Wow, this is certainly an obscure one. "Sawback" here is based on the very rare G1 Japanese Headmaster Lione, which transformed from a LION into a robot head. For this version, of course, you can't have the Titan Master's robot mode be a lion because of the line-wide gimmick; shape-wise, it wouldn't work, because of the spaces these heads need to fit into. However, Sawback does have a cat head, complete with a cat snout, an open mouth, and ears/antennae on the side. The rest of the Titan Master details are fairly ordinary, with regular fists molded into the underside of the arms, a couple of ridged crests on the chest and pelvis, and blocky details on the legs. As with most Titan Masters, Sawback has no paint in robot mode, and just has a yellow body and upper legs and the rest of him is orange. It's a pretty appropriately lion-y color scheme, but it really needed something else to bring out all these details, especially on the face. Like all Titan Masters, Sawback can move at the neck, as well as back-and-forth at the shoulders, hips, and knees (the latter two as one for both legs, since the legs are molded together). In head mode, Sawback's sculpt looks similar, appropriately, to G1 Lione's head, though a bit less long in the face. He still definitely has a long nose and chin, but it's still within what I would consider "normal" bounds in terms of not looking odd. In a cool twist, the headcrest/helmet around Sawback's face is molded to look like a lion still folded into the head, despite obviously this not being the case; there's a little lion head in the middle of his forehead, and the sides of the helmet are molded to look like mecha-lion legs. It's just really neat and makes him quite unique among Titan Masters. There's some yellow paint on the face and a really nice dark glossy blue on the eyes, but otherwise this mode is all orange beyond a bit of yellow plastic on the top of the head.
    The accessory's first mode is a lion, and it's quite strong. Although the tail in the back is too short and pointy, otherwise the proportions are pretty good-- the lion has a nice amount of "heft" and volume to it as the Titan Master fits into the back of it, and the legs are of a decent length. The body is hollow-- which normally you'd think would be a great place to sit a Titan Master in, but unfortunately the toy isn't configured like that. Rather, there's a few "extras" from the other modes dangling in there, like the handle from the weapon mode and part of the seat from the jet mode. There's also two large side pieces that look like stylized, angular (very long) fur pieces. They're a bit odd in terms of where they're attached to the lion, but they do make his silhouette more unique and they don't get in the way of movement, so in that respect I don't mind them. There's excellent mold detailing all over this accessory, from angular ridges on the toes to spring-like details molded in the knees, to little vents and the like on the lion mane and head, to some angular details on the side wing-like pieces. Unfortunately as with many Titan Master sets, there's little paint; there's some silver on the outer sections of the side wing-like pieces and silver paint on the little guns (along with an Autobot symbol) on the inside of said pieces, as well as some yellow piant on the lion face with the same dark glossy blue eyes that the Titan Master's head mode has. Otherwise he's all orange and yellow, though the color breakup makes it so that only what's supposed to be his mane and "back fur" (along with his tail) are orange, while the rest is yellow, which works pretty well for a lion overall and isn't broken up oddly. For articulation, Sawback can move back-and-forth at the hips and shoulders-- individually at the hips and with both legs at once at the shoulders (though moving him forward at the shoulders causes the handle and seat piece attached to it to swing out lower too, unfortunately). The side wing pieces can also rotate around on their ball joints, but that's not really used much in this mode...
    The accessory's jet mode is definitely one of those "because we say it is!" modes. It's basically the lion mode turned upside down with the front legs turned backwards to reveal some missile pod-like detailing hidden in the shoulders, the wing pieces turned to resemble... well... wings, and the head folded down to make room for a Titan Master to sit in the middle of this mode. I do like the addition of those shoulder pods, a little angular piece resembling a (very small) windshield in the front, and the weapon handle essentially forming a gun in the front of this mode, but really... this is just way too obviously the lion mode upside down. It just looks incredibly awkward, especially with those back legs just sticking up like that and the wings not being substantially bigger and further up on the body.
    Sawback's weapon mode... actually isn't that bad. It's not a "weapon" in the traditional sense, it's a shield this time. It's formed by essentially taking the jet mode, folding the hind legs down, folding the wing pieces together to form a sort of silver "front" to the shield, and then just reorienting the toy. Here the silver bits really do look like an extended "mane" for the lion head in the middle of the shield, giving it all a little bit of a "medieval shield" feel. That said, the lion appendages are still pretty obvious on the back end of this, and the handle is in an odd place-- on the BOTTOM of the shield, as opposed to the back. (I do like the tail "spike" at the top, though.)
    Titans Return Sawback is certainly one of the most unique Titan Master sets out there. He's a very obscure character with a beastly robot mode for the Titan Master and an excellent lion mode for the accessory. Unlike nearly every other Titan Master set out there, the weapon mode actually ISN'T merely an afterthought, looking good at least for the front portion, even if the legs in that mode are a bit of an eyesore. No, the loser out of the accessory's three modes for this toy is the "jet mode" which has some weapons molded near the front and small oddly-placed "wings", and that's about it-- otherwise it's a lion upside-down and just looks super bad. Overall though I'd say he's an above-average Titan Master set, and unlike some other Titan Master sets, it's not like this guy has any real chance of getting a "full-fledged" toy, so if you like these little sets, you can certainly do a lot worse than buying this one.
 

No Stats

Review by Beastbot

Back to Transformers: Generations Index