Allegiance: Decepticon
Size: Cyberverse Vehicle Set
Difficulty of Transformation to Robot: Very Easy
Difficulty of Transformation of Vehicle: Very Easy
Color Scheme: Military green, charcoal black, milky off-white, moderarely dark dull military green, and some light military green, dark red, black, dark metallic gunmetal gray, prangish yellow, and metallic bronze
Figure Rating: 7.2
Vehicle-Armor Rating: 8.3

(NOTE: Because this set is composed of repaints, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the set and the color scheme, and merely compares it to the original versions of these molds. For a review on the original Prime legion Breakdown toy, go here. For a review on the Bumblebee Battle Suit-- what was used as the base mold for the Apex Armor-- go here.)

    How is Breakdown still around for the Beast Hunters line? Well, whatever-- he's got a toy redeco, regardless. This version of Breakdown has a more "jungle-y" color scheme, with green being by far his most common color for the main figure. The vast majority of his plastic is of a medium-shaded military green, which is fairly appropriate on a buff dude with an alt mode like his. Given that this mold was also done up as Outback, logically it means that this green-colored version is meant to be a light homage to G1 Outback's mold-mate Brawn, and other than the Decepticon symbols and robot head, it works pretty well as that. There's a fair amount of black plastic as well, used for his wheels and upper robot legs-- though it's of the charcoal-y, impure kind, which doesn't look as good as the more "pure" black paint on Breakdown's windows, though it still gives the toy a nice dark color for the other colors to play off. There's also some light green on his robot mode shoulders and the front section of his vehicle mode, which goes excellently with his more "normal" green, both complementing it and contrasting against it at the same time, adding to the whole "forest/jungle" theme of the scheme. Finally, there's a bit of bone/off-white on Breakdown's main body in robot mode, giving another pale color for the green to play off of, and it looks great, adding just that much more color to Breakdown's palette to make him more eye-catching (though a bit of paint on his robot legs wouldn't have hurt). He retains the red face and dark gunmetal gray-colored spare tire on his back from the initial release of this character.
    No mold changes have been made to this version of Breakdown.

    The Apex Armor suit, on the other hand, is a massive remold of Bumblebee's Battle Suit, with many of the remolds giving the suit a much more evil-looking, spiky "Beast Hunters" look to it. The chestplate of the mech is particularly eye-catching, looking like it's made out of teeth with all the bone-white spikes. Given Breakdown's flatter, squarer form, he also fits a little better into the chest cavity of this Apex Armor than Bumblebee did in his Battle Suit. Another big change is that the transparent blue light-gun from the Battle Suit has been completely replaced, this time with an impressively large launcher with some cool claw-like details near the front. Coolest of all, rotating the dark green wheel near the middle of the gun causes not just one, but FOUR different missiles to fire from the large barrel of this weapon, one after the other. Talk about firepower! The lower arms have also been re-done for this suit, with the more normal hands of the Battle Suit being replaced with four-pronged claws, which have a default state of being open but can (mostly) close up by sliding back the yellow slider in the middle of the lower arms. This slider is spring-loaded, though, so if you let go of the slider the claws will spring back open. The Apex Armor holds weapons in the circular port in the middle of the claws, however, so whether they're open or closed, they'll still hold weapons just fine. The other remolding done to this toy is more for aesthetics than anything else, merely making the suit look more like it belongs in the Beast Hunters line without changing the function of anything. The over-the-shoulder dual guns and the targeting reticle on the upper back are (besides the aforementioned chestplate) these remolded pieces, and are a bit more detailed and spiky than on the Bumblebee Battle Suit, and overall I like the mold changes, certainly. My only complaint here is that the targeting reticle on the upper back is a bone white-- given that it's a reticle, shouldn't it be a transparent color so that someone can actually, y'know, see through it?
    The colors of the Apex Armor are roughly the same as Breakdown's, keeping in with the whole "Jungle" theme of different shades of green. Another, duller/darker shade of military green has been added as well to the scheme to give this larger toy a bit more color variety, and it looks good, particularly next to the bone white coloration that's more prevalent on the Armor than on Breakdown himself. Paint apps of bone white and light green also adorn the toy all around, so-- with the exception of the legs-- the Apex Armor has enough paint apps to look pretty eye-catching and varied. The only color I activately dislike on the Apex Armor is the "cheese" yellow, which thankfully is only used on the claw-slider pieces and the missiles. It just doesn't fit with the Jungle-y color scheme at all.

    Breakdown's Apex Armor is really nice-looking all around in its mech suit, with great colors, awesome detailing that looks like it's partially made out of bones, and a fantastic, fun weapon (a four-barreled missile launcher, c'mon!). Unfortunately the Apex Armor's "vehicle" mode is still pretty poor like that of the Bumblebee Battle Suit's, but you can only change a mold so much, I suppose. Breakdown isn't one of the best legion figures, but he's certainly not the worst either, and generally if you're looking for a nice playset to beef up your Beast Hunters Cyberverse figures, you can't really go wrong with this set-- it's my personal favorite out of all the Beast Hunters Cyberverse vehicle sets.

Review by Beastbot

Back to Transformers: Prime Index