Merry Christmas!
Did everyone get what they wanted for Christmas? I know I did. :D I hit up Walmart earlier this week because I had no idea that Konami had put out special Yu-Gi-Oh! sets, so I rushed right over to grab one of "Yugi's Legendary decks." It's so old school, it's nostalgic, and there's a lot of good cards in here. Unfortuantely everything seems dated so it probably won't be able to complete against the newest game gimmicks. Still, it's nice to get these cards if only for collecting purposes. The box is really nice though, with all the hieroglyphs running across it, reminding you of the game's origins in Ancient Egypt, at least according to the show, lol. It reminds me of the box that held the Millennium Puzzle in the series.
The box also comes with a few promotional cards in addition to playable ones. The Duelist Kingdom cards from the show are nonplayable and no, you can't trade Glory of the King's hand for 3 million dollars to pay for your real life sister's eye operation. The Egyptian God Cards next to the special Yugi token are also nonplayable and are only there for show.
You also get a complete set of Exodia the Forbidden One in this set, which would instantly win you the game if you draw all five pieces. These are all holographic. They're also only found in this set. Ones on Ebay can get quite expensive these days.
No set containing Yugi's decks is complete without an army of Dark Magicians and DMGs. You get a DM and a DMG in EVERY one of the three below decks, including the special red Dark Magician used by Arkana in Battle City in his duel against Yugi. Also printed for the first time in English is Griffore in place of his Silver Fang, which I wish was included. Griffore and the red Dark Magician were also only printed in Japan until now.
In addition, I have another Christmas toy review for y'all under the break! It's not Rudolph, but it sure is close!
Introducing the Deer Zord! Originally this toy was released with the Power Rangers Wild Force toyline in 2003, and only available in the Isis Megazord set along with Falcon, Rhino and Armadillo, and Giraffe Zord (review here). In Japan and other Asian countries, such as Korea, the Wild Force toyline was re-released as a mix of Japanese and American molds. I managed to pick up this year a Korean version of Gao Dias, or the Deer Zord. Since the mold is the same across all toy-lines, it is acceptable to mix and match the toys between the various Asian and American markets. Also in the former market, the Power Animals (as the Zords are called overseas) were also individually packaged in addition to being released as a set with other animals if they can combine into a Megazord. Since the Isis Megazord (not to be confused with ISIS, let’s not give THEM a Megazord PLZ) set is insanely expensive, I opted to buy each component individually.
The box is radically different from the JP and mainland China releases which follow the JP box design. Korea opted for a more in your face jungle background and shows Gao Deer running. It’s actually a much better design imo from the previous box art, as the animals are actually shown in motion rather than static and not moving on the front of the box.
Gao Deer forms the left arm of any Wild Force Megazord. One may note the similarities between it and Gao Giraffe, owing to the slightly modified molds they use between them. It is interesting to note that Gao Deer is a ten point buck with an impressive rack of antlers outlined in gold. The antlers are made of a softer material than the rest of the plastic deer, and come separate in the box. Since they’re made of softer plastic, assembling the horns required some effort on my end, lol, to snap onto the harder plastic base. Also, due to such soft plastic, the horns came warped right out of the box and bent out of shape. I have since fixed the curve a bit, but from the side the horns still don’t line up as well as I would have liked.
It's mouth can open and close, like most other Power Animals (exceptions to this rule include Gao Armadillo and Gao Giraffe). It opens up pretty widely to protest if you don't sing for it every morning like the Rangers did in the show to keep it happy and willing to help them fight evil.
The action feature involves the horns snapping open and closed as shown. In the original JP and US release, there would be a button on the silver mane that springs the horns open automatically, but the Korean release omits this feature. I guess they probably didn’t want you getting your fingers caught when the horns close.
There are also subtle paint differences between releases. While the American version omits all the gold lines you see on the body and horns, the Asian releases keep them, as well as some silver paint on the legs, keeping the show accurate design. Personally it’s only gold lines, so, it wouldn’t have mattered if they didn’t keep them, but I am glad they did. It makes the figure stand out a bit more than it would have if it was all green.
I STILL don’t have a Wild Force Megazord to demonstrate the combination, but I do have Gao Hunter Blue Moon, which has the same arm connector joints as Gao King/WF Megazord, so the limbs are swappable. While you can use it as either arm, Deer traditionally forms the left arm. To combine, the legs tuck way into grooves on the body and you need to position to the horns so that they point down. The symbol on the back legs also need to face upright. Since the Korean release has friction joints rather than those that snap into place every 45 degrees so you can accurately get the legs into the proper position, you just have to match up the position with the one on the box and instructions manually and carefully so as to not turn it over the proper position… I used Gao Giraffe as a reference since they’re so similar.
Finally, have a comparison with Gao Giraffe so you can see the similar leg design. Note there are very small differences between the upper legs… the Deer’s legs are a bit more chunky, and the Giraffe’s are slimmer.
As for spending Christmas today, my plan is to eat lots of turkey and gravy sitting in the fridge and watch Yu-Gi-Oh, lol. And if I'm bored, I have Harry Potter games for the PC that I can play... yay! Oh, and there are library books... there are ALWAYS books to be read.
The box also comes with a few promotional cards in addition to playable ones. The Duelist Kingdom cards from the show are nonplayable and no, you can't trade Glory of the King's hand for 3 million dollars to pay for your real life sister's eye operation. The Egyptian God Cards next to the special Yugi token are also nonplayable and are only there for show.
You also get a complete set of Exodia the Forbidden One in this set, which would instantly win you the game if you draw all five pieces. These are all holographic. They're also only found in this set. Ones on Ebay can get quite expensive these days.
No set containing Yugi's decks is complete without an army of Dark Magicians and DMGs. You get a DM and a DMG in EVERY one of the three below decks, including the special red Dark Magician used by Arkana in Battle City in his duel against Yugi. Also printed for the first time in English is Griffore in place of his Silver Fang, which I wish was included. Griffore and the red Dark Magician were also only printed in Japan until now.
In addition, I have another Christmas toy review for y'all under the break! It's not Rudolph, but it sure is close!
Introducing the Deer Zord! Originally this toy was released with the Power Rangers Wild Force toyline in 2003, and only available in the Isis Megazord set along with Falcon, Rhino and Armadillo, and Giraffe Zord (review here). In Japan and other Asian countries, such as Korea, the Wild Force toyline was re-released as a mix of Japanese and American molds. I managed to pick up this year a Korean version of Gao Dias, or the Deer Zord. Since the mold is the same across all toy-lines, it is acceptable to mix and match the toys between the various Asian and American markets. Also in the former market, the Power Animals (as the Zords are called overseas) were also individually packaged in addition to being released as a set with other animals if they can combine into a Megazord. Since the Isis Megazord (not to be confused with ISIS, let’s not give THEM a Megazord PLZ) set is insanely expensive, I opted to buy each component individually.
The box is radically different from the JP and mainland China releases which follow the JP box design. Korea opted for a more in your face jungle background and shows Gao Deer running. It’s actually a much better design imo from the previous box art, as the animals are actually shown in motion rather than static and not moving on the front of the box.
Gao Deer forms the left arm of any Wild Force Megazord. One may note the similarities between it and Gao Giraffe, owing to the slightly modified molds they use between them. It is interesting to note that Gao Deer is a ten point buck with an impressive rack of antlers outlined in gold. The antlers are made of a softer material than the rest of the plastic deer, and come separate in the box. Since they’re made of softer plastic, assembling the horns required some effort on my end, lol, to snap onto the harder plastic base. Also, due to such soft plastic, the horns came warped right out of the box and bent out of shape. I have since fixed the curve a bit, but from the side the horns still don’t line up as well as I would have liked.
It's mouth can open and close, like most other Power Animals (exceptions to this rule include Gao Armadillo and Gao Giraffe). It opens up pretty widely to protest if you don't sing for it every morning like the Rangers did in the show to keep it happy and willing to help them fight evil.
The action feature involves the horns snapping open and closed as shown. In the original JP and US release, there would be a button on the silver mane that springs the horns open automatically, but the Korean release omits this feature. I guess they probably didn’t want you getting your fingers caught when the horns close.
There are also subtle paint differences between releases. While the American version omits all the gold lines you see on the body and horns, the Asian releases keep them, as well as some silver paint on the legs, keeping the show accurate design. Personally it’s only gold lines, so, it wouldn’t have mattered if they didn’t keep them, but I am glad they did. It makes the figure stand out a bit more than it would have if it was all green.
I STILL don’t have a Wild Force Megazord to demonstrate the combination, but I do have Gao Hunter Blue Moon, which has the same arm connector joints as Gao King/WF Megazord, so the limbs are swappable. While you can use it as either arm, Deer traditionally forms the left arm. To combine, the legs tuck way into grooves on the body and you need to position to the horns so that they point down. The symbol on the back legs also need to face upright. Since the Korean release has friction joints rather than those that snap into place every 45 degrees so you can accurately get the legs into the proper position, you just have to match up the position with the one on the box and instructions manually and carefully so as to not turn it over the proper position… I used Gao Giraffe as a reference since they’re so similar.
Finally, have a comparison with Gao Giraffe so you can see the similar leg design. Note there are very small differences between the upper legs… the Deer’s legs are a bit more chunky, and the Giraffe’s are slimmer.
As for spending Christmas today, my plan is to eat lots of turkey and gravy sitting in the fridge and watch Yu-Gi-Oh, lol. And if I'm bored, I have Harry Potter games for the PC that I can play... yay! Oh, and there are library books... there are ALWAYS books to be read.