I had a look at griffin's Ultimate BH OP today. Also took a few comparison pics which I've posted here.

Previously I'd only seen photos of the toy, and based on looks I thought this toy would be crap... how wrong I was. IRL it's actually much worse! The word "terrible" doesn't even begin to describe it.

First of all, the incredible light weight of it shocked me. When griffin handed the toy to me, I was holding the Voyager in my other hand and I could immediately feel that the Ultimate figure was lighter that the Voyager, despite being twice the size! Then I got time to sit down and have a fiddle with it.

Truck Mode
Worst Optimus Prime alt mode ever. It's amazingly even worse than Titanium Series War Within Optimus Prime, which is a really crap toy. And yes, it's even worse than Energon Optimus Prime's (aka "Fatimus Prime", "Power Ranger Prime") truck mode. At least Energon Prime's truck mode is fairly solid, and while the arms look kinda goofy tucked back, it does make a significantly better effort at concealing them than this toy. I thought the Voyager was bad -- well, it is bad -- but this toy makes the Voyager look _good_!

What's so bad about it? It looks pretty much nothing like a truck. Even _less_ so than the Voyager, which is also a horrible excuse for a truck mode. First of all, its got enough holes in it for the First Fleet to sail through. Secondly, just like the Voyager, the arms and legs just basically sit behind the chest/cab section; much like my old transforming CosPlay! As dirge pointed out, my costume wasn't developed by a Hasbro funded R&D budget (it was 90% cardboard ). The Voyager at least uses its wingaling parts to try and form some semblance of a trailer -- a terrible semblance, but at least it tries. The Ultimate figure isn't even trying. It sticks the sword on one side, the Halloween Mask^shield on the other, and the handle^ringaling on the top! It looks NOTHING like a trailer! It's basically a robot sitting down with bits tacked on!

liegeprime was playing with it like a kettle and started pretending to serve everyone a cup of tea! I started using it like an iron and was pretending to iron some clothes! griffin then encouraged me to figure out how to use the missile launching gimmick, which proved to easily be the second most fun thing about the toy! (certainly more fun than the actual figure itself). The most fun thing? The missiles look like boogers (so I went around and allowed myself the immature pleasure of "sneezing" them). Yup... that was the most amount of fun I got from this toy! I would've shoved them up my nose if they were my missiles. (or maybe I did while griffin wasn't looking -- you might wanna wash those babies with some Dettol, griff ).

Transformation
To save time (and effort) I got griffin to transform the toy as ILikeSoundwave was transforming his Hasbro Voyager and I was transforming my TakTOM Voyager so I could take comparison pics of all three. So I can't say I had the dubious pleasure of transforming this toy myself... but it doesn't look that much more complicated than the Voyager. I did notice the front wheels tuck into the lower legs rather than the back, allowing the toy to form a more solid torso. This was probably also important to allow the chest house the LED gimmick. The inner legs look a bit weird with the red sections there, but considering that it's on the insides of the legs it's an acceptable compromise. Now I know why the Voyager has those faux-wheels on the inside of the legs, to emulate this part of the Ultimate figure's transformation. Of course, both Hasbro and TakTOM neglected to paint those wheels, so at least that does look better on the Ultimate figure.

Robot Mode
Okay, let's start with some positives - as I said, it is definitely a more solid robot mode than the Voyager. Also the face sculpt is loads better too. The LED gimmick is pretty funky if you're into seeing his eyes and chest windows glow. While the sword doesn't look like the Star Sabre, it is still an impressive looking eff-off size weapon, and it's well complimented with a shield, even if it's an extremely strange looking one. The Ringaling missile launchers allows the top launcher to fold down and face forward, which is a nice enough play feature. They've also put a variety of paint apps to give the toy a greater colour range, particularly with increased dark-grey accents. I personally don't like them, but that's just a taste thing, there's nothing inherently wrong with them and they do help break up the blues that would otherwise more dominate the figure (I just personally like Optimus to be more red and blue ). But the dark greys are well done for what they are. There is also an Autobot insignia on the left shoulder which both versions of the Voyager lack.

Right, now I'm done being nice. The colours are otherwise just garish and non-metallic like on the TakTOM Voyager figure. "Hasbro Grey" abounds, particularly on the weapons; and the size of it just throws it in your face! For a toy of this size and price point, I don't see why they couldn't have used a slightly darker/nicer shade of grey. This figure also shares one fundamental flaw as the Voyager - the shoulders don't lock in very firmly. It locks in firm enough for posing and mild to moderate toy play, but any remotely rigorous movement makes the shoulders prone to popping out. It's still a LOT better than say Masterpiece Lambor or First Edition Voyager Optimus Prime (both on the Voyager and Ultimate)... but still not quite adequate to withstand more dynamic toy play. People who carefully pose their toys may not notice this, but people who try to play with this toy (e.g. kids) more likely will. It's not hugely awful (again, loads better than MP Lambor), but it's a nuisance.

The stomach claws look weird and totally superfluous, like on the Voyager. But at least they do move (triggers the LED gimmick). The head IS rather small for this toy (only a bit bigger than the Voyager's) - but it doesn't look quite as bad IRL as it does in photos TBH.

Overall
Superficial. This toy is like a Michael Bay Transformers film. It's a big spectacle with cool looking gimmicks that will draw people in, but offer little substance to maintain long term or deep level interest. It's like the kind of toy that parents will want to buy for their child because it's so big and purdy... and the child will love it when they open it and play with it. But I can also imagine that child soon losing interest in this toy just as fast too. It just doesn't seem to have that enduring appeal that Transformers are more renowned for (and has allowed the toy franchise to survive continuously for 30 years now).

One could even argue that this toy is worse than Supreme Cheetor! How? At least Supreme Cheetor had a sold cheetah mode, and while the robot mode sucked, it was well coloured and sculpted. I honestly cannot say the same for Ultimate Optimus Prime. The main advaantage Ultimate OP may have over Supreme Cheetor is that he's $31 cheaper. But as we all know, the carded Deluxe version of BM Cheetor is the best version of that character; likewise the best version of BH Optimus Prime is the carded Commander Class version. Der Voyager ist scheisse, und der Ultimate Klasse ist zehr superscheisse (oh mein Gott in Himmel!!).

I don't see any reason to get this toy unless you're a completist or you just really want to have a massive sized BH Optimus Prime to tower over your other TFP Autobots (like he does in the cartoon). Even then, there's mid year sales coming up just round the corner, so I'd recommend waiting until you can find this toy on sale first. But unless you're a stickler for "show scale" or completism, I'd recommend giving this toy a wide berth.

Quote Originally Posted by SkyWarp91 View Post
Green kind of kills it for me with this figure, but maybe they dropped the Autobot insignia with TakTOM because everybody by now knows what Optimus Prime generally looks like and what faction he is assocaited with.
TFGo! Hunter Shockwave also has no faction logos. I'm getting the sinking feeling that TakTOM have decided to ditch insignias w/ TF Go!.