Despite my username, I don't really have a connection to the character. So when the new Rhinox was revealed, I didn't go into it with a whole lot of expectations. And yet, I'm disappointed. I liked the T30 one a lot, but two things I really wished were different were the loose leg joints and inaccurate headsculpt. The Kingdom one fixes the tightness on the legs, but ruins everything else about them, and the headsculpt is somehow even further off. It almost looks more like a reimagined Bulkhead than a Rhinox. Technically a lot of the details are there, but they are sculpted and proportioned so differently that it's no longer recognisable as Rhinox. It's also missing the Maximal symbol head tattoos. Both of those things stand out even more due to the fact that every other Kingdom figure has absolutely nailed headsculpt and faction symbol details. Then there's the chest. My initial reaction was "Oh, that makes sense. We've had one with a real lower jaw for a chest, so it's a good move to differentiate this one with a faux one for more accuracy." But... It's overall far less accurate. For one thing because of the layered techno greebles, but the main problem is that the chest does look somewhat accurate... In pictures. The issue is that the chest is completely two-dimensional, so once you observe it in a three-dimensional space, it doesn't really look like Rhinox's chest at all. And continuing on that note, his whole damn torso is two-dimensional. He's got serious "torso drawn on a post-it note" energy. It's just so flat and wide it's downright translucent if the light hits it wrong. I don't think he's actually notably cheaper than the T30 one, but the way his torso is designed makes him feel like he is. I don't typically care about a little hollowness either, but the shoulders are downright cavernous. The reason behind all that seems to be that someone decided to fit half the beast mode into just his legs and was so attached to that idea that they no longer cared how it affected the rest of the figure. His legs as a result are enormous and don't look very good from any angle. And due in part to that decision, the transformation is... Bad. Almost every step of the process involves flexing and bending the hard plastic itself. I don't think it's going to break or anything, as the plastic quality does feel very high, but it feels bad every time.
Posability is a little conflicting. He does have a good amount of it, with some high-range butterfly joints for his shoulders, but due to the weird and unflattering way his shoulders are designed, it just doesn't look very good in any pose. TL;DR, went in without expectations, still most disappointing Kingdom figure to me by far.

 

It really does.

 

Gee thanks, now I want a third party to make a Bulkhead head for this figure.

 

I too was conflicted, but I finally decided to get Kingdom Rhinox just so the aesthetics match. And wow! I have no regrets, he's badass, and mine as well take advantage of those crazy ass flailing shoulder joints I say!  

 

Can anyone check if the hand/weapon slot are the same size as thrilling 30?

 

They

They should be, 5mm holes have been the standard for a while now

 

Needs some upgrades to bulk up its body and to cover the ugly gap on the sides and some shoulder pads as seen in the Kingdom animation and we're all good.

 

A four letter word. It starts with F. It also has a K. That's right, this figure is fake. It's a facade, and quite literally, all front.

Fake feet. Fake chest. Fake bulk.

Then there's the gaps, the undersized weapons, the hollowness, and an unsatisfying and fiddly transformation.

It's an interesting take on a rhinoceros figure, but is a fake Rhinox.

 

This is extremely rare but, I'm about to bury this toy in a shade tree forest then set said forest on fire . . .

I want to start out by saying that I have absolutely no QC issues at all on my copy. That having been said, I hate absolutely almost everything about it.

Engineering flaws:

The beast mode is a brick other than the front shoulders.

Almost every single piece of the beast mode shell has to flex in order to transform. It's not a question of if something is going to break, it's a question of when something is going to break and how many stress marks are going to form.

The faux beast mouth chest is a massive step backwards from the T30 mold (which I didn't own and didn't know about). It's cute how it flips down, folds in, then flips up like G1 Astrotrain's rear rudder does though.

The shins, FFS, the shins and the outside of the robot legs are literally damned near the entire back half of the beast mode. The fact that the best mode rear thighs/legs fold/collapse into them doesn't make the lower robot legs any less of a shellformer. Then there is the fact that the tail/ass panels get in the way because they are incapable of folding it like they should. We should be long past designs/engineering like this. This would be far less of an issue if they formed the back of the legs and the rear beast mode thighs formed the front (which would require a panel to fold down off each piece of that shell for knee articulation as well as a rotation point under the knee and a rotation point at the ankle) but, it would make the lower legs look a little short unless the knee hinge was changed from grey to the colour of the thighs.

There is something very cheap feeling about the upper torso. I don't know what it is about it that's off. It looks modern from the back (as the center is solid looking and gap free) bu,t it just feels like it's from a previous era. I honestly don't know how to articulate how it feels other than off.

The waist articulation strikes the bottom of the faux beast mouth on the chest as well as the back kibble. Giant lifeforms can still be incredibly fluid/flexible at the waist (YouTube is full of dance videos proving this) so, it would be great if everyone can agree to stop excusing the poorly designed engineering that limits Rhinox's waist movement as being fine because Rhinox is large. There is absolutely no reason for the anything below the waist to strike anything above the waist on a simple side to side mushroom peg joint (shout of for all the mushroom peg joints that make parts swapping and repairs/disassembly easy AF).

The thigh rotation also suffers from limited range if you have the thigh kibble tabbed/locked in on the sides (where it looks the best and is supposed to be).

There is no wrist rotation and that's inexcusable at this point on a Voyager considering how many of the Deluxes have wrist rotation.


Aesthetics flaws:

The beast mode head has no upper teeth nor a roof of the mouth. This is even more table flip inducing when you realize you can flip the lower beast mode mouth all the way down (through clever use of angles/flex to get it past the robot head) so that it's hidden in robot mode. This would allow the upper teeth to show (if they existed) instead of the base of the horns.

The headsculpt is out of place compared to the headsculpt of all the other KBW toys. I know what they were going for but, it didn't work. Hopefully a 3rd party is working on a replacement.

The back kibble is atrocious. The piece connected to the beast mode head should have at least two hinges (and yes mold breaks) in it so that it can fold up and be tucked away (in an "L" shape at minimum) against Rhinox's back and the best mode head. It's current design is deluxe level amateur hour.

I love the butterfly shoulders but, I hate how the lateral shoulder movement is pinned above the shoulder rotation. It's lazy and it's becoming a frequent thing. Rhinox does pull it off better than most but, it's never not going to look wrong because it's always going to look like something is missing or the arms are detached.

That brings us to how bland/monotone the robot mode is. The head has paint, the trapezius (the rectangles between the shoulders and the head)have paint, the faux mouth has paint, the codpiece has paint, and then you have the spots/speckles/birdshit on the beast shell. The thighs and the forearms are in desperate need of paint apps. The recessed areas of the forearms are never going to come into contact with anything and should have been painted. That's also true for robot's forearms (the gold paint on them would have really made everything pop and pulled it all together for a cohesive look).



Closing thoughts (purchase):

I absolutely regret buying this. I honestly can't think of the last time I felt that way (at least Cybertron Primus had a kickass Cybertron alt mode). My only pros were the butterfly shoulders and all the mushroom pegs for ease of changes. It had been building up to something I felt I was going to regret not getting but, I honestly don't know how I can justify not returning it (especially given the small return window). Part of me is all wait for a 3rd party to save it for you but the rest is all like it can't be done. I wouldn't be this torn if the original BW toy (specifically the BW 10th version) wasn't so small and terribly dated combined with the fact that this Rhinox can do an a-stance (with the things slightly rotated out to breakup the wide AF shin kibble by making it look thinner) with the butterfly joints arched back and its hands near the hips in a sassy listen here you little shit pose.

I might keep it and see how it all plays out though as this feels like the kind of toy that will at least fetch the original MSRP even when sold as used a few years from now. I really shouldn't be this conflicted about returning what is easily the worst toy out of the entire WFC Trilogy (I haven't bought any core/basic size other than Rattrap, Buzzworthy Bumblebee & Daniel) for me and, I mean worst as this would be the worst in a line full of bad toys not it's the worst because everything else has been spectacular.

 

No one complaining about Rhinox is wrong. He's poorly engineered and overly complicated. His head sculpt is bizarrely inaccurate compared to the aesthetic in the rest of the line. His guns are small and kinda no fun. His legs are ugly as sin.

But...I like him. Like, not even "in spite" of the flaws. But, almost because of them. It's like he's the Tommy Wiseau's The Room of Transformers. Every bizarre choice Hasbro made somehow makes me like him more. I'm not even being snarky. He's just kinda charming, despite being bad.

I dunno.

 

Rhinox won't confirm nor deny any guesses about what this cosplay is.







Is it a Conehead? Is it Marvel's Rhino? Did Rhinox start a Water Rhino Lodge? The world may never know.

 

Opened this guy up the other night and I think he's the first Kingdom figure that's really let me down

The robot mode just feels so flat, and the left shoulder joint on my copy is so loose to the point where it literally can't hold itself up, which is a real let down. Even just the way things move feels off, he's not particularly fun to pose. The transformation into rhino mode wasn't as bad as expected, but going the other way is borderline frustrating. There's a lot of moving parts and very little clearance despite what should actually be quite a simple and straight-forward transformation. I think it just hurts that little bit more when nearly every other BW Kingdom figure has been pretty good up to this point. I even liked Scorponok quite a bit despite all of his shortcomings. But this guy is just no fun at all

The rhino mode is probably this figure's strongest aspect. It's a solid, chunky toy rhino. This is probably the only thing that I feel this toy does better than the T30 figure, which struggled to keep together and had that god-awful, dinosaur-like jaw, which looked nothing like either a real rhino or Rhinox's animation model from the show. This version definitely lends itself better to a real white rhino, though there's definitely been some artistic lisences taken

The long and short of it is, if you've got the T30 figure, you definitely don't need this guy. It's a definite downgrade. If you don't, and you're just looking to complete your Kingdom season one Maximal team, sure, why not? He does the job, and looks good with the other Maximals. I got him using a voucher at least, so that softened the blow a bit upon opening him. I dunno if I'd pay full price for him. And if you've just got a passing interest in the line or Beast Wars as a whole? Another definite miss. Literally any other voyager in this line would be a better option than poor Rhinox

 

I regret buying this instead of the T30 figure. I thought I'd want the aesthetics to be the same as the rest of the Kingdom figures, but really Kingdom Rhinox is just an inferior figure to the T30 and compared to the rest of Kingdom.

 

As a toy, I like him. As Rhinox, especially compared to T30 Rhinox, not so much.

 

I picked this guy up for the sake of completion. I didn't have high expectations after Scorponok, who was actually worse in hand than the pics suggested, but I still came out pretty indifferent on this guy.

To say he's completely inferior to the T30 is a bit of a stretch. He's got nicer colours for one, almost lifted right off the Telemocha reissue. He's got better proportions for sure, and while the head is even less accurate, I think it actually looks better. It just doesn't look like Rhinox in the slightest. The transformation is also miles more satisfying and I feel like less plastic is being stressed between modes. There's also no rubberized soft plastic, which is a huge plus as well. He also has a better chest, with the full, ridiculously widened lower jaw. (albeit made with faux parts) The robot feet are also better, with an ankle tilt where it actually should be.

Unfortunately he's either on par or worse in every other regard. The lack of teeth behind the head just exacerbates the already diminished likeness to Rhinox. The colours, while better, aren't really accurate. The beast mode is definitely a step back, with an almost rudimentary sculpt nearly on par with the original toy. The articulation is, astonishingly, almost exactly the same as T30, right down to the not-quite 90 degree elbows. The guns are also just pathetic. They don't look like guns, or anything really. The transformation also still has annoying parts collision with those little nubbin bits behind/below the arms.

These Kingdom BW figs really lost steam quick. I just missed Waspinator so I can't really comment on him, but after the first two waves felt solid overall Scorps and Rhinox just feel half-assed. Hopefully Tigatron turns things around?

 

T30 looks better in both modes, and Kingdom is a pain to transform.

But then, T30 can't stand and Kingdom can. And that's not nothing...





The only thing really bothersome about Kingdom is the rhino mode. That's not what a rhino is shaped like. At all.

Overall it's still a good figure in a vacuum. I'm not upset that I have it.

 

Excellent, accurate description.

“You are tearing me apart Hasbro!”

 

It is amazing that I started with Primal, which was a fantastic reimagining of the original toy and had everything going NT for it, and ended with Rhinox which is such a poorly engineered mess. Like I’ve bought worse (I have The spider lady from Transformers Prime), but at least all the other 4 members of the original team held up well.

 

Pretty much my thoughts.

Having them side-by-side in robot mode, I genuinely think Kingdom looks better overall. The proportions are just more even, and I think the articulation is better. (especially the shoulders) But Kingdom feels hollow, the rhino mode feels more akin to the '96 toy than a real rhino (and looks especially bad next to the T30) and I hate how smooth and flat the legs in robot mode are. I don't understand why there's no sculpt on them at all?

This is a "one step forward, two steps back" toy if there ever was one.

 

Kingdom Rhinox definitely has a good robot mode, and his Rhino mode's okay enough. But the biggest problem is the transformation process. I haven't seen a toy that gets in its own way so much since the Revenge of the Fallen deluxes.