Review: #95
Name: Lightning
Brand: Play Arts Kai
Line: Final Fantasy XIII
Year of Release: 2009
Volume: 1
PACKAGING AND CONTENTS:
Like all the other Play Arts figures, Lightning comes in a elegant box, with a clear window so you can get see the figure in all it's glory without ever opening it up.
It's a big box, bigger than you would expect of a figure this size. It has depth since it includes a stand as well.
A close up at the photos on the back, gotta love how the photographs posed them, they all look so good...
And another shot on the side.
I like how it doesn't feel that there is as much empty space since there are a number of accessories surrounding the figure itself.
Speaking of accessories, we get a grand total of four. Two forms of Lightning's famous gunblades, and a pair of hands (fists up in the photo as I had already switched them on the figure).
Let's not forget about the stand... That's it for contents, and I think there are enough accessories here.
FIGURE:
Now we get onto the figure itself, it's tall, really tall, roughly 23cm. As you would come to expect, it's extremely detailed, and the outfit at least, looks every bit like it was in the game.
Her cape is attached via a ball joint. It's made of this bendable soft rubbery plastic, and the way it's attached makes it feel flimsy and prone to snapping off (or it could be just me). Because of the bigger size, she feels a bit more 'hollow', I guess not as dense is the way I'll explain it.
And the bane of most, if not all, of the Final Fantasy XIII Play Arts figures, the head sculpt. It does not look terribly similar to the in game model. Granted, it's pretty hard to capture the look on a toy. If you squint, it does resemble Lightning a lot more. As it is, this is probably the worse part on the toy.
I'm going to get this out of the way early as well, if you're planning to use the stand as a support for some super cool poses, you can forget it. If you have been checking out reviews about the FFXIII Volume 1 figures, you'd notice universally, people complain about the stand. So why is it so bad? Well, it seems like it was designed to be a very very generic stand, as such, it does not clamp onto the figures as well as you would expect. Plus, the way the joints work, it's tough to get even Lightning to stand on a neutral pose with her feet touching the ground. Add that to stiff joints, and awkward placement of those said joints, and you've got a surprisingly difficult to work with stand.
Time to check out Lightning's gunblade a little bit better. I'll be frank, I love the design and concept of Lightning's gunblade. The one we get here is the Blaze Edge model, and it's a good choice, since it's the best looking one of the lot (plus, it was the one that's featured in the game's promo shots and in-game cutscenes). Folded up, it looks like this.
You can store it in Lightning's pouch at the back, but for some reason, mine keeps getting stuck and I can't store it all the way in. It's annoying coz if I force it, it'll scrape the paint off the gunblade, :(.
Even cooler is that you can fold the handle and trigger down to get the gun form. It doesn't look that great if you didn't already know what it is though.
Lightning's default hands are two fists, in order for her to hold her weapons, you need to switch to the other ones provided. I for one, hate switching hands. They are so tough to get off and then back on.
Of course, you're more than likely going to use the blade form, since it just looks so much more wicked. There's an unbelievable amount of detail that goes into these small pieces. The weapons have a more rusted and worn look, I would have preferred the gleam of polished silver instead.
Lightning uses the same hands to hold it, I had a little bit more trouble putting the sword in since you needed to pull the thumb out a bit (which is always a bit dangerous as you could easily snap it).
Once again, there's a hole and peg system, so Lightning won't relinquish her grip that easily. The same goes for trying to take the darn weapon off her hands since it's so secure.
The articulation is great, as you'd expect. She has all the major joints a natural person would have, but as a sword wielder, I would have preferred if she had some up-down movement for her wrists instead of just a swivel. It would have been great if her wrist joint was a ball joint.
Her coat and belt is made from soft-ish fabric-y type plastic, so you can fold and bend it and it wouldn't damage the figure. This is great coz it won't hinder poses at all. Her leg pouch, and left shoulder pad is also made from the same kind of plastic.
The way the hands are angled to hold the sword can be annoying at times when you're trying to achieve a certain effect with how she poses her sword in a striking pose.
She also has small feet. For such a tall figure, she has short feet, which makes her easier to topple over than, say, Hope.
So, just one last complaint (I promise!!), I hate the look of those double jointed knees... they look terrible when you bend them too much.
Anyway, Lightning looks great no matter what pose she is in, and I do like the bonus of being able to store all her weapons simultaneously.
OVERALL:
I really like this figure. Being such a pivotal character of Final Fantasy XIII (she is the protagonist after all), if you're interested in any of these figures at all, Lightning will have to be one of them you get. Apart from some nitpicking complaints, she is an awesome figure.
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