Came in UPS from Amazon.com, box was a bit banged up, window crunched in(partially my fault), and back of box bowed out from all the twist tie ends, but the bottom of the box was nice large pictures of Mega Megatron, Ultra Jetstorm, Tankor, Snarl, Skydive, and Blastcharge. Same pics as on the DX's cards, but much larger.
This is not so much a Transformer as it is a toy, so he doesn't have a beast mode and robot mode, more like a beast pose and a robot pose.
Beast Pose:
One large kitty, it's a large house cat without fur and fat and with a
small head. But I think my sisters cat would run in the other room if
she saw him. Nice use of translucent plastic. Mechanical molding is on
the inside of the translucent plastic making for a nice effect and
keeping most of his body smooth to stay true to the "frictionless body
surface" mentioned in the Mega's tech specs. Poseability includes the
gimmicks mentioned below, plus hind leg joints as in the mega but with
a wider range of motion, and a sideways bending joint in the spin.
Alas no waist pivot so
Catnap Mode is not possible. Since the forelegs poseability is
limited and the bulk of the toy is sometimes large enough to move the
ratcheted joints, standing the cheetah in a dynamic pose is not too
easy. However a simple standing pose is quite stable. In addition
the cheetah stands better on his hind legs only with the foot
trick explained below. This is a very beautiful and large
techno-organic cheetah sculpture.
Gimmicks:
The poseability of the cheetah is limited by some of the gimmicks.
The right foreleg has 2 energy bolts stored in the wrist, though
mainly designed for robot mode (oops, excuse me robot pose) it works
the same here. Hold the forearm and pull back and down (like a shotgun
pumping action) and the bolts fire on the release (1 each time). Also
a blasting sound is heard and red lights in the chest activate. The
shoulder does have a poseable ratcheting joint, and can be pivoted
outwards slightly, but the elbow remains straight except when
performing the pumping action. The hand and fingers can be bent to
cover the missles and prevent discharge. While this is clever and
engineered well, the missles/sounds/lights could just as easily be
activated by a couple buttons and the arm would have been able to have
full poseability.
The left arm features an extending claw gimmick. A jointed, translucent yellow extensions springs the fingers out a few inches when the hand is straightened. The 3 fingers/claws extend but the thumb is still mounted on the hand base allowing for the Automatic Surrender described in DVD's review. Since there isn't a stable, locked trigger this can activate when you don't want it too, but the elbow does retain a hinge and pivot joint yet no wrist pivot to turn the hand to a correct orientation in robot pose. Again, a clever effective gimmick, but one I'd prefer added poseability over.
The only 2 gimmicks designed specifically and exclusively for cheetah pose are the lights/sounds/scaredy-cat feature that can be activated while he's in the box, and the turning cheetah head. A thumbwheel in the spin can be turned to make the head move back and forth and open and close the jaw. Since the gap to reach the thumbwheel is designed for a child-size thumb it may be easier for us older TransFans to simply move the head itself as in the Mega version. Behind the thumbwheel is a loop of plastic that can be pulled back. Pull on it a little bit and it locks into a second position and activates yellow lights in the head/chest area to illuminate the translucents. Pull farther to activate red lights, growling sound and raise a back panel and 3 chunks of hair to simulate aggressive(or scaredy-cat) posturing. The lever snaps back to the second (or sometimes first position) when released, it does not lock in the full extended position. This is another "clever" gimmick, but lights/sound never impress me and the posturing seems somewhat pointless.
Foot Trick/Transformation tip:
This is an Unexplained
Feature, the instructions only mention to flip down the heel
blades, and DVD's review says they don't touch the ground and are
useless, but they do touch the ground and help to provide a very
stable base for robot pose or standing cheetah pose. His feet
essentially transform from sneaker mode to high-heel mode.
His feet look like a robot foot wearing a cheetah shoe, complete with rubber sole for traction. A hinge pine at the toe and a locking lever are evident but their use is not so easily discerned. What I eventually did figure out is to fold the heel blades down as far as they do, they pretty much stick straight back if he's standing flat footed, but then you need to flip open the locking lever at the back of the foot, fold the cheetah shoe down at the robot toe, straighten the ankle joint, and bend the lever back down. Now the flat of the cheetah shoe is on the same plane as the bottom of the heel blade.
To stand cheetah or robot, the lower legs will angle back and the upper legs angle forward. Each joint in the legs must be in the same position as the corresponding joint in the other leg. The angle of the lower leg directs the force of the body weight down and forward making the rubber soles and heel blades very effective in achieving stability. I am very surprised in how stable he is if the legs and feet and posed correctly. It is very well engineered, perhaps more credit should go to Takara. Of course Hasbro couldn't be bothered to put this in the instructions or even in the pictures of the figure.
Transformation to Robot Pose:
Follow the foot trick instructions for the legs/feet then do the
following stuff. Fully extend the torso if not done so, open the
outer panel (with the 4 translucent green spots) and the inner solid
yellow panel. The outer panel is on a snap off-hinge and comes off
easily since it runs into problems of hitting other pieces, so if it
wasn't designed to snap on/off it would break off. The inner panel is
connected to a section of the torso that can swing around to the back,
then unfold the double joint and extend it so it's post reaches up to
a hole above the gimmicked back of the cheetah and cover that up.
Open the chest and swing out the robot head (head comes turned around
backwards, but can face forward inside cheetah too). Fold cheetah
head down into chest (metal contact points and gears are revealed
behind the head) then close chest and snap down robot head. Full
collapse the torso and snap outer panel into position. Oops, forgot
remove the tail. Now it's a matter of posing (well I guess the whole
thing is). For the sword, grab the blade at the point of the finger
holes to swing out. Put Cheetor's left hand fingers through the hand
hole then close fingers and thumb around the sword.
Robot Pose:
The 2 arm gimmicks are mainly designed this this pose and work/limit
poseability as described. The robot pose exclusive gimmick is
pressing on a lever at the back of the robot head opens the jaw/green
chin strap and moves green pupils up instead of the translucent yellow
of the regular robot eyes. Evidently this also causes a Cheetor to
have a brain spasm. A translucent yellow mass in his head (similar to
BM Op's blue green brain) moves but the view is somewhat obscured by
black spots painted on the clear plastic on top of the head. The
sword can be held in either hand, but the left works slightly better.
It has the surrender feature and also twisting the elbow joint allows
the sword to be held up and down, that's not possible on the right.
However the elbow pivot is above the hinge, so while holding the sword
correctly the arm is twisted and bends outward at the elbow.
The smooth surface with detailing inside translucents is still in effect giving an aesthetic appearance. Also the foot trick gives him a solid footing on solid surfaces (ie. not carpet). His robot form is very statuesque so as a statue he is very impressive, and results in an incredible display piece that looks great even 20 feet away.
Overall:
This is a great toy that can be posed as an incredible
looking and large cheetah or a robot. However it's not really a
"Transformer". I do like him, it makes an incredible display
piece, but perhaps not too much fun to play with. I recently bought a
MIB RoadCeasar. Comparing the 2, Cheetor is more fun to play with
since RC's joints are so tight and mint I don't move him too much,
and Cheetor's also a more impressive statue. Therefore Cheetor is
"better", but even at several times the price I prefer RoadCeasar.
Overall Rating: ** -- I was going to go * until I figured out the foot trick and stable posing, but for those who are very unimpressed with size and demand more poseability/intricacy of transformation it would be *. Worth the money? Only if you like large display pieces or if it goes on clearance for $20 or less.
