Dave's DinoZaurs Rant:

     DinoTyranno Ultimate Pack - includes DinoArch and DinoPachy
     DinoBrachio Ultimate Pack - includes DinoKenty and DinoSaber
     Drago Draconus Ultimate Pack - includes DragoTigra

     Found these on the top shelf at Toys R Us yesterday (like, 12 feet off
the floor), someone had already gotten the Cerazaurs pack and I didn't feel
like dropping $20 to just get Drago Wing.  However, since I'd never bought
DinoBrachio initially, that meant I only got two doubles in this buy
(DinoTyranno itself, and DinoSaber).
     These come in big windowless boxes, six to a case (I think the Tyranno
pack is doubled up on).  The toys are imbedded in styrofoam inside.

CAPSULES

     DinoTyranno Pack - Contains two new toys.  DinoTyranno's pretty good on
its own.  DinoArch, a sea turtle, is very nice for its size, and DinoPachy is
so-so.  The weapon attachment method is clever.  Recommended.  $20 at Toys R
Us.  And yes, I know the toy is called Dino T-Rex, but I like the old name
better. 
     DinoBrachio Pack - Only has one new toy.  DinoBrachio is a mass of
dinokibble pushed to his back in robot mode.  DinoSaber is okay.  DinoKenty
is kinda neat, but not enough to justify buying this pack on its own.
Neutral.  $20
     Drago Draconus Pack - Only one new toy, but it's a biggie.  Draconus has
a very simplistic transformation, essentially a head swap and some limb
repositioning, but the 22" (56cm) wingspan has an appeal of its own.  And it
looks rather nice standing atop my monitor.  DragoTigra is just a recolor of
DinoSaber with a bad remolded face, although the chrome use is nice and
subtle.  Mildly recommended.  $20

RANTS

     I've already reviewed DinoTyranno and DinoSaber, which also brings in
DragoTigra.  I'll include those original files at the bottom of this post for
completeness.

DinoArch - 

     Originally called ShieldSaurus, DinoArch is a sea turtle fossil 3.5"
(9cm) long and with a finspan of 5.5" (14cm).  The colors are translucent
golden yellow, plus both chrome and non-chrome purple.  It actually looks
pretty good despite that.  The turtle mode is very well done, with only the
big ribcage required for weapon mode connection spoiling its lines.  The tail
and part of the spine can flip up to act as an attack blade in this mode,
although it's fairly useless in the other two modes.
     Transformation to shield mode is trivial.  The fore flippers are
removable and can peg in place differently to hide them.  Then it's just a
matter of using the clip-ribcage to latch onto the forearm of one of the
larger Dinos.  Because of the flexibility the clip gives you over tabs and
holes, DinoArch can be used by a large number of figures, so long as their
forearms are no more than half an inch (1.5cm) thick.
     Transformation to robot mode isn't too hard either, and is vaguely
reminiscent of Razorclaw's transformation.  When transforming back to turtle
mode, everything fits together quite nicely.
     DinoArch's robot mode is well-proportioned and stands a little over 4"
(11cm) tall, with good poseability.  The large shoulders are blocked somewhat
by the shell on his back, however, and the elboes are sort of sideways.  On
the plus side, the legs are great, with univeral hips, mid-thigh swivels,
ball knees and ball ankles, all reasonably stiff.  The turtle flippers become
swords.
     Overall, if this were available separately, I'd be Strongly Recommending
it, it's a very clever small toy.  It's not worth $20 on its own, though.

DinoPachy - 

     Originally called SwordSaurus, this is a Pachycephalosaur, or "head
butter" dino.
     Beast mode is decently proportioned, but suffers the common DinoZaurs
problem of having a gimpy neck, since necks tend to be more soft tissue than
anything else.  From chromed dome to tail tip, it's 7" (18cm) long and stands
about 4.5" (12cm) tall at the head from the floor.  The colors are a lighter
translucent gold than DinoArch's, and a combination of metallic and chrome
cyan.  The head is chromed and initially looks like the jaw shoudl open, but
it does not, and don't try it.  The beast mode has good poseability, and it
can be posed in ramming configuration without overbalancing.  Additionally,
there's a spring inside the head so the head can be pushed back and spring
out.
     Transformation to sword mode is a simple matter of getting the limbs
folded away against the body, although you have to unclip the neck in order
to open the ribcage jaws and grab onto someone's arm.  The toy's tail is a 4"
(10cm) long sword blade.  The weapon can potentially be reversed to use the
Pachy head as a punching weapon, but the sword is likely to get tangled in
the wielder's kibble.
     Transformation to robot mode has a nice twist (literally) with the
torso, but is otherwise just pulling the dino head and tail out of the way
and repositioning the limbs.
     DinoPachy's robot mode stands 4" (10cm) tall with a big sword sticking
out of its hindquarters.  The arms have universal shoulder joints and that's
it.  The legs have ball hips, hinge knees and ball ankles, while the head is
unmovable.  The whole upper body can swing back and forth so DinoPachy can
slash with its claws.
     All in all, though, not too impressive in robot mode, but with a nice
dino mode.  If available individually, it would be Recommended.

DinoKenty - 

     A Kentrosaur (sort of a spiky cousin to Stegosaur), it was originally
named DrillSaurus as a toy.
     Kenty is 6.5" (17cm) long and 3" (8cm) high at the shoulder plates, made
from translucent golden plastic with metallic and chrome dark blue.  Very
little poseability in this mode, and don't try to move the head, it's glued
into position.  The gimmick for this toy is a drilling action on the tail.
By turning a pair of spines at the base of the tail like a crank, you make
the rest of the tail spin around.  This toy has some kibble problems with its
attachment clip...it already has a ribcage, so the clip forms a *second*
ribcage hanging under the stomach.  Oops.
     Transformation to weapon mode is just moving the limbs out of the way.
It's difficult to get it into place on DinoBrachio's arm, due to that toy's
horrendous levels of kibble in robo mode.
     Transformation to robot mode is actually fairly complex, but not
frustrating.  However, it leaves a the robot mode with a lot of problems.
     DinoKenty is 4.5" (11cm) tall in robot mode, and 6" (15cm) across.  He
is Captain Shoulderpads, and this gets in the way of his shoulders.  His
elbows bend backwards...the robot fists are molded onto the heels of the
front feet of the dino mode, so he essentially has no elbows as a robot.  He
has ball hips and knees, but no ankle joints.  He also has a big bustle
sticking out his rear, his attachment clip.
     Overall, not too great, probably the weakest of the WeaponSaurs.  And as
the only new "draw" in his pack, not enough to justify buying it if you don't
also want DinoBrachio (which, as I will shortly explain, you don't).

DinoBrachio - 

     The only mold I didn't get in some form originally, so I felt better
about buying the new Ultimate pack...didn't have to decide whether to buy a
$20 pack for one new toy.  However, it turns out I was right to avoid this
toy up to now.
     Dino mode is 9.5" (24cm) long and 8" (20cm) tall, a Brachiosaur (like a
Brontosaur).  Translucent blue plastic body with gold metallic and chrome
bones.  Poseability is so-so...a little motion in the neck and tail, legs
move a bit (rear legs are attached at mid-thigh!).  The robot's axe is
supposed to store in the tail, but there's no obvious way to do this, and the
instructions don't particularly help.  There's a gimmick in this mode, a
lever on the front of the neck that makes the neck move.  If a switch on back
is down, then moving the lever makes the neck jerk quickly a little.  If
down, in theory the lever makes the neck spin around, but the construction is
too cheap for this to work reliably, and you can just feel the gears
stripping.  It helps if you push the neck a little as you push the lever.
The axe can attach to the underside of the head to slash as the neck spins.
     Transformation is trivial.  Open the guts and shove all the kibble to
the back.  It has some frustrating bits where parts don't want to slide over
each other.  The tail tip is supposed to fold completely into the rest of the
tail if the instructions are to believed...but it doesn't.
     The robot mode stands 7" (18cm) tall at the head, and is a bit taller if
you count the kibble.  The beasts head acts as a third leg to help support
the weight of all the dinobits on his back.  Ball joints on shoulders,
elbows, wrists, hips, knees and ankles, plus swivel neck and waist.  The
small golden axe that comes with the toy doesn't stay very tightly in the
hands, probably due to substitution of plastics in the molds, or just poor
quality control (it fits okay in the right but flops around in the left on
mine).  
     Overall, the worst of the large DinoZaurs, with way too much kibble
getting in the way in robot mode, a simplistic transformation and a gimmick
that doesn't really work.

Drago Draconus -

     Okay, this one is BIG.  A mass of silver chrome, translucent grey and
various non-translucent greys, with a wingspan of 22" (56cm) in either mode.
It's packaged in robot mode, but I'll start with beast mode anyway.
     This is a somewhat humanoid dragon that hunches about 7.5" (18cm) tall,
with the aforementioned wide wings and a long tail that can lash side to side
a bit.  The torso is a solid block, connected inflexibly to the upper half of
the tail and locked into the lower neck.  The shoulders are universal joints
that look bad if you bring the arms out from the sides.  The elbows are
swivels or limited ball joints with very little poseability, although the
wrists for the big claws are on ball joints.  The hips are ratcheting
swivels, and the knees are hinges, as are the ankles.  The wings have
ratcheting hinges at their bases, and very stiff and large non-ratcheting
hinges a few inches out from the base.  The head is on a ball joint, and the
jaw opens.  There's armor panels on the hips that fall off easily, and the
instructions even say to just put them back on when they fall off.  On the
forearms are extendable rubbery blades that barely reach past the claws.
     Transformation is a head swap, a tail bend and limb reposing, plus an
optional cloaking.  When going to dragon mode, there's a spring gimmick that
pops the dragon head out automatically, but it's nothing to write home
about.  
     Robot mode stands 9" (23cm) tall with a face like a gothic cathedral,
and way too little paint on it.  The tail of the dragon mode only bends at
the halfway point, so he is essentially a tripod.  His wings are designed to
fodl around him like a cloak, but this only looks good from the front, it's
not a full body cloak like Minitron's.
     Overall, it feels like a rush job to get out a big toy.  It certainly is
impressive in the right pose, but it doesn't have as much play value as it
could.  And it falls apart in some places too easily to be satisfying for a
little kid.  Would be Mildly Recommended on its own.

     Dave Van Domelen, and now for the old Rants....


DINOZAUR: Dino Sabre
Beast Mode: Sabretooth Tiger
Weapon: Thrasher Whip

     This guy was secured to his bubble by six twist-ties, an impressive
number for such a small toy.  He was also not quite correctly transformed in
the package, his bubble being molded so that his tail had to be pulled back a
bit.  This seems to be a recurring problem, as I had to actually pop apart
bits on Drago Stegus to get him back in his package.

     Beast Mode: 5" (12cm) from snout to tail tip, 2" (5cm) high at the
shoulder.  Mostly done in clear red and yellow plastic, with some opaque red
plastic (spine, tail, feet) and a chromed red head.  Looks really good when
backlit.  Oddly, the tail and spine are slightly different colors, probably a
result of iffy production values.  All limbs are fully poseable, although his
hind legs' knees bend the wrong direction (you can fix this, but it requires
popping off the rear paws and realigning them).  Shoulder/hip joints are very
stiff, as a result of having clear plastic against clear plastic.  Jaw opens
and closes.  The neck piece rests on a peg that seems to be designed to keep
it from flopping down in beast mode, but the peg doesn't hold onto anything.

     Transformation: Stand it up, shorten the torso to reveal the head,
fiddle with limbs.  Basically that's it.  Unless you fixed the rear legs in
beast mode, in which case you need to unfix them.

     Beast Mode: 4.5" (11cm) tall, as advertised.  Looks really neat.
However, his head tends to pop back down at the tiniest force, as it's not
really locked into place.  His elbows do not straighten, as their ball joints
are rigged the same cruddy way as TMII Cheetor's.  His hands are jointed as
paws, so they don't work that well as hands, especially considering how his
tail whip plugs into a slot along his palm.  The whip doesn't really hold in
very well, and it feels like really cheesy plastic.

     Overall: Looks really good, but has a lot of little problems.  If you
only want to get one 4.5" DinoZaur, get one of the Pterodactyls.


Dino T-Rex - 

     This looks like a classic case of the designers of the toy and the
designers of the package not being on the same page.  The toy is packaged
(with a couple twist-ties) in the "classic" T.rex pose, with the tail used as
a third leg.  However, the way the neck vertebrae section is hinged, it's
obvious the toy is not meant to look down as in the "classic" pose.  Rather,
it's supposed to stand in the "modern" pose, with spine horizontal and tail
used for balance.

     Beast Mode: 11" (28cm) long from snout to tail tip, with the spine
itself 5" (13cm) off the ground.  Speaking of the spine, the chrome middle
section is removable, but like the other toys, this appears to be accidental,
not intentional.  Too cheap to use a squirt of glue, I guess.  The bones vary
from vacuum-metalized chrome (head, central spine, upper tail, legs) to
metallic plastic (duller than chrome, on lower tail) to grey plastic (ribs,
neck, arms).  The rest is a rather nice looking clear red plastic.  
     This is a very fat T.rex.  The belly is lower and wider than it should
be (especially wider) to accomodate the robot mode arms.  The head is
somewhat poseable, although some positions will leave the neck bones behind.
The tail has multiple joined discs that let is thrash back and forth, plus
some little grips at the base that let you make it thrash.  The stiff tail
tip pops open for sword storage, although the sword sticks out the end in
beast mode and looks a little doofy.  The hind legs are reasonably poseable,
if a bit widely separated.  One nice touch is that the heels are only clear
plastic, so the bone part is walking on its toes, as a T.rex should.  The
only really disappointing part of the beast mode is the puny forearms.  Oh,
they should be puny, this is a T.rex after all.  But they're only pegged on,
and fall off easily.

     Transformation: Very simple, the "hot dog in a bun" style.  Fold out the
torso halves, move the arms and legs into position, flip down the beast head
and pop out the robot head, and that's about it.  There's a few of the
touches typical of the line, like the hips coming closer together in robot
mod, and the tail just hinging back out of the way.  The chest actually is
split apart, and the lower jaw of the beast head fills in the gap.  This
results in a chest that's not QUITE so obviously a rack for the beast head.
     As usual, the instructions are great.  Clear drawings of each step, and
separate inset boxes warning of things you need to be sure to do when
transforming back to beast mode.  One small sheet conveys more information
than the average big fold-out Ultra Beast instructions do.  About all it
doesn't say is that excessive force may be required to unseat his hips when
going back to beast mode.

     Robot Mode: 6.5" (17cm) tall.  Yeesh, we finally get an actual 6.5"
figure, and it's one of the so-called 8" figures.  Anyway, VERY nice looking
in this mode, his "wings" are more dynamic than those of the other Dinos, and
combined with the tail it looks kinda like he's standing in front of a huge
upside-down Canadian flag.
     His joints, including the tail, are stiff, and he can stand with good
stability with his tail not touching the ground, which is fairly impressive.
Thanks to the way his chest works, the dino head doesn't stick out too much
(like, say, Dino-Mammoth or Dino-Tricera).  His shoulders contain three
joints each, one of them a swivel to compensate for his elbow just being a
hinge.  It's a little blocked by his shoulderpads, however, as the bone
details on his upper arms get caught up.  His fists rotate at the wrists.
His hips are ball joints, his knees are somewhat limited hinges, and his
ankles are very limited ball joints.  His head turns a little to either side,
and his tail still thrashes.
     His sword is a flimsy little grey thing that folds in half to store in
his tail.  His fists accept a 1/8" peg or slightly larger, which means that
the hopefully-upcoming weaponsaurs (Swordsaurus, Shieldsaurus and Drillsaurus
in Japan) will have 1/8" pegs.  So start checking your BW figures for peg
holes of that size.  }->

     Funky Mode: Okay, this one's just for fun.  It's possible to transform
him so that his robot arms stick out of his belly in beast mode, so he can
hold his sword.  You can also pop out his robot head her so he looks like
some kind of weird half-transformed dinobot.
     Another undocumented feature involves leaving his tail popped open while
thrashing it.  The bone piece sticking out the end makes a nice thresher.
Especially if you attach the sword to it and have that add another few
inches.  

     Overall: Well, it's a bit simplistic, and it could use more color.  But
that's true of the whole line (almost everything is two-colors-plus-eyes).
It's pretty sturdy, looks good, and is worth the price.