[ComicGuy89]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Starscream Gaga

Before him, there's always been a reason for really simple mecha, hollow spring-loaded opening parts for a line-wide gimmick, electronics, etc but ToQoh has nothing, he's literally, "line-up the trains, fold two parts of the Red Train and DONE!" with absolutely zero gimmicks. Functionality with the Changer aside (which Kyoryuger managed without nixing the actual mecha completely of gimmicks) ToQoh does absolutely nothing, which usually only happens on mecha that are fantastic on their own (Magiking, Gaoking) or very old.

Functionality with the changer is actually a pretty big reason for a lot of the design choices, I would think. Every individual mecha must have a separable component that's just about the size that would fit into a changer. Not to mention, that all of them must be able to separate at their carriages to form convincing trains in their own right. These two factors definitely limit the size and transformation possibilities of the mecha.

This is just me, but I really think we shouldn't dismiss the functionality of the train mecha as actual trains that can be lined up and customized to their individual carriages and engines. For example, looking at how the Yellow and Pink Resshas separate between the engine and carriage shows how an elbow is impossible. When you take this into consideration, I think they did a fantastic job with at least ToQOh (the only one I have experience with). Also note that ToQOh is a rare recent Sentai bot with no partsforming involved.

For me then, the gimmick is having each individual mecha be a train toy, a changer item, and part of a combination, and to manage all these three at the level they did is quite a feat of engineering, in my opinion. These three gimmicks extend throughout the entire line, and in fact are just as integrated, if not more so than Gokaiger's chest-opening gimmick or Kyoryuger's Zyudenchi gimmick.