Name: Vector Prime
Series: Cybertron
Allegiance: Autobot
Alternate Mode: Space Cruiser
Thanks to Tiby for loaning me Vector Prime for the purpose of this review.
SPACE CRUISER MODE
Height: 3.5cm Length: 9.5cm Width: 6.5cm
Vector Prime is a grey space ship with a tapered nose and twin solar panel style wings which sit out to the sides. The outer surfaces of the wings are painted a metallic blue (meant to simulate the transparent blue plastic on the larger toy). There are dark burgundy, gold and some blue elements on the fuselage, which includes some really poorly concealed robot mode elements (I'll come back to that later). There is no allegiance symbol visible here. The colour scheme works well enough and the intricate detail seen on the larger toy is carried over to some extend here - on the tapered nose. The colours work fairly well in their own right, but the visible robot elements largely ruin the effect.
There's no real play value here, the closest Vector Prime comes is two moulded wheels underneath. I wouldn't expect the electronics of the larger toy to be carried over at this scale, nor would I expect a projectile, but I am a little disappointed the wings aren't nearly as adjustable. Still, it makes the ship more stable. By far the biggest shortcoming of this space ship mode is the fact that the rear of the fuselage is simply the top half of the robot - head, face, chest, fists and groin are all clearly visible. While the transformation is essentially faithful to that of the larger toy, this is a poor effort. At the very least some way of covering the face was needed here - whether achieved through a rotating neck or a fixed panel.
Good colours and great detail at the Legends size could have made this a great little alternate mode if the robot mode wasn't clearly visible on top. The play value is minimal but he holds together fairly well.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Swing the legs out from underneath and flip up his feet, fold the nose underneath, flip up his shoulderpads and position the arms.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 7.5cm Width: 6cm
Vector Prime is again mainly grey with a fair chunk of dark burgundy in support on his arms, thighs and toes. Unlike the larger toy, his head is grey (not dark burgundy), but it does have a metallic blue face and red eyes. There's not a lot of blue here - the wings sit out to the sides, but the inner surfaces now visible are grey rather than blue. There's a red orb on his chest surrounded by blue paint (as on the larger toy), without the option of a Planet Key to cover it up. Surprisingly there's no allegiance symbol here either - Vector Prime is unusual amongst Legends toys in that he completely lacks an allegiance symbol. Again there are gold details - on his shoulderpads and groin. As awful as the space cruiser mode looks, the colour scheme here is great, making for a very attractive Legends robot mode.
Vector Prime shares his kibble with the larger toy - the nose on his back and the wings out to the sides. The wings can't collapse as on the larger toy, but they're a nice enough feature so it's not really an issue. He lacks the sword of the larger toy, but he's surprisingly well articulated for a toy this side. His shoulders, hips and knees are all ball jointed while the feet and heelspurs are on hinges. The hips are somewhat restricted and his elbows have moulded fake hinges, so the range of poses is limited, but still better than most Legends.
A great robot mode with a lot of paint, a lot of articulation and an attractive layout. It's easily his better mode (common for Legends toys), but for mine it doesn't quite excuse how poor his vehicle mode is. Which isn't to say there isn't merit here - but it does limit the toy quite a bit.
VARIATIONS
None that I'm aware of.
OVERALL
With a great robot mode and a crummy vehicle mode, Vector Prime makes a good figurine but a crappy Transformer. The robot mode's paint job is excellent but it really needed to be hidden properly in vehicle mode. The colours are well executed and the play value is good at this size. With a little more effort in to vehicle mode, this could have been one of the best Legends toys out there. Instead it's significantly flawed - 4.5/10
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