I am going to go out on a limb here and assuming that this figure isn't about needing to go for a wee at night time.
Ah Beast Machines, you were an odd beast(machine). I quite enjoyed the TV show and the Cult like Optimus Primal, although it bothered me that the toys rarely looked like the dudes on TV. Rhinox / Tankor was quite rememberable and Megatron and the whole Noble/Savage things was pretty cool as well as I remember. Originally I picked up the Blue Oprimus Primal as my one and only BM figure, as it was, well, Optimus Primal. Eventually I expanded out and got a few more, but I left Cheetor alone. Mainly because the most common Cheetor around was the Supreme ( ?) class Cheetor that was obscenely huge and shelf warmed for decades. Ah the youtube of olden days.
Anyway, moving on, I did end up picking up Nightslash Cheetor because I thought he had a cool design. And here is my review of the toy.
Starting in robot mode, for.... reasons.
There he is, all black and er, orangey looking. The orange is a nice throwback to his normal, un-stealth self and the black, is actually more of a darkgreyblue colour going on. Better than black for sneaking around at night time.
One's eye is immediately attracted to the big orange block on his chest and waist. Sculpt detail is actually pretty nice on this guy. There are no hints of organic animal components here, its all robot baby, but he is more than just robot animal.
I really like that his er, belt, I guess is in the shape of Hot-Rod style exhaust pipe running up the side. This is in addition to a jet booster on his back below his spark crystal that has a hinge and is available in both modes.
There isn't any different detail revealed through transformation, because it's so simple. The head is cool and looks like he has a speed bicyclist/speed skater's helmet on, very similar to Railer-racer from RID and they managed to get some light piping in there for the eyes too.
I'm not too sure what's going on with his facial expression, but I find the exposure of the teeth a little... disturbing... It feels about right for the TV show. So there is that I guess.
For a regular Transformer, about deluxe sized, he has a lot of gimmick shenanigans going on in him. The first and most obvious is his slash-ability. Pressing his spark crystal on his back makes his arms flail around and spins a little engine intake thing (maybe) inside his chest. The things that I find really baffling though, is while the engine thing is chromed, and then painted with stripes, it is also hidden behind a translucent orange chest plate, with a lot of tech detailing on it. So, if the chest is closed (It will be most of the time) you can't see the action feature. Well, ya can, but it's very difficult to see it.
I mean, as it is, it's hard to see the striped on the engine thing in the first place...
The second gimmick is much better. The two grey shoulder doodads become weapons and flip handily into his hands when the little button on the side of his should is pressed. Now the Spark crystal flail comes into play.
I assume this is why his wrists are the way they are. More on them later. His thumb has a hinge on it, so it's either up, or down. Naturally, down makes more sense for sword holding.
I gottta admit, I kinda love these swords, scimitars? They manage to fit nicely wherever his arm is positions too, which is kind of fun.
Posability wise he is kind of limited. The arms have the flail gimmick, so in/out movement is a nog go, and you're left with up and down flailing. There is no waist here, due to transformation so the majority of articulation is in his legs. Cool. However the hips are limited and his backwards knees are hard to balance, so cool poses, are... challenging to say the least...
Transformation is. Uh, there. Barely.
Open the chest and back. Flip around the robot head to reveal the cat head. Extend the legs, flip around the feet. Put him on his chest.
There we have Cheetor in all his glory. Nice hey? He looks pretty sleek and smooth, but I feel that his back legs are incredibly long. One big problem is that the flailing arms for robot mode gimmick really gimps this guy's beast mode. The front legs just don't have the strength to hold up the chest, so it will flop on the ground for w little yoga session and a stretching cat pose. Which, I guess at the very least is thematic right?
The jet boosters here also make a lot of sense. They're also reminiscent of the Transmetal Cheetor flight mode that he had. Sadly though, his hands, now his front paws are not all that handy. Geddit?
Annoyingly, the way they are joined to the wrist is via a ball joint, but you can flick them up for the beast mode. You can flick them INWARDS though. Great. BTW this is no good for robot mode either... It just makes the cheetah mode look like he has a bit of muscular atrophy going on.
The blades also don't work in this mode either.
BUT, he does have light piping and it's pretty good because he has a see through brain case. He also has a spring mounted, er not mounted, springy jaw action as well.
And there we go, that is a look at Nightslash Cheetor. I rather like the deco on this guy and the conceptual design is pretty good. Playability though, eh, robot mode is good and I feel that had they improved the wrist connection, it could be a lot better. Oddly the beast mode is kinda crappy. It makes me wonder what Aaron Archer has to say about the Beast Machines toys. There were some "interesting" design choices made with these guys and I'd love to hear about them.
So I guess, my final superfluous review of this guys is a resounding:
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