Beast Wars Neo Survive

Robot Mode: Survive is a Mega-sized Transformer (today’s Voyager-class) and strikes a heavy-set, powerful figure. It’s easy to tell that he transforms into some kind of four-legged beast, seeing as he has a set of claws on each knee and two big beast legs either hanging down his back to strutting out over his shoulders as weapon pods. He has a very nicely detailed chest and, being a repaint of a first year Beast Wars figure, features the mutant head gimmick. His normal head is the red-helmeted grinning one, but he can switch it out for an all-black Stormtrooper-like one if you want. And Survive actually used both heads in his appearances in the Beast Wars Neo cartoon.

As I mentioned the two beast legs on his shoulders are weapon pods. The left one can extend a long attack claw for close quarter combat, while the other one can launch Survive’s miniscule partner, a bat drone called ‘True One’. The bat drone is both a drone and can double as Survive’s handgun as well. With the bat drone launched the remainder of the right beast leg on Survive’s shoulder looks like a shoulder-mounted cannon, too.

Survive features very nice articulation, pretty much the standard for Beast Wars figures. His hefty stature makes some of the more dynamic poses difficult, but he apart from that he does pretty good. All in all I must say that, despite being a ‘mere’ repaint of Polar Claw, Survive’s darker paint job brings out the details of this mold a lot better. So thumbs up for the robot mode, very nice with some interesting gimmicks.

Beast Mode: Survive transforms into a grey bear of some kind, not sure about the exact species to be honest. Much like in robot mode the darker color of the fur brings out the detailing better than the all-white of Polar Claw, but otherwise there is nothing really that different here. It’s a bear. All four legs can move somewhat (no knee joints, though) and there is even a gimmick included. By having the bear rear up on its hind legs, the mouth opens and a pair of very big fangs emerges, making this guy here some kind of sabre-tooth bear, I guess. Not much else I can write here. Survive’s a bear and he does a pretty good job as one.

Remarks: Polar Claw was one of the very first Beast Wars toys, but apart from a comic book cameo appearance here or there never really played much of a role. Not so his Japanese repaint Survive, who played a part in the Beast Wars Neo series. I haven’t seen much of that, to be honest, just read a brief summary about him being the strict drill-instructor type who’d like nothing better than to get the loner Big Convoy to toe the line.

I own Polar Claw as well and was rather disappointed with him. Survive really makes the most of the mold, though. The darker colors really bring out the details much better. I got Survive as part of a Beast Wars Neo package deal my buddy Caked-Up got for me at a TF convention in the States, so many thanks for that. Bottom line: the Polar Claw mold isn’t the best Beast Wars mold by any means, but it’s pretty nice and if you want to own it, you should really go for the Survive version or (if you’ve got the money to burn) the much rarer Botcon version Grizzly-1 / Barbearian.

Rating: B-