Back in November, I picked up the second wave of the animated Dungeons & Dragons kids. Thanks to a hot tip, I got them from Target online at a discount, $40 for all three figures! Quick note, the second wave is no longer available online.
One thing they got right with these three is they didn't cut off the side art that overlapped to the other boxes.
Out of all the kids, Eric was always my least favorite. To me he always came across like a whiny, rich brat who was super annoying!
I had high (unreasonable?) expectations for the second wave of figures. Maybe between production runs Hasbro figured out they did some things wrong with the first wave and corrected their mistakes?
Oh, dear reader, if only that were true...
We're going to start off with a problem before we even open the box?! The expression on Eric's face is him wondering why his figure's armor is a silver color instead of the dark blue it is in the cartoon. I've seen a few people online that customized their figure to match his animated appearance. The portrait kind of has a young Spock thing going on with the arched eyebrow. It would have been cool to get an alternate head with a panic look since that's just about his trademark look most of the time.
Here's my attempt at posing the figure as it appears on the box. As expected, it's impossible. This figure actually seems to have worse articulation issues than I remember the original three having. I can't get his feet to stand flat and one of his knees feels like it will snap before it will bend. I didn't have the patience to bust out the hair dryer to try and limber him up.
Speaking of feet and legs...
It's hard to see, but the shin on the left has some weird thing going on near the horizontal line. And the one on the right has a lovely diagonal crack in it. You can kind of see how uneven the feet are.
Had I not been paying attention to the back of the box, I don't think I would have realized the "action" effect for the shield could be removed. It does look cool, though.
Eric, assuming the position...
The cape was kind of annoying when I was trying (in vain) to pose the figure. It's a completely separate piece that isn't anchored to the figure in any way. I though about trying to remove it for kicks but the head seems to be connected to the neck as one piece, unlike Hasbro's other 6" lines.
Sadly, Eric is about par for the course when it comes to the quality I've experienced with this line. I know Super 7 recently announced a line of animated D&D Ultimate (Affiliate link). I've heard those figures can sometimes have quality issues too. At twice the price of the Hasbro figures, I am not likely to go all in on those but may pick a couple here and there, especially if I can find them on clearance.
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