First tries usually end up like this.

Off the bat, this guy is horrible. You will not believe how lazy it is.

I love it anyway.

But also, I hate it.

Packaging

Vehicle mode

The truck mode is actually pretty great. Optimus tabs together well and holds together nicely in this mode.

He’s got rubber wheels and rolls nice and smooth. That’s a nice touch.

Optimus’s paint is weird. It’s great in some places but lacking in others. For instance, his rims aren’t painted. The chrome is also placed pretty haphazardly.

His weapon storage for the sword is neat and tidy but the weapon storage for his shield is not.

Transformation

This is where things go wrong. You fold his truck mode, and put it on his back and the back of his legs. You then stretch out his legs and pose his arms.

Simplicity and streamlining is good.

But not when you get a robot mode like this.

Robot mode

I hereby dub this Back to School Optimus Prime. Dear Primus, the backpack.

The backpack.

It is bad.

BAD.

WHO GAVE THIS THE GREENLIGHT?!

He’s nowhere near screen accurate. I’ll give some leeway. The inaccuracies can be somewhat chalked up to the toy being designed without the on-screen design being finalised.

Still, the handling of all the kibble.

It’s not good.

Optimus has an odd paintjob. He’s got chrome almost everywhere with some normal silver, blue and red. But then in some parts it’s unpainted grey plastic. The unpainted plastic is jarring and not good looking.

Optimus has average posability. He has all the requisite joints for posing (swivel head, universal shoulders, bicep swivels, double elbows, universal hips, thigh swivels, knees, and ball jointed feet). However, he’s hampered by the backpack and other truck mode kibble. He’s also missing some fine tuning in his posability. He lacks wrist swivels, a waist swivel and his head does not move up or down.

Honestly, I think his box had more effort put into it. It’s a nice box.

Holy crap, this figure is so bad it’s making me appreciate it’s box. Look at most of my reviews. I never mention the box.

Gimmicks

If.

If.

IF, he had some show stopping ridiculous gimmick his simple transformation would make sense.

Nope. Nothing. He transforms and has a sword and a shield. A cool looking sword and shield, but still! That’s it.

And he comes in a really nice box.

Okay, that’s it.

Toy or collectible?

When he first came out with a retail price of RM300 (about $75), this Optimus here could not be recommended to anyone.

However, because of how cheap you can get him right now, I can recommend him as both.

I got mine for RM70 (about $15), so you could give this to a kid without any regrets. They’d enjoy him too. He’s Optimus Prime, he’s big, he’s shiny and he’s simple to transform.

On the adult collector side of things, you could get him just to keep him in his awesome box. And you know, as a conversation piece about how you should never give up, even if your first try was way, way off target.

Closing

If I sound negative, it is because this figure was lazily designed and was sold for a premium when it was first released.

Put bluntly, it was a rip off and was a bad figure.

That being said, it’s been 5 years since he was released and you can buy him for pennies on the dollar.

And having him in hand for the amount I paid for him, I enjoy him for how blatantly horrible he is.