Review – Play Arts Kai Halo Reach Jorge
Over the weekend I posted a review of the Play Arts Kai Batman* (review here). Last summer I posted a review of the McFarlane Toys Halo Reach Jorge* action figure (review here). How about we marry those two together and construct an entirely new review . . . for a fun toy that’s durable and looks great.
As Awesome as Batman
If you had any questions at all after my Batman review) as to whether or not this series is fantastic then let me try and answer those questions right now: Not only is the entire Play Arts Kai series (Amazon.com search*) awesome but you may collapse and lose consciousness if you don’t have at least one toy from the line on your shelves. Truth! Would I ever kid about your toy collections? Seriously, though, I understand that $40+ feels like a lot for an action figure — especially if your experience is with mass-market action figures like you find at Wal-Mart of Target — but the quality of the Play Arts Kai line so significantly exceeds what Mattel or Hasbro bring us that these are easily worth skipping three or four DC Universe Classics or Marvel Legends action figures just to buy one toy.
A Successful Sculpt
The Play Arts Kai Jorge*, as the photos here prove, looks remarkable. Every detail is tight and clean, and the sculpt of the character is as perfect as I could have hoped for. I thought the McFarlane Jorge has a great sculpt, but once I had these two toys side-by-side I could see that their Jorge was merely adequate and blown away by this version of the character.
To be fair, this toy was almost five times the cost and is significantly larger so it should have a better sculpt. But still, it’s nice to see that the extra cash I paid was worth it. Great work from Square Enix and exactly why I’m going to keep buying the occasional action figure from this series.
Articulation
The Play Arts Kai Jorge* feels a lot like the Play Arts Kai Batman* when it comes to articulation, with the two having basically identical points of articulation. But rather than make you read an older review I’ll just run down the various points:
- Head – Ball-jointed neck. The huge armor plate over the chest looks like it would cause problems for the head — at least, that’s what I expected — but the neck joint works just fine.
- Torso – One Play Arts joint for an ab crunch. Still no waist joint.
- Arms – Play Arts joints at the shoulder, elbows, and wrists. And the should is actually a double Play Arts joint, with one connecting to the body and a second immediately after that. It really helps give the figure the “broad shoulders” look. The shoulder pads are connected with small ball joints which is a nice touch.
- Legs – Play Arts joints at the hips and ankles, double-hinged knees . . . and that’s it for the legs. And the hips have the same weird problem as Batman where the cod piece-like part of the toy doesn’t always hide the hip joints perfectly.
Overall, a nice number of joints and a pretty good level of poseability. And the bulky nature of the character makes the limited leg poseability less of an issue than it can be for Batman; Batman should be more flexible and poseable than Jorge.
Paint
Huge thanks to Mario (blog) for pointing out in a comment on my McFarlane Halo Reach Jorge review that the character’s color schemes has a bit of a Boba Fett influence to it. I had completely missed that, but now that I’ve seen it I cannot unsee the color influence. But regardless of the influence, the result is excellent paintwork with almost no rough spots. I suspect part of that’s because armor is easier to paint than flesh, but regardless of the reasons I have to say that the Play Arts Kai Jorge* is a winner in the paint department. Expanding some of the photos here will support this statement; you may spot the odd fuzzy line here or there, but for the most part all of the paint is where it should be. Looks to me like Square Enix paid the factory extra to do a great job during the paint stage.
Closing Thoughts
You need to buy at least one release in the Play Arts Kai series (Amazon.com search*) because these are some of the best action figures on the market today. They cost more than what you’ll find from Hasbro or Mattel, but the toys aren’t near the price of Hot Toys, Sideshow Collectibles, or 3A while still being works of art.
Incredible works of art, and I’m already thinking I need to snap pics of another one of the toys from this series so that I can share them with you guys. But don’t wait for me . . . get out there and find yourself one of the Play Arts Kai action figures and see for yourself how cool the line is. Just be prepared to want more of them within moments of opening your first one.
Philip Reed has a piece from the Deus Ex line that he still needs to open. At this rate he’ll need to build a Play Arts Kai section on the shelves.
I had a totally different experience with the Halo Play Arts Kai figures. To give some back ground, I had been collecting Play Arts figures in general since their FFVII Advent Children way back before the new body styles. They were very sturdy and generally gorgeous. Then Play Arts Kai came out. I have had to return so many figures from these lines. The first Kai I bought was Lighting from FFXIII even though I hadn’t even played the game. The figure is just that amazing. But I had to quickly return it (this was when Toys R Us was dabbling in Play Arts) because the hip joint simply fell apart. I thought that was a fluke because I’d never had that problem pre-Kai. Then I bought the guy from the line and he was fine (as was my replacement lighting). Then I got into the MGS figures. My first Sneaking Suit Snake from Peacewalker managed to get loose very quickly in very inconvenient joints. I eventually replaced him. My new one is better, but he still ended up with a weak knee and ankle and can’t do half the poses he’s advertised to simply because the figure is quite bulky and there are simply too many joints. Its really pushing the limits of what a figure can actually sustain long term. Then I bought Jungle Snake. He randomly got weak after being posed a week and shelf dived, shattered, and I didn’t bother replacing them. I was about to swear off the line.
A friend managed to score me the first Halo Reach wave at basically half price so I tried them out again. These figures were by far the weakest and most prone to collapsing of them all. Not to mention they have such feminine physiques. Their hips are huge. Calling some of their figures’ hips “child bearing” is not out of the question. And on lady figures, that’s a-ok with me. But not on my Spartans. The paint apps and weapons were utterly mind blowing, but I could not get past those hips or the fact that they were constantly falling over simply because ankle and knee and massive hip joints would just give out. I sold all three of them and haven’t looked back. I generally don’t like the proportions of their Halo figures to the point that I actually prefer the McFarlane sculpts… which I also can’t quite get into for the billions of issues those figures have which have all been more than publicized.
I finally gave in and bought Batman and Joker after seeing them in a store where they had some that customers could actually hold. I had bought all of my other Play Arts Kai figures online after TRU stopped carrying them and I was sick of the problem of returning figures online all of the time. So far their Arkham figures are a HUGE step up in quality control. Much tighter joints with much lighter (but still sturdy) plastic. I was blown away at how much better they were than basically any other Play Arts figure since the Kai switch. Even their Fullmetal Alchemist figures has massive weight issues when it came to Al, the walking talking suit of armor.
It allowed me to pre order the MGS Solid Snake, Grey Fox and Meryl characters with far more confidence than I’ve had ordering their figures in a long time. They really do need to focus more on proper weight distribution and avoiding ten pound thighs on two ounce ankles. That’s just an engineering recipe for disaster.
I hope they continue this improvement trend because I’ve been a big supporter of their company for a long time, but they really almost lost me for good for a while there. And I still can’t get over their feminine looking Spartans with their tiny waists and giant hips, but hey, no company can knock EVERY property out of the park. So far anything with a slightly anime angle to the design has turned out flawless.
Just ordered Cyborg Ninja/Grey Fox. Over 10 inches of awesome Play Arts Kai goodness. I agree with you Phil; once you own a a Play Arts Kai, you want more. Wouldn’t it be great if they produced Marvel as well? Imagine an Iron Man made by Play Arts. Excuse me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard…
@mephisto1138 – Thanks for posting your own detailed review as a comment! I can see why you think the designs are too slender and I really appreciate that you put the time into a well-written counterpoint to my gushing review. Hopefully others out there find it useful to get the two dramatically different viewpoints in one place.
I’m curious, but what’s the exact height of these PlayArts Kai figures?
When I was visiting Japan last year, I saw a few from the series (mostly non-video game Anime characters) from the line, and they seemed like giants – occupying a weird place between NECA 7″ and true 1/6 12″ figures.
I really appreciated their detail, but they seemed huge. Any idea why PlayArts decided to change the scale of the Play Arts line?