I just picked both of these up and oddly I couldn't find any any existing threads for these two. I saw threads for all the other Spark Armor figures including Bumblebee and Cheetor which I almost picked up but it would of been way too much for all four figures.

Spark Armor: I think this is kind of a dumb concept but I actually picked these up because it's unobtrusive gimmick that doesn't get in the way of articulation. That said lets take a closer look at this dumb concept and see what we actually get...

The Good: It's nice how the heads on these are engineered in a way so they can both accommodate the heads of the base figure inside them while still being articulated. Though Optimus' head is a lot tighter of a joint for some reason while Megatron's rotates with no issue.

I like the over all designs and looks of the figures with the armor on.

The Bad: I wish they put as much thought into the rest of the figure as they did with the head. Optimus is not bad here because fortunately for him the armor is meant to give him arm mounted cannons not totally replace his arms. His canons can also actually hold a pose. Megatron however I had to fan more to try and hide his real arms and the armor gives him new arms that are flat and on springs so I can't do anything with them.

The automorph gimmick is also really stupid cause not only does it mean more limited articulation in this mode but also these things have no robot modes. They have names for some reason but I'm not going to bother to learn what they are because they're not real characters, they're just here to be armor. Optimus' armor at least works properly, I put his armor on first time no problem. Megatron... I'm still not sure I even have it on right. I get to a point where it feels like it won't fold over any more but it won't stay over Megatron's head and keeps wanting to shift back to Helicopter mode. I finally get it to where it can clip into place and it seems like the arms are refusing to rotate forward. This is suppose to be automorph, everything is spring loaded yet that spring just seems to be working against me. I've also noticed that the helicopter blade want's to rotate with transformation and that seems to be what's causing the issue since everything gets caught on that spinning blade. I end up having to transform thing thing by hand even though it's automorph because the automorph just doesn't work. I also have to transform Optimus' by hand but only from armor to jet mode. From jet to armor the automorph works just fine.

Robot mode: The main reason I got these guys... and I'm kind of disappointed here.

The Good: The both have about the same possibility. Neck swivel, ball joint shoulders though neither one can really move their arm outward that far, elbows, Optimus has a bicep swivel while Megatron has ball joint elbows which gives them the same range of movement, universal hips, knees, and the one thing Optimus can do that Megatron can't, thigh swivel!

The Bad: All of Optimus Prime's joint's are super tight. I almost didn't notice the bicep swivel because the joint is so tight it might as well not be there. His head also does this weird thing where it can only turn to the right, if you turn it to the left it comes off the mushroom peg.

These guys are also quite a bit smaller than I thought they would be. They cost about the same as a Voyager but even with the armor on are still smaller than deluxe. Even if they didn't have the armor and the price was cut down to deluxe class I'd still feel like I was paying too much for these.

Transformation: What have I done to myself?

The good: The transformations aren't that difficult and if it wasn't for the overly tight joints I mentioned before it might have actually be a fun experience. There are some interesting transformation elements I liked.

The bad: Some of the pegs just don't really hold together all that well on either of them and again those joints on Optimus made him a nightmare to transform.

Vehicle mode: WTF is this?

In pictures neither one of these really looked that bad but in person... I had to check to make sure I transformed them right because it looks like I'm missing a few steps.

Optimus is the better of the two at least looking more solid but he still kinda looks... not really like a truck... it's more like someone welded pieces of another truck onto their truck or just kept smashing into another truck until they fused together into some kind of weird armored truck thing. Megatron just looks super lazy like they weren't even trying to make him a tank. There's zero attempt to hide his head, it's just sitting there.

Unless you REALLY like the spark armor concept I'd say skip em. I was going to pick up both Bumblebee and Cheetor next but now I think I might only get Cheetor. Would also like to mention these feel like the same cheap thin plastic that the Crash Combiners were made out of. That really scares me with Optimus, I'm afraid to handle him too much and I feel like I got lucky that he didn't break already. This might just be a QC issue because the base Megatron figure while it has a dumb transformation that leads to a dumb vehicle mode, seems like a more solid figure with none of the issues that Optimus has while Optimus' armor seems more solid with none of the issues that Megatron's armor has. I'm not sure how much of that is QC or just how the molds work but either way I'd say try to find them on sale at a deluxe price point.

 

The great thing about Megatron is that he has the look and proportions to be a perfect G1 Megatron. I'm tempted tonight to put his canon on his back shoulder and then give him the canon from Siege Megatron to perfect it.

 

Almost jumped on these since the core bots seemed more articulated than the deluxes, but then they dropped the BAF line who’s articulation are better than these.

 

Depends on what you're looking for. I like this Megatron better than the BAF versions due to how he looks, since he's closer to Cyberverse in proportions and asthetic.