Name: Deluge
Series: "European" G1
Allegiance: Autobot
Function: Rear Guard
Alternate Mode: Le Mans Racer
Thanks to Tiby for loaning me Deluge for this review.
CAR MODE
Height: 3.5cm Length: 12cm Width: 5cm
A menthol green and cobalt blue Le Mans style racing car, Deluge is blue at the front, green at the back and has bands of both in the middle. The windows of the enclosed cockpit and headlights are transparent pink as is the bellow in the middle of the yellow spoiler section. Unlike most of the water-shooting Transformers from this era, there's no mismatching of paints - the painted front section (which changes colour) is matched by blue stripes in the middle, painted over green. There is some green paint but it matches the green paint perfectly. His tyres are grey with silver chrome hubcaps while there are pink and green stickers on his spoiler. Rounding out the colour scheme are various racing stickers including black "8"s on yellow stickers on either side and G2 Autobot logo in a yellow sticker on his roof. It's a nice colour scheme - the banding in the middle ensure the cobalt blue and menthol green work well together, and while the yellow and pink are far less obtrusive than you'd expect.
The shape is essentially realistic, since there's variation in racing cars anyway. The colours are unlikely - especially the transparent pink. The yellow spoiler's shape is not realistic at all, so Deluge ends up being somewhat realistic - but it's enough to sell the illusion here. You can remove the spoiler, revealing an incomplete-looking rear end, and while it does feature orange taillights, which is a really nice touch, although they are still (just) visible otherwise.
Deluge shares a central gimmick based on a water-squirting mechanism with the other Aquaspeeders. There are two small nozzles on either side of the spoiler, which shoot water stored in the bellow at the back when the bellow is compressed. It's not a terribly impressive gimmick although it works reasonably well. There's a secondary gimmick based on the painted cabin area. If Deluge is himself shot with warm water the painted blue section at the front will turn white. The changing paint is unimpressive, but the idea is nice. Deluge rolls reasonably well on his plastic tyres.
A cool colour scheme idea really makes this vehicle mode work. Sure the Le Mans racer is done fairly well but it's the blue and green transition that sell this car mode. The gimmick is okay - no better or worse than the Aquaspeeders, really and the care shape is decent. It's not fantastic but this is a nice car mode.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Detach the spoiler, pull the rear fenders out to the sides. Flip over the central rear section to form legs. Pivot the rear fenders forward to form arms, fold the front down to form the chest and reveal his head. Stand him up and you're done.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 11cm Width: 7.5cm
A mix of blues and greens, Deluge has menthol green arms and boots, transparent green thighs, a cobalt blue torso and a cobalt blue head. There's some transparent pink on his chest - the headlights and windshield, while the eyestrip is also transparent pink with a great lightpipe. His mouthplate is silver and there are grey tyres on his wrists. Unusually for this series, there are no visible allegiance symbols. The colour scheme isn't as successful now, since there are now two transparent plastic competing.
Deluge has a weird bodyshape. Since the legs are the middle of the rear section, they're quite narrow. Similarly, the arms are the rear fenders pulled out to the sides, so they're very wide - as is the chest. The end result is a robot that's wide on top and narrow underneath. It's an awkward look. The feet are subtle and the arms aren't much to look at since they are the underside of the fenders without much actual detail - and they have gaps at the top. Deluge holds his spoiler between his hands as a gun, and while he has holes in the top of his fists, they're only for show. At least it helps the look of the arms a little.
The play value is centred on the water gimmick, of course. Pressing the bellows will cause him to fire a stream of water from either nozzle. It's such a shame then that his small feet aren't enough to anchor Deluge's frontheavy weapon - he'll just topple forward of he's holding it. This gimmick is okay, but not impressive - and it's far from impressive when he can't stand upright to shoot the water. The elbows lifting up to hold his gun represents the entire poseability here.
An awkward robot mode shape is made worse by the fact that Deluge can't hold his weapon and stand at the same time. The lightpipe works very well - but that applies to almost every Transformer of this era. The colours which worked so well in vehicle mode don't really work now - the transparent green upsets the balance. While the vehicle mode is solid, this robot mode is poor.
VARIATIONS
None that I'm aware of. He was repainted later in the same year as the Decepticon Drench. Drench was released in North America while Deluge was released in Europe & Australia.
OVERALL
A nice vehicle mode with cool colours isn't quite enough to save Deluge from his awful robot mode, which can't use the water shooting weapon and badly mangles the colours. The transformation is inelegant - which is a large part of the reason why his robot mode is so weak. One of the weakest toys from this era - 4/10
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