Grimstone
Review by chachipower
While I am not a fan of Power Core Combiners, this caught my attention due to the Dinobots relation. In fact I was such as non-fan of PCC's that it wasn't until I got the Grimstone release that I realized that these sets were comprised of one main robot and a bunch of drone vehicles or animals in Grimstone's case. I always assumed they were all made up of vehicles that individually transformed into robots that combine to form an even bigger robot.
Grimstone comes in the usual PCC box that displays the figures in a separated fashion.
Before I get to the main robot, I will start with the drones so I have something good to talk about in the end. I don't get this whole drone thing. I would have preferred having these be able to turn into robots individually.
Here we have Parasaurolophus . He makes up one of Grimstone's arms. He has ball jointed T-Rex style mini hands which is the only articulated part of this figure.
Here is Spinosaurus. He makes up Grimstone's other arm. This one however actually has two points of articulation. His tail swings up and down (for transformation purposes) and his mouth opens.
This is Ankylosaurus who makes up one of the legs. Again, this super limited in its articulation. Legs do not move at all aside from the movement required for transformation.
Here is Pachycephalosaurus who makes up his other leg. His only articulation is his hands which move together up and down. You can kind of fake some articulation by moving his tail that in turn makes his head bob up and down.
Although very limited in their articulation, the engineering thrown into their design is pretty neat. So how can such in-articulated figures have such engineering? Well, these are made to automatically transform when plugged into the main robot using Automorph Technology. The act of connecting them to the main robot, sets forth an automatic transformation into their limb modes.
The Commander robot is known as Grimstone is actually the best part of the whole package. Hasbro lists him as a Triceratops, although dinosaur guys will argue that he is a Styracosaurus. This is by far the best dinosaur mode of the bunch. You can actually move its limbs,
His robot ,mode although on the stubby side is also pretty cool especially after dealing with the boring drones for the past few minutes.
When Grimstone combines with the Dinobot drones, you are left with, well...Grimstone with Dinobots. He looks like a Taco Bell kitchen exploded on him.
It's a very busy-looking figure to say the least. I am not a fan at all of weird, highly asymmetrical combiners that just make the eyes wander aimlessly across different parts of the figure, but I think I'll keep this in my collection for now, if only for the fact that they are Dinobots. Otherwise, not necessarily a must have.
Posted 5 January, 2011 - 22:44 by chachipower |
Comments
13 comments postedI thought I'm the only one who hate PCC designs. This is the company that design Brave series, one of the best combiner in history of geekness for God's sake. I only bought Huffer because the homage to targetmaster.
That second one looks more like a dimetrodon, which technically isn't a dinosaur. And that's fine. I just felt like flexing my nerdiness this morning.
Yes, apparently Hasbro doesn't know much about dinosaurs but since that's what it says on the box, it's official for this bot unfortunately
Youch, that is one ugly bot. But at least it seems intentionally ugly?
dinosaur!!
This is the only one I'll be getting, 'cause I just think it's hilarious to have a robot thats composed of robotic dinosaurs. Yeah, I suppose the Megazord is the same, but it doesn't look like this. It's like they all jumped into each other! I love it!
Easily a much better figure than the LAST time Hasbro tried combining Dinobots.
Look up a figure called "Mega-Dinobot" from the Transformers: Energon toyline; it's a hideous trainwreck.
Just saw Mega Dinobot... it's a cramp of dinosaurus robot... that sucks, man... This Dinobot is a masterpiece compare to that trainwrecks
Until Fansproject can get established as a legit company, it looks like Takara is still the leader in combining robots. Magmatron was a great dino-orgy, no individual bot modes, though. I think Railracer was their best full on combiner ever.
I've seen this one, and just can't bring myself to commit to the PCCs, in fact I see a LOT of the PCCs piling up at stores. I think Hasbro's listening, between Generations/Reveal the Shield giving us characters we actually want to see done in modern toys (still waiting on my Voyager Class, Nick Roche LSoTW inspired Springer or an actual IMPACTOR). They're giving us Combiners again but the final look of the PCCs leaves a lot to be desired.
It reminds me of one of those wacky mugenbine figures.
The only reason why I'd like to get this is it looks like my original combiner design. I need to see if a spare Voltron Blazing Sword will fit the hand and it'll be perfect.
Mighty Morbid Power Rangers
Anyways, in case you want to dispatch that thing, My shelve still has a space. LOL!