Review: #10
Name: Prowl
Brand: Transformers
Allegiance: Autobot
Line: Reveal the Shield
Year of Release: 2011
Size Class: Legends (Wave 2)
Variations: None
VEHICLE MODE:
Prowl transforms into a little white police car, that take a lot of design cues from his Universe (2008) deluxe incarnation (particularly the hood). That said, he's not a bad little car, albeit the aesthetics are not really to my tastes, it's just something about the wideness coupled with his thinness that irks me.
He features a good number of paint applications, with a lot of black paint, the front, sides (tracing the outline of the word "POLICE" on both sides) and windows. If you look carefully, you will see that the side windows on the back aren't painted, but they're hard to pick up and is no biggie. By far the most notable flaw would be the weird hollow back, granted they are needed for transformation, and they even sculpted rear lights on the side as well, but it just stands out (forgivable for such a small toy).
Being part of Reveal the Shield, he features a rub sign on the hood, rubbing it will reveal an Autobot shield. I tend to find that the smaller rub signs (with a silver border) on Legends and Scouts to be harder to heat up than the larger ones. I guess the final complaint that I have would be his light bar, it just sticks up too much such that it looks unnatural.
Probably due to the proportions, but I tend to find Prowl a bit smaller than previous legends in the past, however, putting them next to Stealth Bumblebee (from Revenge of the Fallen) shows that they are of the same length.
Not much more I can ask for such a tiny toy, good paint applications, pleasing to the eye, and very nicely sculpted (I especially like the spoiler), a good vehicle mode.
TRANSFORMATION:
As expected, a really simple toy, it feels like they've rehashed the transformation from Universe (2008) Legends Jazz or even ROTF Bumblebee, it's just that similar, although granted, they might have to save on the engineering costs. Nevertheless, it works at this scale, and is a fun little figure to transform back and forth, a very easy conversion which adds to his playability.
ROBOT MODE:
You can't expect any gimmicks of a toy this size, so all of Prowl's fun would be his (limited) poseability and the easy conversion. He looks great in robot and this was the mode that sold me on the figure. He looks really good and evokes Prowl a lot, his head is proportionally bigger than his body, but it's only noticeable from head on.
He has hinged feet (for transformation) and heel spurs, but yet he's hard to balance properly, and needs some fiddling, a tad bit annoying but what can you do. His arms only look good from the front, as you can easily see that they're only panels from other angles (that irks me quite a bit to be honest).
I don't think he can be improved anymore, maybe they could have fitted in tiny shoulder launchers but it would have very hard. All the black you see on the toy is paint, he is molded completely from white plastic, thinking about it, he's got a lot of paint for him. Some silver on his abdomen would be awesome (the details are there), but all the important bits are already painted.
Head sculpt is great by the way. Oh, I just found another thing they could have improved on, hinges on his door-wings so it can swing out, THAT would have been so awesome (although easy to break). His poseability is standard legends range, but he gets a bonus of hinged knees.
OVERALL:
A great little legends toy that is really fun to play with, and still displays well, with few liberties taken that is all so common at this scale. Definitely recommend him as you're getting a good deal for such a cheap price, especially if you found him on clearance like I did. And if you're as big a fan of legends toys as I am, this is surely not one to be missed, he might be a bit hard to find, but is worth the search.
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Here is Seibertron.com's gallery of the same toy.
Credits: some pages linked to TFwiki.net has been used.
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