Apelinq
(BotCon 2014 Attendee-Only Exclusive)
(NOTE: Because this is a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the mold and the color scheme, and merely compares it to Beast Wars 10th Anniversary Optimus Primal. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Beast Wars 10th Anniversary Optimus Primal here.)
Like the others in this
BotCon's "Knight" 3-pack, Apelinq is an "update" of a previous
BotCon exclusive of the same name. This version of Apelinq re-does
the original's colors in a generally more interesting manner, with the
dark reddish brown and light milky tan "broken up" considerably more on
the figure. Both colors both contrast and complement each other extremely
well, and are suiting for a gorilla, as well. That said, I don't like the
abrupt plastic color change on the upper ape arms/upper robot legs, as
having exactly half of the piece be each color without paint apps to "transition"
between the colors looks off. A healthy amount of black is used on the
figure as well-- especially on the surfboard, which helps to break up all
the dark reddish brown on that accessory. The black feet, stripes on the
robot chest, and on the robot face also look quite nice and help give Apelinq
a bit more "dark" to him-- I particularly love how the black paint has
a nice glossy finish to it. There's also a bit of silver here and there,
such as on the upper beast legs/upper robot arms, the kneecaps, the beast
face, and the beast chest, all of which are meant to emulate the chrome
silver used on the original Apelinq toy. The silver looks great against
the dark reddish brown, but not so much against the light milky tan, given
how light the latter is. The silver on the gorilla chest also frankly doesn't
hold a candle to the awesome chrome silver on the original. Another color
that's used a bit is a dull flat bluish green, on the robot chest and part
of the robot head-- again, a callback to where it was used on the original
toy, and again, it looks decent against the dark reddish brown. (Personally,
I would've gone for a more "pure" shade of blue or green, but this is how
it was on the original Apelinq, as well.) The yellow used for both of Apelinq's
set of eyes is a nice accent color as well. The only area I feel is bland
on the toy is the gorilla back, which is entirely light milky tan plastic
with no paint apps-- I think some silver or black detailing on the thrusters
would've really helped break things up back there.
No mold changes have
been made to Apelinq, though the Cyber Key has been changed to a fairly
generic design-- but chromed silver (in a nod to his original toy), and
with a big ol' Cybertronian Knight symbol on it, which helps to mitigate
Apelinq's overly tiny Knight symbol in the corner of his gorilla chest.
Although not everything
on this Apelinq update "works"-- such as the silver paint on the light
milky tan-- it's generally a great color scheme that's fairly eyecatching,
even if the original's chrome silver was even better. Additionally, I can't
help but notice that although he certainly doesn't hit ALL of the notes,
the Cybertron "Jungle Planet" Optimus Prime
redeco of this mold is generally Apelinq-ish in its color scheme, which
makes this one honestly a bit redundant; despite how well this one was
done, other older BotCon exclusives could've used updates more, methinks.
Review by Beastbot
*Note: This toy was also re-packaged with fellow BotCon 2014 exclusives Flareup, Flamewar, and Shokaract/Hunter as part of a "BotCon Legacy Set" sold via the Club Store with a new comic.