Storm Collectibles Ultra Street Fighter 2 Zangief

It takes Storm Collectibles seemingly ages to release any figures from their Ultra Street Fighter 2 series, so any eventual release is an absolute must-buy for me. They teases both Zangief and Balrog together perhaps almost 2 years ago now, and Zangief finally released earlier this year. There's still no sight of a Balrog prototype, let alone an actual release, so fans like me will just have to keep waiting.

But as always, the wait is typically worth it. This Zangief release is fantastic! Click the link below to watch my full review over on the Kool Kollectibles YouTube channel. Remember to subscribe to stay tuned for upcoming reviews! 😀 

For those collecting the USF2 series, the contents will be familiar. I love the classic backdrop, which does seem to use a slightly sturdier card stock this time which avoids the creases. The special move accessories are also nicely done, in either the transluscent orange for his Double Lariat, or the green for his Banishing Flat.

I typically don't use those accessories in my display cabinet, but luckily they include a raft of swap out hands and head sculpts to give plenty of posing options. Unique to the USF2 series is the loser head sculpt, which I love. The various snarling and screaming sculpts also bring out the real character in Zangief too.

The figure itself is nicely made. Mine did not have too many paint blemishes, and the overall skin tone is pretty consistent across all aspects of the figure. The use of softer plastic in the torso is similar to the previous figures, and allows for great articulation in the shoulders too.

The waist and hip joints are a little squeaky, but not so tight that I thought something was going to be damaged. The softer plastic in the underwear does get caught a little at the leg join, but that can be futzed to either remove the folds or hide gaps.

All the other points of articulation work as well as they always have in this series. So there are plenty of options to get him into his iconic wrestling and super moves. Posed up with the other characters from the series (barring E.Honda who is from SF5), he complements the cast very well. The scale is great, being of the right bulkiness and a height just a bit shorter than Sagat. And that classic gaming style and paint app just gives me all that arcade gaming nostalgic goodness!

As I mentioned before, the USF2 series does great with the loser head sculpts. I realised I'd never actually posed all of them beaten up that way, so here they all are after a beating from Chun-Li! 😂

This series so far has been fantastic, and I really do hope Storm gives a bit of focus to at least get Chun-Li a variant in this series, as well as Balrog and M.Bison. In fact, it would be so great if they could just do the original core cast! But in the mean time, we'll all just have to wait and enjoy what we have so far.