DX Handle-Ken
November, 2014 – ¥4,200
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When Drive was in a pinch, Belt-San introduced a sword made from the steering wheel of the Tridoron, which Drive aptly named the Handle-Ken, or Handle Sword. The toy was released early November, 2014 for ¥4,200. Being a sword toy, the toy itself is rather small, but that’s to be expected with sword toys in these franchises. After two AAA batteries and a flip of the switch, you’ll hear “Turn your handle!” The trigger activates one singular generic slash sound. Rotate the wheel on the sword once to hear “Turn!” When the trigger is pressed you get a new slash sound. Turn it three times to hear “U-Turn!” followed by a power up noise and a new slash sound when the trigger is pressed. Finally at any point during any amount of turns, if the middle horn button is pressed, you hear “Drift Kaiten!” followed by a new power up sound. An explosion can now be heard after the slash sound. When the button is pressed during no turns, you hear a cute little horn noise. There is also a slot for a Shift Car on the base of the sword. There is no reader in the toy, so any Shift Car can be used to activate “Hissatsu!” followed by “Full Throttle!” and a finishing attack sound when the trigger is pressed. If by chance you have the Drive Driver on, activated, and in proximity to the Handle-Ken, the Drive Driver will respond to the Full Throttle, and display a picture of the steering wheel on the LED screen. Depending on which Shift Car is active in the Drive Driver, it will announce that Shift Car for the final attack, and sync up with the sounds of the Handle-Ken nicely. That functionality is really neat, and I love that they implmented communication between the weapons and the belt using the infrared communication. Of course, the toy includes the Shift Wild Shift Car, which lets Drive transform into Kamen Rider Drive Type Wild. This activates a new type in the Driver, with all new transformation jingles for the various Tire Koukan abilities. It sounds really cool. Overall, the Handle-Ken has its fun points, but isn’t as functional as things like the Musou Saber or DJ Gun from Gaim. If you’re hard up for the DX Shift Wild, then I suppose it can be worth it. The joint functionality is a neat addition that kids will probably get a kick out of. Whether it’s worth the pick up boils down to your preferences. For what it’s worth, it’s an alright toy.
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CollectorShuki.com