One of the most highly anticipated San Diego Comic-Con exclusives this year was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Retro Video Game figures from NECA Toys. The classic 1989 arcade video game allowed up to 4 players to control the Turtles as they fight Foot Soldiers, MOUSERS, Rock Soldiers, and other foes including Rocksteady and Bebop in the streets of New York.
These box sets were only available to attendees at San Diego Comic-Con and you had the option to pre-order it in advance for pick-up only. No online sales that offered shipping were available, making these sets one of the rarest and must-have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys in the franchises history.
If you were able to pick these up at the show, you would know that these had a $100 price point each, and during the show they jumped up to $400 for the pair on eBay.com as there were some looking to take advantage of the limited availability of these sets. It looks like now prices are started to come down a bit from Comicon, so you might want to jump on that.
The good news is that NECA will keep trying to get these into the hands of a more wider audience, so there is a little hope that you will eventually have these either at brick and mortar or some other way these will be distributed. If that happens, these will likely be repaints of these with different deco to keep these exclusive the way that they were meant to be. The deco could be anything, black and white, no 8-bit pixelated deco, etc. But that is only our assumption and not to be taken literally.
Availability: July 20th-24th San Diego Comic-Con 2016
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 6″ classic arcade game figures are painted with the 8-bit pixelated deco as seen in the game. There are two sets being offered – the Turtles, and Shredder with three differently painted Foot Soldiers that come with their own weapons. The Turtles are painted in a tangy lime green. Shredder is painted in a light and dark purple shading, grey, and black. The Foot Soldiers are painted in orange, purple, grey, and black being shown on all three. The deco features block shading, that depicts the likeness of the Turtles and villains as seen on the screen of the video game. The deco is very nicely executed, and if you are familiar with NECA’s 8-bit video game figure line, you will know what to expect here. What sets these figure shading apart, is that in the game the Turtles and villains use brighter colors in the front, and darker colors in the back, and these figures are great representation of the side-scrolling as seen in the game. The deco also makes the figures look like they have depth, which does trick the eye a little if you turn them sideways.
The Turtles are given a smooth sculpt with a 80’s style animated look to the distinguish their likeness. Shredder and the Foot Soldiers are actually cancelled prototypes from 2008, and the sculpts fit into the video game style very well with the pixelated deco. Each of the Turtles share the same sculpt with different facial expressions, belt buckles, and their own unique colored bandana’s and accessories. Michelangelo’s expression is a half-gritted head, Donatello has the closed mouth, Leonardo has double gritted teeth, and Raphael has a half-gritted expression on the opposite side of Mikey’s. The facial expressions bring out their unique personalities as seen in the animated series. The articulation is not hampered by their shells, which allows them to have a more wide range of motion.
Each of the Turtles have a ball jointed neck with a hinged neck, ball-hinged shoulders, swivel-hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel-hinged wrists, ball jointed hips, double hinged knee joints, swivel-rocker ankles. Leonardo and Raphael’s hands feature upward and downward hinges, and Michelangelo and Donatello feature the standard side-to-side hinges, as do the Foot and Shredder. This is an extra bonus that works very well with their particular weapons.
Shredder and The Foot Soldiers also feature a great animated sculpt that also depicts the video game likeness. Shredder is the only figure in the set to have his own unique sculpt, as the Foot Soldiers share the same body and painted in different colors. The Foot Soliders have rubbery skirts, which allows their legs to move more freely. They also share all of the articulation as the Turtles, with added hinged ankles and toe joints.
In addition, each of the Turtles, Shredder, and the Foot Soldiers include extra hand sculpts. Each Foot includes a set of grabbing hands to hold their accessories, as well as a pair of fists. Shredder includes the same option of interchangeable hands.
The Turtles have a set of weapon-holding hands, and an extra set of hands that include thumbs up, open handed, and different weapon holding hand sculpts/ Raphael’s extra hands allow him to hold the sais inside the hands as seen on the animated series.
Each of the Turtles includes their iconic weapons, with Michelangelo also including a spin-effect nunchuck and a box of pizza. Shredder includes a sword and throwing star. The Foot Soldiers include a pair of swords, a shorter blade, a naginata, a stick of dynamite, a gigantic mallet, and a rifle that probably shoots a laser weapon.
Overall:
There is a lot to love about these sets as they are never before offered versions of the 1980’s Turtles. Both the Turtles and villain sets are excellent figures with superb sculpting, deco, accessories, articulation, and detail. These are great figures by NECA and should be added to your collections. Hopefully, NECA will find a way to get these into the hands of everybody that wants them, but right now there is no news to share.
Highly Recommended.
Purchase:
