I think the change to a pufferfish is because Spike’s first design looked a little too much like a sea pony So you couldn’t tell he was a dragon, dragon clearly doesn’t equal sea pony, hippogriphs are part horse, and they wanted to keep Spike’s uniqueness.

@Itsthinking  
Releases of them are inevitable anyway.

@LightningBolt  
They haven’t even given Rarity a GoH release of any kind, and Fluttershy has only gotten a convention exclusive thing. Movie characters have gotten GoH toys ahead of Rarity and Fluttershy, it is crazy.

@Itsthinking  
Too bad it’s more Mane 6 again. Wish Hasbro would go back to the original method with G4 toys and make tons of different (and often times new) pony designs versus Rainbow Dash release number 245.
 
Oh well.

@LightningBolt  
Oh, just because you wanted more than just a figurine and there was an example. Sorry.
 
IIRC, the new Guardians of Harmony toys have more…friendly expressions and the accessories are completely removable. >>1510202

@Itsthinking  
I don’t know why you’re telling me as I have no interest in that Spike figure. I’d much rather a similarly sized normal Spike, personally. Surely there can be a balance to appealing to both girls and boys at once. Generic girl stuff is pink and frilly, and generic boy stuff is fighting and action. Guardians Of Harmony leans a little too actiony for my tastes when all I want is toys that can pose but look good doing so without sneering in anger and being packaged with accessories for fightfightfight. I still enjoy them, but I just want the characters and not the spears and projectiles and other fluff.

@Daneasaur  
@LightningBolt  
The Big Spike toy is a giant action figure thing and is pretty well made. It sold out at most brick and mortar places I saw, pretty sure you can get it online though. It was like $50 so I’m amazed it sold as well as it did; guess you can’t have a giant dragon sell poorly regardless of price.

@Daneasaur  
I like ‘little kid’ toys tho, I’m not the biggest fan of statues that just stand there and look cool I like some, but it’s lame when that’s all they exist for.

@LightningBolt  
Depends on the costs of molding that Hasbro wants to do.
 
See, this is where we get the problem of the adult fanbase, because we would be willing to pay for a high detailed figurines, but they gotta make the little kid toys.
 
Oh well, they did something right with the guardians of Harmony sets. I still can’t find Spike, but I spent $40+ on the queen Chrysalis set.
 

@Itsthinking  
There are several variations of G4 ‘seapony’ toy design and I own none of them so I cannot tell you. I can tell you that Hasbro has done more fiddly designs in the past, most infamously the super easy to break G1 Flutter Pony wings.

@LightningBolt  
I don’t know, don’t they usually use cloth for seapony fins now anyway? I just remembered that.

@Itsthinking  
I don’t see how. I’ve owned plenty of toys with fins that were made of vinyl and not hard plastic.

@LightningBolt  
A flowing design with fins would require fins made of hard plastic which would be pointy.

@Daneasaur  
Vinyl is flexible. What are most pony toys made of? Vinyl.

@Daneasaur  
All of the seaponies in general apparently had to be super simplified for the good of easier animating apparently.

@Itsthinking  
Well, most pretty fish are frail. Long flowing fins and such which don’t work so good on a plastic toy and when they are made sturdy, they are actually sharp like bladed weapons.
 
Spike as the seadragon, while fitting into the flowing design, is possibly “too elaborate” for a “second string character”. Making him a puffer fish reduces him to basically being a plastic ball.

@Daneasaur  
Possible, especially because they wanted to include a real-life water mechanic. But still, concept designers actually came up with toy designs that were too complex. That tends to happen when you tell someone who is an artist, not mechanical engineer, what would be cool in a toy.
 
Honestly I think maybe the pufferfish change either because of a gag or because of animation awkwardness with the first design. Or both. Would love to know a real answer though.

@Itsthinking  
Seems a lot of this movie is falling in that category.
 
I’m wondering if the horn designs were changed due to the possibility of toys being too frail or “needing a light up mechanism”…

Yeah, even the angler-fish horns looked cooler. They really snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with these seapony designs…

@TexasUberAlles  
That would have been hilarious and totally within her character.
 
But there is also this from Fantasia during the Nutcracker suit.
 

 
And I hope against all hope to see someone out there make an animation replacing the goldfish with the seapones and Rarity being the star.

@Daneasaur  
I would have loved them going that route just for the mental image of Rarity in the background lighting up her lure and a tiny little fish swimming in close to investigate, and her reflexively snapping out and eating it and then being super mortified and glancing nervously around to see if anyone had seen her do it.

@Background Pony #C308  
You mean this?
 
 

 
I’d approve.

Well, if it makes any better, Spike underwater form wasn’t the only thing that changed, if you notice what Twilight and Rarity’s horns would have looked like.

@LiaVal  
exactly, sea-dragon spike is best fish spike

The sea dragon design is better