Hardshell's beast mode is a somewhat alien-looking insect. I say this because he's got most of the features of an insect--like, say, a stag beetle--but the large "horn" at the front isn't quite right, and all of his detailing is considerably more pointy, with a slightly techno-organic vibe (but one that's not too detailed, in fitting with the Prime aesthetic). He's also got some yellow spikes (that become his robot shoulders) behind his head which certainly aren't there on any Earth insect I know of. Most importantly, he's got a rather fearsome-looking, four-eyed insect face below his large horn (which actually isn't all the visible from most angles because of the front legs). I really love this alien-looking face-- and yes, his large jaw can in fact open quite wide and close back up, which is a joy to see on a toy in the Cyberverse size classes. (For his other articulation in this mode, Hardshell can move at the base of each wing, at the base of his four front insect legs [all as one piece; primarily due to his transformation], and at three points along each of his rear legs. As far as blatant robot extras, Hardshell's surprisingly pretty free of those-- his shoulder spikes fit in pretty well with his overall look in this mode, and his robot feet can be seen at the bottom of his rear, but just barely. The only blatant ones are his back insect legs, which due to their comparative size and detailing are pretty clearly his robot arms. Hardshell's color scheme is rather earthy and grounded, and generally pretty realistic colors for an insect, being mostly shades of dull green and gray with a pearlescent gray used for a light contrast color. That said, the pearlescent gray just looks a bit TOO light and milky to realistically pass as wings; I would have preferred a more transparent and/or light blue coloration there. The bits of silver and dull yellow serve as decent accent colors, and the light red used on his insect and robot eyes really pops. It's certainly not a bad color scheme by any means, but overall it's not really eye-catching either. Hardshell also has a weapon-- a basic push-missile launcher-- that fits in between his wings in this mode. It does its job well enough, but isn't anything spectacular. It can also be held in either of his hands or mounted on either of his lower arms in robot mode.
    Hardshell's transformation isn't complex, but a couple of the steps don't quite go how you'd think, and he does have a few more steps than your average Commander class toy. The end result is a robot mode that looks admirably different from his beast mode, while of course still retaining some important aspects from it like the spikiness and the wings. I love the powerful and hunched-over look of his headsculpt and shoulders, with a relatively small visored, fanged face at the end of his long neck-- along with his "chicken walker" legs, it makes him look both buff and beastly, and gives him a lot of character. My only real issue here is that Hardshell's insect mode kibble can get in the way a bit, particularly around the midsection, and most of it is just unsightly-- the four insect legs just hanging off his lower back and the wings hanging next to his legs just don't look good. (At least the insect head folds behind his back pretty well.) Hardshell's color scheme gets a bit more yellow in this mode and looks a bit more differentiated and interesting as a result, and more carapace-like mold detailing is everywhere, emphasizing that this is an insect-former (as if the extra legs and wings didn't make it obvious enough). For articulation, Hardshell can move at the shoulders (at three points, with two of those being his shoulder "spike" armor pads), elbows, hips, knees (at two points), and ankles. Most of these are ball socket joints, so he has a pretty decent range of motion, with only rotation at his knees and head movement being obvious points that don't move on this toy. Given his ball-jointed ankles, he's fairly stable, but he's also back-heavy, so he can't get into quite as many poses as you'd think from that description of his articulation.
    Hardshell does have a few minor issues-- namely his insect kibble coming off his lower back in robot mode-- but overall he's a solid toy with an intuitive transformation and is a very unique design even among the more beastly Beast Hunters toys. One of my favorite Commander-class toys of the Prime line-- a solid recommendation if you're at all into animal TFs.

Review by Beastbot

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