DNA Design Kingdom Upgrade Kit II (DK-29)

Prelude: If you’ve looked at a few DNA Upgrades in your time as a Transformers collector, then you know how it goes. It’s either a big upgrade for a single big figure, or a bunch of smaller upgrades for several smaller figures, usually containing some stuff you want, some stuff you’ll take since they’re there, and some stuff you never would have bought if they weren’t part of the set. DK-29, the second upgrade kit for the War for Cybertron Kingdom beast warriors, is no different. Let’s say go!

Dinobot Upgrade: Most of the upgrade parts included in the DK-29 set are for Kingdom Dinobot, a pretty great figure with really just one flaw: the weird arms for the raptor mode. So unsurprisingly that’s the first thing this set here fixes. New arms for the raptor. Slightly bigger, better proportioned, and with an additional wrist joint. Not only does this upgrade look tons better, it also flawlessly fits into the existing transformation scheme, so that the new arms fit into the robot’s torso without any problems. Very nicely done, almost worth the price of admission all by itself.

The remaining parts for Dinobot are not so much upgrades as TOE parts (That One Episode). In “Coming of the Fuzors”, when a small team of Maximals had to defend the Axalon from a much larger Predacon force, Dinobot armed himself with all sorts of additional weapons from the ship’s arsenal (which, strangely, were never used again). So here we have two munition belts for his torso, a huge rifle, and two smaller pistols, which include clips so he can “holster” them by attaching them to the munition belts. Now you can fully recreate Dinobot’s look from that episode, including him riding on Rattrap with the big rifle mounted up front.

We move on to the episode “Code of Hero”, Dinobot’s swan song in the Beast Wars series. He used a primitive stone axe to prevail against Megatron, before using his eye beams to destroy the golden disk and its dangerous knowledge of the future. Both the stone axe and the golden disk are included here, plus a transparent stand for the disc. The axe is cool, the disk I could have done without, seeing as other versions of it have been included with other figures already. 

Bottom line for the Dinobot upgrades: the new arms are great, the weapons are cool, the stone axe is okay, the disk is just there.

Other Upgrades: While Dinobot was the main focus of this set, it also includes TOE parts for two other figures. Kingdom Scorponok receives the cyberbee he used in the episode “Gorilla Warfare”, which he can “launch” from his claw and (by use of an additional plastic frame) attach to the chest of Kingdom Optimus Primal to drive him mad. It’s far from a must-have accessory, but it’s nice enough that I don’t mind its inclusion.

Finally, there is a TOE part for Kingdom Blackarachnia. In the two-part episode “Other Voices” she used a visor with a cord to hack into Megatron’s backup files to find information on the golden disk. This accessory was also included with Masterpiece Blackarachnia. While it looks good and pretty much just like in the episode, I very much consider this part to be entirely superfluous. But maybe someone somewhere likes it, who knows?

Remarks: As mentioned above, DNA Design loves to put a bit of variety into their multi-figure upgrade sets, so you are usually left with some parts you want and some parts you don’t. It’s the same here. I bought this set for the Dinobot upgrade, mainly the new arms and weapons, and I’m perfectly happy with those. The rest of the stuff included I wouldn’t have needed and those parts will probably disappear into my accessory box, never to be unearthed again. So bottom line: well worth getting if you’ve got a Kingdom Dinobot you wish to upgrade, otherwise no need to bother with this set.

Rating: B