Now, I don't buy a whole lot of 3rd party TF toys, and even though I'm still getting the official Planet class Unicron when it gets released, after seeing how impressive this Studio 01 Cell is in both capturing Unicron's likeness and transforming into a fully round sphere with absolutely no backpack whatsoever, I had to try seeing if I could get it.
When the preorders went up and and had everyone wary of the price, I too was hesitant. Luckily, I knew where to search for more options. By ordering this guy from Action Robo, I paid about a hundred dollars less for this thing than I would have had to pay had I ordered it from a domestic retailer like TFSource. Though, the shipping wasn't cheap, but it still proved the more cost effective option since the total cost was still about 55 dollars cheaper than the domestic e-tailer price, and that's even before domestic shipping.
Anyway, mine arrived yesterday and I opened it today. In robot mode, he is BIG. Well, not quite the height of a Titan class cityformer, but still pretty impressive. As shown in the YouTube review of this figure by
Bobby Skullface, he's about an inch shorter than the Zeta Toys not-Superion. And is surprisingly more solid in this mode than I thought it would be. In this mode, he is loaded with articulation and detail, both painted and sculpted, some of which can even be found in certain parts of the figure that are only exposed during the transformation process, as in, this extra detail is not supposed to be seen in either mode. It's also rather heavy, having diecast shoulder joints and foot supports (the big spikes that jut from the sides of his feet).
The colors are pretty nice, but the panels on his torso and waist, the ones with the circles on them, seem to have had their colors inverted from how they're traditional colored in most artwork of Unicron. Instead of the panels being white/silver/gray with the circles being blue, the panels are a light blue and the circles are silver/gray. It's not a deal-breaker, but still stands out as an oddity, considering just how much of the rest of this figure captures Unicron's resemblance so well.
Planet mode is very round and very compact. Like, it's just so
small when compared to how large the robot mode is. It's really not all that much bigger than the Armada Unicron mold's planet mode. It's all due to about 80% of the robot mode parts folding out to form the round planet shell, made up of so many pieces of all shapes and sizes. The planet's maw does open with its individual triangle pieces, the inside of the mouth is pretty unsightly since the robot mode head is just right there sitting inside it. The attachable maw pieces that cover the openable maw look much nicer, but on my copy, they don't seem to want to attach properly.
With both modes out of the way, now comes the transformation. Good gravy, the transformation! This... This process is the dictionary definition of the phrase "Not Fun", translated into ten different languages and back into English. An absolute nightmare, this is one of the worst, most unpleasant transformation processes I have ever experienced, and I say this having not yet experienced MP-44 Convoy at this time. There are just so many little pieces that have to go in just the right places to make the planet mode work, most of which require some really frustrating panel massaging that fought me every step of the way. It took me at least an hour to get through the transformation the first time around, and a little less than that when going back to robot mode from planet mode. But, when doing the reverse process, the tabs that hold the legs in place inside the planet mode are just so strong that I had to use my full strength to get them untabbed, leaving no margin for caution or carefulness. This transformation is pure, unforgiving masochism in plastic form.
Among the accessories included with the figure are some blue panels that can be swapped out with some of the arms' orange panels to make for a more accurately-colored planet mode, as those particular orange arm panels end up in spots on the planet mode that should be colored blue. The ones on his lower arms can be easily slid off some pegs to let the blue ones replace them, but the panels on his shoulders can only be removed by... forcing out the pins holding connecting them to the shoulders. Yes, this figure's instructions for swapping out these pieces actually want you get out you toolbox to remove some pins. That is ridiculous. As if the normal transformation wasn't bad enough. I only swapped out the panels on the lowers and just left the shoulder ones alone. I am NOT going to take the time to remove any pins on this figure.
My figure also had one of its planet horns bent at the tip, due to how it was stored inside the torso in robot mode.
There's also this odd little feature with the robot mode's abs (both the front and back ones) that allows them to fold down and open during the transformation, but for seemingly no purpose at all since those parts are never touched during the transformation. They can't fold down in robot mode and are hidden away inside the planet mode, so it's just the oddest thing.
Overall, I like this figure and am glad to have it. The robot mode is stunning and there are some clever methods used to get a very round planet mode, but that process to get one into the other is just abysmal.
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