Dragonstorm is one of those things that makes me wonder how he'd work in The Last Knight. He's as big as Predaking, he's been in the opening of the movie, and at one point, Optimus Prime was shown preparing to stab the dragon (an image that stands out to me on the steelbook). What sucks is that because The Last Knight was poorly edited and inconsistent with the rest of the intent, we'll never get to see more of the knight stuff. That being said, I did want to get the Knight Transformers. Now Steelbane kinda sucked, but Dragonstorm interested me a lot. So let's see what he's got to offer!
Here we have the two Transformers that will make up the Dragon mode in their robot modes. Yeah, we're going backwards for this one review. This is Dragonicus, who is the beefier of the two robot modes. Maybe he's chunkier than he should be given how sleek the CG model is. Granted, it's not as obvious as Sideswipe, but this toy definitely tried to make itself work with the Duocon gimmick. That being said, he is the better of the two in terms of how he feels. Aside from the chunkitude, he's not too bad in terms of kibble. The dragon heads hand out from the back of the forearms but they are at least able to cover the gaps on him. The wings are not from the movie but do give him more of a design flare. The colors are decent and try to make him look like an ancient robot but the light gray never looked that nice. Much like Studio Series Grimlock before him, his robot feet have the back of the dino toes as heels. I will say that I like the asymmetry with the shoulder pads.
Head sculpt is close to what it looked like in the movie, but with a more good-guy look to him. The red visor is a nice touch and the head sculpt does look robotic and alien while having that knight look. His articulation is pretty good, with a ball-jointed head, shoulders that move front and back as well as in and out (the shoulder pads move out, too), bicep swivels, and elbow bends. The hips move front and back, in and out, the thighs swivel, the knees bend, and the ankles are on ball joints. He has two somewhat short swords but my copy has one since I got it second-hand. Not that I'm losing sleep over it since it's not a particularly impressive accessory.
And now we have Stormreign. He looks noticeably more proportionate than Dragonicus, which is definitely the case from the front. His color scheme is somewhat more light in terms of coloring, with a lot more gray to contrast the chest and legs of Dragonicus. He, too, has a bit of asymmetry for his design, mainly with the shoulder pads as well as the arms having a gray panel on the left...maybe coloring it black would help it stand out. Also, said arm has the dragon head hanging off of it, and the back is ass-ugly; what will be part of Dragonicus's body is left with a massive gap that doesn't transform to look any better than it currently is. It looks BAD, and it makes him feel more like the weaker of the two figures despite having more accurate proportions than Dragonicus. The dragon tail is nicely stored inside one leg, and the other leg is more hollow because of how it transforms. He should be red like in the movie, but his colors match Dragonicus for coherence sake.
The head sculpt for this guy is nice-looking and has a different knight helmet for him to stand out from Dragonicus. The back half is black while the front is mostly silver. His visor weirdly reminds me of the Mandalorians like Fetts Jango and Boba (as well as the one known by that term but in singular). His articulation is better and worse than Dragonicus; it's got the same points of articulation but what's better than him is the waist swivel and what's worse for him is the limited head movement and the lack of ankle pivots. He has a mace that's on a rather long stick with an obvious 5mm port, and it's okay for what it is. He weirdly holds it better on the left hand than the right hand.
For a size comparison, here they are with Optimus and Megatron. Those two are proper Voyagers while the Dragonstorm Duo are shorter and lack the engineering that they have. Or rather, their budget as individual figures are cheaper than with both toys. That's what I'm going with in terms of how they work.
Transforming these guys is rather unusual, what with these two being a reversal to the Duocon gimmick. Instead of two vehicles that turn into a single robot, you have two robots that turn into a single unit. And while I like how Stormreign transforms in terms of how unique the steps are, what with the inner parts of his torso doing most of the work, Dragonicus's transformation is a little less interesting. Now, what do they look like on their own? Well, Dragonicus looks kinda like a two-headed dragon with a big gap and no metaphorical pelvis. As for Stormreign, he either looks like a Chinese dragon or a snake.
And here we have the completed Dragonstorm! This guy definitely looks much nicer in this mode, what with the completed body parts, the lack of gaps, and the three heads reminiscent of Ghidorah, and for a more Transformers-specific comparison, either Cybertron Scourge or Beast Hunters Voyager Predaking. The design is given the very Movie-aesthetic traits with the alien influence, but much like the Dinobots and Lockdown's Steeljaw, Dragonstorm has a bit of an organic look to him. While the deco is mostly gray with silver brushed on the wings to make them look more fluid than metal, the heads definitely stand out for how orangey they are. They look more like cupcake frosting randomly applied by a kid than proper paint apps, and it makes me wish the rest of the head was painted properly.
His articulation is somewhat limited, but the three heads are equally articulated with heads that move up and down, jaws that open, and necks that are hinged thanks to them being the arms. They also use the ball joints of the robot shoulders, and the dragon arms are on ball joints while also making use of the wrist hinges. The legs are limited but are at least positioned to look dragon-like. The wing articulation is not too shabby, with a decent amount of movement and a good span to boot. But that being said, is Dragonstorm a good Leader Class offering? I don't think he is for the two robot modes, but the transformations and the combined dragon mode more than make up for it all. It's a good size, the design is good, and the sculpting applied makes it feel like a nice way to give the more ancient Movie characters refined appearances without either being as anorexic as The Fallen or looking stupidly Geewun like with the Bumblebee movie. So not a perfect set, but at least it lives up to the price tag than most Leaders do nowadays.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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