Along side Big the Cat, I also picked up Chaos, the villain from Sonic Adventure. I honestly don’t really remember much about Chaos aside from being the villain. But he is part of my favorite cast and the figure has this really slick transparent blue going on that kind of sucked me in to picking it up.
Also funny enough, while he is way more articulated than Big, it almost works less well, because he has the weird “Sonic Proportions” of big head, long feet, and skinny body that all work against making him actually pose in any sort of meaningful way. This is especially worse with his neat but odd pointy hands. Everything feels like it’s bumping into itself.
I’m not super into “Sonic Lore” but Sonic Adventure has always been my favorite cast and game. One of the characters in that game was Big the Cat. His entire shtick is being big and being a cat. Well, and Fishing.
Sadly, this version of Big does not include a fishing pole, but I am sure I can find something that will work later. He does come with a couple of tiny rings. I’m not exactly sure if this is the normal size for Jakks’ Sonic line and it’s rings, but they feel a little small.
Something else he doesn’t come with a ton of is articulation, but that’s almost expected given his size and that this line is fairly inexpensive. Most of his little articulation isn’t really hindered by anything at least. He is also a huge fat cat, so, not exactly a ninja.
Anyway, he’s also one of the few Sonic Adventure characters I didn’t have a figure of, so getting him is nice.
A little before Christmas I bought a bunch of “Clearance masquerading as a Christmas Sale from Entertainment Earth stuff. It was all stuff I had been “sort of looking at” for a while, but for super marked down, I decided why not. Slightly annoyingly, a lot of it ended up being slightly disappointing for one reason or another. Maybe I need to start listening to tat little, “you put this off for a reason” voice more.
Anyway, this was one of them. In the last year, I’ve started playing a ton of Fortnite. Though I don’t own a ton of figures from the game. I don’t really want to either. Most of the ones I do have are Bananas or cat people. The Seven seem like they could be an interesting group to have all of as figures though. Mostly because I like Teams.
So far there are only two members of The Seven available though, The Scientist and The Foundation. I figure, even if I don’t bother with any others, this big robot dude would still be cool. And well, he kind of isn’t.
It’s a nice looking figure for sure. Lots of details, but there are a few problems that just drag the figure down. For starters, the face mask gimmick. Without going into a ton of Lore Details, all of the Seven wear air tight suits to protect themselves from The Loop. So they have these expressive digital Facemasks. In the game, you can select from a variety of different styles for each member’s helmet. The figure replicates this with swapable face plates and a neat light up gimmick.These face plates, do not stay on, at all. Just looking at it is enough for it to pop off and go flying who knows where. And it’s two pieces falling off, the plate itself and the clear cover. Neither stays on. I guarantee a lot of these will go missing over time.
As for the light up gimmick, it’s cool, but it also makes him incredibly top heavy. Which is a problem exacerbated by how limited his articulation is. He has plenty of joints as Hasbro 6″ figures do, but his bulk and top heavyness completely limits most of the joints to uselessness. He can’t even two hand hold his gun, and it’s the type of gun you would two hand hold.
There also seems like some plastic tolerance issues going on with his backpack because it also falls off pretty easily as well. All in all, he is just really meh. It feels like they maybe designed a decent figure, then stuck the light up gimmick in later and it ruined things a bit.
When playing Street Fighter, I have always been a fan of the “Ryu Family” of heroes. Ryu, Ken, Sakura, Akuma, that sort. They tend to have a nice balance with speed and power. That said, I also kind of prefer Sakura, for being a bit faster.
All of the other Street Fighter figures I have are from SOTA Toys’ old line. For the most part they are pretty good figures, even their Sakura, but the Figuarts Sakura just generally looked a lot nicer, so I’ve been wanting to pick her up for a while. She is definitely an upgrade. I may have to look into a Figuarts Ryu to go with her, because my SOTA Ryu has a broken part and well, I like Ryu.
I’m not really here to talk about Ryu though. In the usual Figuarts style, Sakura is pretty crazy poseable. nothing really gets in the way, though the skirt does limit her leg movement a bit at the waist. She has two pairs of hands, one set of fists and one open pair. The open hands are nice as they work for a relaxed open hand look and for throwing Hadoken fireballs. Speaking of which, she includes a Hadoken fireball accessory and a stand for it. She also has a few extra face options, which ass fit nice and tightly. Lastly she has a pair of cardboard pieces that make make up the scene of her fighting stage.
What’s more glaring about the accessories is the lack of some things. I don’t usually mention stands in reviews, but it’s worth noting that Sakura does not include a Tamashii Stage stand aside from the one for her Hadoken. A few more hands would have been nice as well, though I’m not real sure what else she needs. Maybe a pointing hand of some kind? The SOTA figure had a backpack and book accessory, something that I believe shows up during the fight intro moments. She kind of just feels really light on accessories compared to other Figuarts. It’s not a huge problem, but it’s notable.
Overall, I really like her. I’m glad I finally picked her up, she one of my favorite Street Fighter characters and she’s a really nice figure.
If there is one central figure in all of World of Warcraft Lore to pretty much everything going on, it’s the Orc known as Thrall. Some people suggest his is a Mary Sue stand in for Chris Metzen who was basically in charge of WoW for a very long time. Even when Thrall tries to take a step out of the story, it always brings him back to fix everything. He also has the Nickname “Green Jesus”.
Thrall has had a few different roles and looks over the years. This particular design, like The Lich King, is not from World of Warcraft, but from Heroes of the Storm. Maybe with the success of their Overwatch line we can get the somewhat more iconic Hooded Shaman look for Thrall, but for now, armored Warrior will do.
There are a lot of design ideas from the Lich King that are shared by Thrall. He is loaded with detail and little scuffs and his paint work is really well done. He is also very bulky, which hinders his articulation quite a bit. Like Frostmourne, Thrall’s Doomhammer separates into two pieces to allow it to be inserted into his fist.
He definitely looks pretty impressive, though he isn’t particularly dynamic in his pose ability. The look also pushes more of an Orc Warrior vibe than the Shaman design he is more known for. He captures the look of the character well though. Certainly better than those Warcraft movie figures we got. Thrall didn’t get a figure in that line but his father Durotan did.
The real issue with this figure is that it was, and still kind of is, pretty hard to come by. The only store in the US I recall ever seeing these was Toys R Us, which went out of business. Amazon has them but they are pretty marked up. It’s a nice looking piece that would work well for general fans of the series and not just toy people, which makes it kind of a shame they were so hard to come by.
