Thunderblast
Thunderblast's vehicle
mode is an assault boat. This mode is pretty much perfect (as it should
be, considering her robot mode-- discussed below). There are no robot extras
whatsoever, and the proportions are spot-on. There's also plenty of great
mold and paint detailing in this mode as well-- such little details as
the miniature seats and control panel and the front rotatable mini-gun
look pretty cool. The silver metallic details on the top of the boat also
look good and help to add some further contrast to the mode. The large
missile launcher on the back end of the boat is also rotatable, and it
can aim up and down. There are four missiles molded into the front of the
missile launcher, but these don't fire. Instead, if you insert Thunderblast's
Cyber Key into the rear of the missile launcher, the front panel flips
down and the entire middle section of the launcher swings up-- put one
of Thunderblast's missiles mounted on the side of the boat into the launcher
and then press the button to fire it. It seems rather... needlessly complicated
for a missile launcher, relaly. I'd rather they not have the fake front
to the missile launcher and instead just stick a slot for the actual firable
missile in the front. It's rather silly to use a Cyber Key just to open
the SLOT for a missile to be put in instead of it already being in said
slot. The color scheme itself-- of purple, orange, silver/gray, and some
bronze-- goes very well together and is fitting for a Decepticon femme,
even if it's not the first choice I would've picked for a boat.
Thunderblast's robot
mode is a shellformer in the strictest sense of the word. Almost her entire
boat mode is unfolded on her back-- the only parts that are shared in both
modes are her missile launcher and her lower legs. I mean, that's a BIG
backpack she's got there. It's too particularly heavy since it's spread
out, and it does look vaguely like a pair of oversized wings, but having
her entire robot mode encased in her vehicle mode is just a really lazy
way to make a Transformer. However, the upside to this is that Thunderblast
has pretty good proportions (although a bit exaggerated in their feminine-ness),
and she has excellent articulation-- she can move at any point you could
reasonably expect on a deluxe-sized toy except the wrists, and some of
these joints are ball joints for added posability. She can even swivel
at a point in between her hips and knees, due to her transformation. (It
should be noted, however, that her big shell-backpack does interfere with
some of the shoulder and hip articulation a little.) I like some of her
robot detailing, such as the matrix-like design on her chest and the vent-like
designs on her upper legs. I'm not fond of her head design, though, since
her head crest looks too much like an odd pair of elvish ears and her neck
is too thick. The light piping in her eyes works pretty well, however,
and the asymmetrical eye problem on the Japanese version of this toy has
been fixed for the Cybertron release. Unlike most transformers, Thunderblast
doesn't have fists in this mode-- her hands aare displayed in a karate-chop-like
position, and her gun plugs into a hole in her lower arm it you want her
to hold it in this mode. She can hold her gun fine in its normal configuration,
but if you activate the Cyber Key feature while she's holded said gun in
this mode, not only does it become too long for her to hold it with her
arms bent at the elbows, but it just becomes too heavy for her arms to
hold it up at all, so her arms sag under the weight and she ends up pointing
the gun at the ground.
Thunderblast has an
awesome vehicle mode and a pretty cool color scheme, but she's a huge shellformer
in her robot mode, and that by itself accounts for pretty much all the
points taken off from her score. It's just a lazy transformation, I
could have thought of it-- and that's no complement. Her Cyber Key gimmick
is also needlessly complicated, as well. One of the weaker Cybertron toys.
Review by Beastbot