If you're here for the score of this review, I scammed it, and there will be spoilers.
I think this show is suffering from Alzheimer's syndrome, especially Zoe since she seems to forget about the fact that she has a Big Foot Assault card (Seismosaurus) and Super Impact card (Supersaurus), even though she still uses Metal Wing (Pteranodons), and the old lady still has her Futaba Super Cannon card (Futabasaurus)! They are OP moves, yet she never uses them. They could have come in handy for capturing the first cosmo stone at least. On the other part, Terry, Spiny, and Tank suck. They were terribly weak, especially in the final battle against the pirates. The only time when one of them shone was during a battle between Spiny and Jobaria. It would have been great if the Alpha Gang became stronger and smarter instead of pretending to be Team Rocket.
Being the second season, it must have introduced something new for the battles. However, it was a lame one. While in Bakugan: New Vestroia, it introduces traps, mechanical lifeless bakugans, combiners (including the maxus), and battle gears. This series introduces armor: Element Boosters and Spectral Armor. That's it. They upgrade the dinosaurs' defense and attack, and some can have their own move card. There are only 10 armors with their own move card; 6 of them have the same basic attack. Where's the creativity? Honestly, this concept is handled far better in Battle of Giants Dinosaurs DS. The season could have introduced other prehistoric creatures as support cards or a new element. Sure, they aren't dinosaurs... nor the swimming and flying reptiles that were included in Season 1. There could have been awesome battles like:
-Spinosaurus vs Deinosuchus
-Futabasaurus vs Mosasaurus or Kronosaurus
-Pteranodons vs Quetzalcoatlus
-Carnotaurus vs Dimetrodon or Edaphosaurus
-Tyrannosaurus vs Wolly Mammoth
-Saichania vs Megalania or Glyptodon
-Parasaurolophus vs Megatherium
-Everyone vs Megalodon
-Etcétera, etcétera, etcétera.
About the story, it has nothing to do with dinosaurs. You can just replace them with monsters or modern animals, and nothing will change. They're only relevant in the first episode when the team time-traveled to a place where Jurassic and Cretaceous dinosaurs happened to coexist, and featured a cosmically mystical-looking bird called the "pterosaur"? Okay. As for the historical accuracy of the settings, I don't know. I can't judge them, so I'll leave them to someone else.
Next up is the setting...it's not good. In the first season, the majority of the episodes were spent in different places, although it suffers from the laziness of everyone speaking the same language. I guess many people would let it pass because it is a kids' show, but I still find it annoying. In this season, it spends 5-6 episodes on each place, and there are 30 episodes in total. Despite taking place in the past, everyone speaks the same language as the main protagonists. Every single one of them? And they were traveling in time, yet their actions didn't have an impact on history? The dinosaurs didn't leave a record? The present wasn't affected at all? C'mon, the main characters are wearing modern clothes, yet nobody calls them out for it. Not even the androids bother to correct them.
Now, time for the villains. The pirates (dumb Chunk, bratty Pepe, bitchy Karen, and their boss) simply want the cosmos stones to control the universe for...whatever reason. Yet somehow, they have dinosaurs? Are there dinosaurs on the planet where they come from? And I'm not referring to the ones they stold. A possible answer is that Seth was responsible for their creation. Writing about Seth, I find him...okay. Like in the previous season, he is taking advantage of the main antagonists in secret to complete his own goals. Since the heroes are in a tough situation, he easily betrays them, again.
Lastly, the best part of this season was definitely the cryolophosaurus. Now this is a special dinosaur. It's rapid, it's deadly, and it’s Antarctic. Too bad it was forced to be beaten by Max's Chomp. Anyway, I like the aquatic battle (only happened once) and the aerial battle. It's less annoying that the main characters know the names of every single dinosaur which I can let it slide.
Minor complaints:
For some strange reason, this season doesn't introduce the rest of the dinosaurs from Dinosaur King DS and the arcade games. Instead of featuring an irritator, a tarbosaurus, orneovenator; they just brought back the baryonyx, carcharodontosaurus, and megaraptor. 3/4 of the dinosaurs of the pirates' are another stegosaurus, triceratops, and tyrannosaurus. Not even the eoraptor was featured (Dinosaur King's own ditto). At least it introduced another secret dinosaur called the apataosaurus/brontosaurus. Meanwhile, the Triassic dinosaurs are pretty much forgotten about since only one Triassic dinosaur made an appearance in the entire show, the gojirasaurus. There are other two missing from the show: the liliensternus from the Japanese Arcade (2007 4th Edition+, Gekizan 1st Edition and Kakushin 3rd Edition's Green Dinosaurs Egg card), the English Arcade (Series 2 4th Edition), Taiwanese Arcade (New 4th Edition and New 5th Edition) and the TCG as Liliensternus and Racing liliensternus; the eoraptor, the Japanese Arcade (Kakushin 1st Edition and Kakushin 2nd Edition) and the Dinosaur King DS. Kind of sad thatmany more weren't included in the franchise because they're the first dinosaurs to ever exist!
The art style and the animation are the same as the first. The 3D and 2D aren't incorporated well, as expected, but I'm not mad about it due to nostalgia. I know there are animation errors. However, I can't stand the transformation scenes. It's heavily abused for the introduction of the battles. Mentioning about battles, does anybody know if health bars, levels, and stats are a thing in this show?
In conclusion, I still like the franchise. It was part of my childhood due to my obsession with dinosaurs. I used to have a lot of dinosaur toys until my mom sold them by lying to me. I used to read books about dinosaurs until my mom donated many of them to the school's library, sold and trashed them, while the rest were forgotten by my father. I used to eat dinosaur nuggets until I moved to México. I used to play Battle of Giant Dinosaurs DS and Dinosaur King DS, until I lost the Dinosaur King DS card. I still have the other, but my Nintendo DSI XL isn't working well. I used to watch the Dinosaur King show on YouTube. The franchise is dead, but I'm glad because there would have been a horrible reboot.
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