A Look Back At The Joyride Studios Sonic Adventure 2 Battle Figures!

[Music] with a franchise as old as Sonic it may sometimes seem like they've done every type of merchandise possible you can think of any sort of product and chances are Sonic's done it in at least some form this is especially the case with Sonic figures as more come out it's becoming harder to make them stand out from each other it's very hard to make an action figure that's different unique yet still appealing one line of action figures that did that very well are the ones made by Joyride Studios a name that should be familiar to many fans of video game merchandise opening in the early 2000s Joyride was a company that dealt with many video game licenses and they produced many high quality figures that still stand the test of time to this day their main line officially titled game Pro and Nintendo Power presents was a line that focused on a variety of franchises most if not all of which were featured in as the name suggests game Pro and Nintendo Power magazines sadly the company didn't stay in business for that long though with that said what they did managed to put out during their short-lived time is quite impressive they went all over the place releasing quality figures for games and franchises such as Super Mario Super Monkey Ball The Legend of Zelda Crazy Taxi and more they also had a very extensive line of halo action figures which existed as its own separate line jerrod studios his line of figures was very prolific at the time as it offered high-quality large-scale figures of a ton of franchises at a cheap affordable price their line was so popular in fact it even had several TV commercials made for it right with the best it casteth reality these are nicely detailed anyway one of the most popular figures they ever released was a set of figures based off of the game Sonic Adventure 2 more specifically the gamecube part of it Sonic Adventure 2 battle this set of three figures were released in both 2002 and 2003 to coincide with the release of essay 2 battle for the Nintendo GameCube this set contains Sonic the Hedgehog Shadow the Hedgehog as well as a special limited edition prototype style and sonic figure in this video we'll be taking a look at this set of figures I'm sure someday I'll cover at least some of the other figures released by Joyride but for now let's stick to the Sonic Adventure 2 figures and with that said welcome to a look back at the joyride Studios Sonic Adventure 2 battle action figures now technically action-figures isn't the most accurate term you could use when describing these if they're actually more akin to bendy figures as their arms and legs have Liars in them allowing you to bend them I'm not exactly sure why Jorah I decided to go with this but it certainly makes them even more unique than they already were and hey the artwork from the adventure games often depicted the characters with bendy noodle like limbs so it totally works anyway this set of figures were released by Joyride in conjunction with GamePro magazine around the release of Sonic Adventure 2 battle as these figures were part of a larger full line they were split up into different waves the sonic figure was released as part of wave 1 and the shadow figure was part of wave 2 the figures were also released as part of later waves but we'll get more into that later one very cool aspect to Joyride figures is that they often didn't make merchandise for general franchises but instead for specific games this figure for example isn't just your average luigi figure but as instead a specifically released Luigi's Mansion figure complete with a ghost the poltergeist 3000 and Luigi's distinct look from the game this is the case with the sonic figures they released being based off of Sonic Adventure 2 the two figures not only were of sonic and Shadow the figures also look like they were taken right out of the game's artwork these are some of the most a game accurate sonic figures out there especially compared to the other offerings at the time their accuracy combined with them being based off of a very popular game coupled with some other details I'll get into later have made these figures some of the most desired Sonic figures of all time let's not waste any more time and get right into it before we begin looking at the figures themselves I'd like to take some time to talk about the boxes these figures came in if the figures came in bubble carded packaging with the front of the bubble having the Sonic Adventure 2 battle and Sega logos above that you can clearly see the figure inside and you can get a great look at them even inside the box you can see the two included extras both of which we'll get more into later the front of the backing has tons of details to it if the top shows the game pro presents logo as both an advert for a special offer that was included with the figures where you can get two free game Pro magazines if you haven't noticed by now the deal between Joyride and game Pro was essentially a cross promotion the figures would promote the magazine and the magazine would promote the figures the that we have some nice character artwork of sonic or shadow as well as text that reads the characters names as well as some more text reading that the figures are from the hit game Sonic Adventure 2 battle other cool details on the front of the backing include the joyride logo which can be seen at the bottom corner the series number so you know what series your figure is from which is towards the top as well as this line that goes along the side of the box that reads bonus Sonic Adventure 2 battle codes tips and tricks collector card obviously this is advertising the included card moving on to the back of the box this is where you can see advertisement for the other figures in the line as well as the other usual stuff you'd expect I really like this image they used on Sonic's box as for whatever reason there's an overlaid faded out screenshot from a Chow race as well as another screenshot below that very strange but very cool below the sonic image we have another image advertising the Super Monkey Ball figures and next to that are the Virtua Fighter 4 figures all of which were part of series 1 at the bottom there's text advertising what other figures will be releasing and at the very bottom there's more info on si to battle now here's where things get incredible see the back of the box is actually a flap which when open reveals a full review of Sonic Adventure 2 battle yeah this is on the box that's so crazy this is actually the GamePro magazine review of si 2 the review is what you'd expect it covers most of what you need to know about the game show screenshots gives fun tips and tricks stuff like that obviously this is a Sonic Adventure 2 figures so the included review isn't going to be too critical or anything but still it's very cool that this is even here you don't see much game specific merchandise nowadays let alone stuff that goes this far to connect itself to the game and for the record the box is for shadow and prototypes sonic also include the review one last thing I want to mention about the boxes before I move on to the figures themselves is this on the prototype Sonic box there's a sticker that tells you it's limited edition being one of only 500 well that's to be expected some non prototype joyride figures have a similar sticker to that as well being advertised as first edition figures basically the first 500 figures made would have that sticker on their box I've never been able to find images of box Sonic or shadow figures with this sticker but I imagine it's likely that the first batches of them did have it I'll mention more about the packaging later but I think it's time we move on to the actual figures starting with Sonic the Hedgehog I'm gonna be pretty straightforward for a moment this joyride sonic figure is one of my favorite sonic figures ever released just one of the start off with that and no it's not just because of the soap shoes though those definitely play a part in me liking it so much this figure is just fantastic and here's why for starters like I said earlier Joyride figures were often extremely game accurate and that's the case with these sonic figures and I'm not meaning they're exactly like the in-game models but rather with the artwork associated with the game many of the details here can be traced back to the key art of Sonic from Sonic Adventure 2 for example one of the few complaints people seem to have with this figure are its eyes as Sonic is looking to the side the insides of his eyes also seem to be a bit misaligned however there is a very obvious reason behind both of these seemingly odd decisions take a look at the iconic art of Sonic from Sonic Adventure 2 specifically these two not only are his eyes to the side here but he's also looking downwards which must be why his irises are positioned the way they are in the figure it's also possible that the figures smirk is taken from this artwork as well the odd-looking eyes aren't you to Joyride messing up it's due to them going the extra mile to be accurate to the artwork whether or not that's a good thing here is up for debate however as I'm sure many people would have preferred to have this figure be looking forwards Sonic's head as a whole is very well done and considering what they had to work with at the time they translated his look into a physical figure very well Sonic's face is all very well proportioned his eyes are expressive it all looks very nice one potential issue with Sonic's face could be his nose the nose itself looks good but as you can see it doesn't look all that secure to the figure so I could see a lot of these figures losing their noses if you aren't careful one thing I have to commend about both the sonic and shadow figures is that most of their details aren't just painted on but rather are sculpted in stuff like Sonic's stomach and the insides of his ears could have easily just been painted on but instead they're detailed in the sculpt which makes the figure look way higher quality Sonic's head all-around looks very good moving on to Sonic's body you can tell them a lot of care went into making the figures proportions very accurate I really like the proportions on these figures I feel like the length of for example the figures arms and legs are basically perfect at least in the context of si - speaking of arms and legs as mentioned earlier they're bendable so you can move them all around though to be fair I actually wouldn't recommend doing that nowadays these aren't the oldest figures out there but they do have some age to them so you have to be careful with them the arms and legs have wires in them which allows them to bend given the figures age I feel it would be really easy to snap the wires effectively ruining the figure and here's the thing once the wire snaps that's it you can't repair this figure like you could one with joints or at least you certainly can't easily you definitely still can bend the figure just be careful with it put too much pressure on them and they'll easily snap I personally usually keep sonic in this neutral standing post while I haven't displayed just to be safe moving on both of Sonic's hands are in fists which is kind of bland especially since the artwork this figure is presumably based off of has his hands and much more expressive poses though then again I suppose posed hands would potentially limit the poses you could put this guy in fists on the other hand are pretty universal and to be fair his hands are very well sculpted each finger is fully individual and defined and his glove cuffs look great as well looking at Sonic's back his back spikes and tail are all there and look great as to be expected also from the back you can see some holes in his arms and legs most likely they're due to the wire inside sonic shoes are what gets brought up the most when talking about this figure there's soap shoes just like how the Sega prized Sonic Adventure 2 sonic plush is the only plush of Sonic with the shoes this is at the time of me making this video at least the only figure out there of Sonic wearing these which is honestly surprising if the thing is Sega still owns the design of these shoes see they're officially called the high speed shoes not soap shoes they could totally still use these and get away with it even if they were initially designed as product placement if any company in the future wants to make an easy sonic variant swap out Sonic's standard Footwear for a pair of bees and you're set for life however if this figure is going to remain as the only soap shoe sonic figure that's not too bad as Joyride absolutely perfected them here check out all the detail on paint that they put on these shoes as they look fantastic and easily warrant the hype this figure receives due to them sure this sonic is great on its own but the shoes are the real selling point here as this is the only Sonic figure with them just for a moment could you imagine an alternate timeline where everything was the same with the only difference being that Sega never signed the deal with soap meaning soap sonic never existed this figure would have had the normal shoes same for the plush yes both of them would still look great but they'd certainly have way less demand anomaly unfortunately as of right now it's unlikely that we'll ever see any future merchandise of Sonic wearing these shoes though that does make this figure unique not to say it wouldn't be without them though compare joyride sonic to any other sonic figure nothing else looks like it the figure could have had Sonic's normal shoes and it still would have been unique and desired the figures sculpt is so accurate so appealing and the bendable joints while somewhat problematic in the long run really gives this figure its identity and makes it stand out even more in any collection oh and the soap shoes are cool too Sonic's base oh not as interesting as the figure is very cool for one thing it's huge comparing it to the figure it's actually taller it's also not completely flat either with the base having a distinct curve to it which is very fitting for a sonic figure the top of the base is where most of the detail is it's often said that the base is designed to look like a dash panel hence the arrows pointing Sonic forward it also has not one but two pegs sticking out of it so you can firmly attach the figure to it the best thing about this is Sonic doesn't have just one hole in his shoes both shoes have two holes in them if the reason this was done was to give you even more options when posing the figure two of the holes can be used to just help Sonic stand but the further away holes are used for running poses how cool is that the dash panel styling isn't just paint details either each arrow is sculpted in if the base also has Sonic written on it in bold red lettering with a contrasting yellow outline towards the center of the base is a sticker that reads GamePro presents Sonic Adventure 2 battle admittedly it's in a bit of an awkward spot as when on the base Sonic basically covers the sticker but it's appreciated nonetheless the sides of the base have some groups to them and the bottom is nearly blank with a juror red Studios logo embossed on it now if the base I have has this grayish color to it but this wasn't the only base this figure came with in the fifth series of dry red studios figures Sonic was re-released and with it came a variant red base the re-release was basically the same besides that though that wasn't the only rerelease of the figure however as this also exists this is a promotional release of the sonic figure that came in a bag I was unfortunately unable to find much info on this release but it sure existed so with all of that said how can you get one of these nowadays basically the only way to buy these figures now is getting them secondhand and given their demand they often go for a decent amount of money as for Sonic himself his price point can often vary I got my sonic back in 2013 for just $20 sure he came loose and didn't include the card and yes he has a few scuff marks but hey for that price it's a great deal I'd say you can usually find Sonic loose anywhere from thirty to fifty dollars occasionally selling for less into the box however well those are naturally much harder to find so they've run you a lot more I'd say a box sonic is worth anywhere from a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five dollars maybe a little bit more it seems the different releases of the figure are all worth around the same price I could see stuff like the bagged release going for more or less but I've personally never seen that one for sale as is usually the case the prices for these figures very heavily on their condition and since these figures came with so much is their price reflects what they're sold with well okay it's not like if Sonic has his cart or not is going to affect the price too much but I could see people willing to spend more on a more complete package overall this sonic figure is an absolute must-have for any collection but let's see if joyride continued that success with their second adventure to figure Chado the Hedgehog [Music] say hello to what was the world's first-ever shadow the hedgehog figure I'd say joyride really nailed shadow on their first try this figure is just as if not better than the Sonic Shadow was released as part of the second wave of Joyride figures a few months after sonic sadly he was the last Sonic character they'd ever released but they went out on a high note with this figure I just really like the style of these Joyride figures if they look so unique compared to other figures released this shadow figure in its design is quite similar to the sonic figure as they should be as Shadow does look similar to Sonic what I'm saying is jaw ride nailed the consistency between these two and they look great together that's not to say shadow is by any means a copy of the sonic figure though if this guy has tons of unique design choices that make him his own let's start with shadows head the excellent sculpting work we saw in Sonic is once again present here shadows face is captured in perfect detail if they got everything right the proportions for his muzzle nose and eyes all look excellent and his expression is just right for shadow all of Shadows red highlights are here including the ones on his arms and legs shadow spikes look fantastic if they perfectly shoot out as they should is they're not too close to each other not too far apart and look great from any angle moving on to his body shadows chest fur is fully recreated here and it's even raised a bit to give it some depth shadows arms and legs are once again bendable however with my figures at least it seems like shadows wire has held up better than Sonic's my shadow can bend a lot better than my Sonic at least shadows hands are a lot more expressive in Sonic's obviously this is to mimic the artwork of shadows seen on the box this along with some other details really helped the figure capture the look of shadow in essay two shadows glove and boot cuffs look great they have all the details you would expect and more some of the best sculpting work on the figure can be seen on shadow shoes every single detail is fully sculpted and painted giving the figures some of the most accurate shoes ever to be seen on a shadow figure shadows base is basically the same as Sonic's only this time it reads shadow while shadows base does still opt to pegs shadow shoes only have two holes as opposed to Sonic's 4 this makes it so that shadow can really only get into a running pose which honestly is fine I imagine those extra peg holes would have lessened the details on the bottom of his shoes just like Sonic shadow was re-released though this time the re-release goes a bit farther than just a new base for the second release shadows packaging was completely restyled this shadow was released as part of series 6 and it's box now looks completely different compared to the original release of the figure the front of the box is pretty interesting with the unique blue sky like background that contrasts with shadow very well unfortunately I'd say the back the box of this release actually looks a little worse than the original release as unlike the original the review of SAT was condensed and printed here instead of on its own flap shadows card was also changed up as the original releases card looks like this well the rereleased one was given the sky background to match the box actually I can show shadows kardi and much more detail as I actually do have it yeah my use shadow that I bought came with it unfortunately my sonic didn't so I don't have that one but this is fine this card is a pretty nice extra it's printed on basic cardstock but the artwork and designs make it stand out and pop the friend has some really nice artwork of shadow if this is also the same one that's used on the box if the front also has the Sega logo shadows name and even the ESRB rating for Sonic Adventure 2 behind shadow is those same weird faded images we saw in the back of Sonic's box so you know behind this cool sleek art of shadow is a Chow following over in the middle of a race the back of the car it is pretty interesting cuz this is where all those tips and tricks are housed this is another game Pro tie in as at the top you can see that these codes were supplied by the editors of GamePro magazine pro tip if you're moving super faster upside down and you're unsure of which way to hold the analog stick in sonic and shadow stages just hold it forward protip find special power-ups and extra coins by digging in wall and floor pictures yeah ok these aren't mind blowing or anything but it's a pretty neat addition I'd say I always love seeing extras like these come with merchandise and we still see stuff like cards be included with Sonic stuff to this day for example this Tomy sonic boom 3-pack of sonic shadow and Eggman contains special cards of the three characters shadows card does use a main series render of shadow and not a boom one but you know it's the thought that counts going back to the shadow rerelease it's surprising they would have even gone through with something like this many companies re-release their products with very little changes and while Joyride did kind of do that if they went out of their way to change the base and give shadows box a fresh coat of paint for the rerelease just like the second sonic release the sec shadow release had a restyled red base this one is a bit more interesting though as for whatever reason the sticker on it isn't for adventure to battle but instead it's the logo of Sonic Adventure DX the gamecube port of the original adventure game you know if the game from before shadow was introduced yeah that had to have been a mistake the updated box still has the battle logo but the base shows DX and Sonic's red base still has the sa-2 sticker so I'm not sure what happened here but it's certainly interesting as for the rarity of this shadow figure it's definitely harder to find compared to the sonic speaking literally here if they made more of the Sonic than of the shadow sonic was released a number of times while Shadow was only released twice it's hard enough to find Sonic but Shadow is a bit harder to track down blue sides say he should run you're around 40 to 50 dollars I personally got mine for $40 I actually thought that was a little steep at the time but looking back I'd say that was a pretty solid Buy just like sonic shadows value is much higher if he's in the box a box shadow should run you're around 100 to 150 dollars and I'd say that price would hold for both releases we've already covered the only two characters juror I'd released in this essay 2 said yeah the only Sonic characters they made were sonic and shadow makes sense cuz joyrides line was really one big collection of a ton of licenses they had so much to work with them not focusing so heavily on Sonic is understandable however Sonic was one of joyrides most popular properties they of course would want to release more stuff under the license and they did just that I'm sure all of you are aware of the concept of variants basically creating a fully new figure of a character is expensive it takes a lot of work effort and money to design a fully new figure so to lessen the workload of running a toy line companies often repurpose their pre-existing molds juror I did this in several ways for one thing they did really standard variant figures it was the original figures only the characters now had different paint were wearing different clothing stuff like that for Sonic they sadly didn't do that so no we sadly didn't get any Super Sonic or shadow variants or anything cool like that there were the base variants that we talked about earlier but really that's not that much however Jordan I did have a series of special variant figures which they dubbed their prototype line essentially this prototype series consisted of pre-existing figures done up in a gray color scheme this is supposed to emulate the style of factory tests or samples yeah this is worth mentioning if these figures released under the prototype name they aren't actual prototypes if they were officially released and distributed to be fair they did all have a very limited release every prototype figure was made at an insanely low number of just 500 pieces each sure it's a pretty cheap and basic marketing tactic to sell more figures but yeah I think it's cool if the prototype sonic variant itself is almost the exact same as the standard figure the only difference is its lack of paint with the figure being fully gray remember how I said all of Sonic's details were fully sculpted in and weren't just paint that really pays off here despite this figure being unpainted you can still make out nearly everything the prototypes base is also fully gray it even lacks the sticker or name print I'm sure you could infer this but yeah this guy is very hard to find only 500 of these were made so even when this figure was new it was still very hard to find it I'm sure it's sold out quickly today it's incredibly hard to find Plus who's to say how many of these Sonic's are still left in the wild I'm sure at least a handful of these prototypes Sonic's were lost or destroyed over the years if they're probably aren't 500 of them still out there well I normally collect figures loose this would be one I would fully suggest keeping mint there are only 500 of these out there if you manage to get one it's for the best to keep it in as best condition as possible so keeping it in the box is an absolute must you don't want to be the guy who opened a prototype sonic decreasing the potential amount of boxed ones down by one so how much is this guy worth honestly that's very hard to determine it really comes down to how much whoever wants to get it is willing to pay I've seen prices range from very high to surprisingly low for this figure in the box I'd say he runs you a high of $300 with a low of 150 and that's only if you get insanely lucky unless you strike gold you're never finding this guy for cheap well there are many listings of this figure for way more than that I rarely see any of those cells so I'm not sure if he's really worth that out of the box I don't know unfortunately or you know what actually no fortunately it seems not many listings of this figure out of the box have happened over the years which honest is a good thing it's reassuring to know that a lot of these are probably still left in their box but yeah if you're after this set getting sonic and shadow loose is pretty simple getting them boxed is pretty tough but not even that compares to getting this prototype sonic but with that said even all of those aren't nearly as rare as these that prototype variant sonic we just looked at wasn't a real prototype but these are this image was taken at a Toy Fair back in 2002 and shows off early samples of the sonic and shadow figures the to show slight differences compared to the released final figures some may even say that these look better than the final figures if the sonic in terms of design is pretty similar to the released one but the shadow prototype looks quite different I really like the look of the head sculpt on the prototype especially the spikes if the real draw to these prototypes outside of the fact that you know these are joyride sonic prototypes that's pretty big on its own but no the real drama DS can be seen here yeah those are articulation joints these prototypes are not bendy figures their action figures it's unclear why this was the case I imagine Joyride always wanted these figures to be bendable maybe it was just cheaper to produce the prototypes with joints sadly this image from Toy Fair is the one last existing archived image of these prototypes in existence and it's uncertain where these guys could even still be nowadays if they even still exist at all to get more info regarding these I contacted a former employee of joyride studios and he said these prototypes were get this made of resin these were straight-up resin statues of the joyride Sonic Adventure 2 figures how cool is that and that also explains the joints man could you imagine owning one of these someday that would be incredible sadly though it seems that may be an impossibility as along with that my contact also mentioned that these figures most likely met the same fate that falls upon many prototypes that being that they were destroyed I just want you to think about that for a bit these incredible early samples of now iconic Sonic the Hedgehog merchandise were probably smashed broken and destroyed one of the worst things about collecting and looking back at the history of these is finding out all the things that are simply lost to time and unless some miracle happens it seems these two may remain as one of those things that we will simply never be able to find again I'm sure there was a very rational reason behind them being destroyed if they were obviously prototypes aren't meant for outsiders to have or in some cases even know about but man is it sad to think about at the very least we do have this image to document that they did at one point exist and I suppose that's a lot better than nothing and that's the joy edge Studios Sonic Adventure to figure set if you're a fan of adventure 2 or just cool sonic collectibles this set is an absolute must-have or at least the sonic and shadow figures are if the prototype sonic is more of a you know if you have the money sort of thing if you are on the lookout for these I'd recommend eBay as it's where a majority of these end up be sure to not pay too much for them though they're great pieces but I wouldn't pay loads of money for them sonic was by no means all Joyride did and I'm sure I'll eventually get to covering some of the other figures they did during their run however there sa two figures really go to show everything that Joyride line was about cool unique collectable game accurate figures and you can't really ask for much more than that Joyride Studios run a figures where short-lived but they certainly left a legacy [Music] you

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Id: VSLyHU1c5gY

Length: 27min 41sec (1661 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 30 2017