Spinmaster Shapes Collection PlayStation Figures

They didn't really bother marketing this line or making any communication at all, really. I think they would have done better if they had some sort of online presence.
 
I might consider grabbing Aloy if she was more in scale with the NECA figures, to act as sort of a stand-in for Naru, but it's just not feasible, I don't think.

Such a shame; there was so much potential in this line. Don't get me wrong- I'm sure Playstation properties will get figures again somewhere down the line, but it's gonna be a while, and there's some characters that companies like NECA or McFarlane would probably just never touch.
 
Aloy is worth the pick up. She had the paint budget and sculpt to put her competitive with mainline imports. Her design and overlays mask so much of the articulation. And whatever face print tech they got into needs to be picked up by Mattel and others.

It's a shame they didn't even market this. I remember at the start it was also Amazon exclusive until it wasn't.

It's really a waste because Atsu from Yotei would have been a banger.

The leaked wave that didn't come to fruition was odd, though. I feel like not having Adult Ellie and Abby, and any Uncharted or was a huge miss. Still annoyed Neca didn't give us Abby.

I have no optimism we get another shot at something like this any time soon. The game industry is collapsing on itself. Companies have no idea about what their IP values are to the people that want to spend money. We haven't even had anything from live action Last of Us while it was hot.

Kind of sucks that when we did have a bunch of video game representation from Mass effect and other things it was when figures were kind of lame right before we had these quantum leaps and articulation and paint.
 
NECA making DMC1 Dante, Ryu Hayabusa, Alex Mercer, Resident Evil, Legacy of Kain, etc, all RIGHT before they started making anything with decent articulation or QC is just painful. The 7 inch scale is also a lil painful, but they just barely classify as action figures so that's the least of my worries.

At least we have Capcom so many toylines now, but they're too overly protective of Resident Evil and DMC to let them have anything like action figures. Sony shitting the bed with their own toy rollout when I've heard so many requests for Sly, classic Kratos, Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, etc is just sad. Still surprised none of those were in the first wave or even leaks. Hell, even Bloodborne would have been a strong early wave pick.
 
Yeah, video game toys, not including Nintendo Toys and maybe Five Nights at Freddy's, are just such an odd duck. You'd think they'd sell like hotcakes if marketed well, but it just feels like nobody is giving it a shot. You can't tell me an updated line of Resident Evil figures wouldn't do gangbusters. Same with Last of Us figures, and that feels like a line that would require far less investment than RE. But they just don't make them, and when they make them, they don't market them properly.

I do think it was the lack of big box stores that killed the line. They were relegated to Amazon for so long, and while a handful did eventually trickle out to GameStop, it took forever, and it still wasn't marketed anywhere. Heck, my GameStop keeps a lot of non single-carded figures on a shelf way up high that nobody but an employee with a ladder can get to. That's the only place I saw the Shapes figures a lot of times. Nobody's gonna get 'em if they're way up there, especially if they're in a hurry. Putting these figures in the electronics section of Target or WalMart could've done wonders for the line, but it just didn't happen.

I've lamented the lack of Mass Effect figures for ages. A more niche franchise than some of the bigger names, but they'd make for such cool figures. The current Dark Horse "figures" are lovely, but they're statues. I just don't know what it's gonna take to get video game figures that aren't marketed towards kids to actually sell.
 
Niko (protozoalord) said:
NECA making DMC1 Dante, Ryu Hayabusa, Alex Mercer, Resident Evil, Legacy of Kain, etc, all RIGHT before they started making anything with decent articulation or QC is just painful. The 7 inch scale is also a lil painful, but they just barely classify as action figures so that's the least of my worries.

At least we have Capcom so many toylines now, but they're too overly protective of Resident Evil and DMC to let them have anything like action figures. Sony shitting the bed with their own toy rollout when I've heard so many requests for Sly, classic Kratos, Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, etc is just sad. Still surprised none of those were in the first wave or even leaks. Hell, even Bloodborne would have been a strong early wave pick.
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To be fair, at the time it came out, the NECA LoK Raziel was a fucking banger. It mostly suffered from typical NECA lack of shelf-support. I.E. no one to go with him. No enemies. No other main characters. Just a really shitty Kain figure. Also Ryu Hayabusa had really good articulation for the time. Hell, even by today's standards it's got pretty decent ROM if just looking fairly dated.

I think the 'Shapes' collection will go down with Funko Legacy as one of the toy world's biggest missed opportunities - squandered by the utter incompetence of people in charge of giant companies that shouldn't even be in charge of a moderately-sized high school team project.
 
joshsquash729 said:
You can't tell me an updated line of Resident Evil figures wouldn't do gangbusters.
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I agree entirely. The issue here is that Resident Evil is Capcom's baby, they treat it like a boutique brand nowadays. They're overly protective of it, and everything is heavily curated to match the modern brand image they've aimed for following RE7. If it doesn't suit that precisely, it is ignored, or it gets remade to feel exactly like everything else they're currently doing. A Resi toyline would require acknowledging the entire history of the franchise, and that is something Capcom is too embarrassed to do. Which is a damn shame, because I would LOVE figures of Rebecca, Billy, Jill, etc. I still gotta paint the kits I commissioned of them like two years ago, but painting faces is scary.

Damien said:
To be fair, at the time it came out, the NECA LoK Raziel was a fucking banger. It mostly suffered from typical NECA lack of shelf-support. I.E. no one to go with him. No enemies. No other main characters. Just a really shitty Kain figure. Also Ryu Hayabusa had really good articulation for the time. Hell, even by today's standards it's got pretty decent ROM if just looking fairly dated.
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I absolutely love the look of the Raziel at least, but it pains me how expensive they all are on the aftermarket. I could see a really strong Kain toyline being made in maybe 3 waves, if they gave it a shot.

I like the articulation of that Ryu, but the copy of it I got was maybe the most terrible experience I've had with a toy. Maybe it was a bootleg or factory reject, but he had multiple detail parts broken off right out of the package, and they included one of the hands twice. One or two missing paint apps as well. At least we have some decent third party and custom options at this point, and lots of the characters from DOA being made by Revoltech.
 
Niko (protozoalord) said:
I absolutely love the look of the Raziel at least, but it pains me how expensive they all are on the aftermarket. I could see a really strong Kain toyline being made in maybe 3 waves, if they gave it a shot.
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Yeah, I have no idea what aftermarket is. I bought Raziel and Kain when they were brand new and probably had sold them off within a year or two just from .. disinterest, I guess. And the fact that Kain sucked.
I think the time to do a LoK line was when people were all excited for the remasters, and clearly no one did anything. So... time has probably come and gone. But I could see it being a really strong series if done by the right company. Way more than 3 waves. Hell, you could do 3 waves of just Raz and Kain variants.


Niko (protozoalord) said:
I like the articulation of that Ryu, but the copy of it I got was maybe the most terrible experience I've had with a toy. Maybe it was a bootleg or factory reject, but he had multiple detail parts broken off right out of the package, and they included one of the hands twice. One or two missing paint apps as well. At least we have some decent third party and custom options at this point, and lots of the characters from DOA being made by Revoltech.
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I think the only problems I ever had with Ryu were that his legs loosed up over time, which was a common problem with ball-joint hips back then, and he arrived missing a couple of knives or something - which was, as I recall, a problem with almost the entire production run. NECA was sending out replacements to people that ordered directly from them or something like that. I never cared enough to deal with it. But the figure was solid and really fun to pose. Especially back then.
 
Damien said:
Yeah, I have no idea what aftermarket is. I bought Raziel and Kain when they were brand new and probably had sold them off within a year or two just from .. disinterest, I guess. And the fact that Kain sucked.
I think the time to do a LoK line was when people were all excited for the remasters, and clearly no one did anything. So... time has probably come and gone. But I could see it being a really strong series if done by the right company. Way more than 3 waves. Hell, you could do 3 waves of just Raz and Kain variants.
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Aftermarket for ANY of the figure lines is at least $150 a figure, sadly. Even the really old pre-NECA figures.

There's likely more remasters on the horizon as the duology we got did well, the kickstarters for the comic and TTRPG did insanely well and earned astronomical amounts over their initial goals. The fanbase is still strong and kicking, whichever company could very easily kickstart a range of figures at any moment and it would likely do amazingly well. Thinking of just unique named characters it'd probably be 3 waves, but I could see including a Raziel and Kain variant from each game/era and stretching it to 5 or 6.

Damien said:
I think the only problems I ever had with Ryu were that his legs loosed up over time, which was a common problem with ball-joint hips back then, and he arrived missing a couple of knives or something - which was, as I recall, a problem with almost the entire production run. NECA was sending out replacements to people that ordered directly from them or something like that. I never cared enough to deal with it. But the figure was solid and really fun to pose. Especially back then.
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I haven't played with it enough to experience any looseness, but I've had similar with a couple of the MLs I got from when I started collecting. Walgreen Agent Venom, I think it was? I have a mini collection of characters I would happily display Ryu with, but the 7 inch scale just kinda soils that for me as well. I got him for like $25 though, so at least it's not an insane loss. This is reminding me of NECA's Castlevania attempt as well. Ugliest depictions of those characters I've ever seen, shame they're the only attempt we've had at Castlevania toys.
 
I never got the Castlevania stuff because it looked like shit. I was pretty excited because that was right when NECA was transitioning over to doing more/better articulation and then we got.. what we got.
 
It's bizarre to me that Getsu Fuma Den: Undying Moon got a really solid selection of toys from Storm, when, excluding the new game (which didn't seem to do too well), it's pretty much just a "Yeah, this is the thing that cameos in Castlevania and random Konami arcade games."

Of course, the original Getsu Fuma Den is firmly in my top 3 games of all time. I've played it a dozen times over, and I'd have loved if they made a figure of the original Getsu Fuma as well. (Note: different protags, it's like if Trevor and Richter were both just named Trevor) But this being the first Konami thing we got proper modern toys of is just nutty.

At least we're getting MGS3, Contra, and Yu-Gi-Oh figures now as well. Whenever Castlevania gets a big push next, we'll probably see something. Hopefully Silent Hill gets a few items in the future, too. Harry and Cybil would be fun.
 
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