No Pink Spandex » Power Rangers Dino Charge Toy Review: Armored Dino Charge Red Ranger

Power Rangers Dino Charge Toy Review: Armored Dino Charge Red Ranger

One of the newer assortments from the Power Rangers’ endless line is the Armored Rangers series. Debuting last year, I first took notice of it when I saw that the Super Megaforce Red Ranger figure came complete with weapons from past seasons such as ZEO and SPD. The line expanded to include the Red, Green, and White Rangers from Mighty Morphin’. It’s good to see the continuation of this assortment with Dino Charge and I decided that now would be as good of a time as ever to get my first hand’s on experience with it.

Currently only the Red Ranger is available. The box indicates that the Green Ranger will be available in this assortment although he had not yet hit stores as of the writing of this review. Here’s hoping that this line will eventually feature other prominent rangers from past seasons. At the very least, I would love to see the entire team be released including the Pink Ranger.

The packaging is a fairly basic window design. Both casual viewers and hardcore fans will immediately notice that the big selling point of the figure is that it comes with twelve accessories. The back of the box isn’t very flashy. It prominently displays all of the pieces that come with the figure and a unique image of the Dino Charge Red Ranger sporting the orange deinosuchus (i.e. Deinosgrander in Kyoryuger) powered up form. It’s a decent design but a bit on the sparse side.

Unboxing the figure is somewhat simple. Everything is on a clear card that easily slides out. There are a few plastic ties that need to be cut in order to retrieve both the ranger and a couple of his larger items. The figure is seven inches tall and has a fairly high level of posability. There are ball joints on the shoulders, legs, wrists, and neck. Even the torso swivels at multiple points. I believe that the only glaring omission in this department is the ankles which only have a basic back and forth range of motion. This can limit certain crouching stances.

Painted details for this figure are about the same as the basic line with a couple of minor downgrades. The scaling on the arms that is signature to these suits ends at the ball joints just below the shoulders. The arms are not the signature, slighter darker hue of the ranger’s individual color. The yellow triangle with the ranger’s dinosaur symbol is not properly raised. Finally, the claws on the glows are represented but still painted only white.

On the plus side, there are more painted details on the back as opposed to the basic assortment. The Dino Charge shoulder piece is well-sculpted as is the very pronounced belt buckle. The figure has great definition and sports all of the proper molding.

My biggest concern from an aesthetic point of view comes at the wrist ball joints. Unlike the depicted box art, these joints are red. As you can imagine, red joints that separate white gloves look off. It’s a curious decision that gives the impression that the character is wearing both white gauntlets and small white gloves. This problem could easily be solved with a brief, do it yourself touch up job but it makes me wonder why white joints weren’t used in the first place?

As alluded to earlier, this figure really shines with its vast array of weapons. It features both the Dino Charge Morpher and Dino Saber as individual weapons along with their combined form complete with three different colors of paint that elucidate a high level of detail previously unreached with Power Rangers merchandise. The Red Ranger also has his specific weapon painted in both red and silver. It will be interesting to see if the rest of the team’s weapons are released in future assortments in order to create the combined blaster.

Here is where things get interesting for the more persnickety fans. The figure’s arms can be detached at both the wrists and end of the gloves in order to add silver armor and the aforementioned orange deinosuchus weapons. I’m a stickler for detail so I must mention this: in the show’s footage, when the rangers use their regular powered up form, there is only supposed to be silver armor on the right arm. When they use the orange power up, there is supposed to be gold armor on both arms. This figure comes with only silver armor for both arms. It’s a minor detail that will likely only matter to the most staunch of collectors but it’s worth noting.

Finally, the figure has an extra set of open hands if you’d prefer to pose the Red Ranger in an action shot that doesn’t involve holding weapons. It’s a welcome addition the ups the playability factor and helps this line stand out from all other currently available Power Rangers figures.

The suggested retail price for this assortment is $16.99 which I deem to be fair. Mine was purchased at Target for $14.99. This is an interesting first foray into figures of this type for me. Typically, I go for either the cheaper, basic figures or the much more detailed and expensive Figuarts line from Japan. This Dino Charge assortment falls somewhere in the middle of those two options. The weapons are gorgeous. Bandai followed the correct instinct in making that the selling point. To the best of my recollection, this is one of the most flexible figures ever put out for Power Rangers. The molded attributes are nearly perfect and while the painted details aren’t totally up to snuff, they’re passable.

The figure’s larger size might be the most ideal for children. I tend to lean towards the weapon assortment being a bigger draw for adult fans but as the show progresses, I could see kids coming back to this toy and updating its look as the rangers unlock more powers. I’m not quite as over the moon on this figure as I was the basic assortment but I would still say that you  will get your money’s worth with this purchase.

The Quick and Dirty

Pros

  • Tons of accessories
  • More detailed paint applications overall
  • Highly poseable



Cons

  • Somewhat plain packaging
  • Some minor paint still missing
  • Ankles could use ball joints



Overall Grade: B+


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Comments ( 1 Comment )

Damn why do they always look so ‘roided up?

Anyway it looks neat, as close to Figuarts as we’re gonna get over here.

Chimalli added these pithy words on Feb 08 15 at 9:55 pm