Robots in Disguise Sky Byte

Yeehaw, this is the last toy I have to review since I started this page. See, what I did was review stuff as I got it, but before I started the page I had some stuff as well. Some of it got reviewed, but some got overlooked. Sky Byte was one of those. I've had him since last September, and he was actually in his box in my closet for a while too. I finally put him on display around a month ago. Cybershark 2 is still in a big bin along with a few bootlegs.

Anyways, Sky Byte is a repaint and possibly a remold of Cybershark 2. Actually he's a rerelease of Gershark who is a repaint of Cybershark 2. Gershark was Sky Byte's name in Car Robots, the Japanese RID. Heh. Anyways, since I already reviewed Cybershark 2 (well, pointed out how it sucks, anyway), I'll mainly focus on the differences between the two here, as is the custom for repaints.

First, beast mode. As with the toy as a whole, beast mode is very improved over Cybershark. It still has a few stability issues, mainly the shiny parts his fins are attached to flopping, though not nearly as bad as with Cybershark. Also it appears a different kind of plastic was used for a few parts (or they remolded some parts to be tighter) because his mouth now stays pegged together and doesn't flop downward any more either.

The colors are also a vast improvement. Shark mode is gray and a purplish blue color and the side panels of the shark which have a lot of mechanical detail on them are painted with some excellent detail. On Cybershark they were left without paint, but now nearly every switch, knob and pipe on his sides has color to it. Very cool. Already a vast improvement over Cybershark 2.

Transformation is still a huge pain in the ass, but for some reason the panels don't seem to come off quite as easy and are a much tighter fit. I've actually transformed him a few times and nothing has popped off. Always a plus.

Robot mode has also fixed the major flaws Cybershark 2 had. For one there's more color variation. Cybershark was made from mostly green and gray with some paint here and there, but Sky Byte is filled with excellent detail and actually has more than two colors of plastic. Even the bottoms of his feet have some pink paint on them for extra mouth detail. Very nice touch.

Likewise the joints in robot mode are much tighter. His ankles and thighs are very tight, allowing him to be put in poses other than 'standing there'. His spinning tail fin weapon works about the same, though the locking mechanism seems a bit tighter, which is probably due to the harder plastics used from Cybershark 2. His gun is still on a hair trigger, but the missiles and triggers are different colors from the gun itself which is quite an improvement as well.

While I'm going on about the colors, let me state that I really like Sky Byte's color scheme a lot. He's made up of a dark shade of yellow (orange juice color), navy blue, some metallic gray accents (his joints mostly) and some very cool pearl white plastic that sort of glistens, giving off the look of being shiny and slippery. Very cool choice.

Overall, while still suffering from the bad transformation of Cybershark 2 as well as the not so great beast mode and okay robot mode, Sky Byte is a huge improvement over his previous incarnation. If you have the choice between the two, definitely go with Sky Byte. He'll probably cost you a few extra bucks, but it'll be worth it. And hey, if you don't want to shell out $15 for him now, wait a year or two and I'm sure KB will have him on clearance for like eight bucks. It is, after all, the Cybershark 2 mold.