I find it interesting that one of the most stand-out characters from the 2001 "Robots in Disguise" line was a redeco of a Beast Wars toy that never appeared on the series' own show. Poor Cybershark... Anyways, Sky-Byte's cyborg-ish, flying shark mode is fairly accurate to the original's, both in terms of proportions and general detailing. The proportions for this thing are just pretty much spot-on perfect; his tailfin and main fin are a tad small proportionally, but that's it. There's no obvious robot kibble in this mode either, giving Sky Byte a more streamlined look than on his original toy. If you look on the underside you can see a bit of his robot feet, but they don't stick out at all. Sky-Byte's color scheme is kept somewhat accurate, being mostly silver/gray, dark blue, and an orangish yellow (the latter more visible in robot mode). The yellow and bronze paint contrasts quite nicely with the dark blue, but I wish his blah milky gray plastic had been replaced with something a bit more metallic and/or darker in shade. It doesn't need to be chromed like on the original Sky-Byte, but it all makes him look far more boring than the original because of all this blah gray. The light blue on his face is a bit of an odd departure from Sky-Byte's traditional color scheme, and I'm not sure I like it just being there-- it complements the dark blue okay enough, but it needs to either be used in more areas or eliminated from the equation. I do love the metallic red eyes, though, both molded to look fairly accurate to the more robotic eye on the original toy. The mold detailing isn't quite as extremely busy as the original toy's, but he's still got oodles of details, like tubes, coils, vents and the like along the "ripped open" areas of his sides, along with plenty of other little wires and electrode details along the rest of his main body. His rear section has more typical mold detailing, with a more definitively armor-like look to it without a bunch of little bits of detailing. His shark face also looks suitably out there, with exposed tooth roots even, which I find a nice detail. Sky-Byte also has a fair amount of paint detailing, but just like with his general color scheme, it doesn't hold a candle to the insane amount of paint apps his original release had-- but that's an unfairly high ladder for a toy released in 2014. He's still got plenty of paint, from silver on his sides to a silver fade around his fins to a light blue head to even having his individual teeth and roots painted on his upper lip. That said, the way some details are painted while some equally important details aren't is weird; for example, the bits of exposed metal on the main body of this mode on his larger side pieces are painted silver, whereas the exposed metal near the back of the main body is left a milky gray. Also, Sky-Byte's top teeth are all painted nice and pretty, but his bottom teeth aren't painted at all. For articulation in this mode, Sky-Byte can move at the jaw, where each fin meets the main body, at one point near the rear of his main body, rotation at the top of his tail, and movement where his two larger rear fins attach to his tail. It's pretty decent for a shark mode, but I don't like the eternally curved positon Sky-Byte was molded in; I wish he was a bit straighter, as when laid on surface without some kind of stand to plug into a hole on his underside, he's facing towards the floor too much, which I'm not fond of. As for Sky-Byte's gimmick, by pressing on a dark gray trigger near the rear, you can cause his tail to twirl around, in a manner similar to many helicopter Transformers' rotor movement and the original Sky-Byte's tail, in a way to make it look like the twirling tail is somehow keeping him afloat. There's also another button on the lower tail itself that, when pressed, will fire a spring-loaded projectile from the back end, molded to look like wind even if the color of it is yellow.
    Sky-Byte's transformation is a bit simpler than the original's, though the original's was DARNED fiddly and a bit annoyingly complex. Here it can still be a bit tricky to get everything lined up when geting him back into beast mode, but by and large his transformation isn't that bad. Sky-Byte's robot mode-- while hitting a lot of the main design notes of the original-- varies a bit more in its look this time from the source material, with most of these changes being negative. For one, I don't like how the shark chest comes at his main body at a rather odd angle, thrusting forward a bit too much, though having the nose turn around to reveal a detail resembling the original's Predacon "spark crystal" in the chest was a nice little touch. This odd shark-chest makes his waist look very insubstantial as well, and he's a bit too hunchbacked, with there being a definite gap in between his shoulders, which are a bit further back than his head. The legs are also very anemic, with the lower legs being just the halves of his shark mode gill pieces and little more-- these parts are this toy's biggest weakness, if you ask me. His right arm is also a bit weak, as the panels that fold together to form his lower arm are a bit too large compared with his upper arm, and his hand doesn't look quite "right" coming out of those large hollow plastic pieces. Sky-Byte's right arm is better, being roughly proportional with his standard four-pronged tail-claw weapon, though the tail itself is a bit smaller and doesn't look as impressive as on the original. On the plus side, the shark side panels on his shoulders fold together a bit better than on the original and don't get in the way nearly as much, and the main shark flippers stay out of the way as well, and there's no annoying panels behind his arms this time. The mold detailing on the robot parts is very accurate to his original toy and generally done quite well-- especially the head, which looks like it was basically lifted right out of the TV show. For articulation, Sky-Byte can move at the neck, shoulders (at three points, with one of these points being small additional "fin" pieces that slide out of the sides of said shoulders), and at the elbows (at two points), the aforementioned rotation and fin-claw articulation from his beast mode on his lower right hand, at the wrist and thumb on his right arm (all of the fingers except the thumb are one piece), and at the hips (at three points), knees, and ankles. His feet are fairly large and flat so he's stable, but I really wish his legs could pull off a bit more posabliity-- though then again, given how horrible they look from so many angles, perhaps it IS better this way.
    Generations Sky-Byte has some rather inventive "twists" to his design that allow for a more streamlined beast mode and less kibble in the robot mode, but his robot mode suffers from several bad proportional maladies and is by far inferior to the original's. This, added with the more boring color scheme and considerably less paint than the original (even if the original set a ridiculously high bar in this respect), make this a purchase only for fans who can't secure the original Sky-Byte for a decent price and still want him or where a simpler transformation is more important than a good-looking robot mode.

Strength: 7.0
Intelligence: 10.0
Speed: 8.0
Endurance: 8.0
Rank: 7.0
Courage: 8.0
Fireblast: 7.0
Skill: 10.0

Review by Beastbot

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