Dave's Transformers Cyberworld Rant: Armored Cyber Changers Wave 1

Galvatron (dragon, Desert)
Bumblebee (sports car, City, not reviewed)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/CW/Armored1

I don't care for Bumblebee's design, his weapon looks dumb, and I'm
tired of Bumblebees in general. So just Galvatron. As of the writing of
this review, I haven't seen Galvatron on the cartoon, it's possible he's the brains behind Scorponok's brawn (in his one appearance, Scorponok did not
seem inclined to talk, or transform).


CAPSULE

$15 price point.

Galvatron: Mostly another middle-level mold like Megatron or Snarl, but
$5 more expensive due to the gear-action weapon. Mildly recommended, but
check to make sure no one took the fireball pieces, which are easy to steal from the package.


RANT

Packaging: Same sort of packaging as the Cyber Changers, but bigger. 7" (18cm) tall, a little less than 7" (17.5cm) wide, and the partial box bit is
a little shallower than 2" (5cm) deep. "ARMOR UP" is added to the left side cartouche bit. The art and renders make the toy look a lot more purple than
it actually is. As with the smaller sets, the instructions are between the folded over card back halves. However, the tray sides rise up a lot higher where they meet the card back, so you have to undo almost all the tape and unfold the card to get the instructions out. The instructions are three
panels rather than two, since the weapon needs its own instructions.


DECEPTICON: GALVATRON
Zone: Desert
Altmode: Jet Dragon
Transformation Difficulty: 4 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
Package Cosells: Armored Bumblebee, regular Dinobot Snarl and Sky-Byte

Packaging: Five ties hold the robot to the middle of the card, two ties hold the tail/weapon in the lower left, and two ties hold the flame weapon accessory in the lower right. Notably, nothing prevents you from pulling the flame blasts out without cutting the ties, at which point the rest of the weapon can be easily twisted out without cutting the other tie.

Robot Mode: So, while Megatron only has the illusion of facial hair, Galvatron very definitely has the sort of mustache often called a
"pornstache," like Shattered Glass Rodimus. Or, if in blonde, like Hulk
Hogan. You can decide which you think is the less flattering comparison.
Other than the beast head on the chest and the tiny claws sticking out of the index fingers, he looks like he turns into a jet, given the jet wings on the back and what look like exhaust pipes or rocket tubes on the shoulders. The spiny tail weapon does add a bit more beast-ness, though. Not a lot about
the design really says Galvatron, though, even the helmet only has the
vaguest passing resemblance. Despite sharing the general dragon altmode
thing, there's no resemblance to BW2's Galvatron either. Basically, this Galvatron is his own thing. The wing pack looks like there's tail fins
tucked up against the trailing edges of the main wings, and the wings are attached to short Jetfire-like pylons.
4.25" (11cm) tall in mostly silvery light gray and a sort of purplish metalflake blue-gray. It's actually fairly close to the blue color used on
the original G1 toy. The purplish-blue-gray plastic is used for the robot head, beast head, thighs, wingpack, and housing of the weapon. Light silver- gray plastic is used for the rest of the torso and pelvis, arms, boot, tail, the inner moving bits of the weapon, and the fire blasts.
The shoulders are painted in a very good match for the blue plastic.
The face and the top of the beast head are silver, the visor and beast eyes
are gloss red. The mustache is painted black (or pretty close to it), the
feet and lower shins are painted gunmetal. There's white paint on top of the stumpy beast head horns, although I'm not sure if it's intentional paint or some sort of mold release crap. The flame parts of the fire blasts are
pained a coppery metallic orange. There's a purple Decepticon symbol in the center of the chest (on the top of the dragon head).
Ball joint shoulders and hips, hinge knees that snap into straight position the same way Snarl's do (and for the same reason, little beast claws on the thighs hidden behind the kneecaps). The wings have no articulation,
so they can kinda get in the way of the arms. 5mm socket fists with the
holes NOT going all the way through (only 6mm deep), 5mm sockets on the outer faces of the forearms, and on the back a 5mm socket on the upper spine as
well as another in the back of the pelvis section. No intentional 3mm
sockets, but the hollowness bit below the 5mm socket on the pelvis will securely hold a 3mm peg.
The tail has a 5mm peg and is supposed to attach to one fist, I suppose
to represent the arm just becoming a whip. 1.75" (4.5cm) long with a rectangular 3mm by 6mm tab at the end that goes into a slot above the pelvis 5mm socket for beast mode. It's supposed to store in the butt 5mm socket
when not in use, and it can also kinda go on either forearm.

Armor Weapon: The "armor" accessory reminds me of the old MechTech
weapons from Dark of the Moon's toyline. When the lever on top is pushed forwards, a gun barrel complete with iron sight and a 3mm stud on the end emerges while the flame-holders swing back. Pull the lever back and the
barrel recedes while the flame blasts clap together. When stored on the back with the barrel pointed down, the flames can be rotated to look like a cape
of fireballs and pulling the lever makes it look like he's launching
fireballs up over his shoulders. Too bad the fireballs are hollow on one
side. As a hand weapon, you need to rotate the flames so that they clap together, which does hide the hollowness a bit. The package shows it hand-held, but putting it on the right forearm helps with the Galvatron-ness.
With or without the blasts, the weapon is 2.5" (6.5cm) long with the barrel pushed forwards. Without the blasts, the weapon is only 2" (5cm) long with the lever pulled back, and with the blasts it's a little over 3.5" (9cm) long. Each flame piece is a roughly V-shaped pair of fireballs 1.75" (4.5cm) long and 1.5" (a little over 3.5cm) wide. The fireballs spread out by about
30 degrees. Each has a 5mm peg at the point of the V, and the weapon has two short barrels with 5mm sockets for attaching the blasts. If you have some spare Omega Supreme style blasts, the terminal end ones can replace the included ones and don't get in each other's way. This makes it look more
like a rocket pack when stored on the back. The full range of motion is from straight forwards to 30 degrees away from straight back, although the
presence and angle of the fireballs can restrict this a bit.
When mounted on the back in beast mode, the flames need to be in "cape" configuration or they'll bump up again the jet wings. Tilt them a little so they can cross over in front.

Transformation: Basically the same as Snarl's, but you have to manually pull the head up. It does lock in place once all the way up, the spring on
it is there to make sure it drops down when transforming back to robot mode. The gerwalk-ish mode looks kinda like a Godzilla-form kaiju.
The instructions show how to store the tail on the robot butt, but NOT
how to attach it for dragon mode (using a rectangular peg). If you store the tail on the butt, you can't attach the weapon as a backpack the way the instructions show, but I think flipping it upside down looks better.

Altmode: It looks less like a dragon and more like a lizard-dog wearing
a wingpack. It has the same "wide in front, narrow in back" proportions as Snarl and Megatron. As with Snarl there's little rear claws on the stumpy
rear legs, and the forelimbs are pegged into place. The robot head is mostly still visible other than the face, but it looks like it's part of the
wingpack.
4" (10cm) long, 3.25" (8cm) wingspan, and a bit over 2" (5cm) from the soles of the feet to the top of the wingpack. No new paints or plastics visible. The pelvis 5mm socket is covered up by the 5mm peg on the tail, the arms' socket access is the same as with Snarl and Megatron. The socket on
the wingpack is at the top center now, and meant for the main weapon. The
jaw is hinged and can open up, giving this mode one (1) point of
articulation. Which is more than most Cyberworld altmodes have (Snarl technically has two hinges for the backplates).
With the weapon attached to the back, it looks like a heavy weapons Zoid or something.

Overall: I'd put the core figure somewhere between Megatron and Snarl. Does the weapon increase the play value by 50%? Depends on how much you like fidget toy elements. I suppose a fair amount hinges on how interesting the character is once he appears in the cartoon.


Dave Van Domelen, now has to find a place to stick the Cyberworld
figures.


--- MBSE BBS v1.1.2 (Linux-x86_64)
* Origin: Coherent Comics UnInc (3:633/10@fidonet)