S.H.Figuarts Gamerverse Wolverine Review

My, my, it's been a hot minute since I last bought an S.H.Figuarts figure, but I guess there's no better time to get one—especially when it's an S.H.Figuarts Gamerverse Wolverine figure!

Ever since it was announced, I knew I had to get what I considered the definitive Wolverine look in action figure form. And now that I have it in hand, did it meet my lofty expectations? Let's find out!

Freed from his plastic prison, Figuarts Gamerverse Wolverine stands ready to hack and slash his way into my heart. The figure is built like a Mack truck, capturing Wolvie's stocky, tightly wound build from the game while having a soft, cartoonish sculpt that lets you display this with your Marvel Legends toys.

It's feels nice to get a no-nonsense 90's Wolverine figure. No hyper-stylized sculpting, no gimmicky colors, just a good ol' Jim Lee X-Men Wolverine in classic blue and yellow (and black tiger stripes!). Thank goodness for Bandai!

Very few toy lines get Wolverine's claws right in action figure form—even the lauded MAFEX Wolverine Comic Version's claws are longer than his forearm—but I think the Figuarts Gamerverse Wolverine nails the formula. His claws look razor sharp, has an aesthetically pleasing length (heh), and painted a nice and shiny silver.

It's all well and good—if only the claws didn't always want to fall off. For some reason, Bandai decided to make Wolverine's claws separate pieces rather than providing alternate hands with and without claws!

The claws themselves plug into the back of Wolverine's knuckles so loosely that even the tiniest nudge or bump dislodges them. Half of the time I was taking pictures of Wolverine for this review I was picking up claws from the floor! So much for a "premium" figure!

Another glaring issue are the "hairy" arms, which looks like an underpaid factory worker went at the arms with a blunt knife and did a slapdash "attempt" at filling in the scratches with black paint. It looks like it's supposed to have every groove filled in with color to simulate Wolvie's hirsuteness but ended up with an unfinished look. For the premium price I paid, this is lazy and indescribably lame.

At the very least, Figuarts Gamerverse Wolverine stands at around 5.9 inches, my ideal height for a Wolvie figure. He should be shorter than the rest of his X-brethren. Despite the "video game" aesthetic, Wolverine fits perfectly with his non-Figuarts teammates. Welcome home, Logan!

This ragin' Canuck can pose really well, utilizing S.H.Figuarts' new style of articulation to great effect. The butterfly joints, double jointed limbs, and torso articulation means this Wolverine can crouch, stalk, hunt, and kill with the best of them. I don't even mind the "thong" on the figure!

What I do mind is the number of accessories that come with an almost 70USD figure. Figuarts Gamerverse Wolverine is sparsely geared. For starters, Wolvie comes with a pair of splayed hands for when you want to display Logan doing the Hadouken.

There is also a second set of more splayed-out claws meant to peg into these alternate hands for a more emotive Wolverine in your display. And no, you can't use these claws on the fisted hands; they're exclusively for the open hands. If not for that little nick on one of the claws, I'd consider this a good addition.

Both fisted and splayed hands include separate pieces that you can peg into them as well so you can display Wolvie sans claws. Still not the most elegant of solutions, but here we are.

There is also an alternate shouting head, because what's Wolverine without his screams of rage and agony? The paint application is neat, right down to his pink tongue and pearly white teeth. 

Finally, we come to Figuarts Gamerverse Wolverine's biggest accessory: a cardboard backdrop to simulate Wolverine hitting his Fatal Claw hyper combo from Marvel vs. Capcom! It comes in two parts and folds out to stand in a rudimentary way. The print is clear and crisp, though the pixelized art clashes with the decidedly non-pixelized figure. A neat include for the gaming fans, I suppose!

I was lucky to have gotten this at a steep discount (salamat, Shopee!) or else my critiques for this figure might have been amplified. And yet despite the price, I can't deny that Figuarts Gamerverse Wolverine is pretty much the perfect Wolverine action figure. Sure, the claws keep popping out his knuckles and the accessories leave a lot to be desired, but the look and proportions are what I've been looking for in Wolverine action figures in a long time.

Now my X-Men display is complete, and I couldn't be happier. If you can get this at anything below 100USD, snap it up because it'll be hard to top this one.

I hope you found this review helpful. Which X-Man are you waiting to get the perfect figure treatment? Let's talk about it in the comments! Thanks for reading and stay safe out there.