As my collection grows, I try to be more regimented in my purchasing decisions. I have toy lines that I’m more or less all-in on and I rarely question myself with those. They have the most room budgeted in my house and in my actual budget. And then there’s the stuff I’m less invested in. As a kid, I spread my wings from time to time and was lured in by a flashy commercial or maybe I just liked what someone else had and as an adult I’ve gone through similar periods when it comes to toy collecting. I try to avoid that now, but every so often a toy comes along that looks so damn good that I just give in. Sometimes I end up regretting it, and other times I do not. It can be hard to tell in the moment which I’ll truly regret as I might like the product well enough when I open it up and mess around with it, but over time I might see the space it occupies on a shelf as something better spent elsewhere. In the case of today’s post, I don’t think I’ll have such qualms in the future.
I liked Street Fighter well enough as a kid. Street Fighter 2 was impossible to ignore and gave rise to an explosion of one on one fighting games in the 90s. That particular game saw the player select one of eight fighters and progress through a series of opponents culminating in a battle against the big bad guy M. Bison. For me though, he was a reprieve as the one character I always seemed to struggle against most was Sagat. Sagat was the villain of the original game, the one barely anyone played, and was demoted to the penultimate fight in Street Fighter 2. Not only was he difficult to topple, he was supremely annoying as he constantly called out his attacks by name. Being an ignorant kid at the time, I didn’t know precisely how to pronounce his name and I’m almost sure I used a slur to rhyme with it that was quite in fashion in the 90s. We’ve since become better educated about such things, but the fact remains that this guy gave me more trouble than any. When Street Fighter Alpha debuted on home consoles, it came with a bit of a glow-up for the returning fighters including Sagat. When rendered for 16 bit consoles, he was a bit slender and always stood hunched forward slightly with his hands up. In Alpha, he was a hulking brute and just as much of a pain to defeat as he always was. Now, he just more looked the part. He was also quite fun to play as with a very balanced move set and terrific reach. Picking Sagat wasn’t quite like using a cheat code, but I don’t think I had an easier time to plowing through the game with any other character – Akuma included.
When it comes to media outside the video games, Street Fighter and I don’t have much of a relationship. And yet, when Storm Collectibles unveiled its Storm Arena line of 1:12 scale action figures I felt that pull. It helped that both Ken and Ryu came in at around $25 which feels like a steal in this day and age. And with both, I was able to talk myself into adding them to the small, but growing, Marvel vs Capcom display in my home as it’s the Alpha looks of the characters that were adopted for those legendary brawlers. When Storm showed off their Sagat, my immediate reaction was, “I want that!” The problem is, he’s actually never appeared in any of those Marvel crossover titles. It’s a bit of a surprise in hindsight since he is one of the titans of the franchise, but it’s true. I guess it’s because his play style is very similar to Ryu and Ken as it is and Capcom likely wanted to highlight some different fighters. And then once the roster went beyond Street Fighter to include all of Capcom well then it made no sense to add anyone else from those games. If I were to remain disciplined in my spending habits, I would have passed on Sagat for that reason, but I just couldn’t do it. The look of the figure combined with the still pretty low price point of $30 was too much to ignore.
Sagat is a big boy compared with Ryu and Ken checking in at around 7.5″ tall. As this line is based on Street Fighter Alpha 3 his proportions reflect the bulkier version of Sagat from those games with broad shoulders, a wide chest, exaggerated muscles, and long limbs. He’s a brick and he looks damn near perfect. His neck is massive and the size of his head is slightly undersized conforming to popular artistic design when creating what are essentially super humans. I love how Storm is able to integrate a butterfly joint into the figure without lowering the shoulders to comical levels. His shoulders are big and sit above the midpoint of his pectoral muscles. When viewed from the side, there’s real mass to the chest which is something expensive brands like Tamashii Nations sometimes struggle with. Paint is a bit sparse, but this isn’t a design calling for much. He’s mostly flesh tone and the soft overlay of the chest Storm likes to utilize is perfectly matched in shade to the other, harder, plastic parts. There’s some subtle shading on the muscles that works really well and the wraps at the forearms and shins have a nice wash applied. His scars and facial details are painted well and if there is one area that’s a touch imperfect it would be the yellow stripe on the side of his trunks. The blue plastic underneath pokes through ever so slightly which is a frequent issue with yellow paint. There is a variant figure in white trunks with red stripes and I would guess that one is slightly cleaner as a result. Still, I prefer the blue look and this guy is absolutely gorgeous and everything I want out of an action figure sculpt.
Accessories for Sagat are a touch sparse. For heads we have a neutral portrait and one where he’s showing some gritted teeth and looking pretty pissed off. For hands, we have a set of fists and and a set of clenching hands. I love the expressiveness of the clenching hands while the fists are obviously needed. Like other figures in the line, the hands are fairly soft and flexible which makes them very easy to remove and swap. Other companies need to start doing this. For an effect part, we get a flaming, lower leg attachment to simulate Sagat’s Tiger Raid super move. It splits into two pieces and it’s designed to be fit over the lower leg and snapped together. It’s not intuitive and I’ve struggled with it. I even looked up videos on YouTube and found one by D-Amazing who does it on camera and seems to have no issues. I have no idea what I’m doing wrong. The effect looks fine, it’s translucent plastic and is a mix of red, yellow, and orange, to simulate flames, but it’s definitely not the first effect I think of with Sagat. I’d have much preferred his “Tiger” fireball, but I think that comes with the variant. He also has the same stand as the other figures with both a clear plastic insert and a black, metal, one. He’s a big boy so balancing him on this stand is not as easy as it is with Ken and Ryu. He probably would benefit from a wider base, especially when posing him for the Tiger Raid attack. The stand really can’t support him in airborne poses and, at best, it can help add a little stability with one-footed stances.
When it comes to articulation, Storm really has this thing on lockdown. I don’t know if they’re the best in the game (Jada and its own Sagat are damn fine), but they’re in the discussion. Sagat is pretty well loaded when it comes to joints: double ball peg head, neck, butterfly, shoulder ball peg, shoulder hinge, bicep, double elbows, wrist ball hinge, diaphragm ball joint, waist ball with a hinge, drop-down ball socket hips, thigh swivel, double knees, shin swivel, ankle hinge, ankle rocker, toe hinge. See anything missing? I don’t. And what’s great is there doesn’t seem to be any one joint where the engineering is lacking. You get tremendous range and nuance at the head and neck to get Sagat looking in all directions. The butterfly joint is terrific and Sagat can hit all of his most “Sagaty” poses. The aesthetics on all of the joints are great and I commend Storm for reacting to fan response of the initial product images which had the ab crunch visible on the prototype like it is with Ken and Ryu. Those figures have a gi to hide the joint behind, but Sagat did not, so they shortened it and it now sits behind the trunks. I’ve said before in other reviews that I’m not a fan of drop-down hips, but the way Storm does them works as well as can be. It’s a thick, heavy, hinge that’s not loose or flimsy and using it doesn’t create huge gaps between the thigh and hip. The one thing this figure can’t do as well as others is crunch forward. That’s not to say that it can’t, there’s just figures that can go a little further. I think this one goes plenty far enough, but I’ve seen enough people point it out that it felt like something that was worth mentioning.
Simply put, this Sagat from Storm Collectibles is hand candy. Even with him not appearing in the games, I have no problem putting this with my Marvel vs Capcom collection, but I don’t know if I want this figure to leave my desk. It is so fun to mess around with and pose which is something true of both Ken and Ryu from this line, but Sagat manages to do it even better. I love big, chunky, figures in this scale so I am predisposed to liking Sagat. He just looks so damn good in almost any pose that it’s almost not fair. This release puts other companies to shame. Look what Storm is doing for 30 bucks (BBTS has since raised the price to $35, but the point still stands) – there’s no reason other companies can’t be doing something similar. This is a marvel of engineering, sculpt, and design. My only criticism is with the effect part and the stand. The effect part just doesn’t work well. It obviously can since I linked to a very video that shows it in action, but I can’t get the damn thing to work. The stand is also too light to support the figure and suggests to me that Storm should revisit the one-size-fits-all approach it has with action figure display stands. I also would have loved a gripping hand so he could grab foes by the neck. The clenching hands can kind of pull this off, but a dedicated hand for such would have been welcomed. As I said though, these are nitpicks. For $30 you’re not going to get a better figure on the market. I’m not sure if you can even get one this good for $80. If you’re a Street Fighter collector then absolutely go out and get this one. If you’re more of a casual one like me, go out and get this one. If you don’t care one bit about Street Fighter but love good, quality, action figures, go out and get this one. It will blow you away.
For more Capcom related figures, take a look at these:
Storm Arena Street Fighter Alpha 3 Ken
One of my most anticipated releases of 2025 came out of no where. I was a kid during the early 90s and into video games so I know a thing or two about Street Fighter. Street Fighter II was everywhere and is pretty much the reason why the one-on-one fighting game became a huge genre…
Keep reading
S.H.Figuarts Marvel Gamerverse Cyclops
A funny thing happened in 2025 where two companies revealed they were going to be making action figures based on the hit video game series Marvel vs Capcom only for neither company to actually mention the words Marvel vs Capcom. It would seem that neither Hasbro nor Bandai wanted to compensate the Capcom portion of…
Keep reading
Marvel Legends Gamerverse Captain America vs Venom
We’re going to be doing a lot of 2025 catch-up here as Christmas always slows things down. Toy producers also like to push product for the holidays so I seem to always end up with a backlog at the end of the year. Especially when stores are doing generous sales and convincing me to buy…
Keep reading
The Nostalgia Spot 