Beast Machines: Your Best and Worst

[Sharky]

As some may have seen already, i recently completed the beast machines section of my collection

Taadaaa




And i am curious for those of us that have the figures (all or some) in our collections what is your favourite figure and your least favourite figure in the series, and why do they qualify for those titles.

[Sky Shadow]

It's sad that my one of my very favourite Beast Machines toys (the Megabolt Megatron mould) isn't actually a Beast Machines toy. Similarly, l love the Mutant Beasts from that US era, but they were released on Beast Wars-esque cards.

Thus, the top eight Beast Machines toys are, in my opinion:

Blast Punch Optimus Primal, Rav/'Chro', Skydive, Thrust, Airraptor, Magmatron, T-Wrecks and Strika (thanks Sharky!)

I'm off to sleep, but I'll have a think about my whys and wherefores and the worst of the line and get back to you tomorrow...

[Paulbot]

I don't have many BM toys, few appealed to me on the shelves and I didn't see the cartoon until 5 years later or so.

Of those I have, my faves would be:
Night Viper - the tail into legs transformation is one I love for it's simplicity and the robot mode with the arm blades is very posable and fun. Both modes have a lot of personality and it goes against most Western fiction to have a 'heroic' snake so that's a nice touch
Blackarachnia - a whole lot of woman in robot mode and a cool kinda spider mode. This is my favorite version of a Blackarachnia toy.
Deluxe Jetstorm - a really nice jet mode, fun to transform and although the robot legs are too short, the hover mode works a treat.

(I would include Magmatron but I got the BW Neo version and don't really think of it as a BM toy.)

Least fave? Probably the Cheetor toys, Mirage (their robot modes lets them all down) and deluxe Optimus Primal (who apparently transforms into robot mode but it's hard to see the differences)

[Hursticon]

Though I've sold all mine off many moons ago,

Favourite: Blastcharge
Why?: A very Robot-ish Bot mode that could have either legs or wheels but also having a Triple-barrelled missile launcher in his chest put him in a league of cool that hadn't been seen since G1 Warpath.
His Alt mode was a very poorly chosen choice of camouflage, as having a chrome frontend as an APC isn't exactly covert but that is a very minor thing considering whole cool the Six Wheeled APC was.



Most Despised: Silverbolt
Why?: ...

[Quickstrike]

The deluxe Jetstorm mold is probably my favorite Transformer. His transformation is fun and fast but not stupidly simple. A few months ago I got Sonic Attack Jet and he's so pretty I love him.

In fact, most of the Vehicons are great.

[Sky Shadow]

The worst are well and truly Che and Mechatron. Of the transforming toys, the worst is Nightscream - an awful toy at a ridiculous scale.

Favourite: Blastcharge.

Wow, really - that's intriguing. I think Blastcharge is such an odd angular and blocky design that he feels like another company's very first attempt at a transforming toy. I find his design interesting and unique, but he felt really out of place as a 2000ish Beast Machines toy, particularly in robot mode compared to the sleekness of his fellow toys. His Beast Machines colours didn't suit my aesthetics either, although I really liked the purple and black look of the 2005 Universe recolour.

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

BM Blackarachnia rocks my world. I only have the Universe version but the mold is brilliant.

[GoktimusPrime]

Blackarachnia = win
Supreme Cheetor = supreme fail

[liegeprime]

I like

Blackarachnia, Bike Drone, Blast punch Prime- the molds are great, especially the drone!! Shame it was rather hard to get them when I was in Phils as I was penniless during these times or I wouldve gone army building on these. As it stands everytime these go on sale even in ebay, they get bought quick.

Meh for me

Supreme Cheetor - which is precisely why I DONT OWN the toy. Pointless use of plastic. Another one of Hasbro's drunken WTF are they thinking moment...I bet if they issue out a memo within the Hasbro division that whoever is responsible for shelfwarming WTF toys to get 20 lashes punishment for such utter failure products then we'd see improvements somehow....

[GoktimusPrime]

The thing that makes Supreme Cheetor worse than other horrible toys like Nightscream, Rattrap and Silverbolt, is the ridiculously expensive RRP on that toy. Also the fact that there was a cheaper Mega version available at the time, and for those who waited, an even cheaper Deluxe version -- and IMO Deluxe Nightslash Cheetor is the best BM Cheetor toy made during the BM line anyway. The more expensive the BM Cheetor toy, the worse it gets. And getting the tall, lanky and top-heavy Supreme Cheetor toy to stand in robot mode is just a massive pain in the diodes. The only downsides with Nightslash Cheetor is that his 'nightslash' colours don't match the cartoon (although they are nice colours in their own right), and the toy was never available in Australia. But we still had the local option of Mega Cheetor (which came out _before_ Supreme Cheetor no less).

Nightscream isn't inherently a horrific design. He would've been a lot better if he'd been a Deluxe. The stupid thing was that they unnecessarily made him an Ultra (well, the necessity was for the lame electronic gimmick). But the toy itself isn't _that_ bad, unlike Supreme Cheetor who basically just stands up to transform to robot mode. (-_-) Rattrap suffers from a poorly designed robot mode. I don't like how the head keeps looking down - and there's no real reason why the visor couldn't swing down further to cover the face like in the show. And I seldomly ever complain about show likeness, but this toy came out _after_ the cartoon aired. I do like how Rattrap has proper legs though, which can become wheels for people who prefer show likeness (much like Blackarachnia whose feet can be pointed like in the cartoon or stand on proper feet for better balance). Silverbolt is just a dismal failure of a toy, but at least he's a cheap Basic. But also, there's not much choice for BM fans if they want toys of Nightscream, Rattrap and Silverbolt... they can kinda 'afford' to be crap because there isn't much 'competition'... but Cheetor on the other hand... as if people wouldn't just opt for the cheaper Mega

Supreme Cheetor was just a massively stupid decision. Oh look, here's an oversized and overpriced version of the Mega toy that came before it (and that most of us BM fans already bought anyway). Little wonder this toy shelf warmed for years lingering on shelves... especially at Toys R Us who just _refused_ to discount this toy!