Tag Archives: video games

May 3 2024

Shantae 20th Anniversary Statue by Limited Run Games

One of the great things about the modern collectibles market is it allows me to talk about video games on my Toy Blog. From Street Fighter to Golden Axe, Mega Man to King of Fighters and even Metal Slug, there’s a lot of crossover from video games to action figures. But, it’s rare that I get to talk about one of my favorite modern video game platformer series here on FFZ, and that’s because the spunky Half-Genie Hero, Shantae, hasn’t had a lot of merch beyond some extras packed into the limited edition releases of the games. Indeed, the closest thing to a toy or collectible of her in my collection is a Pop! Vinyl, and I only buy those things if it’s my only option. There have been some garage kits, which I believe come unpainted and my skills just aren’t up to the task, so I’ve passed on those. It’s kind of a crime that she hasn’t had a Figma or Figuarts or even a Prize Figure, but maybe one day. Anyway, Developer WayForward has produced five games in the series so far, with the first landing on the Gameboy Color about 22 years ago. Since then her adventures have reached a whole host of gaming platforms, all packed with her beaming personality, addictive Metroidvania style gameplay, and a host of colorful characters and dry wit. Suffice it to say, I highly recommend these games, and they can be had digitally on most modern gaming platforms. At some point, maybe I’ll showcase all the physical editions of the games I own, including collectors editions, steelbooks, and the like, but I’ll save all that for another day. Today is all about this 20th Anniversary statue that I’ve been waiting for for what feels like forever!

Now, I’m a physical kind of guy when it comes to my games and Shantae’s games have all been released and/or re-released physically by Limited Run Games, the company which also produced the statue we’re checking out today. The statue went up for pre-order two years ago and finally arrived at my doorstep this past week. And while I am absolutely chuffed to finally have her, I really need to stress that nothing I say today is meant to be an endorsement of LRG as a company. The more I’ve learned about them, the less I’ve wanted to do business with them. Yes, I’ve swallowed my morals in order to get some games physically. I’m happy I did, but at the same time not proud of it. But with this statue in hand, I’m at the point where LRG and I can part ways, as I’m officially done doing business with them. And yes, that includes not getting a physical release of the next Shantae game from them. It’s fine. I’ll support the game digitally. But, it’s not for me to tell anyone what companies they should patronize or shouldn’t, and I’m not going to sully this happy Shantae Statue Day with a lot of negative talk. Do your research and make your own decisions!

OK, enough preamble. Shantae comes in a very nice art box with some photos of the statue and some of its features. One side of the box illustrates the ability to take the acrylic standee figures that came with each of the games’ collectors edition and plug them into the statue base and light them up! Alas, my collectors editions are all sealed with the standees inside and I have no plans on opening them any time soon. Thankfully, the option existed to get a set of game box style acrylics to take their place and we’ll check out how that looks at the end. The back of the box has a heartfelt message from Shantae’s creators, The Bozons. Inside the box, the statue comes fully assembled and enclosed in a clear plastic clamshell and measures about 12-inches, but a decent amount of that is base.

And she looks fantastic! I’ll confess that I was a little concerned over what the quality was going to be like, as even some companies that produce statues regularly can be hit and miss when it comes to delivering the goods. Shantae is cast in PVC so she’s more akin to a scaled anime figure than she is most collectible statues. Most of the colors are achieved through the plastic and that means clean lines and colors that really pop, but not much in the way of complex shading. And that’s OK, because it really accentuates the animated style of the character. The red of her top, shoes, and billowy genie pants looks great alongside the bright yellowish gold of her arm bracers, and there’s a bit of black to keep things grounded. The skin tone is nice and even and not at all waxy, which can be a problem in some of the less premium figures on the market.

And I have to give a shout out to the way they did the pants! Shantae’s puffy genie pants are actually cast in semi-translucent plastic and you can actually see her legs inside of them. That is a really cool touch and something that I can’t ever remember seeing on another PVC figure like this. Bravo!

The pose is sheer perfection, with Shantae caught posing in mid dance with her purple hair swirling around her in a long, tapered whip, and her fingers interlocked behind her. The composition captures her two signature moves: Dancing to morph herself into an animal and her ability to use her copious coif as a whip to strike down enemies. When viewed from the front, the figure really does look like a perfect 2D rendering of the character brought to life in 3D, and that’s about the highest compliment I can pay a statue.

And the portrait is just as on point as the rest of the figure. Her giant blue eyes are perfectly printed and vibrant, her mouth is agape with glee, and she has two golden earrings dangling from her pointed ears. It’s actually kind of fun to watch them jostle when you move the statue. If I had one criticism it would be that the seams where the tufts of hair sprout away are pretty obvious. It would have been nice to see those gaps a little tighter.

Included in the box is a clear plastic support rod for her hair. It’s not required to display the statue, but it might be a good idea in order to keep the hair from drooping over time. It stays in place simply by friction and definitely adds a lot of support. It can also be positioned directly behind the figure so it’s not an eyesore. Totally optional, but I’ll likely use it.

The base isn’t the most stylish thing around, as it’s just a circular black pedastal with nestled in a brown ring. The Shantae logo is sculpted onto the front and there’s a USB power cable that connects to the back for the light up feature.

And here are the acrylic pieces that came with my package, and I honestly can’t remember if these were an optional extra or if they were included with every statue. The set came bundled together in a small plastic bag with each piece having protective plastic overlays that need to be peeled off. Each square piece of acrylic has the box art from the five games printed in some rich colors with a tab to plug them into the ring around the base. Yes, I would have preferred if they didn’t print Limited Run Games on every single one of these and would have much rather had just the box art, but it is what it is. I think the statue looks great displayed without these, but they are a neat extra.

The slots are designed so that one acrylic goes directly above the Shantae plaque with two evenly spaced to the left and right sides. The tabs and slots are interchangeable, so you can place them in whatever order you want. Here I chose with the first game front and center, the next two on either side, and finally the two most recent releases toward the back.

Plug in the power source and you get an ethereal green glow to each of the acrylics. It’s bright enough to be seen in a lit room, but it looks really cool in a dim environment. There’s no On/Off button and there’s no battery to charge. Plug it in and it stays lit. Unplug it and the lights go out. I will say that I think these box art squares look better to me than the pictures I’ve seen of the standees. It just looks more uniform, but that’s just my personal taste. I will likely leave the acrylics in place, but I doubt I will have it lit very often.

After two years it’s so cool to finally have this in hand and I will confess that it was worth the wait. My little Shantae shrine has been mostly a display of the various boxed copies and collectors editions with the exception of the Pop! Vinyl and a mini arcade cab that LRG released that plays the video and music from the intro of one of the games. Needless to say this statue will make for an excellent centerpiece to tie it all together. The statue was offered for $160 and I think it was well worth it. And naturally it’s already going on Ebay for nearly twice that much in some cases. Who knows how many were actually produced, as it was an open pre-order item, but either way I’m just glad to have a great representation of the character on my shelf!

Apr 17 2024

Popup Parade (Darkstalkers) Morrigan Aensland and Lilith by Max Factory

It’s taken a lot of willpower to kick collecting scaled anime figures. Not that I was ever huge into them, but I had to scratch that itch every now and then. Eventually I got priced out of it and even Kotobukiya (once the best value in scales) has become too rich for my blood, except for the odd sale here and there. On the flipside, I also gave up prize figures because it’s easy to amass totes full of them and the quality is all over the place. But, I still have to get my fix every now and then and so I’ve settled on Popup Parade as a compromise. Last year, I took a look at their Cowboy Bebop figures as well as their Cammy and Chun-Li from Street Fighter. And now, they just shipped out the Succubi from Darkstalkers, and well you know I had to pick these up!

This pair of succubi come in rather large plastic boxes that can double as display cases once you unwrap the figures inside. With that being said, they are pretty big to accommodate the girls’ wingspans, and I’ve gone on record saying how much I don’t care for the generic style of these. The names of the characters are so understated and there’s very little branding for the license. Sure, there’s merit to be found in the idea that you let the figure do all the talking, but would it kill them to use the Darkstalkers logo and print the names of the characters in a way that it doesn’t look like you’re ashamed of them? Since Morrigan tends to get the most attention in terms of figures and statues, let’s start with Lilith!

Lilith’s origins are a bit too complex for me to get into here, but she’s sometimes referred to as Morrigan’s half-sister, albeit by way of mystical means. She is often represented as a manifestation of Morrigan’s lost innocence, so she’s portrayed more cute than voluptuous, making for a nice contrast when the two characters are displayed together. I’d classify the pose here as museum-style mixed with a little attitude, as Lilith has her hands resting on her hips, which makes me feel like she’s judging me. The coloring on this figure is excellent with the blue leggings having the darker blue bat patterns, the sleeves being slightly more purple, and a gorgeous high gloss crimson finish on her boots and one-piece. There’s some sculpted white fur that leaves her shoulders bare and a white diamond in the center of her chest. The deco is so vibrant and she pops so beautifully on the shelf.

She has two sets of bat-like wings, jutting from her back and head, and these have a leather-like texture on the front and back. The fronts are painted black with the fingers between the membranes painted in red, while the backs are completely red. There are white horns jutting from the tops of each wing and the red paint used on the backs is high gloss, giving them a creepy wet look.

The portrait is right on point with big, adorable eyes and perfectly printed lips and eyebrows. The purple hair is sculpted separately from the head allowing the bangs to hang down over her face and adding a lot of depth. The skin tone leans toward the pale side, but it isn’t waxy as is sometimes the case on these budget figures.

The display base is a standard black disk, which is par for the course with Popup Parade’s figures. What I don’t care for at all is the way the foot pegs are done. As we’ll see with Morrigan, the feet usually peg into the base and sometimes there’s some clear plastic in the gap between the foot and the high heel for stability. Here there are clear plastic platforms that the feet rest on and it doesn’t make any sense. Maybe they were going for a levitating look, but I honestly don’t think that’s the case. Also, one of my figure’s foot pegs will not stay all the way in, so I may end up gluing it.

The way the clear foot pegs are done may seem like a petty gripe, but what irks me so much about it is they went out of their way to design it that way. Still, it’s not enough to completely mar what is an otherwise very nice figure. I dig the pose, the sculpt is great, but it’s the coloring that really makes this figure a win! Plus, she’s currently the only Lilith figure in my collection. Let’s move on to Morrigan…

Unlike Lilith, I have at least a few Morrigan figures, with the most recent being Koto’s own Bishoujo version, so she’s got some competition. Still, I like what they did here. Morrigan strikes a seductive pose with one arm crossed under her copious chest and the other drawn back behind her head. It’s not as playful as Koto’s pose, but I think it works really well for the character. The coloring is appropriate and it looks great, even if it isn’t as vibrant as Lilith’s. You get purple tights with the bat patterns, a glossy black onesie and boots, white, sculpted fur trim around the biceps and a sort of pale orange for her sleeves. And naturally, her chest is practically spilling out of her top!

The four pairs of wings have purple membranes on the inside with black fingers separating them, while the backs are all glossy black and have some excellent leathery texture sculpted in. The purple interior doesn’t really catch the light as much as I would like, but I think some of that has to do with how folded in they are, along with the lighting I used.

I really dig this portrait and a lot of that has to do with the eyes, which remind me of some of the earlier character art. Her blue peepers are perfectly printed, along with the eyebrows and lips. There’s a fleetingly haunting flavor to her expression. It’s seductive and just a bit intimidating, and totally distinctive from any of the other Morrigan figures I have. The turquoise hair whips around behind her head and shoulders, giving the piece some real energy.

And here’s how the foot pegs should have been done for Lilith. They connect to the base perfectly and you don’t have those weird clear platforms under her feet, just between the heel and toe.

At about $34 each, these ladies fall on the lower end of Popup Parade’s spectrum, and it’s hard to argue with that considering how nice these turned out. It would have been cool to get some kind of connecting bases, but that’s not something this line seems to do. And that’s OK, because they still look great when displayed on the shelf together. I’m happy to finally have Lilith in my collection, although I’m still keeping an eye out to see if Koto’s Bishoujo version ever goes on sale. In the meantime, if Max Factory releases more Darkstalkers characters in this line, I’d definitely be down for adding more!

Apr 12 2024

Halo: Warthog and Master Chief by Jazwares

Halo and I have had our ups and downs together. I adored the first game and still think it’s one of the best games to ever launch with a console. I’ve played it through at least a dozen times, and I’m long overdue for a revisit. Halo 2 disappointed me, because I did not like the bait-and-switch that forced you to play half the game as a filthy Covenant. Halo 3 must have been pretty forgettable, because I have no memory of it. And I kind of liked Halo 4, which I think is at odds with most people. I have yet to play any of the other games, but I’m pretty sure I own all of them. With that preamble aside, I have a lot of nostalgia for the property and I like to pick up the toys now and then. The last one I checked out here was a surprisingly good and cheap 12-inch figure by Jazwares, and today I’m checking out their 4-inch scale Warthog with Master Chief.

To be honest, the only reason I bought this toy is because it turned up on Amazon at half-off and for fifteen bucks, I decided to give it a try. After it arrived and I played around with it for a short while, I was so impressed that I quickly ordered up a second while it was still on sale, so that should give you an idea where this review is going. The iconic vehicle comes in an enclosed box with a cut out to show the included figure, and boy does the art on the front of this box give me the feels. It’s kind of weird to have nostalgia for a game that was released when I was 23 years old, but I guess the older you get, the more that window of what’s nostalgic just opens wider and wider. One strange thing about the packaging is that you have to look really hard to find the manufacturer, and when you do, it’s listed as Wicked Cool Toys. And it turns out that WCT is a subsidiary of Jazwares, and I simply can’t understand why Jazwares wouldn’t want to stamp their name on a toy this good. Maybe it’s a licensing issue. Anyway, the Warthog comes out of the box nearly completely assembled. You just have to put the machine gun on the back, plug in the antenna, and load up the extra gas cans. Let’s take a look, and we’ll start with the Master Chief figure.

I don’t have any experience with this 4-inch line, so I wasn’t expecting much from a figure packed in with a vehicle. Suffice it to say I was pretty pleased when I got this little guy in hand and started playing around with him. The sculpt is decently detailed, albeit a bit soft, there’s a fair bit of dry brushing to give the olive green armor some weathering and character, as well as some black scoring where he took a hit on his chest. The exposed parts of the suit between the armor is all painted black, and naturally John-117 has his tiny 117 printed on his chest. There are some silver paint hits on some of the suit details and the visor is painted in a metallic gold finish. Chief comes with his trusty United Nations Space Command Battle Rifle, which can peg into his back or held and ready for action.

I think the articulation is what surprised me the most about this little Chief. He’s got rotating hinges in his shoulders, elbows, hips, and ankles. His neck is ball jointed and he’s got another under the chest. His wrists swivel and he’s got double hinged knees. I can get some great poses out of this fella and I absolutely love how he can even draw his rifle up to his shoulder to aim down the barrel. I’ve got plenty of 6-inch scale figures that can’t even do that! OK, let’s move on to the Warthog!

These days, I expect toy vehicles found at retail to be mostly hollow, cheap plastic, and have minimal paint apps. This Warthog is the complete opposite of all that. The build quality is fantastic and it has a nice heft to it, especially for a 4-inch scale vehicle. The detail in the sculpt is off the charts, with no expense spared at giving this war machine all the character it deserves. Sure, there’s the more obvious stuff like the vents, latches, hatches, stepping bars, and grab bars on the body, but then you’ve got the insane attention to detail in the undercarriage, where you can see the suspension straight through to the shock absorbers behind the wheels. There’s s non-functioning winch with a hook hanging off the front and you get some big beefy treads in the plastic tires. The deco is also superb, with plenty of dry brushing to simulate abrasions where the paint has rubbed down to the bare steel. You also get various UNSC tampos and emblems placed about the vehicles body. Overall, I think this vehicle looks more like a mid to higher grade model than it does a toy, and yet it’s rugged as all hell and rolls along great.

The machine gun can raise and lower, and it also rotates at the base, but it is very hard to turn it. I think they overdid it a bit with the friction to keep it in place. It’s actually easier to pull it out and pop it back in the direction you want it pointing. There’s a foot peg to help secure the figure to the base and a couple of handles for him to grab.

The four gas cans on the back are each removable, with one attaching flat against the rear tailgate and the other three tabbing in on their sides.

In addition to the gunner, the Warthog holds a driver and passenger in the front cabin and Master Chief fits in quite nicely despite his bulky armor.

When you consider that I don’t really collect Halo toys, that I only bought this one because it was on deep discount, and that I have a huge backlog of stuff that I do collect, it really says something that I bumped the Warthog up to the front of the review queue. I was just so impressed with this toy I wanted to give it it some recognition. Sure, a lot of the wow factor comes from getting it for $15, but even if I had paid twice (which I believe was the original MSRP), I would have been equally happy. It seems like when Hasbro releases something approaching this quality in their Star Wars Vintage Collection line it would be at least $50-60 and it might not even include a figure. Now… I may just have to pick up one of the figure packs so I can get this Warthog fully loaded!

Mar 20 2024

Mega Man by Jada Toys

A short while back, Jada Toys started trying their hand at the 6-inch scale action figure market with a selection of Universal Monsters. These were really quite good, especially for a company’s early effort and I think the only thing that really hurt them was the fact that veteran NECA Toys was doing the same figures at the same time, and infinitely better. But, Jada persevered and wound up giving us what I thought were some of the best figures of 2024 with their Ultra Street Fighter II line. And it looks like they’re continuing to cozy up with Capcom, because now they’re tackling The Blue Bomber himself, Mega Man!

It’s impossible to overestimate the importance of Mega Man as a game franchise. It perfected run-and-gun side-scrolling action and managed to create an intensely difficult challenge, while rarely feeling cheap and unfair. That didn’t stop me from wanting to snap a few controllers in half while playing, but more often than not, when I die playing I’m willing to concede that it’s entirely my fault. The first assortment of three figures includes Mega Man, and the bosses Ice Man and Fire Man. I decided to give Mega Man his own slot today, but both Ice Man and Fire Man are on their way to me, so I’ll likely check them out together in the near future. The figure comes in some snazzy packaging with a big window to show off the figure and accessories. You get some beautiful character art and Mega Man’s power meter fully powered up, which I thought was a great touch. It’s all collector friendly, so let’s cut some tape and bust him out!

And dang, doesn’t he look great! Mega Man stands shorter than the Street Fighter figures, but I’d still consider him to be about 6-inch scale. There’s actually not a lot to say about Mega Man when it comes to his sculpt. His body is smooth and lacks any sculpted details, letting the wonderful proportions do all the work. And that’s not a complaint, as it’s right in line with the cartoony character design. There’s an excellent use of pale matte blue for the torso, upper legs and biceps and high gloss blue for the lower legs, lower arms, feet and hands. I love his triangular body design that goes from his narrow shoulders down to his giant feet, and he’s got a little swell to his forearms. My figure does have an unfortunate blue mark on his chest, which I’m hoping will come out with a little rubbing.

You get two different heads: One whimsical and grinning, and one with his battle face on. Both of these are quite good with the same two-tone blue deco for the helmet. He’s got his headphone-like ear pieces and the raised mohawk-like crest running up the center of his helmet. All the facial features are sculpted as well as painted in. Punching in close reveals that the sculpt and paint are a bit at odds with each other, but it’s not something I notice with the naked eye.

The articulation here is pretty damn great for a short and stocky character. He’s got rotating hinges in his shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles. There’s a ball joint in his chest and another in his neck. The feet have a pretty wide ranging lateral hinge to keep his feet flat in most stances. The hands are on hinged pegs to allow you to swap them out between the set of fists and open hands. I honestly did not expect this little guy to be so much fun to pose and play with, but he sure is!

The Mega Buster can be swapped out for the right forearm by unpegging the arm and pegging the Buster in. And yeah, this will likely be the way he’s displayed on my shelf most of the time. The cannon has the same high gloss finish as the arm piece it replaces and you get a sculpted power meter painted yellow as well as some red paint inside the barrel.

The final accessory in the box is the Mega Buster Blast effect part and a stand to display it on. The effect part uses the same style stand as we saw with the Street Fighter figures, with a clear post divided up with two hinges. One end plugs into the base and the other into the blast piece. It’s kind of elaborate for what it does, but it works fine.

The last Mega Man figure I owned was probably the one Jazzwares put out around 2004. I remember finding him at a KayBee Toys Outlet and taking him home. It was a lot bigger and it was a decent enough figure for its time, but Jada’s release really approaches a level of perfection. I think he’s the perfect size as he’s chunky enough to have all the articulation he needs and be fun to play with, but small enough to scale well for posing with the Ultra Street Fighter line. Or you can even bring him in to beat the hell out of some Marvel Legends, Marvel Vs. Capcom style. Either way, Jada really seems to be killing it with their current crop of figures and I’m excited to see if their partnership with Capcom branches out even further. In the meantime, I’ll likely be on board this Mega Man train for as far as it goes!

Mar 11 2024

Golden Axe: Bad Brothers (Green and Red Versions) by Storm Collectibles

Things have been a little quiet on the Storm Collectibles Golden Axe front lately. My last review for this line was back in late 2022 with Gilius Thunderhead. I’ve picked up a few figures since, but mostly variants that I haven’t placed on high priority to get reviewed. But late last year a couple brand new figures hit and I’m finally getting around to checking them out now! It’s the nefarious bosses known as The Bad Brothers and they’re here to double-team you, knock you down, and steal your precious quarters!

Of course, in the game, the Bad Brothers show up in pairs, but Storm Collectibles released three single versions. Green is the standard release with Red and Blue being Exclusives, but I’m not sure what each of those is exclusive to as they seem to have been available at a number of retailers. I definitely wanted a pair of these guys, and even though you fight them in same colored pairs, I decided to go with a Green and a Red. I probably would have picked up the Blue too, because I’m insane, but I didn’t even know it was an option until the pre-orders had sold out, and that’s probably for the best. The figures come in the exact same boxes, depicting the green version on the artwork, and these are identical sculpts with only the color of the armor setting them apart. As a result, I’m going to focus on the standard Green release and then we’ll bring in Red at the end for a quick look.

This big bruiser comes out of the box looking menacing as all hell and ready to squish some players and boy is he a hefty fella! A lot of that weight is girth, but he does stand a full head taller than Ax Battler, the biggest of the heroes. His massive rotund body is covered with a semi-squishy rubber-like skin, which includes seamless joints in the elbows. You get some nice muscle definition in his arms and legs and some sculpted veins running through both. The shoulder armor has kind of a scalloped design, coming to upswept points and are held on by straps under his shoulders and crisscrossing his chest, so the whole rig is actually worn by the figure. The belt has two soft plastic segmented hip guards, while his lower legs and feet are protected by boots that are split at the ankles. Finally, you get a pair of removable arm bracers with silver painted studs.

The Bad Brother comes with two different heads: One looking mildly displeased and the other expressing full on battle glee. They’re both excellent, but the second one is so unique and expressive. He doesn’t look angry, he just looks like he’s going to have so much fun beating the piss out of you. There’s some wonderfully subtle texture to the skin, he’s got his Fu Manchu-style mustache, and the more expressive head shows intricate detail in the teeth.

It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on in under that body with articulation, but he’s pretty fun and poseable. It took me a little bit to find the knee joints, but the knees along with the elbows have really strong hinges, while the hips, shoulders, and ankles appear to have rotating hinges. You even get hinges in the feet! There’s a twist and a crunch hidden up inside that bulbous belly. The wrists are hinged pegs, allowing you to swap out the assortment of hands, which include fists, relaxed hands, graspy hands, and accessory holding hands. When it comes to articulation, the only thing that bugs me a little is the gap in the ankles where you can see his skin showing through where the boot is split, since it’s probably supposed to be all one boot. They probably should have just painted that green to keep the illusion going.

The Bad Brother comes with his massive hammer, and this is a beautiful accessory! The handle is sculpted with a woodgrain texture and painted a rich brown, while the head is cast to look like a solid piece of stone. He has hands to wield it on the left or right arm and while it’s a heavy accessory his shoulder and elbow joints are up to the challenge!

Everything I said about the Green Bad Brother applies to his Red counterpart, with the color swap from green to red all found in his costume pieces and in the head of his hammer. The red hammer head was a nice choice, especially since Green’s isn’t actually painted green, but it still adds a bit of variety to the accessory, rather than just making it a straight repack. I also love having the two head sculpts, as I can display a different one on each figure.

Wow, I still l can’t believe we have such amazing figures like this based on Golden Axe. Getting all the three player characters and the beasts and skeletons and Death Adder was all unbelievable enough, but the fact that Storm keeps going deeper makes me so damn happy. These are fun and fantastic figures that really add a lot to the Golden Axe collection display. The Green version is still available at most online retailers at $114, which sure ain’t bad considering how much bigger he is than a lot of Storm figures that retail at around that price point. The extra head, passel of hands and huge accessory certainly add to the value there. The variants, on the other hand, both sold out pretty quickly. I have to admit, if the green Bad Brother goes on sale, I may pick up another so I have a matched set. Meanwhile, the Heninger & Long Moan two-pack are due to ship soon, so it’ll be great to have some more baddies to add to the shelf and outnumber our stalwart heroes! Hopefully the Zuburoka Amazon Warriors aren’t far behind!  

Jan 26 2024

Ultra Street Fighter II: Chun Li by Jada Toys

Last year Jada Toys came out of left field with their new line of Ultra Street Fighter II figures and blew a lot of people away. This is a company known for making cars and metal miniatures, so I don’t think anyone expected them to toss out such exceptional figures with so little experience. And yet Ryu turned out to be one of the better 6-inch scale figures I reviewed here last year, doing a lot of things better than veterans like Hasbro and Mattel. After playing around with him, I quickly decided I was going to be collecting this line, although I probably won’t be all in on the variants. I picked up two additional figures last year, but they didn’t get the spotlight here, so let’s start remedying that today with a look at Chun Li.

The packaging here goes a long way to show how much passion Jada is putting into this line, as you get a window box recreating an arcade coin-op machine with some character art at the bottom left hand corner. The window shows off the figure from the knees up, as well as most of the accessories you’re getting. The illustrated backdrop has some pixel art from one of the stages in the game, although it’s rather obscured by all the stuff. I love the health bars up top and you get a recreation of the character select screen on the back. Best of all, these boxes are totally collector friendly, and you can bet that I’m keeping them all.

While I tend to play Street Fighter III: Third Strike on my Dreamcast more than any other game in the franchise, this look for Chun Li is still about as iconic as things get for me. And boy, Jada did a great job rendering it in plastic! Chun Li’s qipao is cast in a vibrant electric blue plastic with some very fine texturing. All the trim is sculpted as well as painted in some very nice gold leaf paint with some pretty sharp lines. The lower part of the dress is cast in soft plastic and hangs down the front and back, with wide cuts in the sides so as not to try to contain those magnificent thighs. As if anything ever could! The poufy shoulders include short sleeves, which are sculpted separately from the biceps, there’s some great sculpting in the lacings of her white boots, and her spiked bracelets are separate pieces, so keep an eye on them when you swap hands! From the coloring to the sculpt, this figure just looks absolutely superb!

You get two heads to display on the figure: One serious and one shouty-serious! Both of these look great and follow the stylized game art fairly well. Punching in with the camera doesn’t do them a lot of favors as some of the paint quality breaks down the closer in you get. That’s to be expected with most figures, and it’s not something that I notice at all with the figure in hand. I think the biggest problem with paint on my figure is slop around the yellow fringe against the white covering on her oxtails. Again, not that big a deal when viewed with the naked eye, but it looks pretty bad when zoomed in. I do have a dark spot on my shouty face’s right cheek, but most of that has managed to come off with a little wiping. Yes, I would have really liked a happy victory head too, but at this price point, I think two heads is reasonable. Also, I’m pretty sure I saw somewhere that a recolored variant will include that head and if that’s true, then I’m on board!

One of the things that impressed me most about Ryu was how great the figure felt in hand and how much fun he was to pose. Well, all that is definitely the case for Chun Li as well. All the joints on this figure are solid and easy to work with, and there was nothing stuck or problematic as she came out of the box. It’s sad to have to point that out, but I’ve had a lot of issues with stuck joints on figures these days, it’s great to see Jada getting it right. They’ve done an excellent job of balancing sculpt and aesthetics with lots of useful articulation. You need only go back and look at the SOTA Chun Li to see how far we’ve come!

Chun-Li includes two sets of hands: Fists and tight-fingered chopping hands. The pegs are pretty robust and these are easy to swap out without fear of anything snapping.

The final accessories are the effect part for Chun-Li’s Hundred Lightning Kicks, which comes with its own dedicated stand. The stand is hinged at two places and plugs into the bottom of the effect piece to support it. The effect piece itself is cast in soft translucent blue plastic and you just insert Chun-Li’s foot into on of the slots and it works really well. The stand can also be repurposed to support the figure for other action poses, even though it wasn’t really intended for that purpose.

Boy do I love this line! The retail on these figures remains about $25 each, which is great for people who don’t want to sink $100 a pop into Storm Collectible’s far more premium line. I’m not about to tell you the two are in the same league, as Storm’s figures are scaled bigger and tend to have a lot more accessories. But as someone who does collect several of Storm’s series, proportionally speaking, I think the value is far better on Jada’s figures. These are incredibly fun toys that pitch perfectly capture the spirit of the game characters and are tough to put down. The amount of extras feels just right and when it comes to sculpt and coloring and overall quality, Jada is absolutely eating Hasbro’s lunch when it comes to figures in this scale. The next time I pop a quarter into this machine, we’ll check out Fei Long!

Jan 3 2024

Darkstalkers: Morrigan Aensland Bishoujo Statue by Kotobukiya

Before any of you Koto fans get your hopes up, I’m not really starting to collect Bishoujos again. No, seriously. I’m not! It just so happened that a few of these went up for deep discount during the Holiday Sales and I got weak. That’s why I picked up Mai from King of Fighters and that’s why we’re here today with a certain busty succubus from another fighting game franchise. Truth be told, there isn’t enough Darkstalkers merch out there and I’m pretty much compelled to buy anything Morrigan related that isn’t in the $1000+ range. Now if that happens to go 50% off, I’d be in real trouble. It’s actually been almost ten years since Morrigan last graced FFZ, and it’s long past time I remedy that!

Koto always does a nice job with these boxes, serving up some wonderful character art and providing ample windows on the front, top, and side panel to let the light in and see what you’re getting. They’ve also started making the boxes a bit more durable, which is nice as I do tend to keep these. The statue comes wrapped in a lot of plastic, but if you unwrap it and put her back in the box, she displays really well in it. Morrigan is all assembled and ready to go, but she does have some rather fragile points and a modicum of care should be spent unwrapping these, as I could easily see them snapping.

And oh boy does she look enticing! Clad in her classic trademark outfit, Morrigan dons a matte black one-piece with ruffled white top and her ample bosom nearly spilling out. Hey, you can’t be a modest succubus, it just doesn’t work! Below that, she has mauve tights (and I do mean tight!) with printed bats, and black high-heeled boots, Her arms are adorned with long orange sleeves that end in loop between her fingers. Meanwhile her batwings jut from her back, flanking her on either side. All of the costume is executed beautifully, but I really have to give extra props to the texture work on the outside of the wings. It’s not something I expected to see, as a smooth surface would have been more evocative of the animated aesthetic, but I really dig it and I’m glad that Koto decided to go that route.

The pose is quite iconic and designed to showcase all of Morrigan’s best assets. She is in mid stride with her right foot out in front of her left, while bent forward to simultaneously show off a little succubus T&A. And not to get too inappropriate about it, but man the way the one piece practically disappears between those cheeks is some A-Level sculpting! I will confess, I would have liked to see her posed in one of her victory stances, like levitating with her legs crossed, but this works fine. And as always, the coloring on these statues is just lovely. The range of black and purple and blue-green makes this statue pop, and her skin tone is warm and even with some shading to catch the eye.

The head sculpt is playful and a lot more in character than the last Morrigan statue I reviewed. Here she looks like she’s jumped right out of the game. The sculpting on her mouth is absolutely fantastic with a hint of teeth showing up top and her tiny pointed tongue slipping out. The hair sculpt is also outrageously good as the strands of super vibrantly colored blue-green hair whip all around her head. The eye printing is colorful and precise, and her head wings are as adorable as ever with some gorgeous deep purple paint on the membrane. This portrait is a perfect victory!

You never know what kind of base you’re going to get with these figures. Sometimes just plain disks and sometimes a more environmental affair, like this one here. It’s a stony floor with some excellent paintwork creating a vibrant glow where Morrigan’s feet touch the ground and reverting to a grayish-blue stone color around the edges. I do dig it a lot!

Go back through my old Koto Bishoujo reviews and you can see that I almost always ended them by calling these the best value in statue collecting. Well, those days are done and these now sell for about twice what they did back then. Case in point, Morrigan here retailed at $129 and while the quality is definitely there, it’s just beyond reach of what I’m comfortable paying for these. I picked up Morrigan on sale for $79, which was right about the price of these figures when I decided to start tapering off. I’m happy to have her in my collection and she will get a prime display spot in my Game Room. And I’ll keep an eye out for Lilith to see if she happens to dip in price at some point too, otherwise I’ll be content to own the Pop-Up Parade figures of this pair when they eventually ship next year.

Nov 6 2023

King of Fighters ’98: Mai Shiranui Bishoujo Statue by Kotobukiya

I already talked about the cornucopia of King of Fighters merch that’s been hitting the shelves, back when I looked at Storm’s Blue Mary figure and a lot of that merch mostly seems to be centered around KOF 98, which works for me, because it’s definitely the game in the series I played the most when it was released as KOF Dream Match 99 on the SEGA Dreamcast. Of course, since then I’ve collected a ton of KOF releases for just about every platform imaginable and have access to the actual arcade games on my Neo Geo Arcade Stick Pro so it’s a pretty great time to be a fan of the franchise. And even Kotobukiya is getting in on the action with 1:7 scale statues in their Bishoujo series.

Here she is in the box, which features some colorful artwork and some generously sized windows to let in plenty of light. Indeed, once you remove the plastic wrap, she displays really well in the package! The box also feels a lot more durable than the super thin cardboard they were using for a while. Some of you may know that I have a pretty sizeable collection of Koto’s Bishoujo statues, most of which have been reviewed here on FFZ, and I was fond of ending most of those reviews by stating that these statues were the best value to be had on the statue market. Well, those days are long gone as the retail price of most of Koto’s releases have doubled in the last ten years or so. I can remember getting most of mine back in the day for around $59-69.99 and nowadays most release at over $120. Yikes! The quality is still there, but because of the price hike, I’ve pulled back on collecting them and even let some of my Street Fighter Bishoujos go. Heck, the last Bishoujo I reviewed was Ibuki from Street Fighter and that was six years ago! But, here we are today and Mai turned up at a pretty deep discount a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t resist.

Sporting what I would consider her most iconic pose, I can practically see her going through the fluid motions of her idle animation and hear her exclaim.. NIPPON ICHI! Her pose places her left hand upon her jutting backside while her right hand clutches her butterfly fan. She sports her red and white kunoichi regalia, which is sculpted separately from the body to really give the figure some wonderful depth. She has has heavy braided cords that cross her back and loop under her arms, while the split running down the middle front of her top can barely contain her great assets. It’s belted in white around her slender waist and spills down between her legs, stopping at her knees in the front, but bisecting into two flowing forms out the back, each girded with a giant ball. The outfit is rounded out with a pair of red and black tabi on her feet. Koto did a wonderful job capturing the flow of the outfit as well as the sensual curves of her amazing body.

As is always the case with Koto’s work, the colors are gorgeous. The whites feature a clean matte finish while and the red pops with a vibrant glossy sheen. The plastic they use for the skin holds a beautiful warm tone with some added shading to bring it to life, with none of that waxy finish you get on lesser quality statues.

The portrait is spot-on with the Bishoujo style matching the KOF artwork quite nicely. Mai looks up and off to the side with a thin smile on her lips. Her hair features a top knot that cascades down in a ponytail while her bangs part to perfectly frame each side of her face on the front. So beautiful!

For the base, Koto went for more of a diorama style than usual. I’ve been used to seeing either stylized logo bases or just plain generic black or clear disks for a while. This one is just a section of a street with a manhole cover. It looks OK, but it’s nothing special.

There’s no doubt about it, Kotobukiya still knows how to put out quality figures, and unfortunately they know it, so those prices keep going up. Mai retails for around $120, but I nabbed her for $80. It was still a bit more than I felt comfortable spending, but she went up right before I was going into a spending moratorium for a while, so I decided to splurge. Ultimately, I’m glad I picked her up as she looks gorgeous, but I really wish Max Factory would give us some KOF PopUp Parade figures so Koto’s wouldn’t tempt me so much. Koto also did a Bishoujo of Athena from KOF 98, but I’m not a big enough fan of hers to get her unless she went on a serious clearance sell-out price. And, of course they did a female version of Terry Bogard, and I swear the first release pre-dated the SNK Heroines game that gender-swapped Terry. I wasn’t interested in it back then, but now it’s actually branded under the game and I kind of want her, but it’s not a $130 kind of want.

Sep 29 2023

King of Fighters ’98: Blue Mary by Storm Collectibles

SNK has had an interesting couple of decades since it’s bankruptcy and well… whatever the state of the company is these days. And yet in a way, it’s been enjoying a renaissance with there being more ways to access the Neo Geo library now than probably ever. Even legally! We’re also getting a decent number of toys and collectibles as well. I’ll refer you back to my look at Metal Slug 3’s Marco Rossi figure if you want to hear me gushing on about what it was like to live in envy of Neo Geo owners in the 90s. And yeah, most of that envy was aimed at Metal Slug and the shoot-em-ups, but it certainly applied to the fighting games too. Case in point, it wasn’t until almost 10 games into the series, when Dream Match ’99 arrived on the Dreamcast that I was finally able to play a decent port of a King of Fighters game. And boy was that a blissful weekend spent with that game and my ASCII Arcade Stick. Good times! And now, Storm Collectibles has been releasing figures based on the KOF 98 roster. I pre-ordered late in the game and all but Blue Mary got cancelled. I sat on her for a while, trying to decide whether to keep her or not, when just this past week Storm announced reissues of Terry Bogard and Iori. I was able to get these pre-ordered (along with Mai!) and now I’m excited to get Mary opened knowing the others will eventually be on the way!

Storm does a wonderful presentation for these figures. Mary comes in a big window box with the game logo on the front, along with a shot of Blue Mary. The window is huge and shows off the figure and some of her extras, and there’s a printed backdrop based on one of the level backgrounds behind the tray. Everything is collector friendly.

KOF 98 was Mary’s second appearance in a KOF title, but the character actually premiered back in Fatal Fury 3. When I play Dream Match 99, I tend to gravitate toward Terry first but I’m quick to take Mary or Mai for a spin when I’m feeling adventurous. And it’s probably because of how many hours I burned on Dream Match 99 that this version will always be Mary’s most iconic look to me. Casting off the jacket from the Fatal Fury series, she dons her mid-riff exposing red top, blue baggie pants and fingerless gloves, and a pair of reddish-brown sneakers. The whole ensemble is rounded out by a loose brown belt that rests on her hips. It’s a simple character design that makes for a great looking figure.

And as always, Storm did a beautiful job sculpting this figure. Her top is part of the upper body, but it still hangs down over her midriff hiding that joint. The pants go light on the rumples, but bag up down by the highly cinched ankle cuffs. The ringed stars on the thighs are sculpted on as is the smaller black belt with the gold buckle. The wider brown belt has a peg to secure it, but the peg is too soft to go in and hold there, so I just let it float off one hip or the other, which works well enough. The colors on this figure are absolutely gorgeous and she pops just like the original pixel art. The vibrant blue and red compliment each other perfectly, the skin tone looks good, and the added orange on the stars is nice. I think the boots could have been a tad more brown, but that’s just me nitpicking.

You get a whopping four different heads, which is pretty impressive. These include smiling, pissed off, playful wink, and dynamic wind blown hair with a shouty mouth. All of these are wonderfully expressive and work for some pretty fun poses. I think my favorite are the last two. The wind blown look to the hair is great. My only nitpick on any of these is the seam running across just above her hairline. It’s not really a big deal, but since there’s no face plates to swap, I think they could have done a little better with that.

If you’ve played around with any of Storm’s figures, you should know what to expect from the articulation here. Mary is very agile and limber, just as she should be. The elbows and knees are fabulous with double joints that give you all the range of motion you can ask for. Hips allow for plenty of movement, there’s a ball joint under the chest, and you get rotating hinges in the ankles and hinges just behind the toes of the boots. Lateral crunches in the shoulders enhance those rotating hinges, there are swivels in the biceps and pegged hinges in the wrists to allow you to swap hands. How many hands? Five pairs total! You get a pair of finger pointing hands, fists, relaxed hands, slightly more relaxed hands, and grapple hands. Not bad!

Mary comes with one effect part and it’s a giant energy circle from slamming her opponents into the ground. Alas, I only have Mary right now, so I’ll have to wait to get some real use out of it. But it’s a great looking piece with a translucent effect starting relatively clear at the ground and working up to a fiery red-orange along the tops of the flames.

The illustrated backgrounds Storm includes with these figures are also a nice bonus and they stand pretty well if you want to use them as a display behind your figure. Mary comes with the US Train Yard Stage which is wonderfully recreated here right down to the pixelated edges on the art.

Storm’s figures sure ain’t cheap, and Mary goes for about $105, which is no doubt a lot of money for a 7-inch scale figure. Heck, it’s even a lot by this line’s standards as both Terry and Iori reissued at under $100 each. But it’s hard to argue with quality and Storm never ceases to deliver on it in spades. Mary is a ridiculously fun figure to play with, thanks to the smooth jointing system, near perfect balance, and the crazy range of motion you can get out of her. And the passel of extra heads and hands certainly adds to that value. She’s hard to put down and she’s been standing on my desk ready for action since I opened her. It’s great to see KOF figures on the market and I can’t wait to expand my character roster.

Aug 9 2023

Star Wars Black Series (Knights of the Old Republic) Bastila Shan by Hasbro

Somewhere along the way, Hasbro’s Black Series has lost me. Sure, some of it has to do with Disney curb-stomping the brand into the gutter these last few years, but I’m kind of tired of so many repacks and repaints when there are still so many of the old Kenner figures that still need to be done. The 40th Anniversary of Return of the Jedi should have given us so many figures, and instead we got a couple new ones and a bunch of old stuff repacked on vintage style cards. Case in point, I haven’t looked at a SWB figure here in eight months! Sure, in some cases I get backlogged, but in this case, I just haven’t been buying any of the figures. But, I did pre-order Bastila Shan and she showed up, so let’s do some Black Series today!

I’ve expressed my undying love for Knights of the Old Republic several times here on FFZ, and even the mere act of checking out this figure has me thinking about it being time for yet another replay. And I will forever be bitter that Hasbro didn’t get to do a big marketing push alongside the game. I mean, here we are twenty years later and we still have only seen a few characters released as figures. It’s a crime, so the least I could do was support this release of Bastila Shan like I did back when Darth Revan was released. Anyway, Shan comes in the fully enclosed plastic-free packaging with the GAMING GREATS logo on the front. You get some character art on the side, and everything here is collector friendly.

Straightaway, this release is such a huge improvement over the 3 3/4-inch Bastila we got way back when. It’s not so much just the new opportunities that come with the jump up in scale, but just the coloring and accuracy of her costume as well. There’s a great sense of layering here with the tan bodysuit being the figure base and the burgundy tunic being cast in soft plastic and worn over the body. Even the top edges of the boots convey a very nice sense of depth, like the figure is actually wearing them. The flaps that drop from her waist on the front and sides are made of pretty pliable plastic and I’m pleased to say that they tend to work pretty well with the articulation. A lot of the coloring here looks like it’s done through the plastic, but the paint lines are nice and sharp too. AND YES, THAT’S A GODDAMN CAT HAIR ON HER BOOT IN THE SECOND PICTURE WHICH I DIDN’T NOTICE UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE!!!

The head sculpt is solid, but maybe not exceptional. The facial details are printed on and look fine in hand, while breaking down a bit as you punch in with the camera. The hair sculpting is excellent, but I just don’t see a whole lot of likeness there for the character in the game. I gather that Shan has been in a lot of other media since the game, so maybe this portrait is based more on one of those? Either way, it’s certainly not bad. Maybe a little less shadowing under the eyes would have helped.

The articulation here is mostly great, with the one throwback being the arms. We get the usual rotating hinges in the elbows instead of double-hinges and bicep swivels. Yup, Hasbro loves doing this with the ladies and I have no idea why. Normally, I’ve come to except it, but it hurts a bit more here when trying to get her to wield her lightsaber with both hands. Other than that, you get some great range of motion in the hips, there are double hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs, and the ankles have hinges and lateral rockers. The ball joint in the waist has some decent range, and you get a ball joint in the neck. She’s fun to play with, but I’ll be happy if the rotating hinges in the elbows get retired.

Her lightsaber is her only accessory and it comes with two yellow blades that can be pegged in and removed. The hilt is pretty big as far as lightsabers go, and you get some nice silver paint on the ends and black for the grip in the middle. I really hate how gimmicky and ridiculous the lightsaber designs have become, from the spinning blades to whatever the hell grimdark Rey had in whatever movie that was. Still, I kind of have a soft spot for this one, since it reminds me of how badly I wanted a Double Brand in Phantasy Star Online.

I like this figure a lot. No one thing about it is particularly amazing, but it all comes together into what is a very solid Bastila Shan figure, and that’s what I’m here for. And maybe that sums up a lot of my feelings for the Black Series lately. It’s almost always totally competent, with the occasional flourish here and there, and that’s fine when it’s turning out characters I want. But as Hasbro continues to milk previously released figures with Carbonized and Christmas repaints, I’m left waiting for characters we should have had ages ago. Where were my Skiff Guards for the RotJ 40th Anniversary? Where are the rest of my Ewoks? Where’s my Crix Madine? That’s fine… my wallet is happy for the reprieve.