Photo Shoot - Godzilla 1985 by NECA
 

NECA Godzilla 1985 Toyark Gallery

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I'm not opening mine until Christmas, but I will go ahead and say this one is better than their '94 figure. It's way more accurate to its actual design, and NECA actually beat SH to making one. A lot of people were super harsh on NECA's '94 figure because they had a SH figure to compare it to, even though the figure is great by most measures. You can't do that with this one, so it seems more people are just appreciating it for being a good Return of Godzilla toy.

Actually, I think you should list cons as it is not perfect from a design standpoint. His lower legs are too thin while the spines and feet are too small.

Definitely the spines are too small, but it's forgivable at the price range. At least the toe nails aren't blue-ish.

Also, from a toy review standpoint, I wouldn't knock off points for not being exactly accurate. You could gain points for accuracy, but this being under $20 makes smaller inaccuracies ignorable in light of what the toy does right.

In your review, they may be cons. In mine, I couldn't care less. For a $19 figure, I couldn't be happier with it. Those adjustments wouldn't make a difference to me one way or another.

Being $20 does not make blatant inaccuracies okay. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the figure, and I don't have that big of an issue with him, however, a lot of others do. He is not as horribly inaccurate as the 94 one from NECA, but the proportions are still off on this one. Price should not make it okay to make a subpar figure when it comes to being screen accurate.

"Blatant" feels like a strong word here, makes it sound like there's not even a passing resemblance. I personally do think that price is a part of consideration for my toys and can justify some shortcomings, $20 now is what gets a 6" Hasbro figure (Marvel or SW) and those are significantly less than this on the accuracy scale. I would go on to say that $20 here is also to be acknowledged since the only other line to compare it to is SH which run at $60 and up. The SH figures are more accurate and have whatever accessories they come with, but they cost three times as much so I do think that a lot of people would like to consider a little less accurate for a good deal cheaper. The less a toy costs the less I expect from it. A more die hard Gojira fan would be willing to drop upwards of $60 on a good toy of the king of Kaiju, whereas other more casual fans do prefer the more affordable option. Though SH is apparently secure in being the only option for Godzilla's enemy monsters since Toho won't grant those to NECA at all (which sucks since $120 for a King Ghidorah is way too much).

It's not that Toho won't grant NECA the license, it's that NECA does not want to put the money towards doing other characters. The only reason we have these NECA toys to begin with is because of the new movie. Had it not been for that, NECA would not have even bothered.

Well, NECA has stated many times that Toho won't give them the license for other characters.

https://twitter.com/search?q=%40neca...0toho&src=typd

You're right, they only started this line because of the Legendary films' Godzilla but I am glad that they've decided to go on with it. I'm totally hyped for Gojira '54 and I would like to see the 2001 GMK suit made eventually.

That is twitter, not an official site, so that could mean anything. Hell, the person in charge of their twitter account probably doesn't even know the details of the license.

It is more that NECA was only willing to pay the price to do Godzilla and no one else.

Randy Falk manages the Twitter account and he's the head of product development so just about anything on their Twitter is official. It seems clear they'd like to do Kaiju like Ghidorah and there is a fan demand for them to make them, but their contract with Toho doesn't allow it.

The thing is, we don't know exactly how it works. It could have been that Toho offered the others and NECA turned them down, but because the Godzillas sold so well they wanted to get the other monsters and Toho told them it was too late.

Given NECA's track record with God of War, Legacy of Kain, Castlevania, Hitman, Tomb Raider, Assassin's Creed, and Resident Evil, I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case.

NECA has said that Toho won't allow them to, it doesn't sound like Toho offered and they turned it down as much as it seems Toho only ever let them use Godzilla. For all we know they were only going to do the 2014 Godzilla, but they had to get character license from Toho (which they obviously did) however the figure sold well enough and they still had the license so they decided to make more. If that's what happened then it's entirely possible that Toho doesn't want to make anymore deals leaving NECA with only Godzilla, or Toho could just be really fussy about it, or maybe Bandai has some kind of agreed exclusivity on rights with Toho on the other monsters. Whatever the case NECA would like to do some of the other monsters but can't and there's nothing changing about it anytime soon.

Talking about the video game licenses they did in short bursts is weird. They made all of those figures a good while back (except for Assassin's Creed which they let go to McFarlane whenever) as part of their Player Select series which was kind of like their Cult Classics line but for games instead of movies so only getting one or two characters/figures from each license wasn't so much "we're limited to this" as it was "let's do as many licenses as we can and not stick with one for too long." They really picked their shit up around 2010 though and became what they are now focusing more on lines and less on singular somewhat sporadic figures.

Legacy of Kain, Castlevania, and God of War were not part of the Player Select line. There are a ton of God of War characters to choose from, but all they did was stick with making as many repaints of Kratos as possible. ALl they did for Legacy of Kain was one Kain and two versions of Raziel. No Dumah, Zephon, Turel, Ariel, Janos, etc. For Castlevania, they did Dracula, Simon, Alucard, and the Succubus. What about Richter, Maria, Trevor, Sypha, Grant, Julius, Soma, Werewolf, Minotaur, Slogra, Gabon, etc?

Technically all of their game figures be it God of War, Gears of War, Bioshock, or Deadspace have the player select mark somewhere on the box, but the God of War, Tomb Raider, and Legacy of Kain had the Player Select mark largely planted on the front. Except for Raziel who was such an older toy.
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In contrast to lines like Castlevania, Bioshock, Deadspace, or Gears of War (early Gears of War were labeled Player Select but they sold so well to warrant a line on its own) where they do more than just one or two characters and make it a line, where the Player Select mark is hidden on the back with the other company credits. They only did one or two characters for Soul Reaver because it is a rather niche license, even when they made the toy it was kind of niche. This was also old NECA so many of their practices were probably very different than now.

We've trailed quite a bit from talking about the '84 Godzilla toy so this is going to be the last post I make here that isn't about Godzilla.

Actually, Raziel came out after Kain.

Nevertheless, they had 5 billion other God of War characters they could have made, but chose to only do various versions of Kratos.

I was mistaken in my earlier posting, Raziel did have Player Select largely visible on the front of the box I just didn't look at any good pictures to notice it. I also did a little looking and found that both Kain and Raziel were in 2006 but I guess you're right that Kain came out first otherwise why wouldn't he have a box design similar to Raziel's.
Back to the toy that this thread is about, I'll actually open my '84 Godzilla in a week along with some other stuff on Christmas and I will likely share some pics and my thoughts about that when it happens.

I'm still waiting for my TRU to get in more of thse Godzillas since I need to exchange the tail.

I remember you showed that in the "look what I just got" thread a while back. Did you try NECA customer service? I don't know if it'd help because the one time I tried they never got back to me, but it's at least worth a shot.

They told me I have to deal with the retailer I bought him from.