Name: Megabolt
Series: Universe
Allegiance: Decepticon
Alternate Mode: Head
Thanks to Griffin for loaning me Megabolt for this review.
HEAD MODE
Height: 7cm Length: 10.5cm Width: 14cm
A green head with a fade to gold paint at the front, Megabolt has six black legs, composed of a flexible plastic. There's a blue spark crystal on top with a stamped Decepticon logo on top of it. He sports some azure blue here and there. The eyes are grey and the protruding chin at the front is green. This colour scheme works fairly well despite being an unusual mix - and it also helps differentiate this repaint from the original, which is useful considering how unique this mould is.
This alternate mode represents the giant floating head Megatron's spark inhabited for a period of the Beast Machines cartoon. I'm not really sure why they actually attempted this as a toy (it's not like this head transformed in the show), but it would have made more sense without the legs. While a giant transforming head might be unexpected, the insect legs make it even less logical - since they detract from the original point of this toy. I can see that the designers wants it to do more than Be A Head, but that's exactly what Megatron did in the cartoon.
Anyway, there are three wheels underneath. If you roll him along a flat surface and press down as you do so, the legs will move, imitating insect legs. It works reasonably well, but takes this toy away from the floating head idea. And introduces a chunk of plastic underneath (later to become backpack) to fit the gears. Frankly, this mode would have been better without the legs, and I suspect the legs were added for this fairly random play value. There's also a missile launcher tucked away underneath, but it's not really meant for this mode. The missile will still fire randomly when you don't want it too.
An odd concept and one with very limited appeal as a toy. So Hasbro decided to spice it up, but the random insect legs do too much to dilute the original point of the toy, making this a very weird and unfocused alternate mode. What makes it worse is that this repaint dilutes things even more. The colours work well enough, but aren't especially relevant to the mould.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
There's a lot of twist involved so I'll summarise. The back of the head becomes his legs, the arms are tucked away under the legs. The face panels become a backpack while the centre of the head mode becomes the torso and head. The legs and their associated block become his backpack. There are little boosters at the back which become heelspurs (I've left them to the sides in my photo, however). The spark crystal ends up on his chest.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 17cm Width: 14cm
A green robot with a blue chest with a silver wash and that Decepticon logo in the centre. His forearms are gold along with his head, while the helmet over his head is a metallic mint green. His eyes are yellow, his brow is purple while his teeth are metallic silver. The colour scheme doesn't work quite as well as the head mode, and doesn't work as well as that of the original, since they're moved away from the colours that worked for Megatron.
The bodyshape here is pretty good - which you'd expect since the alternate mode allows a lot of leeway. Despite that Megabolt does have to lug around his backpack - complete with those legs. It's a little distracting visually, but still looks okay. Sadly it causes serious stability issues, since he's now very back heavy (I'll come back to this soon). The shoulderpads mostly stay out of the way, although they do crowd his head a little. The feet look surprisingly small, with the shin effectively being a bellbottom shape. Sadly this toy suffers from Gold Plastic Syndrome - the forearms, hands and shoulderpads are composed of the offending plastic.
Megabolt has excellent articulation but it's largely wasted by stability issues. His head and waist turn while the shoulders, elbows, knees, hips and ankles are all ball jointed. The knees have a tendency to give thanks to the weight of that backpack. Some poses are available, but a lot will just topple over in a heap. The legs gimmick isn't available here. Instead that missile launcher flips out over his head, complete with a battle helmet that slots over his head. It's a nice idea - especially the helmet. It has a tendency to flip out during transformation or posing, anyway, and the missile has an annoying habit of firing at random moments - both springs are strong and easy to set off. While I like the idea of the launcher, it ends up quite annoying. The helmet is cool, but watching Megabolt collapse in a heap only to fire his missile across the room kinda ruins the joy.
A well articulated robot, but one with stability issues and Gold Plastic Syndrome. The weight of the backpack makes him too unstable for any cool poses while the triggerhappy missile launcher is a pain in the skidplate. The colours don't work especially well in this mode either.
VARIATIONS
None that I'm aware of, although as mentioned, he is a repaint of Megabolt Megatron.
OVERALL
A poor repaint of a toy that was so unique that it shouldn't have been repainted. The GPS alone makes this repaint disappointing, but visually he doesn't work as well as Megabolt Megatron - even if they've made a clear effort to distinguish them. A repaint I'd recommend avoiding - 2.5/10
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