Two months later, and I'm still on my TFCon stuff. But, I AM nearing the end, with a few more choice pieces left. One of these is MP-34 Cheetus (Cheetor). My taste for Beast Wars MP figures is very much one of a strict sampling - there's a zero percent chance the Beast modes would actually be perfect, though I will admit even at a glance I was able to discern at least they LOOKED a lot better.
Anyway, found one used for $85 at TFCon, and I figured this was probably about as good as I was going to get.
So, in case you somehow managed to miss this era in Transformers history, Beast Wars was the series that came after G1 ended in North America, though there were a few years of weird remasters of the G1 series to kill the time. In Beast Wars, the heroic Maximals were led by Optimus Primal, and the plucky upstart on the team was none other than Cheetor who transforms into a Cheetah.
Content wise, more than the original toy but ultimately in the same flavour:
- 1 x Main Figure
- 3 x Beast Heads
- 3 x Faceplates
Like the original toy, Cheetor possesses two concealed weapons - one made from the tail section, and the other is concealed in the Beast belly. Sadly, there is not water squirt function like the original toy did.
The Beast mode is vastly improved over its predecessor. It's not perfect, as you can clearly see robot kibble in Beast mode, but to have actual functional legs and head is quite nice - the head even has a joint to allow for it being pointed on whichever side you'd like, The only thing I would have liked to see would be something that allows the body to twist midway between the front and rear paws. With what you have, you can get some decent walking poses in, though I wouldn't try for a realistic pouncing pose. The heads are also very nicely done, and feature whiskers made of a clear plastic filament, and look like they were taken directly from the CG files and 3D printed. Despite what my photos show, there are actually three heads (I kind of forgot to do one of them). There are also three sets of eyes that can be interchanged so you can swap the gaze from either left, right, or center.
Transformation reveals a generally accurate robot mode. Like with so many other figures, some liberties were taken, such as the Beast mode head on the chest and the remaining Beast mode shell components on the arms. Still, overall the resulting form is much more faithful to the animation model... at least in the front. The back, I can't say I really paid enough attention but I suspect some mass shifting was involved on the show.
Like with Beast mode, the Robot mode faces very much capture the animation model as well as the character himself. It's nice when the G1 MPs get the toon style faces down right, but it's something else to see the excellent work at Mainframe realized in action figure form.
Articulation is, effectively, slightly better than your typical Deluxe class figure. You do get a few extras such as double jointed elbows, wrists, semi articulated hands, thigh swivels, shoulder joints that allow the arms to come closer, and a more refined ankle system. However, ultimately you're not really getting any exotic poses out of the figure that you can't get on a main line... with the exception of one thing. For whatever reason, designers gave the figure the full 90 degrees for head tilt, which isn't very helpful when the figure is standing up, but does allow for Cheetor to assume a prone position and can be posed as such on your shelves, adding a bit of variety.
Cheetor is beautifully painted all over, and this includes the spots which I'm pretty sure were digitally painted on the body - they look a bit fuzzy up close but the overall effect of them is quite nice. Metallic paints are nicely done, with no overspray or other visual distractions. This of course applies to both the main figure and the weapons. Overall, a class act in all aspects of this area. Build wise, nothing grievously bad to mention, or at least I don't think there is. The hinge that holds the Beast mode hind quarters aligned with the torso seem to be kind of loose. Having said that, because mine is used I can't tell if that was just luck of the draw or if that is a design issue. In Robot mode, there don't seem to be any adverse effects caused by this issue. My other little annoyance isn't Build but rather a design thing, namely I wish they had made equipping Cheetor with the Tail gun less annoying to accomplish.
Despite buying it as another notch on the MP belt, I actually found myself being quite impressed with the effort designers put into actually, if you'll excuse me, "maximizing" the play that this figure permit, and also, how well the thing actually turned out. As mentioned before, the figure is far from perfect, but having played with the OG figure and seeing how far they've come (and how close they got), I gotta give Takara props for pulling this off. For Full Gallery, please visit:
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