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Thursday, April 21, 2016

Super Best W Driver (2012)


This is a hunk of plastic that presses buttons on Gaia Memories. A beautiful one, but one nevertheless. Gaia Memories are toy USB drives (discussed here). DX memories have three buttons. One on their face, which elicits their name, and two located on the sides of the connector that are hit either by the channels in the belt, or the Maximum Drive slot. They also have LED lights that intermingle in the chamber at the bottom. Memories designed to work together are timed such that their sounds play in sequence, as they take turns sounding off. The original release of this included three silver-tipped Memories (all of Philip's normal ones) and one gold-tipped (Joker). That netted you three henshins. This release includes the Memories initially packaged with the Metal Shaft (Metal) and Trigger Magnum (Trigger), giving you access to all of W's regular forms.

It's probably the best W item you can buy, assuming you're into Rider belts, or role-play toys in general. There's a few extra notes below the cut.

5 Suave Gestures out of 5

The audio was rerecorded for the Korean W line, and given how crucial the audio is in tokusatsu programs and toys, this is unacceptable, to me. If you're alright with having something solely to LOOK at, I understand. If you're okay with different audio...hey, I'm happy for you. It's just something you need to know.


I'm not even sure if Korea is playing the 'Super Best' game, but either way it's still something of which you need to be aware.

The Metal and Trigger Memories are programmed exactly the same as their original releases, meaning putting them into the Maximum Drive slot yields funky results. This is because they were designed to work with those other toys, and in Trigger's case, the explosion SFX were actually in the magnum, not the memory itself.

This can easily and reversibly be modified into a Lost Driver. There will be a hole in the base-plate, but that only gives it an undeniable air of authenticity; something will genuinely be missing/incomplete! ShukuenShinobi/CollectorShuki has a tutorial up on his Youtube channel.

He's also the place to go to see what's in each of the gashapon and candy toy sets.

The availability of DX Gaia Memories is as follows:

Original W Driver:
  • Cyclone
  • Heat
  • Luna
  • Joker
Metal Shaft:
  • Metal
Trigger Magnum:
  • Trigger
Fang Memory:
  • Sold individually
Xtreme Memory:
  • Sold individually
Prism Bicker:
  • Prism
Super Best W Driver:
  • Cyclone
  • Heat
  • Luna
  • Joker
  • Metal
  • Trigger
Accel Driver:
  • Accel
Engine Blade:
  • Engine
Trial Memory:
  • Part of the Gaia Memory Complete Selection 2 set
  • Technically, it's a gashapon, but it's the only way you're getting one!
Skull Magnum:
  • Skull
Lost Driver
  • Eternal
  • Get the gashapon instead, though. More accurate sounds!
O-Medal Set EX:
  • Memory - doesn't say "Memory..." 😖
The Dopant Memory that was sold at retail was incomplete and only had Terror's sticker. All of the show Dopant Memories that managed to appear (and Dummy) are in Gaia Memory Complete Selection 1. Again, the Complete Selection memories are gashapon, but they're already assembled, and the only way you're going to get certain Memories.

The Dopant version of Ocean is in Complete Selection 2, alongside Shroud's Bomb Memory. It also has some from the movies:
  • The 26 T2 Memories (A to Z)
  • Skull (Movie Taisen 2010)
  • Shinigami Hakase (Movie Taisen 2010)
  • Spider Dopant (Movie War Core)
  • Bat Dopant (Movie War Core)
  • The Memory Memory (Movie War Core)
    • Actually says "Memory" unlike the one in Medal Set EX
  • Enhancement Adapter (for Accel Booster; Accel's movie)

1 comment :

Dr Faustus said...

If this is the one I have, even the noise the mechanism makes when you pop it open or closed is super-satisfying (I mean just the plastic, minus any of the SFX).