Beastbox is no longer one of Soundwave's cassettes-- no sir, now he's one of Drift's disc minions for Robots in Disguise! In disc mode, Beastbox (argh, I keep writing my name in place of his) looks pretty disc-ish. The feet are a little obvious on the bottom, and I'm not sure what's going on with the two pipe-like details where the shoulders are on the beast mode. Otherwise this is a pretty extra-free mode-- even the gorilla face, which is right there, is "crumpled up" enough with the jaw above the forehead that it isn't obvious. I like the little wedges sticking out of the sides to make him fit in a bit more with the other Autobot Mini-Con discs. There's also some basic "armor-like" details near the sides on the front and the back, but as far as mold detailing Beastbox-- though more detailed than your average RID2015 toy-- isn't quite as detailed as most of the other Mini-Cons in this line. As far as the basic color scheme, he's mostly a dull, pumpkin-y orange and plastic that at first looks like a charcoal-y, "impure" black, but there's actually a bit of brown mixed in there. The brown helps it fit in with the orange a bit more, and this is one of the few toys where I feel this impure, brown-black works better than a more straightforward black. There's also a bit of light orange paint on some of the armor detailing on the bottom half of this mode, but that's it as far as paint in this mode-- which is a bit unfortunate, I think the breakup between the orange and the brown-black could've been handled a bit better in terms of "transitioning" from one color to the other.
    Beastbox's transformation is very simple, even for a Mini-Con-- just bring the arm pieces forward and the rest automatically transforms into place for his gorilla mode, though to be honest the modes aren't very different. This is basically the disc mode with arms folded out and the head visible-- pretty much all the mold details from the disc mode are carried over here, so there isn't much new in this mode in that respect, either. The main "new" thing is the gorilla head, which really looks nice-- he's got a large middle headcrest, an otherwise circular head, and a really big underbite with large rectangular teeth. It's a pretty cool look, and I wish it had been painted a lot better. (There's only some dull metallic bronze on the eyes, and it's just BARELY visible under normal light-- it doesn't stick out from the brown-black enough.) I also love the big bulky arms (with tiny hands molded on the bottom), though the legs on the back end are a bit comically tiny. Unlike most RID Mini-Cons, Beastbox does have articulation in this mode-- slightly. His arms can move outwards at the elbows one click, to give him a more "spread-out" stance. As with most RID Mini-Cons, Beastbox has add-on transparent armor pieces, and again like with most RID Mini-Cons, they're pretty cool. They're a transparent fiery orange, which obviously goes well with the duller orange and charcoal-y black on the main body. He's got gauntlets for his (relatively) large fists that also have a bit of nifty fiery detailing on them; chest armor that's widened a bit so they can fit on no matter what stance you have him in; little triangular "missile launcher" pieces that snap onto the pipe details on the shoulders; a nifty face mask with some more fiery detailing; and a long rectangular piece sticking up out of his back (I'm not sure what this last piece is supposed to be, exactly). Thankfully, all of the pieces can fit on in both modes, and that's always a plus-- no easily-lost pieces. (They also all stick on pretty well.)
    I'm a bit conflicted on RID Beastbox. On one hand, his gorilla mode is pretty solid, especially with his armor pieces on, and he has pretty good proportions as well. His disc mode is decent, with a few extras like his feet but not many other downsides. His "burnt/fiery" color scheme is also fairly nice. However, pretty much all of the details (minus the face) are visible in both modes, and his transformation is pretty minimal even considering the whole "one-step" gimmick with the Mini-Cons. His two modes just look too darn similar, and as such he's a better armored gorilla than an actual great Transformer with two different modes. If you're a Mini-Con fan, mildly recommended; otherwise skip, he's definitely far from the most exciting TF out there.
 

Review by Beastbot

Back to Robots in Disguise (2015) Index