I
would begin this review with a short intro to the character
and some background, but I've got to be honest here - I have no idea who
"Beat" is and what Jet Set Radio Future is about, aside from
the fact that this figure looks crazy enough to be fun. It's a guy on
jet-powered roller blades wielding a spray can and a bizarre set of
headphones, what's not to like? Fortunately, just opening the nifty
packaging by Joyride Studios gives you a nice little intro to the figure
and the game, currently available for the XBox. JSFR is all about
blading from turf to turf, trying to take over Tokyo by spray-painting
graffiti and tags everywhere while avoiding the fuzz, and Beat is one of
our main characters. Like the other Joyride figures, the packaging is
well designed enough to give you a background on the figure if you don't
know the game or characters. With that out of the way,
let's look at the figure.
Beat
is about 6 1/2" tall, sculpted nicely in a cartoon-anime style as
depicted in the game. His costume is simply detailed but nice enough.
I
like the little details on the sculpt, like the little control pad on
his gloves and the designs on the rollerblades. I also like the jet
shooting out of one of his blades, in translucent yellow plastic. The colors are bright and make the figure look
appealing. Unfortunately, some of the
most interesting parts of Beat are
lacking because they aren't removable - Beat holds a spray can which you
can't take out of his hand, and has some funky headphones and sunglasses
that really should have been removable, but they're not.
The
nice look of the figure is also hindered by the comparatively poor
articulation. Beat has 10 points of articulation, most of them useless
because of the generic skating position that he's typically forced into
(as depicted above). This is essentially the only pose Beat can get into
thanks to a terribly annoying peg extending from one of his
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rollerblades
(which pegs into the base and keeps him standing). Although the pose is
awesome for display, it's not worth the price of playability, which is
lost from the figure because of this pose. The peg means that Beat can't
stand without the base, and it's downright annoying.
This
could have been a really fun figure, too - with the right design (in
articulation and poseability) you could have him skating all around your
room and house tagging everything. Instead, he just topples if you try
to take him off the base, and he can't skate anywhere. A better figure
would have had a peg that clipped onto his blades to keep him on the
base, that could be taken off to play with him. In addition, the wheels
don't spin, which is rather disappointing. Another detail, which
would have made the figure nicer is to have the jet shooting out of his
blades removable, and have one for each blade.
Beat
only has one accessory, his nice little base, a section of road with a
little handrail type bit. It's suitable enough for him to be displayed
on, and nicely detailed, but it could have been fun to make him skate on
it and grind on the handrail, but I guess not. More accessories would
have been nicer too. Overall, fans of Jet Set Radio Future will like
Beat; he's is a nice display piece but definitely not for someone who
wants to play with him.