In the next few weeks I have some VERY exciting things to show here on DoomKick, the specifics of which I can’t speak about quite yet. The first of the things I am super excited to be showing is these Beast Saga figures from Takara. Bringing Battle Beast into the modern age has been a dream of many collectors for years, and after the waste of license that is the Minimates Battle Beasts its good to see Takara step up to the plate with some actual awesome product. Let’s take a look at Beast Saga.

Battle Beasts was one of my favorite lines when I was a kid, the combo of armor, animals, and weapons is just way too incredible to not like. Many collectors have a strong love of the property (as evidenced by the hype surrounding the Armorvor from Glyos) so when Minimates announced that they had secured the license many people (myself included) let out a groan of displeasure. The fears about Battle Beast being Minimates it turns out were pretty warranted, after years of having the license and only a few figures squeaking out they are set for a December release, but they (in my opinion) just don’t look good and stray pretty far from the originals as far as the look of the figures go. When the first images of Beast Saga appeared online I was ecstatic, they looked just like the Battle Beasts I knew and loved and even had symbols in their chest. As soon as they were up for Pre order on BigBadToyStore I put in my order for the bat and bird figures as well as 5 blind boxes. They arrived just the other day so I hustled this review out as soon as possible.

Beast Saga comes in several forms, you have the single carded figures which come in a blister package on a card, the starter sets (based off of Land, Sky, and Sea) that come with 3 different figures, and the blind boxes that appear to be all translucent  versions of the figures. The blind boxes are the same size as the single cards, but they are totally closed off so you can’t see what your are getting and even the stuff inside is in black plastic bags. Out of my 5 blind boxes I got two doubles (the lion and Shark in translucent plastic) which I quickly traded to a friend for some Glyans.

These toys are awesome! They are made out of a rubbery type of material, but it’s just hard enough to be great. There is some kind of game you can play with dice that shoot out of their chests, but being all in Japanese I’m not really sure how you play it. The dice shooting aspect was something I was worried about, but it is handled well you can push the dice into the figures chest and the back of the figure extends to make a lever to push the dice out. If you don’t care for the lever you can leave their chest empty with a clear window in it, but I really like the symbols on the dice. Each figure comes with a dice colored to their faction with their personal symbol on it, and another dice that I honestly couldn’t tell you what it is for. The symbols are a great touch that really harkens back to the Battle Beasts, and they all look neat. Of particular note is the symbol for the bat, it (to be useful when the bat is hanging upside down) looks different depending on if its facing up or down, facing up it looks like a small bat, but facing down it looks like it is the face of a bat which is really neat. Having two bat figures (and seeing as they can’t really hang upside down) I will be displaying one of each on my bat figures. Another neat feature is that both the arms and legs of the figures can be popped (with the help a single peg) onto any Glyos figure which really opens up the play aspect, and can make the Armorvor look pretty nifty.

Paint on the two painted figures I received is great with no slop or imperfections anyplace, these figures really do look awesome. The translucent figures are also very cool in that instead of being one color of translucent, their skin and armor is different translucent colors which really helps them look bad ass. Out of all the figures I got the only real QC related issue I came across is the weapons are a little too gummy for my tastes, but this is a very minor issue in an otherwise amazing line of toys. The Sculpts on each figure are also pretty fantastic, with tons of details crammed into such a small figure. One of my favorites is the ripped up sails hanging off of the shark, but each figure is loaded with detail.

Each Beast Saga figures comes with a weapon of some type, shield,  the two dice I mentioned before, and a trading card filled with what I assume (again all in Japanese) stats and a cool picture of the figure on the front.

Beast Saga figures are articulated just like the vintage Battle Beasts, arms and legs move up and down and that is all. Some people may wish for better articulation, but I think what they have works just fine and really keeps the spirit of Battle Beasts alive and well in our hearts and minds.

Overall I am really very happy with the Beast Saga figures, and I want to order a bunch more. I am holding off on this until after NYCC hoping someone there (or maybe Toy Tokyo) will have them on sale, but if they don’t I will certainly be ordering some more when I get back. If you want some Beast Saga figures of your own you can order them right now on BigBadToyStore, and they even have some of the new series up for pre order coming in the next few months. Rest assured you will be seeing a lot more of these guys on DK in the future.