I don't have a big stake in Street Fighter myself, so there isn't an exclusive I'd necessarily want to see appear at GameStop. Assuming there's one based on any of the existing figures, Psycho Power Bison would be neat.
Ohhhh… I stand corrected then. It just came across like you were asserting GameStop’s participation would make or break the line. My bad.
Just came across Ryu and Feilong at Target today. Almost just grabbed Ryu, but thought better of it and grabbed both. Wow. I was not expecting these figures to be as good as they are. They balance super-well, too. I got Ryu doing kicking poses on one foot easily. Might have to dig out my SOTA versions from the closet to see just how they compared (kwality is better for sure). Glad that they're starting with the Street Fighter II + expansion characters first. There are so.many.street.fighters over all of the games that it gets hard for a line to actually round out a proper collection before it dies - not like it gets 20+ years like Marvel Legends to try to complete a set. Bring on the rest of the cast!
I don’t have Ryu or Fei Long yet (Chun Li obviously), but already plan on getting M.Bison, Ken, Vega for sure. Not sure if I want any other characters beyond that, know what’s in the pipeline, or how far I want go with this line. Maybe Guile and Cammy I suppose.
The one downside to Ryu is that his butterfly joints aren't flexible enough to do a proper palms-together Hadouken stance. You can trick the eye by posing him in a "2D" fashion from the side, and it's passable with the effect piece, but from the front? Nopers. Seems like that would have been a design requirement so it's a little disappointing that they missed the mark here.
Just Fyi. There are now listings For Ryu and Fei Long on Amazon. Seem to be carried by Third Party sellers for now. Wonky Prices though Ryu: https://www.amazon.com/Street-Fighter-Action-Figure-Toys/dp/B0BVXTQYRY/ref=sr_1_5?crid=3I505X6MUAPRN&keywords=jada+toys+street+fighter&qid=1685909524&sprefix=jada+toys+street+fighte,aps,144&sr=8-5 Fei Long: Amazon.com
Wow, some people acting like Amazon is eBay… Do they not realize those figures are still available at retail price?
HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER! Got my Ryu and Fei Long. The packaging is more narrow and smaller than I expected and looks good. I didn’t keep it but I did like how it was sturdy and you could reuse it. The back of the box shows the cast for Ultra SFII so I like how Jada seems to be committed to completing that eventually. I’ve been looking forward to these figures since seeing pictures of the prototypes. The sobering part was the seemingly thickly paint apps for the faces. That’s where these figures somewhat look cheap and washed out. It wasn’t something that I noticed until I saw these in person. It’s fine for a 1st go around but I did expect it to be better given how much better everything else is(more on that later). There is some dot matrix printing but coupled with the subtle shades it didn’t stick out much. The face paint for the SH Figuarts SF figures is more crisp and defined and that’s a round they win. I prefer the likenesses on Jada’s figures but if they had the crispness of SHF faces, that would’ve been awesome! The flame effect for Fei Long slips on easily but has a sticky finish, possibly due to the glossy paint and possibly plastic(PVC). Some of the joints like the shoulder hinges on Ryu have more space between soft clicking detents than I’d like. I did notice that the shoulder pegs on Ryu can pull out a bit(maybe to aid in the Hadouken launching pose more?). Would’ve preferred if the shoulder hinges moved more smoothly. The diaphragm doesn’t move forward much and there’s no ab crunch. On paper that sounds bad but…… …. with that out of the way, time for the good. These figures don’t need much forward diaphragm range nor an ab crunch. Why? They have a deep waist rotation in all directions more than making up for the lack of an ab crunch. You may not even realize this at 1st, especially with Ryu but it’s there(you can’t even see it until you lift up the gi, that’s why it’s made of a more pliable plastic, to not hinder it). To aid in this, the pelvis has a dense but soft plastic overlay. This enables the hips to pivot more than 90 degrees upwards/forwards without needing drop-down joints. Fei Long can get very high kicks with ease and I managed to pose both figures standing on 1 leg kicking with the kicking leg straight. This deep bending waist joint is a game changer and no, moving it doesn’t expose some huge gap at the pelvis underlay. Jada came into this game ready for a fight. Had no stuck joints. Ankle connections for Fei Long had to be pushed up a bit. The barbell neck joints move well. The subtle movements between poses are replicated very well with these figures; reminds me of the SHF figures. Fei Long and Ryu scale well, reminds me of how they looked in Super SFII and the animated movie where Ryu beat the shit out of him. Definitely in 6”+ scale and similar to the SHF figures. So how do these stack up? Better than the SOTA figures but it does show how good those figures were given how they’re still comparable(IMO) now. For figures designed more than 15 years ago, their sculpts and articulation are still decent. However Jada has won this round. Jada managed to make it to a mass market retail store too(Target) so maybe this line will actually continue instead of timing out. Don’t have any Storm Collectibles SF figures so I don’t know how they compare to Jada aside from being in a larger scale with more accessories and a higher price point. From pictures, they don’t look like they can pose as well as Jada(but look like they can get close). Now the big one, SH Figuarts Street Fighter figures. I think this will ultimately boil down to materials. Do you prefer hard plastic construction? If so(and if you don’t mind paying substantially more keeping in mind the MSRP is at least twice that of the Jada figures), SHF may win this round for you. You also get more crisply defined face paint and more subtlety for posing. If you’re okay with softer plastic construction and much prefer the $25 MSRP, Jada wins this round with articulation close to parity, more emphasis on classic looks over modern and potential for a wider roster. I feel more excited about getting more figures that Jada might make more than I did waiting and hoping for Bandai to make more SHF figures. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jada ends up making a wider roster than Bandai did by next year. My 1st Ryu figure was a GI Joe Ryu and it didn’t really look like him. Then I got a 8” Bandai figure with a cloth gi, full articulation and easily removable gloves from the mid-90’s. Ahead of its time but looks clunky and dated now. Got SOTA Ryu in the mid-2000’s which was decent but arm articulation was lacking. Got the NECA SF IV Ryu and…lol NECA plastic TKO. Got Play Arts Kai SF IV Ryu and got a break at a butterfly hinge(the sculpt on this figure was incredibly detailed and painted otherwise). Got SHF Ryu and loved the subtleness of poseability. All things considered and for $25+, the Jada Ryu I just got is a contender and winner compared to most of what I listed above. I never expected them to pull this off but they did. Hoping for Alpha and 3rd Strike Ryu soon enough(might as well make the classic skin from SFVI too since it’s close enough yet modernized a bit as a case refresh or something). Bring on Vega, Sagat, Akuma, Adon, Sodom and Rolento!
LOL…man when I 1st saw that pic it reminded me of the mocap actor for Akuma from the short lived SF movie fighting game. If they actually made that…wow
Evil Ryu is the other theory, and a simple repaint like that might make more sense for a convention exclusive.
