Cyberverse surprised fans with the late but welcome inclusion of the Dinobots, and while their personalities are different from the G1 incarnations (which is honestly fine by me since it's its own universe), I'd rather have these guys and a female Swoop over the G1 incarnations being poorly written in the Netflix WFC series. If anything, I dug seeing how Slug was depicted in the show given how he doesn't just feel like Grimlock with a different name and a Triceratops. So with all that covered, we've now gotten him with merchandise representation, with Sludge having an Ultra and Snarl having a Warrior figure (Swoop is only a crash combiner piece). The previous addition was Cheetor, who died in Season 3, but now we have another Dinobot to join Grimlock, so let's see how Slug turned out!
Here is Slug in his triceratops mode. It's quite a stylized take on the old G1 design, which makes sense given how Cyberverse works with that sort of approach. If anything, I dig the colors that he has. The sculpt work is good for a stylized bot, but the gold combined with the dark gray and rich red makes him look nice for a basic Deluxe. The translucent red horns are especially lovely when it comes to how the plastic is used for those pieces only to make it feel a little more powered up. The gray is much better than on Grimlock's as we'll get to in a moment, and the gold doesn't look faded and pops more because of how it's plastic.
The side profile has some small gaps here and there, and you can see some parts that block the joints for the articulation, but at least it's okay for this figure since he is a Deluxe from Cyberverse and has a beast mode where posing isn't easy.
The weapons can combine and be stored on the back of the beast mode, which I think works well for the cannon since it's almost like an added artillery mode. The ax...not so much, even if it does have a 3mm peg for the attack mode. For a size comparison, here he is with Cyberverse Grimlock. You can see how obviously different the two beast modes are, and even if Grimlock is smaller, he doesn't look too small next to Slug. More importantly, the colors used on the two are different overall. Grimlock has a lighter gray and his yellow details are all painted on, which means he could go for an extra coat of paint. Sadly, the lighter gray plastic on Grimlock means that parts of him are prone to photodegradation. His forearms and the parts near the legs have yellowed, which is more noticeable under sunlight. Guess this means I gotta paint Grimlock in the same colors as Slug's gray...
Transformation for Slug is a little more creative for the G1 concept. Normally, the rump becomes the legs, the forelegs become the arms, and the triceratops head tucks in the back, and you're done. Here, they went a few creative steps, from the use of a waist swivel AND a dino head swivel to accompany the chest transformation, we even get a fake lower mouth to complete the look in a way the real one can't. It's a pretty neat transformation that I feel surpasses the Studio Series 86 version just for its creativity. The resulting robot mode isn't 100% accurate to the show, which I do believe is from Hasbro toy designers and Boulder Media having different concept art provided to one another in order to meet the deadline of the new TV movies once they found out that there was more demand for retailers with selling more Cyberverse toys as they didn't initially plan on putting out a new Transformers show until 2022-3 due to the Nickelodeon deal. So as a result, Slug, while still looking good, doesn't quite capture the character design in terms of coloring. Like the shins and shoulders should be gray. At least the robot mode is still nonetheless able to resemble the design as closely as it could, albeit being a little chunkier. There are two 5mm ports on the back for weapon storage, which I didn't even notice until making the review. Oops.
Head sculpt is the biggest inaccuracy to the character design, much like with Thunderhowl's masked face. The outer parts of the top should protrude more, while he never had a visor in the series. Still, he at least looks like how a Slag would look, even if it's not 1:1 to the cartoon. His articulation is pretty much consistent with every Deluxe figure made since Siege. Head is on a ball joint, shoulders move front and back, in and out, there are no bicep swivels, but the forearms do swivel. There is a waist swivel, the hips move front and back, in and out, the thighs swivel, the knees bend, and the ankles pivot.
The accessories are usable this time for the robot mode in proper glory, with the axe now feeling more like a hatchet, and his gun with a unique blast effect piece (thinking about it, the Cyberverse blast effect pieces are both unique from the Siege ones and may not be as compatible). I feel tempted to give the cannon to Grimlock, but it fits well with Slug, too. The lack of bicep swivels does make his posing options a little hampered.
For a robot mode comparison, here he is with his king, Grimlock. Once again, I think Slug looks better due to the plastic colors, though I will admit that Grimlock, with having 2 years of screentime on the show, does grant him the more accurate toy. Still hate how parts of him yellowed. I feel tempted to get Warrior Snarl and Ultra Sludge, even if their quality would be worse than Slug's (Sludge, especially). And that does the proper wrap-up to the Deluxe line of Cyberverse characters. Now that the series itself is ending, I'm sad to see their take on the Deluxes disappear after Slug and Cheetor completed the collection. No Build-a-Figure pieces as with the third wave, and fewer characters to choose from. I'd love to have seen Windblade, Shadowstriker, Sky-Byte, Slipstream, Wild Wheel, Perceptor, Jetfire, Strika, Clobber, Lockdown, Dead End, among other characters. You may notice I mentioned more Decepticons than Autobots, and, well, look at the last image! Such a heavy bias, and I'd say worse than the balance between Bots and Cons in the RID15 Warrior line-up. Either way, Slug's a nice figure to have, even if he is the last of the Cyberverse Deluxe line-up. Let's hope the next cartoon can deliver good toys as well as a good show.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
No comments:
Post a Comment