If you’ve been hanging around here the last year or so, then you know how much I’ve been digging Storm Collectibles’ line of figures based on the SEGA Golden Axe arcade brawler. I’ll refer you back my look at the first release, Axe Battler, but there have also been an assortment of Skeletons, as well as Death Adder and his clones. Yessir, I love me some Golden Axe, even if it is singularly responsible for me still misspelling the word Ax just about every damn time. When Axe Battler was first revealed, I remember crying about how I would happily shell out the money to buy a repaint of the Red Dragon Mount if it meant getting us Tyris Flare, and happily Storm Collectibles has obliged!

Of course, Tyris Flare being one of the three playable characters in Golden Axe. She has stronger magical abilities, seems to move and attack a bit faster, but lacks the tank-like constitution of the burly Axe Battler. The packaging here is quite similar to that previous release, although the art and quality of the box feel slightly more polished. This box didn’t immediately tear when I opened it! You still get the cool artwork from the character select screen on an insert in the back of the box. Tyris comes on a tray with all her extras spread out around her, while the her Dragon Mount is secured in a tray under that one, and requiring his tail to be popped on before display. Let’s start with a look at Tyris!

Definitely one of the hottest pixelated babes to grace my SEGA Genesis, Tyris shows up to the fight wearing a skimpy bikini, white with red borders, as well as a pair of matching arm bracers, and high buccaneer-style boots. The bikini is sculpted as part of the figure, and Storm did some clever stuff, like using the straps on the back to help conceal the seams in the rather copious amount of jointing found here. I say “help conceal”, because it really doesn’t succeed completely. For a figure that shows this much skin, the jointing here can be pretty noticeable. It’s nothing worse than we saw with Axe Battler, and this is definitely a case where the added articulation is worth the sacrifice. Still, I wouldn’t mind seeing TBLeague take a crack at this line with their Phicen Seamless bodies. With all that having been said, I think she looks great, and they did an especially nice job sculpting the musculature in her abs.

As with Axe Battler, you get two different heads: One with a fairly neutral expression, and one showing her battle face. I think both are excellent and reflect the beauty of the character. I can’t decide on a favorite so I’ll likely switch off depending on what kind of poses I use for displaying her. The hair is sculpted separately from the head, and that adds a lot of nice depth to it, especially the way her bangs fall over her forehead. This piece can actually be removed, similar to a Figma or Figuart, but I’m not sure why, since we aren’t swapping faces here, but rather the entire head.

I do like how her fierce expression head has more going on with her hair. It’s splayed out down near her shoulders, as if her coif is whipping around from the action of the battle.

In addition to the two heads, Tyris comes with a whole passel of different hands. You get Fists, sword-holding hands, relaxed hands, grapple hands, and finger-pointing hands. Some of these really add some nice options while posing her.

And posing her sure is fun. Her articulation consists of a lot of rotating joints, double-hinges, and double-sided ball joints. It’s also worth mentioning that, like Axe Battler, the balance on this figure is quite impressive. She’s even capable of standing on her tip-toes without the assist of a stand! Axe Battler spent a long time on my desk so that I could grab him and fiddle about with him on my downtime, and I imagine that will be the case with Ms. Flare as well. She’s just lots of fun to play around with and damn hard to put down!

Apart from a whole bunch of hands, Tyris comes with her trusty sword, and it’s an absolutely gorgeous little weapon. The blade has a bright silver finish, with raised gold decorations running nearly half the length of the blade. The hilt has a dark iron finish, with a down-turned crossguard, and an extended grip so the sword can be wielded single or double-handed. It’s easy to get the grip into either or both of her hands, and she holds it just firmly enough to keep it from slipping. Let’s move on to the Dragon Mount!

I won’t spend a whole lot of time on this glorious blue beast, because he really is a straight repaint of Axe Battler’s Red Mount. It was a strikingly beautiful toy then, and it’s every bit as beautiful with its new coat of paint. The blue looks really nice, although the pea-soup green used for the claws, belly, reins, and saddle makes the figure not as flashy as it could have been. The pixel art in the game utilized a bit brighter shade for these parts, but I can’t say I dislike what we got.

The head is an amazing sculp, featuring some exceptional detail in the fins, horns, and the texturing of the skin. You get a little gradient to the shade of blue at the tips of the horns and fins, as well as the beak. The individual teeth are painted white, and the tongue a very bright red.

As with Axe Battler and his Mount, Tyris fits perfectly on the Blue Dragon, and looks damn good riding him. Her feet pass through the stirrups, and her sword-hands can be used to grip the reins and lead the dragon into battle! As I mentioned in the Red Dragon review, I would have liked to have a little more lateral movement in the legs to give him a wider stance, but they really just rotate where they meet the body. Nonetheless, the figure stands well, even with a rider on his back.

One nice surprise here is the change of dragon breath effect parts. In the game, the Red Dragon shot fireballs and the Blue Dragon had more of a flamethrower attack. That is conveyed here with this gigantic flame effect part. It simply rests on the ground with the other end fitting into the dragon’s mouth.

Wow… it’s so cool to finally have Tyris on my shelf! When Axe Battler first released, I could only hope that he wasn’t going to be a one-off release, but now it’s clear that Storm is continuing to play with extra credits! Yes, they have been milking some of the molds by giving us lots of two dragon mounts, skeleton variants and Death Adder clones, but if that’s what they have to do to make this line work, I’m still All-In! I’m still hoping we get some more rank-and-file enemies, like Heninger, Longmoan, and the Amazons. So far, the only brand new figure teased are The Bad Brothers, and I’m patiently waiting for that pre-order to drop!