Here's my review:

My first impressions with this weren't so great. Mine has quite a loose waist, and a bunch of stress marks like others' right out of the box. And the T-Rex mode articulation is a bit of a let down. The waist is only a mushroom peg pinned through; I can kinda understand why the designer chose this type of joint construction - to save space for transformation, but it's certainly not ideal for such a heavy figure. After a close look I think the stress marks on the main double hinge of the backpack wings seem really unavoidable and I will talk more about it later. To add to all this, how the panels fold/unfold felt kind of counter-intuitive the first time around due to the nature of curve organic surfaces.

However I know better to jump to conclusions on a Masterpiece figure. After having him for about a week now and a couple more transformations, he's grown on me very quickly. Once I got to know more about how the panels/joints work, it's so much more fun to mess with it and I got to start appreciating the end results of this transformation more.

T-REX MODE:




Although at this point it should be considered normal for a BW MP figure to achieve this kind of accuracy, it still amazes me when I have it in hand. The skin texture is fantastic; so are the "printed on" light purple stripes, and they match perfectly across different parts. TT absolutely nailed that T-Rex head and even the contour around the neck area defining the bone structure; brilliant. The rolling eye gimmick is extremely important for Megatron imho, but it seems it's common the eye balls are on the loose side, so they don't like to stay in one position.





After I'd familiarized myself with how every part moves, I do think the articulation in this mode is decent. My main gripe is that the thighs are fixed in place with no articulation whatsoever just like Dinobot. With the robot thigh joints being right there (unlike Dinobot which I can totally forgive given the engineering difficulty) I thought TT could've figured out a way to integrate those in T-Rex mode to give it some degree of thigh movement. Fortunately the knee and the excellent ankle and tole articulation are the same as in bot mode, so you can get him in some great walking poses. The tail has only a single swivel joint near the tip, which is necessitated by 'bot mode but unfortunate at the same time, considering Dinobot's amazing tail articulation AND it having to split in half. imho tail articulation helps add a ton of personality for these BW characters. As someone mentioned before, the little forearms can't touch which again a missed opportunity.





The four BW MPs look amazing together in beast mode.

TRANSFORMATION:

The engineering is underwhelming, and that's kind of expected tbh. I do like how the hip missile assemblies come together. The multiple hinges and interlocking tabs on the backpack wings definitely take some time to get used to. The main double hinge that folds the dino skin panel in half is designed with an extremely tight pin fit. I believe this is to help guide the angled locking tab in without relying solely on the friction from the tab connection to hold the folded panels in place. This tight fit results in stressing the hinge very easily so stress marks are kinda unavoidable. I can see why they designed it this way though. The panels cover almost all of the T-Rex torso, and there are a lot of contoured lines, resulting in lots of angled hinge and tab connections; and they are harder to manufacture to a perfect fit, especially with this large number of joints. I just wish maybe TT could've gone with a thicker plastic, but then that may result in a thicker backpack... I don't see any of the stress marks would worsen though if you be careful and apply pressure right at the hinge when moving it.

The backpack cleans up real nicely and looks great though after all that folding. This is the kind of modern design that couldn't be done without 3D CAD.

By the way, the instructions are some of the worst I've seen out of Takara imo. I had to watch Wotafa's video review to make sure I wasn't gonna break it trying to pull the body up.

'BOT MODE:





As all previous BW MP figures this mode is clearly the emphasis of the design and it's absolutely gorgeous. As mentioned before the backpack cleans up nicely and fits together solidly. Even the inside of the "wings" have the light purple stripes just like the CGI in the show. I can't think of anything to criticize here. Just perfect.





All the head sculpts are beautifully done as you'd expect from TT's modern Masterpiece figures now. I especially love the smiling face; it just captures the character so perfectly. The laser effect part is nice, but I'd suggest being very careful with the peg when attaching it.





Articulation is outstanding. The loose waist is a bit of a pain but I haven't found it to be troublesome for the poses I got Megs in. The neck joint is on a raised panel which you do need to pop up before snapping the body halves together, and it has a great range. He also can assume very natural kneeling poses.



I think it's funny the instructions gave actual names to the four armor configurations we see on the show: "full armor mode", "pondering mode" (sans the T-rex tail), "bathing mode" (with shoulder armor on only), and "rest mode".





He scales perfectly in 'bot mode with the others and I had so much fun setting up fight poses. Can't wait for more Predacons!

OVERALL:

Megatron's list price is about 7000 yen more than Dinobot. Even with pre-order discount he's a very expensive figure. Objectively I don't think he's worth that price, especially considering his engineering is not nearly as complicated as Dinobot, and his small design issues most of which like I mentioned earlier, are quite understandable but nonetheless could've been executed better for his price. Subjectively though, Megatron is another amazing entry into the BW MP line and is easily worth the money for such a definitively cartoon accurate figure. I'm at a point where I don't really care too much about the price for these BW MPs anymore (it's not like TT put one these out every second month). All the output so far suggests guaranteed satisfaction and they'll be as definitive and perfect as top modern toy engineering allows them to be. I'll keep supporting the line and hopefully we'll see it continue as far it could go.