Transformers Titans Return Bumblebee review

Bumblebee's G1 incarnation has been somewhat lukewarm with me when I started to get really obsessed with looking up the history of Transformers before 2007. I don't hate him 100%, but I feel that compared to his Movie, Animated, and TFP incarnations, along with his fellow yellow robot Hot Shot, generally have more energy and moments they stand out for as characters. G1 Bee doesn't need to be as outgoing as they are, but I'd like a bit more than "hey I'm the robot that hung out with that kid named Spike." His toys have generally been better than his character, though the Masterpieces I feel tend to be weaker offerings than some of the mainline stuff. Let's see if Titans Return Bumblebee manages to be a good mainline take on the character!

Here we have Titans Return Bumblebee in his vehicle mode. It's a nicely done take on the character's altmode without making him an unlicensed approximation of the Beetle. In a way, this feels more like a shrunken down version of Classics Bumblebee. There's some nice paint for the grills, front lights, and a side stripe for the altmode. The black paint used on the windows looks pretty good, and there aren't any real smears on it. The only additional paint that wasn't on this toy can be seen on the rims. Those were solid black on the original version, and I'm not going to stick with black rims.

The back has some nice red tail lights, which would have easily been missed by Hasbro, but they're not left out! Very nice touch! Also, this other detail would have been hard to pick out, but thanks to the use of a silver sharpie, I can confirm that the license plate says "100STRA". It's a reference to Movie Bumblebee's 900STRA license plate that most toys had.

Any Titan Master or Prime Master can sit inside Bumblebee, and it's a feature that several other Legends figures from Titans Return or Power of the Primes can do. Opening the cockpit was annoying to do, yet it is doable.

For a vehicle mode comparison, here is the Titans Return Bumblebee figure next to the Thrilling 30 version of the character. I added some paint on that toy, though that was years ago when I had little experience. The T30 Bumblebee is based on the More Than Meets The Eye incarnation of the character, which was a modified version of War for Cybertron Bumblebee. The version of the mold I have is from an Age of Extinction Evolution 2-pack, which means it was included with a Deluxe 2014 Bumblebee and its weapon was not Blazemaster, but a yellow repaint of Jolt's MechTech gun.

As for the differences between both modes, they do look good in their own rights, though I kind of expected T30 Bee to have the same height as his Titans Return counterpart. Then again, the altmode is supposed to look sleeker either way.

Bumblebee's transformation is simple like the rest of his Legends colleagues since 2013, but this figure does have a bit of an issue with the arms and the chest. Untabbing the shoulders feels a bit hard to do because of the lack of space, and the small size of the toy sort of keeps things from being a bit fluid. The rest of the transformation works well enough, though.

Here we have Titans Return Bumblebee in his robot mode. It sure does look like a smaller version of the Classics Deluxe but with differently handled arms this time around.

Bumblebee's head sculpt is pretty well done. Sure, doesn't have that more confident face that the card art has, but it's still better done than the Masterpiece faces.

Bee's articulation is not too shabby for a Legends figure. Head can swivel left and right, shoulders can move front and back on the ball joints while hinge in and out on the hinges (which were used for the transformation). The elbows are on ball joints, which means the forearms can bend and swivel a la an elbow swivel. Hips move front and back as well as in and out on a ball joint, they bend at the knee at a hinge, and they also hinge slightly at the ankle.

Bumblebee has no accessories included, though he can use 5mm compatible guns. The one I have here came from FOC Jazz. It looked puny on his hand, so onto the hand of Bumblebee it goes!

Here is a robot mode comparison between Titans Return and Thrilling 30. The T30 Legends is shorter than the TR one, and while I do appreciate the more unique design the T30 has, TR Bee wins with better plastic quality and having a more worthwhile transformation. It is kind of funny how the T30 Bee's arms are bulky but the feet look normal while the TR Bee has less bulky arms but larger feet.

This mold of Bumblebee hasn't been used as often, though there are at least two variants. This is Legends Bumblebee, which is repainted to better resemble his appearance in the cartoon. He has clear windows (surprising for a Legends figure), but he had fewer paint apps in vehicle mode while including the silver rims that I added on my Bumblebee. He included a Spike Witwicky Titan Master, which is modeled after the Exosuit from the 1986 movie and can become Cerebros's head.

The second use isn't another Bumblebee variant with slightly altered stripes, but it's Chase. Yes, a red repaint that's NOT called Cliffjumper. This red repaint gives the mold a new head and newer paint apps that were based on Chase, but Hasbro renamed him as Roadburn because it'd apparently confuse kids that are more used to the Rescue Bots Chase. Yeah.

Here is the toy with the shoulders reversed, which does look better but not quite functional for the transformation. As for my thoughts on the toy, it's a nicely done take on Bumblebee! It has the aesthetic of the Generations line for a classic Bumblebee, the plastic quality is much nicer than previous Legends figures, and the playability with the Titan Masters is nifty, though slightly annoying to get to. That said, if you haven't gotten this figure yet, you can easily get him right now or wait for the Earthrise version of the character, depending on when it will come out. Still, a nice figure to own.

Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐