LARA CROFT

After Playmates did an awesome job doing figures of the original 90s Tomb Raider trilogy, NECA took the torch and made some figures of Lara based on her reboot on the PS2. Really good figures actually but i sadly, didnt get them. Later, when Tomb Raider was rebooted once more by Square, it was this same company that started building Lara figures on its Play Arts Kai line.

The very first one is actually very special because, despite this Play Arts Kai being soo expensive (over priced actually) this specific figure was totally free!! She came with the Tomb Raider special edition pack alon side litographies, posters, DLC, and OST and a comic book. Rigth now i find it hard to belive that a figure like this was given for free for those who get the game, its a shame such good times are gone for good...

Lara is in the smallest scale of the Play Arts Kai spectrum, she is shorter than the Resident Evil or Final Fantasy characters but since she is all alone, i guess theres no problem with the scale. Also she is in perfect scale with Nathan Drake soo i am perfectly happy with that. She can stand on her own perfectly and dosnt comes with any base.

She is turbo articulated: her head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knes, ankles, boot and her ponny tail. Each one of this articulation works fantastic and have a big range of movement, thanks to Lara´s simple outfit, pretty much she can achive any pose without broking her silhouette. Also, thanks to her light frame, she is really good at keeping her balance and not falling down.

The sculpt is really good, based on her last reboot, she is just using her cargo pants and a plain shirt with lots of bandages and a green necklace. Her face is pretty, REALLY pretty. This may be one of the prettyest figures Square released if not the cutest, with those thick lips, its easy to recognize her.

The paint has been always the weak spot on Square but this time around is really good. Her soft pink lips and big almost anime eyes are smoth and perfect and makes her look like a model. Tough the rest of her body is really dirty, with mud all over it and some blood, her face is a little bit too clean if you ask me but is nothing to be worryed to. Also her shirt, thanks to the different grey tones and soft browns, looks like is weet and tigth over her torso.

I am really impressed with both the sculpt and paint in this figure, is trully perfect.

She is equiped with an army of little hands to hold all her accesoryes and they can be exchanged pretty easy. She is heavylly armed tough and comes with a standar pistol, that can fit on the holster on her leg, a shotgun that fits on the holster on her back, a piolet used to climb, tough Lara uses it as weapon, and finally a bow and an arrow.

The pistol and shotgun are nicelly sculpted and fit on her hands perfectly, but my favorite weapons must be the piolet and the bow. I love the piolet design and its strong red color, it stands out over Lara pretty nicelly. The bow is really spectacular tough since its all made with hard plastic, is really tricky for Lara to hold it. The arrow is also rpetty tricky since the plume needs to fit in between her fingers, but with patience it can be done.

Overall, the quality of this figure is really impresive and if we consider it had the best price on the world (it was FREE), this makes her probablly the best Lara Croft action figure. Mmmmm...OK i am not sure if its the best tough considering she is heavylly redesigned, but she is deffinetly one of the best Play Arts Kai for sure.

Years later Square released another Lara, in a bigger scale and in her winter outfit and with a crazy high price, soo this one keeps being the winner for me. Besides she looks terrific along side Nathan Drake and thats good enough for me.