BEAST MACHINES: TOY REVIEW

Name: TRICERADON
Allegiance: Maximal
Function: Frontline Combat
Sub-Group: Dinobot
Beast Mode: Triceratops
Price: 10 USD
Note: This toy is a recolour of Guiledart.

BEAST MODE

Height: 9.5cm
Length: 19.5cm
Width: 7cm
Triceradon is a recolour of the Beast Wars Neo toy Guiledart, as part of Hasbro's new "Deluxe Dinobots" line. This sub-line complements the Beast Machines line. So, how did they change Guiledart? Well, Triceradon is a solid brown Triceratops, with dark yellow horns, toes and a large green airbrushed stripe down his back. The stripe ends at his tail base
though, basically cutting off where the tail connects. The beak is also gray. His skin is still moulded with lots of small scales and wrinkles. Absoultely no mould changes were made, except for possibly the copywright text (which I have yet to locate on the toy). He has only 4 joints, at the shoulders and hips, and at the knees also bend a bit on the hind legs. However, it brings the robot legs out of their hiding spots. Very little robot kibble sticks out, mostly around the hindlegs. The right upper robot arm forms the neck, but is moulded to resemble flesh. His tongue also hangs out a bit, and is one of the few Beast Wars toys to have a beast mode tongue.

Gimmick: Flip the small horn on his nose back. This rolls his eyes and the tongue sticks out further. Open the small side panels to reveal ribs and muscles. Pull the tail out a bit to reveal more muscles. It's technically a third mode. This was Guiledart's trap mode and thankfully retained. However, the US instructions cut this out for space reasons (US instructions are printed on the back of the card, wheras Japanese instructions are printed on a booklet), though in all the toy photos on the card, they do their best to hide the ribs hanging off in robot mode.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

The same as Guiledart. Remove the tail, fold the head forward, fold the front legs up and the spikes out of them, fold the entire back plate up, unfold the back legs, snap the hips together, unfold the feet, rotate the waist so he faces forward and position the dino head to form the right arm, the back to form the left shoulder plate, position the remaining panels, and that's it. Unfold the handle in the tail to form his gun.

ROBOT MODE

Height: 11cm
Width: 7cm from shoulder to shoulder. His robot mode again, is identical to Guiledart, aside from colours. All of Guiledart's black parts are now orange, and Triceradon also has a silverish-blue chest, with a silver band and a blue "buckle." He almost seems to be compact in this form, almost as if he wished he were a mega-sized toy. Extreme poses can be hard with all the panels, and the fact the right arm is primarily the Triceratops head, and he has the large growth hanging off his elbow. The left shoudler pad, made from the back and ribs, can also get in the way. Still, he has a total of 18 joints, in his neck, waist, hips, knees, lower knees, ankles, shoulders, elbows, and lots of arm joints needed for the transformation. Since I brought the knees up, he has 2 on each leg, but unlike Transmetal 2 Megatron, one is in the correct place on each leg. The gun can only fit in his left hand though, as the tongue gets in the way of the mouth holding anything. interesting to note that his head looks like he's wearing a helmet based on a Triceratops head, as it has a large horn on the forehead, and 2 small "ears". The face also looks very organic, like Andrew Wildman's artwork in the G1 comics.

Gimmicks: The tail gun fires a missile. Remove one of the missiles from his shoulder pad, load it in the gun and press the button. Be sure to fit the missiles back in the shoudler pad, as they are needed to hold the beast head in place in beast mode.

SPARK CRYSTAL LOCATION

Left side of the gun, near the barrel. The spark is the new green Triceratops skull spark crystal used by the new Dinobots.

OVERALL

Well, if you lived outside Japan and wanted Guiledart, but couldn't afford import prices, it's your chance to check him out, even as a recolour. But as to which should you get if you can afford either? Well, I don't have Guiledart, but while Triceradon has more "natural" beast mode colours, Guiledart has better robot colours. So either way, you can't go wrong with who you choose, depending on your budget.

This review was written by Kasady Voorhees.

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