Tag Archives: street fighter alpha 3

May 20, 2026

Storm Arena Street Fighter Alpha 3 Sagat

By Joe

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.

Whether you place him with other Storm Arena figures or characters from other lines, Sagat is going to have some size to him.

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.

There’s a lot of personality in this sculpt.

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.

Suck knee, Ryu!

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.

It’s supposed to go on his right leg, but I can’t get the damn thing to stay.

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.

He’s got some great range in the shoulders thanks to good engineering and a soft torso overlay.

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.

The only downside is he’s so damn big that finding a good stand is tough.

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…

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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…

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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…

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August 28, 2025

Storm Arena Street Fighter Alpha 3 Ken

By Joe
Who’s cooler than Ryu? 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 for arcades and home consoles. I actually never owned a copy of that game which kind of surprises me to this day, but it’s mostly because I always had access to it via cousins and friends. Plus, not long after the game took off the copycats started showing up and I found myself lured in by the violence on display in Mortal Kombat. That ended up being my fighting game franchise of choice until later in the decade when I found myself the unexpected owner of a Sony PlayStation. A lot of the franchises I had grown up with in gaming just weren’t available on Sony’s machine early on, but Street Fighter was. Street Fighter Alpha ended up being the third game I’d get for my PlayStation (after Doom and Twisted Metal) and thus it became my most played game in the franchise so these character designs stand out for me the most. Still, I didn’t think I’d be all that interested in an action figure line should one surface.

Ken comes with a solid spread of accessories for the price.

The past couple of years, Jada has been making waves with its figures based on Ultra Street Fighter II. I’ve basically admired them from afar, but otherwise haven’t been that tempted to dive-in because I just don’t need that kind of collection in my life. Then along came Storm Collectibles and its Storm Arena line. Storm was known to me for its many video game-based toy lines, but they were always in a weird scale and pretty damn expensive. Still, they looked so good that I’ve considered getting one just to basically try them out, but I’ve never pulled the trigger. The Arena line is a new one for them and it’s more of a true 1:12 scale line. Their own lines were always billed as 1:12, but they were way bigger. For the Arena line, Storm secured the Street Fighter license from Capcom and went with looks based on Street Fighter Alpha 3, which was pretty much the same as the first Alpha game. And the best part of all was the price of $26. I may not have benefitted directly in buying a Jada figure, but I have to believer their line and pricing are huge reasons why this line from Storm is being priced so low.

I suspect Marvel vs Capcom fans will have real interest in this line.

Ken is the first release in the line which works for me as I always preferred him to Ryu. At least stylistically, Ryu’s hyper Hadoken super move was definitely way easier to pull-off than Ken’s Shoryuken based super, but not without its uses. Packaging for the line is very similar to most import offerings like S.H.Figuarts and MAFEX as it’s a window box with some game art. There is a lot of plastic used to protect the figure inside so the window is obscured, but I’ll take it over a figure with smeared paint. Ken stands at about 6.125″ to the top of his head which is a pretty decent height for what is probably the most basic sized character in the line. I’m fairly certain this same body is used for Ryu and it might be in use for the upcoming Dan.

I’ve always gotten the impression that Ken is one cocky S.O.B.

Ken is very true to his appearance in the Alpha series. There is more an anime look to the design and he has his long hair which is tied off with a red ribbon. The gi is pretty much the same as his look in other games as it’s red with a black belt. It’s also sleeveless and he wears some yellow gloves. The basic design for these figures is colored plastic throughout, a soft, rubber, overlay for the torso, a soft rubber overlay for the upper part of the gi, and soft, rubbery, hands and hair. Paint is mostly reserved for the face and gloves, but there’s also some light shading all throughout the red. The gi is also textured and Storm did a nice job of matching the shades of red between the mixed media. The figure absorbs light well despite not having a real painted finish. It doesn’t have a plastic look and does have a more premium look than something like Marvel Legends despite basically being the same price.

If you’re of a Hadoken person you’ll need to get Ryu.

The price of admission may be relatively cheap, but that doesn’t mean Storm is skimping on accessories. Ken comes with two portraits – neutral and a smirk. The neutral expression has almost a hint of a smile and exudes cockiness, which feels appropriate for Ken. The smirk is a nice companion, though mine had a black dot on the chin. I normally leave my set as-is for my reviews, but I was so annoyed by it that I’ve already fixed it (a Magic Eraser sheet did the job). For hands, Ken has a set of fists, Hadoken posed, a right peace gesture, and a left “come here” gesture. There’s also an effect piece for his Shoryuken attack. It’s an acrylic piece that fits over his fist and has a nice yellow to orange to red gradient. If you want the Hadoken you have to get Ryu. I wouldn’t be surprised if alternate colorways crop up with different effect parts. There’s also an included stand, though it’s not a great one. It’s a disc with a post that plugs in and on that post is a sliding piece that’s ratcheted. The sliding piece can accept an acrylic clamp that’s similar to a doll stand. It works off of pressure as the further you slide it into the holster the tighter the clamp. There’s also a black, metal, version included though I’m not sure what advantage that offers over the plastic one. Mine also has a rubber piece over one side of the clamp, but not the other. I’ve hear some people didn’t get the black piece at all. The stand works, but it can be a challenge to balance. I’ve had Ken take a couple of tumbles because the weight wasn’t distributed properly. The base could stand to be heavier or bigger.

The stand can be a little tricky to balance, but it works.

Criticisms of the stand aside, it is still a stand that works and it’s included along with an alternate portrait, two extra sets of hands, and an effect part all for $26. Most Marvel Legends only come with an extra set of hands and maybe another head. This is a nice spread for the price and Storm is giving collectors pretty much all that they need for a Ken display. A Hadoken would have been nice, but that would also mean we would need another stand for that. They did opt to make the hair non-removable from the heads so if there’s one critique it could be that one of the heads could have had a different shape to the hair and if they were interchangeable it would add to the display options.

He’s going to hit all of those “Ken” poses.

The look and accessories are great, but the real selling point of a Storm figure for me is the articulation. Storm has a good reputation in this area and it’s what I was most excited to test out with this figure. The articulation points are even more than what one would expect of a super articulated line: double ball peg head, ball neck, hinged ball shoulders, butterfly, bicep swivel, double-elbows, ball-hinged wrists, diaphragm ball joint, waist ball, ab crunch, ball and socket drop-down hips, thigh swivel, double knees, ankle swivel, ankle hinge, ankle rocker, toe hinge. Range everywhere is pretty damn good. The head can’t look up as well as maybe some would want, but it’s because of the long hair. Storm took advantage of the character to design to get as much articulation into the figure as possible. The ab crunch is an example as it would be pretty ugly on a shirt-less figure, but with Ken it’s a non-issue. They actually were going to use it on the famously shirtless Sagat, but scrapped it because fans thought it was ugly. The gi is removable on Ken which will allow you to really push some of the joints to the extreme, but again, Storm took advantage of the design to make it work as best as it could with the gi on. Taking it off reveals an odd sculpt that tapers in dramatically at the waist to make sure the figure isn’t overly bulky with it on. You can do it, but it will look kind of stupid. I had a tough time with it so I didn’t end up taking any shirtless pics of Ken, but you can certainly find them in other reviews if you wish.

What are you doing? You’re both Capcom, you need to unite against the Marvel!

The articulation is as advertised. Ken can hit all of his signature poses without much of an issue. The classic Hadoken pose does require some fiddling, but it is doable. He can also kick super high and hit the splits. The drop-down hips are on a big hinge and there’s no looseness. I don’t know that it adds much, but it’s not as annoying as other drop-down hips nor does it feel fragile like some other figures in my collection. This guy feels very sturdy and the joints are all smooth. There’s no looseness anywhere and nothing was even remotely stuck on mine. The aesthetics of the joints are all plus with perhaps the only thing close to an eyesore being the feet. There’s a little gap between the ankle and feet which provides for excellent range on the hinge, but might be too much of a gap for some. I’m personally okay with it, but the cut-up look of the bare feet in general might turn some off.

This won’t be my last purchase in this line.

I find it hard to believe though that the feet would be a dealbreaker for anyone. I can’t think of anything with this figure that would be a deal breaker for an action figure collector. If you don’t care about Ken or Street Fighter Alpha then, yeah, you probably won’t feel compelled to buy this. Or maybe you will? I thought I didn’t care enough to take a look, but the allure of this one was too strong. This is a really well-constructed action figure at an incredible price. The price has ticked up since it was originally announced, but not substantially. I think Big Bad Toy Store has it for $28 now because of rising costs associated with tariffs and other such nonsense. Hopefully it doesn’t get worse and hopefully this isn’t some introductory price to lure us in. Sagat is more expensive, but he’s substantially larger and that’s the same sort of thing Jada does with its line too. This figure really is a contender for figure of the year. I don’t think Storm could have done much better, or any other company. I’m not all-in on this line, but I’m definitely getting Ryu and Sagat and I’ll keep my eyes on it. I’d love to see Akuma, Blanka, and some others and I’m sure they’ll be announced at some point. Dan is currently up for preorder and we’ve seen Charlie and Chun-Li as well. If Storm can deliver on this level of quality at this price with the rest I don’t see many other toy lines beating it.

This Ken figure may be from Street Fighter Alpha 3, but I think Marvel vs Capcom fans will be very interested as well:

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