We took a look at Vertex’s Archeyle almost four years ago, and today we’ll be looking at Cecil, the latest in their series of Elf Village figures. I liked Archeyle’s design but I felt that the execution left something to be desired. From what I can tell, this is a common sentiment regarding Vertex’s figures and it’s one of the reasons I haven’t reviewed very many of them. Laziness, of course, is the main reason. At any rate, here’s Cecil.
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Happy Christmas everybody. We’ve seen a few figures from massively-multiplayer online RPGs, primarily from the Lineage series, but today we’ll be looking at a figure from the Mu series. Mu Online was originally released in 2001, making it one of the first MMOs to be released after EverQuest, the defining game of the genre. Some years later, Webzen released the mobile games Mu Origin and Mu Origin 2. I’m not actually certain which game this character comes from; Japanese stores say Mu Online, American stores say Mu Origin, and the box simply says Mu. I’m inclined to think that she comes from Mu Origin 2 as her design matches some of the concept art, but being that I know virtually nothing of this series apart from having bought a few Mu comic books about fifteen years ago, it’s hard to tell for certain.
Speaking of MMOs, I’ve been playing World of Warcraft as my primary game for the last eight years but I think I’m close to throwing in the towel; Shadowlands isn’t really appealing to me and I’m not enthused by Blizzard’s current game design philosophies. These days, I’m mostly playing Epic Seven and I’m enjoying it quite a bit more than Warcraft.
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Archeyle isn’t the first, nor the second or third, Vertex figure I’ve purchased but somehow it’s the first one to be reviewed here. Oddly, it’s also one of two half-naked blonde elf girl figures to be released at the end of July. You really can’t go wrong with happy, thong-wearing blonde elf archer girls … can you?
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It’s not uncommon for figures to get delayed, but some delays are just inexplicable. Like Xecty’s, for instance. I ordered her last summer during Hobby Search’s EMS shipping discount sale. And then I waited. And waited. I mean, this is a swimsuit figure, it’s not like they haven’t made them before. I guess the factories must have been too busy rolling out nendoroids and Figmas.
With some things – like the novel A Dance With Dragons – my enthusiasm is undimmed by delays. And with other things – like Starcraft II – I find myself not caring at all when they finally get released. Xecty falls in the second category – when Hobby Search sent me her bill, I was like, “Aww man, I ordered this?” I left her in her box until a few days ago and needing something to review, decided to take her out. I was a bit conflicted on how I feel about her, but seeing her now, she’s a nice figure. Special? No way. But nice, yeah, I can agree with that.
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You know, character introductions can be really tough for me to write sometimes, especially when I don’t know jack about a character’s background. When I do, it’s pretty easy, but for a character like Elwing here, I don’t really know anything about her and I’ll sit in front of the keyboard trying to come up with something witty to write, but in this case, I want to go back to playing video games and admiring my new pillowcase, so I’m just going to say that I like Tony Taka’s art, I like big figures, I like cheap figures, and I like figures where the subject isn’t wearing many clothes. Put all those together and you’ve got my attention, and that’s why I have Elwing.
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Being someone who dislikes world PVP combat in MMO games, I didn’t have much interest in playing Lineage II when it first came out. However, I loved the character designs, particularly the female dark elves, and eventually I gave it a shot. I liked my dark elf fighter’s starting costume very much, but even that wasn’t enough to overcome the monotony of the gameplay and I called it quits after my free one-month trial period.
I still like the character designs though, and I’m glad to see several figure manufacturers bringing sculpts bearing their likenesses to market. Orchid Seed is the latest to do so, and here we have the elf. No name, no character class, just Elf – although one can infer from her staff that she is some sort of finger-waggling, babble-chanting spell-flinger, as these sorts of conventions are eternal in this genre.
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