(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 Combiner Wars Skydive. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Combiner Wars Skydive here.)
Like the other "original
Tripredacus" members in this set, Cicadacon has colors that (mostly)
homage his brief appearance in "The Agenda, Part I" in Beast Wars.
He's mostly a pale red plastic with a good amount of dull gray plastic.
It's a pretty dull color scheme, and kinda boring, particularly compared
to Cicadacon's original color scheme-- that would've looked sooo nice on
this toy, I think FunPub really dropped the ball there. That said, Cicadacon
has a good amount of silver paint-- it may not add much to the color wheel,
but it does make him shinier. His fists, shoulders, sides of his chest,
lower legs, intakes, and missiles are all painted silver, so much of his
robot mode is quite shiny. I particularly like how his chest is paint-detailed
to mimic the "chain" he had around his chest on the show. The wings in
vehicle mode also have some nice "insect wing" paint detailing, which looks
quite nice and helps Cicadacon stick out among other jets on a shelf--
I mean, a jet also works well as a "pre-Earth" alt mode for a cicada. As
far as accent colors, there's a bit of black on the cockpit and the wings,
which is nice but doesn't add much to the scheme. He does have orange paint
apps on the side of his nosecone to sort of match his cicada eyes' position,
as well as orange paint on his robot eyes, which looks okay but I wish
was used a little more. He's also got some boring light milky gray plastic,
though thankfully it's only used for his double-barreled gun and combiner
port pieces, so it's not a big factor. The given headsculpt works AMAZINGLY
well for Cicadacon-- he's basically just missing a few minor details in
terms of being 100% accurate, there.
No mold changes have
been made to General Cicadacon.
Out of the boxset, the
mold used for Cicadacon definitely fits the character the best, and it's
amazing how close Skydive's head is to Cicadacon's. A few other paint apps--
like the "insect wings" detailing and the "chain" on his chest-- are inspired,
but giving Cicadacon the show-accurate boring dull red-and-gray color scheme
as opposed to a toy-accurate white/purple/green scheme was a major mis-step
by FunPub, and makes what could've been an awesome-looking toy into a fairly
dull one, even if it's a nice homage in some other respects.
Review by Beastbot