(12-29-2017, 01:27 AM)Super Wrote: Ok...so the only one that is a motorized Plarail train coming in April is Hurricane...right??? Just from the blurry picture he already looks 10 times better than the Trackmaster version and the same goes for the trailing smelter pot car so I do get how one could say that Mattel has won this round OTR or am I missing something?
In my defense, I was looking at the pics of Hurricane on my phone and without my reading glasses, so I didn’t realize the he was the powered engine in a set with Frankie and the ladle car (is that what the car is called?). I was working on the assumption that I was seeing Tekoro engines but since that’s not the case, this set is much more interesting to me now.
On the other hand, the play set with Thomas and Merlin is kind of underwhelming. My son got the Scrapyard Escape set for Christmas and it was honestly pretty impressive.
I’m pretty ambivalent about Trackmaster 2 stuff, since it often seems like a step down from Plarail or TM1. And while I’m sure a Plarail Hurricane or powered Merlin will probably be nicer than the Trackmaster versions, I’ll concede that Mattel did a decent job on their Journey Beyond Sodor line. It’s actually above average for them nowadays. Of course, they managed to get back to normal with the new version of Stephen that’s in the same assortment as Lexi! What in the holy heck happened there?
![[-]](https://www.blueplastictracks.org/images/collapse.png)