(NOTE: This review-- and the pictures above-- MAINLY covers the 7" "Alpha" size class, but with a few minor exceptions, the larger toy is just an "upsize" of the smaller toy mold, so the review can largely apply to both. Any significant changes between the two releases will be covered in the review.)

    Optimus Prime's Discount Store-exclusive "Authentics" version is basically his general Cyberverse design, but less stylized. So, really, his G1 design. In vehicle mode Optimus Prime's proportions are... questionable. The front cab section is really "squashed" down, with the details on the upper half of it in particular not being as tall as they should be. Also, the truck "bed" section in the back is too tall, coming up a pretty fair amount above the tires for a bed. It's also pretty obvious that the truck bed is just Optimus Prime's lower legs, though to be fair, that's the case with nearly every Optimus toy. At least this time the feet are up against the base of the front cab portion, while the KNEES actually form the back end. There's no small segment in between to connect the two legs, so this toy doesn't really have a back end-- you just see an open gap in the middle and then the gaps on the top of the knees back there. The mold detailing-- except for almost nothing on the roof, oddly-- is surprisingly intricate, with "bolted" plates, pistons, ladders, and side doors all molded into the toy where appropriate. There's also windshield wipers below the windows and small headlights and smokestacks. The wheels also have some decent treaded details on them. The basic color breakup is pretty much what Optimus' colors have always been-- red on the front and dark blue on the back, with some light gray and black here and there. Nothing really ground-breaking. There's some black paint on the knee and lower leg "treaded" details on the lower robot legs/back of this mode, as well as some silver on the front grill, light blue on the front windows, and some metallic bronzish-gold on the front bottom headlights (the latter only on the 7" toy). Thus from a frontal view Optimus looks okay in terms of having a varied color scheme, but from the side he really needs some more paint to bring out all those details-- especially the side windows.
    Transforming Optimus to robot mode is pretty straightforward-- unfold the legs from the back end, unhook the top of the front section and fold it back and down to rest against his upper back, and then slide out and rotate around the front sides to become his arms. It's a pretty basic, nice transformation scheme fitting for the "Transformers 101" nature of this line. The end result definitely has some oddities, however. For one, due to the transformation the inside of Optimus' lower legs are completely hollow, making them look very odd from an inside-side view. (He's still stable, though.) The upper portion of the cab just sits on Optimus' back, which, though certainly not an egregious extra, is a bit odd to have back there given how Optimus usually transforms. His arms, being mostly formed out of the cab sides, have the fists and the like mostly just molded into the insides of said truck parts, with the halves of the front bumper sticking out in front of the arms in a rather unsightly manner. The mold detailing remains pretty decent in this mode, with some excellent faux bumper details on his waist, faux grill on his chest sized in a way that it looks like "abs", and a faux truck chest. His headsculpt is pretty classic Prime, though with the side antennae a bit smaller and more rounded than they've traditionally been. The lower arms are detailed pretty well too, with not just the fists looking decent but smaller details like the typical "triangles" and armor panels on his arms there, too. What's interesting to note is that, though the light gray plastic shows more in this mode-- on the midsection, mostly-- it's actually a light, semi-metallic shade of light milky gray, with some glitter mixed in to the point where it all almost looks like paint-- it's quite a nice effect. Beyond that, there's some really nicely contrasting light blue on his windows and eyes, gray on his faceplate and forehead vent, some gold on the faux headlights on his waist, and some black outlining the faux windows and even being present on the windshield wipers. (The gold and black outlining of the windows is missing on the smaller version.) For articulation, Optimus can move at the neck, shoulders, hips, and knees, and on the larger version ONLY, he has elbow articulation. The elbow movement is rather wonky, though, as even though they're ball joints, the way they're facing he has to rotate the interior of his arms forward to move the actual arms forward. Not really sure why they did that.
    Authentics Optimus Prime has a pretty decent robot mode for the size and pricepoint, minus a few really odd bits like the bumpers in front of his hands and completely hollow lower legs. However, his vehicle mode has some really weird, squat proportions. It's okay for someone looking for a basic, entry-level Optimus Prime toy-- which again, is what this line is aimed at-- but if you're not in that specific category (and you're likely not if you're reading this), this toy really isn't worth it. (I'd say this doubly so for the larger 7" version, as all he gains out of it are a couple of extra paint apps and odd elbows in exchange for almost twice the price.)
 

Review by Beastbot

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