Review: #235
Name: Skydive
Brand: Transformers
Allegiance: Autobot
Line: Generation - Combiner Wars
Year of Release: 2015
Size Class: Deluxe (Wave 1)
Variations: none as of this date
JET MODE:
Skydive transforms into a grey, black and gold jet with some bits of red here and there.
This is a striking jet mode. It should be noted that the tailfins are made of soft rubbery plastic. Unfortunately, you can clearly see the robot arms and fist on the sides of the jet.
He carries a fair bit of undercarriage, pretty much the whole robot. He doesn't have any sort of landing gear but he doesn't need them to sit flat on the table.
Being a jet with a decent wingspan, Skydive manages to look bigger than he really is.
You can peg the weapons under each wing but it causes asymmetry and visual lopsidedness as a result.
Skydive comes with a collector's card featuring art from the mobile game Legends. In later rereleases, he will come with a comic.
There are air intakes on either side of the jet, and the nosecone is also made from soft plastic.
A solid jet mode, the undercarriage junk isn't too horrible in person but I just wish that they could have done something better with the robot arms instead of making it so visible.
TRANSFORMATION:
Transformation is extremely similar to the rest of the Aerialbots, the legs transform the same way, the only difference is how the arms form. There's a few twisting involved in regards to the air intakes which eventually form his shoulders, they can be annoying to be honest. Otherwise, a simple transformation but the legs are quite clever.
ROBOT MODE:
Skydive's robot mode is quite faithful to the original G1 incarnation. A lot more red comes into play with the gold disappearing.
He wears part of the fuselage and the nose as his backpack, but it pegs in securely and sits quite close to the torso, so it isn't bad.
The headsculpt is good but personally, it's too busy and the worse of the lot in Wave 1.
He comes up shorter than an average Deluxe since he loses a lot of the jet's length thanks to it being kibble on his back.
Skydive also has the worse knees/legs aesthetically since the angle of his kneecaps makes him seem knock kneed.
The combiner port forms his torso and there are some attempts at sculpting it.
Skydive comes with two weapons, one is a traditional dual-barreled gun and the other is the extra combiner piece, which attempts to look like a weapon with the two missile pods in front.
The gun fits in either hand and Skydive's poseability is great. He has a waist swivel in addition to all the standard joints.
His feet are large which makes him easy to stand in many poses.
The combiner part weapon is a bit too big proportionally to look good.
Skydive's robot mode is good but his stature will not please everyone, what with the wide shoulders and the awkward looking legs.
OVERALL:
Skydive is a solid toy, but he also shares a lot of similarities with the other Combiner Wars Deluxes. Personally, he is the weakest of Wave 1 in terms of aesthetics but there's no denying that he's still great fun to play with. The plane mode is strong and looks great.
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Skydive can combine with the other four Aerialbots to form Superion, who will be covered in his own review shortly. In the meantime, lets take a look at Skydive's limb modes.
The extra combiner piece can form a foot or a hand. The foot is simple and doesn't require much manipulation of parts.
The hand however, will come into form after fiddling around with a few parts, and it is actually quite clever.
His leg mode is basically the jet mode but with the nosecone folded back like in robot mode. It looks solid especially since he has a knee cap.
The hand mode is his robot mode with the arms folded back. They plug into place so it's secure which is a nice touch.
This is a minor comment about all the leg modes but the combiner part needs a bigger heelspur because putting the combined form in any dynamic pose will require some fiddling around to get them to remain standing.
Skydive's limb modes are great and his arms still allow elbow movement. That's all for now, thanks for reading.