For once, I actually found something new on shelves the very day that first sightings were reported - in fact, I even found Scarr before I saw a reported sighting.
Ever since their unveiling last September, I haven't been the most enthused about the Legacy Evolution core class combining Dinobots. Of the first two, Slug/Slag looked fine, but Sludge definitely had some weirdness, albeit creative weirdness, about him. I think I did see both in store maybe twice, but passed at the time. Grimlock did not wow me either, especially with how his big lower legs bulk up the rear of the dino mode. Most recently, Swoop and Scarr (or Skar) were shown off, with Swoop looking pretty uncompromised and Scarr looking pretty good considering the limitations of the size/design and the fact that we don't really have a baseline comparison for him.
So I managed to pick up Grimlock a couple of weeks ago and actually liked him pretty well. The leg mode has this ancient totem/architecture-like charm to it, and you can even get a decent targetmaster mode out of him, which is also possible for Scarr (you can even use him as a shield for toys with forearm ports). The dino mode is still kind of rough, but not too bad from the front and the bot mode is pretty good, with is only real problems being a lack of elbows and sword and also the weirdness of his wings being upside down.
I found Scarr last night, completely unexpectedly (no Swoop) and grabbed him. As a toy, he's pretty good, better than Grimlock in that his dino mode is mostly uncompromised (not that you'd compare it to anything; I just mean that it pretty much looks like an ankylosaur should). The armored back is cool and separates to form the bulk of the limbs for the robot. Unlike Grimlock, who's a leg for Volcanicus, Scarr comes with a Monstructor/Dinoking-like fist gun that also doubles as the dino mode's clubbed tail. It's clever, but there's a part of me that wishes he could become the complete dino without a combiner component. Grimlock almost does the same thing, with his tail tip becoming his double-barreled "rifle," but it's explicitly part of Grimlock himself and could actually be left off of Volcanicus altogether without causing any problems. I hope that if Scarr does eventually get a leader mold to go with the SS86 Dinobots that a better solution will be found, even if it's just making the club into a mace/hammer for Scarr's bot mode.
I already mentioned Dinoking; the designers have been about as transparent as possible that Legacy Volcanicus will be retooled into Dinoking, down to the various Dinobots all matching positions with their Dinoking counterparts. Since Gairyu is the only Dinoking component without an Autobot counterpart, Hasbro took an existing "Dinobot" character from IDW in Scarr/Skar (who, amusingly, never got a dino mode himself despite being responsible for their ability to scan new altmodes in the field) and designed his bot mode to fit the look of an ankylosaur alt mode. The alt mode even has a few design touches from Gairyu, though not as much as I thought (which makes sense; Scarr has a robotic ankylosaur altmode, while Gairyu is really a robotic "monster" altmode wearing an organic ankylosaur pretender shell with weapon backpack).
Scarr is a neat toy, even if it's yet another reminder of what we can't get for our money anymore, being slighly more expensive that deluxes were about 10 years ago when the price was bumped to $15, and then gradually to the present cost of $25. The core class is most equivalent to the Dark of the Moon/Prime Cyberverse commanders (and later the Generations "legends"), and while I honestly don't remember their exact cost, it wasn't the current $12 core class MSRP. Of all the 5 revealed core Dinobots, he's certainly the most unique in being a new character and might be worth adding to your collection for that alone, even if you aren't interested in getting all six. If you have any of the new G1 core class toys introduced in Kingdom, he'll go well with them. And, of course, if you are collecting Volcanicus, he's an indispensable component, unless you want Volcanicus to have two Swoop arms.
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