>>6441340They're charming in the same vein as a NES game. It's clunky and ugly, but you can still have fun with it and you can tell the people who made it were trying their best with what they had to work with.
On top of that, it's a deceptively powerful idea that Lego never really capitalized. Abstract amalgamations of parts from a (relatively) limited pool of resources arranged to vaguely resemble what they're intended to. Art through adversity. Obscure intent of design sparks the imagination, something that TLG has always been about. Imagine a G1 where instead of an extensive selection of tall buff dudes for titans, we had Nidhikis and Gadunkas and Kikanalos, where the Hordika shared common parts but had unique bestial motifs, where the dreaded Inika torso wouldn't have even been a thought, all because of one thing that Lego either couldn't or wouldn't do for constraction since conception; true part modularity; building a parts library to do away with a need for specialized pieces. A foot that doubles as a forearm, a head with points to attach digits for a hand, a thigh that could easily pass for an upper torso or part of a weapon. Parts designed to fill multiple roles depending on how they are utilized. Is it a breastplate or shinguard? Is it a hammerhead or a laser? An eye or a tooth? Yes. And that's what the rahi were all about, freeform part use. No norms or standards to adhere to, Technic was the wild west, and the guys who wrought the tarakava, nui jaga, and co from a bucket of pins and beams and gears and axles were the desperados.
The point when the Mata trunk was abandoned should have been the point they stopped designing new parts with a solitary application in mind (except masks, of course), and while I can't say any of the 2001 rahi sets were executed anywhere near flawlessly, the potential of the concept is so broad I bemoan that it's been attempted again only in few exceptional cases, a handful of times across the past decade-and-a-half.
