I must admit, I've never been a huge fan of Cheetor's BM form, and his rather lousy Mega and Supreme toys certainly haven't helped any. I've had the opportunity to play with both, and neither are what I'd call good toys.
Night Slash Cheetor, OTOH . . .
Robot Mode
This is the mode he comes packaged in, so I'll start with it. In
robot mode, Cheetor stands an imposing 19 cm(7.5") tall, making him the tallest Deluxe ever. He's primarily midnight blue with some black and green highlights, orange-yellow spots on his arms and thighs, grey on his legs and for his swords and tail, and translucent orange on his head, chest, hands, and feet. A dark green Spark crystal is beneath the orange dome on his back.
But while his colours aren't show-accurate, his form decidedly is. From his familiar head and smiling face to the four oval spots on his front torso and to his long legs, this is the Cheetor we've all come to know and love (or in some cases, dislike). Extra features include a tail with a laser blaster on
the tip and a pivoting rocket pack mounted on his back. Unlike his Mega and Supreme versions, NS Cheetor has large, long, and wide feet that do a fairly good job of keeping him standing. He is articulated at the head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, thumbs, hips, knees, second knees, ankles, and tail,
allowing for a wide variety of cool poses.
Cheetor's gimmick is a neat one. Pressing the black buttons on his upper arms cause his swords to flip out right into his waiting hands. The swords are permanently attached, thus no need to worry about ever misplacing them.
Pressing the Spark dome repeatedly causes him to swing his swords up and down, as though blocking hundreds of badly-placed enemy shots or slicing and dicing Thrust drones by the dozen. In addition, his chest panel opens up to reveal a spinning doohickey that vaguely resembles a striped peppermint candy. Suck candy, Megajerk!
Transformation
Possibly the easiest transformation ever, except for the
Throttlebots. Cheetor's heels flip in, his shins retract, his chest and back panels open up and a head swap is performed. All that's left is for you to crouch him down on all fours.
Beast Mode: Cheetor measures 17 cm(6.7") long from nose to tail tip as a cheetah, and I use the term "cheetah" loosely. He looks more like some kind of vicious mutant jaguar. His cat head is gold and blue with white fangs and orange eyes that glow under strong light. The paint job on his head is
really quite superb, with nose, whiskers, and techno-bits clearly visible.
His slashing attack gimmick still works in this mode. Because of the way his shoulders are structured, you may need to adjust them a little so that he doesn't bellyflop. His head can turn from side to side and he has a kind of fang-barring feature. Not the most impressive beast mode I've seen, but it's still nowhere near as ugly as Cheetor's TM2 version.
Overall
Overall, Suspsy Sez: It took them three attempts, but Hasbro has finally blessed us with a good Cheetor toy for its now-defunct BM line. The beast mode is fairly weak, but the robot mode absolutely rules, with cool colouring, fine detailing, lots and lots of joints, and an excellent slashing gimmick. Bonus points for the addition of a rocket pack, which makes a lot more sense than Cheetor gliding around Cybertron on his swords.
A nice way to end the BM line, but it really is a shame this toy didn't come out right at the start when it was most needed.
Supsy
| Reviewer | Suspsy |
| Date | November 9th 2001 |
| Score |  (9 out of 10) |
| Reads | 7535 |
Back to Reviews Index
|
