Here are my previous reviews of the 2011 and 2012 Kre-O sets, Micro-Changers Preview and First Series, and the Toys R Us exclusive Ironhide. Here are links to the newest Kre-O toy reviews, Beast Blade Optimus Prime, Battle Net Bumblebee, Dragon Assault, Mech Venom Strike, and Ripclaw Strike.

Transformers Kre-O Ripclaw Strike

Kreons: The Ripclaw Kreon is very cool.  The only problem is that the part on his back doesn’t connect completely onto the peg because the claws that hold the wings stick down below the surface of the connector.  Should have had another part under it to hold it securely.  Not a major problem, though.  The other Kreon is named on the package as “Colonel Daniel Witwicky.”  I don’t believe we have had any other human Kreons with names of actual animated characters like this.  It makes me wonder if we’ll be seeing him in the cartoon this coming season.  That would be pretty cool, but I admit it’s probably a long shot.

Vehicle Mode: Ripclaw is the best dragon so far.  My only complaint is that his tail doesn’t bend, so it has to either stay straight up, or straight down.  He has a great mechanism for his wings making them flap when you press the button on his back repeatedly.  His wings aren’t designed as well as the blue dragon that came with Bumblebee, and they sag at the ends.

Robot Mode: He looks pretty good in robot mode, but I wish there were a way to fold up his wings.  Unfortunately, like many of the earlier Kre-O toys, Ripclaw suffers from sticker issues.  Specifically, he has stickers on his sheet that are not used on the toy.  It’s just very cheap.  I really hope this line will end soon so they can put their effort into raising the quality of the main line.

Overall: Each round of Kre-O toys has gone down in size and number of sets (though at Toyfair the literature claimed there would be 8 sets, and they have only released 5, so there may be a few more coming).  With the announcement of the new Construct-Bots coming this summer (think Lego Hero Factory) it seems that the Kre-O line (for Transformers at least) is coming to an end.  The only other upcoming toys are the Micro-Change combiners.  Four of them are trickling out, though I haven’t found them.  The Toyfair literature lists seven of those, so we should be getting three more.  My guess is that will be it for Kre-O Transformers, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Thanks for reading!