Nice to see that the Titanium line is paying tribute to pretty much all the past Transformers line-- if any line would've been passed over, I figured it would have been the rather controversial Beast Machines line, but nope, Cheetor in his Beast Machines form has been redone for the Titanium line. And man, does he looks sleek-- more so than any of his other Beast Machines toys, to be sure. In beast mode, Cheetor shares quite a big similarity to his Beast Machines self, in terms of overall super-sleek style and proportions, but also in terms of the colors, right down to the purple cheetah spots dotted all over his back and upper appendages. They look really nice against the semi-metallic shade of yellowish gold, too. The green and red also blend in nicely with the other colors, though perhaps making them just a shade or two darker would've helped to add a bit more contrast to the toy. What is different when compared to the other Beast Machines toys, however, is that Cheetor has very little technorganic mold detailing on him-- he looks like a purely mechanical cheetah. I'm not sure why this was done, but it still looks pretty cool regardless, and helps give Cheetor a bit of a "new look" while stil retaining the essential elements of his Beast Machines self. The proportions are a bit off in this mode when compared to an actual cheetah, but most of this was likely intentional, due to the scrawny alien-esque appearance of many of the Beast Machines Maximals. (And on a side note, hooray for finally getting an actual Maximal symbol on Cheetor's display stand-- I wish the same could have been said for Optimal Optimus.) Cheetor's head is pretty small proportionally, while his lower front legs are skinny and his upper front legs are bulky. This actually fits in with the overall aesthetic, however, and honestly probably looks better than if the proportions were more normal. I'm not fond of the back legs, however-- they're far too long in comparison to the front, and the swords are a bit too obvious on the sides, though at least they fit in with the overall shape of the legs. Also, since the swords are made of the bendy plastic necessary for such thin plastic parts, I worry about them warping a lot over time because of repeated sliding-on and taking-off of the upper leg pegs. Cheetor's cheetah head can rotate from side to side at the base of the head, but that's the only unique point of articulation-- the other points he shares with his robot mode, which I'll get to shortly.
    First off, a quick but important warning about Cheetor's transformation-- when transforming him from robot mode back into cheetah mode, MAKE SURE you push the robot head back INTO the upper beck piece before rotating the cheetah head piece upwards. Otherwise Cheetor's robot head will be stuck inside the chest when you try to transform him again, and nothing short of disassembling the entire chest will get the head out again. Now, as for the actual robot mode-- it's definitely very much Beast Machines Cheetor, but it's considerably bulkier in appearance, increasing the stability of the design. The legs also don't bend backwards at the knees nearly as much-- again, for stability. It looks good, however, and fits Cheetor surprisingly well. The swords look great in his hands are make good-sized weapons, and the usage of the beast paws as the heels for the robot feet help stability even more. And, given that Cheetor has great articulation-- he can move at the head, shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees-- you can get a pretty good amount of poses out of him because of this. What is a big bummer, and one of Titanium Cheetor's biggest flaws, is that his arms cannot rotate upwards at the elbows at all without having the lower beast legs swing down from behind the shoulders as well, since the lower robot arms and the lower front beast legs are the same piece of plastic and rotate on the same hinge. This is especially bad in beast mode, as conversely Cheetor can't lift up his front legs at all without having the back halves of his upper legs swing down to reveal the robot arms at the same time. On a lesser note, I'm also a bit dissapointed that nothing was done with Cheetor's tail in robot mode-- simply folding it up onto the back would have sufficed, but it can't move at all and just hangs between his legs here. Also, I'm not too fond of Cheetor's robot head sculpt-- it has the necessary "Cheetor" characteristics, but the upper head is large to the point of making him look like he has a massively oversized brain and head doesn't extend as far "back" as it should, instead having more normal head proportions in terms of its width compared to its height, which is not how Beast Machines Cheetor's head is supposed to look. Also, much of the back of the head is painted green, when it should be yellow-ish gold like most of the rest of the figure. On the plus side, however, at least the beast head tucks in very nicely behind the back and out of the way in this mode. In case you're wondering, Cheetor's diecast parts are his upper arms, chest, and upper legs.
    Titanium Cheetor is the best version of Beast Machines Cheetor released, and an above-average Titanium, but he still suffers from a few flaws-- namely, a few proportional problems, odd problems with his arm articulation, and an overly simplstic transformation that is part of the overall Beast Machines design. He's still a fine toy, though, and looks great in most respects. Mildly recommended.

Review by Beastbot

Back to Transformers Titanium Index