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Wave 3 is now hitting stores, and includes Guile, Balrog, Adon, Gen and Sakura. There's the usual variants as well, most of which are available right now at SOTA's website. But if you're trying to be a completist on this line, don't wait too long - the SF variants don't tend to hang around.
Wave 4 has been announced as Remy, Ibuki, Fey Long, Birdie and Akuma. The tentative line up for series 5 is
Zangief, Rolento, Juni/Juli pack, Dee Jay and Guy. Expect series 4 around February, and series 5 around July.Packaging -
**
I think I've made it fairly clear in all my past reviews that these clamshells really leave me cold. Yes, I understand that they are supposed to look like the game and the game itself was pretty damn dull looking, but that doesn't excuse how dull the inserts and stickers are on these. Since they're clamshells, you'll want a knive and a steady hand when you attempt to open them.
Sculpt - Adon, Balrog, Gen ****; Guile, Sakura
If you've been a fan of this series so far, then the excellent work here
won't surprise you. However, this is the first series where not a
single figure has been less than fantastic.
In the past lines, the female figures tended to get beat up by me.
This was usually due to the unattractive way the sculpt and articulation
came together. Sakura has a leg up on her female competition though -
her design allows for clothing that covers up or diminishes the appearance
of most of the articulation, and yet still looks as great as in the game.
She did get docked slightly because of the odd neck positioning.
Her neck base is thrust a little more forward than the others, giving her a
bit of an odd hunched pose no matter what you do.
Guile also took a slight hit in the sculpt department, largely due to how
much I dislike the screaming head. His is the only extra head sculpt
that really left me cold. However, if you don't have a problem with
that, you won't be disappointed otherwise.
Adon, Balrog and Gen are my top picks from this set. All three
sculpts are excellent, and scale is very good both within this series and
across the entire line. Small detail work is ever present, and yet the
slightly cartoony look of the game still works well.
Of course, if you're not a fan of articulated figures, your sculpt score
may take more of a hit, since some of the joints - particularly the knees
and elbows - are pretty obvious. I have no issue with them though, and
these figures are an excellent example of bringing together the best in
sculpt and articulation in a single package.
Balrog does have one issue worth noting though - he doesn't really appear
to have wrists in the boxing gloves. It's not a huge deal, and I found
it more annoying at first. But the look grew on me after awhile, and I
eventually preferred him in the gloves over the wrapped hands.
Scale on this line is around 6", with some characters closer to
5", and others over 7". They'll fit in fine with other
6" scale lines, and even some 7" scale lines depending on the
character involved.
Paint - Gen, Guile, Sakura ****; Balrog, Adon ***1/2
Again, there was very little variance across the entire set. Balrog
had a few stray paint marks, particularly on his gloves, and I'm not a fan
of the wash used on Adon's upper body to further define his muscles.
But these things only slightly lowered their scores in this category.
The figures all show extremely consistent application of color, with no
lighter or dark areas, and the masking is excellent. The lines of
definition between the colors show no bleed or over spray, and the small
tampo work, like the flag on Guile's arm, looks great.
The faces on these are what really impressed me though. Every set
of eyes, lips, mouth and hair line look perfect, with almost no slop to be
seen. They've used a wash on Gen's beard, very similar to what we saw
with Pai Mei, but the cartoon nature of the character makes it far less
obvious and obtrusive.
Articulation - ****
Love it or hate it - these figures have all the articulation a joint junkie
could want.
Every figure has a ball jointed neck, and a very good one at that, with
an excellent range of movement. The heads pop on and off the joints
easily, and the pin coming up out of the neck is extremely sturdy.
They all also have ball jointed shoulders and hips, double jointed elbows
(with the exception of Balrog and Guile, who have single pin elbows) and knees, pin wrists, toes and ankles, a unique pin joint at the chest, and
cut joints at the waist, wrists, mid-foot and ankles.
All the ball jointed shoulders are two sided, meaning there's a joint at
the torso and a joint at the bicep, on both sides of the ball. All
except Sakura that is, where the ball joint is only at the torso. To
make up for this, she has an additional cut joint on the bicep, right at the
base of the sleeve.
All the joints are nice and tight, and you can get them to hold a ton of
fighting poses. They can hold plenty of goofy poses too, making them
excellent fodder for your own personal twisted photos.
Accessories - Sakura ****; Guile, Gen ***1/2; Balrog, Adon ***
The number of accessories varies quite a bit in this series, but none of
them come up short.
Balrog and Adon have the fewest. That's not surprising in the case
of Balrog, since big figures using up this much plastic rarely have many
extra goodies.
He does have an extra set of hands, wrapped, and an extra head
though. The sculpts and paint on them are excellent, and they pop on
and off easily, but the pegs are not soft enough to break or tear.
Adon does slightly better with his extra head and three extra hands,
including one doing the old thumbs up. The other two are in a slightly
open, claw pose.
If you picked up the SDCC exclusive Guile, you won't be too surprised by
the regular version. He has the extra head, three extra hands (thumbs
up, comb, and blade), and two blue energy bolts, sculpted to fit over the
fisted hands.
Similarly, Gen has the extra head, along with four extra hands. As
with the other figures, these hands work well with some of his special move
poses.
Sakura comes fully loaded, with a ton of extra stuff. Of course she
has the extra head, along with three extra hands (one pointing, two
open). She also has her extra shoe, two books, a camera, and a
backpack.
Only Gen has a head sculpt on the alternate head that is almost identical
to the regular head. The others have big differences, and for the most
part (ignoring Guile's goofy yell) they all look great, making it tough to
pick one over the other.
But Gen has one head with a slight smile, and one without. You'll
have to be paying attention to really tell the difference.
Fun Factor - ****
These are very sturdy action figures, unlikely to break under normal play
conditions. And if you know any 8 year old kids, you know 'normal play
conditions' means they have to withstand flying out a second story window on
to the driveway.
Kids should also be able to swap the hands and heads pretty easily,
without too much frustration. If they love the game - and what kid
doesn't - they'll love these figures.
The beauty is that collectors will love them too, with a ton of posing
possibilities, great sculpts, paint and scale, and a fairly diverse group of
characters so far.
Value - ***
I'll assume you're picking up the regular figures in the $11 - $12 range, and considering the quality, articulation and accessories, that's a better than average deal on the current specialty market. Get these down closer to $10 or so, and you can add another half star.
Things to watch out for -
Zero, zippo, nada. The paint ops looked pretty consistent, the joints
that came stuck were easy to unstick, and the quality was extremely high
across the board.
Overall - Gen, Balrog ****; Adon, Guile, Sakura ***1/2
Mezco has it's Hellboy lines, NECA has it's Nightmare Before Christmas, Palisades had their Muppets, and SOTA has their Street Fighter. Oh sure, they do plenty of other good work, but for the current and near term, the Street Fighter line will be their defining moment. They've managed to do what all those examples have done - provide the big fans of these licenses with the very best line of action figures they could ever hope for.
At times, I really wish I hadn't started out by giving away all those series 1 figures I had. But then I remember that I just would have had to pick up all the variants and go psycho-completist crazy, and I figure they're better off in the hands of fans of the license. I'll be giving away some of wave 3 on the site as part of my New Year's celebration, so keep an eye out for that.
It was easy for me to put Gen at the top, since he did extremely well in
every category. Balrog didn't do quite as good in the paint and
accessories, but his massive size and excellent sculpt swayed me.
Sakura is my favorite of all the females released in this line so far, and
both Adon and Guile are in the top 10. This entire wave was another
hit for SOTA, and their Street Fighter line will be on my short list of
nominees for line of the year.
SCORE RECAP:
Packaging - **
Sculpt - Adon, Balrog, Gen ****; Guile, Sakura ***1/2
Paint - Gen, Guile, Sakura ****; Balrog, Adon ***1/2
Articulation - ****
Accessories - Sakura ****; Guile, Gen ***1/2; Balrog, Adon ***
Fun Factor - ****
Value - ***
Overall - Gen, Balrog ****; Adon, Guile, Sakura ***1/2
Where to Buy -
You have a fair number of online choices, but not too many brick and mortar retailers have had these out yet:
- SOTA sells their own exclusives, including many of the variants of past series, for $13 - $20 each.
- OMGToys has the set for just $56, and they'll throw in a free blue Blanka with a full set purchase. They also have some of the individuals - but not all - available for sale at $10.50.
- CornerStoreComics has an excellent set price of just $55, or the individuals for $12. They also have some of the variants in stock!
- Amazing Toyz also has them for a set price of $55, or individual figures for $12. Some of the variants are still available at just $13.
- Circle Red has the full set for just $60, in stock. They also have the full set of series 2 for that price still available, if you're trying to catch up.
- Killer Toys has the individual figures for $12 each, plus they have a ton of the exclusives up for order.
- Yikes Comics has the single figures for $12.50 each.
- Alter Ego has the set for $63.70.
- YouBuyNow has them in stock for $14 each.
Related Links -
There's plenty to check out:
- first, if you're interested in seeing the various variants (or picking them up) you can find most at SOTA's own
webstore.
- Then check out the guest review of the exclusive GITD Blanka, and my review of the
exclusive blue Blanka.
- I also reviewed the SDCC exclusive Cammy, Guile
and Ryu/Bison two pack.
- and then there's always the regular series 1
and series 2 reviews.
KEEP SCROLLING DOWN FOR LOTS MORE PHOTOS!
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