Phil's Beast Wars II Cyberbeast Review

[Philip Ayres]

Beast Wars II Cyberbeast Dirge Gun

Dirge Gun is the upgraded form of the Beast Wars II toy Dirge (a Machine Wars Flipchanger - the jet that doesn't have the Megatron head) Towards the end of the Beast Wars II series all four of the Destron Jets and Megastorm all receive upgraded forms. Together they are known as the Cyberbeasts. These Cyberbeasts took existing Beast Wars (or in Megastorm's case G1) toys and substantially remolded and recoloured them. Essentially they're still the same toy with roughly the same TF and some original pieces but the form is drastically altered to become a beast covered in cyborg parts.

Dirge Gun takes the Beast Wars Waspinator mold and goes to town on it. Looking at the toy in wasp mode - which is predominantly dark blue now, with the toy facing you then the right side of the face, back panel, both wings, outer side of the upper third of the right leg, top of the stinger and lower third of the left leg are all gone, replaced with cyborg parts mainly cast in silver grey. The cyborg head and beast eye is coloured pink for detailing. The wings are replaced by something molded in grey transparent plastic, much more angular with a blade projecting out of the front tip and a serrated rear edge. Where the back panel once was there now is a large cannon that can fold forward. This takes one of the newly remolded missiles that are once again stored under the wing. All in all the beast has quite a fearsome nasty appearance now.

To Transform: Fold the lower part of the rear legs over the middle part. Find the hips and fold the section they're attached to up towards the wasp head rotating the legs at the hips as necessary. Pull the front pairs out to the sides and extend the robot arms, positioning at the shoulders. Pull the wasp head down towards the robot's chest, then separate it down the middle, slide to the sides and lock it into the sides of the robot chest. Pull his stinger out of his abdomen to form his gun - if you look in his wings there's a missile in each for the gun to use - sadly the stinger still can't be reversed in the abdomen so he can fire missiles out of his backside.

The resulting robot shows more new cyborg pieces: head, chest & upper arms. The upper arms are clear and the same colour as the wings. The chest is silver grey and has the robot rub sign on the top in the middle. The head is a work of art - half of it is the same blue as the rest of the toy looking similar to Waspinator's beast head but with a smaller pink eye and a mouth. The other half is distinctly cyborg dominated by a round pink eye. The overall effect - as per the other cyber beasts - is a Beast Wars character that has become one with the Borg from Star Trek.

The articulation is excellent - ball joints at the knees, hips and shoulders, a bicep just below the shoulders and a fore and aft fold at the elbow + the neck and an additional fold forward at the shoulders as part of the TF.

The cannon can be folded up to fire over the head in this mode. However if you loosen the beast head halves from the side of the chest, fold down the panel at the front of the chest and then fold the head down so it's facing forward you end up with an alternate robot mode with a cannon for a head..

Overall: I like the design idea behind the Cyberbeasts and to my mind Dirge Gun shows it off best. Wonderful upgrade to a toy that was decent already. Worth the effort, and at the moment it seems to be one of the easier Cyberbeasts to get on eBay.

[Philip Ayres]

Four months later ......

Beast Wars II Cyberbeast Thrustol

Thrustol is the upgraded form of the Beast Wars II toy Thrust (Machine Wars Flipchanger jet - the jet that has the Megatron head) Towards the end of the Beast Wars II series all four of the Destron Jets and Megastorm all receive upgraded forms. Together they are known as the Cyberbeasts. These Cyberbeasts took existing Beast Wars (or in Megastorm's case G1) toys and substantially remoulded and recoloured them. Essentially they're still the same toy with roughly the same TF and some original pieces but the form is drastically altered to become a beast covered in cyborg parts. As with many Japanese Transformers toys there's some confusion as to how to spell the name - TFU use Thrustor, the eBay auction I bought it off used Thrustal - but I'm sticking with the one I've always used.

Thrustol takes the Beast Wars Dinobot mould and goes to town on it. Looking at the toy in raptor mode - which is predominantly yellow now similar to the bright yellow used on BW II Thrust, with the toy facing you then the right side of the head has been replaced with armour, a red cyborg eye and a blade on the top of the head. The left forearm is now robotic while the leg on the right has a new robotic shoulder and lower leg - but keeps the existing organic claw at the end. There's more armour, circuitry and spikes on the underside of the beast - which will become the legs - as there is on the tail which now ends in a formidable looking claw. The claw is in fact a missile and can be fired out of the end of the tail!

All in all the beast has quite a fearsome nasty appearance now. Forget TMII Dinobot *this* is Dinobot of Borg!

To Transform: Exactly as Dinobot so I'm off to copy & paste (with a tiny bit of alteration) what I wrote for him: To TF: Bend tail up, Remove tail and fold base onto back. Unpeg robot legs and fold below body. Rotate 180 degrees at robot knee and fold out feet. Push on dino thighs rotating sides of body 180 degrees so that the thighs become the robot shoulder. Rotate dino legs just below thighs to form robot arms. Split tail in two down middle to form spinning weapon and remove the claw & launcher contained within. Mount both on hands.

The robot shows odd some new cyborg pieces - he's got a completely new half organic half cyber head but with the Borg like eye mounted on your left this time. Gone is the mutant face gimmick. His heel spurs are now very robotic. We've lost the sword contained in the tail - replaced by the launcher which you can now see actually pushes through the sides of the tail. Like the original Dinobot the weapons must be held pointing straight out of the hand, something that's always annoyed me about the Dinobot mould. In addition to the spinning tail weapon and the launcher he has a third weapon - a new sword with a cerated edge that's clipped onto the side of the leg via a post on the leg and a hole through the sword. The post is a 5mm one with a whole through the middle so you can use it a Minicon port on his ankle. If I were designing the toy I'd have put the post on the side of the sword handle and the hole on the leg - he'd then be able to hold the sword upright instead of straight out the hole in the middle of his claw.

The articulation is excellent keeping everything the original Dinobot had - at ankle, ball and socket at knee and hip, shoulder - fore and aft and to the sides, bicep and elbow. .

Overall: I like the design idea behind the Cyberbeasts and Thrustol's a great example of it. Well worth getting.

Thrustol was Beast Wars II toy D-26 in Japan. He did not appear in a VS or multi pack, and has never been rereleased or released/recoloured in the west.

[Bogatan]

Great reviews of great toys. I've got Thrustol and the Cybershark one, which Ive just looked up and found to be call Hellscream and whose role is General Chief of Staff. Thats just raised my opinion of the toy even more for some reason.

Hellscream I think is the biggest improvement over the original beast figures. I always like Cybershark but thought it was a little dull as is was essentially an oversized flipchanger without the gimmick.

Andy

[Philip Ayres]

Max-B is en route to Phil's DFiS as we speak. Hellscream and Gigastorm to go !

[Philip Ayres]

Max-B never arrived at that point :-( But I do now have Hellscream...... and another Max-B on the way !

[Philip Ayres]

Hellscream

Hellscream is the upgraded form of Beast Wars II Starscream: See Phil's Beast Wars Cybershark Review. Towards the end of the Beast Wars II series all four of the Destron Jets and Megastorm all receive upgraded forms. Together they are known as the Cyberbeasts. These Cyberbeasts took existing Beast Wars (or in Megastorm's case G1) toys and substantially remoulded and recoloured them. Essentially they're still the same toy with roughly the same TF and some original pieces but the form is drastically altered to become a beast covered in cyborg parts.

Hellscream takes the Beast Wars Cybershark mould and changes just about every piece you can remove from the basic toy. The pectoral fins are replaced with mechanical ones, moulded in a similar colour to the body, each containing a moulded harpoon. The dorsal fin is replaced by a dark green fin set into a coning tower. The hammerhead at the front now becomes a mass of mechanical parts , again coloured green, mounted on a notched blade missile. Like Cybershark's previous version the head can raise up above the lower jaw and be fired using the missile launcher in the shark's back. The tail and it's claw mechanism are gone to replaced by a large green four finned tail which looks like a propeller mechanism. The overall effect here is a shark crossed with a submarine but in the middle you can distinctly see Cybershark's body and this is one of the toy's main flaws: at the centre of the toy is a body that looks and is coloured almost the same as Cybershark, just without the green spots. It's almost like a bad kitbash: replace all the removable parts but leave the bit in the middle you can do nothing with alone. In fact it's a trivial exercise to pop the pectoral fins off and remove the nose & tail then replace them with the corresponding parts from Cybershark to give a toy that's essentially the original bar the dorsal fin.

Transformation: Remove the tail and the head. Transform as per Cybershark then "Pull the underside of the shark apart down the middle lengthwise and fold up to the sides. Fold the robot arms out 90 degrees at the bicep joint. Fold the legs and hips out under the shark's mouth. Fold the shark's head back at the robot's shoulders to form the robot chest locking the legs in place and exposing the robot's head.". At this point when Transforming my new Hellscream that I've just bought off eBay, with no instructions or box, that I got a shock: his left arm was missing from just above the elbow. But just before I got to eBay to complain it was missing I remembered what was supposed to happen. The top of the base of the tail has a socket that fits the 5mm peg on the elbow allowing Hellscream to use it as a built in weapon (see bellow). The Shark's head/blade weapon ends up held in his other hand - you can't really leave it on the chest it's just too big and (phallic Transformer watch) leaves the blade sticking out of his groin.

In robot mode there's been some changes too: the blue pieces (the same colour as the sharks body) that have been retained from Cybershark can be found in the same colours. All the pieces that were white before (with the exception of the now missing lower left arm) are now black. He has a new blue upper left arm, ending in a 5mm peg (see above) and a new green upper left leg. The dark green head is new but bears a resemblance to the old Cybershark head with lots of teeth and a 3 pointed crest. A Beast Wars Destron (Predacon) rub sign is found on the inside of the shark body which is now on his robot back.

Articulation is identical to before: bends at ankle and knee, swivels bellow a ball jointed hip, ball joints at neck and shoulder, bicep swivel and a bending elbow. He can still use his chest launcher to fire the head missile or either of the (now black) missiles in his back. He has a new missile launcher found in the centre of the end of arm rotor mechanism which will fire the missiles or the blade found inside the head. However keeping the head on the blade will restrict the missile from locking into place.

Of the four Cyberbeasts to take their forms from Beast Wars toys, Cybershark is my favourite base mould. Conversely he's my least favourite upgraded Cyberbeast (Dirge Gun > Thrustol > Max B > Hellscream) It's the large area of obvious original shark that's my big problem. None of the other three Beast wars originated Cyberbeasts toys have such a large area of original toy visible. A remould on these pieces would improve the toy no end.

Hellscream was numbered D-23 but doesn't appear in a VS set. Hellscream isn't repainted during the Japanese Beast Wars II line but Cybershark does have a later remould as Beast Wars Neo C-37 Sharpedge.

Overbite

Hellscream is the only Cyberbeast to get a western release. In 2006 he was a Universe Exclusive for Target where he was sold in an Ultra sized box with Repugnus, one of the many recolours of Buzzclaw - see Phil's Beast Wars Fuzor Buzzclaw review. Hellscream is *almost* identical to the Japanese release. The beast mode is missing a couple of red & black paint applications to the head and dorsal fin, and there's an extra Decepticon symbol behind the head in beast mode/on the upper chest in robot mode. He's also missing the Beast Wars Destron (Predacon) rub sign that the original had.

A viable alternative to paying for the original version which shows up less often than the other Beast Wars originated Cyberbeasts.

[Philip Ayres]

Beast Wars II Cyberbeast Max B

Towards the end of the Beast Wars II series all four of the Destron Jets and Megastorm all receive upgraded forms. Together they are known as the Cyberbeasts. These Cyberbeasts took existing Beast Wars (or in Megastorm's case G1) toys and substantially remoulded and re-coloured them. Essentially they're still the same toy with roughly the same TF and some original pieces but the form is drastically altered to become a beast covered in cyborg parts.

Max B is the upgraded form of BB the larger part of the Beast Wars II ATB (The smaller part, Starscream is upgraded into Hellscream. Max-B is a re-mould of the Beast Wars K-9 toy which is itself a remould of Beast Wars Wolfang. K-9 did not appear in the Japanese Beast Wars toylines but was shown on 2 different leaflets as "coming soon!"

The yellow & black of K-9 are remoulded in a dark silvery grey while the most of the white becomes a paler grey. With the toy looking to the right little has changed: the lower rear leg, tail & back panel - the last two of which are found on both sides. If the toy looks left then on that side of the body we gain a new head and new upper leg. The head is obviously the K-9 sculpt rather than the Wolfang one: the left hand side has unaltered moulding, while the right hand side has a visor over the eyes, robotic lower jaw and an angular ear. The tail is a new sculpt with a gun and spiked ball built into it. The back panel is completely changed giving the impression of a jetpack now. Press the trigger on the top of the back to cause a pair of blades to flick out in front of the beast head. If you remove the back panel you'll find two anchor missiles still stored inside. One of them can be removed and inserted in the front of the back panel and fired using the trigger there. If the blades are folded back and the missile loaded then the missile will be fired first then the blades will swing out. The missile can be fired when the blades are deployed too.

Transformation: TF: Pull out the tail and set to one side. Fold the back of the top of the rear legs down to cover the back of the bottom of the legs, and from there flip out the robot feet and heel spurs. Straighten. Open out the halves of the beast head and reveal the robot head. Remove the entire back of the beast. On either side of the beast fold the halves of each side of the beast down till they meet in the middle sticking out to the sides. Push down on the upper body to shorten the robot's size. Fold the arms out to the sides, straighten and pose the fore legs as you like. Take one of the missiles from his back and insert into the base of the tail. Insert into the hand as a weapon.

Further reinforcement that this is the K-9 mould is found in robot mode: the feet are the remoulded rounded versions found on the K-9 toy rather than the twin points of the Wolfang foot. Some additional re-colouring here: the light blue becomes purple. The only real piece of new remoulding on this mode is the completely new head with moulded spikes and bionic eye. When held by the handle the tail weapon can be used as an anchor launching weapon or rotated the other way and held as a gun. There's another post on the missile launcher's barrel that enables the tail to be held as a melee weapon and for him to attack using the spike ball on the end. The back panel can either be remounted as a jet pack or held by a tab on the back as a hand weapon where both it's missile launching and blade deploying gimmicks still work. Articulation is the same as the previous versions of the toy: . The robot has some ankle articulation from the TF, Bending knees and elbows, ball jointed hips and shoulders - the later of which can swing forward as part of the TF - and a neck joint.

Overall: weapons upgrades for both modes which is good. But I'm afraid this doesn't quite work for me and I've got little idea why ! It's possible that the toy is a little too busy: in robot mode he's rather swamped by the weapons which affects his balance.

Max-B is Beast Wars II toy D-24. He has neither been repainted or sold in the west.