Charlize from Lineage II: Revolution

As Hemingway wrote, my descent toward becoming a degenerate mobile gamer occurred in two ways: gradually and then suddenly. For much of the last thirteen years, I’ve spent most of my gaming time playing World of Warcraft, to the complete detriment of other games as well as the updating of this site. However, I’ve since acquired a distaste for both the game and its creators, fueled partially because of the deteriorating quality of the game and also by the recent revelations regarding the conduct of Blizzard’s employees. It’s difficult to remain sanguine about a pack of men whose behavioral maturation process can be traced in a direct line from the crib to the frat house.

I began playing Azur Lane during its global launch in August 2018 as sort of a respite from my grievances with Warcraft’s gameplay systems, and I started playing Epic Seven a year later for much the same reason. Both games gradually eroded my enthusiasm for playing Warcraft and consumed more of my gaming time over the successive years. When Shadowlands launched late last year, I felt that it was time to throw in the towel; it’s now been ten months since I played World of Warcraft and I feel much the better for it. Epic Seven is my primary game now, and those who are familiar with it know that it carries with it its own rage-inducing idiosyncrasies, but as yet I find myself unable to muster the same level of negativity towards it, even during its worst moments, as I felt for much of the last few years I spent playing Warcraft.

This discursive diatribe actually has some bearing on the content of this site. Some of my favorite figures are ones from relatively obscure visual novels and eroge. That’s due primarily due to the distinctive and attractive visual designs of their characters, and I think many mobile games – particularly gacha games – appeal to the same sensibility. Certainly it’s a major reason why I play both Azur Lane and Epic Seven, and it’s why I’m curious about similar games such as Arknights and Counter Side.

All of this is to say that I’m buying a lot of figures of characters from mobile games and I’ll be featuring a lot of them here. This particular figure is from the game Lineage II: Revolution; I don’t think it’s a gacha game, but like the original Lineage II, it does have attractive character designs.

I should note that this is an unlicensed figure, produced by those enterprising minds at E2046 as part of their ORI line, and her name is, as far as I can tell, totally made up. She stands about 23 centimeters in height, making her around 1/7 scale in size.

I recall taking a look at Lineage II: Revolution years ago; I noticed that the character models were censored in the global version of the game and that was the end of my interest in that game. However, I think it’s safe to assume that Charlize is an elf and serves as a tank of some sort. Some brief research indicates that she may be an Eva’s Saint, which I assume is a tanky class.

As is typical of Lineage II’s character designs – and a great many other games in the mobile genre – Charlize isn’t wearing very much. In her case, she’s wearing an armored leotard with conspicuous gaps in the front and back. The skimpiness of her armor is only slightly offset by her oversized shoulderplates. For a hand-painted figure with a relatively low production run, the detail on her outfit is pretty good, with gold accents reminiscent of filigree raised atop the steel-colored base.

Her face isn’t particularly evocative; she’s got a very neutral expression, with sort of a doll-like smile. Close up – and I mean really close up – her relaxed gaze becomes a little disturbing if you stare into her eyes. Nonetheless, her expression looks fine from a normal viewing distance.

Her sword also looks pretty nice, with a sunburst motif comprising the hilt. The elaborate weapon style is typical of these sorts of games and it’s one of the reasons I like them.

She also has a shield, which is something of a rare thing with figures; I can think of a great many characters from anime-style games who wield a wide variety of weapons but not many who carry shields into battle.

And she has the requisite high heels, a style that has fallen badly out of fashion in Western game design but is still quite popular in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese games of this sort. An interesting note is that her boots are only knee-high rather than thigh-high, and while I usually prefer the taller style of boot for these sorts of characters, Charlize does have nice thighs.

I certainly would not pretend that this is the finest figure in my collection but I do like it a lot, chiefly because I like the aesthetic that this figure portrays. I really like Charlize’s design; her armored leotard and sword and shield are all things that appeal to me. I’ll admit that she does not represent a particular novel design – blonde-haired female elf warriors in revealing outfits are not particularly uncommon in this genre – but I think there’s something to be said for executing the concept well and producing a particularly attractive figure, and I do think that’s the case here. She’s not the most novel-looking figure from a mobile game in my collection, but I appreciate her all the same.