Strongarm's police SUV
vehicle mode is a bit chunkified for the 1-step version-- the main body
of the police car mode looks ROUGHLY okay, but the roof doesn't extend
up above the main body nearly enough, and is a bit small proportionally
besides. It actually makes Strongarm look bigger than she actually is,
like her main body is waaay oversized with just relatively small windows
up above. It's almost like an oversized Hummer, the way it looks. There's
also really weird triangular prongs near the back, almost like a spoiler,
which is a sacrifice that was made for the transformation so that she can
stand up in robot mode. Like with most RID2015 toys, the mold detailing
is fairly sparse on top, but on the sides you've got more intricate detailing,
like the square grill and headlights on the front, some vague angular bits
that sorta kinda look like taillights on the back end-- unfortunately neither
end is colored with paint, which is a letdown. The windows and the sirens
are the only parts colored in this mode. That said, I am surprised they
actually colored the back window black as well as the side and front windows,
and the red and blue on the sirens looks quite nice, with the blue a noticeably
paler, lighter shade than the dark blue plastic used for the rest of Strongarm's
blue. Speaking of color breakup, hers isn't really show-accurate. The top
is almost entirely white, and the sides are all blue for the most part--
no real stripes or something that really attempts to mimic her color breakup
on the show, which is a real shame. This mode really needed a better plastic
breakup and/or more paint.
To transform Strongarm,
you take the two ends of the police car mode and fold them down towards
each other. This is a REALLY cool transformation, with the entire robot
mode spinning around and essentially unfolding from the top of the police
car mode. It's quite hypnotizing. Unfortunately... this is an AWFUL robot
mode, even taking into consideration the limiations of 1-step transformations.
Most of her is just molded into the bottom of some of her various car mode
panels-- the arms molded on the side doors, the legs on the underside of
the police car roof, and her main body on the back of an interior spinning
black part. It's all VERY 2-D, and only looks remotely good (and I use
"remotely" loosely here) from a frontal view. From a side view she looks
absolutely atrocious, especially given those huge police car halves sticking
waaay out on her back. The only reason she doesn't tip over from that weight
is because of the aforementioned "spikes" near the back of the vehicle
mode. The proportions for her robot bits molded onto the front are a bit
bulky even for Strongarm, and the sculpting is a bit worse, with undersized
upper legs, legs that are a bit elongated on the lower legs, and slightly
undersized lower arms. For articulation, she can move back-and-forth at
the shoulders, but that's it-- and even moving them forward emphasizes
the 2-D-ness of them, which just looks bad. The paint is used to a better
extent in this mode, though, with some blue on the chest, some white on
the legs, and a well-painted headsculpt complete with a silver face, yellow
antennae, and a blue stripe along the top of her head and blue eyes, which
looks quite good.
This is definitely one
of my more disorganized reviews, and that's simply because there is SO
MUCH bad about her, it's hard to figure out where to start-- I'll totally
admit this is more of a rant than a review. Horrible proportions in both
modes, 2-D robot mode, little paint in vehicle mode... she has a pretty
cool transformation, but that's just about it. Get either of the other
1-step Strongarm molds over this one-- heck, get ANY 1-step RID2015 mold
over this one. Even if you're a completist you might want to think twice
about this one-- just awful.
Review by Beastbot