A Beastly Homage

Back in Generation 1, the Dinobots and Constructicons were presented somewhat as rivals. Both were weapons of mass destruction for their respective factions, culminating in a memorable scene in the 1986 movie where they fought at Autobot City. The dinobots were often at a disadvantage due to the constructicons' combining ability. Fans had hoped for years for a dinobot combiner, then when it happened in one of the comics they immediately wished it hadn't.

Coming in the same wave as the constructicons, Grimstone with Dinobots is the first toy based on this concept, and thankfully many of the details have been altered. These may be dinobots, but as with the constructicons, they are not the Dinobots. Grimstone is a nice commander figure with slightly unusual proportions, his hips are very wide, and combined with his hoof-like feet this gives him a very animalistic appearance. Grimstone turns into a robotic triceratops, although he has also inherited styracosaurus's signature neck spikes. Both modes have decent articulation, and thankfully transformation is a bit more involved than the 'stand up and swap heads' approach often used with animal transformers.

Grimstone is accompanied by four drones, and in this case they are actually quite large, a couple as big as Grimstone himself. These are: a parasaurolophus, an ankylosaurus, a pachycephalosaurus and a spinosaurus which looks oddly like it might actually be a dimetrodon. All of them are in a similar gray, gold and red colourshceme which has come to be asociated with dinobots.

The combined mode is unique within the power core line in having a uniform look, the colours are unified throughout the whole form and the combination looks more natural than some of the others in the line. The large Drones lead to a bulky robot with large feet, everything feels solid and the combination is very stable. The articulation is average for the line, with full hips, knees and shoulders and little else. The large head has a decent range of motion and one of his hands can open and close.

This set seems to defy the concept of Power Core somewhat; rather than being made with interchangability in mind it seems to focus on working as it's own searate unit. For this reason it has been popular with those who are otherwise uninterested in the line. Whilst on an engineering basis it may not be quite as good as the constructicons, it is certainly a unique idea and worth the money for that alone.