When the first images of Unique Toys Salmoore started popping up, he immediately shot to the top of my want list and reignited a quasi-dormant appreciation for GoBots. What we have in Salmoore is an updated, modern interpretation of Cy-kill, leader of the renegades, or evil GoBots. While Transformers have been getting a ton of attention from the bevy of third-party companies that have been popping up, GoBots have been both officially and unofficially ignored. But with the Unique toys version of Cy-Kill and the X-transbots version of Turbo, there’s a small chance we may be seeing more. Fingers crossed.
GoBots were simplistic in design and transformation, so any update is going to, by necessity, include some modernization, but the key in modernizing a design is keeping a level of faithfulness to the original design while integrating the aesthetic changes that have occurred over the past few decades. When you’re dealing with a property that has an ample amount of nostalgia connected to it, that can be a precarious bridge to cross. At what point do you go too far and erase everything that is “Cy-Kill” about the figure in your attempts to update the design? While I am always a proponent of keeping as faithful to the original design as possible, I do recognize with some things that faithfulness can actually hinder the final product. So in that instance it all boils down to a simple question: if you look at the update, do you know who it is without having to be told? When I first saw Salmoore, I knew it was Cy-Kill immediately. A good cover song is one that you recognize from the original but carries with it the style of the band doing the covering, and I think Salmoore achieves that with Cy-Kill’s original design. But that, obviously, will depend on the individual.
At a glance, the head, big shoulder wheels and chest are respectable translations from the smaller figure. While the arms aren’t the same primitive ribbed piping, I wouldn’t expect that to realistically carry over. His legs retain a looser feel, but the big clunky blue “boots” help to sell the overall aesthetic. Really, it’s all about those big shoulder wheels. They make up for any minor discrepancies in the arms and hands, and really make him feel like Cy-Kill when you take into account all the other notes. I dig his appearance.
Oh, and sidenote: if you’re wondering where the word Salmoore comes from and what relation it has with Cy-Kill (and I had no clue either), Salmoore is apparently the English equivalent to Cy-Kill’s name in Chinese. I know, “Salmoore” just doesn’t have the ring that Cy-Kill does.
But onward to the toy itself. Though I’ve bought several third-party Transformers, his is my first acquisition from Unique Toys. Buying blind for the first time from a third-party team can be a worrisome thing because quality has a tendency to fluctuate between companies. Thankfully they were not a total newbie to the field, having previously offered versions of Galvatron, Predacons, and others.
In hand, Salmoore is a solid figure with a similar heft to any official voyager-scaled Transformers from Hasbro. Where the original Cy-Kill figure’s transformation was essentially bending over and cradling his engine block, Salmoore requires quite a bit more work to get him to transform. The transformation itself is constructed well, and though just at a glance it’s hard to see what would go where in order to make a bike out of him, the end result is convincing, and he doesn’t suffer in either mode.
His articulation is strong. He has a full range of articulation in his head, shoulders, double-jointed elbows, wrists, waist, hips, and knees, with some in what passes for his ankles. There’s not a lot of poses that he can’t achieve. His shoulder articulation is a bit odd, as his entire arm kind of swings backward, which is necessary to his transformation, but some people might object to the fact that he effectively seems to detach his shoulder to put his arm back. And since it doesn’t snap into place, his arm — while not loose — has a tendency to swing backward when you’re trying to position his arms.
His bike mode looks great and also does a good job of updating an alt mode that was, again, Cy-Kill bowing. Where Cy-Kill’s engine block was a separate piece in the vintage figure, Salmoore has his cleverly integrated into his body. Of course, he wouldn’t be who he is without something having to be added post transformation, and this time around it’s the exhaust pipes that have to be connected separately. They’re supposed to double as a pair of laser cannons or something, but, to me, Cy-Kill generates his own energy blasts, so they’re a bit redundant, just something to snap on after he’s transformed. Likewise, I don’t think I’ll be using the added spiky wheel covers either. This mold has been repurposed for their version of Wreck-Gar (Splinter) and these accessories obviously are more appropriate there.
Speaking of his transformation, there’s a place or two that was a bit awkward on mine. And when I say awkward, I mean it was a bitch. When you put his arms behind his head, there’s a spot where it’s extremely tight, and by too tight I mean there was a significant amount of scraping. It requires some twisting and turning in a spot that’s way too tight, and the plastic rubs up against the chrome part, and it ends up gnarling the hell out of the plastic. You’ll know it when you come across it because if you’re like me you’ll spend a stupid amount of time trying to get the arms to cooperate with each other without tearing up the plastic too much. There’s literally a couple millimeters that are a pain, but it’s enough.
Similarly, I had a difficult time getting one of the legs to bend over just right to become the front of the bike, which requires the arms to be in the exact right position, which the tightness almost doesn’t want to allow. Sometimes I miss the “bend over, now you’re a bike!” days. Fortunately I don’t tend to transform my toys as often as I used to when I was a kid because if I did, this would be a major pain each and every time. I’ve done it twice and dread ever having to do it again, just because of the shoulder area.
Despite my complaints about the transformation, I would still recommend this figure to anybody with an interest in GoBots or fun transforming toys. There’s very little here that feels unofficial, and it’s nice to finally have an updated version of one of my favorite ’80s villains. Could he be done more faithfully? Of course, but if this is the only shot at a modern Cy-Kill I get, then it’s good enough for me.
