The Universe line has arrived and with it comes a whole host of repaints. One of the first repaints was Beast Wars Optimus Primal who had become the leader for the Autobots for the Universe line. Beast Wars Optimus Primal in new funky colors has arrived and he's here to lead the Autobots to victory.

Firstly don't expect any new for this figure, the whole point about the Universe line is that its all about repaints. Basically the plot involves Unicron bringing Transformers from every section of the 'Universe' and from different dimensions to battle each other. The idea is that the Autobots and Decepticons know nothing about Unicron at all and there war feeds his power which he will use to resurrect himself fully.

Universe Optimus Primal's robot mode looks just as fantastic as the originals did but now he's in odd funky colors. Some may not like the new color scheme but after awhile the colors eventually grow on you and you will begin to like the new look. Primal is just as pose able as he was before and can bend his leg joints, knee joints, elbow joints and waist piece.

Primal also has the odd 'action' feature that the original had as well, this was were a button on the back was pushed up and down which made Primal's arms swing about. This never really took off and wasn't really liked very much by fans because mostly it just seemed silly. The Universe version of the mould seems to also suffer the same problems as the Beast Wars version were some people would have perfectly working figures but some would get Primal and his button just made his arms seem to act odd and usually made the 'cogs' in the arms creek very loudly.

The figure comes with a ton of accessories just like the original did which include 2 swords, a mace hidden in the arm, twin blaster hidden in other arm and 2 shoulder cannons. Primal also has the 'battle - Mask' that the original Beast Wars characters were originally meant to end up with as well. The 'battle - mask' still seems rather odd but considering that this is a repaint and not the 10th Anniversary reissue then this can obviously be forgiven and besides its an added extra you don't even notice when Primal just has his normal robot mode used.

Beast mode looks pretty much how it always did aside from the new paint scheme which is just an odd shade of brown with new silver and red areas around the Gorilla face. The figure transforms very easily and holds together very well but the legs do feel rather unfinished. The knee sections cant bend correctly in Beast Mode but considering what was needed for robot mode to work then this is understandable. However it still makes the legs for the beast mode seem rather odd.

The other main downfall about the Beast Mode is that really you can only put Optimus Primal in 1 pose for the Beast Mode. Any other pose makes Primal's face just look as if he's looking into the sky (especially if you just have him standing still) and he has a bad habit of falling over if you try to just have him stand still on his 2 feet and not use his fists for support.

Universe Optimus Primal came packaged in the Universe design layout which had his displayed in beast mode behind a clear plastic window with a draw cartoon image of him at the bottom right hand side of the box. The back had Primal's Bio and Description and images of both robot and beast mode. There was also a 'collectors' edition that came with an exclusive DVD which had some info on the Universe line.

A great repaint of a great Beast Wars figure and if you don't own the original then this is worth having. If you already own the original or the new reissue but still feel a need for more Optimus Primal then you cant go to far wrong with the Universe version. A nice repaint with lots of extra added play value to it.