the colors feel somewhat inverted from the more traditional Fort Max if that makes sense. One thing I should mention is that the Pretender suit meant for Gran, a redeco of the Micronus Prime/Cloudburst decoy armor from Power of the Primes, was to be a preorder bonus for fans if it reached 3,000 preorders after the repaint went past 2,000 preorders to allow production. The accessory was scrapped when the higher-number tier was not met within 3 weeks, which is an amusing precursor to the whole HasLab funding problems that plagued other projects like the Engine of Vengeance or Reva the Third Sister's Lightsaber while the Transformers projects made it through with no problems.
The Transtector was later reused for a very bizarre collab that makes any Collaborative release sane by comparison. If you never heard of the Japanese comedy game show called "Downtown No Gaki No Tsukai Ya Arahende!" until now, I don't blame you. It's very reliant on slapstick comedy, including annual themes and corporal punishment. The Titan Masters include Donarimasu (the one with fake glasses and a brown wig) and Guchirimasu (the one with yellow hair and less goofy glasses). They seriously look more like nerd emojis than Wheeljack aka our lord and savior Pablo in Rise of the Beasts ever did. The Transtector is themed after Giant Fujiwara, who looks more like he's got some very devious plans in his mind after controlling Fort Max. That or he is proud of himself for not letting RID Fort Max/Brave Max from Car Robots not get a new toy. As for the GKSL on the forehead and unfocused chest deco, it stands for "Gaasuu Kurobikari Science Laboratory".
This exosuit Spike Witwicky that comes with is a newly sculpted version of the Sunbow Cerebros head, so if you're a Japanese collector, you could get the Legends Bumble figure that included said Spike if you want to have the option to go American Generation 1 instead of Japanese The Headmasters.
Let's end things off with a size comparison with Titans Return Scorponok, who is shorter than him but not to a gross extent like with their G1 toys. For a good while, this version of Fort Max was the tallest Transformer of all time, surpassing his G1 toy and Thrilling 30 Metroplex somewhat before HasLab Unicron was announced. I do appreciate that even if both lines were made years apart, they at least don't feel too drastically different in terms of aesthetics, which is something more noticeable if you were to put Classics Megatron next to Siege Starscream. If you never got Titans Return Fort Max back in 2016, you can get his reissue now that its release was pushed back a few months past its intended release date. Do keep in mind that it's missing the Master Sword, the electronics are mediocre in terms of sound effects, and you're gonna need to get the DNA Design upgrade kits to make him better.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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