The color schemes for the Toys "R" Us exclusive Battle Beasts have been revealed and... well, they're shiny. The redecos seem to feature a lot of silver (most often replacing gray portions) and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I believe the color might be more comic accurate for some characters (Gruntos the Walrus seems to have a metallic blue armor from the art I've seen) but the strong luster might not appeal to some collectors.

Gruntos the Walrus also varies from his specialty store release in that he lacks a loincloth and his chest tattoos (?) don't seem to be inked in. The shiny silver bits look a lot nicer on Vorin the Ram, which is probably my second favorite deco for the character (after the con-exclusive gold version). Snake seems to have received the most extreme change as the TRU version features a brighter green flesh tone, a deeper yellow stomach, a new eye color, and his armored bits have been split into silver and brown (including his originally unpainted shoulders). This more colorful deco is a wonderful alternative to the equally impressive specialty-store deco. In general, it's great that fans will have their choice of two separate color schemes between the TRU and specialty store versions.

Finally, there are some concept arts for "Zulu Cheetah" and "Hoplite Albatross" (which, while not their real names, is an awesome throwback to the original Battle Beasts naming convention) as well as the TRU exclusive Bat character. Zulu Cheetah and Hoplite Albatross aren't currently scheduled to be made into figures, but I'm really hoping that both of these wicked designs will appear in the line. There are a lot of fantastic Battle Beasts designs (including a shark!) so we can likely expect great things from this line even if it isn't the same sort of Battle Beasts that older fans grew up with. Be sure to check out the gallery for all the TRU decos as well as a cover art triptych that shows off some of the character designs.

Which animals are you looking forward to possibly seeing?

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