Toy Review: Revoltech Raiden (Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance)

Fans were stimulated when Play Arts Kai released their version of the Metal Gear Rising figure, it was guys at Kaiyodo to push their offering with the Revoltech Metal Gear Rising Revengeance Raiden. Kaiyodo was careful enough to place the necessary details on the custom cyborg body of his such as the patch on the eye, suave wind-blown hair and muscle sculpting. But unlike Play Arts, the orange details are now pale yellow and the neurocables are molded on the torso than being flexibly exposed. To complete, a sheath is attached from a peg just above his left hip.

Without saying, this Revoltech set has more parts to work with than Play Arts Kai namely 7 extra hands; stage parts with a crystal swoosh effect. To add are the Revoltech cube case and a halved watermelon, a knife, the high frequency blade, a visor with hair sticking out, two eye holders with a red cyborg eye and finally an eye picker. Before I even end the accessory list, Raiden also has a box plate and some assembly and splicing is required to build this.

How to use all of these, the sword and the knife can slide through the sheath and need to be pushed further to lock them into place. His visor uses a two-prong system to replace the default bangs. The interesting parts that are somewhat new to Revoltech are the faceless plates to hold the eye and the picker. The picker is to either remove the red eye by pushing it out or move the eye sideways, a much welcome improvement than Snake. Amongst the stage parts is a unique clear holder to fasten the sword and peg under Raiden’s foot. This way, as long as you angled this perfectly, provides that same illusion that the figure can use his feet in combat.

Between Play Arts Kai and Revoltech, Play Arts best Revoltech in details such as the faint warning signs and this is much attuned to the game illustrations. However Revoltech trumps on extra parts and its superb articulation. This means it is hard to point which line is better. What I’m not happy on this Revoltech is the weird smoked eye as if he is surprised all the time or creepy when you turn his eye sideways. And it also suffers from that gap between the neck joints, just like Snake. We cannot deny that that Revoltechs are hunched figures but they all fade away when you pose this in game-like fashion and is a delight when you managed to do the same. More to this from the video review below.