I find myself in the unenviable position of reviewing a figure I have already reviewed, so to speak. So we shall mercifully be brief with this one I believe.
6) Storm Shadow:
a) The Packaging: Been there, thrice, seen the movie and bought the t-shirt... moving on.
b) The Figure: Single Carded Storm Shadow is the exact same mold found in the Ninja Showdown set, previously reviewed in this very thread.
The sculpt work, the articulation are all identical to that figure, so we'll just cover what is different with him for this release.
Storm Shadow's paint work is much lighter in tone for the single card release, the white is a softer tone, not as sharp and bright as the Ninja Showdown version.
Instead of the huge Cobra emblem on his chest he has a much smaller one located on his right; the same parts of the Ninja Showdown version painted dark gray/silver are a much lighter gray/silver this time around, and thankfully are not on his mask. The same coloring is used for the parts painted black on Ninja Showdown SS.
There are a few odd paint inconsistencies I failed to notice or mention about the Ninja Showdown SS, some of them which carry over between to two versions, some of which do not.
The pieces of armor for the shin are only painted on the front this time, not all around like on the NS SS, the strap used to hold them on is partially painted clear around the figure, for some odd reason the back piece just under the knee joint is not painted silver.
The pattern on his upper torso, which comes down from just under the large necked collar and frames his chest, does not go all the way down to the lower torso. There are sculpted in details on the uniform which would seem to indicate the silver paint job is meant to continue, but it seems Hasbro opted not to do this.
(I get this would be better explained with pictures, however seeing as how these are text based reviews, and Storm Shadow is predominantley white making it harder to capture close ups of the detailing, you'll probably need to see the figure in person or images online to get what I'm saying/talking about.)
And I promised a short review, heh, heh. Accessory wise Storm Shadow includes two different sized silver blades, with black handles, a back mounted sheath to hold them, more like a holder though since it's a small rectangular piece of plastic and not a typical length of the blade style holder/sheath. And the large kiddy gimmic zipline.
These might not seem like a lot of accessories after getting the PoC Desert Battle Storm Shadow or (if you were lucky to spot it at retail) Renegades SS. However they are serviceable enough for a figure meant to represent the Cobra Ninja.
The zip line is a huge, back mounted item capable of swapping places with the smaller sword holder, it is billed as being a 1.5M zip line, and functions fairly much the same as the Red Ninja Zip Line, although the bulky looking main body of the accessory is definately a tad on the oversized side.
Here's the really fun part though, since NS SS didn't include the small sheath, you can let him hold the Zip Line on his back for display/storage (if you have both) and regular SS can keep the ordinary sword holder on his back. This small rectangular chunk of plastic can hold either Storm Shadow's swords, or some of the accessories included with NS SS which had no storage.
The Kunai fit relatively ok using the blade, or, if you open up the compound bow you can snap it snuggly into place on either side. And of course the spare sword from NS SS can also fit if you prefer, although that sword doesn't seem to look entirely right while inside either of the two slots. So I opted not to let him store it there. This thing should have been included with NS SS, it would have bumped up his grade a little.
Overall, due to the lighter color scheme and the fact that he includes weapon storage, and a fun looking zip line accessory I'm going to have to give Singe Card SS a slightly higher rating. We bump him up to a solid 3.5. While both color schemes are great and do not detract too much from the overall sculpt of the figure, the added weapon storage ability and the fact that his weapon storage can also be used to include some of NS SS's extra weapons if you so choose/happen to own both, allows for the first iteration of Retaliation Storm Shadow to be a solid must buy in my opinion.
Especially if you can find one at Wal-Mart right now, as the one I got him from had marked down Joes to 8$ a piece. Don't know if it is all Wal-Marts, but it's a damn fine deal, I'm half tempted to say that Roadblock is even worth it at that price, but then I remember why Roadblock isn't on my list of figures to pick up.
