Two spaceships, one manned by benevolent Maximals, the other by evil Predacons, crash-land on a pre-humanoid planet while en route to Earth. Their crews assume indigenous animal forms to protect themselves from an overabundance of natural energy, transforming into robots to do battle. Thus, the Beast Wars have begun...

Long ago, a powerful sentient robot known as GoLion, abused his great powers by attacking and killing creatures known as Deathblack Beastmen, boasting that no one could defeat him. For his arrogance, The Goddess of the Universe punished GoLion by separating him into 5 different lion robots. In the year 1999, a group of 5 young men returned to Earth after a space voyage, only to find it ravaged by nuclear war. After encountering the alien race known as the Galra, the 5 youths end up on the planet Altea and learn that the 5 lion robots that GoLion was split into are in hibernation in various parts of Altea. Somehow, they must reunite the lions and form GoLion, the only hope for the human race.