As I am exploring and expanding my TF varieties, I started from cars, air planes, dinosaurs, dragons, and now I got a shark, one of my

son's favorite creatures. Even though I am not a fan of RiD lines, Sky-Byte is a repaint from Beast Wars and he could be a fun addition.

 

Sky-Byte's alternate mode is a shark, a very mecha like shark. IMO, he looks great, even though he has all kinds of panels and colors

all over his body, this shark looks good. Don't quite like the fist showing up at the tail but it's okay. Also I can bear with the legs

showing at the bottom. But then, the good looking thing probably does not have too much play vaue. First, besides his tail can rotate

(which is not a real thing a shark can do), his mouth and fins are static and his body is always curving to the right. He has a battle

mode in shark's mode which is lower the fin panel and squeeze the stomach (legs) and force the mouth open more to reveal the

missiles. This mode totally doesn't make sense to me and plus my figure comes with missing gun and missiles.

 

The transformation is somewhat complicate and fragile because of all the panels. Sky-Byte is a shellformer which means his shark

skins are now like panels hanging all over his body. But they look not too bad, at least these panels are not as huge and annoyed as

classics Megatron. After fixing some loose joints, the robot mode now stands pretty good. He still has lots of colors and pieces to

make him asymmetric but overall looks very proper. Somehow the orange/yellow and white color make the plastic look cheap but I

see this happening on RiD Prime, too. He is quite poseable but the balance depends due to his small feet. The tail now becomes a

claw as his left hand and his right hand can hold the missing gun or the fins like a sword. Some panels on the back actually limit

some arm movements but carefully putting them on the right place, the arms can still move very well. Don't really like his feet but

don't see I have choice.

 

Transformation: 6 - Challening especially putting robot back to shark. I have to look at the instruction for my first time. Panels are

somewhat pain even though they are on ball joints but not sturdy enough while rotating and easily pop out.

Fun: 7 - Shark mode is better to look at than play but robot mode is fun to play with. Only need to watch out the pop out panels.

Display: 8 - I think in either mode, he is a great display piece. Lots of colors and asymmetric but does not hurt my eyes. He can

make poses but some poses are hard to balance.

Value: 8 - Got him for a deal of 4 figures at $20 from craiglist. Missing gun and missiles but has instruction and figure still looks

good after kid's play. If I say $11 for him, it is still a good deal.

Overall: 7 - Panel issues sometimes are pain and the feet design is bad but overall this is a good figure. Only if he can really bite,

his score will be higher and more fun.