The Energon Pub

Hello, Seibertron. Today I will be reviewing General Grievous from the new, smaller scale Star Wars transformers.

Vehicle mode

General Grievous comes in vehicle mode, so this is where we'll start. His vehicle mode is pretty screen accurate, but just a little bit blocky. The landing gear's state of permanent extension is also a bit of a drawback. Also, most (if not all) of his robot mode can be seen from the bottom. So the vehicle mode is a bit shaky, but it still looks alright, if you put aside the minor flaws. The lightsaber blades from mech mode also serves as trails of fire for this mode, and I have to say it works pretty well. Luckily, these blades are retractable, so it doesn't need to be inflight all the time.

Transformation

The transformation is incredibly simple. Personally, I didn't read the instructions and managed to transform it with ease. Younger customers may require minor instructional assistance, but I think it's, for the most part, pretty managable.

Mech mode

The mech mode is just great. For the first time in the Transformers line, General Grievous is granted all 4 of his arms instead of just two. Because of this, he also gets all 4 of his lightsabers. I like that the arms can be fused together into just two, or spread out into 4. (Though this significantly limits his armticulation.) His head sculpt is very nice, and the most screen accurate element of the toy. His knees can sort of bend, though they're clearly not meant to. His only two drawbacks in this mode (apart from the armticulation thing) would be his enormous back kibble (though I suppose this could be interpreted as his cape) and how difficult it is to stand him up. He's not terribly hard to stand up, but it does require a bit of patience, unless you don't mind him looking at the sky all day.

Overall

Grievous has an alt mode on shaky ground, and a mech mode that comes close to compensating for it. While certainly not the best of its scale, there are also far worse ones out there. My final verdict is a 3 out of 5.