In the intervening years, I've considered picking him up on eBay - either the original or the 2002 Encore re-release - and also started looking at the third party options, from Mastermind Creations' Terminus Hexatron to Iron Factory's Shadow Tengu, but more-or-less decided not to bother as all I really remember about Sixshot was a single appearance in the G1 cartoon, during which he appeared in the middle of a battle, and attacked something once in each of his modes... then, as far as I can recall, disappeared for the remainder of the episode. Suffice it to say, he didn't make much of an impression at the time.
Then the announcement came that there would be a new, super-articulated Titans Return Sixshot - a Leader class figure, no less - and my interest was somewhat rekindled... But does this remake, 30 years in the making, really improve that much over the original?
Car Mode:
We're honestly not off to a good start with this so-called 'car' mode... it's a largely featureless brick in purple, black, off-white and teal plastic, and the only things that really marks it as a car are the fact that is has four wheels, and the front end has a reasonably well-defined bonnet and windscreen. When I say he's 'featureless', that's perhaps a little unfair, as there's plenty of sculpted detail on every surface, it's just that none of it really looks like 'car detail', except perhaps the mudguards over the front wheels. The extra bulk on the sides does little for him beyond making him about as wide as he is long. Having the wings just laying flat along most of the length of the vehicle has a very detrimental effect on the vehicle's similarity to any terrestrial vehicle. Behind the windscreen are two Titan Master cockpits, giving this 'car' a weirdly oversized look, because they seem tiny, and it's almost as if they're sitting on the roof rather than inside the vehicle. It also reminds me a little of those licensed electric cars for kids, due to the weird proportions. Each cockpit has a slot at the front to accommodate the heel peg of a Titan Master, but it's a very loose fit, so they will fall out quite easily.
One amusing little detail is the pair of minute strips of sticker running down the bonnet, either side of the raised area - each one a yellow stripe broken by minuscule Decepticon insignias, printed on silver foil. They actually look as if they were accidentally produced at half their intended size, for one thing, and have been placed over a small block of sculpted detail on the bonnet. Since their effect is negligible at best, I eventually took them off and replaced them on the purple sections either side of the windscreen, where they're an almost perfect fit.
The description of this as a car is made all the more tenuous by the fact that one could look at the back of the vehicle, see the white-frame Titan Master cockpit canopy, and simply treat that end as the front of, say, a futuristic pickup truck. Add in the silver wings, draped along the sides of the vehicle and it just gets more confusing. That the wings are the only useful place - unique to this mode, at least - to mount Sixshot's handguns seems ridiculous given the amount of surface area available, but there are a couple of 5mm screw holds on the outsides of the purple section of the bonnet, just ahead of the windscreen, which can also accommodate the guns, at a push, but offer no improvement to the overall look of the vehicle. Alternatively, but just as bad, the guns can peg together then mount, like a deadly hood ornament, on the very front of the car using a pair of tabs intended for use in other modes.
Aside from the two Titan Master seats, there are four foot pegs dotted about on the wings and a further two on the white sides of the car, just above the folded-up tank treads. None of them are particularly close to anything operable - either in terms of accessories plugged into Sixshot or molded detail that looks like weaponry - so I doubt they're really intended for use in this mode.
Oddly, most photos of Sixshot online seem to have the robot's feet folded out and forward at the front of the car, seemingly only in reference to the jumbled look of the front of the G1 version, where there jet mode's nose is arranged very differently. I tend not to do that, as it looks better - more like the front of a normal car - with the feet stowed. Similarly, the wolf mode's jaw tends to be opened, so it extends upwards behind the Titan Master seats... I tend to follow that step, but I couldn't explain why...
Tank Mode:
This mode is just dire... It doesn't look - or function - like any tank I'm aware of and is basically just car mode with the front end rotated round and flipped backwards over the body of the vehicle, and the wheels rotated out to be replaced by sculpted, painted tread details. It almost would have made more sense to call it a hover-tank and pretend the thing is levitating above the ground. Then again, the fact that all the guns are basically fixed pointing forward - albeit with the capacity to be raised or lowered - means this is more of a mobile gun battery than a tank. The big problem is that the tread sections no longer peg in anywhere, so this mode relies entirely on the strength of the shoulder joints for its stability.
Sixshot's handguns mount on the sides of the gunpods, and a pair of double-barrelled cannons flip out from the soles of his feet, somewhat similar to the G1 version. The gunpods are quite difficult to align because, while the robot's knees peg into their new configuration for this mode, the hips and lower legs don't... nor do the lower legs even peg together in this mode, so it's all really floppy. Even worse, there are only three rolling wheels supporting the vehicle - one embedded in the underside of each of the forward tread details, and one in the robot's crotch, hidden between the two rear tread details.
On the upside, he does have a proper, covered cockpit in this mode, more or less in the centre of the main body of the vehicle. The heel socket in the interior, again, doesn't hold Revolver (or any Titan Master) securely, but the canopy is there to prevent them falling out. It's also worth noting that a bit of new paintwork is revealed in this mode - the red details above the rear treads - referencing sticker detail on the G1 version.
Jet Mode:
This is probably the strongest of Sixshot's alternate modes, both in the G1 version and this Titans Return update, but that's largely because it's not expected to conform to any particular appearance. We all know by this point that a Cybertronian jet is pretty much interchangeable with a spacecraft, and there's no way this is intended to look like any terrestrial aircraft.
Thing is, though, to me, this looks more like a speedboat with wings tacked on to the base of the hull than either a spacecraft or a jet, and it's the shape of the nose that does it. It really shouldn't have been made in a way that makes it angle upward to the very tip as, to my eyes, at least, that tends to imply a sea-going vessel. Given the shape of the nose, and the fact that he tip sections are made to rotate, I don't understand why this mode required 180° rotation, when 90° in one direction could have given a more traditional downward slope to the top and made the silver paint applications more prominent, particularly when the only expense of this would be have been a gaping hole visible on the outside of each of the robot mode's legs.
I'd have to say that there are just too many right angles and 45° angles on this toy, and it's most apparent in this mode. The entire central mass is like a group of boxes, with barely noticeable tapering toward the nose and the angles on the tip coming across as almost reluctant. The purple sections of the nose do actually taper inward very slightly, but it's so subtle, it's barely visible. The white chunks down the sides are even more boxes, displaying parts of other modes but offering little by way of recognisable jet/spacecraft detail, though it could be argued that the slotted details on the turquoise part at the front of each one represents some sort of jet intake, even though there's no visible means of propulsion at the back.
There's also a bit more colour visible in this mode, with yellow panels on the sides of the nose, teal panels on the leading edges of wings, stickers on the wings and between the fins at the rear and a lot of silver paint has become visible on the nose of the vehicle. The wing stickers are slightly misapplied - not lining up properly with some sculpted detail, covering over other bits - but, even when peeled up and repositioned to align with the details, they seem to be the wrong size. The aforementioned yellow panels on the nose are curious, in that the sculpted details of the plastic piece they're applied to don't carry on to the other plastic section, almost making it look as though Sixshot has been misassembled, using parts from another toy based on the same structure.
Probably the main bone of contention with this mode is that it has what's obviously intended to be a cockpit (unironically located at the robot's groin), but this is just a fixed detail. Sure, it's translucent grey plastic with its frame painted white, but it doesn't open and is too small to accommodate a Titan Master anyway. The actual cockpit is in the robot's chest, meaning Sixshot's helmet has to be left sticking out of the rear in this mode. It's not overly apparent from most angles, and the fact that his arms are sticking out the back at the sides mitigates things simply by being even more stupid and ugly, but when a TransFormers toy's strongest alternate mode is still pretty crappy, things aren't looking good. In the positives column, there's a single landing skid - which exists solely for this mode - that fold out from between the two car mode cockpits... but even this comes with a caveat, because the only other thing propping him up in this mode is the white-painted canopy of tank mode's cockpit, so be prepared for scuffing.
Revolver, or any other Titan Master, can also be pegged to the nose, just behind either of the purple/silver details, or on the white chunks just behind the teal possible-intake-things... Neither being particularly sensible places to stand on an aircraft/spacecraft.
In this mode, Sixshot's pistols attach to the wingtips, making him look like something out of a scrolling shoot-'em-up game. They're a decent size, and work quite well, but the back ends, where the main grips are, look very awkward and tacked-on in this mode, while the hollows left for the Titan Master in the main body of the gun look terrible. It's also not obvious which way up the guns are supposed to be, but they look reasonable either way, so that's not really a big deal.
'Submarine' Mode (AKA Gun Mode):
That is to say, in this day and age where Kinder Surprise eggs are banned in the US on health and safety grounds, and American toy companies are reluctant to market toy guns to children - despite the gun lobby's reluctance to make it any more difficult for anyone to acquire a real gun, and while many gun-owning adults leave their weapons far too easily accessible to curious children - Hasbro chose to turn Sixshot's gun mode upside down and call it a submarine. Except even this is unofficial, as the modes aren't even named in the instructions.
All this is, of course, ridiculous. If anything, this mode looks like the Batmobile, as decorated by the Joker. The front end is little different from car mode (the grille opens up to reveal dual cannons on each side) with Sixshot's handguns connected and tabbed onto the bonnet. Better, then, to admit that it's Sixshot's gun mode, surely? I mean, it's not even that convincing as a gun, even taking into account it's a super-futuristic sci-fi blaster... And possibly a giant-sized, self-propelled one, at that. The wings fold up and peg into the sides of the beast mode's neck making something of approximately the right size to be the grip of a weird, sci-fi laser gun... but it's awfully gappy and there's no trigger, unless you choose to plug Revolver into the foot peg revealed on the main body, where the wolf mode's head was. He doesn't make a very effective trigger, though, as it doesn't return once squeezed. Alternatively, the jet mode's landing skid can be deployed, but that's rather too far forward to be comfortably used as a trigger.
This is one of those modes that probably came about by chance in the original - someone was just larking around with an early mock-up and said "hey, doesn't this look a bit like a gun?" and, thus, G1 Sixshot gained another alternate mode. On the Titans Return version, it feels as though it's here more due to a sense of obligation, and the knowledge that, if they'd gone with the 'wing-wolf' fanmode as official, one of the fans would have created this, or something similar, as a fanmode.
Interaction with Titan Masters only really comes into play if this is treated as a submarine, and then only with the two car mode seats... Possibly the tank mode cockpit, sticking out the back of the tower at the rear. Most of the other foot pegs are on the underside, but I don't see how it makes sense to have Titan Masters standing on the top of a gun, even if it is a giant-sized, self-propelled space gun.
Beast Mode:
This mode is probably the biggest disappointment for me. The original looked horribly blocky but at least looked powerful and, in all honesty, it wasn't too bad for its time, particularly when compared to some of the Decepticon HeadMasters. I've always been puzzled by its description as a 'wolf', though... The G1 beast head looks more feline than lupine or canine, and has occasionally been referred to as a 'winged puma', which makes a bit more sense. This version is definitely aiming for something rather more doggy, with a longer, more pointed snout and more prominent ears, but the neck looks far too long, and having the tank cockpit on his throat looks terrible.
Overall, it's fairly obvious that his is just robot mode standing on all fours, and the back legs look clumsy no matter how they're positioned. The upper parts are too thin, the lower parts far too chunky, and the claws just aren't prominent enough.
Interestingly, there are two Titan Master pegs on the wolf's back that are potentially useful - one toward the rump the other on the back of his neck, just at the point where the neck hinges. There is a void left in the back of the wolf's head to accommodate Revolver in Sixshot's head mode, but this seems a little pointless beyond, loosely speaking, putting Sixshot's eyes roughly level with his wolf's head's eyes. It reminds me a little of Cybertron Snarl/Galaxy Force Fang Wolf's key-activated gimmick, except that inserting a Titan Master into the slot has no effect on Sixshot's wolf jaw... which seems like a missed opportunity.
Bizarrely, this version of Sixshot uses his two handguns, joined together, as a double-barrelled gun-tail, which sticks rigidly out the back, pegged into protrusions from his butt-plate. While there do seem to be guns sculpted into the green-painted sections on the 'shoulder' parts of the wings, it would have seemed better to attach the guns to the 5mm sockets just behind them... it's not as if he loses anything by not having a 'tail'. Alternatively, a Titan Master can be stood or sat at the base of the tail, thanks to the foot pegs in the hollow of the combined gun/tail.
Robot Mode:
It's interesting how similar Titans Return Sixshot is to his G1 ancestor in size, colour and overall shape. Both are fairly large - G1 didn't have specific class sizes in quite the same way, and Sixshot is pretty huge for what he is - and both are very blocky. In a lot of ways, while the G1 version has a lot more awkward shapes hanging off it, it's not as harshly squared-off as the TR version - the thighs are slimmer, and the lower legs flare out more, for example. Something I didn't immediately notice, but which is hard to un-see once identified, is that, while the orientation of the lower legs is different on this new version, the car mode's cockpits have been designed such that the silver-painted faux windscreen leaves the remaining purple part has a similar silhouette the jet nose parts hanging off G1 Sixshot's knees.
One thing that is immediately apparent is the extremely lacking paint job. There's plenty of silver paint visible on the lower legs, the cockpit crotch is translucent plastic painted over with white, his waist has a coating of glossy black paint swallowing up some of the sculpted detail, and the boxes on his shoulders feature more black paint on the inner details but, other than that, you're pretty much looking at unpainted plastic, bar the few touches of colour seen in his other modes. The chest features a large translucent grey plastic window, which also pops through the teal plastic for a pair of circular details toward the bottom of the chest. What's really strange, though, is that the G1 version featured colourful stickers on the chest wings and nothing but sculpted detail on the chest... while this version does it the other way round - there are a couple of perfunctory stickers, one of which featuring a Decepticon insignia, on the teal parts of the upper chest, either side of the window, but the wings are bare. The size and shape of the stickers very nearly matches panel details on the chest wings, though, so it almost feels as though they were misapplied. It's also worth noting that, for no readily apparent reason, TR Sixshot's thighs are black plastic, rather than white, as per the Takara Tomy version and the Generation 1 original.
On the upside, what he lacks in paintwork and stickers, he makes up for in sculpted details... within the boundaries of his extremely boxy construction, that is. Just about every surface is covered with panel lines, raised details and suggestions of the robot's inner workings... it's just a shame that his limbs weren't made a little more shapely, and that the one area of really intricate detailing - on his waist - is painted over in black only, where some more silver or red could have been used to highlight some of it. There's also some tech detailing sculpted into the inside and the outside of the chest window, but the plastic is so dark, it's not very apparent.
Sixshot's two handguns end up looking a little weedy and incomplete for the so-called 'Solo TransFormer Assault Group' or 'One Robot Army' that he's supposed to be. It's a sad fact that so many Titans Return weapon accessories suffer from the apparent requirement that they also double as vehicles for the Titan Masters, or function as turrets for some of the larger figures' base modes. The designers certainly tried to pay homage to the G1 version's weapons by including what looks like a sight on the underside of the main barrel, but it still looks as though each gun is upside-down, and the body of each gun, including a more centrally-located grip, is missing, with hollow and a peg for a Titan Master in their place. Sixshot is often depicted wielding swords, and some of the Third Party versions - Iron Factory's Shadow Tengu and Mastermind Creations' Terminus Hexatron, for example - came with swords, but this version tries to be true to the G1 toy, so the handguns are the only accessories.
The face sculpt on Revolver's back is a fairly plain, ninja mask affair. While it's not visible once the helmet is closed, the 'headband' features the Kanji character for 6 in the middle. It's all rather plainly decorated - a blanket coating of white paint (which is rather easily scratched off, particularly after plugging him into the back of wolf mode's head), with the eyes painted over in red. Despite the fact that the headband is covered over, I'd have liked to see it decorated in some way - the Takara Tomy version, as well has having an entirely different helmet and face sculpt, features gunmetal and red paint on its headband.
Titan Master Revolver:
Revolver seems like a weird name for such a minty-fresh-looking Titan Master. Sadly, despite accompanying a Leader class figure, Revolver himself has no painted details whatsoever, which is unfortunate given the detailed sculpting of the head and chest.
On the upside, Revolver is, at least made of unique parts - or he was, at least, until the Chaos on Velocitron set, including the repaint Quickswitch, and Takara Tomy's TF Legends Greatshot, both of which use the same Titan Master figure, just in different colours and, in the case of the latter, some paintwork on the figure. The HeadMaster supplied with Takara Tomy's Sixshot is actually designed - and painted - to look like a miniature Sixshot.
Considering the number of different alternate modes Sixshot has, and the size of the figure, his transformations are all remarkably simple and fluid. My only gripes would be that the arms don't actually peg in anywhere for the majority of modes, and the shoulder joints - being a mixture of pinned joints and mushroom pegs - aren't so stiff than they'll hold a position firmly. Also, the treatment of the head/helmet - particularly that it must be left out for jet mode, to accommodate Revolver in that space - seems bizarre and poorly thought out. Conversely, the fact that the tailfins/chest wings can be folded into the torso for modes other than robot and jet shows a certain amount of good thought went into it as well. Similarly, the fact that his two guns can be stowed on his back in robot mode - by tabbing them into the slots used to clip the wings in place for car, tank and jet mode - is either a stroke of genius... or a fortunate coincidence.
In theory, Sixshot possesses two modes for which it would be appropriate to discuss articulation. Robot mode is all fairly standard, albeit rather stiff, because of the overall boxiness of the figure. The movement of the arms is only inhibited by the wheeled chunks at the tops and the combination of joints making up the shoulder, but they offer a decent range. The legs have all the usual joints, plus ankle tilt, though this is limited to three positions - straight, 45° and almost 90° - two of which aren't especially useful for posing. The arrangement of the feet isn't ideal either but, with a bit of coaxing, Sixshot can adopt some fairly cool poses. Disappointingly, there's no waist rotation due to the way certain parts have been designed... but, with a shorter wolf neck and a slightly smaller crotch cockpit, an additional joint at the waist would have been easy to accommodate. The wolf mode is more of an issue because, while it shares much the same level of jointing, nothing quite moves as it should for a four-legged animal. The forelegs are limited by the boxy feet, the arrangement of the shoulder joints and the limited usefulness of the claws, while the back legs are just a mess. I think the robot's thighs should have been made to peg into the body, near the hip, for a bit of extra stability, but then there would only be one real joint - the wolf's hip being the robot's knee, bent backward. The head is fixed, though a few small changes to the length of the neck and the position of the tank cockpit could have granted the option of a proper neck joint at the back of the head. As it stands, the only movement on the head is in the wolf's jaw, which looks gradually more unnatural as it opens due to sharing the position of its hinge with that of the tank cockpit. The wings are as poseable as they are in any other mode, but the use of his guns as the wolf's tail looks ridiculous.
I'm in two minds about this version of Sixshot. He's certainly better articulated than the G1 version... but he's also really, really blocky in each and every mode compared with any of the Third Party version, perhaps even versus the G1 original. One would think that, given how iconic Sixshot is to so many fans, and particularly in the wake of Mastermind Creations reworking of the character - where each mode is distinct and its function clear - Hasbro/Takara Tomy's designers would take great pains to do something more than merely improve the articulation of the boxy, blocky, 30-year-old original... and yet, beginning with the Titans Return toyline, we started getting figures that were increasingly squared-off and, frankly, unfinished-looking. It's not that it doesn't fit in with the rest of Titans Return, more a question of whether it's really enough of an upgrade. I picked up TR Sixshot at Forbidden Planet for £60, buying him mainly because I was excited to see him, and I'd definitely say it's not worth that much, even for the size. It's been interesting to note, since then, that his price - and even that of the Takara Tomy version - have plummeted, and it's now possible to find him for £25-£40. Search around on eBay, and it's possible to find Mastermind Creations' Terminus Hexatron, second hand, for not much more than £60.
Had Hasbro/Takara Tomy spent a few more months in development - or simply used a different designer, preferably one less obsessed with right angles - Titans Return Sixshot could have been amazing. As it is, I found him fun, yet hugely disappointing... and almost wish I'd just sought out the G1 toy instead, brick-like though it may be. While a lot of the Generations line has been taking G1 toys and adding contemporary action figure articulation, the very best examples have improved upon the character's overall design... And TR Sixshot is certainly not one of the best examples.
It feels as though I've had very little good to say about this toy... In his favour, all his modes are covered with lots of great surface detail, but so much of it is crying out for the more extensive stickers which are almost ubiquitous with larger Power of the Primes figures, yet strangely inconsistent in Titans Return. I think the problem for me is that it's underachieving for a toy that came out in 2016, and far too boxy. Had this come out as part of the original Classics line, back in the mid-late 2000s, possibly without the HeadMaster-style gimmick and with some extra weapons and paintwork, it probably would have been almost mind-blowing. As it is, when compared to most of his contemporaries, let alone a third party version of the same character that came out a couple of years ahead of Hasbro's version, TR Sixshot falls well short of what it needed to be. Even so, there's a lot of fun to be had switching him between modes, unconvincing though they are... He's just not worth the Leader class price point he was initially saddled with.
In many ways, I don't even think he needed to be Leader class - Voyager would have been perfectly sufficient, and then he wouldn't have needed the helmet, thus cleaning up jet mode. Literally the only reason I can think of for making TR Sixshot Leader class is to keep him approximately the same size as the G1 version (though he's actually about a head shorter)... and I don't believe that's a good enough reason.
Also worthy of note is a very common misassembly issue: Sixshot's thighs are on the wrong legs, as the sculpted mechanical details are on the outsides, as are the hollow sides of his knee spikes. It's an easy-ish fix, though - taking out three screws from the main purple sections of his lower legs to release the transformation hinge, popping the thigh off the hip joint, then swapping them round - and the error is only really apparent to those who are familiar with the G1 toy.
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