Kingdom Cheetor

Prelude: Fourth Cheetor review in a row, hope you are still paying attention. As one of the main characters of Beast Wars, Cheetor naturally returned in the War for Cybertron Kingdom line-up as well. There have been quite a few figures portraying Cheetor as he looked in season 1 of the Beast Wars TV series and not all of them were good (I’m looking at you, Universe Cheetor). Can the Kingdom version faithfully portray the Little Cat? Let’s say go!

Robot Mode: Cheetor in robot mode is a very slim Deluxe-sized robot with excellent articulation. He can easily adopt running poses, do a three-point stance, perform high kicks, the works. Very nicely done. He has wrist articulation, ankle tilts, can raise his head, everything. No complaints here at all. Cheetor is a lot slimmer than the original Beast Wars figure, probably slimmer than he actually was in the TV series, but it’s still quite clearly Cheetor, no problems with character recognition.

The cheetah head on his chest does stick out quite a bit, though not nearly as much as it did with the original figure (Cyberverse Cheetor does it better, one must admit). The main difference to the original design is that the hind legs of the cheetah mode now become his shins, which apparently bothers some people, but not me. What does bother me is the lack of a firearm. Cheetor does not have his famous gut gun, his only weapon is his tail, which does not become a firearm either, but rather a whip with an axe blade at the end. That’s more the weapon of Transmetal Cheetor, but so be it. Thankfully there is an update set in the works to fix that.

So bottom line, Kingdom Cheetor’s robot mode is definitely among the better season 1 Cheetor robot modes, possibly even the best. He does need better weapons and those plates on his hand are a bit bothersome, but otherwise I really like him.

Alternate Mode: Let’s face it, the original Beast Wars Cheetor did not really look like a cheetah in beast mode, but rather like a pretty muscular, pretty broad cat. Kingdom Cheetor, on the other hand, becomes a very slim, long-legged cat that actually does bear a pretty strong resemblance to a cheetah. He appears to be much bigger in beast mode than in robot mode, actually.

The cheetah is very nicely articulated and can accomplish all sorts of poses. The only immobile parts are the tail and the head, though the latter has a lower jaw that can open, at least. One thing I need to mention regarding the transformation: there is a very tiny tab sitting at the end of the cheetah’s neck, which is so flimsy it will definitely break after two or three transformations. It is also entirely superfluous, the cheetah holds together perfectly well without it. So don’t worry when (not if) it does break, it doesn’t matter.

Bottom line: a very nice cheetah mode, nicely articulated and actually looking the part. Whether or not the entirely red eyes are your thing or not is subjective, of course. Otherwise, though? Very nice.

Remarks: Not much I can write about Cheetor here that I haven’t already written in other reviews. Cheetor remains, to this day, the best developing character in all of Transformers, growing naturally from a young, wide-eyed kid at the beginning of Beast Wars to a combat veteran with leadership skills at the end of Beast Machines. No other character has yet managed to top that, and I doubt it will ever happen.

I’ve heard a lot of people who don’t like Kingdom Cheetor as a figure, but I am honestly not sure why. He is not perfect, of course. The lack of a gun and the ready-to-break tab at the cheetah neck certainly cause point deduction. Overall, though, I’m pretty happy with this figure. A good robot mode, a cheetah mode that actually looks like a cheetah, and once the upgrade set with the gut gun is here, he’ll be the best CHUG-scale Season 1 Cheetor we’ve had so far. As it is, I recommend Cheetor to all Beast Wars fans. And if you like a darker blue on your Cheetor, try and buy the near-impossible-to-find Netflix version.

Rating: B

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