Allegiance: Autobot
Size: Super
Difficulty of Transformation: Hard
Japanese Name: (Super) Fire Convoy
Color Scheme: Red, light gray, silver, transparent light blue, dark gray, light orange, chrome silver, chrome red, off-white, sparkly blue, and some transparent dark red, chrome gold, light sparkly blue, and light black
Mold History: Optimus Prime was a completely new mold created for Car Robots (which subsequently became Robots in Disguise).
Rating: 9.4

    Optimus Prime's vehicle mode is a fire truck. This mode is very nice- the "doors", rubber wheels, and everything are very well done. (The wheels still say "Fire Convoy" on them, however- something Hasbro forgot to change!) My only major problem with this mode is that Prime's "super" robot head and chest plate are pretty visible on the backside in this form, which could have been handled better. Also, although the mold detailing on the sides is alright, there should have been a bit more paint detailing. At least the large Autobot symbol partially makes up for it. There's also some Japanese lettering on the left front part of the truck, with "Cybertron" under it. A pretty nice touch, and adds to the Oriental origins of this Transformers series. The transparent light blue windows are a nice touch, but the robot feet are kind of visible on the inside, so making them either a darker transparent color or just solid would have probably been a better choice. Another problem with this vehicle mode, especially for people who play with their toys a lot, is that the front part of the fire truck can disconnect from the back part a bit easier than I'd like. There's really only two different parts holding them together, you see, and it doesn't work that well if you try picking the fire truck up at any one point. What really makes this mode neat, however, are the action features. By pressing down on a small red tab on the front of the ladder, two small "water guns" flip out of the front! The ladder can also extend to twice its original length! Also, by pressing a small red button on the back of the ladder, you can fire ALL FOUR missiles inside it at once! Bombardment, baby! You have to push back on the inner part of the ladder to lock the button into place first, though, so make sure it's that way before you fire them all. The missiles also have individual buttons, in case you just want to fire them individually. By pressing the red button in between the two siren lights, you can activate Optimus Prime's "electronic" feature. Red lights in his sirens will go off one after the other, and Optimus will "say" one of five things:
- One siren blare.
- Several siren blares.
- "Optimus Prime, maximize!" (which really doesn't make any sense, since he's an AUTOBOT)
- "Autobots, transform!" (That's better.)
- "Fire!" accompanied by a bunch of blast sounds
As you can see, that's a pretty nice feature, except for the ridiculous "Maximize!" part. What were the guys on when they decided to record that!?! We haven't had American sounds gimmicks with actual voices since, well... before I started reviewing toys, that's for sure.

    Optimus Prime's "regular" robot mode is actually pretty easy to transform into for such a large toy. His base mode can get rather confusing, as it's just an amalgamation of parts, but we'll get to that later. Optimus Prime's regular robot mode is amazing. He's one of the most posable and durable of all the transformers- all his parts stay together very well, and he has two points of shoulder articulation, as well as elbow, hand, head, head antennae (yes, his head antennae can move!), waist, upper leg, ankle, and feet articulation. Hot diggity! He's also very well balanced- his rather large lower feet make him so. His two sirens rotate upward on his upper back so that he almost looks like he has two "swords" stuck in a sheath on his back. Nice! Optimus Prime's head and chest also retain some homage to the original toy in their style, with "windows" on his chest, a face plate, and those large side antennae. His chest is also made that preeetty transmetal stuff, too- and it doesn't chip that easily, either. The wheels on his knees are also add to the mode a bit. He also has a little hand gun for this mode. A perfect- and I mean PERFECT- regular robot mode! (You also can attach the parts that made up his "super" robot feet to his shoulders in this mode, to create some sort of "missile" launchers- but it's impossible to make the base mode without these parts.)
    Optimus Prime's base mode is pretty much just a combination of the fire truck parts that don't make up his regular robot mode. Although the ladder part looks rather nice with its guns at the end- as some sort of long range gun- the rest just looks rather cruddy. There's no attempt to hide the "Super" robot mode hands, head, or chest at all. However, the original Optimus Prime toy also had a seperate base made from his vehicle mode, so, seeing as how this is somewhat of a homage to the original toy, I can partially forgive this. It still isn't really worth the confusing effort to put it together, however.

    In his "super" robot mode, Optimus Prime is definitely ready to fight! He's got extra armor everywhere, and he's effin' big! Basically, to get Prime's "super" robot mode, you attach extra armor pieces to his head & chest, hands, shoulders, and feet. He has a big sash on his chest in this mode, and his antennae can swing forward to become guns! Lift up the Autobot symbol on his chest to discover some robotic detailing inside- a nice touch. His head & chest armor piece is a bit harder to get on than I'd like, but it's no big deal. Some people have reported that the clip which holds part of the aforementioned armor plate on can cause the chest transmetal plastic to chip after a while, but I haven't experienced this yet. His shoulder armor parts also fall off a bit easily. Optimus Prime doesn't have quite as much articulation in this mode as he does in his "regular" robot mode, because of his large armor parts, but there's not that much a reduction in movement. It's still a great mode! Optimus Prime's large fire truck ladder in the back is the only real problem I have with it- it gets in the way quite a bit, and there's not really any place you can put it to move it out of the way. You can swing it over his shoulder like he does in the show to have him carry a big honkin' cannon, but it tends to put him a bit off balance when you do so, and requires a bit of working to get it positioned just right. But besides those couple of downfalls, this mode is both great looking and great to play with.
    Optimus Prime's "regular" robot mode becomes the main body with with to attach all of Ultra Magnus' parts to form Omega Prime.
    A great toy, especially in his different robot modes. His base mode could use some work, but it's not really that big of a deal. Highly recommended.

Review by Beastbot

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