Jay's Toy Shelf : Spinmaster: Playstation The Shapes Collection: Jin Sakai (Ghost of Tsushima)

I really enjoyed Ghost of Tsushima. It was a fun, open-world game with a good story, cutscenes, characters, and mechanics. I guess you should say "open-world" a little loosely, because the narrative is pretty linear and the side quests and such are fairly repetitive. The game focuses on the 1200s era of Mongol invasions, with the character being a kind of avenging angel against wrongs against the Japanese people, seeking to free them from the Mongols and kill their leader. The game's cinematics and scenery are beautiful. You even get mini-games where you can create Haiku poetry. It's a pretty awesome game, though I will say you get to kind of mix and match playstyles of being more samurai or being more ninja about how you approach encounters. However, you get punished narratively for using stealth or "ninja" playstyles, which sometimes you're kinda forced to do. That's odd.

This is an excellent physical representation of Jin Sakai. The details are there in the sculpt, though some of the smaller paint details aren't done, like the rivets or ropes that connect the armour. Some of the paint is a little muddy, like the rope wrapped around his chest and the kunai. The figure has decent flexibility in the hips and lots of joints; however, it was so stiff in the shoulders, ankles and wrists that I had to give it the hot water treatment to get them moving without worrying about breaking. Just like the Aloy figure, this one has an elasticity to its joints that makes it harder for it to stay ratcheted in a pose. It's harder to achieve dynamic poses, even though overall the shape and proportions of the figure look pretty good. The accessories aren't bad either, though it would've been nice if they included him being able to draw his tanto short sword, as it did feature in the game, among other weapons like his bow.

Sculpt&Paint: 2/3 Like I said, the macro details for the painting are good. They've accented the right parts, and it's at least better than a McFarlane. Just like a McFarlane figure though, it misses a bunch of details in painting the armour rivets a separate colour, the ropes for the armour plates, and several other details. Aside from the rushed paint job, the face looks fairly close for a figure of this price point, and the sculpt is pretty good.

Articulation: 2/3 (29 points of articulation). Technically, this matches in numbers for figures that pose really well, but the problem with these Spinmasters seems to be their flexibility when moving the joints and their ability to stay put once you move them. They spring back, and it's hard to get certain joints to stay fixed. The ankles and shoulders suffer this problem especially. The other double joints and hinge swivels work well. The torso is sort of a diaphram joint, but it is set so deep, you can't really do much with it other than swivel, which is a missed opportunity. If they had raised the length of the peg inside the torso, it could've made much cooler dynamic slashing action shots. The hips are pretty ugly, both with the flattened areas to the groin and the cuts in the thigh for a thigh swivel, but are thankfully hidden under flexible armour parts around the waist. Double joints on the neck allow for some decent range despite the scarf (which you can remove.

Accessories: 1/1: It has the basic accessories you'd need for a generic samurai figure: sheath, sword, cool mask (that is a little finicky to attach to his ears) and a cape with his clan totem. That's fine, I guess, but they could have included a bow, arrow, rope, other hands or other heads to make this a little sweeter. I guess in my mind, everything should be a deluxe figure if only to get what we all want! More little plastic stuff to attach to our plastic people!

Fun Factor: 1.5/3 I actually was hoping to get this guy into poses similar how I could pose Aloy, and was a bit disappointed. He looks cool in certain stances, but is limited, and falls over quite easily. I will likely need a stand even for basic poses to have him on the shelf. Playing with this figure is a little frustrating sometimes, and it did take some boiling water to straighten some of the stuck joints.

Verdict: 6.5/10 Limited: This is not quite like the Aloy figure for quality, and though it is cool and for its price, is actually quite a decent figure, a serious collector may want to wait or try for a different figure of Jin Sakai (I think Figma made a good one but have never had a chance to handle it). Gambatte-yo!