Assault Saver
Assault Saver is the second of the three Savers from Jushen Zhan Ji Dui and piloted by the Tian (Sky) Team. Google translates the name as Happening Warstrike King, but the box said Assault Saver so let’s call him that. The Sky Team consists of three Heavenly Beasts yet only has two Rangers; the Yellow and Silver Brother-Sister duo Ah Zhen and Ah Fong. I don’t know which is which, but it seems like Exploding Thunder and Soaring Bird are the piloted Heavenly Beasts judging from the promo trailer, while Fire Phoenix is the unmanned Beast.
Like the other Saver toys, the primary gimmick of these robots is the Combination Scrolls in their chest. With Assault Saver, you get the three Sky Team Heavenly Beasts as well as the Tian Combination Scroll.
The first and largest of the three Sky Team Heavenly Beasts is Exploding Thunder, some type of flying Lion. It really looks like a box with a Lion head, some legs and wings attached but it reminds me of Victory Leo or some sort of Brave series robot so it has a certain charm to it. The four legs do have some articulation, but the range of motion on them is pretty lacking and they can barely extend past the bottom of the body. The claws are ball jointed but they really don’t have anywhere to move. You can also move the wings around and there are quite a few jointed segments so you can position them however you want. I think the weakest part of the Exploding Thunder is the head. The Lion head itself looks pretty good but the jaw drops down to form the face of Assault Saver and even folded up, you can still see part of Assault Savers mouth plate. Being the largest of the three Sky Team Heavenly Beasts, Exploding Thunder forms the head, body, and legs of Assault Braver.
Next up is Soaring Bird, some type of VTOL/Eagle. The blades in the wings spin and the wings can move up and down as well. There is also a bit of articulation in the legs so you can sort of have it in a perching pose and the mouth can open and close. Soaring Bird is a fairly decent toy, it’s actually proportioned reasonably and forms Assault Saver’s left arm and back.
The final Heavenly Beast is Fire Phoenix. Unlike the Exploding Thunder and Soaring Bird, Fire Phoenix does have a secondary mode as a type of jet. There is some articulation in the legs but the figure itself is fairly average. Fire Phoenix forms the left arm of Assault Saver and part of the back as well.
The combination scroll works the same as Giant Savers, pressing a button will open up the front, playing light and sound effects. The Chinese character for sky, Tian is written in the center. Unfortunately my combination scroll has some issues, and does not close up very securely. As you can see in the pictures, the top two parts barely lock into place, which is rather disappointing, and will randomly open up with a light bump.
The three Heavenly Beasts with combine the scroll to form Assault Saver. Combining Assault Saver is not as fun or interesting as Giant Saver and basically requires you to unfold Exploding Thunder, plugging in the arms and rearranging a few miscellaneous parts. The weakest parts are probably the arms, which just simply look like two birds plugged into a torso. There are no hands or weapons to be held, and Fire Phoenix’s wings attachment seem like an afterthought. The face is also a little too small, as it is formed entirely from lower jaw of Exploding Thunder; it just looks disproportioned compared to the rest of the figure.
Like any good Super Sentai robot, Giant Saver and Assault Saver can combine to form Assault Giant Braver. Assault Giant Braver looks pretty good from the front, and gains a little bit of height but mostly becomes thicker. I think he looks pretty good from the front, but the head design doesn’t feel very polished and his arms feel a little small for his size. It isn’t until you look at Assault Giant Braver from the side that things start to get a bit silly. Assault Saver literally plugs into the back of Giant Save, though I actually think this combined form looks better than a lot of recent Super Sentai Combinations; it’s not the cluster-f*ck that is Ultimate Giant Braver.
I don’t think Assault Saver comes together as nicely as Giant Saver did, but it’s still a great toy. The issues with the Combination Scroll remind me that this is still a Chinese toy but I think if they could have simply made the arms somehow looks like arms, this could have been my favorite of the three Savers. Next time I will review the hilariously named Crack Saver and you can see for yourself the ridiculousness that is Ultimate Giant Braver.