Jazz' alt mode is, as per usual, a curvy sportscar. For RID it's obviously stylized a bit, with a bit of an oversized front section. The roof doesn't come up enough vertically above the front hood and the rest of the car-- it doesn't look like a person inside would have much headroom and be able to see well! Otherwise, though, proportionally he's pretty good, and like most RID2015 toys he's got relatively sparse mold detailing. He's got the RID2015 trademark "divots" on the front hood and in front of the rear wheels, and a good number of mold details on the front end, with circular headlights and a fairly angular, "mouth-like" grill. On the back end there's some nifty little taillight and exhaust pipe details, as well. As far as robot extras on the back end the bottoms of the feet are rather obvious, but otherwise he's kibble-free. As with nearly every Jazz toy, in vehicle mode his main colors are white and black, with some blue and red stripes. It's a pretty good color scheme, overall. The blue stripes used on this version of Jazz are just a titch darker than usual, but I think it looks good and contrasts against the white better. The problem is that there isn't enough paint-- the stripes on the front hood and sides look pretty good, along with the horizontal red stripe above the grill and the red stripes on the rear spoiler, and the front and side windows are painted black. Howeve,r the rear window isn't painted, and the stripes don't go along the length of the entire car mode. The back end also has no paint, and the headlights and lower front grill also have no paint, and those areas desperately need some to pick out those details against all the white plastic. For a weapon, Jazz has a lance, which can plug into a hole on the roof in this mode. It's definitely very obvious-- is Jazz into jousting in alt mode now?-- but at least there's storage for it somewhere in this mode.
    Jazz' transformation is pretty straightforward-- the sides become the arms, the legs fold out from the bottom, the front section becomes the chest, and the car doors become "shoulder wings". I like how the door wings enhance the silhouette, though having the roof hang down behind the relatively slim lower body is a minor downside. The biggest kibble issues deal with parts of the car mode hanging onto the robot mode; namely the extra bits around the shoulders and the rear sides/wheels on the sides of the lower legs especially, which kinda ruin what are otherwise fairly straight, somewhat slim legs. Jazz' chest is a bit overly wide and flat, but otherwise this mode looks pretty good. I do like the proportions on the lower arms, legs (again, minus the wheel bits) and lower body. Aesthetically it's a nice mix of curvy and angular parts. The mold detailing is, again, fairly minimal, but the waist and lower body have a decent number of armor-like details and look pretty good. The head is a bit small given how wide the shoulders are, but the sculpting itself is pretty nice. He's got the trademark Jazz black helmet with a silver detail in the center of the forehead, but the face itself doesn't say "Jazz" to me-- the face is silver, but he's got separate eyes. Without a visor, Jazz just doesn't seem like Jazz-- it's too much a part of his character. As far as colors he shares the same basic colors as in vehicle mode, but they're broken up considerably more in this mode, with black paint used more, along with just a better breakup of black and white plastic. Beyond the blue stripes on the hood from vehicle mode, he's also got some red deco bits on his shoulders and abs and blue on his kneecaps as well. Compared to the show model, he's still missing some details on places like his lower arms and shoulders, but overall he looks considerably better color-wise in this mode. For articulation, Jazz can move at the neck, shoulders (at two points), elbows (at two points), inwards a bit at the elbows, and movement at the hips, knees (at two points), and forward a bit slightly above the ankles because of the transformation. I wish he had waist rotation-- there's nothing in the transformation that would prevent this-- but othewise, he's pretty articulated.
    This is the only toy of RID2015 Jazz, so it's either this toy or nothing. Thankfully, this is an decent mold, although it doesn't exactly break the mold in terms of original design in either mode. There's certainly better Jazz toys that more effectively capture his character (especially in the face), but the mold does fit in with the RID2015 Warrior toys quite well, he's got a pretty good color breakup at least in robot mode, and some nice articulation with only some minor kibble issues. Mildly recommended, though I wish Hasbro had used this slot for one of the many very unique Decepticon designs that got zero toys in the line as opposed to another same-ish Jazz toy.
 

Review by Beastbot

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