Go-Onger combination- Engine Gattai Engine-Oh G9
Review by EVA_Unit_4A
Sets required for this combination:
Engine Gattai Series #4- Engine Birca
Engine Gattai Series #5- Engine Gunpherd
Engine Gattai Series #6- Engine Carrigator
Engine Gattai Series #7- Engine Toripter
Engine Gattai Series #8- Engine Jettoras
Engine Gattai Series #9- Engine Jumbwhale
Shortly after his arrival, Jumbwhale starts having quiet discussions with Bomper regarding the future of the Engines’ presence on Human World; even Hiroto (Go-On Gold) and Miu (Go-On Silver) who possess Jumbwhale’s Engine Soul and Cast are unawares of why the little white & pink robot is in their mansion. These frequent secret meetings pay-off in Grand Prix 22 - “Final Request”... Though the two Go-On Wings don’t understand at first why Jumbwhale is encouraging the thick-headed and childish Go-Onger, he tells them that it is their determination at whatever they do that makes them strong, even if- unlike the Go-On Wings- they don’t think it through first, and that can be a power unto itself when used correctly. Though initially cheering for Hiramekimedes, the Go-Onger are suddenly enraged when they learn that he betrayed their trust, and they engage the grown Bouseki Banki with Engine Gattai Engine-Oh and Engine Gattai Gunbir-Oh. Though fueled by the betrayal and waste of their earlier efforts to grant the “dying” Hiramekimedes’ last request, Jumbwhale decides that now is the time for the Go-On Wings to formally join with the Go-Onger as a single team since they finally understand the deviousness of the Ban KiZoku Gaiarc. Therefore, he recommends that the three Engine gattai put to good use the new modifications that were secretly carried out by Bomper and him earlier to all nine Engine Casts...
G9 Formation! Engine Gattai!
Hiramekimedes is stunned that the Go-Onger can make a new and even-larger gattai, which was not part of his carefully-laid plans to restore honor to himself and the Gaiarc. Indeed, as Engine-Oh G9 blasts high into the air, Speedor comments that the Wing Clan’s contribution of power is amazing. The Go-Onger and Go-On Wings change their control columns into Handle Blasters and insert their Blaster Souls into both them and the Wing Boosters. As Hiramekimedes retreats in shame and humiliation at the last moment, Engine-Oh G9 uses the combined power of all nine Engines to destroy Bouseki Banki with the G9 Grand Prix.
“Engine-Oh G9: Tune up!”
Engine-Oh G9 (back) is the next super-combo seen in the series after the Engine Gattai Engine-Oh G6, comprised now of nine Engine components. As with Engine-Oh G6, this newer and larger super-combo appears not even at the half-way point of the series, but has the distinction of being only the second nine-part combo in Super Sentai (the first being the Chou Gougou Gattai Super DaiBouken from 2006’s “Gougou Sentai Boukenger”). However, unlike the Super DaiBouken, the Engine-Oh G9’s weakness is that it appears as nothing more than a bunch of Engines casually stacked on top of one other with no real sense of combining beyond physically touching each other. While Buson, Birca, Gunpherd, & Carrigator remain completely unchanged between this and the earlier Engine-Oh G6, Bear RV disposes of the V shield attached to the back to make way for Jumbwhale to snap in place. (The V Shield, however, is now delegated to- heh- ‘rear guard’ for the new combo- a useless and obstructive plastic lump hanging off Engine-Oh G9’s backpack to swing freely in the breeze.) With Jettoras now contributing his wings to form Engine-Oh G9’s head, Toripter swaps his tail to become stylized airman’s goggles & additional armor for Speedor on the chest! Additionally, Toripter’s rotors slide together to form two blades rather than their standard four. Engine-Oh G6/Gunbir-Oh’s head/helmet piece attaches to the back of Jumbwhale’s undercarriage, which effectively buries it in the super combo while at the same time preventing extra unused pieces from lying around after Engine-Oh G9 is formed. The boxy engines from Jumbwhale separate from beneath his wings and become additional heel supports along the back of Carrigator’s two halves, thus helping to off-set the new four-winged backpack. (Unlike Engine-Oh G6, this combo rests better on carpet despite the additional weight on its back.) Adding these heel supports, unfortunately, prevents most of the wheels on the bottom of the feet from rolling like they used to. On the new winged backpack, however, Jumbwhale’s head is once more turned around so that his eyes are covered (just the same as with his separate Jet Mode), but the light from his Engine Soul is no longer covered-up and can now be easily seen beneath the left upper wing. Remember those holes along the inside of Engine-Oh’s black upper arms that I couldn’t figure out what their use was for? Well, the answer is here... Beneath both Jettoras and Toripter are black pegs which fold down. Then, with Engine-Oh’s arms now folding outwards, the pegs are inserted into the holes, thus perching Jettoras and Toripter atop the left and right arms respectively. With the addition of the three Wing Clan Engines along the top of the shoulders and back, posing becomes even more limited than before- what little there was to begin with! While the shoulders can still twist up and down, and Birca/Gunpherd can twist at their connection joints as usual, Toripter and Jettoras are just tall enough that they bump into Jumbwhale’s light-gray wings on the backpack. This means, now, that the arms are restricted to only 45-degrees upward motion before being forced to remain there! The only remedy to this is to carefully move the wings and Toripter & Jettoras around (separate things if you wish) until the arms can be pointed 90-degrees upwards. (Ironically, with further fiddling, the arms can continue all the way around to 180-degrees from where they started, but will not go any further. Fortunately, Toripter’s rotor can be removed, but the fact that you have to fight the arms like this to begin with....) With patience, the pose for the G9 Grand Prix finisher can be achieved to somewhat success. Needless to say, this sucks!
Okay, these Engine combos have just reached the point of ridiculousness. We knew that Toripter and Jettoras were blocks of plastic, so any larger combo might not fare well with them. That is proven here. While adding the goggles to Speedor was an odd choice (they don’t really look like goggles anyways, even though they cover just his eyes and the top of his head), it was by simply plunking the two Engines on top of the shoulders that pissed me off. And though they took great paints to hide Engine-Oh G6’s helmet in the backpack (why not?), they left Toripter’s still-free-turning rotor awkwardly on top of him, and then just let the V Shield hang of the back of the combo literally as if they didn’t care! Adding the engine pods to the back of the heels as supports is nice even though it just clutters things up down there a bit more. However, having four wings on the backpack (well... two wings and two sets of rocket engines) instead in a most-decidedly “X”-formation was a cool idea rather than just having one large pair of wings by merely recreating Jumbwhale’s Jet Mode on the back, so props there. (Again, having both halves of Jumbwhale’s tail turning instead of just the flukes would have helped a lot here too.) As a word of caution, though, I would strongly advise against picking up the toy from just the backpack and wings- those three small connection points between Jumbwhale, Speedor, & Bear RV are not that capable, and will snap it off quickly. This, of course, is another reason why I don’t like the V Shield down there- you can’t reach under properly to grab at it back there without bumping into it. (Huh- for that matter, it’s kinda hard to decide where to actually pick it up! Maybe grab one of the legs, or just above the hips...) Make no mistake, though- this is a heavy toy, nearly 12lbs! (Pick-up a gallon-and-a-half of milk, and you’ll get a rough idea how much this thing weighs.) I think I see a trend going here for the DX toys from “Engine Sentai Go-Onger”: the individual Engines are hit-and-miss depending on your personal taste; the Engine gattai are good-and-bad mixed up cleverly; and then the super combos are not that awesome beyond the ridiculous simplicity of stacking components to make them, their weight, and their unbelievable dimensions. ...At least all the Engine Souls can be activated on the Engine Gattai Engine-Oh G9 even if they can’t all be removed in this state. (That’s good, right? *shrugs*)
. . .
One thing is nagging at me, though, when I look at this: there are still some holes and pegs that haven’t been used on these DX-sized Engines yet, and we’re only at episode 22 out of a planned 50...
Posted 16 September, 2009 - 02:11 by EVA_Unit_4A |
Comments
15 comments postedI thought this was insanity. It's like packing random lego parts together, you feel no sense or amazingness in it and this problem in my opinion goes as far as to Hurricane and Aba Rangers. Before, everything was fine and the combinations didn't seem to be forced.
Seriously, would you display them is such form? Besides, the Go-Ongers don't have this nice humanoid feel like older combiners have. And just as I thought G9 was absurd already, then comes something even more scary...
I really admire your courage and willingness to buy these toys on and on, Eva.
Well, um- "courage" had nothing to do with my decision to cover this. I had Jumbwhale and everything else so I kinda needed to cover it.
Actually, it takes up less shelf space if I store it in G9 Formation. That way, I only have to worry about the Engine DaiShougun, Go-Roader GT, and MantanGun.
Dude- Super Sentai lost its old-school-robos style years ago, around the time of "GoGo-V" in 1999. Pretty much everything since has been dedicated to limb-swapping and gimmicks.
I won't commit now, but I think the newest series has been spied online...? The Red ranger is covered in 5-point stars, and has a TimeRanger feel
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CollectionDX Staff
Shinkenger's super merges are better than this.
Is the Daikai Shinken-Oh the last combo for the year? Seems odd to end it in July, but there don't seem to be any more unused joints on the toys so far...
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CollectionDX Staff
Personally I'd have thought not.
If the general pattern holds we're probably getting something new when the episodes reach the mid-30s.
I agree that there doesn't seem to be anything they can add to the current 10 part gattai. We could hope that this means an old-school carrier mecha, but somehow I doubt that, maybe a second five-part gattai that has its own transformation features with Kabuto, Kajiki, Tora and Ebi Origami. Worst case scenario is we get something like SaiDai-Oh or DaiVoyager that doesn't really do much of anything outside of its own transformation.
"Worst case scenario is we get something like SaiDai-Oh or DaiVoyager that doesn't really do much of anything outside of its own transformation."
...or MagiLegend.
Dear God above- PLEASE don't ever let them make one of those again-! ;_;
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CollectionDX Staff
Y'know MagiLegend didn't even occur to me. I think my brain had gone out of its way to repress the memories of that one. On the other hand they could take the DekaWingRobo approach.
I'm not sure that's why I ask? What I find funny about this combiner is the faces on the cars, silly, yellow bellybot with eyes, blue crotchbot with eyes. The toy design is out of control pieces sticking out all over the place. "Watch it kid you'll poke your eye out." This guy wouldn't be much of a fighter in the robot world just push him over see if can stand back up.
Truthfully, the eyes-thing doesn't bother me as much. More like things like Jettoras and Toripter just perched-out on the shoulders like birds, the giant flat feet, and the G-D mudflap.
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CollectionDX Staff
Well, it could be said I'm in the minority since I love everything in Go-onger up to G12. I may be biased since it was the first sentai I watched.
And don't worry; Shinkenger will have it's own dose of super cluster combination with the fourth mecha Mogyu Dai-Oh and the 11 part combination Samurai Ha-Oh.
I personally don't like the figures separately. I keep all of them in G12 formation. I thought g6 and g9 were blocks of plastic you couldn't do anything with. At least g12 looks nice for a lump of plastic.
I don't know about Shinkenger from what I have seen so far, it will be a lot like MaxOhja from abaranger. I have all the figures up until now and it looks like it is going the way of a lump of plastic. And I really do not care much for DaikaiShinkenoh. Daivoyager looks better.
Yeah I dont like how the 'birds' just sit on the shoulders.. don't seem like they fill any purpose.. and just like you said just stacked on.
I've got the G12 candy toy set and its massive (I don't have the space or money to get the DX versions) but its not really playable.. Its too complicated and things fall off when trying to pose.. so its basically a statue. I missed out on the Engine DaiShougun :(
So far for Shinkenger, the Tenku Shinken-Oh is horrible in candy toy form.. I have yet to get Ika & Ebi so I can't enjoy Daikai Shinken-Oh yet.. I'll get them when DaiGoyou comes out..
Toripter and Jetoras are basically shoulder guns in this formation.
I actually kinda like what was done with them in this combo. They're being used as shoulder-mounted weapons systems, with Jetoras' Torahawk missile launcher and Toripter's forward batteries having a clear field of fire ahead when the arms are straight. You could easily load and fire Jetoras' launcher on the toy in this combo.
I know you've said in the past that you're not interested in the Dino Engines. Has that changed at all in the wake of the rubbish train mecha ToQger offered? Kishamoth and even the gimped BoA Mammoth Paleozord had working side-rods, while the ToQger stuff..