In his individual robot mode, Alchemist Prime is pretty darned generic, and could pass for a lot of late-G1 Micromasters, Targetmasters, or Powermasters. He has pretty normal fists molded into his arms, a window-like detail molded into the middle of his chest, and some small lines and geometric designs on his legs. His head has a normal face, eyes, and mouth, with a helmet with three minor protrusions on the top-- again, like a heck of a lot of late-G1 generi-bots. Unfortunately he's got no paint whatsoever in this mode, and his color scheme is rather unimpressive-- he's got some teal on his main body and lower legs, while the rest of him is a rather bleh shade of gray with a tinge of brown in it that makes it look a bit "dirty". Not that great. As with all Titan Masters, in this mode Alchemist Prime can move at the neck, as well as back-and-forth at the shoulders, hips, and knees (the latter two as one for both legs, since the legs are molded together). In Alchemist's "Prime Core" mode, he's almost entirely that same shade of gray, with a couple of angular details near the bottom and a few bits on the top, while much of the face is filled with an arrow and several dots of different sizes around it (all painted black) that look like some kinda clock or maybe some meter. Uh... isn't time kinda Vector Prime's thing? This is one of the weakest of all the emblem designs, in my opinion. The colors are boring, and its inspiration is a bit TOO obvious.
    Alchemist's Pretender shell is a miniature replica of the G1 Pretender Submarauder, some kinda fish monster thing. The mold detailing is impressively intricate on the front here, with Submarauder's "mohawk" fin, eyes, and vented mouth replicated very faithfully and looking very cool to boot. He's got some armored pecs and abs, along with an armored waist piece, armored-up knees, and large toed feet. Although his main body is teal, his arms are unfortunately that kinda ugly brownish gray, though they're impressively detailed in terms of the molding as well, with little chainmail-like gauntlet details around the lower arms. Just like with other Prime Master Pretender shells, Submarauder can only move his arms back-and-forth at the shoulders in this mode; no other movement is possible. This means that his weapon (which can be stored on his upper back in this mode), which resembles the head of a trident complete with little prongs at the end, is a bit of an odd choice, as he can't hold it like a trident, and it doesn't have a "staff" part for his fist to grab onto. Speaking of the back end of this mode, like with the other PotP Pretender shells he looks a bit too "wide" from a side view, and the back half has a lot more mechanical detailing, with vents, lines, and the like in quite a few places, along with what look like tiny wires criss-crossing on the upper back-- a nice little detail. None of the back is detailed with paint, unfortunately, but there's quite a bit on the front-- the waist and trident weapon are painted a light purple, the knees are that brownish-gray, the sides of his abs and chest are dark blue, his eyes are dark red, and his mouth-vents are orange. It's a pretty good color combo overall on the front, and looks great. Submarauder's weapon mode works like all the other PotP Prime Master sets-- take the weapon, clip it onto the back and rotate it out forward, rotate out the peg from in between his legs for a larger TF to hold, and then just put him on his stomach. (You can plug Alchemist Prime or another Prime Master into a segment near the rear of the weapon to "power it up".) And, like basically every other Prime Master weapon mode, it's pretty lame-- the trident prongs DO look neat, but there's a large unnecessary body of... stuff... in between where a TF will hold onto the weapon and where the weapon actually begins. And of course, let's not forget the blatantly obvious legs and arms just there, and that's if you ignore the Pretender stuff on the underside.
    Alchemist Prime is a pretty bland, uninteresting Prime Master, but the Submarauder Pretender shell largely looks great, with lots of paint on the front and a nifty weapon (even if he can't hold it correctly). The brownish gray I wish was a more straightforward gray, however, and this set still has the same downsides as the other Prime Master sets-- limited articulation, a super-lame weapon mode, etc. However, out of the various Prime Master sets, I think this is one of the stronger sets because of how great Submarauder looks.
 

Review by Beastbot

Back to Transformers: Generations Index