Vehicle mode looks wonderful. The panel lines are kept to a minimum and actually make sense in context of the car. As expected, he's mostly yellow, but there are also surprising touches here and there. The door handles are painted, as are the taillights under his distinctive rear panels. Not surprisingly, he looks great next to Masterpiece Sideswipe. His headlights, hood, and doors can open. Unfortunately, there are no engine details and obviously no seats. His rear cannon can flip out if you move his spoilers out of the way. His distinctive rear section can be flipped around so that he more closely resembles the Sideswipe Lamborghini mode. Even the rear panels that cover his tail lights rotate away. The undercarriage is very clean and he rolls like a champ on plastic tires.
Despite having a similar vehicle mode to Sideswipe, Sunstreaker has a completely different transformation. It is involved, but not complex or fiddly. Everything moved easily. His backpack compresses reasonably well. His chest is a faux roof, but it's worth it to keep his chest in proper proportion. I’m not a fan of the slider mechanism for his head nor of the various transparent plastic hinges. Going back to vehicle mode was not difficult.
In robot mode, Sunstreaker scales properly with Sideswipe and looks all sorts of awesome. He has more panel lines than Ironhide and his kibble cleans up nicely. His face sculpt is quite good and definitely reminds me of the character. I particularly like how his feet is properly proportioned to his legs. His black panels help to break up the large swaths of yellow.
His head is on a ball joint that is also on a hinged panel. He has a very wide range of motion for his head. He may be the first Transformer that can look down his own shirt, if that's what they wore. His shoulders are on hinges and swivels. He also has very generous butterfly joints. He can raise his arms out and up parallel to the ground. He swivels at his biceps, wrists, waist and thighs. His elbows are double-jointed and allow him to perform full curls. His wrists are hinged. His thumbs articulate separately from the rest of his fingers. He has an ab crunch. His hips are on universal joints with ratchets in the forward-to-back axis. He can perform forward and side splits that would make Van Damme proud. His ratcheted and singled-jointed knees allow him to curl his legs a bit past 90 degrees. His ankles are on rockers and tilts.
His accessories include two rifles, two alternate faces, an alien mask, Chip and his wheelchair, and a pair of replacement sideview mirrors. His weapons have some line work, but don't feature any paint applications. Unfortunately, they use Masterpiece-styled tabs. His small gun stays in place more securely than his rifle, which always falls out on me. The rifle can holster by pegging onto his back in robot mode and roof in vehicle mode. The pistol can store inside either leg in robot mode and between his arms in vehicle mode. He also comes with a happy and shocked face. Swapping faces is very simple; no tools are required. The alien mask fits well enough on his head and looks pretty good. Chip is a basic figure that I will probably just leave in the box. His wheelchair is just gray plastic. The wheels don't even work. I suppose the extra sideview mirrors are in case of breakage. They don't look any different than what is already on the figure.
Sunstreaker will obviously go on my Masterpiece shelf. Although I still love Sunsurge, the official figure doesn't have that height disparity with Sideswipe, who is due for a revamp. Sunstreaker only underscores how Sideswipe's mold is more suited for Red Alert. Each release from Takara just makes me more excited for the next piece in the line.
excellent review, and a purchase I am glad I picked up. I will put my review up on the site within the next couple of days
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