CLIVE ROSFIELD

 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.

ARMORED XANATOS

 Last year NECA went crazy and released the entire line of Gargoyles in a single wave. It was a VERY TOUGH year for my walltet deffinetly, but there was one single figure i skip even if that means not completing the series: Armored Xanatos. I love the look of the red Steel Clan robot, the leader of the mechanical army that turns out to be actually Xanatos. I still have him as a Kenner toy from the 90s (the red variant, not the grey basic version) but in the end, he is just a color variant of an already released figure.

This review could be extremelly short but instead of that i am going to pretend i didnt review the Steel Clan figure, soo this guy is actually quiet masive, he is a little bit taller than Goliath and that makes this the biggest figure in the series but he is also extremelly heavy, quiet an issue for him to stand still.

Despite the use of the tail, the ankles get lose over time and they bend pretty easy soo extra precautions must be used here since given how heavy he is, he can damage anything under him. 

He is articulated on the head, neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knees, ankles and half foot as well as his tail, wings and the middle of the wings open up to the sides. All if this are ball joints soo in theory they have a lot of freedom of movement only limited by the design: the hair thingy clash with the wings soo he can move his head too much to the sides also the shoulder pads have a hinge too the open up to give room to his shoulders articulation.

The elbows and ankles have double articulations soo they bend pretty good and the tail is bendy with a wire. The wings shape is..... weird, really weird soo they can rotate but not open up because they end in a pretty awkard angle soo this is the only character (aside of the Steel Clan) to have articulated wings but theres not a whole option of poses for them.

The feet claws rotate soo they can be adjusted to the surface but still manouver them while avoidung th wings is really tricky. Speaking of avoiding, the whole wing as well as the claws in the hands have really ponty edges and they can cut human skin pretty easy!!! Also the phalanx on his hands are also extremelly sharp.

While Kenner gives Xanatos a pretty different armour that includes even a maks instead of a helmeth and made him looks totally different to the other robots, NECA´s version is screen accurate soo this is exactly the same sculpt as the Steel Clan robots, the only totally new section is the ted button on the center of his chest and the tubes that goes around his neck. This section is made with soft plastic and cannot be removed.

The design is extremelly cool and follows the character design of the cartoon adding a lot of extra deailing and using the Kenner wings design. The biggest point of attention here is the color, a metalic red. The red shines pretty nice and actually make the photographic job to be extremelly difficult since the red color reflects the ligth like no other color does, soo while the Steel Clan robot shines like a mirror this guy looks like a lighthouse.

Every union of the pieces and every bolt are painted in black, soo theres no lack of detail in here, but everything looks soo clean shiny, like a limousine (pretty fitting for Xanatos i guess). The abdomen, biceps and tights are painted on gunmetal black  while the slaws are white, soo the overall looks is really sext, menacing and elegant (tough i really hope the red paint stays in the bendy tail and donst start to chip away).

The accesorys are exactly the same as the Steel Clan: a pair of closed fist, a pair of holding hands, a pair of open hands and a pair of claw shaped  hands and not only they are really really good looking (specially the open hands) but they are pretty easy to swap as well.

He also have a pait of lasser guns for his amr armor. The piece on his arm can be removed and the lassers attach with a peg. They are pretty good looking and the metalic red on top matches the rest of the armor perfectly.

Then theres the fire effect of the jet blasters that keep Xanatos on the air: two small effects for the base of his feet and a big one for his back, all cast in transluscent plastic with some orange wash over them. They are really good looking tough the peg is soo small in the feet ones is kinda tricky make them stay in place.

Lastly, the only new accesory is Xanatos head with no helmeth that can replace the normal robotic head and also includes a soft plastic metalic ring that goes around his neck to hide the articulation and make the transition looks better. Sadlly, this head with a fierce expression also comes with normal Xanatos soo this is literally a duplicated accesory.

Also....i hate hiw he looks....i mean, the head is way too small for such a huge body...this dosnt looks like IronMan at all, the Steel Clan body is huge compared to a human body soo having Xanatos inside this dosnt make too much sense. In the cartoon they played with scales a lot and no one notice because, they are 2D arts, but in 3D you need to be pretty close to scale between figures and this really bring this issue.

Either you downscale the red rebot to look in scale to Xanatos (and wrong comapred to the other robots) of you sculpt a bigger head to go with this figure, but that would be extremelly akward looking compared to the rest of the line, soo NECA decided to just keep the same scale of the head and the body soo they dont match each other but each elemtn matches the rest of the line. I think this was the most wise choice but still i dont like how it looks.

Besides, this was a perfect chance to add a Xanatos head with a different face expression or blood driping from his forehead, or give him lasser effects to his lasers or some damage pieces of other robots....i dunno....pretty much every element of this figure is taken from ther figures of the line, except the red color.

This is why it take me soo long to get this Xanatos, he is extremelly cool looking and nicelly done, but in the end everything is recycled here, i mean, even Thailong - Goliath´s clon - had a different face sculpt and totally unique accesorys.

Still i am tempted to get another Steel Clan robot soo i can display this red leader one along two sentrys i dont have the space for it but now that the line is over and it will take a while for NECA to release the side characters maybe i will do it. 

GENJURO KIBAGAMI

 Slowly, very, VERY slowly Storm Collectibles has been fullfiing the dreams of fight game entusiasts by giving us action figures of as many fight games series as they can. Sadly, the ocean of Street Figther and Mortal Kombat releases has been predating the rest of Storm collections but given the price range of this figures, its good we dont have them too often. And somehow the Samurai Shodown brand seems more promising than Soul Calibur for Storm (i am very happy for this but very sad as well...) soo they been keeping it alive releasing new characters since Haohmaru five years ago.

Five years ago and we only got four characters soo far!!! Haohmaru, Nakoruru, Rasetsumaru and Genjuro Kibagami!! I am stasting to doubt if i will live long enough to complete this...but i guess "complete" this line is a way too irreal concept. And while i missed Nakoruru and Rasetsumaru feel oddly....repetitive, Genjuro Kibagami is the very first important addition to the Samsho collection for my collection (tough he took his sweet time since he was supposed to come out last year).

Genjuro is actually a bit taller than Haohmaru (and by extention Rasetsumaru) and can stand on his own most of the time. I mean most because those thick plastic pants block his ankles artiuculation soo sometimes is kinda tricky adjust them for a standing pose. 

He is articulated on the neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, waist, legs, knees, ankles and half feet. All ball joints with the biceps having a simple cut joint and the elbows and knees a double articulation and shoulders have a buttlefly joint. Like always, the movement range is amazing since the chest piece is made with soft plastic soo his neck and shoulders moves wonderfully.

The pink top hanging from his waist is made with soft plastic soo it dosnt get in the way of the legs movement, but the pants nature make his legs very difficult to work with. I mean, his pants are thicker than Geese soo they kind kind of block each other and somehow, they are very heavy as well, soo i am afraid the leg articulation get lose over time. And like already say, the ankles movement is also very difficult to work with thanksk to said pants.

I guess it cant be helped, since this is the character design and give him cloth pants would make things more delicate and hard to work with but i wish they make his pants of softish plastic tough, that would makes things easyer to handle. His hair can rotate too, in a very basic way just like the other samurais but i wish it could move up and down too for some battle poses with a ball joint.

The sculpt is really really good, despite the simplistic look of Genjuro, every bit of this figure is perfectly sculpted, from the impresive musculature to the velvetish texture of his pants and sandals. Even the scar on his back is also sculpted and the face features are a perfect 3D render of the 2D design, with his chiseled face features, extremelly sharp jaw line and sculpture perfect nose and cold eyes.

He looks familiar, way too familiar tough....he looks pretty similar to Iori Yagami tough he debuted before Iori soo we could say this man was the very first version of Yagami and that deffinetly includes the red hair. I particulary love the few hair strands on Genjuro´s nape tough they are a great attention tod etail, they are made with soft plastic soo they can be broken by moving his head up!!

The hair have a very nice flow and at first i tough he needed a bigger ponny tail, but in the game the hair is never as abudant as Haohmaru´s soo i guess the amount of hair is perfect.

The hair is painted on a very nice red color with some black detailing that make it looks a little bit cartoony. The hair line is really perfect and dosnt mix with any of the skin tone despite its irregular shape. The skin tone is perfecly pale and fits Genjuro perfectly and looks much more natural than Haohmaru´s orange skin. The black line on the mouth and thin and delicate eyebrows are really impresive as well as the eyes detailing and pupils.

The rest of the skin matches the face colors, with some soft shadowing here and there to give a very discrete volume to the muscles, everything looks very natural as well as the scar on his back. The bandage son his abs as well as the white belt and the pink kimono hanging from his waist are to cimple tough, and dosnt have any paint aplication beyond the base color. The pants tough is another story since they have some baby blue strokes mixed with the grey that matches very good the velvet texture and gives them a pretty regal look that enhance the shapr shape they have. 

The brown base of the sandals and red tie around the white socks looks really good and thats it. Genjuro is strangelly simplistic looking, juts like Haohmaru and still, he is a very menacing figure that have a pretty strong presence, he is not fully realistic but the stylization Storm used here matches the Samurai Shodown artworks perfecly.

He also comes with a bunch of pretty softish hands that are pretty easy to swap: aside of the closed fist he have hands to hold his sword, hands in claw shape, relaxed hands, hands to hold his plate and hands on a "come here" gesture. They are pretty expressive for such an inexpresive character.

Ahe also have four different heands: aside of the stoci base head he have another one with an smile, another one showing his teeth and another one screaming. The sculpt and paint aplications is perfect on all of them and they are very easy to swap as well. The smiling head is my favorite tough, since despite the smile not being very noticeable, it have a pretty dark vibes on it.

The head with the teeth have a pretty impresive sculpt and the ones screaming have fantastic looking details inside the mouth. Again, all this are very expresive for such an inexpresive character and show how is possible to give variety to any character at all as long as the brand feel real love for the character design.

He have not one, but four hairs as well!!! And all this hairs have exactly the same sculpt and paint!!! Why add a hair piece to each head?? I mean i understand if they added hairs with different flow or sculpt, flowing around his head or something but no, Storm added four accesorys that looks exactly the same and thats pretty odd...

Next is Baioudoku - Poison of the Plum Nightingale: his katana and the most important accesory for the character. While the blade and handle are pretty standar looking, the the Tsube/guard have an amazing sculpt shaped like a flower with each petal completelly hollow. Its pretty difficult to see it on photo but once at close up, the sculpt is really wild!!

The blade have a very realistic metalic paint while the Tsube is painte din metalic gold and the handle is a mix of brown and dark greens. The paint aplicatio is perfect and contrast nicelly with Genjuro´s color palette.

He also have a wide red plate for sake, with a black kanji painted on the center. The colors is pretty intense and is one of the most classic items for Genjuro since he ises this in most of his artowkrs and his animation presentation.

He not only have a single badass effects, but he have two!!! One of them and my favorite is from his Oukazan move: he throws an energy ball with his katana shaped like a rotating card that once conects, it takes shape of an actual hanafuda card. The effect of the Oukazan is sculpted in trabsluscent plastic painted with some very soft pink tones and a white airbrush in the center that makes it looks like is shining.

This effects comes with its own base, a transluscent circular base with a post that conects to the back of the Oukazan. The white airbrush covers the post and the post can be adjusted to any height. Not only this is one of the best looking and simple effects Storm has ever done, but is also one of the most iconics from Genjuro.

His second effect Towa Koyokujin; a purple flame that comes out from his katan while cuting upward in the air. The effect consist into two pieces jointed together, a small flame with a hollow inside to insert the katana and a big flame that fits inside the two pieces and extend the effect, sculpted on transluscent plastic with some purple airbrish and white airbrush in the katan section, this piece is really heavy and Genjuro´s articulations can barelly keep it up for a short amount of time.

Despite of how troublesome this effect is, it looks really good and his huge and pretty different to the effects of the other sword wielding Storm Collectibles figures.

And my biggest dissapoint: the background scenario that traditional comes packed with each figure, printed in very high quality and with a descent size, i was expecting to have Susukigahara Field with the big Neo Geo moon on top, Genjuro´s stage since Samurai Shodown 2.

Instead we got Kyoto, Tenkakuza, the home stage from Karakuri Ocha-Maru from Samurai Shodown VI. The color palette is odd and the scene is really busy, with all the karakuri puppets behind tough is very colorful, i got the feeling this stage camouflages any figure very well. But WHY Ocha-Maru stage and not Susukigahara???!!!

Aside of this the figure is perfect. while i wish they gives us Gejuro´s little pet frog instead of soo many copys of his hair, or a top piece of his kimono to fit one of his arms, i cant complaing with the badass effects they give him and the pretty katana as well.

Genjuro is one of the best SNK designs, one of the most classic as well, just like his rival Haohmaru, he is very simplistic looking and yet pretty intense and unforgetable, a character designed to have an "adult appeal" - pointed out by SNK character designers - or in a more direct way, a character that was supposed to be sexy.

He is perfect to this porpuse tough, he is deffinetly more sexy than Iori Yagami and looks spectacular along side his rival on any videogames collection. Also this figure makes me want to hunt down Nakoruru but next will be Earthquake and things will get really wild with him. I just hope i live enough to have a Charlotte or a Galford or any other character beyond Earthquake.