Review: #722
Name: Ratchet
Brand: Transformers
Allegiance: Autobot
Line: Generations - Studio Series
Year of Release: 2022
Size Class: Deluxe (Wave 15)
Mold Status: new
VEHICLE MODE:
Based upon his appearance in the opening scene of Bumblebee, Ratchet transforms into a Cybertronian truck.
This is a fetching vehicle mode, made the better with a rear that doesn't has any exposed robot parts, which is quite impressive in this day and age.
Unfortunately, it's quite a small figure, above is a comparison against TLK Bumblebee. While Ratchet is compact, he still feels too light.
The robot weapon can peg onto the top.
A good looking vehicle mode, albeit one that's too small.
TRANSFORMATION:
Just like his wave-mate Wheeljack, Ratchet suffers from a complex transformation done at too small a size that makes him fiddly. While Ratchet isn't quite a bad, there are still some annoying sections. The front is the torso but the legs unfold from the bottom. The rear are the arms, and pretty much the whole vehicle collapses to form the torso, but in a clever way to peg together on his back.
ROBOT MODE:
Ratchet's robot mode is really good looking, striking the perfect balance of bulkiness and slimness.
He's clean from the back too as everything folds into his torso into a neat box.
The head sculpt is okay, it's a tad too busy for his face as it's trying to replicate the many moving parts of the design but is hard to pull off at this small scale.
One interesting thing is that the outer wheels on his legs are faux, something you might not notice when you first get Ratchet out of the packaging.
Articulation is good, with joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, waist, knees and ankles.
As part of the Studio Series line, he comes with a cardboard stand depicting war torn Cybertron.
He comes with a gun as his weapon.
He can hold the weapon in either hand. As we've come to expect, Ratchet has a ton of hollow parts, but they are not too obvious.
The gun can peg on his back when not in use.
The quality control on the other hand feels worse than ever, with a lot of my recent Studio Series figures (and the mainline Generations figures) coming with loose floppy joints, and Ratchet is no exception.
Otherwise, this is a great looking robot mode that's fully poseable.
OVERALL:
Ratchet is a good figure but just like with Wheeljack, if the designer could simplify the figure and make it bigger, so that it feels better valued and isn't as fiddly when transforming him, then Ratchet would be perfect. It's like they struck a good balance in the earlier Studio Series lines and earlier Generations lines such as Siege and Earthrise, before the budget was cut yet again, leaving us with these clearly inferior figures compared to what we could have gotten. Ratchet is still worthwhile, but borderline.
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