Megatron

Color Scheme:

Mainly black and purple, with some gold and silver accents and some translucent red pieces for added interest. I'm not sure why, but his silver chest piece has some teal shading and green accents, which doesn't really go well with the rest of the scheme. Overall a good color scheme, but could have been better, imho.

Robot Mode:

Regal and powerful are two words that immediately come to mind. This is the mode that he looks best in, of course. Most other modes are as if they started with a kick ass robot mode, then added features and hinges here and there to get more and more alternate modes. The only bad thing I can say about the robot mode is that he has huge dragon feet sticking out of his hands. They fold back well enough, but they just kind of ruin the overall look of his arms. His wings even fold back nicely in a couple different ways.

Bat/Gargoyle Mode:

From robot mode, fold his legs back against his back, bring up a snout from his chest, spread his wings menacingly, and turn his arms into leg-type things. Not the lamest mode, but not the strongest alt-mode, either. All I can say is that this appears kind of like a bat, and only vaguely like a gargoyle, and it's definitely not my favorite mode.

Jet Mode:

This mode is a little cooler than the others. My main complaint is his flimsy landing gear. He's got a flip out gear for the nose, but it doesn't seem to stay in the right position very well. The rear landing gear are the wheels on his legs, which tend to get pushed up by his weight, because even though the hinges in his legs are ratcheted, they have enough play between positions to allow movement that can made posing difficult, and stability suffers. Aside from that, it does look rather jet-like.

Transport Mode:

Very Batmobile-like. His wings fold in half to reveal wheels in them, and his arms and legs fold and peg together for stability. It can be a challenge to get them in the right position to peg together, but once you do, it's very stable. The wheels themselves don't spin very freely, but it's not like he's going to be racing against the car brothers (Prowl, Side Burn and X-Brawn ;-). I like this mode the best of his alt-modes, I think, if only because of its stability and Batman-ness.

Dragon Mode:

This is a cool mode, I guess. His molding is certainly made to become this mode with some believability, since his feet become dragon heads, and his arms become dragon legs. He even has little dragon arms that tuck in his sides in all other modes. His wings also look decidedly dragon-like. Probably of his many alt-modes, I like this one secondly (behind his transport mode). Dragon lovers will appreciate the existence of this mode, but will probably feel that it could be better.

Claw Mode:

While this might be a cool and useful mode in the cartoon, it left me unimpressed. It's vaguely hand-like, but it's gripping gimmick is only mildly amusing, and certainly not functional. it's almost as if someone noticed that it can look like a hand, so they made the nosecone thing bendable.

Transformation:

For the most part, all the modes are a matter of positioning the arms and legs appropriately. Sometimes a piece needs to be untucked from somewhere, but that's basically it.

Gimmicks:

His swords are pretty cool. The blade of the sword can be ejected by pressing a button on the handle, which really just pushes the blade through a pinch-launch thing. The swords can also be connected to become a double-ended sword, like Darth Maul's light saber. In claw mode, there is a lever which makes his body bend in half a little ways, making it appear as if the claw is gripping. Nothing major, but the sword thing is pretty cool.

Pros/Cons:

Kick ass looking robot mode, cool swords, and the fact that he's a 6-changer (with several undocumented modes that the Japanese version has, and that fans have come up with) make him a pretty cool TF to have. He can be a little unstable in some modes, and many of the modes are downright contrived. Even with my minor gripes, I give him an overall rating of 10 points on a 10 point scale.