FansProject Saurus: Dinogo

 It would seem that the final two Ryu-Oh figures are in short supply among etailers. While the first four are regularly spotted on sale, the last two are only rarely found at all. This copy of Dinogo was the last one in stock at TFSource.

Both Dinogo and final team member Dinoroku will share the same mold, but will sport differences significant enough to make them two very separate toys. Dinogo is the third party version of Dinoforce member Doryu, who in the American G1 canon was Skowl.

Like his teammates, Dinogo is sort of flat looking paint-wise, lacking the shiny, glossy appearance that so many other converting robot figures have. But the paint colors on this figure more than make up for that, as it is a lively, bright white and a really nice combo of dark and fairly standard blue. A few dashes of red provide highlights, and the overall appearance is just terrific. This may be the best looking Saurus figure, based on colors alone.

Aside from the paint, Dinogo is kind of an odd figure, his body having this chimera-like quality, looking like it was assembled from parts of the other team members. Dinogo has Dinoichi’s big calves, and Dinoni’s arms, and Dinosan’s torso. That is not intended to be a slight against the figure, merely an observation. The robot mode looks big and strong, a nice, sharp contrast to the slender Dinoni and Dinoshi, but not as hulking as Dinoichi. He has these really weird feet. The flip around fairly elaborately to become more like claws for the monster mode, but in robot mode they are these odd, bouncy things that curve upwards towards the heel, creating a curved foot which does mean the figure can rock backwards slightly from a standing position. They remind of those prosthetic legs that runners will use, that sort of bowed, flexing appendage that provides bounce. They also result in Dinogo being just a touch taller than mold mate Dinoroku; not an issue, but something that doesn’t seem to be all that common. The process of flipping the robot foot around to serve as the monster foot is uncomfortable, as the foot itself is connected to a pretty innovative joint that provides an ankle, but is basically a ball joint at the end of a swiveling panel, and applying too much force to this arrangement, as flipping the foot around requires due to stiffness and clearance, makes it feel like something is going to stress, to say the least.

The legs are somewhat tricky to pose in general, as they incorporate a few different points of motion, all necessary for transformation to monster and limb mode, and there is a reasonable concern that the tension will decrease with time and use. Not to say there are loose joints now, but they could loosen up with age. But due to the various joints in the lower legs, the figure sometimes is a challenge to stand up, as something will slip or this part was not extended all the way, or the bizarre feet will leave him leaning to one side or the other.

Dinogo comes with a pretty big blaster that has a slide out barrel. The sliding barrel is intended for the combined blaster form that Ryu-Oh will carry, but in Dinogo’s hand, the piece looks better with the barrel extended. The weapons these figures have have not been very inspiring or good, generally being too big to be wielded with any ease, and this one is no exception, but it does look kind of cool with the barrel out.

Monster mode is a feral, wolfman kind of thing, scary yet endearing at the same time. The monster head is nicely rendered, and has an opening jaw. Much like the original, official Pretender Monsters, the monster mode is really only what you imagine it to be, but for Dinogo, the process of arriving at the monster mode is more intricate than it would appear to be. It looks like all that happens is the monster head flips up from the chest and the hands are covered, but in truth this figure has a good and satisfying transformation that requires a large amount of work proportionate to what it looks like has occurred. The arms move on both shoulder swivels and pivot joints, so there is forward/backward and outward movement in both. The legs are very stumpy in this mode, and ultimately the creature seems like a juvenile one, like an adolescent monster. It’s cute. Something rather surprising is how well the head and hands are hidden despite doing so in incredibly simple ways. The head just folds down in between the shoulders, and the hands simply flip over and have monster claws rotate over the top of them. There’s some waist articulation as well, so Dinogo can get into some nice monster-appropriate stances.

There is a large box on the back of the figure, and it houses the combiner joint for leg mode. While it is a big, plastic square on the back of both modes, it folds down in a pretty satisfying fashion, which allows it to not be in the way for either form. It also fills the figure out somewhat, as the majority of the bulk, visually and mass-wise, is in the figures’ legs. It doesn’t get in the way of anything in either mode, and while there may be some temptation to decry it as a backpack, it really is not much of an issue.

The same general physical conditions that the other Saurus figures have can be found in Dinogo, as the plastic feels different and the joints are terrifyingly stiff, yet show no signs of weakness or QC matters. For some reason, this figure did not hit the market with much enthusiasm, originally releasing in the Fall of 2016 and going mostly unnoticed. That is a shame, as this guy, along with the rest of the Ryu-Oh squad, is a good figure, and more than worthy of a spot on your shelf. The entire Dinoforce ends up being a real niche kind of group, as even their American G1 counterparts had no development of screen time to speak of, so it’s hard to drum up a lot of hype for unofficial versions of characters no one knows. Once upon a time, FansProject was making big plastic Pretender dinosaur shells for these guys, and there were rumblings of a Monstructor repaint of the bots, at least. At this time, the smart money says that neither of those things will actually happen, given the thud that the full Ryu-Oh seemed to land with.

Too bad. People are missing out on this set.