Allegiance: Autobot
Size: Mini-Con (3-pack)
Overall Rating: 5.5
 

Knockdown

Difficulty of Transformation: Easy
Color Scheme: Light brown, dull fleshy lavender, and some metallic silvery blue, dark red, and dull goldish yellow
Individual Rating: 4.9

    Knockdown's alternate mode is a technorganic triceratops. This mode is generally pretty good, with spot-on perfect proportions and excellent mold detailing-- things like mechanical bits and technorganic "muscles" are all over the tiny figure. The paint detailing could use just a few more paint apps here and there (especially on the beast mode eyes-- they're VERY hard to see without paint), but it's adequate. The overall color scheme is fitting for a triceratops, but it's a tad boring-- perhaps making the brown darker would have helped the two main colors to contrast a little more-- same goes for the yellow, it just doesn't provide much contrast. The metallic silvery blue looks great against the main colors, however. The only real big problem I have with this mode is that Knockdown really can't move whatsoever-- he's completely stuck in one position. His rear legs can pivot outwards, but what use is that movement? Bleh. Knockdown has two Minicon ports, one on each side of the base of his tail.
    In what is sadly a recurring theme among the Classics Minicons, Knockdown has a pretty darned goofy-looking robot mode. First off, his legs are rather skinny, and they look backwards-- there's actually toe-like details on the BACK of the feet! Secondly, LEGS ARE NOT ARMS. Seriously the triceratops rear feet are just supposed to suddenly look like robot arms, without any "hand" mold detailing on the inside of them or anything? BZZT, wrong. Third, his chest sticks out way too much. Fourth, the triceratops body-halves behind his main body are way too large to the point where they look pretty awkward. Fifth, his robot head looks really odd-- I can't see anything that resembles a mouth, and his nose takes up half his face. Knockdown at least has average articulation for a Minicon-- he can move back-and-forth at the shoulders and hips.
     Knockdown has a nice-looking, if brickish, beast mode. It's his robot mode where everything falls apart and looks downright ridiculous. Still, at least he's a little better than the REAL turds of the first Minicon wave...

Swoop

Difficulty of Transformation: Very Easy
Color Scheme: Dark red, dark gray, and some off-white, sky blue, and dull metallic gold
Individual Rating: 4.3

    Swoop is the pterodactyl of the bunch, and he's the only one that looks entirely mechanical-- he has a good amount of mold detailing, but none of it looks technorganicky. The proportions and look of this mode are perfect overall, with the only robot "extra" being that if the pterodactyl mouth is closed, the robot head is somewhat visible. He can flap his wings up and down, and his mouth can open and close as well-- pretty impressive for a Minicon toy. His overall color scheme goes together pretty well too, and looks the best out of the Dinobot Team-- the dark red and gray go together well enough by themselves, but having the white and gold paint apps really brings all the colors together, and the whole thing just looks very nice. Swoop's Minicon port is on the underside of this mode, on the stomach of the pterodactyl.
    Swoop's robot mode, however, is just awful. The only part that doesn't look outright ridiculous is his legs, and even then they're too long proportionally. His head looks really weird with the mime-like face and the big forehead crest sticking straight out, and his "main body" is just his legs connected to a very small portion of his pterodactyl back-- it doesn't look solid at all. According to the instructions, his "arms" are supposed to be his wings with the pointy long ends jutting forward, but those don't look like arms at all, so instead I much prefer to have the pterodactyl feet facing foward to serve as the hands. It only looks slightly less ridiculous in this configuration, however, since it looks like he barely has any actual arms and has just hands attached directly to his shoulders.
    Very rarely is there a Transformer with such a contrast between his beast and robot modes-- Swoop's beast mode is great, especially for a toy of its size, but his robot mode is ugly and incredibly mis-proportioned. My least favorite of the Dinobot Team.

Terrorsaur

Difficulty of Transformation: Very Easy
Color Scheme: Moderately light green, dark gray, and some silver, moderately dark metallic red, and dull goldish yellow
Individual Rating: 7.3

    Terrorsaur, oddly enough, is not a pterosaur, but a tyrannosaurus. Go fig. Anyways, his besat mode is very good, with no proportional problems whatsoever. The light green looks pretty good and is certainly appropriate for a dinosaur, though I wish another color had been used as a major color as well-- the dark gray is mostly used for connector parts and doesn't really contrast well with the green anyways. Using more of the metallic red paint apps would've worked better, I think-- overall Terrorsaur has a fair number of paint apps, but he could've used another two or so on his tail and chest. His mold detailing, just like Knockdown's, is extraordinary, however, with little mechanical and organic "muscle" detailing everywhere. As for movement, he can move back-and-forth at the hips, and his mouth can open and close as well. He has two Minicon ports, one on the side of each of his hips.
    Terrosaur's robot mode is also good, except for one major thing-- his arms are pathetic. One is made up of the top half of his neck and only ONE part of his T-rex jaw, so it's hard to see how that arm could be of any real use. His other arm is made up of his lower T-rex jaw and his little T-rex arms. A "gun" is detailed on the inside of this arm to try to make it look somewhat functional, but having little T-rex arms coming out of the side of his actual robot arm just looks really weird. His legs, given that they're just his T-rex legs, look good enough, though, and his main body is also nicely proportioned as well. His head sculpt looks a little odd, however-- his chin looks waaay too big compared to the rest of his face.
    Terrorsaur is definitely one of the better Wave 1 Classics Minicons, with a great beast mode and a decent robot mode-- if only it wasn't for those darned goofy-looking robot arms...

    The Dinobot Minicon Team is pretty much on par with the other Classics Wave 1 Minicon Teams, which really isn't that much of a compliment. Overall, unless you really like dinosaur or beast Minicons, you should probably skip these and pick up one of the "mainline" deluxe/Voyager Classics toys instead, since Terrorsaur is the only one of the bunch really worth having.

Review by Beastbot

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