Have you ever thought about ordering a box set of figures but never wanted to take the risk of maybe not getting a figure you loved in it? If your on the edge, or just curious grab a cup of tea or coffee and take a little journey with me while I tell a little tale of my opening of a box set. I will show you the opening entirely uncensored and just how it happened! But first a little background on this set.

So almost since the very beginning of my figurine collecting habits I have collected Tales mini figures, much like the game series however I started collecting long after the first ones had been made. Still once in a while I was taking a peak on Amazon hoping to find one of the recently discontinued tales one coin figure sets, such as the tales of Legendia line.

Tales of Phantasia was the first ever Tales series, so I never dreamed I would find a Tales of Phantasia box set; However while I was searching amazon I found a sealed set of 12 figures for 80 dollars, free shipping - There was absolutely no way I could say no to that, I almost felt like It could be a scam because it was too good to be true.

So yes, when I opened up my box shipped from an amazon merchant I saw it was indeed true, feast your eyes on this treasure box Tomopeeps.



The pegasus and general art on the box looked so sweet and classic, I almost felt bad about opening it. Speaking of which, I have opened many one coins series boxes, but this one seemed a little larger than I expected, of course that made it even better.



This is what a properly factory sealed box should look like when you open it! From my experience it is always best to buy a full box instead of buying them individually. So far every one coin sealed box that I have purchased has given me at least one of every figure.. I have a few leftovers from this set and other sets if anyone wants to trade with me! Just ask. Anyway onto the opening!



So yeah, you take one of these boxes and open it, and you usually get a clear plastic baggie filled with figurine parts for you to assemble, cept I got this.



So I had an interesting problem, I couldn't see the figure at all! Sure I could touch the bag and try to figure out which one was inside, but really the best way to find out was to open it right? That is what I set out to do!

First figure out is Dhaos, the villian and secret character of the set! Always fun when the first one you open is the secret one!



I gotta say he is tall! His feet hover off the ground and his thick double cape sits attached to the stand letting him kinda hover.



He does have a nice confident look to him, though to be honest I do not know his character too well, or many of these really - but I do know a lot of their history and am very happy to have figures of what started my favorite game series ever. These remind me that I need to play this game sometime! I did see an OVA animated show about them so I am not completely in the dark, also all of the tales games I have played had references to these characters in them. So yes it is fun to unbox this piece of history.

Anyway I am rambling too much, on to box number 2!



Kinda cool he has a bow string on his bow - Raven and Natalia, also one coin tales archers did not have that!



His name is Chester Barklight and he is a childhood friend of the main character of the series, I kinda got the impression that he is the "cool" one of the group. By the way upon opening this box I realized that these characters are all a pinch bigger than the rest of the one coin figurines I have owned! I think they are about 1/14th scale where all my other one coins are around 1/16th.

Enough rambling! Here is box number 3!



Yay Mint! The main Heroine of Phantasia! I really love the dress and pose of this figure, here are a few more pictures of her, to show off her motion and detail. I imagine her doing a little dance.







She had been in her box so long though, that I had to bend the arms a little bit to get her to hold her staff - it wasn't too scary, but this is Mint I am talking about, such a classic character and most referenced in other games.

So far so good, three boxes, three figures, no repeats yet! Of course the odds only get worse from here out, it is a good feeling to not have any duplicates yet. So far here is our party of 3!



So onto Box 4!



This is Clark the summoner. I really like the work that was done on him, he has tons of tattoo or is that body paint? and painting on his clothing.



And for the ladies!



Also this surprised me. One Coin took the time to draw some squiggles and symbols on the inside of his book, awesome detailing for a little figure!



Now on to box 5! Who could it be? I picked up one or two boxes hoping I could find a way to tell them apart, and I did! I found one that was super light weight, had to be a figure I hadn't opened!



Yup, here is a Ninja girl, Suzu Fujibayashi! I don't know much about her but she is supposed to be the descendant of Sheena from Tales of Symphonia.



Her figure is simple but nice, because of her small size and pose she is somehow shorter than even Genis in my Symphonia set.. Genis must be happy that he is no longer the shortest one in the lot!

Well, to summarize so far I have had perfect luck, 5 boxes, 5 figures.



So, who is in box number 6? Wanna guess?



Yep, Dhaos again, this is our first repeat, truthfully I did not fully open him.

So, on to box number 7! The odds of getting more clones of the existing characters are definitely high, of course this is not Tales of the Abyss is it?

And inside of box number 7 is the lovely and awesome



Arche Klein! Ah how I have always wanted a witch in my collection that rides a broom, the original wizard and fireball hurler from tales is extremely epic. It was a little tricky to slide the broom between her legs, but it was worth it.



Arche has very cute eyes, the splash of green around her collar and blue-earring help to add some color variety to her. Watch her as she flies around, you'll see a fireball in her hand ready to fly out at something.



I like how she has a unique base, very different than any other one coin figure I have seen.



Well, we now have opened 7 boxes and gotten 6 unique figures. Pretty good really, usually I would have opened 8, or maybe 9 boxes for 6 unique figures, of course now I figure I will get a bunch of clones while I try to find the last figure, but lets see shall we?

And here we have box 8!



Okay, so it was just a likeness of box 8. Inside the real box 8 was.



WOOT our hero of the series, Cress! Wow, they don't make hero's as thin as him anymore do they?
He is pretty cool though, and like Arche he has his own unique base and a very action pose. I appreciate how they made his sheathe and some of his paint matte while his armor was extra shiny. Really again a lot of attention to detail for such small figurines.



His sword is very shiny, looks like he is going to slice something up good!





Cress has really girly features, but ya know, it's fun to have unique and awesome little figures aint it? It's the whole joy of collecting these small ones!

So yeah, this was really lucky for me to get 7 figures in 8 boxes! Here is the whole gang together!



It's always nice to see how well figures work with collections of other figures, so I will show you how mine are displayed. See how many tails miniatures you can identify!









This was fun! I tried to pack as many figurines into this as I could!



And here is my collection as it stands. Can't wait for my 1/8th scale Luke and Rita Mordio to show up!



In all this is an epic collection to me, I love every one of my figurines!

Oh, if anyone happens to have a spare One Coin Zelos from Tales of Symphonia I could have, or a Tales of Legendia set I would happily pay for them and be indebted to you for bringing my collection up to date!

Wow, this was a huge somewhat unorganized blog, but if your still reading this thank you for sticking through with me to the end!