Dave's Beast Wars II Rant: Cyborg Beasts Hellscream (Cybershark) Max B (K-9...not Wolfang) Thrustol (Dinobot) Dirgegun (Waspinator) Oddly, shipping by sea from Japan over the holidays took about half the time it took me to get a shipment over the summer. Go figure. Since these are all remolds (originals above in parentheses), I won't be doing my usual exhaustive reviews. See reviews of the original toys at http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Phase1/, my "Classic" Beast Wars page. Cybershark and K-9 should be near the bottom, Dinobot and Waspinator near the top. So...these are remolds. The price in Japan is 2200 Yen each, roughly $20 for altered Deluxes. Are they worth it, ignoring for the moment that they're Japanese exclusives? Hard to say for sure without knowing the level of inflation in Japan right now, but I'd say they're closer to being worth $15. Each is a Deluxe with enough extra stuff to probably merit a Mega price, but that's about it. As a result, I'll be ignoring price when I give recommendations in the Capsules...after all, if you're looking to buy Japanese imports, you're ready to spend money, yes? CAPSULES Hellscream: Slightly cheaper plastic (a problem that seems to be endemic to the line), good add-on parts, better coverage of robot kibble in beast mode, better use of beast parts in robot mode (all compared to the original Cybershark). Strongly Recommended, like Cybershark. Max B: Nifty weapon add-ons, same good transformation as K-9 without the mutant head problem, but the plastic quality has a more marked effect on this toy. Recommended. Thrustol: Shares many of Dinobot's problems, but thanks to the cyborg bits his beast mode looks a lot less awkward (although the blade mohawk's a bit silly). Nice extra weapons. Not as stable in robot mode due to the plastic quality. Recommended. Dirgegun: While the remold seems to have cost the beast mode some stability, the robot mode is rock-solid, and plastic quality is not an issue here. Makes excellent use of the mutant head mechanism to truly become a Dirge Gun. Strongly recommended. RANTS DESTRON: Hellscream Formerly: Starscream STR 8 INT 5 SKL 10 END 8 RNK 8 COUR 10 SPD 8 FRP 8 Avg 8.125 Whoa, looks like Screamer got a lobotomy in the transformation, given that he's played the "scheming genius" role in the cartoon (at least as far as I've watched). On the other hand, the lower intelligence could represent his tendency to scheme a little too much, when it's not appropriate. [OOOPS! I goofed and somehow swapped stats. He has INT 10 and COUR 5.] His box has a seafloor pattern inside, and is the longest of the boxes. Unlike the U.S. toys, Takara doesn't try to force all toys of one price point into the same size package. In fact, all four boxes are different shapes and sizes. Placed side-by-side with Cybershark, Hellscream is about an inch longer at 10" (25cm) from snout-axe to tail-fin, and generally gives an impression of size despite only being slightly larger in most directions. His extra- large tail unit wraps around the robot feet and helps cover more of the robot mode parts, but it flops around a bit because the joint holding it to its peg isn't strong enough to keep it steady. Little details like the conning tower built into the dorsal fin make this toy look good in beast mode. The whole cyborg faceplate fires, however, not just the axe-nose, which was a slight disappointment. Transformation is the same as Cybershark's, with one important difference: the tail unit becomes the elbow and forearm of the left arm. This gives him two launchers, chest and arm. The shark headpiece is held as a sort of shield-axe, but there's nowhere on the toy to stow the shield part if you want the axe separate. Unfortunately, all this extra stuff makes the toy top-heavy. And because the plastics used were not the same as in the original design, the tolerances are off a little, especially in the hips, which are floppy. It's a challenge to get Hellscream to stand up on his own, even using the "shark missile as staff" trick. Finally, while the face is similar to Cybershark's in many ways, it's a totally new mold. For colors, this is basically Cybershark with very dark brown plastic replacing the cream colored pieces (limbs, missiles, mechanisms in torso), then darkish green cyborg bits added on. DESTRON: Max B Formerly: BB STR 9 INT 4 SKL 7 END 9 RNK 5 COUR 8 SPD 7 FRP 9 Avg 7.25 Hmmm, given his size as portrayed in the manga, I'd have put him more physically powerful than this. But less intelligent. }-> The beast mode is basically K-9 with a new tail, new back shield and some cyborg bits molded onto one side of the face and one leg. Mainly grey fur and silver cyborging with purple and red accents, plus a big black mace tail. Like K-9, he's not too poseable in beast mode, with just the rear legs poseable. The complex pegging system that keeps his forelegs together doesn't hold together as well on Max, unfortunately, and the head keeps snapping open. The back shield is now a weapons unit, with a mancatcher claw and missile launcher, both activated by the same button. Unfortunately, the spring is a little dodgy, and sometimes one or both mancatcher arms will slice out during normal handling. Additionally, if the rear legs are posed wrong, they'll block the mancatcher from deploying. It's designed to be held as a weapon, with a peg near the back instead of the shield-like handle found on K-9. It also gives him a launcher in beast mode. The tail launcher has been extended and given an extra handle so that it can also be used as a big morningstar weapon. Basically, Max is all offense and no defense. The weird Leno-chin head is gone totally, replaced by a cyborg head. Unfortunately, this head doesn't move a whole lot, being too big for the position it's placed in. It's nicely sculpted, though. Oh, and the pattern inside the box is of a really big tree. Hmm. }-> DESTRON: Thrustol (as in Pistol) Formerly: Thrust STR 8 INT 6 SKL 6 END 8 RNK 4 COUR 4 SPD 8 FRP 7 Avg 6.375 Thrust's yellow and black color scheme becomes a sort of yellow-brown and gunmetal, in Dinobot's original striping pattern. His tail is totally straight, which looks kinda weird, but it's excusable for all the goodies he has packed in it. First off, there's a missile launcher tucked inside the tail instead of a sword. And the missile can be launched while the tail is closed, handy if you want to just have the robot mode hold the entire tail assembly. The tail still has the original spinning action, enhanced by blade patterns on the stored missile launcher and its missile. And anyone who owns Dinobot or the Grimlock recolor can tell you it's a bear to get that tail to open up if you don't have really strong fingernails...they have convenient tabs on Thrustol's tail for opening. A nice add-on is a machete-style weapon which stores on a peg on one of Thrustol's robot legs, and is tucked between the legs when they form the dino's chest. Because his robot hands are basically the same as Dinobot's, he can only hold this weapon in thrusting position. However, there's holes in the side of the missile launcher which will take the sword as a peg, and you can get a nice spinning blade out of this if you leave the tail closed and insert the sword. Thrustol's head is similar to that of Dinobot II, but the eyepiece is on the right eye, not the left. Unfortunately, nifty as it is in many ways, Thrustol has a few big problems. One is aesthetic: that blade on top of his beast head makes him look like a reject from a Gamera movie monster casting call. Another is structural: his beast head flops around too easily, there's nothing keeping it firmly in place. In addition, his shoulder pieces in robot mode don't stay put too well. Finally, and this may just be my copy, the launcher has a really weak spring...if you point the launcher up, the missile barely clears the launcher. Oddly, the background picture in Thrustol's box is a bunch of ice formations. Maybe the implication is that he's supposed to represent a raptor flash-frozen and preserved in a glacier? DESTRON: DirgeGun Formerly: Dirge STR 7 INT 7 SKL 7 END 7 RNK 5 COUR 3 SPD 9 FRP 7 Avg 6.5 Dirge keeps his blue, grey, silver and hot pink color scheme in this Waspinator rebuild. The wings are a translucent grey with silver paint, and look quite nice. He's also the hardest to get out of package, or back into it. The box background is a view of a tree canopy, looking up. Aside from the cyborg bits, the biggest change in the Waspinator mold was a very creative use of the mutant head mechanism. In Waspinator, the mutant heads are on a spindle that rotates, so one head or the other points up while the other is hidden in the abdomen. For DirgeGun, a second missile launcher is mounted on his back as part of the head spindle, and if you rotate the robot head down 90 degrees, the launcher swings up to make DirgeGun a gun-head! As a result of the mechanical fun needed for this, it's a little hard to lock down his robot head, but not impossible. DirgeGun has the same problem Waspy does as regards his insect legs hanging off his robot arms, but they're just as removable here as they were with Waspy. About the only problem I can see introduced in this version is that the robot forearms don't lock down to the insect body...something was slightly remolded and the tab and slot don't line up properly anymore. None of the joints became floppy as a result of the new plastics, and the fragility problem of the wing sockets seems to have been reduced. Dave Van Domelen, also got the Comics Bon-Bon manga collection as a nice bonus in his trade, so will finally be able to summarize the story he was missing....