(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 Energon Tow-Line. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Energon Tow-Line here.)

    Ratchet's new body is a remold of a toy that was made for his character, Energon Tow-Line. Besides just sporting a new color scheme, the mold also has a brand new head, the same one that Ratchet's Botcon buddy Ironhide has. It's quite a well-molded head, and with more silver paint detailing on it than Ironhide's had, which brings out more of its features. In addition to that, Ratchet also features one more remolding that Ironhide doesn't-- a brand-new Energon weapon! As opposed to the metal detector-like gun that Ironhide and Tow-Line have, Ratchet has a gun that becomes an emergency siren in vehicle mode! It doesn't quite mesh with the surrounding parts when it's attached in vehicle mode, but this toy obviously wasn't made with that idea in mind in the first place, so I can forgive a little thing like that. What is bad about the gun, though, is that it really doesn't look much like a gun when used in robot mode-- it doesn't really have any barrel, just sirens on the front of it-- it looks too much like Ratchet's just holding his sirens in his hand! So I think I like the original gun this mold had better. Another downside to Ratchet is that his color scheme is really, really dull. He has far too much white on him, with black being the closest thing he has to a secondary color-- and a white-and-black color scheme isn't particularly eye-catching. He's got some paint apps, but the red apps and the blue transparent plastic are all that really give Ratchet much of a contrast, and those colors are only concentrated in a few areas. Another, more eye-catching color really should have been made a secondary color on this toy.
    Of note is that in addition to being a Botcon 2005 exclusive, you could only buy Ratchet for $65 with Flareup at the convention-- it was not available free to preregistrants or available at all to those who did not attend the convention. Ratchet is limited to 500 pieces, so he's worth a pretty penny.
    Botcon Ratchet has some nice remolding done to him, but his color scheme is one of the dullest I've seen on a Transformer, and his gun looks rather odd. It's a nice gesture to make the Tow-Line mold into a fan-favorite G1 character, but more variety should really have been added to the toy to make him a good toy on his OWN, and not just as a G1 character. One of my least favorite of the Botcon 2005 toys.

Review by Beastbot

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