Power of the Primes Rippersnapper review

Wow, it’s been a while since I started talking about these guys, time to get back to it, it would seem.

Power of the primes was a bit of a left over line for me.  It had a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  One of the 'thats' were combiners though, so that's cool.  Even better was that it involved my beloved Terrorcons!  HUZZAH!

So far I’ve covered Sinnnertwin and Cutthroat and today I’m gonna have a look at my beloved Ripppersnapper.  I had this guy as a kid and was terribly traumatised when I dropped his tiny little cyclone gun pistol outside somewhere, never to be seen again.  It was bad man, I was bawling like a sprinkler with severe emotional issues.

So, I have a nostalgic connection to RS here.

Let’s take a look!

Rippersnapper, not only having an awesome name, an awesome function (Terrorist) also has an awesome alt mode. BUT also because in my little head I see the Terrorcons as being so monstrous their robot modes are actually just disguises for them to integrate with other Transformers.

RS here happens to strike a rather dashing robot mode.  His colours and proportions really do it for me.  

His arms and legs are relatively clear from kibble so they move well. The colours also work extremely well.  The blues all manage to match and the overall positioning of them is pleasing to the eye. 

On his torso, waist and legs he has a nice bit of pretty crisp paint the replicates stickers of the 80s rather well.  I really love the way the torso is done.  

One part I really like is his face.  It's a nice update of the original toy's look with a little bit of extra in there.  The goggles really stand out and the slightly bile-like yellow on his face is thin enough to not blob out the sculpting.  It's a good face.

There is one little thing I like to do.  If you pop the shark head on, without turning the head around 180 degrees, and open the shark mouth, you get a cute little cos-playing Rippersnapper robot in a shark costume.

I'm feeling shy today.

CUTENESS 10000!

Oddly, I don't get that much of a Decepticon feeling form him you know.  His reasonably bright colours and non-threatening looks could make you think he's a good guy (just ignore the monster bits on the back).

Sculpting is pretty nice, with robot-y bits here and there all over the place.   While the robot mode is generally pretty slick, you can't help but notice he has a shark head on the back.  However, this is nicely balanced by the way the monster tail folds up and hides inside his ankle section.  One bit I am not too find of is the monster claws are forever slapped on the back of his hands. Kind of like Wolverine.

SNIKT!

I kind of alluded to it earlier, but articulation on this guy is very good.  Pretty much all of his joints are unhindered by the sculpt.  The shoulder in particular have lots of movement. It's great. He also has a port for a stand, so you can have fun with that.

On his back are a couple of guns.  These are voice guided missiles, IIRC from the G1 toy and were mounted on a big piece with the shark's dorsal fin.  This time though, the fin is sculpted on the body and the guns are separate and can be handheld.  However the way they are sculpted, they don't really have any convincing gun bits, so it doesn't look all that great. They kind of look like an improvised gun made from a steel tube (Hello beginning shotgun in Mad Max) but they look pretty good with them left in place as shoulder mounted guns.

Other weapons, or, *Ahem* armour... is this "Prime armour."  As its called. It's also used as a hand, or foot addition for Abominus.  Yep, a new looking hand/foot gun.  If you flip down a little flap on his chest, you can plug the armour on and give him a big gut.  

It doesn't look particularly cool and the blue of the gun makes him way bluer than he should be.  You can pull a bit off and it becomes a "gun"... Yah, sure it does....

Even slapping a Prime Master, or combination enigma thing in there doesn't really make it all that cool looking. It can't be mounted on his back either like Cutthroat.  I just leave it off to be honest.

Obviously transformation of this guy is pretty simple. Just looking at him you can see how it works.  They manage to give you a surprise by having to twist his waist 180 degrees.  

Let's look at monster-beast mode!!

Since there is very little to transformation, you end up with a rather similar looking monster shark creature.  It sure as hell isn't a robot in disguise by any means, but GAWDAM I like it!

There's no new sculpting details revealed, but some are brought to the for.  The shark head looks fantastic! You can open the mouth (just a little) and see some great painted teeth!  WOW!

On the sides are electro-gills! Why? Dunno!  Don't care. It's cool!

One thing I do really like with these POTP Terrocons is they all have some kind of fake rub sticker on them.  Rippersnapper's is placed on the top of his shark head.  While it doesn't change colour with heat like the faithful stickers of the olde days, it certainly LOOKS like it does.  I wish more toys had these on them you know... (side eye glances at Selects Galvatron).

One must remember that the monster doesn't have hands, he only ever pointing down claws, so remember to rotate those fists!  

On the back there are a couple of pegs for mounting Prime/Headmasters if you want.   Nearby the gun mounts are here looking nice too.

The monster legs were always visible form the robot and now they show their stuff.  They are mounted with a ball joint, and a single knee hinge.  They are kind of workable, but don't allow for a whole heap of poses.  

To be honest, I like his legs like this.  I like to think of the Terrorcons being larger than their counterparts, so therefore their monster modes must be huge too.  

Imagination time

Rippersnapper in particular I dig, imagine if you were just enjoying your life and then this huge shark robot comes out of nowhere, then not only that, it pops up with arms and legs.  Sure, the legs looks a bit funky, but then, it starts coming towards you, hopping...

Hopping like a giant, mad sparrow with destruction, slashing and gnashing being the only thing on it's mind.

A huge shark monster hopping down the street, ready to kill everything!

That's enough time in my imagination, back to the toy!

I just love it.  The tail has an extendable joint on there, allowing for various stances.  It also has some really nice sculpting on it.  

His feet are also big enough to let you have him lean right over whatever prey he is eyeing with his beady little red shark eyes.

Again, you can plonk the Prime Armour on his back.  This time it can be put upside down as well.  Eh, it doesn't look too bad, but it doesn't look cool either.  You could mount extra weapons on it if you so desired, but personally, I do what I do for robot mode and leave it somewhere else.

So to wrap this up, I obviously rather like Rippersnapper.  Essentially, he is much like all the other Combiner wars style figures.  

Except a shark monster. 

It's simple, no real surprises, but has so much character and manages to do what it should do (i.e move as a robot and hop like a psychotic sparrow) that you can't help like him.

Final Superfluous rating.

Yerp, he's a keeper!

RAAAARGH!

Ki go ka go!

STOMP!

chomp!

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