Strongarm's alt mode of a police SUV is done fairly well on this 3rd 1-step mold of her design, at least in terms of the general look. Because of the transformation, it is "squished" a little bit and not quite as tall as it should be in proportion to how wide it is, but this is a minor proportional issue; it's not so deformed that's it's HUGELY obvious. From a side or back view, you can also see the robot feet sticking out the back end, which is a bit of an eyesore (she doesnt have a real back end to her vehicle mode, so no rear bumper here). There's also an obvious crack right down the center top of this mode, but this is meant to be obvious for the transformation, so... can't really get all that worked up about that. Otherwise the proportions are fairly accurate, with all the expected mold detailing present on this toy; she's got the angular bumper details, the ridged wheel covers over her treaded wheels, angular car doors, some simple siren detailing on the roof, and then some vent-like detailing on the back of the top, with a slight "swoop" on the sides behind her rear window. There's also a hole in the roof for you to stick a Mini-Con Weaponizer or some other weapon with a similarly-sized port into her to give her some firepower in this mode. Unfortunately when it comes to her color scheme, due to the complex interplay of white and blue her show model has and the limited paint budget given to most RID2015 figures, she ends up being far too blue or far too white on her toys; for this version, she's far too blue. In fact, the color imbalance is worse than usual, here; the ONLY bit of white in this entire mode is a block of white on her hood. The rest of her is a fairly dark, milky blue that's semi-metallic, as it has a bit of glitter mixed in. It's a good shade, but there's way too much of it, so it's not remotely accurate. Beyond all the blue and that bit of white, there's some black plastic used for her tires and some black paint on her front and side windows (but not the rear window). Her sirens are also painted a metallic red and blue. This isn't nearly enough paint-- even beyond the color imbalance, leaving all those details on places like the front bumper completely unpainted is a real downer.
    To transform Strongarm to robot mode, in a manner similar to the 2017 version of 1-step Bumblebee, you "peel her vehicle mode back" from that big crack in the center, which reveals her robot mode as it pops out while the vehicle mode splits into two halves behind her. Needless to say, this means some BIG pieces of vehicle kibble in this mode, as the entire halves of her vehicle mode are behind and to the sides of her main body; this is definitely the biggest problem with this toy, and there's not a close second. However, if you ignore those COLOSSAL pieces of kibble, her robot mode details are generally well-done in this mode, even if the proportions are "stretched" a bit. Her arms are the worst, with her shoulder details being way too undersized because of the limited space they're given in the transformation, though her lower arms are decent enough, with some basic faux vehicle panels and hand details molded in. Her upper legs are a bit too small proportionally, but otherwise her leg detailing is pretty nice, with curved kneecaps and feet and some angular divots on her lower legs. Her main body looks the best, adequately replicating her show details like her "belt", compressed faux vehicle front, and stomach fairly nicely, even if they're flatter than they should be due to the transformation limitations. The face on her head looks slightly off for some reason, like the details aren't crisp enough-- still, all the basic details are there, from her large side vents to the Prowl-like headcrest. For paint, she has some blue paint on the sides of her chest, her eyes, and top of her head; silver on her face and stomach; and a bit of black on her upper legs. It's okay, but her arms and lower legs really could've used some more paint to break up all the off-white plastic that otherwise makes up all her robot mode pieces. For articulation, she can only move forward at the shoulders-- it's not much, but it's what you'd expect from a 1-step.
    The 2017 1-step version of RID2015 Strongarm is definitely far better than her initial 1-step version in that at least her vehicle mode has decent proportions and her "core robot mode" looks okay, even though that's a LOT of kibble to ignore, and she desperately needs more paint, especially in vehicle mode. However, her 2016 1-step version looks better in just about every way, making this version largely unneeded, and thus completists or people who can't find the 2016 version for a decent price are the only ones who seriously need to look at this toy.
 

Review by Beastbot

Back to Robots in Disguise (2015) Index