Jacky Bryant & Lau Chan (Virtua Fighter 4) - Action Figure Reviews

Series: Video Game Series 2 & 3

Craftsmanship: 9.5 out of 10

- Big figures with excellent sculpts

- Perfect likenesses with great poses - threatening!

- Bases give the figures a theme

- Articulation is plentiful but irrelevant, these guys wont be fighting

anything

Playability: 2.5 out of 10

- Uh.... they can stand there and look angrily at each other

- Durability ++

- Display pieces rather than play pieces

Related Links:

- Action Figure: Link (Ocarina of Time)

- Action Figure: Akira Yuki (VF4)

Newsletter

Be notified of site updates. Sign-up for the Newsletter sent out twice weekly.

Enter E-Mail Address Below:

Jacky Bryant & Lau Chan (Virtua Fighter 4)

by Joyride Studios

Joyride Studios has been responsible for several figures from the hit Sega game Virtua Fighter 4, beginning with Akira and Lau in Series 2 of their video game figures, then Jacky in Series 3. The figures from Joyride are big and solidly detailed, although seemingly created in mind of being displayed on the shelf rather than being played with – although they have a fair amount of articulation, the figures are

Advertisement

mostly confined to a single pose.

Jacky Bryant and Lau Chan are nice big figures, standing about 7" each with strong, durable sculpts. The characters, in their fighting stances, look great – both are highly detailed and have strong likenesses to the video game counterparts. Jacky has a great costume with a shiny leather-type outfit, complete with detailed belt and logos. I really like the insignia of the Silver Eagle on his back,

Advertisement

it's very nice and fitting. Another detail I like is the sculpt of his hair, which is almost perfect. The wavy hair is realistically flowing, though it's missing the dry brushed highlights that would make it beast. I prefer Lau Chan, who looks completely awesome in his Chinese garb - a multilayered costume of a yellow over-shirt and shoes, with an orange dragon highlight design, over a purple outfit. It looks authentic, I have no idea if it really is or not, but it certainly looks great. He has a great likeness, with a beautiful expression on his angry face – I love the little goatee and the ponytail, which is posed in mid air as if he's moving. Big thumbs up on the sculpt and paint, but the articulation is where these figures lose points.

Both Lau and Jacky have the same 10 points of articulation: ball-jointed shoulders, wrists, neck, waist, legs and knees. But the articulation doesn't allow for much movement or playability. This sucks! These are the sort of characters that you're meant to play with – throwing around fighting figures as a kid was great, like having your Street Fighter GI-Joes kick each other's ass – none of that here. Essentially they just stand there and look at each other. It's a shame – the Resaurus Street Fighter figures were great fun to beat the hell out of each other, and they could attain a few different poses; I really don't like the sacrifice of playability for poseability in figures like this, especially figures that are meant to appeal to both kids and collectors.

Both figures come with a signature base. They're simply grey rocky ground, without paint or detail, however featuring two little stickers to display the figures: one with the Virtua Fighter 4 logo and the other with the name of the figure. Despite sounding relatively unimpressive, the bases highlight the color and detail of the figures that they display, and they keep the figures standing using the pegs which fit into their feet. Other than the bases though, both of the figures are accessory-less, although the packaging features nice little profile cards for each figure, with character art and VF4 cheats.

Once again, I'm disappointed with the articulation of these Joyride figures, but the design is primarily for collectors to display, so I'll let it pass because these two just look so darn cool. I like Lau Chan the best. He's like that martial arts demon boss guy from those crazy Hong Kong movies, the guy with an evil goatee who always looks angry. I love that guy, and I like these figures, despite the lack of playability.

- Shocka
(April 26, 2003)