Review based on the English dub. It's often considered the weak point of the Unicron Trilogy for a reason. Story: Very little of substance happens in the first season. Most episodes involve some formula of the Decepticons attacking Energon resources and planets. The Autobots strike back with the end result being the Decepticons either fleeing or having taken resources. Rinse and repeat until the rare new plot point pops up, or Alpha Q distresses about something-something-Unicron again. Kicker is well... Kicker. You'll either tolerate and get to like him more in season two, or he's going to become a constantly annoying presence. The show likes to take its timebuilding up the story at a snail's pace. Story is sandwiched in between long segments of fight scenes that are easily forgettable. Get used to hearing the same blast effects and a bunch of cheesy one-liners. Plotline does not show promise until the butt end of the series where it's the good old "gather up the gang and go fight the big bad."

It's spared from some monotony when Demolishor and Cyclonus/Snow Cat get up to shenanigans. Biggest disappointment was the handling of Scorponok since he showed some promise. One shining example among the rubble turns out to be the progression of Kicker and Ironhide's friendship.

Voice Acting:
Voice acting is very hit or miss, and the overall direction is significantly worse than in Armada. Lines fall flat a lot or don't fit the mood. Garry Chalk, Scott McNeil, and David Kaye end up carrying most of the first season. The voice actors besides the aforementioned don't appear to find their footing until the second season, Rodimus' VA especially.

The return of Carlos' VA (Matt Hill) as Ironhide seemed like a strange choice, but the voice might grow onto you like it did with me. As for Kicker, again, you'll somewhat like him or hate him.

Visuals:
The weakest aspect right next to the story. The 3D animation has not aged well. Characters move and transform stiffly, perhaps a little too much like their toy counterparts. The Transformers' faces do not move save for their mouths. Everything looks as if it were rendered with a single directional light for 95% of scenes. Animation errors galore, oy vey.

The 2D animation is passable but nothing special except when the Transformer characters are rendered in 2D. Arcee doing a cool flip into her transformation: 10/10.

This is the one TF show where I wanted to skip the transformation sequences because they reuse long stock footage to pad episode runtimes. The only good transformation sequences were 2D ones for Combiners and one-offs for Optimus and Megatron in season two.

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Only watch it if you really feel like being completionist with the Unicron Trilogy, or at the least, skip to season two. You aren't missing out on much.