Toyworld TW-T02 Aurora - Pictorial Review

I can't believe I missed this guy. Bought him sometime last year but postponed my review due to his color making white background unusable for photo-shoot. Experimented a bit with black background so I think I should give this a try

Searchlight is a member of the The Throttlebots, first appeared during the rescue attempt of Optimus Prime's body in G1's The Return Of Optimus Prime. A somewhat recurring characters, Searchlight and the Throttlebots came and went throughout the Headmasters series

Pic Credit : Web

Often mistaken as a lone ranger, Searchlight always find peace in silent and comfort in the night. Also mistaken is his keen senses of his surrounding, portraying him a paranoid loner.

Pic Credit : Web

1981's Searchlight transformed into a Ford RS200 rally car.



In Package

Front View

As apparent with TW-T01 Grindrod, Aurora comes in package with box following Aurora's Blue and White paint scheme

Back View

Somehow I feel that too many 3rd Party products following this 'template' design, a fresh looks would be nice once in a while

TW-T01 and TW-T02

TW-T02 Aurora comes with, aside from the figure, an instruction sheet and a biocard

Alt Mode

Aurora, as opposed to Searchlight's G1's alt mode, transformed in a Range Rover Evoque-inspired alt mode

However, unlike the releases before him (Grindrod) and after him (Hardbone, Brainwave), Aurora suffered problem in terms of his mold where there's traces of excessive plastics and uneven cut. My first thought was that Toyworld somehow push his release for some reason resulting in the lack of quality control

Despite that, Aurora looks great in-hand. And the feel in his alt mode reminds me a lot of the 1st Wave of Classics line where everything felt solid and sturdy

His gun can be stored under the alt mode just like Universe Prowl and Sunstreaker

With TW-T01 Grindrod

Aurora seems to (almost) scale nicely with United Goldbug (though the Bumblebee mold is actually a bit oversize compared to other CHURGs Autobots)

Aurora has a peg the size as Grindrod's in which the plate number can be detached which honestly makes no sense to me, other than for the speculated 'combine mode'

Robot Mode

Aurora really caught my attention in his robot mode. There were a lot of complaints before of Aurora's design not being G1 enough but looking at this, I beg the differ

A really great head sculpt, better than Grindrod's which to me actually good enough

A major improvement in term of the design. Transformations wise, despite having roughly the same sequence, there's enough changes that makes you feel like Aurora has a totally different design

Back View

Articulation wise, Aurora possesses the same range of motion as Grindrod

Aurora comes with a swivel jointed head, waist swivel, double jointed shoulders, hinges on both elbows and a swivel jointed wrists

In addition, double jointed thighs, hinges on his knees and also ankle tilts

My own personal stability test

Seeing this, I hope that Toyworld will come out with a better design for their Not-Goldbug

Now, is Aurora using Grindrod's mold? Let's see the detail

From what I can see, Aurora and Grindrod, aside for the transformations sequence, are basically 2 different figures. Glad to see that Toyworld took the effort of improving Aurora and satisfying the fans instead of cheapen out their product by reusing the same mold only with few color changes

Waiting for TW's Not-Chase