With Star Fox Zero’s release looming, I have to admit that Star Fox fever has hit many Nintendo fans including myself.  Luckily, I was recently doing some toy hunting and both Toys R Us and Meijer had Star Fox finally so I picked one up.  With the recent announcement that Falco and Slippy are coming to World of Nintendo, I want to put together the whole Star Fox team in figure form and create a display one day so this was perfectly timed.  Fox does seem to be the rarest figure in the 1-3 wave, but the good news is that despite being released a while ago, he is still being restocked so hopefully if you’re looking for one, he pops up in your area, because the online price for Fox is pretty high (usually around $20, which is double his retail price).  With all of that said, let’s take a closer look at the figure and see how Fox stacks up against other World of Nintendo figures!

Box – It has been a while since I mentioned the box in a World of Nintendo review, but I think this one is especially well done.  The dark blue fits Star Fox and the way the cardboard is cut around Fox’s ears looks really nice.  Jakks Pacific deserves credit for designing nice packaging here.

Articulation – While the back of the box says there are 12 points of articulation, Fox feels like he has better articulation than quite a few of the other World of Nintendo figures I’ve reviewed.  Fox rotates 360 degrees at the neck and the waist which are nice to have.  His tail can also be moved up or down which is also appreciated.  His arms and shoulders are pretty articulated too.  They can swivel at the shoulders and bend at the elbows which gives a pretty good range of movement.  Fox’s knees bend and so does his ankles.  The movement in his knees and feet is nice, but there is a problem.  Fox is a bit top heavy and it is actually difficult to put him in a running pose and keep him standing.  While I have a picture of this below, it was not easy to do.  

Another downside is that Fox’s hands are fists.  Mario has mostly had figures in this style, but when you compare this to Cat Luigi and how much more flexible his open paws are, it is a little disappointing that so many World of Nintendo 4″ inch figures are being done this way.  While I don’t own a ton of World of Nintendo 4″ Inch figures, Fox is definitely the loosest figure I’ve purchased and this is the first time I have encountered this as a figure collector.  His arms and legs feel a little too loose and easy to move.  I think this contributes to the trouble I have had keeping Fox posed and standing up.  Hopefully I was just unlucky with this figure and this is not a common problem with Fox McCloud figures. While I was able to still take some nice pictures, it was a bit more frustrating to get Fox in the poses I wanted compared to other figures.  I also felt like despite his articulation, Fox can’t actually be put in very many poses and that is disappointing considering he has fairly high articulation.  All in all, his articulation is a bit of a mixed bag.  It is better than many figures, but I don’t think this is a highly posable figure and you can’t do as much with all of the articulation as I would have hoped.

Paint and Details – Jakks Pacific wisely gave us the Star Fox 64 version of Fox McCloud which stands out from the Super Smash Brothers Amiibo version Nintendo released.  Being that it was a Nintendo 64 game, Fox’s design is clean and simple.  I like this design and the colors Jakks chose are nice too.  My figure has a number of paint issues however.  Most of them are with the light gray paint on his jacket and boots.  You can see some of the issues in the pictures I took throughout this article so I won’t describe them in greater detail.  Unfortunately and uncharacteristically, I didn’t check the Fox’s that they had before I bought this figure because I was so excited to have found him so it is entirely possible that I picked the worst one on the shelves and if that is the case, it is my own fault and perhaps these paint issues aren’t common.  I would definitely recommend checking the figure over if you can before buying in retail.  Overall, Fox’s paint job is pretty good, but not great.  Paint issues are not uncommon with World of Nintendo, but this Fox has a few more than normal.  One thing that is nice on this figure are some of the sculpting details in Fox’s boots and and on his head set, particularly on the back.  These are nice little touches that some World of Nintendo figures don’t have and are certainly appreciated.

Accessory – One area where this figure shines is the accessory and actually, even the box the accessory comes in looks awesome!  The Star Fox logo is straight out of the games, but it looks so nice I’m actually keeping this little cardboard box for now.  The real question is what is inside and it just so happens, you get a little Arwing with Fox!  The paint is simple, but cleanly applied and I couldn’t resist letting Fox play with the Arwing in the picture below.  While it isn’t easy to display this accessory (though it rarely is with any of the World of Nintendo figures), this is still a nice one and sure to make any Star Fox fan happy.

Closing Thoughts – The Fox figure I picked out has its fair share of issues and some of them I’m not sure if they are issues other people will have with this figure so that makes it tough to know how much to recommend Fox.  I will say that even with the issues, I do like this figure quite a bit and I’m really glad I own it.  He is not one of the best World of Nintendo figures, but he is one of the only Star Fox figures that has ever been released, especially for the beloved Star Fox 64.  Since he is rare, if you have any interest in assembling your own Star Fox team, I would recommend getting it, because the games are released so infrequently that we’re unlikely to get many more Star Fox figures in the near future.  I hope you enjoyed this review and if you own Fox, let us know if you have any of the same issues I have had with mine.  The more we can educate each other, the more we can enjoy figures like this.