- Notes:
- I refer to this toy as Savage Noble, as that is clearly what character it is meant to represent. Why Hasbro chose to name it "Beast Changer" is beyond me. They also gave it a standard issue tech spec, with a quote, high intelligence, and everything. I guess whoever wrote the spec only saw the first Beast Machines episode with him in it, and didn't know that the character ended up as little more than Nightscream's own version of man's best friend. Anyway, I'll be referring to this toy as Savage Noble. Noble is the wolf mode, and Savage is the dragon mode, mm-kay??
- Color Scheme:
- Almost all red with some light gold/tan accents, some dark blue paint dusted over some areas, and some other accents. His Wolf head is very well done in terms of paint detailing. Due to the overabundance of red, he looks best in Savage mode, because he's just not the right color for Noble mode (wolf).
- Robot Mode:
- The packaging and spec refer to the wolf mode as the robot mode, even though the whole point of this toy/character is that it's not a robot, but a fully organic being that transmogrifies into another form. That said, the Noble mode is pretty nice, especially given the attention they paid to the head, which pretty much carries the entire mode. If not for the great job on the wolf head, other things would be more annoying. Things like the right arm's tendency to snap in two when positioning it, or the upside-down dragon head resting on his shoulders, or the fact that he has wings. Fortunately, the wings can be easily removed. This is also unfortunate, as they could easily become lost.
- Beast Mode:
- This would be the dragon, or Savage mode. I like this mode, if only because it looks like it should. The wings belong, the colors are right, the head and most other parts look good.
- Transformation:
- Fold the arms up, hide the wolf head under a shell, rotate the waist and fold up the legs and it's pretty much done. It's rated as low intermediate difficulty, which I can agree with given the simplicity of their "easy" toys. ;-)
- Gimmicks:
- IMHO, the gimmicks detract from the quality of this toy. His main gimmick is a spinning claw thing, where you slide the spark on his arm to engage the mechanism. Then, you lift a panel on his back which winds the mechanism, and release the panel to activate it. The result is a spinning forearm and hand. His chest is also translucent which allows you to see what can only be described as "machine parts" popping up and down inside while the spinning arm gimmick is occurring. Aside from the sheer stupidity of this gimmick, you end up with a forearm that flops around loosely half the time, and pops off the other half. If it were up to me, I'd nix this gimmick all together and make both arms the same as the left arm. Nice and solidly built. Then they could have put his spark in his chest, and make it so his wolf head hides inside his chest cavity. If they simply MUST have a spark crystal activated gimmick, they should have put a fireball launcher inside the dragon mouth that launches with the pressing of the spark crystal on his back or something, sort of like how Hammerstrike or Tank Drone's gimmicks work. He does have one decent gimmick, and that is his dragon head. It has a small button on the side that makes the mouth open. Refer to the head shot to see this in both positions.
- Pros/Cons:
- Good Savage mode, nice Noble mode, especially the head, but the spinning arm gimmick wrecks a lot of his goodness.
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