16bit.com Figure of the Day Review: Jakks Pacific World of Nintendo Metroid Samus Action Figure

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Jakks Pacific World of Nintendo Metroid Samus Action Figure Jakks Pacific, 2015

Day #1,162: April 17, 2015

World of Nintendo Metroid Samus Action Figure Series 1-2 World of Nintendo 4-inch Scale Action Figures Item No.: Asst. 68518 No. 83382 Manufacturer: Jakks Pacific Includes: Maru Mari Samus (mystery accessory) Action Feature: n/a Retail: $9.99 Availability: February 2015 Other: From Metroid Prime 3
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Warning/guarantee: I largely unabashedly love Metroid toys, and given the last couple were seemingly more marketed as collectibles this may be the first one sold into mass market toy stores in the USA since, uh, ever.

I hear this figure was showing up in February, but I've seen zero evidence of the wave with Metroid Samus (or just "Samus," as Aran doesn't appear on the packaging) in person until April. I'm getting lazy in my old age, and by that I mean I don't go hunting unless Hasbro is actively putting out stuff I need.

The line does a good job of more or less sticking to 3 3/4-inch scale, as Samus is taller than Link by most measurements and this figure is indeed a full head taller than the elfy green dude. At 4.6-inches tall, she's pretty bit and towers above most of my other 3 3/4-inch figures, but not all. As such, she's basically the right size to terrorize Joes or the ReAction Alien as a surrogate Ripley. The articulation is pretty good, showing that Jakks has a good handle on what makes a good collector figure but they still haven't quite nailed it. She sports 18 joints (if I'm feeling generous), with a couple of joints at the elbows and knees. The sculpting is clearly based off the Prime series with the deco seemingly coming from a 1990s-era model sheet in effectively the same colors as the Joyride figure from a million years ago. Only the greens feel different - everything else matches up very, very closely. It makes this item feel like more of a lost 1990s toy, which is good and bad. I can forgive a lot in the name of false nostalgia, but without the metallic sheen we've seen on Prime-era stuff the figure rings sort of false as authenticity goes. As I have a soft spot for weird glitch toys like Walrus Man from 1979, this figure scoots in that zone - it's a licensed product, and it's clearly approved by Nintendo's strict process, but that doesn't mean that it's correct.

Once you get past the coloration situation, what you have is a very acceptable figure. It's a lot like Link, in that you can see they put a lot of work into putting together the best figure they could at the price. The found a good workaround to the big shoulder issue that Joyride didn't quite get right, and Samus can stand well. She can't sit for jack, and she was cheaper than the last one from 12 years ago. This one can be posed better than the last one, but not as well as the Figma - given the price, this is totally acceptable. I would have loved to be able to get some of her signature poses out of her, like her left hand covering her blaster arm as she aims and shoots a Zoomer or a Rio, but it doesn't quite work thanks to the shoulder and bicep joints being swivels. The ankles are swivel-only, the knees are about on par with Hasbro's bend-and-swivel knees on most Clone Troopers, and the elbows are as well. There are no wrist joints, like Link had, and Samus' hips have limited lateral hip movement. They did a pretty nice job here.

Her lone accessory is the morph ball, a.k.a. Maru Mari, a.k.a. the first thing you find in the game. It's hollow and I think molded in yellow plastic with orange paint - so it looks pretty good for being a hollow, hard plastic not-quite-a-ping-pong-ball. There's a green stripe down the equator with some red and green markings. It fits nicely with the look and feel of Samus, and seems a bit small, but I find myself wishing it was a harder, rubbery material like the super mushroom from Mario. (Or, you know, an enemy.) It's nicely designed and pretty simple, bringing a decent but not great figure to what can loosely be called complete.

For the price, this is an amazing figure. These days you can't get a good figure in this size with more than five joints for under ten bucks, and this one is $9 at a lot of places (I paid $8 at Target.) Given the price point, she's good. Were this $15, I'd be chafing but for $9 or $10? This is almost too cheap, given the lack of product from the games. This figure doesn't have the quality of deco as the Amiibo, but it's cheaper and has moving parts. It's hard to not love it by default. Should Jakks Pacific produce different suited Samus figures from other games at this price, at roughly this quality level, I'd keep buying them all.

...but we need to talk about the packaging!

First, the box matches the Metroid creature in that it's a blueish, greenish color so it will immediately leap off the pegs, both visually and in terms of purchases, amidst the sea of red Mario-themed items. This sort of thing has worked wonders in other lines over the years, and most if not all of the non-Mario toys in this line just sell fast. Especially when it's obvious there's one in the back of the pegs, like these or the Zelda toys.

More interesting, though, is that the back of the packaging shows a completely different Samus figure. The helmet is clearly from the earlier NES/Super NES/GameBoy games, and the body is pretty close to the Metroid II illustrations. This mystery prototype has a very 1980s-looking helmet, extra knobs around the knees, and what may well be better ankle articulation - but it's hard to tell. I have to assume this was an earlier sample rejected by Nintendo or an accidental sneak peek at a refresh of Samus for down the road, and man, do I hope it is - I really like that alternative version! I'd gladly buy both, especially if the new version came with a new toy creature. Zoomers, Jakks. Get on that.

--Adam Pawlus

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