Brastle Tiger (old review)

New review

When promo photos of Rayse and Brastle Tiger showed up, Brastle was the one I immediately favored. Besides the fact that poor Rayse photographs very poorly (it's so much nicer in person...), it had sabre teeth. We all know Tilly has a thing for sabre teeth by now, right? And then Rayse had to be glowy...well, long story short, I ended up with both. I like them about equally, but this isn't Rayse Tiger's review.

Let's get one thing straight: building Zoids when very short on sleep is Not A Good Idea. You end up having to rebuild things multiple times, and you're using a sharp object and nodding off while holding it. But I did it anyway!

Brastle is a nice combination of black (actually black, not charcoal or gunmetal-it shaves off as black when trimmed) and a red very similar to the Imperial Liger Zero (slightly sparkley-shiny and all), with a bit of silver and gold. It's got red eyes, a very old-school-Zenebas thing...and it's got a vaguely Lidier-ish element to it. Somehow.

That brings me to my one real complaint-the teeth. Augh, they're so BLUNT. I normally won't modify the first of any model I get at all, but the first thing I did in Brastle's case was cut the teeth off the sprue and trim them so they were pointy, like a saber tiger-type Zoid's should be. If you do this, be careful. Soft plastic is tempermental.

Aside from that...assembley is a sort of odd cross between Liger Zero and Saber Tiger with a bit of the same new-model feel that Rayse had. It's not quite as *different*-feeling, but that might also be that I was tired and did several parts multiple times *cough*. The feet snap on and stay on, though, and despite the Liger Zero look, do not have separate toes. Overall, it's a nifty Zoid to build. The flaps are fun.

Then there's the flap bits with the guns-the ones on its back. They're fiddly to get together, and that blasted soft plastic means they fall off every so often. But it's still pretty cool, like a furry cousin to the wavy-fin Zoids. Just remember...they only wave if the back piece is flush with the rest of the back so the pegs click in with the neck mechanism. I kind of had to take the whole Zoid apart to figure that out...

Motion-wise, Brastle is about the speed of a Saber Tiger or Shield Liger, despite its two batteries. It lumbers...but it lumbers smoothly. It also doesn't seem to suffer much from the leaning to one side problem. They've definitely improved on that. As it walks, it chomps its jaws like a good kitty Zoid, which is on the same timing as the foldy-flap bits on its neck, since they're driven by the same piece.

Other than the wavy bits, I'd say Brastle is more interesting still-all those opening flaps! It's got ones on the back of its legs, on the tops, on its sides, and the first two bits of its tail. The rest of the tail ones don't open, much like Geno Saurer. Underneath all that armor, it's a skinny thing...looks like a completley different Zoid.

Those flaps are like heat sinks, to keep it from frying itself when it absorbs a bunch of heat energy and blasts enemies with it, as shown in the DVD. I kind of forgot to talk about Rayse's...but Brastle's is similar. You get a little CGI promo where it and Jet Rayse Tiger run around some, and then specs on all the newer critters. No run cycle for Brastle like there is for the others (boo, that's the best part!), but I bet it'd move like a faster Saber Tiger.

The disc is also region-free, so if your TV can play NTSC stuff (doesn't matter with computers), you should be fine.

Photos

(note the timmed teeth)

Brastle bristles
See, I'm not fat! It's just heat sinks. HEAT SINKS!
Generic shot of doom
Glowy eyes... No editing-they really do catch the light like that.