TRANSFORMERS TOYS AND MERCHANDISE SECTION

Robot Mode:

Alternate Mode:

Box Art:

Clay's review of: RM-09 Psycho Orb

Name: Psycho Orb
Affiliation: Destron

Takara's Robotmasters line ended it's first wave with this Beast Wars repaint. In all honesty, I thought it was some kind of frog from the box artwork, but it was expensive so I held off. I then picked it up online on clearance with some of the other molds I initially passed on, so it wasn't too bad. But a frog it was not!

Critter

The beast mode is actually an armadillo, which is typically regarded as the "Plated Texan Rat". Actually, no it's not. But there are plenty of them down there.

There's not much to the beast mode, honestly. The front legs are articulated well enough, and he has a curved tail to suspend himself on things, but that's about it, really.

Robot

Since this is an early Beast Wars basic mold, the transformation is a simple flip of a switch, so to speak. His hands are in a permanent typing gesture since they're the same claws he had in the beast mode. He does get new feet, however, and what were previously hind legs can now be removed to form a gun and a mace!

As this was an earlier Robotmasters release, he comes with an extra piece made of translucent plastic. The other RM Destrons have little melee weapons, but since Psycho Orb comes pretty well-armed to begin with, he has a shield instead. Personally, I like my transformers to have an occassional shield to use, but there aren't a lot of them. Kudos to Takara for pandering to me, specifically!

The previous releases of this mold were orange and red, consectutively. This release, being a Destron, has a paint application that's a bit darker in tone. It's mostly brown with gold airbrushed along the top. He also has a little Destron logo on the top of his chest. It's so small, it's cute!

Transformation: 10. Quick and simple.
Durability: 9. You only need to worry about losing the little parts.
Fun: 9. I just think the concept of a heavily armed... armadillo... is just too neat to not be fun.
Price. 3. The Robotmasters' line's downfall for those of us outside Japan.
Overall: 6.5. If you don't have the mold and can find it on the cheap, go for it! Otherwise, I'd pass. I ended up really liking the little guy, and I didn't have any other versions of the mold at the time to preempt it, so I'm happy. But that's just chance and circumstance...