Here we have Hightower in his vehicle mode. It's a crane with a claw at the end, and the proportions look pretty good overall. It's pretty solid in terms of the appearance, and the treads don't look too small underneath the body of the vehicle mode. Some pointed out that the crane boom should be yellow, but I feel that it's not something too noticeable unless you really note any differences between the toy and the artwork. The back odes have the combiner joint, what with its details looking out of place, but at least it's not too bad.
The claw sadly doesn't open or close, which would have been a neat feature. Otherwise, it at least doesn't look compromised.
Transforming Hightower is very interesting, especially given how the design works compared to most of the Constructicons. It's hard to describe given how uncommon it is to see a normal vehicle transform into a more animalistic form. That concept makes me think of someone like RID15's Underbite, setting aside someone like Laserbeak or Ravage. It is funny to see the back of the vehicle mode look like the rear portion of a dress looking a lot bigger than it would be if that makes sense.
As for the robot mode, it's almost like a framework for dinosaur animatronics as TFWiki once said. The front does look pretty decent, while the side and back admittedly look pretty bland in terms of coloring. I do like how the crane boom almost looks like a scorpion tail going over the head, though the lack of a reeling crane claw does mean it won't be too effective in play (then again, there's no way for it to be really integrated without jacking up the budget). The legs look like skinny arms because the tops of the legs look like shoulders in a way. The treads becoming the legs make the figure look like it's tiptoeing, but has anyone mentioned the flight stand hole on the butt? Anyways, head sculpt looks fine, though it's hard to tell if it's really accurate since he never transformed in the movie, and the concept art was an entirely different design.
Articulation is kind of funny. Head is on a ball joint for moving around, while the neck is on two hinges. The little tyranno-arms move up and down. Legs move front and back, in and out, swivel at the thighs, bend at the knees, and the ankles pivot.
Transforming into part of the limb mode revolves around barely adjusting the treads, moving the claw to make a thumb with the neck, and making room to insert the small peg found on Scrapmetal to insert it into a hole near the head of Hightower, and you better have your mind out of the gutter if you're reading that in a different way. Anyways, the connection is certainly solid, especially when it comes to keeping Devastator from feeling flimsy, but connecting these two figures does get really annoying with how thin the tab is for Scrapmetal while making sure nothing breaks, too. At least the arm mode looks decent, and it is pretty ingenious to use two Deluxes to make the left leg so as to be in a similar size to the Voyager Scrapper coming soon. Of course, in the Supreme and Legends versions of Devastator, Hightower was about the same size as Scrapper in arm mode, but I feel Hasbro wanted to recreate a scene where one part of the left mode attaches to the other in the combination sequence, though the vehicle modes are swapped IIRC, aside from either wanting one more Constructicon to make a symmetrical number of members or to honor ze little one. Also, the yellows don't really match up between Scrapmetal and Hightower.
The size of the limb is around the height of a Voyager figure, alone! We certainly are getting close to the giant monster himself, aren't we? Can't wait!
All in all, Hightower is certainly an interesting figure. The vehicle mode may not seem like much beyond casuals seeing as "the crane one", but the weird design and the combination with Scrapmetal make it a bit more interesting since Hightower wasn't really in the movie as a robot. If you want to get this guy, mainly get him if you want weird-looking Transformers or if you want to complete Devastator.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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