so someone at Hasbro actually had a RADICAL idea to actually make proper toys for the current cartoon show. What a wild concept!

The first wave of proper Deluxe figures based on Transformers: Cyberverse is making its way to store shelves (mostly digital but some brick-and-mortar) and the packaging features a slight rebrand; the line is now referred to as "Bumblebee: Cyberverse Adventures."

With that in mind, let's take a look at the new toy for Transformers' now-eternal flagship character!



in Vehicle Mode Bumblebee is a flashy sports car. Definitely seems like some Camero-esque shaping here but sidestepping any possible licensing issues.

One thing you'll notice right away is that the plastic quality is pretty different from Siege or Studio Series. Not necessarily "inferior" because nothing feels like it's about to break or anything like that but it is a noticable change. On the flipside Deluxe Bee certainly feels sturdier than the couple Cyberverse Warriors I've handled.

Transformation is fairly complex for a Deluxe; some fake car kibble swing-arounds that i liked.



Bumblebee in Robot Mode is everyones' favorite yellow mute. This is a very solid configuration and has tons of articulation- ankle tilts, wrists, waist, neck- all the major points are covered. His shoulder kibble can sometimes block upper arm range but if you adjust the door-wings on his back things move a lot better.



Deluxe Bee comes with two weapons: a blaster and an arm-mounted "stinger" weapon with bonus laser effect detail. The only downside with these two is that they have no storage options for Vehicle Mode (really, the whole first wave seems to have that problem).

And the central gimmick of this wave: Bumblebee comes with a piece of the ancient brewmaster MacAdam:


which does not do a damn thing until/unless you collect the remaining seven parts. For now its' just... there.

Cyberverse Deluxe Bumblebee is the figure I've wanted most since this new style of figure was announced. And I'd say he was worth the wait, I really like this guy- a good blend of old & new visuals with some great play value. Absolutely recommended!

 

There IS storage for both weapons.




Personally, I'm not too impressed. Transformation is simplistic and nothing new, and I don't like the fake car parts in robot mode. Good articulation and nice compact car mode though.

 

Optimus also has weapon storage.

 

Anything fake besides the knees and chest?

 

Nope.

 

That's not so bad. I think this will look groovy on my Generations Shelf.

 

Love this figure. Haven't been able to find Shockwave anywhere, but I have Bee, Prime, and Megs, and Bee is the best of the 3. Looks just like the cartoon, has great articulation, nice weapons with storage in both modes, and a fun transformation. I keep transforming him back and forth.

 

I like it. Does it feel like a product whose value is equal to SS-fiftysomething Camaro Bumblebee? I'm not sure. Part of that will be a stylistic consequence, but even then I can't quite square how they both cost me £20.

That aside, I do quite like him. He's chunky, reasonably interesting, and generally well done. I wish his shoulders were a bit higher though, and raising the arms up puts his shoulder pads too high.

You know what, he actually reminds me of the 2014 IDW Bumblebee done well. Now, that was a disappointment.

 

Any posed pics since articulation is what these guys are about?

Everyone’s just standing them there lol 

 

I'll entertain that request. I will say, though: his articulation is definitely the most limited of the wave. Not a fan of how chunky his shoulders are. But aside from that, I really like this Bee.

 

Niiice. I was being a sarcastic turd but it was worth it.

Finally a decent Bee. It's true his shoulders really hinder his poseability, but not too big of a deal.

TForm to car mode : Do hood/arms first, then legs & doors last.





Carrot stealin m'fer

 

So I almost threw out the gun that came with him because I didn't notice he came with two weapons. I just took out the stinger and FX part and thought that was it. I like this other gun he has but why does he have a normal hand held gun AND a stinger? The stinger because it covers his hand and is designed to look like a built in weapon just looks a lot better and this gun is just extra.

Anyway... there is storage for the weapons if you don't want him holding them. The storage for the hand gun works better than the stinger which just hangs off his butt awkwardly.

Head is on a ball joint, some what hindered by the panel behind it but not too bad, it does what it needs to do. Shoulders are on ball joints and there's a transformation hinge that allows him to shrug. The shoulders are kind of hindered because kibble but you can move things out of the way to get the full range out of them. Elbows are ball jointed, wrists are on swivels there's a waist swivel that's part of the transformation and doesn't get locked in place so you can still use it as an actual waist without breaking transformation to unlock it. Hips are on ball joints, there's a thigh swivel I almost didn't notice was there and it works really well despite being nearly invisible. A lot of over figures because of the molding that hides that hinge it usually ends up being super limited or not working at all but this actually works really well. Knee hinge, ankle tilts forward/back on the transformation hinge and side to side on a separate mushroom peg.

Transformation... This guy is surprisingly complicated and it's kind of amazing how everything works I mean both the feet and the upper legs folds into the lower legs and there's some other tricks that make him compact like it's almost real life mass shifting considering how everything folds up. That said there is a couple problems with the transformation...

The chest and knees are fake parts. Like there isn't even a real rear to the car and I feel like it could of been one extra step to the transformation to have those be real parts that fold up and complete the back of the car. The actual chest is on the BACK of the figure but it's upside down. I think if they took a couple tricks from FE Prime Bumblebee with how his head folds away that they could of folded everything in a way that brings that part over the head and onto the chest... It wouldn't really make the transformation easier but it it would negate the use of fake parts.

In vehicle mode the stinger can still function as a weapon, there are slots specifically for plugging it it but I think it looks kinda dumb. There's no other proper storage for it though. There's a hole under the hood but it's not big enough for the stinger. Than hand held blaster the instructions doesn't even tell you what to do with it in vehicle mode. However I found there's a square tab on his shoulder, this is covered up by vehicle kibble in robot mode, this tab is only accessible in vehicle mode. It's not there to hold the shoulders in place for robot mode, it doesn't actually connect to anything. Actually this tab fits into a port on the hand held blaster to store that for vehicle mode.

As I've mentioned before, I'm not a big fan of FX parts but in this case the stinger actually looks incomplete without it. It almost looks like an energy blade rather than a stinger and kinda helps to justify why he has two weapons if I imagine that the Stinger is a melee weapon and the hand held blaster is his ranged weapon rather than having a hand held and built in gun at the same time.

My issues with the figure are very minor nit picks. All the joints are fine.. oddly... Usually I'll have some loose or overly tight joints but no everything on this guy is great. I can very easily recommend him. There's a lot more things they did right with this figure then the few very minor nit picks I have.

 

I picked this guy up because he was 50% off. I actually like him WAY more than I thought I would. I love the transformation, how the front quarters make up the shoulder armour, and the proportions and shapes are dynamic and heroic with plenty of subtle curves and angles that remind me of Animated, much better than the lifeless and rigid animation model. I'd love to see this basic transformation scheme reused with a bit more freedom, as I do find things only BARELY squeeze past each other. Nothing collides, but it feels like the wings only just have enough clearance between modes. I love his little pistol. Even the alt mode feels more lively than the animation.

Pretty impressed for a toy I'd basically written off ages ago. It even feels decent quality. Maybe not $30 Cnd good, but for $15? Totally worth it.

 

My copy arrived on 11.16.2021 via Target.

First things first, everyone needs to be aware that the Dinobots Unite deluxe repack wave doesn't have any BaF Maccdam parts. The product images will show that they come with them but, they don't. There is no mention of it anywhere on the packaging and there is no place inside the package for the BaF parts. This is a pretty reprehensible move by Hasbro/TakaraTomy since the BaF parts were a huge part of the budget and the MSRP and you're now paying the same price for those molds without the BaF parts and no one is disclosing that.

That having been said Bumblebee is neat and by far the most complex transformation in Cyberverse. The legs have a good amount of dynamic posability (especially if you have the rear of the lower legs facing forward instead of backward and open the shin flaps) and, the toy has a decent balance to it.


Engineering flaws:

The translucent blue blast effect is rubbery plastic and the stinger weapon is painted silver. I can't wait until this trend goes away and never comes back. I would much rather deal with rigid translucent blue plastic scraping paint off than rubbery plastic eating paint and the plastic while it degrades.

The shoulder articulation is horrendous. It wouldn't be if they had used universal joints and, that's what they should have done. The shoulders and the lack of a bicep swivel are the only things holding back the robot mode from being more fun.

The doors constantly clash with the shoulders in the official robot mode when you try to move the shoulders. It just feels/looks bad because there isn't a proper amount of clearance.

They were so close to not even needing to use a faux chest.


Aesthetics flaws:

I don't really care that you can see the hood in robot mode but, part of the hood should have folded down onto the back of the arm and part of the front fender should should have folded up against that. That would have cleaned up the shoulders considerably and more importantly, it would have stopped them from clashing against the doors when you move the shoulders.

I don't care about the faux taillights because . . .


Alternate robot mode (Armada/Energon Hot Shot amalgamation):

If you pop the hips off and swap them to the other side (this doesn't affect transformation and it keeps the pelvis facing the correct way in both modes), you can have the rear "glass" as the front of the lower legs (you won't have a visible front foot) use the feet as heel spurs (these will still rock in the proper directions) and then open the shin flaps if you want knee articulation (yes it looks kind of clunky but Energon Hot Shot was clunky and you get a much larger range of movement). You can also rotate the hinged crossbeam (that the doors are attached to) forward so that the interior of the doors points to the sky and they lay down flat against the tops of the shoulders (yes, to mimic Energon Hot Shot and the shoulders should rotate backward without clashing if the top of the black paint on the bumper is level with the top of the faux chest). The faux chest pops out but, the chest doesn't look as good because the grey plastic is narrow and doesn't flare out to obscure the black shoulder hinges so you really need a custom piece to finish off the Hot Shot motif.


*the shin flaps are not touching the glass but, you can allow the corners of them to do so for additional balance*



What it did well:

I genuinely feel that the robot mode looks better than the CGI does (other than the back, the CGI has a really nice back profile). The CGI rendition often feels like a "kids drawing" rather than a stylized take. No shade, the toy is just a lot more refined.

There is a lot of leg articulation (especially if you use my Hot Shot transformation) and the toy has good balance. I love the dynamic posing nature for the legs/feet on some of the Cyberverse deluxe toys (Megatron, Grimlock, and Bumblebee).

It's only missing paint on the helmet, the "vents" near the faux taillights, the feet, the pelvis (I think it looks better solid yellow), and the yellow hand guards (I prefer the solid grey hands).

I like the transformation a lot.

I can use it as a Hot Shot which is exactly what I was hoping that I could do. No shade, Cyberverse Bumblebee is kind of a cool character and I love the show but I wasn't looking for a physical representation of that.


Closing thoughts (purchase):

Yes, I regret this purchase. That hurts to say but, Hasbro/TakaraTomy decided to see the Dinobots Unite repack without the Maccadam BaF parts and that is beyond shady. The MSRP should have been dropped in order to compensate for that incredibly foolish decision. Cyberverse deluxe Bumbelbee is nice toy but, it's not Generations $19.99 - $22.99 nice. However, Target did refund the entire purchase amount and told me to keep the toy so I also do not regret this purchase. If Target hadn't done that though, I would have taken it back to a local store for a full refund because I will not support reprehensible business practices like manufacturer's removing items and still charging the same amount or higher for a repack of that item.

 

Got this guy on sale at Meijer (probably wouldn't have bought him at full price), and I expected just an okay figure...I honestly bought him mostly him because I was curious about this line. I have to say, I actually really enjoy this figure (outside of a couple flaws).

This figure has a fun transformation...not anything too new or groundbreaking, but it does feel distinct when compared to other Bumblebees. He's also way more posable than I was expecting, ankle tilts and everything. His wings can even be folded down if you prefer the wingless look. I like the accessories they included...not too gimmicky, but still fun and playable. The stinger thing is cool, but I especially like the little pistol.

As for negatives, the plastic feels a bit cheaper than I'd like. And I wish the windshields were done more like the Generations figures, with transparent pieces instead of painted solid plastic. While I like the solidity and molding of the car mode, the paint makes it look like a gimmick figure. I also wish there was better storage for the Stinger, instead of hanging off his butt (although I did discover you can hide it away inside the hollow legs...the weapon in one and the blast effect in the other).

Overall I think this is a really good figure. I might pick up Grimlock tomorrow, if my store still has them on sale...

 

Yeesh, Hasbro just can't get a break. People complain if windshields are solid, painted plastic, then they turn around and complain when they're transparent. No winning.

 

I personally just prefer the look of transparent pieces. Not fully clear, but the tinted ones. I'm sure I'll warm up to this look though, I guess they're trying to go for more of a cartoon-accurate look, which makes sense.

 

No Bicep Swivel? whatever do you mean? the ball joints in his elbows allow for that movement