Death's Head
08-09-11, 08:06 PM
In collecting Transformers – or anything really – there will be things that impress and others that don’t. With Transformers, there’ll be some figures displayed or played with a degree of pride and thoughts of ‘this thing is sooo cool!’, and others that will be hidden away, almost as an embarrassment. Poor Skyburst here was one of those. Bought with the sad notion of completeism (he was the only ‘wave 1’ Powercore Combiner figure I didn’t have at the time) and then squirrled away after being less than impressed, pretending I hadn’t bought him and at the same time wishing I hadn’t. Much like owners of Generations Thundering must feel.
Having dug him out for this review, I’m actually a bit ashamed that I was so dismissive of Skyburst, because actually, he’s pretty good.
Roughly Scout Class sized in stature (or closer to deluxe these days…), Skyburst is a decent stocky robot, with some nice styling to him. He’s got quite elegant shaped limbs, a body formed mostly out of the front end of the jet, and a functional, if uninspired block for a head. The wings hang off his back, making him look like he’s wearing a cloak, so I am imagining him as some kind of foppish dandy already. The colours wont blow you away, he’s a mix of grey/blue jet parts, blue and black limbs topped off with flashes of gold and red. It makes him look a bit dull, but it works, in a functional kind of way.
The drones he comes packed with are also good. Nicely detailed representations of various different types of aircraft let down by a slight feeling that these are something you might get out of a Kinder Egg.
Skyburst’s transformation to jet mode is fine. It’s nothing spectacular, just the usual arrangement of folded up robot parts tucked up underneath the aircraft. Fortunately, the bulk of the wings and fuselage do go someway to hide a multitude of sins. Interesting to note though how little this sort of robot to jet configuration hasn’t really improved over the years. There’s nothing here that Skyburst does that is significantly removed from 1995’s Generation 2 Cyberjets.
The gestalt mode is pretty funky looking, having one of the better limb configurations for the various drones. Skyburst’s torso formation is a clever arrangement of parts that gives a tight and solid central component (shame other 5-pack commanders weren’t like this). Only the slightly too slender yellow rescue helicopter contributes rather feebly, turning into a withered looking coat hanger. The grey jet is also something of a sod to connect to the blue connector pegs on my version, with you having to semi-transform it to get it to clip on, which I didn’t think was really the point of these ‘drones automatically convert!’ proclamations – unless it just means they’re switching to Catholicism or something.
On a comparable level to Bombshock (his wave-mate), Skyburst is as good as he is – if not slightly better – lacking the combination problems associated with that figure (there’s no danger of the limb drones popping off of their own accord here), but as with all the other PCC five packs, it’s that Voyager price point that really let’s the figure down. They’re just simply not worth the £23 plus that Hasbro greedily wants for the toys. It’s telling that this sub-set of Transformers has been the most frequently discounted at retail, with each of the larger five pack toys having hefty mark downs applied to them to get them shifted. Except at Forbidden Planet where they actually marked these things up, the mentalists! This, coupled with a lack of cross-promotion with the two pack figures has pretty much done for the line, which is a pity as they’ve been one of the more fun diversions of the brand in recent years.
686687688689690
Having dug him out for this review, I’m actually a bit ashamed that I was so dismissive of Skyburst, because actually, he’s pretty good.
Roughly Scout Class sized in stature (or closer to deluxe these days…), Skyburst is a decent stocky robot, with some nice styling to him. He’s got quite elegant shaped limbs, a body formed mostly out of the front end of the jet, and a functional, if uninspired block for a head. The wings hang off his back, making him look like he’s wearing a cloak, so I am imagining him as some kind of foppish dandy already. The colours wont blow you away, he’s a mix of grey/blue jet parts, blue and black limbs topped off with flashes of gold and red. It makes him look a bit dull, but it works, in a functional kind of way.
The drones he comes packed with are also good. Nicely detailed representations of various different types of aircraft let down by a slight feeling that these are something you might get out of a Kinder Egg.
Skyburst’s transformation to jet mode is fine. It’s nothing spectacular, just the usual arrangement of folded up robot parts tucked up underneath the aircraft. Fortunately, the bulk of the wings and fuselage do go someway to hide a multitude of sins. Interesting to note though how little this sort of robot to jet configuration hasn’t really improved over the years. There’s nothing here that Skyburst does that is significantly removed from 1995’s Generation 2 Cyberjets.
The gestalt mode is pretty funky looking, having one of the better limb configurations for the various drones. Skyburst’s torso formation is a clever arrangement of parts that gives a tight and solid central component (shame other 5-pack commanders weren’t like this). Only the slightly too slender yellow rescue helicopter contributes rather feebly, turning into a withered looking coat hanger. The grey jet is also something of a sod to connect to the blue connector pegs on my version, with you having to semi-transform it to get it to clip on, which I didn’t think was really the point of these ‘drones automatically convert!’ proclamations – unless it just means they’re switching to Catholicism or something.
On a comparable level to Bombshock (his wave-mate), Skyburst is as good as he is – if not slightly better – lacking the combination problems associated with that figure (there’s no danger of the limb drones popping off of their own accord here), but as with all the other PCC five packs, it’s that Voyager price point that really let’s the figure down. They’re just simply not worth the £23 plus that Hasbro greedily wants for the toys. It’s telling that this sub-set of Transformers has been the most frequently discounted at retail, with each of the larger five pack toys having hefty mark downs applied to them to get them shifted. Except at Forbidden Planet where they actually marked these things up, the mentalists! This, coupled with a lack of cross-promotion with the two pack figures has pretty much done for the line, which is a pity as they’ve been one of the more fun diversions of the brand in recent years.
686687688689690