Dave's Transformers Rise of the Beasts Rant: Beast Battle Masters wave 2

Optimus Primal (cannon)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotB/Battle2

Yeah, wave two is just one new figure mixed into the wave 1 assortment,
I'm not skipping anything.

CAPSULE

$6 price point.

Optimus Primal: Surprisingly good beast mode, good cannon mode.
Recommended (I got two so a larger Primal can dual-wield Primals).

RANT

Packaging: Same flimsy card as wave 1.

MAXIMAL: OPTIMUS PRIMAL
Assortment: F4603
Altmode: Gorilla/Cannon
Transformation Difficulty: 6 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None

Packaging: Five plastic strings hold beast mode to the card, and they're
stretchy enough you can get the figure out without cutting any strings.

Beast Mode: Okay, I'm impressed by how this actually has proper gorilla
posture. Yeah, there's gaps visible in the sides of the torso, the fists are
turned the wrong way for proper all-fours walking, and there's a big 5mm peg
sticking out the back, but the posture and proportions are amongst the most
correctly gorilla-like I can recall seeing in a Transformer. Even the
Voyager Primals are a little off, in part because they need to find a place
for robot legs. Due to the limited detail possible at this size on Hasbro's
budget, there's really no molded fur, pure mecha-ape.
1.5" (4cm) tall in proper all-fours pose, 2.25" (5.5cm) tall if standing
upright a la 1996 Optimus Primal. All of the plastic is brownish dark gray
(darker taupe than Rhinox). The more overtly gun-related mecha chunks on the
outer faces of the arms are painted pale gold, the toes are silver, and the
eyes are bright blue.
The shoulders, hips, and neck are all ball joints, although the head
mostly just turns and can wiggle a little. At first glance it looks like he
has 2mm sockets in his fists, but I think those are really just part of the
snap-in hinges for the cannon barrel halves and not meant to be used for
holding stuff.

Transformation: Turn the head around, open up the torso on both hinges.
The shoulder struts can now leg the arms come together between the torso
halves, after folding the cannon barrel halves out from inside the arms. You
need to be careful to get the forearms around tabs on the pelvis piece,
though. There's some small tabs under the forearms, but near as I can tell
they aren't supposed to go into any slots, they're just guides to keep the
gorilla legs together.
Much cleverer than the usual "bend over and deploy backpack guns" of
humanoid Battle Masters, and more involved than the first wave Beast Battle
Masters (where half the steps seemed to be "fiddle with the beast legs").

Weapon Mode: Yeah, it's a cannon with gorilla pieces hanging off, but
it's not too badly obvious. The abdomen folded up behind the barrels might
be an homage to the classic G1 Optimue Prime rifle's shape, and those forearm
mech details call to mind the G2 engine block cannons. The main barrel
opening has four smaller emitter circles inside.
2.5" (6.5cm) long, with the newly revealed barrel being painted silver.
I'd be tempted to paint the flat screen-like details on the inside surface of
the abdomen piece, but they decided to put the stamped assortment and
manufacturing date (Jan 6, 2023 for mine) on one of the screens.
No matter what you do with the legs, the pelvis piece means that this
can really only be held in a fist, or in a socket near the front of
something, because the peg is only 5mm long and the obstructions start 8mm in
front of it. If you fold the legs all the way down, it's a walking cannon
like a gerwalk tank or something. :)

Overall: Good tiny gorilla, good transformation, good cannon. If not a
diamond in the rough, at least a stand-out in the generally disappointing
Beast Alliance toy subline.

Dave Van Domelen, now tempted to do the RotB Voyager Primal next for
maximum Munky Biznez.