Aloy

Surprise! Aloy is curious, determined, and intent on uncovering the mysteries of her world. Shunned by her own tribe since birth, she has learned to harness her agility, cunning, and deadly aim to hunt the machines and survive in the unforgiving wilds. We haven't reviewed a ton of Spin Master toys here, because they don't worry about the collector market (which is not a bad thing). Like, their Tron figures were good, but that was a while ago. So imagine my utter shock and surprise when the "Related Products" tab on Amazon randomly revealed that 1) there were new Playstation toys coming, 2) they looked pretty good, and 3) they were coming from Spin Master! The line is called The Shapes Collection, which is a cute nod to the △OX◻ buttons on a PSX controller, and this Aloy is specifically based on Horizon Forbidden West. The first thing you'll notice about this toy is how small she is. This is ostensibly a 6" scale figure, but we've been poisoned by the size-creep of Marvel Legends (the standard-bearer for 1:12 toys), expecting things to be slightly bigger. Meanwhile, Spin Master is new to aiming at this needy, entitled audience, and has done a strict 6" scale. Aloy, in the games, is officially 5'6"; this figure is 5⅝" tall (counting her thick hair). So if you put her next to other quote/unquote "six inch" figures, she's the height of the teenagers, not the adults, and thus on first encounter, the toy ends up looking tiny despite being correct. The first Shapes Collection figure I saw (and therefore examined) was Kratos, and while the sculpt clearly wasn't going to be as good as NECA's, it still looked pretty decent in photos, so I had high hopes for Aloy. We don't know who did the sculpting for this line, but - keeping in mind this is Spin Master - the level of detailing on this figure is amazing! Sure, there are some sections that may be a little soft, sure, but honestly this stands up right next to Hasbro and modern McFarlane. Despite being applied on a smaller canvas! This is a character who wears leather and fur and bones and beads, which means lots of textures and lots of small details, and this figure delivers them better than you'd expect it would. If you didn't already wish the figure was bigger, the sculpt will definitely do it, because you'll want to be able to see all of this detail at a larger size. Paint's great, too. every tiny little detail in the sculpt is picked out cleanly, whether it's the bright colors of her accessories ("fashion" accessories, not "action figure" accessories) or the muted tones of her clothing. The baubles in her braided hair are painted, and even the hair itself is given shadows and highlights. And unlike the corners cut by bigger companies, the paint doesn't stop when you turn to the toy's back or look at areas that would normally be covered. Hey, Hasbro: this is what painting a collector-aimed action figure is supposed to look like; up your game. Remember when the first promo shots of Horizon Forbidden West came out and the internet's saddest losers cried their stupid little eyes out about the fact Aloy dared to have normal human hair growing somewhere other than her scalp? Normal people's reaction to that would have been "wow, that's some impressive graphical fidelity," but of course, we're not talking about normal people, we're talking about weird losers with no friends. The Shapes Collection has several different pricepoints, and Aloy is the most expensive, a deluxe release in fancy packaging, with extra accessories and extra bodyparts, including five additional faces! The standard face is plain, with a cute lopsided smirk and a smattering of freckles across her nose and forehead. Lovely, top work. Next we have one that's got the brow knitted angrily, and another that's got the mouth open in a yell. Those three are all totally bare, and then there are three with facepaint, representing one of the game's unlockable cosmetics. Uh, literally "cosmetics" in this case, I guess? Because it's face paint? You get it. We'll begin with the big smiling face, which seems to have green triangles painted on the cheeks, chin, and forehead. That's the "Banuk Shaman" facepaint, which is described thusly in-game: Shamans seek to unify themselves with the blue light of the machines, and so their face paint takes inspiration from triangular Cauldron doors. From there we move on to the agape face, with its small white "scales" under the eyes and reaching up toward the center of the hairline. This paint is the "Utaru Harvester," unlocked by completing a quest to find some missing hunters: During the harvest season, the Utaru wear this paint as a symbol of gratitude to the land-gods for a bountiful crop. The final choice is the most concealing, "Tenakth Recon." This covers nearly the entire serious face in blue, with white marks under the eyes and on the chin, and red patches along the jawline and eyelids. Taking inspiration from the Visions of the Memorial Grove, this paint is often worn by Lowland Tenakth scouts as they quietly survey the vast jungle of the Raintrace. There are dozens more facepaint styles and expressions Spin Master could do if they wanted to make a second Aloy, or even an accessory pack. The faces swap out at the hairline, as a way to conceal the seam, and are held in place by two small pegs and a larger, inverted, U-shaped piece. They pull off without too much trouble, yet stay in place well. (They do get squished a bit while in the tray, so you'll need to stretch them open a bit before you put them on.) Spin Master is not exactly known for its high quality sculpts nor its plentiful articulation. Look at their Aquaman toys, for instance: solid, workmanlike product, but mostly unremarkable. That said, you've already seen how far they jumped their sculpt forward for Aloy, and they've done just as well with her articulation. Hinged toes, swivel/hinge ankles, what I'm pretty sure are balljointed shins up under her leg wraps, double-hinged knees, swivel thighs, balljointed hips, hinged waist, balljoint chest, swivel/hinge wrists, swivel/​hinge elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders, pectoral hinges, balljointed neck, and barbell head. Name another company that's doing that much. You can't. Double-hinged elbows would be better, especially with there already being swivels in the biceps, but Spin Master, doing their first real collector toy, just out-articulated Hasbro, and that is no small feat! Oh, and we're not even done yet. The pouch Aloy wears on her left hip is on a swivel joint, so it can be moved out of the way when you're posing that leg; so is the coil of rope she wears right behind it. And then - THEN! - you move all the way up to the top and discover they articulated her hair!!! Aloy's thick braids are one of the most complex hairdos ever seen in videogames (at least from a rendering standpoint), and to keep those heavy tresses from ruining the articulation, the bulk of the hair is divided into five chunks that each plug into the head via a balljoint, so you can pose them around in whatever way will look best for you. Articulated hair! You normally have to go to Figma for anything like that. Two of the sections are shaped to come down over her shoulders in the front, and three get together in the back. Aloy is armed with her bow, a quiver that can plug onto the right side of her waist, a single loose arrow, and her spear. The accessories are detailed just as well as the rest of the figure, in terms of both a crisp, intricate sculpt and full paint apps. The arrow has four sets of fletching instead of the appropriate three, so there you go: something else in the "minus" column for this toy. The bow has an elastic string Aloy can pull back so you can pretend to fire. A thin peg sticks out of the figure's back, able to fit through a small hole in the bow so she can carry it. There's a similar hole on the spear, but it doesn't go all the way through, so the weapon tends to fall off the peg if you try to put it there. If the peg had been a bit longer, you might have been able to have her carry both at once (put the bow on first, with the peg sticking all the way through, and then the spear on second, like Ares' sword and axe), but on the final product the best you can do is fake it by posing her hair to help hold them both on. The toy includes four pairs of hands: open, holding, fists, and archery. I liked the designs of Horizon Zero Dawn enough that I even got Aloy in Mystery Mini form along with all the robots. I certainly wished for real action figures, but didn't hold out much hope of getting them. But now here, all of a sudden, come Spin Master and The Shapes Collection, hitting an absolute grand slam with one of their first attempts at courting the collector market. Or, well, maybe a triple: as much as I prefer the 6" scale, the fact that most videogame characters are done in NECA's 7" scale means this Aloy will be hard up for friends; that's accurate to the character, sure, but imagine how much fun it would be to see Aloy meeting Ezio or Tiny Tina. We'll just have to hope Spin Master finds success with this line, and brings us more characters to add to the display. -- 11/10/24 How did this line come out of nowhere? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.

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