The prototype images had Link with a kinda goofy anime styled face. I’m fine with anime style where it’s appropriate, but it looked bad. So glad they resculpted it and came up with this. While I wouldn’t say it’s a perfect Link face, it’s much closer to what it should be. You’ll note from the pose, where the face is partially obscured, the minor flaws in the current face are fairly well hidden.

Link’s in an action pose here, about to unleash the Master Sword. The way he’s tensed up, how he’s holding his shield behind him, how his one foot is planted while one is holding the rest of his weight, it’s a great choice for a pose. It’s kinda strange that both First4Figures statues I own that’re in action poses, Varia Suit Samus and Link, are both crouching down. Crouching statues like this aren’t that common.

The base is way nicer than I was expecting. Sure, a tree stump breaking through part of a broken rock road doesn’t make much sense to me, but it’s really well detailed. The stump itself has a map and a key on top. The map looks fantastic, I loved this small addition to the statue.

The shield, the sword, his ridiculous hat and shoes, the overall package comes together really great. They took some care on the sculpting of this one. I’m pretty familiar with Link’s design by now and I can’t think of anything I’d change.

The paint is very good, but not perfect. While most of the detail work is excellent, they went a bit heavy on some of the shading. Take a look at the shield to see what I mean. The back of his tunic has something similar going on but it’s not nearly as bad. His eyes are good and expressive, the sword and sheath have nice details.

4/5.

Buying Options : This version rarely shows up on Ebay, it’s went up in value. However, the red and blue versions show up often and they go below retail.

Metroid is easily one of my favourite franchises, ranking just below Zelda, and maybe a tiny bit below Mass Effect at this point. It’s been with me for a long time and almost always delivered. Zero Suit Samus? Hellllllo, don’t mind if I do. It’s a great design, but obviously one that’s easy to screw up because attractive females are difficult to sculpt. Want a great example? Look at the original sculpt from 2007.

Ugh, UGH. She looks kinda tarded there. When the statue looked like that, I wanted nothing to do with it. I’m sure they heard a lot of that, because they significantly revised the statue, especially that head sculpt. Let’s look at what we actually got. The regular edition clocks in at 2500 or so units, the exclusive comes in at 250 and a higher price tag. The exclusive has a light-up base, not nearly as elaborate as the light-up Phazon (or was it Dark Phazon? whatever) suit, but still.

The body sculpt on this is superb, as I’m sure you can tell. It’s appealing, attractive, and not a bad pose. I have zero issues with any parts of the body. I’m sure most people won’t either. The colours, especially on the back-end (and for once, I don’t mean that in a pervy way) are vibrant where they need to be, muted where they should be. The suit itself is a skin-tight warm blue that from what I remember, is exactly how it should look.

The base wasn’t as nice as I was expecting. The black part is fine and it has a switch that you press to light it up. However the top of the base looks cheap. It’s fine in photos but in person it looks like a flimsy metal cut-out so they could shine lights through it. The area where they drilled the peg hole for the statue was a little jagged on mine and the peg didn’t fit comfortably, I had to jam it in there.

Now we’re all up in the face. You can see that it’s vastly improved over the original design. But it turns out I’m still not the biggest fan. She looks a little bored to be here. She doesn’t look strong, sexy, or confident, which is what you’d expect from a badass woman that’s saved the galaxy multiple times, right? The hair is cut a little strange, I don’t remember her haircut looking like that, but it might have. On the plus side, the eyes and everything else are painted just fine, though the hair could’ve used more shading.

Here’s two shots of the exclusive feature, the light-up base. I shot this in pitch-black and my lighting conditions almost replicated how it looked, if anything, my picture is a little brighter than it was. Keep in mind this is inside a light-box, so that’s why the back is lit and shows more of the silhoutte. In a dark situation, I think that’s the best you’ll get. It’s a little disappointing to say the least. I was hoping the lights would be more powerful and better replicate the shots found on their product site. I think if you had some partial ambient lighting, it would produce a more dramatic effect.

3.5/5.

Buying Options : The exclusive was only available through First4Figure’s site and Ebay.

Some of the recent Revoltech figures have had a bump in price. That’s because, like Professor Layton here, they’re really loaded. Take a look at the ridiculous amount of accessories available here.

Alternate head, 7 hands, book (that opens!), pen, ground base, chair, a table, and a cup of tea? Plus a little storage box for some of the items? Dammmmn son. Does Revoltech think they’re Hot Toys?

Layton clearly realizes the power of the pen. The figure itself looks amazingly accurate. I guess the face could have been a SLIGHTLY different shape, but that’s nitpicky to the extreme. His expression, his colours, all of it is fantastic. I never thought I’d see a Layton figure as good as this. The joint system isn’t distracting at all to the presentation (I find it is on some of their female figures).

The accessories are incredibly well detailed. When you consider how small they are, it’s quite impressive. The pen looks good, the base looks good, the book opens up and has writing inside, the only critique I can level is one of the tea cups is improperly filled. It looks like the tea is about to pour out.

Between Layton’s two faces and his separate arms, as well as the revolver joint system, Layton is incredibly emotive. He can look like he’s investigating a mystery, solving a puzzle, relaxing with a cup of tea, an action hero, whatever you want. It’s ridiculous how many poses he looks good in and how simple it is to get him into these poses. He’s surprisingly stable even without a base, even in awkward positions, as you’ll see in a few pictures!

If you’re at all a fan of the games, Professor Layton is a MUST BUY. He’s accurate, fun, and easily the definitive Professor Layton. Now they just need to come out with Layton’s sidekick, Luke. Check down a bit further for a few more pictures.

5/5.

Buying Options : Since this is more recent, you’ve got some good options. You can check Ebay, especially if you read this review in a few months. Amazon, HLJ (though he’s out of stock, he might pop back in later), and Ami-Ami.

Professor Layton and the Suspiciously Strong Tea, due out in December 2011 for Nintendo DS.

They’re little karts that you can race, they apparently have LED lights, and best of all, they can use powerups. When you go over certain areas of the track, the powerup lights up a section of your remote and the other cart reacts to it. You can make cars spin out or get bursts of speed. I’d LOVE to see a video of these in action, I’ll be keeping an eye out. Until then, enjoy the pictures! They’re going to be about $30 each and available later this month at import shops.

Take a look at the First4Figures Zant

Looks like a great sculpt and paint. It apparently glows in the dark (partially) and the exclusive with switch out head is very very cool. The real fabric parts are nice, and it seems to be well detailed. If they keep up this quality for their entire 1/4th line, it’ll be stunning.

There’s two codes available for some money off, F4FZAN579 for $25 off the regular (limited to 750), and F4FZANX88 for $30 off the exclusive (limited to 250).

I was really puzzled the first time I saw this statue in person. I’d seen it in a ton of pictures and thought it looked fantastic. But I’d never seen it in a picture with any other statues. Imagine my surprise when I DO see it and realize that it’s enormous. The rest of First4Figure’s statues are maybe 1/7th or 1/8th scale, then you’ve got this one that comes in about 1/5th. I have no clue why they made him this huge, since he’s not this huge in the game and the rest of their Zelda line of statues are small. Oddly enough, despite this increase in size, there wasn’t really an increase in price.

Unfortunately, this increase in size and lack of an increase in price seems to have come with a loss in quality. The paint is noticeably worse than the other First4Figures statues I have. It simply doesn’t have the detail and quality I’m used to from them. Is it possible I just got one that was a bit sloppy? Sure, it’s possible, but considering there’s a few areas on the sculpt that look a little lacking in detail as well, I’m simply forced to assume it’s a general problem with the statue. They increased the size and cut down on the quality control.

There’s a lot to like about this statue. It’s a great version of the character, and considering he’s only in one game, I doubt you’ll ever see better. The pose is powerful and the sword is very well done. The base is super cool, and the face is nicely sculpted. It’s cheap. Keeping all that in mind, I’d still say it’s a really worthwhile statue for any Zelda collector to have, and if you’re at all ~artsy~, you can probably fix up the minor problems and make this a really stunning statue.

3.5/5. A good addition to my collection, but it could’ve been a lot better, and I would’ve gladly paid $20-$40 more for that kind of improvement.

Buying Options : Another one long sold out at retail. Pops up on Ebay from time to time. Available for an inflated price on Amazon, check back another time to see if it gets lower.

When I first saw shots of this, despite being a HUGE fan of Metroid, I thought it looked kinda crappy. The pose really didn’t do it for me, and considering the pose is so important to the piece, that was a major turnoff to the statue as a whole. For some reason, I kept looking at it, and over a few months, I broke under the impulse buy pressure and got a sweet deal on it.

Imagine my surprise when it arrived, and it turned into one of my favourite statues. The pose, which seemed so awkward in press photos, is really solid and comes off fairly powerful and iconic. Iconic enough to make 2 additional variant statues based on the same pose? I dunno about that, but since I’ll probably be buying the gravity suit version, apparently good enough to sucker me into wanting to waste more dough.

The paint job is fantastic. It represents the varia suit very well, it’s as bright and colourful as it should be, and while the base isn’t the best, it works well considering you’re in hallways the majority of most Metroid games. Just from eyeballing it, I’d say it’s about 7-8 inches tall, maybe 11-12 inches long. The footprint is a little larger than most statues simply due to the pose. It’s hard for me to find flaws with this piece. Maybe a slightly different base, but that’s it. One of the upcoming variants of this does have a different base, but it’s a somewhat lame mirrored finish instead of being themed to the franchise.

If you like Metroid, this is the best collectible I’ve seen for the franchise. In addition to the varia suit and gravity suit, they’ve got a phazon suit coming out, which has a bunch of LEDs, two versions of the zero suit, and a scaled replica of the dropship. But those were both slated to come out like 6 months ago so we’ll see if that ever happens.

Overall, I’ll give it a 4.5/5.

Buying Options : Long sold out at retail, it still pops up on Ebay from time to time. Also available at Amazon.