After faithfully recreating 9 separate combiner teams, Kre-O decided to make up its own -- 4 in fact, though this review concerns only Volcanicon. (Better late than never!) General notes: New kind of packaging! A box-card combo thing. Might want to hang onto it as there will be leftover parts. Also, this time around they actually taped the box shut. The box/official pics are a bit vague, but Team Volcanicon’s colors are a light tan (much lighter than Swindle’s), maroon, dark chocolate brown, and glittering gold. Quite a regal mix! Swirly! Wait… Dunno if this is susceptible to the infamous GPS, the designers sure seem confident in it as they cast all the hands and hips in this color. Granted Kre-O plastic is itself not all that great. Aesthetically, Team Volcanicon seems to be Movieverse given the abundance of mechanical detailing… although maybe they’re even more complex for that? *shrug* I don’t divide my shelves so whatevs. Officially, the team is Decepticon, though none of them have insignias. The set is rather light on stickers (which, as always, are translucent); just one for each gestalt limb and one for the chest. And a “Kre-O” logo, but what’re you going to do with that? Far Side (Apparently someone at Hasbro’s a Gary Larson fan!) Far Side’s a thorny fellow equipped with what I’ve been told are Star Trek weapons (clearly this dude doesn’t give a damn about copyright infringement). He’s a little too “standing dinosaur” from the back. He’s the only one of the set with a gold chest… for better or worse. The helmet covers up a bit for the head’s details, so here’s a shot without: Mustache or fish-face? Both? Like all beast helmets, you can give him an animal head in bot form, although he kinda looks like a gold Trypticon. Far Side gets rebuilt (barely more than put on all fours, really) into a… dinosaur thing. The instructions simply refers to all 4 as “beasts”, though it’s clear they’re going for dinosaurs, even if just in the vaguest Flintstones-type of way; ‘the spiky one’ instead of ‘Ankylosaurus’. Anyways, it’s a charming grumpy little thing, much like Far Side is in robot mode. … Although due to how the back is built the whole tail ‘floats’. It’s also far too easy for the whole tail section to pop off. Could just swap the tan and maroon bits around, although it raises the side spikes. And because it seemed obvious enough: kinda-sorta-Stegosaur. Power Surge With a name like that, you’d expect the orange part on his chest to have an electric glow. Power Surge stands out from his comrades because of both the use of gold paint and the lack of a beast helmet. Instead he uses the Sideswipe one, which covers a LOT of his awesome face, sadly. WHAT DIDJA SAY ‘BOUT MY MOMMA?! Rebuild him and you get: 1st Instinct: Parasaurolophus (ELVIS!) 2nd Instinct: one-headed version of Hun-Grrr But neither of those had this kind of tail. Seriously, it’s like some weird hand thing. And now I’m thinking of that one Godzilla enemy, Titanosaurus. Really, though, I love this beast mode! One of the better attempts, managing to look not so much like a bot on all fours. Lugmutt I’d say one of the odder names, but we already had Far Side. Lugmutt looks to be “the muscle” of the group. And you may have noticed how he suddenly has all this detail on his legs while the other two had none. Yeah, that’s just weird. As we’ll see Liftoff also has a crazy amount of leg details, so it’s half and half. The tails can flip up and the swords can fit in the arm sockets, should you want extra stabbiness. The samurai-triceratops helmet can face forward, though the clip makes this somewhat difficult. Without anything plugged in the holes it can look a bit odd. Hmm... Lugmutt basically falls forward to become a twin-tailed Triceratops. I like how the clip makes for a nice beak, really helps sell the (eyeless) samurai helmet as a dino-head. The tails once again can flip forward for extra stabbiness. Liftoff A smug little bastard, the wings kinda remind me of that Roadrunner cartoon where the Coyote had the green bat-man costume. Random, I know. The wings are different from the previous style, larger and more angular. As you’d expect they can cause balance issues. Again, beast mode head in robot mode. I really like this one. Liftoff gets rebuilt into a pterosaur, seemingly one with a tiny secondary pair of wings. Much better than previous flying beasts Divebomb and Cutthroat... although it kinda looks like he’s mooning us. He gets a little bit of pose-ability in this form. The crest on the dactyl helmet limits it’s use. Basically the sloped piece in the only one you can use immediately behind it. The grouch, the short fuse, the egomaniac, and the muscle A pretty decent quartet, manages to keep a nice uniform while also making everyone distinct. Kinda disappointed there isn’t a 5th bot to track down. But of course there’s still: Volcanicon Combine them all together and you get a nice, regal, (mostly) symmetrical gestalt form. Which, admittedly, is rather familiar: Still, it’s a pretty fun build. Articulation is -- for Kreon Combiners -- largely unrestrained (what little is hindered is manageable), and since the wings are connected to a pair of arms they get a fair bit of movement themselves. I do wish they’d cast the gestalt limbs in colors other than grey and black. They started to experiment with Defensor and Piranacon, but they slipped right back. Also you only get the 4 limbs this time, no extras. And just for fun, beast heads! I’m SO keeping the dactyl head on mine! Verdict: Initially I wasn’t really fond of these overdetailed “nobody” combiners, especially since they’re uniformly colored and thus not as distinctive, but I think Volcanicon is now one of my favorites! Great beast modes, characterful robot modes, and a gorgeous gestalt; definitely recommended. (now wants to get the others after resisting so long) Thanks for reading!
Fun review. These guys have a lot of personality and I kind of like the fact that they are all new characters. I got these guys and Grimstone for Christmas and they're both pretty cool. Makes me want to track down the other two now that they are nowhere to be found, haha.
