Tomopop Review: FFXIII-2 Lightning Play Arts Kai

4:00 PM on 01.26.2012   |   Rio McCarthy

Ok, so I'm one of those people that started off all, "Oh.. I dunno if I really want Final Fantasy XIII-2 ... I mean ... You know ..." Yeah, forget that. It all changed after I played the demo, and when I first got teased by this figure, I was kind of leaning the same way. Her outfit and design totally changed my mind on how interested I was in the game, and the figures.

I'm not going to lie that I had some somewhat high expectations for this figure, especially after being able to get my hands on some of the previous Final Fantasy XIII figures. Did it live up to the expectations that I had for it? Well, hit the jump to find out!

Figure Name: Final Fantasy XIII-2 Lightning Play Arts Kai
Figure Maker: Square Enix
Retail/List Price: US$54.99
Available at: Square Enix Shop

Now, I know we always start with the boxes for figures, but this time I'm really going to have to gush. For the most part, the Play Arts Kai boxes have always been window boxes with poses on the back, right? Well, with this Final Fantasy XIII-2 Lightning, things are a bit different. The front of the box shows a gorgeous shot of the figure, with it popping out against the soft pink background. The back of the box continues to have the pose shots that are often seen on the boxes.

Here's where I got excited and giddy though, as when you open the front panel of the box you'll see that there is in fact a window inside with feathers floating about the box. The left side of the box shows the story for FFXIII-2, which you can see a better view of in the gallery. You might notice she is kind of, you know, missing. Well, that's because I care, you see! I wanted you to have a good shot of the box, so I went back and got some better shots, just for you! Yes, you!

Now, here's our gorgeous lady of the evening. As you can see, she is usually housed in the clear plastic casing while hiding inside of her box. She looks about as protected as the previous pieces, so let's keep on going and see how she looks.

Here's all of the items she comes with, which isn't a whole lot, but it's enough to do the job. Of course, we get Lightning herself, as well as her newly designed gunblade, which looks more like a traditional sword, a shield, and an extra set of hands to hold said items.

Well, I guess I shouldn't say both of the hands hold things. While one holds her gunblade, the other gives her a bit more stylish of a look while she has her shield on. The shield actually has a ball joint of sorts, and has a clip that just slides onto her arm.

Before putting on any of her accessories, or changing out her hands, this is the figure you're greeted with. Gosh, she looks gorgeous from that view ...

I will say that I really like how her hair is done, even if I'm not a fan of the more translucent hair companies have been doing as of late. Her face is gorgeous as well, her features all being in proportion. The only thing is that her eyebrow is a little spotty, but it doesn't look bad by any means.

Now, to start on our problems. First up we have quite the ridiculous scuff mark on her boot. There are at least three good sections on the boot where it looks like it got scraped pretty hard. I'm a pretty intensively careful person when dealing with toys, so to see this already at this point without even having hardly gotten her out of the box, kind of upset me.

That's far from the only place that has some issues, as the back of her right leg is completely demolished in scratches and scuffs. I had hoped this was something that would just wipe off, but alas, it was not. It's there for good it looks like. Well, let's at least look at some of the finer points...

Oh, sorry ... I guess when her arm decides to stop falling off we could get to those.

Anywho, now that she's finally stopped falling apart, I wanted to point out that her hands and arms are very nicely detailed. Her armor has somewhat of a rustic look to it, which is great, as long as that stays on her armor and not on her legs.

This is a problem I've had with a lot of the Play Arts Kai, and that is the pain that comes with changing out the hands. Mind you it was extremely cold out during this photo shoot, so that's where the actual physical pain came in, but the pegs always seem to come out from the wrong end when you change hands. I had to try and pry the joint out of her hand, only to put it back in her arm and change into the other hand, which, as you can see, doesn't fit on very well.

At least her shield was definitely easy enough to get on. Now, the gunblade on the other hand...

I have learned that I am either not meant to deal in weapons, or as much as I love Square Enix, their weapon designs are confusing as all hell. I'm not joking when I say I had to go watch the Final Fantasy XIII-2 trailer to figure out how in the blazes she actually holds the gunblade, because it was totally not intuitive for me on how to do so. Granted, she does look pretty awesome when you finally get it figured out. Let's move on to trying out some of the box poses ...

Well, again we'll have to postpone that, because another part has decided to fall off... Right, if you move her arms too far her shoulder armor pops right off. Luckily they are labeled with "R" for the one that goes on the right, and "L" for the one on the left.

Well, this is about as close to the pose on the back of the box I could get. Her arms just do not want to move in a proper direction to get that pose correct. I messed about with it a good deal, while still trying to be careful and not do any actual damage to the figure, especially since it had enough of that on its own.

At a certain breaking point I finally just gave her a lesson and tried to drown her in the snow ...

After our "Come to Jesus" meeting she straightened up. See? Doesn't she look almost regal here? I do really love the way the feathers work on her outfit. They actually look incredible on the figure, and I love the details and shading that went into them.

Sadly though, we have one last problem to address. In addition to the scuffs and scrapes, we have this damage going on with her leg armor. It looks like there was actual chunk scraped out of it, and possibly(?) painted over. It's a shame, because her armor as a whole is actually one of my favorite things about this figure.

Alright, now I know there was a lot of whining and complaining in this review, but I want to be clear; this is a quality control issue, not a complaint with the figure itself. While some of the posing is obviously impossible to actually do, I do suggest that you try to find the figure regardless. I do really urge you to try and find the figure in person though, instead of ordering online, as there are obvious problems to look out for. Hopefully this is just a limited issue and you'll get one that's as remarkable as it should be!

[A big thank you to Square Enix for providing Tomopop with this review sample!]
[See also: Phoenix Gamma's review of the same toy!]