Storm Collectibles has been making dreams come true for gamers by releasing high quality action figures based on classics that didnt (or almost) had figures before, like Darkstalkers, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Samurai Shodow. Tough the difficult thing to accept aside of the high price is the insane amount of patience they demand, since they release a figure once every 3 years (or sometimes 5 years), wich means most of us will didnt live long enough to see a collection complete.
One of those serire sof fables is Tekken, releasing one figure every few years, i was expecting Storm to cancel the serires after Heihachi and Kazuya, but to my surprise Jin arrived later and now one of the best characters from the game; King. I love love LOVE King since Tekken 3 and i actually lvoed for a long time his Epoch action figures from 2000, but seen him in Storm Collectibles version makes me glad i am still alive and brings me hope for the future.
King is big, a head taller than the rest of the Tekken guys and just half an inche shorter than Zangief from SFV!!! I love how they keep the scale perfect between characters even from other series, soo in the end he is a little taller than your average NECA action figure and he can stand on his own, mostly since the shape of his boots make him a little bit harder to get in balance but is nothing to worry too much, tough i would apreciate a base i know Storm woul never waste one in anything thats not Street Figther.
He is articulated on the neck, chest, waist, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, legs, knes, ankles, half feet and tail, all articulations ball jointed except the tail that have a cut rotation system. There is a lot of freedom of movement here thanks to his elbows pads, chest area, yellow underwear and knes pads being very soft plastic, nothign gets in the way of the articulations except the elbows that dosnt bend too much because his biceps are too huge, but i guess theres no fix to that.
Also, the ankles articulations are kind of weird since when moved to the sides, the feet also rotates up and down aumtomatically, this makes his feet a little bit difficult to pose properlly and share this weird artculation system with Dimitri, but aside of that is the articulations are an awfull lot of fun to play with!! Theres a millions of poses for him and is always easy to achive them.
The sculpt is magnificent. The musculature is impresive and really detailed, cast in skin tone plastic with a great realistic texture. The fur of his mask and proportions are perfect, specially on the mouth area with all those fangs. The musculature on his legs is also very impresive and like i said earlyer; all his costume except his ants is made with soft rubber plastic but this helps to not only prevent the pads and stuff block the articulations, but it also have the rigth texture for this elements.
I love his tail. I wish it had a bigger rnag eof movement but is soo squishy and i do love his shin guards with MEXICO written on the back. While this elements are really good looking and functional, i must say the belts on the pads and the belt on his biceps are pretty soft and thing, soo they must be touched with caution for not breaking them, specially with the elbows and knes back articulation.
The paint is really nice too, since his nude parts are cats in skin color plastic and all the sections of his outfit in yellow rubber, theres only color in the small details, like the MEXICO title on the back of his legs or the KING ANGER OF BEAST on his underwear, the silver mothifs on his thighs, the golden and black designs on his ass, the deep blue on his gloves. The only part were the color isnt that good looking is on the straps on his arms. Somehow the white and blue paint on them is all wobbly tough is difficult to see it given how small are this parts.
The mask have a nice orange tone mixing with white, black lips and a cute pink nose and tongue tough something that i notice are the eyes. They are only two black dots while in game, King eyes are two big green crystal orbs. The difference is pretty evident tough and i dont know why they leave the eye section soo undetailed given the impresive job of the rest of the paint.
There is a lot of complaing about his mask too since when the head is moved to the sides or up and down, the opposite side of the mask leaves s huge gap and sometimes the articulation is visible. This dosnt bother me much since i managed to adjust the mask to close this gap but this could have been fixed making the mask collar a separate piece.
For his accesoryes he have 3 sets of extra gands, one with pointing fingers, one gripping hands and one open hands. The gripping and open hands are 99% the same sculpt tough but the paint is perfect on all of them and they can be exchanged pretty easy (unlike Kazuya´s).
Theres no extra heads this time tough to compensate they give him the cape he use in Tekken 7. With a leopard mottif on the inside and the KING ANGER OF BEAST logo in the back side with goldena nd silver tones, this is the most spectacular accesory in the box. The wrinkles flows perfectly and the paint job stand out nicelly and since the piece is made with very soft rubber plastic, it can be moved and dosnt get in the way of the posing.
The cape have two brown belts that goes under King armpits and while they keep the cape perfectly in place, insert those huge biceps between the belts at the same time is a reall strugle, not much for King´s arms, but for the belts...i fear removing and puting back the cape constantly may broke the belts or at least unglue them soo this sections are the most delicate along side the straps on King´s arms.
Tough he looks fantastic with his cape on and the collar hides the gap between the mas and the neck perfectly as well.
The other accesory is an attack effect, a white....windy thingy make with transluscent plastic that fits on King´s closed fist. Is easy to instal and give a nice effect of a fast punch tough i dont see it specially exciting, but thats to be expected because i dont really know wath kind of effect could have given him since he dosnt have any in the actual game.
Next up is his backdrop, the Iron Fist Tournament arena with the nigth sky, colorfull fireworks, big sceens, lots of fire and public, the scene is really spectacular and super colorful, probablly the most colorfull scenario of all the other Tekken figures and fits King nicelly.
Again, the wait was really really long (he was supposed to come out 8 months ago) and the price was high (he is the most expensive Storm figure i got soo far) but i love every bit of this figure, even with the plain paint in the eyes he is a lot of fun to play with and looks fanfastic on every pose he is given, one of the best mexican characters in videogames, King is the heart of Tekken as much as the Mishimas and i am very happy Storm picked him up for the collection.
There is soo many characters i wish to see in this collection, Armour King one of them, but up at this point i doubt i love long enough to see them. For now i am extremelly happy with this guy on display and how this is one of the best figure of Storm Collectibles (and thats quiet a feat).
