Grimlock (1-Step) [RID 2015]
Beast ModeRobot Mode
Allegiance: Autobot
Difficulty of Transformation: Very Easy
Color Scheme: Black, green, light milky gray, and some silver, glossy dull pumpkin orange, and light chalky sky blue
Rating: 5.3

    Grimlock's 1-step figure is a bit of a chunkified, kibbly, off-color version of his t-rex mode. I mean, RID2015 Grimlock's t-rex mode IS a bit chunkier than an actual t-rex, but not to this extent. The chest and stomach are way too thick, and this is probably accentuated by the fact that Grimlock's t-rex head is a tad small. There's also really obvious robot feet sticking out on the sides of the tail, behind the t-rex feet. They're not even really attempting to hide them. The mold detailing on the t-rex head, the tail, and the lower feet and claws is quite good and show-accurate, but the mold detailing on the sides of the chest is really weak; it's supposed to be the t-rex arms, but the detailing is far too simplistic and the arms way too large proportionally. The arm parts are also where the transformation rotates around, so they're permanently pointed downwards and look incredibly awkward. Grimlock's basic color scheme of black and green is intact, but there's some blah light milky gray plastic used not just on the arms where it's often used, but on the feet and, worst of all, the hips, where they just look incredibly out-of-place and is obviously not at all show-accurate. The paint in general in this mode is very under-used; there's only some silver on the hands and upper jaw, blue on the eyes, and green on the lower legs. As for articulation in this mode, Grimlock can open up his jaw (complete with a tongue inside molded like he's roaring-- nice touch), and his legs can move SLIGHTLY back-and-forth at the hips, but that's it.
    To transform Grimlock, fold the hip pieces up against the sides of the t-rex upper chest, and the entire toy folds around those pieces along with it; then you fold up the t-rex feet to become the robot hands. The resulting robot mode looks a bit better than the awful t-rex mode, but still definitely has some issues. For one, the aforementioned folding up of the feet into the hands makes the resulting hands a bit oversized, especially compared to the rest of the arms which are otherwise fairly well-proportioned. The feet, on the other hand, are also undersized and completely static parts, and the chest is far too oversized and blocky. The tail on the back could technically be considered kibble, I suppose, but it folds out of the way from most angles and doesn't really look that bad, so I don't mind it. Grimlock's head is sculpted quite well, complete with a dull orange face and light blue eyes. As with the t-rex mode, though, the paint is rather lacking otherwise in this mode; there's the aforementioned green paint on the lower arms (the t-rex legs), as well as some on the robot legs. Unfortunately, that's it beyond the head. The legs are completely black, and waaayy too undetailed. Between that and the odd proportions, they just look like way too much of an afterthought for this toy, like they completed the design and were just like, "Oh, crud, we forgot the robot legs!". They just look bad. The wide chest could also have been made much more palatable with some well-placed paint to get rid of the light milky gray plastic on the sides and some paint in the middle, but that's unpainted, too. The shoulders are also missing paint on the circular bits. As for articulation, Grimlock can move back-and-forth at the shoulders, can rotate at the wrists, and his hands can open and close a little bit because of the transformation.
    RID2015 1-step Grimlock is very easily the worst of his various (non-combining) toys. Both of his modes have bad proportions and not nearly enough paint, and his t-rex mode has really awkward molded-on arms and very obvious kibble in the form of the robot feet. There's plenty of easy-to-transform RID2015 Grimlock toys that look much better in both modes; get one of those instead. Only Grimlock completists should even consider this toy.

Review by Beastbot

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