The one character that has eluded me since I started collecting World of Nintendo is Samus.  Metroid figures seem to be always be the hardest to get in each wave and I can’t remember seeing many in-stores before so when I saw this one recently at Target, I knew I had to buy it.  I like the Metroid games pretty well even if they are not among my absolute favorites but I love the character design of Samus.  She is perfect for figures because Samus is sleek and has that cool metallic armor.  Since World of Nintendo is a budget line, I was also curious how good the actual figure would be.  Articulation is usually not the strongest part of World of Nintendo and obviously, Samus is the kind of character where you really want that.  With that said, let’s take a closer look at Phazon Suit Samus!

Box – It is nice to be able to discuss a new art style on the packaging and overall, Jakks did a good job with Metroid.  It is a simple design but the color looks kind of sci-fi/technological and the image looks to be from Metroid Prime which while a bit old now is pretty much the last hit in this series so it is understandable.  I like this packaging overall and I think it looks good unopened if you prefer to keep your figures that way.

Paint – Something I was curious about was how good the paint would like in-hand and I’m happy to say it is pretty nice!  The silver metallic parts have a nice coat that shines the way it should.  The glossy black paint on most of the rest of the figure also looks fantastic.  While this is not the iconic color scheme we know and love, it still looks great and is well done.  There are a few scuffs and uneven paint applications on the figure (though thankfully they’re on the back which you can see in the picture above and on the morph ball) but that was still disappointing as these kinds of issues really stand out on a paint scheme like this.

Articulation – So now onto the big question how poseable is this figure?  Well it is not bad and I got a couple of nice poses as you can see above and below but I think there are some definitely limitations too.  One big issue is that Samus has long and thin legs which make it hard to balance this figure and put it in more exciting poses.  Also, without things like a wrist pivot or an ankle swivel, there are limits to what you can do.  For example, it is hard to make it look like Samus is using the technology on her gun like she often does in the games.  It is also hard to make it look fully convincing that she is about to blast an enemy.  Even a kneeling pose, while decent, is just not quite as good as a more expensive figure can offer.  If you want to a flexible figure that can chieve more accurate poses, I would definitely recommend Figma instead but for a budget price, you’re getting a fairly nice figure here.

Accessory – While there are a couple of cool ideas that Jakks Pacific could have done including a “blast effect” on the end of Samus’s gun, getting a Morph Ball definitely seems cool in the packaging.  The paint looks good on the morph ball other than a major scuff/uneven place as I mentioned before.  The biggest issue is the ball rolls easily and is hard to keep still and it doesn’t have much use with the figure unless you use your imagination (which yes, was obviously the point but for collectors, this is not too exciting).  The accessories in World of Nintendo can be useful sometimes and sometimes they are not and this one is falls into the not that useful category.  I don’t consider that to be a major downside but it is good to keep in mind if you’re thinking about buying this figure.

Closing Thoughts – Overall, this is a good figure but not quite as amazing as Metroid fans might hope.  It has decent articulation and a pretty nice paint job.  I think there are definitely areas where it could be improved and it is hard to stand up in more elaborate poses but if you want a cheaper Samus and are able to find what seems to be fairly rare figures, I think you’ll most likely enjoy this one.  Metroid fans certainly deserve to have nice things and we should thank Jakks for giving us a bit more than Nintendo has lately!