Shadow Recon Team

Allegiance: Minicon
Size: Mini-Con (3-pack)
Homeworld: Giant Planet
Overall Rating: 7.3

(NOTE: Because this set is a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the set and the color scheme, and merely compares it to the original Recon Team. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of the original Recon Team here.)
 

Jolt
Vehicle ModeRobot Mode
Difficulty of Transformation: Very Easy
Color Scheme: Black, transparent dark blue, and some silver, clear plastic, and tinted clear plastic
Individual Rating: 6.9

    Jolt's new colors, like the rest of the Shadow Recon Team, are mainly transparent. Out of all the team members, though, Jolt has the most transparent plastic-- a must. Considering how thin his propellers and tailfin are, they'd be fragile if they were made of transparent plastic. The robot arms are also solid black plastic, as are his upper legs. His lower legs are a fairly dull shade of tinted clear plastic-- I would have preferred the much nicer color of transparent dark blue used on his main body. The normal clear plastic is used for his cockpit, as it has to be in order to show his robot face adequately. Jolt has very few paint apps, the only two being on part of his helicopter cockpit bubble and on his robot face. In most cases, this would be a big downside, but on a Transformer made mostly of transparent plastic, you WANT just a few paint apps so that all the pretty transparent plastic can show off its pretty-ness under a strong light.
    No mold changes have been made to Jolt.



Jolt Tech Specs:
Strength: 6.0
Intelligence: 8.0
Speed: 9.0
Endurance: 6.0
Rank: 5.0
Courage: 6.0
Fireblast: 6.5
Skill: 8.0

Reverb
Vehicle ModeRobot Mode
Difficulty of Transformation: Very Easy
Color Scheme: Clear slightly blue-tinted plastic, and some black, tinted clear plastic, and dull metallic orange
Individual Rating: 7.0

    Reverb is just pretty much a plain clear color, which personally I don't think looks very good on him. On an airplane it would work, perhaps, but not on a SUV/truck hybrid. All of the colors do go together well, though really the orange windows are the only colors on Reverb that aren't some shade of clear/white or black. (Orange is rather odd color to paint windows, too.) Like Jolt, Reverb has few paint apps, though as I said before that's not much of a downside in the case of a transparent Transformer. I don't like the black paint apps on the hands, though-- they make them even more obvious in vehicle mode now that you can see through the sides of that mode.
    No mold changes have been made to Reverb.



Reverb Tech Specs:
Strength: 9.0
Intelligence: 5.0
Speed: 6.0
Endurance: 8.0
Rank: 4.5
Courage: 7.0
Fireblast: 6.0
Skill: 8.0

Six-Speed
Vehicle ModeRobot Mode
Difficulty of Transformation: Very Easy
Color Scheme: Transparent dark blue, and some black, tinted clear plastic, red, light metallic blue, silver, and clear plastic
Individual Rating: 7.9

    Six-Speed uses the same transparent dark blue color that Jolt has, and MAN does it look good on him. The few paint apps that there are only serve to contrast against the dark blue very well, especially the red visor paint on Six-Speed's face. He actually looks rather eeevil with his dark color scheme and red visor, now... The silver paint apps on the arms also serve as very nice contrasting colors. Not so much for the black paint apps on the knees, but it still looks nice enough. I really like what the designs did with the racing cockpit/chest, especially. The upper "bubble" of the cockpit is a regular, clear plastic, while the front part has a light coating of light metallic blue on it, which is just light enough to still let light shine through the piece. This is topped off by having the bottom part of the cockpit made of tinted plastic-- overall, it looks GREAT, and you could tell a lot of effort went into figuring out the colors for that part, at the very least.
    No mold changes have been made to Six-Speed.



Six-Speed's Tech Specs:
Strength: 5.0
Intelligence: 7.0
Speed: 9.0
Endurance: 6.0
Rank: 4.5
Courage: 6.0
Fireblast: 6.0
Skill: 7.0

    The Shadow Recon Team are the first transparent Minicon, and with the exception of the bland clear plastic used for Reverb, it's a very nice twist on a repaint. Jolt and Six-Speed look great in transparent dark blue, Six-Speed especially. Recommended over the original Recon Team.



Shadow Recon Minicon Team Bio:
This team has been through too much to split up now that the universe has been saved. They’ve taken their orders to explore the galaxy seriously, outfitting themselves with cloaking devices so as to explore new worlds and new civilizations without disturbing the natives. Just because they’re off adventuring across space doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten their friends, of course. Every once in a while, when they discover something particularly exciting, they head back to Earth, pick up Bud, Lori and Coby and go on one more spin across the cosmos.


 

Review by Beastbot

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