Night
Blades Sideswipe (Fast Action Battler)
(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 Battle Blade Sideswipe. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Battle Blade Sideswipe here.)
Night Blades Sideswipe
certainly is adequately named, that's for sure. He has a very "night-ish"
color scheme, with the most noticeable color contrast between the light
green used for his windows, front grill, tailpipes, and side doors (with
a nice "fade" pattern on the latter) and the dark metallic gray that makes
up most of the base plastic of the toy. Both color shades are very nice--
the light green is a nice "neon"-esque color like you'd see on a heavily
customized tuner, while the dark gray has a bit of a "metallic swirl" action
going on, which helps it escape the boring look of most other shades of
gray plastic used on Transformers. The silver down the center of the vehicle
mode also adds a bit more of a dynamic touch, and the metallic blue-green
used for the headlights and red for the taillights helps give Sideswipe
a wider color palette. He also has a rather nice "targeting reticle over
an Autobot symbol" license plate. Why it's that way is beyond me, but it
looks cool regardless! In robot mode his color scheme-- although okay and
still more interesting than this mold's original color scheme-- is definitely
a step down from how he looks in vehicle mode, however. The green used
for most of his robot parts is a rather blah, dull grayish green-- whether
of a slightly lighter or darker shade-- and just doesn't contrast well
enough with some of the other colors like the silver on his legs and face,
for example. He also doesn't have nearly as many paint apps in this mode,
unfortunately.
No mold changes have
been made to Night Blades Sideswipe.
Night Blades Sideswipe
is an EXCELLENT repaint in vehicle mode, looking like he came right out
of a Pro Tuner customization shop. The light green and silver contrast
very well with most of the other colors, and he's got paint apps to spare.
Unfortunately the green used on his robot parts is a bit uglier of a shade,
but overall this is definitely a color scheme I wish they had used on other
(better) Sideswipe molds than the Fast Action Battler.
Review by Beastbot