The Cyberverse line has been rather underwhelming for collectors by not providing any class that is not gimmick ridden or simplified. The Bumblebee movie line at least had some character designs show up in the Studio Series line but the awesome designs from Cyberverse do not have an equivalent. However, the Spark Armor battle class toys do offer something more familiar. While there is a gimmick involved, it is armoring up the bots via 5 mm ports, same as the COMBAT gimmick in the Siege line and like Siege that means the transformations and proportions are not affected by the gimmick (unlike the rest of Cyberverse). The battle class toys are slightly taller than legends class toys, as you will see in the images below. So it offers a cheap alternative if you want bots in this scale. That still begs the question though, are these toys any good? Well let’s take a look at Transformers Cyberverse Spark Armor Battle Class Skybyte.
Skybyte is a fan favourite and it’s fun to see non G1 characters in this heavy G1 based line. His design is very much RID Skybyte, and it uses the Generations idea of having the shark head be the chest. The robot mode looks good and has a lot of the articulation you would expect from a legends class figure. I would of course prefer more hip rotation (not always present on this class) and it’s too bad the head does not move. The head sculpt is very nice though with the right paint apps on the robot and shark heads. My biggest issue though is with one of the plastics used. The light blue plastic is excellent. It’s a gorgeous and glossy blue that I don’t think we have ever seen used on a TF before. It feels very sturdy, along with the yellow. But the dark blue plastic is the kind I just hate. It’s the very cheap light KO type. The one where you see the sprue circles and that feels rough. It’s really too bad that they use this plastic on his arms.
The armor is fine but doesn’t really do anything for me. The big drill is not tightly latched onto the smaller vehicle and while the transformation into armor is neat, there isn’t really anything cool about it aside from the helmet. The drill tank threads don’t look good as armour, since there is no weapon element to them. This is a far cry from the clear armour we had with the RID battlepacks.
The armour is interchangeable with the other smaller bots since it’s just 5mm based. Here is a mash up with Prowl’s armour.
The Transformation to shark mode is great. I really like how the legs are just the right shape to become the shark body. It’s the perfect complexity for a toy this size. As for the shark mode though, it’s too bad the lower jaw doesn’t really look like a jaw and not everything tabs in properly. There are still 5 mm ports in this mode so you can plug in weapons as you wish.
In the end, while I like the look of the base figure and I am glad the gimmick is far from as obtrusive as other gimmicks in the Cyberverse line, I don’t think it adds much either. With the Siege line you can take it or leave it, but with these the armour comes with the toy so you pay extra for an aspect that you may not care for.
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