Allegiances: Autobot
 

Great Byte

Difficulty of Transformation: Very Easy
Color Scheme: Moderately dark military green, light milky gray, and some black, chalky light orange, white, and moderately light blue
Individual Rating: 4.3

(NOTE: Because this is a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the mold and the color scheme, and merely compares it to the original RID2015 Sawtooth. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of the original RID2015 Sawtooth toy here.)

    It's debatable whether Great Byte counts as a remold of Sawtooth or whether he counts as a full-blown new toy given how much of him is different, but for the sake of this review I'll be treating him as a remold, given how similar the engineering is. The body for Great Byte is entirely new-- along with the black peg, allowing him to activate Sideswipe's Activator gimmick; he only retains the main handle, the feet, and some internal mechanisms in terms of what he actually shares with Sawtooth. However, the transformation is almost entirely the same, and the look is so similar that it's difficult to see it as an entirely new toy. Great Byte's plane mode has a great "old-timey" look to it, with lots of little rivets detailed on the paneled wings, an old-style cockpit, and an old-style nosecone that looks like it's missing a front propeller (though it's not). There's also little engine details along the sides, and the engines underneath his wings turn into the claws of his robot mode, which is a nice touch. But MAN, the rest of the jet mode looks AWFUL, as there's just a bunch of robot mode junk for the back half-- the head that makes up the back end of the jet isn't really hidden all that well, and the legs just hang behind the wings while the various pegs just hang out WAY back there and really ruin this mode, which is a shame as the front section looks great. Great Byte transforms in the same manner as Sawtooth, just moving his handles forward underneath the nosecone. Here the Sawtooth base for the mold is particularly obvious, as it looks basically the same in terms of proportions, just instead of having manta ray-like details he has a jet behind his head and arms. The head even looks very nearly the same, with the same large toothy grin, small narrowed eyes, and the like, though some additional angular details have been added to the top half of his face this time around. The arms, sadly, can't move at all on this version, which is a real shame, though the legs can still move back-and-forth. The color scheme of a fairly dark military green is a fitting main color, though I wish he had less of that blah light milky gray plastic on his handle and legs. The black for one of his handles looks okay. The white on the teeth, light orange on the jet cockpit, and moderately light blue on the eyes goes decently with the dark green, but they're used so little they don't contribute much to the overall color scheme.
 

Sideswipe

Difficulty of Transformation: Easy
Color Scheme: Moderately dark milky red, black, and some moderately light blue and silver
Individual Rating: 7.5

    Sideswipe's vehicle mode is largely the same as most of his other RID2015 toys, with the most obvious change being the back end; instead of having a relatively flat back end with a spoiler, there's now two large angular bumps on the back (which rather obviously become his knees in robot mode) and light blue rotary engines exposed, giving a bit of a "taste" of what's to come when he's in Activator mode. On the back end, there's some "thruster vents" molded into the rear of those knee spikes, as well as "power tubes" connecting them with the light blue parts, but much of the actual back end is just Sideswipe's knees folded up, sadly. (The taillights are molded-in, but they're smaller than normal and shunted to the sides a bit too much.) On the roof there's a small port for an Activator Mini-Con to plug in, or you can just push the black button behind it to activate his Activator mode. Other than that, the rest of Sideswipe looks like how'd you'd expect it; the proportions are largely spot-on, with the front bumper being perhaps a bit larger than normal but just barely. The angular grill details and headlights are there, as well as the small spikes below the car doors, as well as small molded-in handles and rear view mirrors. By far the most common color in this mode is Sideswipe's usual dark milky red, with black plastic on the wheels and black paint on the windows. Beyond the aforementioned light blue on the exposed engines, there's also light blue on the headlights, but that's it for this mode-- he really needed another couple of paint apps to help break up all the red, but unfortunately this is the case with most RID2015 Sideswipe toys.
    Pushing in an Activator (or simply pressing the black button behind it) does quite the transform to Sideswipe's vehicle mode. The doors lift up like wings, while the entire front/side halves angle out nad back. The end result makes it look like Sideswipe is ready for super turbo-speed-- he's even got an F1-racer-style fin on the front end now. There's lots of engine and vent-like details on his front exposed section, with the vents painted a light blue. Admittedly the front halves of the hood sliding back and to the sides look a bit odd, but I LOVE the exposed exhaust pipe and engine details behind them-- they're pretty intricately-detailed, and are painted mostly silver with a couple of light blue spots. It's a really cool "turbo" detail.
    The transformation from Sideswipe to robot mode is pretty simple (though you have to have activated his Activator gimmick to begin the process). After that, just fold out and down the legs from the back end and flip out the feet, then flip back the front fin onto Sideswipe's upper back and stand him up-- congrats, you're done. This is definitely Sideswipe's weakest mode, as there's quite a bit of kibble. His car door sections are splayed out behind his back, and that aforementioned fin also just sticks off his upper back, along with the central section of his car mode. The halves of the front hood also poke up above his shoulders, when RID2015 Sideswipe's always his wheels as the top of his shoulders. It adds a lot of unnecessary bulk to him and really ruins his sleek look that he achieves in his vehicle modes-- a particularly big deal when it comes to Sideswipe, who's the speedster of the team. That said, his legs look pretty good with the exposed engine detailing, and the exhaust pipe/engine sections under his lower arms are small enough where I don't mind them. (Heck, it's easy to visualize the exhaust pipes like wrist-mounted flamethrowers.) He's got his usual flattened faux car-front details on his chest, and his headsculpt is spot-on with his usual "punk hairdo", though proportionally it's a bit small due to his transformation and gimmicks. His hands and spike details are also sculpted into lower arms nicely enoug. For added paint apps in this mode, his faux headlights on his chest and eyes are light blue, while his face and stomach are painted silver. With the addition of more black, it makes his color scheme more varied than in his normal vehicle mode, though a few additional paint apsp on his arms or legs still would've been appreciated. Unfortunately, as with basically every Activator, his articulation is very limited, unnecessarily so for the size-- he can move at head, forwards at the elbows, side-to-side slightly at the hips, back at the knees, and slightly back at the ankles. Given how all of this articulation is limited even at those points (except for the head and maybe elbows if you want to be generous), this means he's a bit of brick.

    The Sideswipe/Great Byte set is about middle-of-the-road as far as the Activator Combiner sets go. Great Byte is just a really poor re-use of the Sawtooth design and doesn't make for a good plane at all. Sideswipe has a nice vehicle mode and a pretty darned cool Activator mode, but he pays for it with a LOT of kibble in his robot mode. I also continue to dislike how unnecessarily the articulation is limited on these toys, given their size. Mildly recommended if you like the concept of Activator Combiners.
 

Reviews by Beastbot

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