Street Fighter is one of the most epic and successful game franchises ever. The second one was released in 1993 on both the SNES and Megadrive/Genesis which where the current generation of consoles. Those are still my favorite consoles. I just love the 16bit era. We both do actually. The title of the game was Street Fighter II: The World Warrior and had 12 characters. Eight of those were playable. Now in 2012, Kidrobot puts them all into a box.
Kidrobot is a producer and retailer of designer toys founded in 2002 by Paul Budnitz, specializing in artist-created toys and imports from Japan, Hong Kong, and Europe. Kidrobot took these fourteen, well known, characters, made them a bit cartoony and put them in blindboxes. If you don’t know these, well known, twelve, I well sum them up for you. The playable characters were: Ryu, Ken, E. Honda, Blanka, Guile, Zangief, Dhalsim and the only girl Chun-li. The four unplayable character, which were the Four Grand Masters or bosses for short were: Balrog (or Mike Bison in Japan), Vega (or Balrog in Japan), Sagat and M. Bison (or Vega in Japan). In regards of the mixed up with the Japanese names, I’m using the European/American names in my review.
So I already told you the biggest disadvantage of this set, blindboxes. This means if you want one you buy a little cardboard box and you have no clue which character you will receive. There are 20 different figures to collect. Every playable characters comes in his regular and second player uniform and you have the four bosses. If you look at the box of the little boxes you can see which ones there exists and what the chances are you will have the one you want. You will see there is a secret one to, well it is not that secret, it is just M. Bison. Most characters are found on a 1/20 base, Ken and Ryu are found on a 2/20 base. The bosses are a little bit more difficult to find, Bison is 1/80, Sagat and Balrog 1/40 and only god knows the chances for a Vega.
What does this mean in reality? Well, if you buy an entire case you will have 20 blindboxes. In those boxes you will find the 16 versions of the playable ones, and a second Ken and Ryu. As last you will find two of the four bosses. So there is no chance in hell that you will have the full set if you buy an entire case. We bought one case from our friend Galaxyshop and we were missing Sagat and Vega. I was happy to have Bison, cause the prices of that little bugger on ebay are pretty steep. I bought the last two remaining on the evilbay (and yes they were also pricey), but now I can say I have the full set. This makes me sleep better at night.
Well, we don’t have the complete-complete set since there are two more to collect. Kidrobot made two variants for event; an Evil Ryu and a Glow-in-the-Dark Blanka. We’ll see if we’re going after those to…
The figures are like 3 inch in height (~7 cm) and normally cost around 7 euros for a blindbox. Every box comes with a little sticker of the character it contains. The paint application is pretty good. There are misses but nothing severe. The only real good misses that I have seen are with the claws of Vega, the grey of the blades and the yellow of the attach thingie were completely messed up but luckily, mine is perfect. The heads and arms are a little pose-able which give just that little bit extra to these figures.
They are almost sold out so if you want a batch, hurry up. The cheapest way to get them is to buy a full case of 20, so you will be assured to have the most of them in one time. the rest is on the ebay. I know they are really not that high end, but they are cute as hell and really cool to see together. I’m a bit disappointing in missing some legends from the Street Fighter franchise (no Cammy or Akuma). Maybe Kidrobot will release a second wave with other characters, who knows…
Conclusion
These figures are great to have on display. They’re cute and awesome at the same time. The paint application is very decent and the overall design as well. I’m happy that we decided to get these and if you like what you see, I can guarantee you that you’ll love them when you have them in your hands!
Pictures
Item reviewed: Kidrobot x Street Fighter (complete set)
Type: PVC / Vinyl, Kidrobot
Manufacturer: Kidrobot
Variations: there are event specials of Ryu (Evil Ryu) and Blanka (glow in the dark variant)
Rarity: Some are both hard to find and very expensive (like M. Bison). Others are fairly cheap and easy to find (Ryu, Ken).
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