2016 was the second year for Robots in Disguise, so Bumblebee gets a new 1-step mold... I'd like to say because the first is pretty bad, but it's probably just to justify him still being in the assortment in his normal color scheme given that he's pretty much the main character of the series. Anyways, in alt mode Bumblebee is pretty accurate and proportional, for the most part. The only exceptions to this are the very front and the very back. The front section should be a bit more angular but isn't because of the transformation; as is the front is pretty straight up-and-down at the sides, which doesn't look quite as good as the slightly angular front grill on many of his other toys. The back end also has two fairly obvious robot feet sticking up from the top, with the rear pointy fins not as large as they are on most other toys of the character. Still, the feet can kinda look like a spoiler... somewhat. So that helps some, and I'd consider this only a moderate downside at best, not a mode-ruining issue. There's also some pretty prevalent and distracting cracks in the front hood, which is a result of the transformation. The mold detailing is pretty accurate to the show, i.e. fairly sparse but with some more intricate "layered panels" detailing on the front bumper. The rear bumper surprisingly has some details as well including the taillights, though sadly they aren't painted. Bumblebee's usual color scheme is present, consisting of yellow and a bit of black (plastic on the wheels, metallic paint on the front and back windows as well as on the diagonal details on the hood and in the middle of the front bumper). Beyond those two colors, though, there's only a bit of blue used for the headlights. It's a really nice shade of blue, and I really wish it was used for the windows-- it would've been more accurate to most of his other toys, as well. This mode could've used a bit more color, certainly.
    This version of 'Bee follows the "jack-knifing" transformation used on several other one-steps, where you take the back end pieces and rotate them out and downwards, and the rest falls into place automatically. It's still pretty much my favorite one-step transformation, it's just so much fun and addicting. The end result definitely keeps the general look of RID 'Bee, but does have the same issues in this mode as many of the other 1-steps with this transformation. From the front he looks pretty good, though his "door backpack" is far too small proportionally and incorrectly black, to boot. Most of the weakness of this mode comes when you look at it from a side angle, when you can see that the legs go way up to nearly the shoulders and are hollow on the out-facing side angle, with unfortunately no mold detailing inside to help them look more like the sides of his robot mode. His chest is also just a flap in front of his super-long legs and doesn't peg into anything, so it dangles off the front and moves back-and-forth slightly. All this said, again, from a front view he's pretty nice. The detailing on the chest is great, complete with the faux window-and-bumper chest, as well as the abs and waist molded in. The waist and chest are a nice metallic black, with some silver paint on the abs, though the only other paint visible in this mode is on his head, which has a black vent on the forehead, a silver face, and blue eyes. The headsculpt itself is a little bit too "rounded" and small proportionally-- probably for transformational reasons-- but is otherwise pretty good. The arms also have pretty accurate detailing, but have no paint to bring out any of it, unfortunately. For articulation, Bumblebee can move at the shoulders at two points, and that's it-- though then again, articulation isn't the point of one-steps.
    The 2016 1-step version of Bumblebee has the usual "don't-look-at-it-from-the-side" issues in robot mode that come with the jack-knifing transformation, he could use some more paint detailing, and his feet are pretty obvious in vehicle mode. That said, for a 1-step it still looks pretty good from the intended angles in both modes, and the transformation is just so much fun. If you're going to get a 1-step version of RID Bumblebee, make it this mold.
 

Review by Beastbot

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