I saw a commercial for these the other day, and they totally reminded me of Battle Beasts. A few differences, but the similarities are striking... similar scale to BB, similar designs, marketed as collectible, each figure belongs to a nature based tribe, and they battle accordingly. They come with cards (B.Beasts didn't), and don't appear to have articulation (B.Beasts did) but regardless, Battle Beasts were the first thing to pop into my head.

Commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GICJqPQf9q4

Website (WARNING: If your computer sucks like mine, this loads very slowly)

http://www.gormiti.com/

I might have to pick some up. They've been in the European market (also as Gormiti) for longer, but were released in the U.S. earlier this year.

Wow. Battle Beast-like for sure.
These are OK. But BB are way cooler.

of course BB's are waaaay cooler.
but i want some of these now too!
thanks for posting the info

BAH! I need rub signs on mine!

I've been looking for these at all the typical retailers lately, but haven't seen any on the racks. Some Google searching does turn up rumors of these toys finally appearing on Wal-Mart shelves within the last weeks though. As much as I can't stand setting foot in there, I'm def. going to have to go search for these tomorrow. If anyone else manages to pick up any, post some pics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzOXre_f2n4
This is too cute. You have to watch the whole thing.
This kid is gonna have some serious debt problems when he gets older.

I've been seeing these on shelves for many weeks now, ALMOST picked up a couple but decided against it. Now I'm gonna have to go have another look

New kids toys have gotten worse and worse. I'm not saying that as a crotchety old fart in his late 20's, but as someone who's just honestly noticed. Even my 9 year old brother prefers to get old TMNT or Real Ghostbusters figures than anything new (Legos being the all time exception.)

The idea is cool though, bringing that back, I'll give them that. The designs are horrible, though. Rejected Ben 10 creations. I'll notice that a lot, I guess. The IDEAS are coming back, but the designs and executions are just bad.

I'm a little afraid of what my daughter will be into when she's old enough to care about toys. I'm not gonna be the dad who pushes his musical and artistic tastes on her and try to make her something contrived, I'm just gonna let it happen. But it scares me every time I hit the toy aisles at Target or Wal-Mart lately.

I'm surprised at the negative reactions. These are TOTALLY "Soul of Battle Beast" and I think what they've done with the translucent color variants really makes them shine, especially with the plant-based ones.

In Europe they also have larger (5 inch or so) figures of the characters. There's been a lot of discussion about these on littlerubberguys.com.

That was awesome. I love his passionate ending when he pans out and announces "GORMITI - THE INVINCIBLE LORDS OF NATURE!"

The only thing I noticed that I didn't like when seeing them all together like this is the lack of color on the toys. Regardless, I'm gonna look for some when I'm out today. I'm curious to see how they're packaged as well.

I just don't like the stupid cards and figure designs. I know that SEEMS like a lot, but I'm happy to see the ideas live on, and that's the bigger thing to me. I guess my reaction seems more negative when I was trying to go for pros AND cons. But there are a lot of pro's for sure, the biggest being the concept overall, even if the designs aren't my personal taste.

I guess I got off track on how much I dislike MOST newer kids toys hahahha.

There are definitely some Gormiti in our house. These are actually Italian toys that got imported to the US. I see them everywhere now, but they seem to be doing ok since they are somewhat picked through.

Yeah, I started in with them as soon as I saw them.

I would love some older Italian series, but they are hard to find and pricey!!!

If anyone on this board lives in Italy and wants to help me out, shoot me a PM hahaha.

So I picked up a couple of 2-figure packs today, and I have to say even the packaging is reminiscent of Battle Beasts - two to a pack on a blister card. Here's some pics:









So in comparison, there's a level of detail in the Gormiti that's lacking when put next to the BB. Also, no weapons and no articulation. Despite that, the toys are strikingly similar. I particularly like the clear rubber figures (last pic) more than the solid. These clear variants of standard Gormiti toys seem only to be available in the 2-fig. blister packs, not the 4-fig. starter packs. However, you only seem to be able to get the larger "boss" figures by buying the starter packs. On the back of the packaging is a list of every toy in that particular series. These are both Series 1 packs. Each toy has a number on the bottom of the foot, and comes with a trading card that gives a brief description of the monster. The card will also have a number, which is added to the number on the foot, to determine the power of the creature. I didn't like the idea of the cards at first, but the idea has grown on me. I like descriptions, and the accompanying artwork on the card. So, I have to say that I'm really enjoying these. They're no BB, but they're a great substitute. And much cheaper.

don't the gormiti understand that they have to love one another to survive? those damn volcano dudes. it won't be long before the volcano guys are buying the other gormiti to live a life of slavery while they try to convert the rest on the island of Gorm to Volcanianity.

I would check these out--but only if there weren't any tranformers that I wanted in-stock. I'd probably give them away to my gf's roomate's kids once I got a good look at them. I'm sure they'd get a kick out of these.

not for me though.

What's your sign?

umm...hold on (rub rub)..."water".

Mine's "fire". we are sworn enemies. I will destroy you.

oh shit!

BB for life--or something like that.

i'm not so sure there is a lot of negative reactions. just that people like the OG BB's more. I definitely love these, been trying to pick some up here and there, haven't been able to find places that sell them though....

also, holy sheeeeeeit on this:
someone is selling this on ebay for $600!


man, some of these rare ones carry super crazy prices!

These are the 'soul of battle beasts' as they have rawly bitten the concept, but the character designs = fail, and dont they not teach colour theory at school anymore? WTF?

All in all they look more like monster in my pocket than BB's to me, except the later series of monster in my pocket, when they had been all the way through any established myth characters and had to make up their own, and started putting bits of paint on them.

sorry to be a negatron.

P.S- BB's are prolly my all time favorite toys, probably how I ended up being into Kaiju, big infulence on my early life!

basically, in the US, they took the newest series of Italian toys, and then took maybe 1/3 of another series (the ones with clear parts/repaints) and made them all one US "Series 1"

In Italy it seems as though they have a set, and then a repaint set comes out of the same sculpts.

There has been about 3-4 series of scuplts, but then about 3-4 more series of just repaints

I bought some of these lil bastards awhile back, some of the sculpts are ok, some are really good. I wish they had some articulation and weapons like the battle beasts did. Out of all of them, i'm really diggin the clear variant figures

I would love to get back into a cheap modern toy that I could buy when I go to Target to buy cleaning products, but so far nothing has fit the bill. I thought maybe the new GI Joe reissues but no...what's up with the tiny heads? Then I thought Gormiti, but the hunched over wide stance on 90% of the figures just totally kills it for me. Then no weapons and little to no articulation? Fail.

What I actually like are the robot heroes/ transformers, combat heroes/ G.I Joe if anyone has seen them? I nice western interpretation of SD figures.

That's a big reason I've started picking these up. If my wife is going to drag me out shopping every weekend at all the same crappy big box stores, I should at least get something out of it. I really wanted to get into the new Joe toys, but I just couldn't. The tiny head looks terrible. The paint is even worse. Take a close look, there are eyeballs painted on the sides of faces, slopped on logos, etc. Now, if Battle Beasts were still on the shelves and in their 47th series by now, I'd be buying them. But sadly they're long gone. And though I might still buy the occasional OG Battle Beast or lot of MUSCLE Men toys, these are the best thing in the new toy world I could find. Given the overall crappyness and terrible designs of most new toys, and my low expectations of said toys, I think these are pretty nice - for little rubber monsters. And while some of the stand alone figs in their wide stances do kind of suck, they look really cool all standing together in a little army. Plus it satisfies my need for instant toy gratification!

These are pretty cool, I dig some of the monster designs (mainly the ocean ones like the hammerhead dudes). But what's with the boring sculpts? Is it a style thing, like clean lines and smooth surfaces are in?

See, here's what I think would be cool: take the guys who sculpt the Games Workshop figures (like Warhammer, Warhammer 40k) and have them do a line of little plastic/rubber figures like this. They would be amazing! Little tiny Space Marines in power armor! Legions of the undead! Now those would be worth picking up.

Fuck yeah!
Realm of Chaos Beastmen too.