Age of the Primes Sky-Byte

Prelude: Who's the baddest shark around? Who's the smartest shark in town? Sky-Byte, that's me! Who'll drive Scourge into the ground? And never let old Megatron down? Sky-Byte, that's me! So, Sky-Byte, that’s him. Any questions? No? Then let’s get this review under way. Let’s say Sky-Byte!

Robot Mode: Let us begin by saying that this new Sky-Byte is a very faithful recreation of the original RID Sky-Byte toy. The body design is almost identical, including having the shark’s head on his butt instead of on his chest like most of the more recent Sky-Byte figures. The left arm ends in the characteristic fin-claw, he has the big fin on top of his head, the big shoulder pieces, and the familiar chest design, too. Yep, this is clearly Sky-Byte.

Articulation is standard for an Age of the Primes figure, meaning pretty great. Despite his rather large rucksack he can turn freely in the hip and the arm movements are hampered, either. Speaking of the rucksack, which is composed of the shark’s head and flanks: everything tabs together very solidly here, so there are no floppy parts. Very nice. The shark fins from the back can be removed and put into Sky-Byte’s hands as blades, same as it was for the original figure.

Given Hasbro’s aversion to putting gimmicks into collector-oriented figures, Sky-Byte comes without the lever that caused his fin claw to spin, but you can still turn it manually. And now we come to my one big complaint about this figure. The original Sky-Byte had a pretty big spring-powered double missile launcher. Age of the Primes Sky-Byte comes with a very, very tiny sculpted missile launcher. Look, I get that they removed the springs, even though I don’t like it. But to make it this tiny, just so that it can fit fully into the shark’s mouth? The original managed that, too, and still had a much bigger launcher. 

By most measures, the new Sky-Byte is superior to the original figure. Better articulation, everything pegs together very solidly, no flaking chrome paint. But the way they reduced his big missile launcher to a tiny yellow box that looks more like a video projector than a weapon… well, I need to take some points for that.

So bottom line for the robot mode: 
  Sky-Byte as robot
  Why is the launcher so small?
  Superb overall.

Alternate Mode: Naturally Sky-Byte still transforms into a bio-mechanical shark. The transformation is almost step for step identical with that of the original RID toy, only the side panels and legs tab in a lot better (meaning: they actually DO tab in instead of flopping around) and there is no visible robot fist near the tail. Apart from that, though, if you remember how to transform the original toy (or Beast Wars TM2 Cybershark), you can transform this one.

Now the original Sky-Byte’s shark’s body was permanently curved to the side, the Thrilling 30 Sky-Byte was in a permanent jump-out-of-the-water pose, and Age of the Primes Sky-Byte is … well, a shark swimming in a straight line, I guess. You can add some dynamic by moving his tail from side to side, but his main body is pretty straight. Not sure why, but that bugs me a bit. I enjoyed the fact that the previous sharks looked more dynamic.

The shark is mostly a very dark blue now. He’s missing the original Sky-Byte’s shiny chromed sides, adding a few more patches of mechanical detailing instead. Apart from the moving tail mentioned above, Sky-Byte can also look down and his lower jaw can open up, too. The tiny missile launcher is hidden on the roof of his mouth, but can also be attached to the lower jaw for a sort-of attack mode. He cannot close his mouth if the launcher is on the lower jaw, though.

Overall I like this shark mode, even though he looks a lot darker than the original (and the cartoon character, too), due to the lack of the silvery chrome parts. The fact that the missile launcher is really, really tiny isn’t quite as apparent in this mode here, but conversely it’s too big here, so you need to fiddle around quite a bit until you’ve got it attached to the lower jaw for the attack mode. Apart from that and the somewhat too straight shark body, though, I have nothing to complain about. 

So bottom line for the beast mode:
  Shark with missile mouth.
  No floppy loose parts on him.
  Straight from tail to fin.

Remarks: Despite only being a repaint of a pre-existing toy, Sky-Byte became the break-out character of Robots in Disguise (2001) and has since become a true franchise player with appearances in the IDW comics, Cyberverse, and Cyberworld. I bought this figure only a few weeks after acquiring his Cyberworld incarnation, and I’ve yet to tire of Sky-Byte toys. Bring on more of them, Hasbro!

So bottom line for this toy: yeah, I’m all out of Haikus. It’s a great new incarnation of the baddest shark around. I’d have loved it had they given him a proper missile launcher and maybe a more dynamically shaped shark body, but overall it’s a great figure and fully recommended to all fans of Sky-Byte and fish-Transformers.

Rating: B+