Battlesaurus (Technozoids Ultrasaurus)
Some may question the sanity of the people who made color choices for the Technozoids line. I will admit, things like Armored Gator and Battlesaurus here are bizarre, but they're also two of my favorite color variants. If you're not crazy like me, there's always Evil Pegasus...
Regardless, with me a fan of a things giantstompy with a growing addiction to old-school, Ultra had been calling for a while. The problem? I didn't dig the NJR Ultra's colors (and still don't). The Hasbro one didn't help...after seeing it in person I was even more convinced that the widening thing they did looked flat out terrible, epecially with those colors. Normally I defend Hasbro (and considering it was likely a safety issue I can't blame them here either), but bleah. No thanks, even if I'd been one of the lucky people to find one on sale.
So I resolved that I would get an Ultra, all right: but it would be OJR, Zoids2, or Battlesaurus, the most maligned and underrated Ultra color scheme ever and one I found myself strangely drawn toward.
In a stroke of luck, I won a built Battlesaurus in an outstanding deal along with Zrk and Brox, and so the decision was made for me. It arrived in one of the largest boxes I have received in my life, wrapped in clingfilm and buried in an insane amount of plastic peanuts along with its other long-necked buddies. Once it was all removed, Battlesaurus proved to be in beautiful shape: lights and motor working, pieces well-trimmed, and mostly dust-free. It also came with a random extra surprise: an OJR figure set hovercraft and pilot, tucked away in the back compartment. I can't remember if this was meant to have anything else in it originally and I really don't care. Nothing could be as cool as a random hovercraft! Battlesaurus likes it a lot too...
Disassembly and cleaning (which I always do, mostly for the fun of it) was easy enough, and I took a few photos along the way to aid me in getting Battlesaurus back together. After all, I had no instructions.
BUT INSTRUCTIONS ARE FOR WUSSES.
Between the old-school numbering (which puts pieces in the order they go together, not new numbers each frame) and the wonderful mechanical-complex over fiddly-complex the older Zoids follow, getting together a Battlesaurus on intuition and a few small pics is a lot easier than it would seem - and incredibly fun. Without trimming to do, it went quite smoothly, with the legs in particular proving amusing to figure out (and quite satisfying to see go together). I'm not quite sure if one is supposed to go tail-legs-neck after getting the body together, but that's the order I went with.
The head is particularly cool, with all the tubes and the clever sliding-on top teeth that so confused me when I was taking things apart. In fact, Battlesaurus has a lot of pieces actually serving as things holding other things together like that - the gold plate on the chest, for example, is really a glorified version of the little slidey things that go on almost all motors on one form or another.
After that, there's still more that's good: the lights are separate on old variants like Battlesaurus, and blink a bright red inside its white head. This makes for much glowy goodness with the lights off, and doesn't look pink like you might expect (it's more fiery). The motion is the best bit, though...Battlesaurus plods along, tail swinging, guns moving up and down, and neck moving slowly up and down from near straight out to arched back. Its entire being is classic Republic stompy: a bit stiff, but wonderfully complex and hypnotizing.
The colors? Much better in person. The gold is not the garish sparkley stuff it would seem in pics: it's got a definite subdued grey tinge to its shine that goes very well with the grey. The white is a bit too white on the legs, but it's not terrible (pearly would have been better - Gildy style years before Gildy). The red caps work well enough (bright cap-contrast years before Rayse), and the smoke cockpits look awesome with a gold pilot in each one. It's very solid overall, and quite unique in its ability to combine classy and tacky on a practical mecha.
So do I still want a chance to build an Ultra from scratch? You bet, but it'll have to wait on my tracking down a MIB OJR or Zoids2 one. Haha, riiiight.
So do I recommend one? Battlesaurus isn't much pricier compared to an imported Ultra, and built ones tend to go for less (beware problems with the lights). If you dig the colors for whatever reason, by all means pick one up and enjoy its weirdness. Otherwise, get whatever Ultra variant floats your boat, 'cause it's a damn cool mold and a fun build.
Written February 9th, 2006 and updated May 8th, 2007
