World of Nintendo 4" Series 3-2 to 3-4 Review

It's been just over a year since my last review of Jakk's Pacific's World of Nintendo 4" line of figures. Since then, the line has been rebranded as a dedicated Super Mario line and two more series have been released with a third starting to show up as I write this. While I am disappointed that the line will no longer be including characters from the wider Nintendo license. But if it means that they will be expanding the offerings from the Super Mario games, the trade off might be worth it. And they have done just that. The first Super Mario series gave us Mario, Fire Luigi, a Parabones, a Piranha Plant and a Fire Bro. The second series centered on the Super Mario Odyssey game with Captain Mario, Mario with Cappy, Explorer Mario, Lakitu and a Captured verison of a Hammer Bro. And there is a third series hitting stores now which includes Mario, Fire Mario, Luigi, Ludwig and Boo. I passed on Fire Mario and Luigi. But I wasn't going to pass up on another of the Koopalings or more enemies.

Packaging - 7/10

The change from World of Nintendo to Super Mario line also means a graphic overhaul. The simple color coded background has been replaced with Mario in front of a Mushroom Kingdom backdrop. That change I like. It's bright and colorful and fits the license well. The insert in the bubble with the character name could stand to be more interesting/colorful to match. But it's the back of the cards where things fall a bit flat. The top portion of the card has a stripe of red and a stripe of yellow for the background along with a tiny Super Mario logo. They didn't even try to do anything with the character information text. It's just plain black text. It does allow the single photo of the figure to stand out. But it really looks like Jakk's forgot to hire a graphic designer to do the card back design.

It's also worth noting that Gamestop has been carrying an assortment of Jakk's four inch Nintendo figures including both older figures and figures from these new series. They are all on cards using the new design. But since they are part of a random assortment of figures exclusive to Gamestop instead of the general release series, they drop the photos of the figures included in the series from the bottom of the card back.

Sculpting - Lakitu, Fire Bros. & Mario with Cappy 6/10, Captain Mario,
Explorer Mario, Captured Hammer Bro & Parabones 7/10, others 8/10

When Jakk's wants to put in the effort, they have produced some really cool figures in this line. The downside is that they love to reuse the same molds over and over again. And with these three series, we see a healthy mix of both. Lakitu, Mario with Cappy, the Fire Bro., the regular Marios and Fire Luigi are all straight reuses from previous figures other than Lakitu getting fists instead of open hands. Then there are the Captain Mario, Captured Hammer Bro. and Parabones which modify previous figures. Captain Mario uses the same body as Mario with Cappy, but has a new head sculpt with Cappy in his Captain's hat form. It's cute. And it gives us a Mario Odyssey based figure that can actually wear his hat. That's a welcome change. The Captured Hammer Bro. has a new head sculpt with Cappy and Mario's 'stach added. This sounds like a really dumb idea until you see it in person. Now I want all the enemies to come with a swappable head as an option. The Parabones gets a new tail and shell with cracked details and a new head. He's quite cute. Finally we get to the three new figures. The Piranha Plant has a nice simple sculpt which looks great. But it's just a bit too small. The same holds true for Ludwig. The sculpting is on point. But he seems a bit small. Even comparing him to how he appeared in the New Super Mario Bros. Wii where the Koopalings are smaller than Mario, Ludwig is still about ten percent larger than this figure. Explorer Mario is a completely new sculpt. The sculpting could stand to be a little sharper on the torso, especially the shirt pockets. But otherwise this is a great sculpt. Boo is a completely new sculpt or possibly a scaled up version of the Boo figure from the 2" line. The figures look great until you move the arms as they are attached to an area of the body much larger than the arms themselves. But with the arms in a neutral position, he looks great.

Paint - Captain Mario & Explorer Mario 8/10, others 7/10

There's not a lot to say about the paint work for this line beyond that it is very consistant. There's not a lot of detail work so the overall result isn't particularly impressive. But there aren't any quality control issues either. And there is some detail work such as on Captain Mario's cap and Explorer Mario's outfit. So it's not like they can't put in the effort where necessary.

Articulation - Boo 3/10, Pirahna Plant 5/10, Explorer Mario, Ludwig, Parabones & Hammer/Fire Bro. 6/10, Others 7/10

With such short bodies and stumpy limbs, the Super Mario Bros. character designs don't really lend themselves to a lot of articulation without some tricky engineering. And this becomes abundantly clear with Boo. He has just four points of articulation, two per stumpy little arm which can each rotate and swing outward. That would be sufficient if not for the poor way they designed the area around the arms. Ideally, I really wish they had given him a rotating face that could change his expression and close his eyes/mouth. But it isn't reasonable to expect that from a mass market figure. Meanwhile, Jakk's still puts in as much articulation as they reasonably can. The Mario and Luigi figures have fifteen points of articulation with the exception of Explorer Mario. He technically has all the same articulation. But the skirt makes the hip joints completely useless. The various Koopas (Ludwig, Parabones and Hammer/Fire Bros.) all have the same level of articulation. But their stumpy little limbs means that what you can do with it is quite limited. The Piranha Plants have just three points of articulation and one of those is the ability to rotate in the pipe base which is kind of pointless since you can just turn the pipe. The two remaining joints allow the mouth to open and close and the head to spin on the end of the stalk. Since turning the head doesn't really make much difference much like rotating the pipe, the figure really only has one useful joint, the jaw. But other than allowing the plant to point its mouth upwards, opening and closing the jaw is all a Piranha Plant needs to do.

Accessories - Mario with Cappy, Boo, Parabones & Lakitu 2/10, Piranha Plants, Mario 4/10, Fire Luigi 5/10, others 6/10

The accessories for this line are interesting. The misc. power-ups and in game items such as the ? Blocks, coins and invincibility star are well made and make for great displays. In fact, I like them so much that the addition of a POW Block was the only reason why I bought the most recent Mario figure. The Power Moons which come with both Explorer Mario and Captain Mario are also nice new additions. But the accessories also get recycled a lot. And when they are just being tossed in with a figure like the Pirahna Plant and Boo so that they have something for an accessory, they start to feel more like a throwaway item. At least pairing Fire Luigi with a Fire Flower makes thematic sense. The Captured Hammer Bro. and Fire Bro. both have their weapon that they can hold. And Ludwig has a scepter. These aren't very impressive, until you compare them to Lakitu's fishing pole. I'm still annoyed that he does not have any sort of flight stand for his cloud.

Value - Mario, Mario with Cappy, Fire Luigi, Boo & Lakitu 5/10 (2/10 if you already have them), others 7/10

The four inch figures sell for $10 each in most stores. That is not a bad price for these figures the first time around. And for the enemy figures, buying extras isn't even a real deal breaker for me since you often do run across enemies in pairs or packs. But even in just these two and an half series I ended up with two almost identical Mario figures to add to the pile of existing Marios from previous series. Obviously this isn't an issue in retail stores. But the series is often sold online in complete series. So you can't always pick and choose the figures you want.

Happy Hunting:

For retail, Target and Gamestop seem to be the best options for finding this line at brick and mortar. I have also had good luck ordering them from Big Bad Toy Store, but only if I have been willing to order a complete series.

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