As far as figmas go over the years, I’ve always thought they peaked at being adequately decent quality with a glass ceiling: they look and function well enough to be pleased with, yet don’t blow me out of the water. These entries from Virtua Fighter, a long time favorite fighting game on mine, is along the same lines, but kind of impresses me almost exclusively with the aesthetics.

DESIGN

Virtua Fighter is renowned for paving the way for 3D fighting games. The polygonal character models were rough for their time, but Sega’s legendary fighter was incredibly fascinating because nothing else looked like it. So part of what charmed me with these is how well they replicated the jagged polyons. Like Skyrim’s countless bugs and glitches, they’ve become endearing as time passed.

I got the Sarah Bryant P2 alternative costume. I liked this one more and thought it would be more interesting for the review, since there’s more going on with her visually.

They included the tear in her jeans, and they added the ripped fabric! That was a very nice touch.

A part of why I feel the blocky appearance works well with these particular figmas, is there’s a flexible piece of plastic on her upper chest that hides the ball joint pretty well. That moveable flap itself is relatively sturdy, but I don’t intend on pushing its structural integrity all too much. Just having a little freedom in the articulation department will suit me fine.

Faintly noticeable (I didn’t see it until the light hit it just right) are some blush marks above her cheeks. I suppose these play off shadows and keep from her having an overly glossy look.

Their alternative heads have open mouths, and again, it looks lifted right from the game, even to the slightly darker textured red, indicating depth. Someone born in 1999 looked at this game and asked me, “How did you deal with this?”. It was the dark ages.

His shoulder joints are a little more noticeable, but the “torn” sleeves on his karate gi make up for that.

I really tried to get the alternative white, but he’s become increasingly harder to find for a reasonable price. At least more than I’m willing to pay for a figma. Akira’s hair is actually very pointy. Use that as a weapon for those who claim Tekken is the better 3D fighter. There’s actually more visible definition to his physique, like indentions for his collarbone. Perhaps the one thing about Akira in particular is that his [let’s call it] “action head” seems a little smaller and the pivot and ball joint is easier to spot when viewing it from profile. It looks really funny and bad.

ARTICULATION

I felt very comfortable posing and moving Akira and Sarah around. They’re pretty flexible and I don’t feel too much resistance when moving them around. I don’t consider myself very heavy-handed, but with figmas, I never know what I’m going to get and I handle them like porcelain dolls entrusted to me by a Chinese slum lord. In my King of Fighters figmas, for instance, Iori’s peg to fit his head came broken RIGHT OUT THE BOX. I wasn’t happy with that at all.

I had a blast overall recreating signature moves from both character’s skill set, They’re both so light and their weight is evenly distributed throughout, I seldom had to readjust as a result of toppling.

They’re capable of doing quite a bit, and aren’t hindered by feeling too rigged. Both Akira and Sarah feel very free, due to the basic nature of their outfits. Most figmas with elaborate costumes aren’t quite adept at being very expressive and are weighed down by them. The more I handled these two, the more tempted I felt to make a stop motion video project (…stay tuned).

ACCESSORIES

I’m still not clear what this is supposed to go to on Sarah…

The ring’s stone pattern have jagged textures! I love it!!

Not much in the way of extra goods. Aside from an assortment of alternate hands, the stands upon which to position them, and some replacement pegs, there’s these paper mats, resembling the rings upon which they fight. I thought that was cool, yet quaint. I still intend to paint my own backgrounds and superimpose them in front of it, but these are fairly neat and accentuate a little bit of atmosphere. To be fair, while there are a dearth of features, I’m okay with that. This IS Virtua Fighter. There’s no ki, fireballs or energy clashes, it’s as fundamental a fighting game as there has ever been. The flair comes from its technical prowess, not flashy style. A spirit carried through these figmas.

OVERALL

These are my new favorite figmas to tinker with. I would’ve loved to have seen a Lau or Kage-Maru, I happily would’ve purchased an entire set based off the first game. If you are looking to add some top notch video game action figures with a retro flair to them, the alternates are still pretty affordable with a discounted price while supplies last.