While traditionally I review video games and electronics it was nearly impossible for me to pass up a review for a collectible from a series that is so close to me heart, Sonic the Hedgehog. While Sonic championed Sega in the 90’s as their marquee platformer and mascot… he eventually fell on hard times and many people soured on the series during the Shadow and Werewolf era. As we have reached the 25th Anniversary of the Sonic franchise it looks like Sega is back on track with the major announcement of Sonic Mania. To capitalize even further on this rebirth of the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise a series of collectible figurines has been released. I was fortunate enough to receive a set of the figurines and here is what I’ve found.
This set of figures includes a trifecta of my personal favorite characters… Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles. Keep in mind that this is original Knuckles.. not that jacked up Sonic Boom version. Out of the box these figures are very small and awkward. Being small in itself isn’t a huge problem, except with collectibles like this I typically want my friends and guests to be able to see them from across the room. When they are made this small they are more difficult to display. While the arms and legs articulate in order to get them to stand up right you have do do quite a bit of balancing. They also feel pretty brittle. The full articulation of the limbs and head are almost rendered useless because they really like to fall over.
Now realizing that these figures are both small and unbalanced, one would think that it is because they are highly detailed.. unfortunately this is also not the case. My Sonic for example has a large amount of blue from his body bleeding over into the whites of his eyes. There are many little tiny chips and imperfections across all three of the figurines. While I do enjoy the aesthetic of the metallic paint on the figures themselves, by contrast when you actually hold them in your hands they feel like very brittle plastic. Had these little guys had the heft of metal I would have been much more happy.
Each figure comes with a collectible 25th anniversary coin. From the packaging these looked like they were just cheap pieces of plastic as well, but they are actually pretty sturdy. Quality wise they definitely outshine the figurines, but visually they don’t look as good as they actually are.
I love collectibles.. but I don’t love cheap collectibles. If you bought this toy for a child to play with, it would be broken before the end of the day. If you bought these to leave in the box for display purposes, they are too small and the coins look cheap. Unfortunately this is just a common case of taking a very cheaply made product, putting it in a box that says “25th Anniversary”, capitalize on nostalgia, and selling them for a major profit. While I still look forward to Sonic Mania and other collector pieces out there for the franchise, this one is something I recommend as a hard pass.
1.5/5 Atoms
from Nerd Reactor
0 comments: