Snarl is one of the 1997 release regular Beast Wars figures. It is a definite attempt at trying a slightly different kind of transformation while adding in an action "gimmick". To a degree it doesn't work but to another degree it is obvious some nice effort went into this design.
Beast Mode:
Snarl's beast mode is a Tazmanian Devil. He is primarily light brown in color with dark grey on his forearms, back and tail. He is fairly well articulated in this mode. His forearms can move in three different joints (wrist, upper arm and elbow). The back legs can swing back and forth. His mouth can open and close. His "action feature" involves his tail. With a press of a button on the tail, Snarl is supposed to launch at his enemies. However, the spring inside is rather weak and the toy does not launch properly.
Transformation to Robot Mode:
Snarl's tail detaches with the aforementioned "launching" feature. His rear beast mode legs swing back and his body halves fold towards the back. His forearms come down to form his robot arms. His beast mode's head splits in half and folds down to form his robot legs. The lower half of his beast mode head folds down to his chest. His tail attaches to either his right or left arm via a peg and hole. The effect is a really nice looking arm mounted cannon.
Robot Mode:
Snarl's robot mode suffers in appearance mainly from his rather large back where his beast mode back and beast mode halves fold out. However, those parts of his "body" are nicely molded with features including veins and ribs! The robot itself stands rather sturdy despite his heavier back. His arm mounted cannon has a nice "fur styled" mold. His face looks very organic, but the mostly black color with blue eyes, surrounded by brown makes this Maximal look rather fierce. He has thirteen points of articulation:
- 3 points on each arm, upper arm, elbow and wrist
- Head turning
- Upper leg
- Lower Leg and ankle
Snarl's color scheme blends well and his proportions are rather well done. Not the best regular Beast Wars Transformers toy. C
Updated Thoughts (February 13, 2022):
Looking back at this figure, I admire the concept of this figure more than the execution. I love the idea of a Tazmanian Devil Transformers figure and the beast mode does look really fierce (and not at all like the Warner Brothers cartoon character). If it just had a stronger spring to activate the "launching" action in beast mode I think I would have been a lot happier. That said, I do appreciate the sculpt and robot design more now than I did in the past. This isn't a bad figure to add to one's collection. It is just not one of the first I'd tell people to get.
