ROLL CASKETT (4 INCH-NEL), INC. AMIAMI EXCLUSIVE VER.
| Title: | Roll Caskett (including AmiAmi Exclusive Ver.) |
| Manufacturer: | Sentinel (SEN-TI-NEL) |
| Toy Line: | 4 Inch-Nel Collectible Action Figure |
| Release Date: | JP: 2018/12/28 |
| Series of Origin: |
JP: Rockman DASH EN: Megaman Legends |
| Made in: | China |
| Method of purchase: (for review) |
Pre-orders via Amazon JP |
| Written By: | HF |
| Publish Date: | 2019/01/13 |
| Last Updated: | 2019/01/13 |
As mentioned previously in the Rock Volnutt 4 Inch-Nel review a while ago, the DASH series never really had the same merchandise treatment as its other entries such as the Battle Network or X series. Specifically, what I meant was the same mainstream treatment especially in the West (considering how almost anything gets the Gashapon mini figure treatment). Thankfully for DASH fans, their merchandise seems to be making a comeback of sorts now that manufacturers such as Sentinel have started on figures and other collectibles for the Rockman franchise as a whole.
Unlike other 4 Inch-Nels up to now, the Roll action figure comes in 2 versions: A standard one, and an "AmiAmi Exclusive Ver." which features a hatless Roll and a Data prop. Despite the latter being a seemingly exclusive version, both of them feature accessories which are exclusive, meaning both have to be purchased to get the most of them. First impressions were not so great already, not just because of needing to get both to not miss out on it but the fact that this pair of figures are already roughly double in price each compared to other Rockman 4 Inch-Nel up to this point. Though something similar was done with a special Netto Hikari scale figure (or what it effectively is) which includes more parts for the Rockman EXE 4 Inch-Nel, the similarities between both versions with what's basically a head swap ultimately more or less comes off as a money grab. Looks like this Roll's not satisfied going after your money in-game, and is now after your wallet in real life.
The Roll Caskett 4 Inch-Nel was announced at WonderFes 2018 (Feb. 2018), and preorders for both versions went live around early August 2018.
I only pre-purchased the AmiAmi Exclusive version initially out of personal preference (). Though I ultimately decided to get both just in case I missed anything so I could ensure this one is given a fair review, and so I could compare them to similar-styled figures like the long-running Figma toy line by GoodSmileCompany (GSC). Due to similarities between the two, I believe it would be easier to start with the basic figure before going into details about the AmiAmi Exclusive version.
Now that they have arrived and I have looked them both, does the Roll Caskett 4 Inch-Nel justify its high roller price? Let's find out in this review.
Overview
At first glance, this Roll 4 Inch-Nel appears to have a great transition from her DASH 1 concept art to an action figure. Her head and body proportions look on-point given the 4-inch height limitation, and her wide-eyed and sleek appearance has been captured decently including the tiny details on her clothes even up to the tiny seams on the side of white parts of her pants and especially her shoes, which consist cleverly of its own linked angled rotating joint (more on this later). Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed that the movable upper leg part of her pants lacked the side pocket and seams on them since the rest of it seemed like it was intended to be made with them but just stopped halfway for whatever reason.
Much like the rest of the Rockman 4 Inch-Nel lineup, the figure is painted with a whole matte finish. The paint job itself, however, was a little sloppy (at least based on the one I received). It appeared especially poor with the brown and red overlapping where they're not supposed to in some parts, and Roll's blue tights below her pants and above her shoes faded in some parts. Accuracy-wise, the colors are mostly on-point with her underclothes having the darker purple hue to it instead of a cheap-looking blue.
Compared to her predecessors in the 4 Inch-Nel Rockman lineup, the most obvious difference is Roll has far less bulk in her arms and legs resulting in a lot of the "doll joints" being very visible. Perhaps the most jarring part would be the back of her knee joints, which have those large flesh-colored bits instead of having the knee itself being an intermediate joint visible from the front as well (the same approach most Figma action figures go for). I'm probably spoiled by the quality of Figmas but I could understand the approach used this time; though Roll looks great from the front, the huge joint pieces will stick out a lot when viewed from any other angle. On the plus side, the thinner limbs also means a decent amount of natural articulation even without the cleverly designed multi-joints the other 4 Inch-Nels have to get around bulky arms and legs, not to mention that extra seams would look bad especially on parts meant to be skin. Also in contrast to the other 4 Inch-Nels, this Roll action figure does not use the reinforced metal joint pieces but uses complete plastic joints much like GSC's Nendoroids and Figma lineup; considering how Roll doesn't have any armored motif unlike the Rockman characters before her for this lineup, I believe this was for the best.
Roll's torso-to-arm joint consists of a ball-socket joint connected to a rotary joint which is partially covered by a protuding part of her upper arm's shoulder part. Though the idea was clever to minimize the amount of exposure her joints have, the execution wasn't the greatest as her arm parts tend to get loose easily.
Her lower body consists of of quite a bit of space between her crotch and upper leg parts, which themselves are separated by pants and actual leg to allow an extra dimension of rotation. Unlike the upper body, I thought this was done decently though she's still far less flexible compared to Classic Rockman in terms of poseability.
A closer look at her so-so paint job (or so I convince myself that's the case when I took those shots).
A closer look at the upper leg joints. As mentioned above, the upper leg itself consists of 3 parts: the upper pants part, the actual leg itself which fits onto the ball joint, and the end part of the pants which goes in between them to cleverly hide the unnatural-looking joint from plain view.
The feet and shoes have been given quite a bit of detail, using a similar joint system to the upper leg except using a straight joint instead of a ball-socket. As part of the foot itself is an entire rotating joint, this allows a very wide range of articulartion as shown below using the right leg as an example.
Though these are extreme examples, even with Roll's feet angled in such a way still looks considerably natural (at least as much as it could given physical limitations). This of course allows for far more flexible posing and to allow better balance to compensate for the figure's top-heavy design.
Thankfully, Roll is still pretty easy to pose and balance despite her higher center of mass and tiny feet. Though for more complex poses I would recommend posing her in such a way she's leaning on something as shown below.
Roll's neck part consists of dark blue swivel joint connected to a skin-colored ball-socket joint to her head piece, which allows some good poseability. Her head can be turned downwards roughly 70 degrees, and even without rotating the swivel joint her head can be tilted sideways at natural-looking angles.
Much like the other 4 Inch-Nels, Roll comes with an alternate face plate showing her ever-happy expression that can be easily exchanged by removing her hat and swapping out the current face. Just one point to keep in mind is that she has a very tiny piece of hair that goes into her forehead that needs to be taken off and placed in the current face plate.
I'm not sure if it was just an issue with the one I got, but the hat started failing to sit firmly on Roll's head part after a few swaps. Though nothing too serious, the fact it got loose so quickly has be a little concerned with the "playability" of this particular figure especially compared with the way earlier ones are done.
Accessories
In addition to the alternate face plate mentioned above, the Roll 4 Inch-Nel includes a pair of open hands, and one left hand holding a two-sided wrench. Those who are familiar with the first game's visuals may recognize the wrench accessory from one of the promo artwork by Hideki Ishikawa.
What I liked is how the detail to recreate this bit of artwork is all there, ranging from the direction of the top and bottom wrench heads down to being held by Roll's left hand. Sadly, I felt it fell short due to requiring both the normal and AmiAmi figure sets (for the hatless Roll) to fully recreate, further reinforcing the impression that this release is a "two sets for the price of one" setup, intentional or otherwise.
Just like with any other 4 Inch-Nel set, both versions (more on the AmiAmi one below) come with a standard transparent stand and support arm for posing.
AmiAmi Exclusive Ver.
The so-called "AmiAmi Exclusive Ver." is an alternate release of the Roll 4 Inch-Nel, which features a hatless version of Roll's head parts, a different alternate face plate and a Data mini figure accessory in place of the left hand and wrench combination. Otherwise both the original and AmiAmi Exclusive action figures are more or less identical, meaning those on a tight budget can pick one or the other without having to worry about technical differences beyond what's already presented up front.
As mentioned at the beginning of the review, I originally opted-in for just the AmiAmi Exclusive for the hatless look. With these pictures, I guess it is hard not to see why; I do like how the lack of hat puts more focus on her cute face.
The alternate face plate that comes with the AmiAmi Exclusive Ver. is different, instead featuring a playful "winky face". Without a hat, the exchanging process for the AmiAmi version is slightly more simple. The face plate can be swapped out by removing the hair part outwards and then placing it on the new face plate.
Did I already mention the "winky face" looks great in photo shots?
Also, since the indent in the face plates are identical to the ones that came with the original release, they can be swapped among each other as shown below.
Data is the robotic dancing monkey who serves as Rock's walking save point (and starter of house fires), and is included exclusively with this AmiAmi release. Data's head can be rotated horizontally (and even taken off). However, I got my hopes up and turns out this Data prop is unfortunately is a bare-bones prop that doesn't feature anything else.
In fact, I had a few troubles with keeping the head to stay attached as Roll demonstrates below.
These criticisms aside, I still enjoyed what the AmiAmi Exclusive Ver. has to offer in terms of visuals.
Conclusions I'll get the obvious criticism out of the way first: Much like some of the people who were looking forward to this, I did not like how what could have easily been one action figure kit been sold as 2 separate sets, with each one being almost double in price compared to other Rockman 4 Inch-Nels upon initial release. While I do like the idea of DASH series merchandise getting more availability such as toy lineups such as these, I was disappointed at the so-so quality and poor relative value, especially when compared to similar-sized action figures such as GSC's popular Figma lineup which are often much nicer in quality (featuring a mix of hard and soft materials such as for capes and frilly clothing) and also frequently provide a bunch of accessories specific to the character as opposed to selling them separately. Taking an example from GSC's Nendoroid lineup, I would have preferred to see a "DX Edition" for this release of Roll instead which includes all the parts at a slight price bump instead of having to buy two sets only to end up having two of the same main body.
Quality-wise, both figures showed somewhat sloppy painting here and there. I would have accepted some poor paint jobs here and there, but some of the painting errors unfortunately stand out quite a bit, especially when it comes to parts like belt details or the clothing seams. I know these are tiny detailed parts, but for this price I was expecting a much better paint job.
On the plus side, the Roll 4 Inch-Nels are nicely poseable, with plenty of flexibility that mostly matches the rest of its lineup, making them go well with the rest of the 4-Inch Nel lineup when posed together. Interestingly, a quick height comparison (as shown below, perspective making it look like Roll has an unfair advantage notwithstanding) shows that Roll is indeed a bit taller than Rock. Whether this is deliberate and part of the design or just a by-product of 4 Inch-Nel scaling is yet to be known.
That aside, being the only recent existing set that features Rock & Roll, they do go well posed together and quite a bit of fun can still be had with them. Optional comedic domestic violence and all.
My final thoughts on the 4 Inch-Nel Roll action figures is that it isn't bad, and goes well in any action figure collection. Unfortunately unlike the weapons she creates for you in-game, it certainly pales in terms of value and that was what I was most disappointed with.
While this review may come off as being unusually or even unfairly critical, this is mostly because it's a product by Sentinel. I had high expectations of it not only because is it a pricier action figure, but because they have done such a good job with previous releases that I was hoping they would outdo themselves once again; unfortunately as this review has pointed out several times, this was not the case.
Though I would still recommend either one to DASH fans, for those who are on a budget I could only recommend getting one or the other.
What I liked:
Purchase Links
Gallery
At first glance, this Roll 4 Inch-Nel appears to have a great transition from her DASH 1 concept art to an action figure. Her head and body proportions look on-point given the 4-inch height limitation, and her wide-eyed and sleek appearance has been captured decently including the tiny details on her clothes even up to the tiny seams on the side of white parts of her pants and especially her shoes, which consist cleverly of its own linked angled rotating joint (more on this later). Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed that the movable upper leg part of her pants lacked the side pocket and seams on them since the rest of it seemed like it was intended to be made with them but just stopped halfway for whatever reason.
Much like the rest of the Rockman 4 Inch-Nel lineup, the figure is painted with a whole matte finish. The paint job itself, however, was a little sloppy (at least based on the one I received). It appeared especially poor with the brown and red overlapping where they're not supposed to in some parts, and Roll's blue tights below her pants and above her shoes faded in some parts. Accuracy-wise, the colors are mostly on-point with her underclothes having the darker purple hue to it instead of a cheap-looking blue.
Compared to her predecessors in the 4 Inch-Nel Rockman lineup, the most obvious difference is Roll has far less bulk in her arms and legs resulting in a lot of the "doll joints" being very visible. Perhaps the most jarring part would be the back of her knee joints, which have those large flesh-colored bits instead of having the knee itself being an intermediate joint visible from the front as well (the same approach most Figma action figures go for). I'm probably spoiled by the quality of Figmas but I could understand the approach used this time; though Roll looks great from the front, the huge joint pieces will stick out a lot when viewed from any other angle. On the plus side, the thinner limbs also means a decent amount of natural articulation even without the cleverly designed multi-joints the other 4 Inch-Nels have to get around bulky arms and legs, not to mention that extra seams would look bad especially on parts meant to be skin. Also in contrast to the other 4 Inch-Nels, this Roll action figure does not use the reinforced metal joint pieces but uses complete plastic joints much like GSC's Nendoroids and Figma lineup; considering how Roll doesn't have any armored motif unlike the Rockman characters before her for this lineup, I believe this was for the best.
Roll's torso-to-arm joint consists of a ball-socket joint connected to a rotary joint which is partially covered by a protuding part of her upper arm's shoulder part. Though the idea was clever to minimize the amount of exposure her joints have, the execution wasn't the greatest as her arm parts tend to get loose easily.
Her lower body consists of of quite a bit of space between her crotch and upper leg parts, which themselves are separated by pants and actual leg to allow an extra dimension of rotation. Unlike the upper body, I thought this was done decently though she's still far less flexible compared to Classic Rockman in terms of poseability.
A closer look at her so-so paint job (or so I convince myself that's the case when I took those shots).
A closer look at the upper leg joints. As mentioned above, the upper leg itself consists of 3 parts: the upper pants part, the actual leg itself which fits onto the ball joint, and the end part of the pants which goes in between them to cleverly hide the unnatural-looking joint from plain view.
The feet and shoes have been given quite a bit of detail, using a similar joint system to the upper leg except using a straight joint instead of a ball-socket. As part of the foot itself is an entire rotating joint, this allows a very wide range of articulartion as shown below using the right leg as an example.
Though these are extreme examples, even with Roll's feet angled in such a way still looks considerably natural (at least as much as it could given physical limitations). This of course allows for far more flexible posing and to allow better balance to compensate for the figure's top-heavy design.
Thankfully, Roll is still pretty easy to pose and balance despite her higher center of mass and tiny feet. Though for more complex poses I would recommend posing her in such a way she's leaning on something as shown below.
Roll's neck part consists of dark blue swivel joint connected to a skin-colored ball-socket joint to her head piece, which allows some good poseability. Her head can be turned downwards roughly 70 degrees, and even without rotating the swivel joint her head can be tilted sideways at natural-looking angles.
Much like the other 4 Inch-Nels, Roll comes with an alternate face plate showing her ever-happy expression that can be easily exchanged by removing her hat and swapping out the current face. Just one point to keep in mind is that she has a very tiny piece of hair that goes into her forehead that needs to be taken off and placed in the current face plate.
I'm not sure if it was just an issue with the one I got, but the hat started failing to sit firmly on Roll's head part after a few swaps. Though nothing too serious, the fact it got loose so quickly has be a little concerned with the "playability" of this particular figure especially compared with the way earlier ones are done.
Accessories
In addition to the alternate face plate mentioned above, the Roll 4 Inch-Nel includes a pair of open hands, and one left hand holding a two-sided wrench. Those who are familiar with the first game's visuals may recognize the wrench accessory from one of the promo artwork by Hideki Ishikawa.
What I liked is how the detail to recreate this bit of artwork is all there, ranging from the direction of the top and bottom wrench heads down to being held by Roll's left hand. Sadly, I felt it fell short due to requiring both the normal and AmiAmi figure sets (for the hatless Roll) to fully recreate, further reinforcing the impression that this release is a "two sets for the price of one" setup, intentional or otherwise.
Just like with any other 4 Inch-Nel set, both versions (more on the AmiAmi one below) come with a standard transparent stand and support arm for posing.
AmiAmi Exclusive Ver.
The so-called "AmiAmi Exclusive Ver." is an alternate release of the Roll 4 Inch-Nel, which features a hatless version of Roll's head parts, a different alternate face plate and a Data mini figure accessory in place of the left hand and wrench combination. Otherwise both the original and AmiAmi Exclusive action figures are more or less identical, meaning those on a tight budget can pick one or the other without having to worry about technical differences beyond what's already presented up front.
As mentioned at the beginning of the review, I originally opted-in for just the AmiAmi Exclusive for the hatless look. With these pictures, I guess it is hard not to see why; I do like how the lack of hat puts more focus on her cute face.
The alternate face plate that comes with the AmiAmi Exclusive Ver. is different, instead featuring a playful "winky face". Without a hat, the exchanging process for the AmiAmi version is slightly more simple. The face plate can be swapped out by removing the hair part outwards and then placing it on the new face plate.
Did I already mention the "winky face" looks great in photo shots?
Also, since the indent in the face plates are identical to the ones that came with the original release, they can be swapped among each other as shown below.
Data is the robotic dancing monkey who serves as Rock's walking save point (and starter of house fires), and is included exclusively with this AmiAmi release. Data's head can be rotated horizontally (and even taken off). However, I got my hopes up and turns out this Data prop is unfortunately is a bare-bones prop that doesn't feature anything else.
In fact, I had a few troubles with keeping the head to stay attached as Roll demonstrates below.
These criticisms aside, I still enjoyed what the AmiAmi Exclusive Ver. has to offer in terms of visuals.
Conclusions I'll get the obvious criticism out of the way first: Much like some of the people who were looking forward to this, I did not like how what could have easily been one action figure kit been sold as 2 separate sets, with each one being almost double in price compared to other Rockman 4 Inch-Nels upon initial release. While I do like the idea of DASH series merchandise getting more availability such as toy lineups such as these, I was disappointed at the so-so quality and poor relative value, especially when compared to similar-sized action figures such as GSC's popular Figma lineup which are often much nicer in quality (featuring a mix of hard and soft materials such as for capes and frilly clothing) and also frequently provide a bunch of accessories specific to the character as opposed to selling them separately. Taking an example from GSC's Nendoroid lineup, I would have preferred to see a "DX Edition" for this release of Roll instead which includes all the parts at a slight price bump instead of having to buy two sets only to end up having two of the same main body.
Quality-wise, both figures showed somewhat sloppy painting here and there. I would have accepted some poor paint jobs here and there, but some of the painting errors unfortunately stand out quite a bit, especially when it comes to parts like belt details or the clothing seams. I know these are tiny detailed parts, but for this price I was expecting a much better paint job.
On the plus side, the Roll 4 Inch-Nels are nicely poseable, with plenty of flexibility that mostly matches the rest of its lineup, making them go well with the rest of the 4-Inch Nel lineup when posed together. Interestingly, a quick height comparison (as shown below, perspective making it look like Roll has an unfair advantage notwithstanding) shows that Roll is indeed a bit taller than Rock. Whether this is deliberate and part of the design or just a by-product of 4 Inch-Nel scaling is yet to be known.
That aside, being the only recent existing set that features Rock & Roll, they do go well posed together and quite a bit of fun can still be had with them. Optional comedic domestic violence and all.
My final thoughts on the 4 Inch-Nel Roll action figures is that it isn't bad, and goes well in any action figure collection. Unfortunately unlike the weapons she creates for you in-game, it certainly pales in terms of value and that was what I was most disappointed with.
While this review may come off as being unusually or even unfairly critical, this is mostly because it's a product by Sentinel. I had high expectations of it not only because is it a pricier action figure, but because they have done such a good job with previous releases that I was hoping they would outdo themselves once again; unfortunately as this review has pointed out several times, this was not the case.
Though I would still recommend either one to DASH fans, for those who are on a budget I could only recommend getting one or the other.
What I liked:
- Nice attention to detail, especially for accessories that allow recreation of poses in official artwork
- Proportions and facial expressions recreated from RMD1 artwork nicely
- Great amount of articulation; highly flexible, allowing for great poseability
- Can be posed decently without need for support stand despite being a top-heavy figure
- Very expensive, almost double in price for each compared to others in its lineup (for almost 4x cost if both are bought)
- Paint is sloppy in high-detailed places such as belts and clothing
- Awkwardly large joint parts where knees belong
- Somewhat obvious seams along legs
- Lack of "Deluxe Version" which includes all accessories (something GSC has done for their toy lineups)
- [AmiAmi Exclusive Ver.] Data prop lacks articulation where some could be easily added (e.g. ball joint on foot and hand pieces)
Purchase Links
- Amazon JP (Normal Ver.)
- Amazon JP (AmiAmi Exclusive Ver.)
- AmiAmi (Normal Ver.)
- AmiAmi (AmiAmi Exclusive Ver.)
Gallery