Like most of the other Scout class Cyberverse toys, Starscream's alternate mode is a sort of "partial transform" between vehicle and robot mode. Basically, Starscream's "alt mode" is a jet with the back half missing and instead with robot legs. It's difficult to tell what exactly are supposed to be robot mode "extras" in this mode-- the legs are obviously supposed to be visible-- but I'm guessing the circular rotation pieces and the bits of robot chest framing the sides of the cockpit shouldn't be quite so obvious. The jet portion's body is pretty proportional, fitting in nicely with the Cyberverse aesthetic with more basic, friendly detailing that is somewhere between "mainline" and "Rescue Bots" complexity. There's some angles and ridges here and there, such as on the intake vents, and the cockpit is nice and stylized. The wings are a titch undersized and swoop back a fair amount instead of out as much as you'd expect, but this works well with the gimmick and is somewhat accurate to the show, so make of that what you will. The guns in front of said wings give Starscream some firepower in this "mode". The legs are pretty straightforward-- they're rather angular, being larger at the bottom than at the knees, while the relatively small upper legs are tabbed in at an angle in this mode to keep Starscream stable, since if you moved them back to where they connect to his waist he'd fall forward. The colors are pretty Starscreamy-- he's got some fairly light, milky gray plastic used for most of the jet mode portions, which is a rather bland but certainly accurate. His robot legs take a slight departure and are more aquamarine than dark blue, and I honestly like the change-- it still contrasts with the gray nicely enough, but is more unique. There's some red curved stripes on the wings, as well as a bit around his cockpit, while the cockpit itself has orange paint and the nosecone has a "charcoal" impure shade of black used for it. There's also a Decepticon symbol on each wing, natch. All in all the color scheme is quite varied for such a small toy, even if I'm not a fan of the gray. The legs contain Starscream's only real point of articulation in this mode-- at the knees, both legs can move forward one "click", but only one-- they can't move forward much. Instead, they serve as a "handle" of sorts for the gimmick in this mode-- move the legs as a whole forward and back at the waist, and the wings will spin around. Unfortunately, it's rather easily to accidentally mess up the rotation with your fingers and get the wings off in terms of them rotating in unison, though you can fix this easily by just repositioning them. It's kind of a weird gimmick, but honestly kind of fun too. The wings do kinda dangle there in this mode, but in robot mode they stay put, so they're not annoying.
    To transform Starscream into his robot mode, just fold the legs down, rotate the arms out from the sides (they do thankfully have pegs in the other mode to keep them secure), then fold down the cockpit to become the chest and you're done. The chest is a bit wide, with the biggest issue here being that the arms are actually kinda "detached" from the body visually because of the transformation. The head is also a little undersized-- or the chest oversized, take your pick. Having the cockpit nosecone also not fold into the body at all doesn't look all that great, either, and for a toy this small the gap between the front and back of the body is noticeable. Obviously given that Starscream is a "partial" Transformer, much of what's visible in the other mode is visible in this mode, so the legs and wings still look good. What's new really is just the arms and head. The arms are a bit undersized, and the upper arms in particular are too square at the shoulders and then too skinny around the elbows. The robot head is pretty accurate, though, taking Screamer's traditional head design and making the sides more angular and the face a bit skinnier, as befits his character. His smirking face is painted silver and his eyes red, while the rest of the head is charcoal black. There's also a bit of red paint on the shoulders, though the rest of the arms are aquamarine-- a nice color, but not accurate to the show. With so many details shared from the other mode, this means Starscream still retains a pretty good, varied color palette in this mode. Beyond the slight knee articulation already talked about, Starscream also has ball joints at his hips and shoulders in this mode for movement.
    As with many Scout-class Cyberverse toys, whether I'd recommend this version of Starscream depends on how much you're up for a "partial-former". If you like the idea of a legged "gerwalk" jet mode with spinny-wings, then the robot mode is good enough where I'd say go for it, at the cheap price. If not, buy one of the larger toys of him instead (though preferably not the original Warrior...).
 

Review by Beastbot

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