Toy Review: Generation Toy GT-10 Gorilla

Generation Toy really did a great thing by bringing the “T-Beasts” version of Optimus Prime to life.

Producer: Generation Toy

Price: Approx. $120 USD

Release Date: Apr. 2018

Item Height: Approx. 9.5″

Item Weight: N/A

Batteries: 1 x CR927 cell battery (Not Included)

WHERE TO BUY: The Chosen Prime

Generation Toy really gave us a treat with looking to the “T-Beasts” series of fanmade Transformers artworks by Kuramochi Zukan for inspiration with GT-10 Gorilla. I’ve always been a fan of Cybertronian/robotic animal alt. modes over the organic ones (like the “Beast Wars” Transformers series) so these have always appealed to me and I’m very happy to see more of these in person (the first company to bring one of these to life was PerfectEffect with Leonidas.) This piece by design is really something else as it takes the Optimus Primal design and gives it a very “mecha” twist that I just love to death. Check out the video above as well as the breakdown and gallery below and let me know what you think in the comments.

Presentation: The box is pretty straightforward in being that it’s literally a cardboard box with the Generation Toy logo and product name embossed on it. However it does come with an outer sleeve that has a picture of Gorilla in robot and alt. modes on either side of it. Rather than plastic shells, Generation Toy incases the products in foam material with holes cut out and honestly, it works well while keeping a very unique and consistent styling to their packages. The figure itself comes in Robot mode (read the instructions and extend the legs out of the box) and right away the sculpt and extremely well-done color separation and accenting stand out. The piece is truly beautiful to just look at. The only part that’s a BIT of a let down is the fact that due to the LED-lit eye feature, they look very “dead” when not lit up. I wish that there was an option to replace the clear eye piece with a colored one like FansHobby’s Power Baser (note to companies; please copy them and start to include optional, colored eyes with figures using this gimmick.) The size is also phenemonal adding a really imposing stature in a Masterpiece-scaled display (I feel that the T-Beasts designs are more suited with G1-styled Transformers figure than the actual Beast Wars ones.)

Build: Generation Toy Gorilla is a mostly plastic piece with diecast in the toe portion of the feet. Overall I’d rate this as a fairly solid figure but I’ve seen others state that they don’t like the feel of the plastics. I will say that it doesn’t have that hardened finish of some other plastic products but in no way, shape, or form does this feel like a “cheap” piece at all to me. I like both the feel and the heft of Gorilla when handling it. The LED gimmick is nicely implemented and the battery is extremely easy to change in and out (tip; keep the head with the back facing downwards when disassembling it as the button is not locked into place and can fall out.)

Accessories: Pretty straightforward accessories in gorilla in a masked face, open-mouth face, two swords, and a combined hilt to emulate the swords being fused together and I really like them all. The swords store on the back (on my retail copy the friction isn’t very good though and they can fall off when messing with the figure,) and the faces swap out very simply by just pulling them off of the front without any further disassembly. The combined blade is nice but I wish it was a bit longer and had another peg to be held by both hands at once.

Articulation: Just to save the time of attempting to word it nicely, the articulation on this one plain pisses me off. The upper body is fine (it could use double-jointed elbows, but outside of that it’s pretty fantastic,) but the legs are just a mess with pieces on the thigh and calves molded on uncecessarily that literally do nothing but block thigh swivel and ankle tilt (see video for this in motion.) It’s a very big slight on an otherwise really good piece (take note that I did modify my piece to have the articulation I felt it should and the pictures below have poses which it has attributed to.)

Overall Score: 6.5/10 (8.5/10 Post-Modifications) – Generation Toy’s Gorilla is an absolutely astounding capture of the T-Beast design sculpt-wise, however the engineering (particularly in the legs) leaves quite a bit to be desired. Check out the video portion to see why in motion but overall I think that this is a great-looking toy really worthy of a centerpiece-styled display, but the playability before doing some significant modding to the hips and calves is very subpar. Check out the gallery to see which areas were cut as it’s very simple modding that I don’t feel needs a separate tutorial. I will say though that post-modifications Gorilla is one of my favorite Optimus toys to look at on my shelf. I’m looking forward to the next in Generation Toy’s T-Beast inspired products but am hoping that the same articulation downfalls aren’t present.