Articulation isn't bad: ball jointed shoulders and elbows on all four limbs, bending ankles at the front and ball jointed ankles at the rear. The lizard head has an opening mouth
The wings: Two pairs. The lower move forward from the sides (but not back) and raise. The upper pair are linked to a little knob in between them that moves causing them to move back & forth. The missile launcher is a first for Beast Wars - it's a ball missile launcher, first seen on the G2 Cyberjets. No spring is required for these - the ball is held between a plastic clip and pushing forward on the missile causes it to be ejected from the clip with some force. Here there's a slider under the tail which you move to get the missile to shoot.
The problem with the beast mode really comes when you look at it from the back. The tail ends in a missile launcher which looks the world like another head giving the beast a weird double ended "push me pull me" type appearance. It gets worse when you look up at the wings as the top pair of wings has a pair of insect eyes painted onto the rear of the bit in the middle. It's really quite confusing !
TF: Pull the head down & forward uncoupling it from the beast neck - there's a pair of pins that lock on each side. Fold out under the beast. Fold the neck halves down. Pull the back legs back above the tail. Pull the upper wing section forward and fold the lower wings back. Fold the front of the beast body up. Fold the front legs down 90 degrees at a pivot just behind the waist joint. Fold the arm the beast head is on down further another 90 degrees. Swing the beast head arm one way and the wing arm the other locking them into place as arms. Fold the chest back up. Fold the tail up through the neck halves so the missile launcher forms the robot head and the tail pegs on the back of the chest. Fold the wings on the chest towards each other and then back over the shoulders. Fold the front beast legs back beside the base of the tail. Straighten the legs, make sure the feet are flat and pose the arms
The resulting "robot" has the beast back legs serving as the robot legs and keeps the articulation of them. The arms have a ball joint at shoulder & elbow. His left hand opens - it's the beast mouth - but for the elbow to be bent the head must be upright removing any useful holding ability the hand may have had. The other arm ends in a huge claw made from the upper wings with the opening & closing lever on the back of the forearm. The head turns and the missile can be deployed by pushing on the back of it. one of the problems I have with the robot mode is it does look like some sort of lizard alien rather than a robot (indeed the claw hand distinctly brings to mind the low production Swarm Alien toy) A quick examination renders no trace of any robotic features.
Overall: Bit of a mess really. Released as a straight Iguana it might have been a lot better.
Beast Wars (1997)
Beast Wars II (1998)
Beast Wars Neo (1999)
Beast Wars Metals (1999)
So by the end of Neo decisions were already being made about the Metals line and one of those was to only include the Fuzors seen in the Beast Wars cartoon. This left the other toys free and the three deluxe Fuzors were recoloured and used as agents of Unicron. If you look at the TFU.info page you'll see they have their own faction logo and I presume this is carried onto the Energon chip rubsign.
Drancron is Beast Wars Neo Toy X-8. The blue becomes red and the green becomes a combination of darker green (body & tail) and cream (upper limbs and missile) The colours used here are a great improvement over Sky Shadow and give a better balance overall.
This review was written under the influence of Alien Death Flu.