Strongarm (1-Step) [RID2015]
Vehicle ModeRobot Mode
Allegiance: Autobot
Difficulty of Transformation: Very Easy
Color Scheme: White, dark milky blue, and some black, silver, red, pale blue, and yellow
Rating: 3.6

    Strongarm's police SUV vehicle mode is a bit chunkified for the 1-step version-- the main body of the police car mode looks ROUGHLY okay, but the roof doesn't extend up above the main body nearly enough, and is a bit small proportionally besides. It actually makes Strongarm look bigger than she actually is, like her main body is waaay oversized with just relatively small windows up above. It's almost like an oversized Hummer, the way it looks. There's also really weird triangular prongs near the back, almost like a spoiler, which is a sacrifice that was made for the transformation so that she can stand up in robot mode. Like with most RID2015 toys, the mold detailing is fairly sparse on top, but on the sides you've got more intricate detailing, like the square grill and headlights on the front, some vague angular bits that sorta kinda look like taillights on the back end-- unfortunately neither end is colored with paint, which is a letdown. The windows and the sirens are the only parts colored in this mode. That said, I am surprised they actually colored the back window black as well as the side and front windows, and the red and blue on the sirens looks quite nice, with the blue a noticeably paler, lighter shade than the dark blue plastic used for the rest of Strongarm's blue. Speaking of color breakup, hers isn't really show-accurate. The top is almost entirely white, and the sides are all blue for the most part-- no real stripes or something that really attempts to mimic her color breakup on the show, which is a real shame. This mode really needed a better plastic breakup and/or more paint.
    To transform Strongarm, you take the two ends of the police car mode and fold them down towards each other. This is a REALLY cool transformation, with the entire robot mode spinning around and essentially unfolding from the top of the police car mode. It's quite hypnotizing. Unfortunately... this is an AWFUL robot mode, even taking into consideration the limiations of 1-step transformations. Most of her is just molded into the bottom of some of her various car mode panels-- the arms molded on the side doors, the legs on the underside of the police car roof, and her main body on the back of an interior spinning black part. It's all VERY 2-D, and only looks remotely good (and I use "remotely" loosely here) from a frontal view. From a side view she looks absolutely atrocious, especially given those huge police car halves sticking waaay out on her back. The only reason she doesn't tip over from that weight is because of the aforementioned "spikes" near the back of the vehicle mode. The proportions for her robot bits molded onto the front are a bit bulky even for Strongarm, and the sculpting is a bit worse, with undersized upper legs, legs that are a bit elongated on the lower legs, and slightly undersized lower arms. For articulation, she can move back-and-forth at the shoulders, but that's it-- and even moving them forward emphasizes the 2-D-ness of them, which just looks bad. The paint is used to a better extent in this mode, though, with some blue on the chest, some white on the legs, and a well-painted headsculpt complete with a silver face, yellow antennae, and a blue stripe along the top of her head and blue eyes, which looks quite good.
    This is definitely one of my more disorganized reviews, and that's simply because there is SO MUCH bad about her, it's hard to figure out where to start-- I'll totally admit this is more of a rant than a review. Horrible proportions in both modes, 2-D robot mode, little paint in vehicle mode... she has a pretty cool transformation, but that's just about it. Get either of the other 1-step Strongarm molds over this one-- heck, get ANY 1-step RID2015 mold over this one. Even if you're a completist you might want to think twice about this one-- just awful.
 

Review by Beastbot

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