SNOW VILLIERS

 

Last entry was about the last figure that closed my Play Arts Kai collection: Gladio from Final Fnatasy XV. Now lets go backward to the past, to the very first figure that started the Play Arts Kai collection: Snow Villiers. I cant stop to feel nostalgic with this figure...the times when Final Fantasy XIII was released. I know that game gather a lot of hate but i actually loved it back then and now, 10 years later, is much more impresive than Final Fantasy XV itself in many departments.

The game wasnt perfect, sure it had its issues like a messed up narrative, linear progress and weak villians, but it still boast a lot of personality close to the core of FF. And it started the Play Arts Kai line, the premium quality action figures directly from SquareEnix.

The starting set consisted on Lightning, Snow and Vainille and of course, my main point of interest was the beedcake of Husbando Snow. He was really really tall for back there standars, a trully huge figure, tough with the time, the Play Arts got bigger soo compoared to Gladio and Nyx, Snow is no longer as bigger as it was back then. And he can stand on his own.....kinda....the thing is, his ankles articulations are very lose soo he tends to fall pretty easy and find his point of balance is not as weasy as it seems.

The figure came with this....ugly and horrible looking base with a strange "H" shape and an articulated arm with a claw in the center. The base not only was pretty ugly but didnt help him stand at all soo i got rid of it.

He is articulated on the head, chest, stomach, shoulders, niceps, elbows, wrists, legs, knes, ankles and half bot as well as two extra articulations on the back of his long jacket. All this articulations works really good except the ones on the ankles, that are really lose, the rest are fine and is very fun to pose him around given the nature of the character. The best part are the articulations on the back side of his old jacket since it could be easyer to give him a one piece jacket, but instead Square divided it on secttions with movement.

Also, i hate the look of the shoulder articulations. There is a big gap between the torso and the arms, it looks very...."toyish" and this articulation was in fact an eternal issue on this line. Also the wrists only have a cut articulation soo the hands are really stiff.

Sculpt is good tough really simplistic. His half beard is sculpted tough his hair looks kinda like gum. His costume is nicelly done, the jacket have its buttons and every piece of cloth is a different scuped piece: his jacket, his vest, the chain on his waist, the blue cloth hanging from his belt, his baggy pants and the super detailed boots. Both the end sides of the jacket and the cloth from the belt are made with sift plastic soo they are nice to touch.

The only things that mess with the sculpt are the shoulder articulations and the end sides of the jacket and the sleeves, they are supposed to look old and tear apart but they looks like made of cake...

The pain is nice too, with different yellows and blue shades on the jacket and some soft shadows on his chest and face to give them volume. The blue eyes are very nice tough they are extremelly anime looking. The Lu´Cie tatto on his arm is sharp and clean. The rest of the body is cast on the color of each piece soo theres not too much paint work in here.

In the accesory department he is lacking tough since he only have a pair of extra open hands. Its easy to exchange the hands tough they are still not very expressive thans to the simple articulations on the wrist and given the nature of the character, is difficult to expect some more xtra items for him.

In the end tough, both the sculpt and the brigth colors make it looks too....anime...too cartoony. I like this figure a lot tough it dosnt looks as beautyfull and perfect as he looked in the game... the game looked soo realistic yet this figure looks almost 2D.  A fun and nice figure but with some flaws, just like the game.