When Storm Collectibles took The King of Fighters license years ago the possibilitys were pretty much endless for people who have been a fan of fight games since the 90s and little by little they been fullfiling some of our collectors dreams giving us high quality action figures of characters that never before had any kind of figure or merchadise at all, despite them belonging to SNK legendary digital story.
One of those legendary moments from fight game story was Art of Fighting, a game that was way too amazing to be belived back at the begining of the 90s, with gigantic spirtes, beautifull spirte art, battle damage in real time on the characters, taunts and for the first time a "super move" that used a power bar (long time before Street Fighter did it) as well as mini games and character interactions. And there it was born Ryo Sakazaki, the main character that spark the controversy over SNK recreating Ryu from Street Fighter.
While in fact Ryo was a very different character than Ryu and theyr only similarity was the karate gi they use, this sparked a lot of rivalry between Capcom and SNK. While Art of Fighting stays there in the 90s, its character has continue to keep active even now days in The King of Fighters: Robert Garcia, Yuri Sakazaki, Takuma Sakazaki, King, Kasumi Todoh, Mr.Big and for a good reason, since this characters pretty much inaugurated the very frst The Kinf of Fighters tournament along side a pretty young Geese Howards lonf before KoF 94 (this was the storyline of Art of Fighting 2).
After this long intorudction i must say i was pretty happy when Storm show the first images fo theyr Ryo Sakazaki figure based on his KoF 98 version, giving us a chance to finally have the poster boy of every single of theyr games: Ryo from Art of Fighting, Terry from Fatal Fury, Haohmaru from Samurai Spirits and of course, Kyo Kusanagui from KoF.
In the same size as Terry and a little bit shorter than Geese, Ryo scale perfectly with all other Storm character and he stands perfectly as well since his legs articulations are pretty strong. Of course, is still a shame they dont give him a base given the character nature but at this point i think is usless to expect a base in a Storm figure.
He is articulated on the neck, whoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knees, ankles and half feet and just like always, the articulations are completelly flawless and with a huge range of movement, all of them ball joints and double joints in the elbows and knees and given the simplicity of his design, nothing get in the way of the articulations, nothing at all (unlike Genjuro or Geese thick pants that keep his legs kind of stiff).
The chest part and the top of his uniform are made with soft plastic soo nothing at all keep him away from the most dynamic poses that could make any fighter proud and the articulations are strong enough to keep them.
The sculpt is very very very good, with his manly and handsome face fetures pretty sharply sculpted, specially on the mouth, his stoic face exppression and that hair, very very spiky hair almost like a hedgehog, and specially the front part is very spectacular looking!! He looks exactly like an anime man from the 80s and i love it!!!
His design is extremelly simple, the muscles on his arms are huge but not big enough to affect his movements, with veins and a realistic texture. The black shirt under this gi is sculpted and cant be removed but it huge his chest pretty nicelly in a very natural way.
The gi have a pretty sharp fabric texture on it that makes it look rough and old with pretty natural wrinkles that flows with his body no matter how you puse him and the black belts on his waist is also made with soft plastic tough unlike Ryu or Heihachi or Hohmaru, the belt cant be removed soo the gi cant be removed either wich is a shame because i really wanted to see the black shirt sculpt underneat.
The pants have the same fabric texture and the feet bare feet looks natural and realistuc, even the nails are painted in a little darker tone than his skin. The whole exposed skin have a very sexy tan that Terry dosnt have and the color matches that of the hands and face.
The mouth have a pretty discret paint aplication to make it stand out but the best part are the eyes, those big and penetrating eyes with brown pupils and thick eyebrows that makes him looks too much like the character from a manga from the 80s. The blond hair have a different tone than Terry´s and have a lot of darj washes and pinks that gives a lot of volume to the already sharp spykes.
Belt, wrists bands and shirt are pitch black while the gi is plain orange with some soft yellow washes here and there to make it look used and old. The effect is pretty nice and keep it away from a very cartoony look.
This man is loaded with stuff as well, he have 7 pars of hands!!! Aside of the closed fist, he have relaxed hands, open hands, choping hands, claw hands....actually 3 pairs of claw shaped hands that at first i tough they are the same but in fact, the position of the fingers is differet....some of the fingers are more stretched than other in some pairs while other fingers are flexed...is hard to describe and the difference soo tiny it can only been seen by comparing each hand. This is testament of the amazing attention to detail from Storm Collectibles. All hands are made with softish plastic and they can be swap pretty easy.
Ryo also have two extra heads: one with a snarling expression and another one with an attack scream. Paint and sculpt matches the quality of the stoic base face expression and the paint job on the teeth of the snarking expression as well as the inside of the mouth on the screaming expression is excelent, but actually the hair in the front have also a different sculpt!!! The snarling expression show more his forehead while the screaming face have the hair moving to the side, in a motion of movement.
While the diffetent heads with unique hair sculpt are pretty amazing, by favorite part is the Zanretsuken effect part, one of my all time favorite accesorys from Storm and probablly my absolute favorite: a serires of punches up front in high velocity, pretty similar to Chun Li´s kicks. The effect consist on a wrists band with two forearms conected with a motion air effect, one above Ryo´s arms and another one under it, punching at the front.
After removing the hand and wrists band, exchange it with this speciall wrists band and add back the closed fist at the figure and you have Ryo doing the Zanretsuken, throwing a series of punches soo fast it looks like he have 3 fists. The looks is soo amazing and works soo good, this is Storm enginering and creativit at the max. The peice is made with transluscent white plastic with the first and wrist bands painted while the end section of the arms are transluscent as well as the motion effects that unite the whole piece.
It looks awesome, trully awesome and theres nothing more to say about it. My only concernt is that is made with hard plastic and put the band around Ryo´s wrists its kind of tricky and extra caution should be used while adjusting it.
Aside of having waths probablly the best effect on an Storm Collectibles figure, Ryo also have the Haoh Shoukou Ken: a HUGE blue enerfy ball that he sots from his hands like a Hadoken. This effect is really masive and took most of the box space tough the sculpt is really simple and comes in translucent and softish plastic with some hues of electric blue at the tips of the spykes. It consist in two pieces and the front piece that cover the ball have a white wash that makes it looks more dense and thick (i guess this is were the enerfy concentrate???).
The ball is hollow and the front part sometimes keep falling. I dont now why they divided into two, my only guess is that it can be stuffed with led ligths for some really amazing effects but i need to try it later. To keep the Haogh Shoukou Ken in the hair it comes with a round base with a pole at the center. The pole can be adjusted to make it higher or lower but even hollow, the ball is big and the pole tends to bend to the front soo i must be carefull with it.
And laslty theres the background, based on the Japan Tempe stage from KoF 98. This stage is really dark tough the contrast with the electric night sky and red pillars at the side gives it a rich contrast but sadly, this printed version is way too dark and the electric blue sky looks dark purple. I find it as an odd election for Ryo but given his vibrant color palette with orange and yellows, this dark brakcground makes him pop up pretty strongly soo i guess i cant complaing?
This figures show how much care and love feel Storm Collectibles for The King of Fighters; amazing articulations, great sculpt and paint, fantastic accesorys, lots of stuff to play with the character despite him being a fighter that only use his hands and nothing more and i am glad they are hadling this license, i really do and it mades me regret not getting the other characters rom the series (Kyo, Iori, Rugal, May, Blue Mary, Orochi) but i guess it may be too late by now and i am only picking my favorite characters.
Once you pass the "is a Ryu clone" thingy and know Ryo´s character as well as his evolution over 20 games, Ryo Sakazaki is one of the coolest and best men on the fighters universe and trully a legend and i always wished they make figures based on him, but for once, he was finally blessed with one that is also the very best figure they could do for him, an ultimate Ryo worth his legacy.
