‘The Legend of Zelda’ is one of the gaming world’s oldest and most iconic franchises around, with nearly three decades on the market and almost two dozen games in the series. It isn’t hard to understand why ‘The Legend of Zelda’ has such a passionate fan base, with the goal of the game to play through various dungeons as the young hero Link, and prove yourself a tried and true hero ready to save the princess; or in some of the more extreme cases, save the whole world! There was also that time where the goal of the game was to wake up that giant fish…. but we try not to think about it.
In 2006, Nintendo released one of the series most iconic and critically acclaimed entries to date, ‘The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess’ for the Nintendo Wii and the Nintendo Gamecube. ‘Twilight Princess’ revolutionized the series once again, taking full advantage of the Nintendo Wii’s motion controls for the first time in franchise history, and taking the series in a bit of a darker direction tonally. Earlier this year, Dark Horse Comics released an all new 10” figure of Link, the ’Zelda’ series lead protagonist, as he was seen in ‘Twilight Princess’. But how does this figure stack up? Is it worth your time to pick up? And more importantly, is it worth the $79.99 MSRP?
Dark Horse Comics looks to have given this figure their all, with a super high detailed sculpt and phenomenal paint applications. Just taking a step back from the figures’ little intricacies in the design, this figure looks great! The hero of time has rarely looked better than he does here. These new premium ‘figures’ that Dark Horse has been releasing in the recent months are a bit less like your standard toys or action figures, and more like large, especially well made plastic statues. This is a huge plus, as it makes them the best of both worlds in that sense; they’re highly detailed and great display pieces, while the fact that they’re light weight plastic means they’re a bit more affordable and not nearly as fragile as most statues.
Link here stands around 10” tall including his display stand (which he is completely removable from!). Unfortunately, as a premium figure, Link has zero articulation. Honestly, he doesn’t really need it, as he’s been sculpted into a great basic pose that will fit easily into your figure display or showcase. Link is holding his classic weaponry of the Hylian Shield and Master Sword, which both look wonderful.
The sculpt on Link here is extraordinary! The character design itself is spot on with the game, but it’s the little things that really shine on this figures sculpt. You can see a lot of the stitching all throughout Link’s costume, like midway through his hat, or on the stitch line of his shirt patterns. Little bits of his chain mail tunic are poking out at the edge of his sleeves and bottom of his shirt, and you can even see the toggles he uses to adjust the snugness of his boots! A quality figure should be heavily laden with minor details, and this figure is chock full of them!
The paint applications on this figure are really well done, but the color tone chosen is a bit to washed out for a bright display piece. The colors on the sword and shield are really toned down, so while they are definitely there, they are far less noticeable than they should be. That said, it’s very likely this color scheme and color ton set were chosen due to the washed out monotone color pallet of the game itself that this version of Link is from! ‘Twilight Princess’ was a notoriously darker toned game, with much of the color seemingly sucked out of the world, so Link’s realistically toned down colors make sense for this figure.
Link comes packaged in a beautiful box that features artwork from ‘Twilight Princess’s original marketing. The box has a fold open display window that velcros shut so that you can open the figure and take a look at him without actually opening him completely. Inside the package, Link is safe and snuggly secure within a re-sealable clamshell packaging. The back of the box features a few images of the figure itself and a brief description.
As previously mentioned, Link is fully removable from his display stand, and can stand up just fine on his own without it. The display stand itself is also really nice, made of a solid black plastic with a Tri-Froce design sculpted into the base of it.
The bottom line is, Dark Horse Comics has released a truly exceptional collectible here with this Link figure from ‘The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess’. It perfectly captures the essence of what’s great about everyone’s favorite Hylian and brings it to life for you to put in your display case! This figure is sure to sell through it’s production run in no time, so I wouldn’t hesitate to snatch this bad boy up before he throws on his magic-cape of invisibility and disappears forever!
Maybe the old man said it best,
“It’s Dangerous To Go Alone, Take This!”
