After spending the last few years dedicated to remakes, remasters and re-release of old games, last year i find out i am still able to enjoy new AAA games thanks to Final Fantasy XVI. This game was a pretty amazing surprise for me since i wasnt expecting too much from it, but in the end, the music, the visuals, the story and gameplay, the characters, everything blow me away and it turned into one of my favorite games of all time pretty quickly and one of the most unforgettable jurney as well.
Sadly, SquareEnix dont share my feelings for the game soo it pretty much forgot about the game while it focused 100% of theyr merch machine to Fina Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy XIV. While the Play Arts Kai figures of FF XIII launched along side the game and when FF XV was out we already had all the main characters as action figures, we had to wait an entire year after the launch of FF XVI to get the very first figure of the line.
Like this wasnt bad enough, while all the main Final Fantasy games had Play Arts Kai action figures - even Dissidia - and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth already have like....3 or 4 Play Arts Kai for every single character, Final Fantasy XVI was relegated to the Bring Arts department, the low budget department of SquareEnix toy branch.
Soo this is my very first Bring Arts figure and i wasnt sure wath to expect (specially at the 130$ price point) but since this is my favorite character of the game (and my favorite protagonist of any Final Fantays game): Clive Rosfield, i was actually hyped by this.
First surprise this guy give me, its tiny...like....tiny tiny smol.....very small...at first i tough this was Figma scale but actually this is a head shorter soo he looks like a Smurf while posed with all the other Final Fantasy characters. Really he is just one Amiibo and a half tall...
And while Clive is very light and have strong legs and nothing on his design that overcomplicate his balance, he cant stand at all. This was a pretty nasty surprise for me because, usually figures this small have no reason at all to not stand on theyr own, but in the end, he cant tough they give him a base soo i guess Square kind of fixed this issue.
He is articulated on the head, chest, waist, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knees, ankles and half feet, also the scabbard of his short sword have a simple rotating articulation and his cape have a ball joint. All articulations are ball joints soo they have a big range of movement. The hair clash a little bit with the back side of his cape but the limit is minimum, also the cape sections that cover his shoulders are separate pieces soo his arms can move pretty nice up and to the sides.
The only issue here are the feet. The boots have this this floating armor like plate in front and this keep the ball joints of the ankles to move too much, also the feet dont pivot at all, soo they only can move up and down a little bit and cant be adjusted to balance Clive. I am shocked this happnes with such small and tiny ball joints.
Also i hate the elbows articulation, sure they bend perfectly but while straigth, his arms have this horrible protunding ball that is imposible to hide and brokes completelly the sculpt. Aside of this arms issues, the overall sculpt is really good. Clive´s body shape is perfect, with his thin waist and wide shoulders tough i got the feeling the hip is a little too low and that makes his torso to be a little too long.
Eevery single mottif on his arour is sculpted as well as small little cuts here and there that makes it looks battle damaged. The belts on hsi waist as well as the upper part of his cape are made with soft plastic and every stitch on it as wella s every crany on the amor on his arms are finelly sculpted.
But the best part are the gauntlets, the level of sculpt on them is really impresive, specially at this size as well as the shirt huging his torso, with all those wrinnkles and and the laces keeping his shirt in place. The cape is made with hard plastic, and thats a big surprise because Nyx Ulric´s purple cloths are made with soft plastic and that lates them flow better. Clive´s cape is just stiff...even if moved around with the ball joint it only moves to a certain limit and never lose that soft "S" shape it have tough the torn ends looks really nice.
The hair have the rigth shape tough the sculpt is very fuzzy and his face have the same issue. Its easy to regonize Clive´s face shape and nose but i need to remove my glasses to see sich tiny details. Theres no skin texture here, everything is pretty clean and the lips are spoftly painted with pink and the mark cheek looks perfect but a little too grey and in low contrast.
His eyes are not sculpted but only printed but the deffinition is good and the blue of the pupils stands out, tough the beard is just a grey print on his face. His hair is not completlely black like in the game but it have a kind of metalic finish on it for some reason that gives him a kind of dark brown copper look.
His cape have the same color but without the metalic propertys and with dark washes added tough the armor on his arms and legs have the same metalic color that shines pretty nicelly and makes all the scartches and details easy to look at. Every metalic symbol on his armor is painted perfectly in silver as well as the red details on his gautlets and other belts on his legs painted in grey and different browns, the color of this figure is pretty well done for such small details.
His red shirt is the part that stands out the most as well as the red belts on the back, tough i wish the color was much more vibrant since this red have a kind of low contrast. Even soo, all the laces at the sides and the laces at the front of his shirt are perfectly painted as well wich is a good susprise. No color is invading his skin tone.
Lord Rpsfield comes with four sets of hands: closed fist, hands to hold his sword, open hands and relaxed hands. The sculpt on the little armor peices on his fingers is really amazing and they all share the same copper metalic color as well as the red palm and they are pretty easy to swap, even considering his tiny is the peg that conest them, i never had any issue with them.
Then he have his short sword that goes on his hip scabbard. The short sword is very simple and have very nice metalic finishes but he never use it on the game soo i am kind of confused why is an accesory here? He also comes with a replica grip of the same short sword soo this fit in the scabard instead od the actuall sword. Pretty weird system to keep the weapon in place....
He also have his main long sword that fits perfectly on the sheat on his back. The sword have a veautifull design with openings between the blade and the handle as well as a pretty evident shape of a cross, with the same color palette as Clive´s clothing: silver, back and red. The sculpt is really good as well as the entire metalic painting and the overall design is really elegant and kind of futuristic. The handle can be removed soo it can be put on Clive´s hand much more easyer.
The base is made with thansparent plastic, it have an square shape and lots of holes around soo you can insert the arm on any angle you want. The arm have 3 articulations to adjust as well as a clamp in the end to hold onto Clive. The base looks way too much like a Figma base and the shape helps to not take too much shelf space The clamp´s grip is pretty strong soo it holds the figure in place really good, tough the base is ligther than Clive soo sometimes it can keep him in place.
Also...the cape...the hard plastic cape make the base pretty difficult to use but in the end, i put the clamp holding Clive´s cape instead of his waist soo that makes things much easyer. Also the base arm is strong enough to hold Clive in the air and thats very apreciated, since Figuarts base cant even do that.
And thats it.....a (very apreciated) base, a bunch of hands and a sword and thats all. Nothing more. No extra open or sifferent shaped cape, no potion or phoenix feather, no effects of fire magic, fire around his arm or any effect to cover his sword or a fireball to throw, no extra head with a fierce battle expression or a older version of the character without the mark and with the scar, no Phoenix wing or Garuda´s claw, Shiva´s cloth for his back or Titan guard arm, no Odin sword or Bahamut wings or even Ramuh´s staff....
Its extremelly easy to think on something to add here, you just need to like this character and theres the problem, SquareEnix dosnt like this character or this game at all. I know this are the low budget figures of the brand, but problem is at 130$, this is no low budget.
Both Figma and Figuarts could do this figure exactly the same but with more accesorys but half at that price. Jada too even at 1/4 the price. McFarlane Toys could do this figure as well with this same amount of accesorys as well but in a bigger scale and half the price. SquareEnix is really pulling the string too much in here....
The sculpt and paint are high quality as well as the articulations but despite this, this figure dosnt have any of the dashing gallant of Clive Rosfield and dosnt have any presence either in the shelf, since his scale is soo tiny he is going to get lost in between anything.....even Funkos. With the rigth light and distance he may looks good and just like Clive, but the more closer you look, the fuzzyer the details looks.
I dont regret getting him. I had hopes for a Play Arts Kai release but i think that wont happen, soo is this or nothing and given how much i love this character, i think this is better than gets nothing, soo i am kinda happy with this little Clive but not soo much....when you like a character this much is hard to be satisfied with something less than perfect but i got the feeling this figure dont even try to dare the tough of perfection.
They are going to release the rest of the cast but Cid looks like Ken from Toy Story 3 and Barnabas looks even more sad and fuzzy than Clive. I will get Torgal i think....one of the reasons i love Final Fantasy XVI was Torgal and he actually dosnt looks that bad like the rest fo the cast. I just....need to try to bite the bullet and convince myself its OK to spent this much money again on an even smaller figure with absolutelly no accesorys.
SquareEnix makes things soo difficult.
