Skyquake
(Commander) [Prime]
(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 the Prime commander Dreadwing toy. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of the Prime commander Dreadwing figure here.)
This Season 1 "hi-then-die"
character gets a toy, but only AFTER his more prominent twin brother from
Season 2, it would seem. Skyquake's main colors are a nice-looking transparent
orange and a couple shades of green-- namely a moderately dark forest green
and a light pale green, with the latter being more prevalent in his robot
mode and complementing against the darker green quite well. (This complementing
is particularly well-done on with the light pale green on the underside
of Skyquake's wings and parts of his lower arms.) Given that orange and
green were also the two major colors of the original Skyquake (who was
also a large jet), this toy thus seems to be a "light" homage to the original
Skyquake, albeit CONSIDERABLY more muted and realistic-looking this time
around, with more "earthy" tones. (The original Skyquake was your typical
late '80s/early '90s Transformer, with bright colors everywhere that would
largely look out of place on a Prime toy, especially a more serious character
like this guy.) There's also a fair bit of gray used for some of Skyquake's
"robot bits" like his upper arms and legs. Used sparingly as it is, it
serves as a decent "neutral" colors for the others to play off of, and
the gray is a bit darker than the usual blah milky gray used on TFs, so
at the very least I don't mind it. There's also a bit of metallic gunmetal
gray for parts that need to look more "metallic", like Skyquake's face,
and a nice dark red trim along Skyquake's wings. The red also contrasts
quite well with the green, and helps differentiate Skyquake's modes a bit
more, with the red accents being more prominent in vehicle mode and the
light pale green in robot mode.
No mold changes have
been made to the core Skyquake figure, but he does have new weapon accessories;
individually, they're a gatling gun and a gun with a very large front barrel,
but combine them together for robot mode and it forms the larger gatling
gun weapon Skyquake wields in the show. They're pretty cool accessories,
that's for sure.
Prime Cyberverse Skyquake
isn't really much better or worse than Cyberverse Dreadwing; he's just
different. If you're more into TFs with lighter color schemes overall and
only want one of the twins, go for Skyquake; if you're more into darker
colors, go for Dreadwing. I gave Skyquake an ever-so-slightly higher rating
because I think his weapons look a little cooler than Dreadwing's, but
they're still pretty much the same in terms of how much I'd recommend them.
Review by Beastbot