Strafe's two-headed pterodactyl monster mode makes the transition to Power Battler form a little oddly. He really, REALLY looks like his robot mode with shorter legs and two pterodactyl heads coming out of the shoulders-- which, given the simplified nature of this subline is of course exactly what it is. However, he can't take a more natural pterodactyl-like "stance", with his heads pointing forward/upward and his wings and legs lined up accordingly, due to his gimmick (explained later). This means he's forced to look like an odd little short-legged, two-headed winged thing with an obvious back of a skull in between the shoulder blades and claw-hands that are very obviously robot-proportioned. The lower robot legs also stick out rather obviously from behind Strafe's main body, though the way the wings are positioned this is hidden from most angles. I do like how they try to hide the shortened legs at least a little bit with the nice long 'dactyl claws. His wingspread is quite impressive, and the mold detailing on him is also great; he's got armor-like detailing all over from his arms to his segmented tail to the "sharp bits" on the fronts of the wings (made out of rubbery plastic; all of the pale grayish blue plastic is rubbery on this toy), with it getting a bit more intricate on his main body. The two pterodactyl heads are a bit two-dimensional, however, being too skinny looking at them from a head-on angle-- likely done so they can collapse against Strafe's chest better in robot mode. The color scheme is also pretty good, even if it's not movie-accurate-- the dark blue and black looks fairly nice overall, and the wicked-looking jagged black stripes on the blue wings look particularly nice. The silver on the beaks and chest is also a nice shade of the color, and greenish blue on the slitted optics on the two heads contrasts against the black well, too. His lower body is actually painted a metallic shade of the blue that's Strafe's main color, and it's a rather eye-catching shade. The only thing I'm not fond of regarding Strafe's coloration and number of paint apps is the pale grayish blue rubbery bits used for safety purposes on his tails and outer wings. It's not the rubbery-ness of them that I mind; I understand that that's required. Rather, it's a rather boring color that isn't in the right places to be used as a good contrast against Strafe's otherwise dark color scheme, and given the lack of paint on it due to its rubbery-ness, looks even more boring when it's used on large swaths like on the lower wings. It just doesn't look quite right. For articulation in this mode, Strafe can move at each neck (at three points), each jaw, the shoulders (at two points), elbows (at two points), at the mid-section on each wing, at the base of his two tails (as one piece) and up-and-down at each ankle. (Sadly due to his transformation, there's no hip movement.) Thus he's fairly articulated for a Power Battler, particularly for a beast mode.
    Strafe's robot mode isn't much of a surprise, given how incredibly obvious it's going to look from his beast mode-- as mentioned earlier, it's essentially his beast mode with longer legs, the pterodactyl heads folded in at the shoulders, and the robot head folded up. Thus pretty much all of his coloration, detailing, and general look carry over from one mode to the next. The only real additions as far as the aesthetic goes are the long-toed "knight shoes" on the longer legs and the rather nifty head, which looks like a knight mask with a pterodactyl crest on top-- a nice "fusion" of the knight and beast aesthetics, there. Proportionally he's pretty good, but again, he's just so... sameish when compared to his beast mode. The pterodactyl heads look nice framing his armored, segmented chest, though I wish they could fold up a little more, given how long each head is. The wings are folded in a bit for this mode, and they look rather odd this way, what with the darker blue portion of the wings still sticking out a bit and then ending abruptly at right angles. He's still got some pretty big wings overall hanging off his lower arms in this mode though, and this is for his "Spin Attack" gimmick-- if you undo the peg piece that holds his waist in place at the back, you can twirl Strafe around freely at the waist-- ideally with his arms upward and splayed out so his wings can "cut up" enemies. (You can also do this in beast mode, but it's more difficult due to the robot legs being curled up-- there's more restrictions on how he can spin freely.) It's one of the weaker gimmicks from the Power Battler line, particularly since it's honestly just a loose waist for a gimmick. I'm VERY thankful that there's that little peg piece back there to keep his waist secure so he isn't constantly twirling around at the waist. For articulation in this mode, Strafe has the same movement at the arms as in beast mode, as well as back-and-forth movement at the knees and movement at the base of his two tails-- thus he's actually LESS articulated in this mode. I really wish he had some hip movement...
    Honestly, unless you're a completist there's no reason to get Power Battler Strafe. The deluxe version already has a pretty easy transformation if that's what you're worried about, and said deluxe also has more articulation with better proportions in beast mode and wings that aren't so odd-looking in robot mode. This toy isn't super-bad by any means, but this is one toy that honestly doesn't have any reason for existing beyond simply filling out the ranks in a subline.
 

Review by Beastbot

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