I wish they'd stuck with the design plan they had for the original batch of Kingdom BW guys - cartoon accurate robot, nature accurate beast (albeit featherless for Dinobot and purple for Megs). A more lion-looking lion would be so much better than...whatever this lion face is, cartoon accurate or not.

 

High quality figure! Feels so nice in hand.

One thing that bothered me is his face is painted the same color as his mask, it looked like he had eye bags. I fixed it to my liking.

 

They actually follow the same design philosophy still. The beast mode head is meant to evoke a realistic lion. The utter lack of paint and the inexplicable fangs growing out of his upper lips undermine this though. The sculpt was not inspired by the cartoon and in fact looks nothing like it.

Of course it’s debating how well they succeeded in nailing the head sculpt but it isn’t the most offensive among the WFC/Legacy beasts imo. Dinobot still holds that title for me.

Anyway, chopping off those canines does wonders.

 

Got mine today!



I've never been a fan of the daft Beast Wars stuff that Japan cranked out in the 90's, so don't have any attachment to the character or original kibble-tastic toy, but this Legacy update has clearly had enough love poured into it, that you can't help but be won over.

I did have to fix that awful spooked lion face though!

Sliced off the top gnashers, fixed the nose and gave him some blue eyes, like a real white lion.

 

Nice

 

This is my first Leo Prime. I’ve always been turned off by him having a lion head on one shoulder and a lion ass on the other. For whatever reason, this figure looked irresistible to me and I am glad I gave him a chance, because it’s a fantastic figure. The shoulder pads don’t even bother me like I was afraid they would.

And since all of my Primes need swords, I gave him one that I think looks pretty sweet.



Seems wonderfully poetic for a beast Prime to wield Beast Hunter Prime’s sword.

 

I have not watched any reviews on Legacy Leo Prime until after I opened him up today, and it was mostly to see the transformation. I can see the complaint about the lion face, but that's really nitpicking (just my opinion!).

I have MP-48 Lio Convoy and LG-41 Lio Convoy already, so I wasn't too excited about this figure and considered cancelling my pre-order. Well, that would have been a huge mistake because I love Legacy Leo Prime! This figure is fun to handle!

I'm shocked by how good/premium feeling this is in-hand. Figure and tolerances feel great, no QC issues. The matte paint/premium look was unexpected at all, and sculpt on this figure is fantastic. The stock pictures don't do this figure justice!

Amazing figure, I am looking forward to the Nemesis repaint!

9/10 highly recommend!

Leo Prime is the best 2023 Hasbro figure in my hand so far by a mile!  



Falkor!!!

 

comparison with the MP in beast mode

 

Got mine a few days ago - first Hasbro figure I've picked up in ages, and it's fantastic!

One thing I did think it was worth mentioning is that the lion head is fairly easy to remove, and partially disassemble. The head as a whole can just be slid off the yellow joint behind his right shoulder, so I suspect any third party replacements will swap on there. Having done that I then tried dunking the whole thing in boiling water, and tried to tug the upper face off - and it came off with no issues! It did have a bit of glue reside on it, so it was evidently glued on, but I didn't even realise that until it had come off, so I guess either there wasn't much to begin with or it didn't like the hot water. The face still slots back on and stays on solidly, so it's not like the glue is needed or anything.



With that done I then took a stab at adding a bit of decoration to the eyes - I just went around the eye socket with a gundam panel pen and added a dot to each. With the parts seperated it was incredibly easy to do. Reassembled it looks like this, which I'm fairly happy with:



The lion face was my only problem with the figure (as for most people, I think!) and with that sorted it's pretty much exactly what I wanted from this figure. Personally this version looks much more like what I'd want for Lio Convoy than the Masterpiece, but then I was introduced to the character by the fairly realistic design from the IDW comics, so that's not surprising.

 

Got him a few days ago, but been too busy to open him until today.

Man, is he a delight! I have owned Black Lio Convoy pretty much since he came out and I have never liked that mold. For as much fun as Big Convoy is to me, Lio Convoy is just annoying and limiting to me. I do really enjoy this transformation, both modes do their best and are good enough for me. One of the hard parts of the translation from animation (well, Toy to Animation, to a new Toy) is that in the cartoon, most of the time Lio Convoy's lion front arms are simply not there, something a toy can't do. So, they manage to preserve the essence of the original transformation and have a nice way to keep some of the parts that just get in the way out of the way this time for a much cleaner and more interesting transformation, while allowing those lion front arms to fold up to be largely out of the way until comes the time to deploy the arm claws. I also like how the longer guns can be stored away as his jetpack, something that was only molded in the original figure and doubles as storage. I love the way the lion mane doesn't get in the way in robot mode and is sculpted to fit right next to the pec plate, and the addition of the flipping extra stomach part for lion mode.

As far as his gimmicks go, personally I feel that nothing is lost by not having the "Lion Typhoon" gimmick, it was used I think twice in the series and it just hinders the figure more for a silly gimmick anyway. However, I do feel the loss of the extra forearm guns not storing in his robot mode forearms. I would've preferred those to have been molded in, but since they've got ports, it's a sacrifice to the linewide gimmick of weapon ports. Amusingly, while he lost the Lion Typhoon attack, unlike the original toy, he gains the Lio Byuto attack, as lame as it is, because the tail stores away and can then be deployed for the lion tail whip attack. He can permanently deploy the "Radar Disruption Shot", because the jaw can stay open instead of the push button opening jaw on the original, and "Lio Beam" is unchanged as long as you put the short guns in the mane and deploy them there in robot mode.

The only part they made a mistake on are his blades are the wrong way around, deployed under the hand, the blades should curve up, not down. My other nit is I would've liked if the middle back section pegged into his robot mode back better. For being on a ball-joint, the head articulation is quite limited. I don't know how widespread it is, but getting the heel spurs out is a major pain on my copy as those are some seriously tight swivels!

I've already transformed him more than I have the original mold, if the rumors are true, Black Lio Convoy is coming and it should be excellent! In terms of creating a "better" more modernized version of a decades old figure, I think this may be figure of the year for me in that regard.

 

Said it once and I'll say it again. Zero history with this character but my goodness I'm feeling this one.

 

That's awesome!! I was hoping that was the case, because I'm planning on doing some painting around the eyes like you did. Another poster had previously mentioned that a flat head pin would need to be removed so I'm extremely pleased to see that isn't the case. This will definitely make the bar lower for 3rd parties to offer a new lion face as well, so fantastic news all around!

If you wanna take it one step further, cut off those funky fangs. It'll really help his looks a lot!

 

Well im enjoying him after painting the pupils and cutting off those lip tumors

 

I need to get me a mammoth prime. I hope they remake it like leo prime.

 

I've never felt an MP fade into sheer irrelevance in real time before. Maybe MP28 upon getting SS86 Hotrod, but while the SS outshines the MP, I still like MP28.

Legacy Lio Convoy covers so many of the issues. The arms fold away neatly, without having to figure out the perfect combination of Ratchet clicks in the double elbow. The shoulder pads sit well but still easily bump move out of the way as needed. The chest plate hides better in lion mode, and doesn't need to be twisted up into a tangled mess to do so. The lion body flows smoothly, rather than being a discontinuous mess of shapes.

The MP does have the cool mane inversion to it's credit, but honestly, I've not really seen BWII, and hence I'm fine with the realistic beast mode on this one.

Like, this isn't perfect. I'm not sure how to start unpeeling the back of the lion when going to robot mode, it all fits together too well. Wrists and more paint on the lion face would be nice. It really seems like the panel on his robot back should tab in somewhere, but it just seems to rest there.

Unlike his wavemate Tarn, there's clear limitations here where I can see how the designers could have done more had they had the budget. But Lio has more to do to succeed, and I think he succeeds with minor shortcomings.

 

Have to say, I'm a fan. I've always liked the robot design of Lio Convoy. This one does not disappoint. Yes, the Lion head is a little soft but, I can live with it. Highly recommended!!

 

So this guy is just straight up awesome. Best beastformer from Kingdom and on I'd say. Just gonna let photos speak for themselves.

 

I have little to add yet, but I couldn't help but chuckle at the helpless look of that head as soon as I opened the box.