Dave's DinoZaurs Rant:

     Ultimate Cerazaur Pack (Dino Styrako, Dino Toro, Dino Centro)

     Well, I decided to play a hunch and returned to the town's one TRU
today, figuring that after I wiped out the one box they had out the other
day, they might have gone and brought another box out of the back.  And I was
right...so I snagged the Cerazaur set (aka Ceratops Brothers in Japan).

CAPSULES

     I'll do individual Capsules in case anyone's tempted by some of the solo
packs available from import sites.

     DinoToro, DinoCentro: Unstable and oddly proportioned in both modes, but
reasonably interesting transformations for Basic-size toys.  Their weapons
are massively oversized, though, and don't plug in very well.  Very mildly
recommended.  
     DinoStyrako: So-so beast mode, okay robot mode and transformation.  His
sword is even MORE disproportionately large than the other two.  I *think*
there's a gimmick, but if so it's pretty lame.  Mildly recommended.
     Cerazaur Set: Three mediocre robots form a so-so combiner, which isn't
actually taller than Styraco, just wider and less poseable.  Mildly
recommended.  $20 at TRU.

RANTS

DinoToro - 

     Beast mode is a Torosaur, an exceptionally long-horned relative of the
Triceratops.  5" (13cm) long, with dark tan bones and translucent green body,
plsu chrome orange-gold skull.  The front legs are overly long and jointed,
and there really isn't a good position for them, although it comes in a very
bad position in the box (which holds true for the others...they're all
clearly mistransformed in the box).  The hind legs just have hip joints, and
have big claw/toes hanging off the back.  The tail is removable, but not
movable.  There's a little movement to the head.  The whole assembly is kinda
wobbly, with the back held on only by a loose tab.  The instructions point
out that you can store the "Blade of Titanium" on its back, but the blade is
5.5" (14cm) long, longer than its body.  The sword also has an odd pommel
shape that implies that it's meant to plug in somewhere, but I couldn't find
an obvious place (although it can fit into a slot on the beast's back and
become a fourth really big horn).
     Transformation is reminiscent of Lioconvoy's, although of course
simplified.  
     The robot mode looks like a stunted demon, with the big horns and the
short cloven-footed legs.  Not counting the horns, he stands 4" (10cm) tall,
and the horns add another inch.  The legs are posable at the hips and to some
extent the ankles, and look too short.  The arms and hands have pretty good
poseability, and there's a little bit of swivel at the waist.  The beast back
bits hanging off the right shoulder tend to impede poseability some,
however.   The sword pegs into either palm, but not easily or very well, as
if the sizes weren't carefully matched.
     Undocumented feature: the tail can be removed and held in the hand as an
extra sword/dagger.  If not removed, it acts as a third leg and you can jack
Toro up by a quarter inch or so, half an inch if you have him lean back a
bit.  He's actually not that badly proportioned when jacked up like this, but
his feet look like he's tip-toe-ing.
     Transformation to Arm mode is pretty simple.  Turn the head and hide the
face, fold the arms against the chest, peg the "knees" against the tail and
pull down the toes to form claws.  Can be a left arm or a right arm,
depending on which way you point the beast head, but is meant to be a right
arm.  UF: Can be attached to DinoStyrako's beast mode, giving it weird mutant
claws.  

DinoCentro - 

     Red metallic bones and red chrome skull, with a different bone frill,
less back plates and some other cosmetic differences.  Otherwise identical to
DinoToro.  Moldwise, the head and shoudler pieces of the robot modes are
different, the rest is the same mold.  His weapon is a big battleaxe or
bardiche called a "Bone Chopping Axe."  In fact, they use the same
instructions to the point that the DinoCentro instructions accidentally refer
to the Blade of Titanium.

DinoStyrako - 

     Once you figure out how to undo the bad transformation it has in the
package, it's not a bad looking Styracosaur, although it has some wobbly
bits, notably the backplate and the frill.  It's 9" (23cm) long, 4.5" (11cm)
tall at the arch of the back and 6.5" (16cm) tall at the top of the frill.
Assuming, of course, that you stand it straight-legged with the rear kneecaps
forward.  The limited poseability of the rear legs is increased by the
tendency of the joints to stick pretty hard.  The shoulders have big logs on
them for the shoulder connectors of Cerazaur, and they supposedly lock down,
but I find little difference in behavior between locked and unlocked
positions.  Oh, colors are translucent green with tan bones and gold skull.
     Transformation to robot mode is pretty simple, swinging the head down
and manipulating the limbs mainly.  The instructions imply the tail detaches
(some later steps show the robot without the tail), but it's not only screwed
in place, it's also glued.
     The robot mode is 7" (18cm) to where the top of the actual head is, then
add another inch or so for the funny hat formed from the central spine of his
frill.  The rest of the frill forms a cape.  Now, a number of ads I saw for
this toy in its Japanese release bragged about a sword-swinging action
feature, but there's no such feature listed in the instructions here, nor
does there seem to be any sort of missing mass that would have resulted from
removing the feature.  I think it's just that the Bandai America folks
decided it was too lame a gimmick to brag about.  If you lift up the dino
skull, the arms move down in a chopping motion.  Whee.
     Transformation to Cerazaur "everything but the arms" component is fairly
simple, but clever.  The legs spin around so that the back is now the front,
and the dino skull is the chest.  The toes flip around to reveal boots.  The
sides of the frill attach to the shoulders to become rather nifty
shoulderpads, and the robot hands grab onto them to bring the shoulderpads
around to the back.  And the "hat" moves to reveal a different face on the
other side of the head (shades of Gemini from Thundarr).

Cerazaur - 

     Exactly as tall as DinoStyrako's robot mode, for obvious reasons. After
attaching the arms, it's important to pull the shoulder "logs" out to
unlocked position, or what little poseability the arms have will be lost.
The result is a robot 8" (20cm) tall including the funny hat...and 8.5"
(22cm) wide.  Linebackerbot.  The three swords combine to form one that's no
longer than the original, just wider...like the robot.  And it's not
particularly cool looking (unlike Road Caesar's combined sword).  In
addition, the combined weapon is a little too heavy for the clawed hands of
Cerazaur to hold.  Better to have Cerazaur hold a sword in each hand and stow
th remaining one on one of the armzaurs' storage holes.
     While very top-heavy, Cerazaur can handle a decent range of poses.
However, the fact that the toes can't "point" hurts his looks.
     Overall, a comparison to Road Caeser is apt.  While RC was all leg and
no arms, this guy is all arms and not enough legs.  Leg extensions of some
sort would have helped this toy a LOT.  Actually...it's not all arms, it's
all shoulders.  The arms aren't disproportionately long, just stuck out on
pylons.

     So, is it worth buying?  Marginally.  For $20 it's not as good as
Magnaboss or Tripredacus, but it's not total crap either.  If you like
dinosaurs a lot or are just jonesing for a combiner team, it's not a bad
buy.  But it's not a great buy either.

     Dave Van Domelen, kinda horrified that he's spent over $80 (including
tax) on DinoZaurs in one weekend....