TIFA LOCKHART

Long time before Play Arts Kai existed there was something else: Play Arts (with no KAI), the deluxe action figure serires from Square entirelly focused on Final Fantays and Kingdom Hearts. They figures were smaller than Kai, had weaker articulations and details and was cheaper too, tough back at the begining of the century they were pretty impresive toys.

I totally miss the first fogures based on Final Fnatasy X-2 but i fall for the Advent Children movie figures. The movie was awesome and pretty much the best videogame based movie and still is one of the best soo i was pretty excited for toys of it. Oddly enough the first figure wasnt Cloud but it was Tifa Lockhart.

Tifa is pretty small, the smallest of the serires soo she is a little bit smaller than the standar McFarlane/Neca action figure but not by much. She can stand perfectly on her own tough the figure cames with a generic black oval base with a rood and a clamp to hold the figures from the back. MUCH better than the first Play Arts Kai bases.

She is articulated on the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, waist, legs, knes, anles and half of her feets. All this articulations are cut joints except the elbows and legs, soo they just rotate to one direction. Pretty basic to the ball joints from the later Kai serires, this articulations make a little bit harder give her a natural pose than dosnt looks like a robot, but it can be done. Actually she is pretty fn to pose around given her martial arts skills.

Skulpt is good, there is enough detail on her costume and her hair is pretty simplistic, my favorite parts are of course, her face and her shoes, those big black snickers are pretty good looking. To the oposite side, i hate the big ribbons on the sides of her legs and the black....thing...wathever it is, that cover her back side. Is made with soft plastic but is the heavyer part of the figures and is very anoying for her legs movement.

Paint is almost no-existant. She is entirelly cast on skin color and black plastic with only pain on the white details of her shoes, shirt and face. This gives her skin a pretty consistent anime look. Also the pain on her face is soo beautifull, her soft pink lips, her big brown eyes, they are both perfectly painted to match the perfect sculpt.

She is lacking on accesoryes tough since she only have a pair of extra hands, fist with gloves when she is on battle mode and thats it....nothing more, wich was kind of the standar back then.

A decade later, they would upgrade her with a Play Arts Kai version wich was bigger, better articulated, and came with more hands and an extra head with flowing hair, it was really spectacular but i didnt upgrade her i am not sure why. I think it is because i have very good memories of this figure as basic as it is.