This is a really fun figure. Lots of 90s nostalgia vibes paired beautifully with a modern aesthetic.

Opening his torso up for transformation the first time is nerve-wracking. I thought I was going to break it. But, once you get past that hurdle, he's infinitely playable. Ape mode has great articulation and posing. Robot mode is fun and gimmick-laden. I wish his swords could store somewhere more discreet in gorilla mode, but there's something kind of awesome about a gorilla carrying swords on his back.

The one thing that bums me out - and I should have realized this from the pics - is he's got a total lack of weaponizer ports. Not even on the bottoms of his feet. I was looking forward to covering Primal in fossil weapons and armor. He can hold 5mm pegs in his hands and he's got a couple of those thin "Datsun shoulder gun tabs" on his back for his swords, but that's it.

Oh well.

 

Great pics!

I didn't realise there wasn't a thread for Primal, or I'd have popped a review up last night.

Agree that he's an almost perfect progression of Primal. The robot mode hits all the right notes, and that gorilla mode is a huge improvement over the original, in both sculpt and poseability.

The fact they managed to include full-length swords, retain his shoulder cannons and engineer pop-out wrist blasters at the Voyager price point is quite frankly amazing too!

Only downsides I can think of, are that frighteningly tight torso hinge (mine is still terrifying to open after several transformations); how prone the white paint on the top of the thighs is to rubbing off when posing the legs or repositioning for beast mode, and the lack of complete weapon storage (outside of the tabs, which look daft in beast mode).

Reject 1984. Return to monke.



Primal also moonlights as Bigfoot. £10 per hour for a "sighting".

 

Does the upright ape mode look better in hand? I've warmed to him since seeing him posed on all fours, thankfully, but the apparent awkwardness of the collapsed legs was theowing me off for ages.

 

Man does he look awesome, can't wait to get him. One question though, does he use any rubbery parts like Leader Megatron? I'm looking at the shoulder pads and I can't tell if they're rubber or not.

 

It definitely does. The all-fours configuration is the more natural looking of the two in hand, but upright, there's more play with the articulation, so you can alter his stance in a way to hide the collapsed legs more to your liking.

Nope, no rubbery parts at all on Primal! He's completely solid and feels very substantial in hand....lots of good quality plastic, especially in those chunky limbs.

 

Sweet, that was the only thing that worried me. Thanks man!

 

Psyched to get this guy, he does look great.

its so disappointing that they left them out. It’s so strange that they have a fossilizer that’s head is intended for primal, while the rest of the body can’t be used.

edit: especially since the concept art shows him wearing the bones

 

Probably took the clue from Bayformers Prime where he loves to rip someone's face (or in this case, head).

 

They probably wanted to keep the BW figures relatively clean. On one hand I am happy (the ports on some of the WFC altmodes were rather distracting I found) but that art really makes you wish it was otherwise.

 

Nice info and photos here. That's a real bummer about the 5mm ports being left out, definitely makes the beast figures seem like they're not part of WFC. I'm very conflicted on keeping my preorder of this figure, the head sculpt looks really nice, but the chest plate sticking out so far and with so much gapping around it is a big bummer.

 

YMMV, but the chest plate gap doesn't bother me much in hand.

 

I can see why people are bummed out over the lack of 5mm ports, but on the flip side, it'd look pretty daft to have animals full of holes all over their sculpts. None of the BW characters (bar Blackarachnia having random holes on her calves) have any ports on them.

I'm assuming they still made Fossilizers so that G1 characters could be "beasted-up" to stand alongside the Beast Wars crew as an aesthetic thing for the toyline & upcoming show. No idea why that artwork has Primal covered in bones though....it's blatant false advertising.

Yeah, it's far less noticeable in hand.

Looking at the figure, it's hard to see how they could've sculpted it to do its job and lessened the gap.

 

Yeah, but I wish Primal had a couple in the part of his arms that gets covered by the shoulder pads in beast mode. And that center circle in his chest could have easily been one.

 

Indeed. Need I pull up the Tuna pic again?

 

 

But seriously, this Primal looks AWESOME! Optimus Primes are an old hat now, this is the first time in a while I have been wow’d by an Optimus in ages.

 

Nah, no bones about it, those bones look dumb. I'd hate to have these new BW figures ruined by a gimmick that would mess up their beast modes.

 

The art is cool, but it would never look remotely that good in plastic. The weaponiser upgrades never look that well integrated to a host.

 

Shoutout to that Heroscape terrrain.