Thy Kingdom (Hearts) Come: Reviewing Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts Action Figures

November 25, 2008 on 10:17 pm | In Toy Review | No Comments

Hey folks, welcome to another ToyFare toy review. This time I’ll be reviewing the figures based on the original Kingdom Hearts video game which holds the distinction as being the only RPG-like game I’ve ever played and liked (though I still haven’t finished it). With that in mind, I was pretty excited to get my hands on this line from Square Enix which consists of Sora, Riku and King Mickey. The figures are highly poseable with an advertised 12 points of articulation per figure (even Mickey) and each come with a sword accessory and extra hands. So, let’s get into the individual figure reviews.

SORA

Right out of the box, Sora is a very impressive figure. Square Enix captured the look of the video game perfectly from his spikey hair down to those huge yellow shoes. Even more impressive at first glance, though, is the articulation. Even with his super-thin arms, Sora’s got elbow and shoulder joints that allow for a wide range of motion. But my favorite piece of articulation takes place in those giant yellow shoes I mentioned. If you look, the ankle joint is actually incorporated into the tongue of the shoe and when you bend the shoe joint, the back of the shoe stays with the ankle while the rest of the shoe moves. It’s definitely a small aspect of the figure, but I really appreciate that attention to detail.

Aside from the aformentioned joints and the knee joints, the articulation is actually a bit weird once you start posing and playing with the figure. His hips don’t move all that much, maybe because of the crazy MC Hammer pants he’s sporting or maybe he’s just built that way. Also, the mid torso joint doesn’t really seem to do much. It allows you to kind of lean Sora forward just enough so it looks like he might have scoliosis. Speaking of negatives, after only a few minutes of playing with this figure the arm popped right off and it’s not the only appendage to be lost from this series, but more on that later. Luckily Sora’s arm popped right back in.

But, hey, these figures probably aren’t really meant for kids to be playing with, they’re more for collectors and video game fans I would assume. Those fans will be happy with the figure and even happier with the Key Sword Sora’s rocking. Just don’t be too rough on the figure and you should be fine

RIKU

Sora’s pal Riku is actually a far more interesting figures as far as poseability and playability go. His arms are a little thicker and his hip joints do a lot more. Like Sora, he looks like he popped right out of the video game and is ready to kick butt with his dragon wing sword. Of course, not all is perfect with the figure. Almost immediately after taking the figure out of the packaging his head popped off. Like Sora’s arm you can pop it back on, but it doesn’t sit very well. Even for a figure that you’re not necessarily going to play with a lot, that’s not a good sign which is really too bad, because like I said, it’s got more articulation and playability than the other two combined.

Even with that in mind, if your version of Riku has a head that stays in place, this figure should please any Kingdom Hearts fan. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a pose from the game that the figure can’t recreate, though you might lose some arms, legs or heads in the process.

KING MICKEY

I purposely waited to open Mickey last because he was the figure I was most skeptical about. As you can see in the above picture, he’s wearing a Matrix-like long black trench coat that would seemingly inhibit movement. I was surprised to find that his arms are compeltely articulated from the shoulder to the wrist and even his legs have limited range of motion thanks to that coat.

I took it easy on Mickey as far as exercising the joints because I’d feel pretty bad if I broke or beheaded the most famous cartoon in the world. But the head sculpt is dead on and his crown sword looks great. I didn’t mention above how these swords work. They’ve got a tiny hole in the handle and the figures have protruding posts in their palms, so the post slides into the whole give the sword some movement, but otherwise keeping it in place.

Little details like the Mickey ear-shaped hood resting on his back and the tail sticking out through the trench coat make this my favorite figure of the bunch even though he’s got the least playability. I think he’d make an interesting convesation piece on just about anyone’s mantle from your video game obsessed cousin to his Disney obsessed mom.

ALL IN ALL
All in all, the line looks fantastic and has enough little embellishments to boost them from average video game figures to somewhere higher up, but don’t spend your money on them if you’re looking for anything more than cool shelf surfers.