DotM Legion Autobot Ratchet

[griffin]

Toy Review - DotM Legion Autobot Ratchet

(Please post photos, comments or even a fully comprehensive review - these are just brief details)

Toy Review - Autobot Ratchet
Series - Dark of the Moon
Sub-line - Cyberverse
Size/class - Legion
New/remould/redeco - New
Wave - 2
Released here - May 2011
Approximate Retail Price - $7-9
Approximate Size - 7cm
Allegiance - Autobot
Alt-mode - Offroad Rescue vehicle
Main Features/Gimmicks - none
Main Colours - Green/yellow, white, black
Main Accessories - none

[SMHFConvoy]

Picked up this guy today. So this is the umpteenth version of the movie Ratchet.

He has 6 points of articulation:

Shoulders are pinned and can turn 360 degrees. If you want to stretch his arms out the doors of his vehicle mode are exposed. Looks odd.

Elbows are ball jointed BUT using them leaves Ratchet with his palms facing up. It makes him look as if he's only capable carrying things or he's crying out, "WHY?"

Legs are ball jointed at the hips like most legion class figures. No knee joints.

Robot mode is nicely sculpted, in particular the legs and torso. Ratchet's head is a tight sculpt, however, it looks more like Optimus Primal than Ratchet.

Simple transformation. It's similar to TFA Bulkhead's conversion: Swing the arms out wide so the doors show. Rotate forearms at elbow so that, "Fire Rescue E4" are showing. Lift the roof and close the vehicle mode doors. Lower the roof and clip into slots just past Ratchet's hands. Now rotate the lower torso back and clip the back of Ratchet's heels onto the tabs pointing down from the roof. Finally fold the head down into the vehicle hood.

Vehicle mode is the rescue truck that Ratchet has been for the last two films. this time he has a white stripe along both sides and the front of the truck (?) is white. The bull bar and the roof is nicely sculpted and the tyre on the roof is an actual spare (its pinned to the roof) but the detail gets lost in the flat black. The sides of the roof are sculpted with tools, an axe, a wrench with a long handle, a shovel and the jaws of life.

All in all Ratchet is an okay figure. It's a shame he's not a commander class figure as he would of benefited from better articulation and an accessory (like his cannon and saw!)

In hindsight I would buy this figure on the cheap. As in if he was available at TRU right now while their, "Buy two legion figures and get the third one free" promotion is on.

[griffin]

Voted 'only if cheap', not because there is anything wrong with it, but because it's just Ratchet, so is kinda boring... so buy it, but some of the others first.
The colours bother me more. If it were green, like the first movie (and the previous Legend/Legion Ratchet), I'd probably like this a lot more.

This one has a bit of backpack panelling happening, but doesn't stick out enough to be a problem. If anything, it just makes it look like his normal back... better than the previous Legend Ratchet toy.
An improvement, but was it really necessary to create another Ratchet toy in this size class.