First tries usually end up like this: Part 2!

Seriously, AOE had it rough. All the designs must have been a nightmare for the toy designers to translate from screen to figure. Optimus and Grimlock suffer because of it.

I’ll tell you right now Grimlock is better than Optimus though, even without his club and shield. But let’s take a closer look at him.

Robot mode

Grimlock starts of okay with a handsome enough robot mode. He’s not completely show accurate but you can tell they did what they could with just the concept art. He looks like a burly knight and the chrome chest at dino head pauldrons accentuate his knightly-ness. I still assert his head looks like a samurai helmet though.

Grimlock has pretty decent posability but the fact he can’t look up and down hurts him a bit. The Voyager could do that! Aside from that he’s got all you’d need apart from a waist swivel. One thing he has over the Voyager is that he’s got ball joints at his feet.

Alternate mode

This is where things falter. What even is this? This is not a T-rex. This is a sausage dragon. His body is so long it makes his arms, legs and head look weird. I would comment on his tail.

But I don’t have it.

For posability, Grimlock has pretty complete leg posability but his arms and head are pretty useless. He can open his mouth at least.

Closing

Leader Grimlock here isn’t terrible. I was expecting a garbage fire like AOE FE Optimus Prime. As he is, Grimlock has a good robot mode but a deeply flawed dino mode. So Grimlock’s okay.

Actually for the RM25 ($6.25), Grimlock’s great.

I’m lazy to get his weapons though. Can’t be bothered.