The new deluxe Cyberverse toys are by far the toy which fans are most curious about. We all know more or less what to expect from more toys from the Studio Series or War for Cybertron Trilogy line but this is completely new.
I will start by saying this, while these deluxes are the same price point as a Studio Series and WFC deluxe they have as different from either of those as a Studio Series toy is from a WFC toy. It's a different feel and aesthetic. This review is for deluxe Megatron.
In terms of complexity, Megatron is as complex as you can get for a deluxe figure. He feels closer to the
2012 deluxe War for Cybertron (the videogame) Optimus Prime in terms of what the transformation entails. I tend to never look at instructions for Transformers, but with this toy there were some parts that were so unintuitive to anything I had played with before that I needed some directions. This is not a bad thing at all, instead it shows that after a myriad of tank Megatrons, the designers can still come up with fresh transformations. I am happy to finally get a good toy of this cool looking futuristic tank alt mode. It looks like a tank designed by Elon Musk.
The most interesting part of the transformation is how neat the tank parts compact into the robot's back without giving him too bad a backpack. It really feels like the ideal type of transformation to me, where you have the alt mode changing shape to form the robot's mass. That aspect feels a lot like the War for Cybertron (the videogame) deluxe Optimus I compared him to earlier.
The design is great too. This is a near spitting image of the Cyberverse design which itself was based on the Evergreen design that we all thought was awesome. The face is where the cartoony aspect comes in.
He comes with his arm cannon and 2 clear effect parts (along with the build a figure piece). The cannon can be placed in the classic manner on the robot arm but can also be handheld and it can also be held by both his hands to replicate the fusion blast effect from the Ultimate Megatron toy. The effects are both 3mm and 5mm compatible, so you can do whatever you want with them.
The part that differentiates this toy most from Studio Series or Siege, aside from the aesthetic and scale, are the joint types. While this is a very complex toy, the fact that this is still the kid cartoon line seems to honour the tradition of ball joints. They give great movement but they also make the toy feel very much like a toy. Limbs can be more easily removed if excessive force is applied (rather than breaking) and there can be some looseness. Mine can hold poses well, as you can see, but they do feel a bit loose depending on which direction you move the legs and arms. The ball joints do give him a lot of articulation though. He also have wrist, ankle and waist articulation.
Overall, I came for the design and stayed for the involved and new transformation. In terms of value, I feel we are getting something comparable to other deluxes asking the same price, like Siege Prowl, and that's before I consider the Build A Figure piece which I always feel should be a bonus and not something that influences the price. Here, it's more of an incentive to buy the whole line, which I am fine with.
People have been calling these small deluxes, but the size seems rather average to me, I will leave you with some comparisons.
so we could easily get Lugnut to pair the two up at a later date.
