The 3-Step/"Hyper Change Hero" version of RID Grimlock is pretty darned spot-on in beast mode, and with a pretty good mix of his basic colors (green and black), too. Unlike many of his lesser-painted versions, in this mode no huge section has just one color-- there's some black on the hips, some green on the middle scales, and the like to keep everything well-mixed. The t-rex arms are light milky gray, as are the upper robot legs, which are the only robot mode extras in this mode-- particuarly since they're up against black, they stick out pretty clearly on the lower back and on the t-rex stomach-- but from most angles they're mostly obscured by the back ridges or the legs, so they aren't as big of a deal as that sounds simply from a description. Unfortunately this light gray is the bland milky shade, though, which I'm not a fan of. There's also a distinct lack of yellow highlight colors, which are pretty ubiquitous on the show model but aren't on this toy (though to be fair, they're on barely any of the RID Grimlock toys). The feet are also missing some paint, as well. The face is pretty well-painted, however, with a silver snout and teeth, a copper Godzilla-like "head crest", black eyebrows, and some nice blue eyes. As for the mold detailing itself, it fits in with the normal RID aesthetic of being somewhat sparse with a few angled divots here and there, though Grimlock does have a BIT more mold detailing than normal, what with multiple "levels" of his scales to look like armor and some fairly fine details on his t-rex fingers. For articulation in this mode, Grimlock can move back-and-forth at the hips and shoulders (unfortunately no jaw articulation, sorry).
    Grimlock has a pretty wild transformation, but it's also pretty simple. Remove the tail, split back the head halves and split the whole toy backwards (the robot waist is near the t-rex rear), and then rotate the waist right to both push up the head and extend out the t-rex legs, which become the shoulders in robot mode. This mode, though looking pretty good overall, isn't QUITE as good as the t-rex mode, pretty much entirely because of two factors. The first is the lower legs, which are unapologetically halves of the t-rex upper body. The t-rex head halves hang off the sides, as well as the t-rex arms off the right leg. There's little bitty undersized square "feet" details on the very bottom of these pieces, but that's it as far as calling them out as feet. Secondly, the tail piece doesn't store anywhere or become any kind of weapon. Given the target audience for these simplified Transformers toys-- i.e., kids not much older than toddlers-- you just know that that tail's going to go missing sooner or later. You KNOW it. It really wouldn't have been too hard to give it a handle and a fold-up blaster barrel, Hasbro. Anyways, the upper body looks pretty good and is fairly proportional, with a fairly broad chest for ol' Grimlock, with a very accurately-detailed head with a large black "nose" vent, little antennae, a nice metallic bronze face, and blue eyes. He's also got broad shoulders, and although there's obviously t-rex feet sticking out the front, there are fists molded into the sides of the arms and for a simplified toy like this, I find that acceptable. The waist and lower legs are also pretty proportional, though unfortunately Grimlock has no front-to-back hip articulation. He can only move front-to-back (and slightly up-and-down) at the shoulders and a little bit side-to-side at the hips in this mode. (You can technically turn the waist, but it's not recommended-- if you turn it it'll trigger the transformation, and you can only turn it in the direction that triggers it.) Articulation isn't the focus for simplified Transformers, though, so it doesn't take away as many points as it would on a "mainline" Transformer.
    RID 3-Step Grimlock's definitely my most-recommended simplified toy of the character. He largely looks solid and proportional in both modes, though he does have some moderate kibble in each mode (on the lower legs in robot mode and obvious upper legs on the back and stomach in t-rex mode). He also has a pretty good variation in his colors/paint apps. My only real issue with him is that the tail can't be stored anywhere in robot mode, which is a big oversight for a toy aimed at this age category.
 

Review by Beastbot

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