HIEROPHANT & MOFISH

 

We are still n the 2000s and having fun with The House of the Dead 2 on the Dreamcast while Plisades is releasing theyr first action figure series absed on the Sega monstruositys. Sadly, they didnt sell well and series 2 were cancelled despite being totally finished and this Thoe House of the Dead action figures remain as the only merch existant of the game for 26 years. In 2022 i was able to get half of the series and now, four years later, i was able to get the remainig half of the collection.

I already reviewed Ken and the Murren Worms in the last post and now is time to take a look at Hierophant and the Mofish. For some reason this figure is extremelly exoensive and difficult to get now day but somehow i found a boxed and brand new one in a very reasonable price soo i didnt doubt i got him, plus this is the special edition exclusive for Tower Records with battle damage.

This is also the second of the bosses figures, the first one being Strenght but this creature is bigger (tough much more lighter) than the big chainsaw wielding zombie but also this is my favorite figure of the collection. I dont know why but Hierophant became one of the creatures that remins on my mind pretty strongly and i really like his design.

This monster fits with anything NECA or McFarlane soo he pretty much first with most action figures in standar size tough despite his hunched pose, he still will towers over most characters. He can stand on his own perfectly with those big claw feet and is articulated on the head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, legs, knees and the ribcage opens.

The head, wrists, and waist rotate perfectly while the legs have a very basic up artiuclation and the elbows and knees can bend reasonable well but not too much since they have only a single simple articulation while the elbows are ball jointed soo they move up and down but they cna be open as well and this are the more mobile parts of the figure. The chest can be open but most of the time the arms get in the way but the chest cavity opens enough to reveal his heart.

Made by SOTA Sculpture and Design, this is pretty much the most detailed figures of the series with the lanky musculature on his leimbs perfectly visible but also many many different types of scales!! His biceps have this long scales while his shoulders have small circular ones with big plaques like turtle on his neck and shulders and really, every single muscle part have a totally different scale design and pathern.

I specially like his bony hips since in the back he have a pretty hiddeous werid tail that dosnt looks like a fish tail but i also love those huge feet with black claws!!! Theres fins around his legs, in the back of his arms and four big lines of fins runing from his neck to galf of his back. All this fins are cast in soft plastic and they really looks spectacular, specially the back ones since they end shape i totlaly different between each other.

The face looks realy menacing with his eyes closed and the big mouth fully open and the fish fins on the top almost like wings and since this is the exclusive version of Tower records, this Hierophant is missing one  and have a bullet hole on his forehead and head fins.This wounds are covered in green radioactive blood and they stand out well against the green of his skin.

While his entire body is military green, theres a red soft airbrush on the shoulders and biceps and some other sections while the fins of the head have a blue airbrush while the feet have a much darker tone to make it looks realistic. His stomach is painted in plain white with a soft blue area surrounding it while his neck, biceps and legs are covered  on a phatern that loks like whote dots with black dots in the center, almost like eyes. All the paint aplication is perfect.

While the chest area, once open, it reveale his heart and al kind of organs around painted into a brigth red to contrast with the rest of the body, the fins have a mix of dark red, white and blue details and this includes the net around hthe fingers of his hands, painted in soft and electric blue. This make this figure the best painted of the collection deffinetly and also the most detailed (tough i like more Strenght color palette).

And since he is a boss he does comes with a weapon; a trident. This item have identations all around and bandages stained in green blood near the top. While its very simplistic and dosnt stand out, is pretty eviedent this is no generic trident but something specifically designed for Hierophant and the item have a peg that fits on a hole on his hand, this way the trident stay on his hand perfectly despite his hand not being fully closed into it.

The inclusion of a small enemy in the pack was something very common back then soo this time they included a Mofish that fighst along side Hierophant in the game. Again, there sno jaw articulation but the sculpt is really amazing with all the different mix of scales and the textures on his face, but more importantly, the paint aplication is really oustanding: green/yellow mixed with some dark airbrush, electric blue for the fins and tail, red inside the mouth and white fangs and orange eyes with a black pupil, this little guy looks soo vibrant and colorfull and amazing detailed.

And finally theres a base that consist on a oval shape stone piece with skuls and some ivy covering the The Hosue of the Dead logo. The sculpt is good and while the paint is a little too simple is not the focal point of the figure and i really like the design a lot. Also the base is purelly ornamental and dosnt help the figuere stand at all. Actually the huge feet of Hierophant covers most of the base.

From the sntire series this is deffinetly the figure i was looking for the most, not only is one of my favorites but is also the tallest and more detailed and even the Mofish looks soo damn good. Just like with the Vampire Hunter D figures, this set may looks dated deffinetly, but its shows perfectly how things used to be done back when collecting was much more simple and fun than now, when creativity was much stronger too. 

Palisades exist no more, but they really did a good job.

KEN & MURRER WORMS

 After staying in 2001 for the last reviews....lets turn back in time a little bit more, to 2000. Back then the Sega Dreamcast was on its best moment and one of its gems was The House of the Dead 2, a game that, after 26 years is still as fun and entertaining as it was back then and with all videogames having action figures all of a sudden (Resident Evil, Tekken, Samurai Shodown, Street Fighter, Metal Gear Solid...) it was the best moment to give The House of the Dead some toy love and it was Palisades the studio that release an action figures set for the Sega shooter.

Back in 2022 i was able to get half the set: Johnny and the boss Strenght and now, four year later i just found the second half of the collection in the most sudden and unexpecting way. Lets focus now on Ken and the Murrer Worms: Back then both Toy Viz and Moobydick decided to release the Resident Evil figures in a two pack mode, a human with a monster or a big monster with a smaller one together and somehow Plisades continue that tradition not only with theyr own Resident Evil figures but with The Hosue of the Dead as well.

Soo the main dish in this two pack is deffinetly Ken, the spidery and jumping zombie with an iron mask and claws. The character design of this games were something else in close inspection....soo anyway, Ken is in perfect scale with most action figures like McFarlane or NECA toigh he is pretty light weigth given his slim build.

He can stand on hiw own perfectly (just like all other figures from this line) and is articulated on his neck, waist, shoulders, wrists, legs and knees. The head, waist and wrists cna rotate while the shoulders have a ball joint soo they can move up and down and open up to the sides as well while the legs have a very basic articulation to the front and the knees dont bend too much but this was more articulation that we used to have back then and while the movement is kind of basic, is more than enough to pull a few poses that dont look that bad.

Sculpted by SOTA Sculpture and Design, this living dead is really nice looking and while the pants looks OK with all those straps and the metalic armor on the legs looks allrigth, the best part is the torso with the dry and mummyfied skin tight into the rib cage and with the intestines hanging on the waist. The back side have the spinal cord uncovered while the giant claw hands are sculpted in soft plastic and stands out a lot.

Plus this is the limited edition exclusive for the Plisades website soo this figure have a battle damage head sculpt different that then normal version. In the normal version Ken is....well...complete and his iron mask can be removed but here the lower half og his head has been blown byt the Agents shots soo not only he is missing one eye but his entire lower face is completelly gone and theres a piece of his jaw hanging from the side. 

Looks really gruesome but only at a close look since the effect kinda got lost with the messy paint job. Theres black blood covering the dark blue skin soo its a little too dark and only a few teeth stand out. The metalic paint on the mask is good while its splattehered with some green radioactive blood but my favorite part is the shiny orange eye since it contast nicelly with the entire figure.

For me tough, while thr sculpt is good the paint really dont mae justice for it and dont mae the sculpting details to stand as they should. Ken´s skin is dark blue while his mane is also dark blue in a different tone and while theres some brown brush in the bomy parts, i feel like this dont make the skin texture to stand out. Also theres a lot of green blood here but is painted in splochs and if camouflages more than it should.

The metalic claws and boots have some black and brown brush mixed with the metalic paint and also a lot of green blood splathered around and this is the section where the green blood stand out the most. The paints are plain black while the straps are green and brown but theres not much to say about them.

Then we got the Murrer Worms, some of the most iconic enemies of the game. Theres two included and while they are smaller than Ken they are really thick and both have a different sculpt since one is moving to the front and the other is turning to the side. Sadly i was almost sure they had articulated jaw but theres no articulation here while the body texture is really good looking and the teeths looks hiddeous.

They are plain brown but they have a black paint around every corner and ident and that makes the sculpt to really stands out. The gums are radioactive green while the inside of the mouth is red and the teeth plain white and that makes this little guys very colorfull and faithfull looking to the in game designs.

And laslty, theres a base for Ken. Is not that big and looks like an irregular ovar of rock and stone with some skulls in the front and the back side, ivy radomnly covering it and The House of the Dead logo in the middle. Sculpt is really good and paint is a little simple but somehw i really like this base design even if it dosnt helps stand the characters at all and is something totally ornamental.

And i almost forgot!!! Theres one missing accesory: the iron mask. In the original version the mask is removable and reveals Ken skeleton face but in this version the mask cant be removed and i dont know if i like that.

To be honest paint was always the main issue of Palisades with theyr Resident Evil line soo in this line that is a year older the problem was even more evident: while the sculpt in Ken is good i feel like the paint could be better since details really camouflage and even the damage on his face dont stand out as much as it should but still i am damn happy with anything releated to The House of the Dead and this is no exception. 

NEMESIS

 Aside or producing many different serires of action figures based on the Muppet,s the Pink Panther or The House of the Dead, Plisades Marketing also produced statues. I am not sure how many statues released tough i know about five based on Resident Evil: Claire Redfield, William G-2, Jill Valentine, Nemesis and a Nemesis bust tough 3 of this statues were pretty rare and now they are imposible to find.

I do got the pair of Resident Evil 3: Jill Valentine and Nemesis. And honestly, Jill was very dissapointing, she had a very bland pose and sculpt and a poor paint and material quality, specially compared with the fantastic and smaller action figures Plisades release along this statues. Tough good news is, Nemesis is the ying of the yang of Jill, the opposite on every aspect.

Sculpted by Taniguchi Junichi and measuring the amazing heigth of 16 inch, this Nemesis is one of the biggest figures i got on my collection, even taller than a Sideshow or Hot Toys figure, he towers over anything and it makes him stand out no matter where he is displayed.

He can stand better than Jill but only because they give him a small base: a little rock like thingy with a hole for his boot. The rock thingy is made with...well, stone!! Soo is pretty heavy and manages to keep this guy standing as long as his gravity center is in the rigth place. A pretty simple method, but it works.

And is not easy to make this guy stand thanks to the pose, he is literally runing and turning around at the same time, around a corner i guess, and ready to grav Jill by the head. While Jill is on a totally static pose, Nemesis is really dynamic and full of movement and momentum.

The wolfs on his outfit are also moving along side him and they have different textures from each other while his pant and top part have a leather texture. While it looks like prue blackness here, theres a lot of paint work as well since his pants and boots are extremelly dirty with greens and browns like hes been runing in the trash and the rest of his body have some greys and blues ti give it volume, but all this color is pretty discrete and only visible at close inspection.

The head sculpt is great, much more alive than Jill and pretty close to the original Nemesis design but the paint, this time, helps a lot thr sculpt as well. Both the texture and the paint on the skin are fantastic and are filled with greens and browns that gives it a pretty "secaying corpse" look. The eye paint could be better but the open wounds, gums and yellow teeths are looking really good.

The parasite tentacles coming in and out from his flesh (the actial Nemesis parasite) have a really gruesome look, like raw flesh, but also a withe web, some kind of fat tissue mixed with a wet look that looks really disgusting and realistic.

This statue is made of the same cheap vinyl as Jill soo that makes him kind of delicate and the glue ussed to join the pieces dosnt work no moresoo he requieres some curation every few years, but even with that this guy is much much better than Jill deffinetly.

Also, over the years i seen lots and lots of bootleg version of this figure, in smaller scale but i never seen this original Palisades copy soo i got the feeling this guy may have a high price by now, specially with Jill included, that dosnt looks that bad with Nemesis displayed close. 

JILL VALENTINE

 Its hard to belive how much merchadise about Resident Evil we got long time ago, when the series started. Now its one of the pillars of gaming but despite that, merchwise Resident Evil is pretty low tough both RE7 and 8 arent exactly toys friendly. But the first gmes are still pretty good for action figures and despite having a lot of Toy Biz and Moby Dick Toys figures back then, Plisades Marketing released 3 series of articulated figures at a totally different scale.

But they also released statues. A Resident Evil 2 pair with Claire Redfield and another with William G-2, that never saw in my life and it seems they are extremelly rare and limited, looked fantastic and by 2000-2001 they also released a pair based on Resident Evil 3: Jill Valentine and Nemesis.

I think tough this statues are based on japnese garage kits but i am not very sure...i just know there is a japanese version of this figures but i dont know the brand. Plisades version of Jill tough is 11 inch soo she towers over the action figures series but is really really ligth since she is howllow and the vinyl is pretty thin.

Sculpted by Tunehisa Namimatsu, this Jill Valentine have a lot of problems standing by herself sicne her legs arent that well adjusted and she is juts kinda lanky, i really wish Palisades gives her a stand or a base. Anyways, i guess the convertion from garage kit to mass produced vinyl statue really hurt Tunehisa sculpt, or maybe its the material, but the sculpt is extremelly soft and lacking details.

Jill is standing on a very simple and basic pose with her gun in hand, theres no movement in here or any kind of dynamism but her face dosnt have too many features to beggin with and the rest of the body either...she kinds of looks like the image of a pretty old videogame or CGi from the 90s. I am not sure if that was the intention but i doubt it since the 90s werent that far back then.

The paint is really basic, really pale skin color with no shadows or details at all, electric blue for her top, black for her skirt and brown for her boots. But the worst part are the belts around her shoulders and the little military pockets on her waist, the green is mixing with the skin color and her outfit and looks really bad specially on such big scale.

Her face is pretty, tough extremelly basic and sadlly, the brown of her hair is mixing with her skin as well. The bangs on her forehead are soo awfull looking, is really dissapointing.

Also, thanks to the march of time (more than 20 years!!) and how cheap is the vinyl used in here, the material is starting to brake and the glue is also lossing its effects....plus she likes to fall a lot, soo this statue has been broken into pieces multiple times already. Soo far i been able to fix her but it gets really tiresome at some point.

Maybe a totall repaint can fix many of this figure problems. Its true the sculpt is not that good and is kinda unidimensional but a good paint may help a lot. Mmmm i will think about it, maybe this Jill can come to life and be able to look closer to the prototype shown on the box?

WILLIAM G-4

 At the begining of the century, the shadow of McFarlane Toys was titanic and guided completelly the collecting world (qithe the oposite of wath it is now) and at that very shadow, many brands were born following theyr footsteps: Sideshow, NECA, Sota, ReSaurus, Mezco and Plisades Marketing. Very few survived but Plisades managed to evolve at giant steps and almost reach McFarlane perfection in a record time. Specially with the Resident Evil series 3 of action figures.

Chris and Wesker from CODE: Veronica looked nice but nothing compared with the amazing Tyrant or the last of the figures of that series: the final boss of Resident Evil 2, William G-4. Just like Tyrant that felt heavy and giant on his blister, William even had metalic chaps holding the blister to the card soo they wont tear apart under his weigth, this figure is trully a heavy weigth!!!

Since he is in four legs, he has no issue standing at all soo theres no need for base (and they didnt included one to begin with). William is articulated on the shoulders, wrists, chest and legs as well as in the shoulders of his secondary arms, elbows and wrists. Dosnt sounds like much but all articulations in here are ball joints except for his legs. 

The ball joint on his chest have an awfull lot of mobility while the one on his big big wrists helps a lot to adjust his standing. The small secondari arms on his heads helps only to add some dinamisy to the pose since, as much as he is articulatd, he is not going to be posed any other way aside of on all four legs. 

The sculpt is amazing....the dry and full of stretch lines on his skin is really nice as all the big veins coming out from his msucular system and mixing with his eyes. The skin broking out and revealing the super enhanced muscular systsme underneath as well as all the textures on his chest area and open wounds is something hard to describe. 

The shark like head and all the pointy fangs on his giant mouth as well as the fleshy texture of the inside mouth is something we never seen back then. This sculpt went beyond all boundaries toys had back then and give us a figure that is terrific looking even by 2023 standars.

The color is almost perfect as well, with the brown skin navigated by dark shadows that enhance the texture and all the blood and gore looking perfectly defined and natural: pink raw muscles with purple veins and red eye lids, vibrant yellow eyes with orange giant claws on every hand. The top of the head where the boney head is coming out from the body (the neck??) have a beautofull purple color while dark paint runs trough all the crevices on the skul structure.

The fleshy inside of the mouth mixi red, pink and some soft purples giving it the feel of very realistic animal insides, alive and wet. Maybe the fangs needed to be more pointy and a better color deffinition, but i guess they didnt wanted someone to get harmed or cut and considering everything, this guy is a huge imporvement over the Toy Biz version.

Sure, he dosnt transform back to G-3 like the Toy Bix did, but the sculpt and painting (and articulation) is in a totally different level and even better than the Moby Dick Toys figures. Plus, even on all four this guy is taller than the rest of the human figures and by extention, taller to modern action figures as well and considering how heavy he is, this is one of the most impresive figures i ever seen.

With Tyrant, Willaim G-3, Nemesis (I am missing him) as ell as Alexia, Plisades Marketing is soo far the only brand to release all the final bosses of Resident Evil in the same scale and quality and i cant apreciate that enough, because this was the very last time Plaisades touched Resident Evil since a couple of years later it stoped existing all together.

But this is also the very last time we got figures based on the "classic" (original) Resident Evil as well since Resident Evil 4 was around the corner and with it, the whole series would change forever to never be back at this era of Virus, Umbrella, STARS and Raccon. With a good assorment of CODE: Veronica nd RE 2 figures, i really wish Plisades had more chance to focus on RE 1 and 3 but this guy as well as Tyrant were an amazing way to wrap things up.

TYRANT

 The begining of the century was a pretty exciting and interesting moment for Resident Evil since we were getting spin offs and remakes or even a prequel, stuff that elevated the hype for Resident Evil 4 and sky rocketed the mistery of wath was waiting in the future for the series. At the same time we got lots of action figures, from the fun ToyBiz line to the impresive japanese Moby Dick Toys and Palisades Marketing in the middle with 3 different series dedicated to the franchise as a whole.

With the first two figures of series 3 dedicated to CODE:Veronica (Chris and Wesker), the thirds figure was non other but the very first final boss of Resident Evil: Tyrant. And this guy is HUGE!!!! Literally twice the other figures and taller than Nemesis and Mr.X and i still remember how heavy felt the blister with him inside!!!

Somehow this guy is a little bit taller than the Moby Dick Toys figures wich makes me wonder how we get figures this big back then at such a low price....anyway, he can stand on his own but he needs a little bit of help balancing given how heavy is his top part, but most of the time he can stand just fine despite the missing base in series 3.

He is articulated on the head, chest, shoulders, elbows, wrists, legs, knes and ankles, all cut joints that move only on a single direction, standar for back then figures, except the shoulders that are ball jointed as well as the head. The ehad tough cannot move too much thanks to the piece of flesh conecting from his heart to his face. This tissue is made with soft plastic and have some room to move to the sides but not too much.

The rest of the articulations are fine and moves perfectly within theyr limitations and the shulders give him a lot of movement freedom and are the main point for posing him. The giant arm tough is impresive how is able to keep the posing even with the heavy weigth of the giant claw but Palisades made an extremelly strong ball joint.

While this Tyrant cant be posed brake dancing, the sculpt is more than enough to make him a sight to fear. While Toy Biz and Moby Dick versions based the figures on the actual artwork of the first game, this one have a much more american comic flavor to it, with pretty exagerated details to make him more monster like. Even his musculature is extremelly super-heroic looking and gives him  apretty imposing frame.

On top of the amazing muscle structure, his skin is textured with lots of wrinkles giving him the look of a corpse. His giant (really in-human GIANT) heart is made with soft plastic and his skeletale visage is really menacing, with the veins covering his face and arms nicelly sculpted.

The color is really good. At this point Palisades finally get a hang of paint and give him a lots of blueish tones, withes and purples to follow his muscle structure and highlt the cadaveric effect on his skin. The veins on the arms, legs and face are vribrant red and erfectly painted and i particularlly like the bubble thingys on his leg, since they hace a weird wet looks and the intense red make them stand out from all the pale blues.

The heart have pretty soft and strong pinks with blue veins and the eyes really shine inside those dark sockets. His monster arm and chest have a lot of dark browns and blacks and i am not sure wath kind of tissue is this but looks almost like wood. Finally his claw have black nails and i love the sculpt of his claw...each one of them looks like black bone full with stretch marks and they arent completelly black, but have pretty dark browns as well to make them looks natural.

Overall, this guy is HUGE, HEAVY and extremelly cool looking. Is weird how he is not 100% accurate and instead have an exagerated design, but this guy was one of the best figures Palisades marketing ever produced and looks inponent on any horror collection or even around the other Resident Evil characters. Make other Tyrant looks like kids.

ALBERT WESKER & HUNTER II

 Palisades Marketing was a brand that, in its pretty short life span, developed a lot of fantastic afction figure series and reached almost perfection pretty quickly. Even after 20 years some of theyr series are selling at pretty high price and are treasure among collectors. One of those series was Resident Evil and with the movie on teathers, comic books in stores and the hype of a remake of the first game, Resident Evil was on its more popular point back then, when Palisades took the torch from ToyBiz and Moby Dick Toys.

But unlike ToyBiz and Moby Dick Toys, Palisades would release figures individually and in serires of fours: a human character, a monster and two individual boss creatures. Also, since back in 2002 the last Resident Evil game was CODE: Veronica, Palisades would focus mostly into that game but it would also release a few characters from the other games in a pretty weird mix.

Series 3 started with Chris Redfield from CODE: Veronica and i still regret not getting him since Chris is my favorite character and i love his uniform in that particular game. The second figure, the monster, was non other but his rival Albert Wesker along side a Hunter II from the same game. Size wise Plisades figures were bigger than Toy Biz but smaller than Moby Dick´s soo he fits perfectly with modern figues of NECA or McFarlane.

Wesker can stand on his own perfectly And this time around theres no base at all....He is articulated on the head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, legs, tigths, knes and ankles. All cut articulations that move in only one direction except for the head and shoulders that are ball jointed and aside of those sections, the rest feel really limited in movement soo Wesker dosnt have too many movement options, and thats a shame considering he is much more dynamic at this point of the series.

The articulation is not bad but not great either tough the sculpt is really good. The wrinkles on his shirt and pants looks good as well as the vest with the tiny pockets around it. He is actually a pretty basic design soo theres not much to see here and most of the sculpting details goes to his face, with his chiseled face features and cool looking hair, he is Wesker for sure and looks pretty close to his in game model.

Paint is also extremelly simple. He is just black plastic with only small detailes painted here and there: some silver buttons on the pocket or the brown laces on his boots, he is just blacknes. His skin tone can be seen only on his foreamrs and head and he is just pale, but with some darker shades on his face to give him volume, dark skin tone son his lips and brownish eyebrows. The blonde hair is perfectly painted as well as his black shades.

He have an accesory tough: an extra head with no shades. Change the head is not that easy but the sculpt and paint are just as good as the normal head, and while the face expression is the same, of course, cold and empty, the painting on his red and yellow pupil eyes is pretty amazing for such small scale. I actually think he looks more handsome with his red eyes but he is much more iconic with the black shades.

His companion piece is the Hunter II he uses in the Rockford Island to hunt Chris in CODE: Veronica and this is easy the most impresive companion monster in the collection! This guy would be the size of a human if not for the shape of his body and legs, soo he ends being a little bit smaller than Wesker and is articulated on the shoulders, elbows, legs and knes as well as his jaw.

Articulations are cut joints soo they are very limited and also he is preposed based on an artwork of the game soo he have not many display options but still he looks damn impresive and the articulated jaw is such a good detail. This is a big improvement over the Cerberus and the Licker form series 1 and 2.

The sculpt is soo amazing!! You cna see each scale and each wrinkles wraping around the monster weird bone structure. The texture on his reptilian skin is fantastic and an exact copy of the artwork of the game. The lips wraping up and down and showing the gum and the eyes on the side of the face make this the less human Hunter to date and looks more like a creature from Lovecraft lore.

The paint is just as good as the sculpt, with a intense green covering him but daerker greens higtlighting the scales and a silver belly that mix with the greens in a pretty natural way. Again his face is the best part with the yellow fangs and yellow eyes. Those eyes are incrediblly realistic and looks like the eye from the Resident Evil 2 main menu.

Its weird how Wesker is soo incrediblly simple and forgetable looking while the Hunter II looks soo amazing and stand out soo much, but still, the main atraction here is Wesker since this is pretty much one of the only two figures the character have in 25 years, giving him an important status for the Palisades collector.