Name: Hellbat
Series: Japanese Generation 1
Allegiance: Destron
Sub Group: Breast Force
Function: Spy
Vehicular Mode: Dassault Rafale jet
Comes with BatBreast, a small companion that turns from a bat to a breast (ok, kinda obvious) and also becomes Hellbat's gun.
JET MODE
Height: 5cm Length: 14cm Width: 10.5cm
Reasonably large for a combiner limb, Hellbat is a dark navy blue (easily mistaken for black) jet. For those familiar with G2, he's the same jet as Eagle Eye (Hawk in Europe). He has off white wings with yellow stickers (and Destron logos - facing backwards). He has an orange cockpit, which may sound bad, but it contrasts fairly well with the blue and since this orange is used sparingly, it's fine.
Hellbat has a single, blue tailfin, and on either side are engines, which are moulded flatter than on the real thing, since they form the boxy robot legs. The level of mould detail's okay. There are jet lines, most of which are lost in the dark blue anyway, and there's small heat-seeking missile moulded onto the wingtips.
There's not realty that much play value - that's in the robot mode. He has no wheels underneath, Hellbat chooses to rest on his feet & small posts on his shoulders instead. Oh, and if you like, BatBreast can fit underneath in jet mode.
Hellbat's Jet mode is pretty good, for what it is. The navy blue and white works well, it's probably the best Transformer of this plane model. The only major negative is a lack of undercarriage.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Pull the rear section down to become his legs, flip the tail behind his right leg (you don't actually have to do this, but you're meant to). Fold the wings up and the cockpit up and over. Stand him up. You'll see four holes on his chest, attach BatBreast (wings folded) to the lower holes to form the breast.
BATBREAST
To transform BatBreast to Bat, fold out the wings and retract the twin-barrels. To transform to chestplate, retract wings & barrels. To transform to gun, retract wings and fold out barrels. He's almost entirely white - the barrels are black, there's no blue. The white shows up all the mould details (which is pretty good), but this means the gun looks like a bat with barrels, which isn't so great. The chestplate also looks like a bat-chest, but it works better on a chestplate than a firearm. His barrels are black.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 9cm Width: 6.5cm
Now with more white - Hellbat's chest, thighs and head are white, and he has a red face. His arms and lower legs are blue. Navy and white works pretty well as you can imagine. if you leave BatBreast off he has blue stickers on his chest, with a Destron logo on the left side. The bat chestplate is all white, but it hides the screws and seems of his chest (which don't look as bad as those on Gaihawk.
Hellbat devotes a lot of his design to his combined form, and his robot mode suffers slightly as a result. Mind you it's still a pretty good robot, and it doesn't suffer from a square head or have nothing but blocky pieces. Along with Gaihawk, he's short for a Breast Force member.
I recommend leaving BatBreast on his chest rather than in his hand as a weapon. It's a funny looking gun anyway, since it's basically a bat with gun barrels for a tail. As I mentioned, the chest itself doesn't look that bad, but the bat chestplate looks better. Most of the visible mould detail is the bat on his chest (or gun), but he does had a head vaguely reminiscent of a bat's head.
Poseability is standard - his shoulders rotate. Most of the play value is in the central gimmick of this group - the three modes of BatBreast. It's a fun gimmick, I'll admit, so overall the play value's decent.
VARIATIONS
None that I know of.
OVERALL
Both modes are good, the mould detail's a little lacking but on navy blue it really doesn't matter. Hellbat's worth it on his own, and of course you need him to complete Liokaiser. BatBreast doesn't work as well as some of the other partners in this group, but he's still fun. Price aside, I give Hellbat 7/10
|
