Silver the Hedgehog is one of the most divisive characters in Sonic the Hedgehog history. Many people hate (HATE) Silver, while there are also quite a few who love him. I fall into the latter camp, as the character really won me over with his multitude of appearances in the Archie Sonic comics. And so, even though he’s not exactly a universally loved dude, I pulled the trigger day one and ordered my First4Figures Silver the Hedgehog Statue. 14 months later, he’s in my home. Am I happy with him? Read on…
The Right:
First 4 Figures has been on a continuing roll as far as packaging goes, recently releasing statues with some of my favorite packaging ever. I loved the psychedelic box for the Katamari Damacy Dipp Statue I reviewed last month, and I love the box for Silver just as much (or more!).
As an admin in the First 4 Figures Official Collectors Club on Facebook, I get the option of having the edition number of the pieces I buy replaced with my name, which I’m always delighted by. It’s pretty sweet having my name on the statue box, base and authenticity card (but don’t worry—I’m still as unbiased as possible in my reviews).
Inside the box, we find Silver is actually in 9 pieces: base, body, head, and six individual numbered “steel” rods. Everything slots into place smooth as silk and without a fuss in assembly. There’s also a rechargeable battery and a USB charger wire included, since I bought the exclusive version.
As a Day One adopter, I received an additional Silver Art Card signed by F4F CEO Alex Davis. I love the different art on the two cards, and will be sure to take good care of them until the day that official First 4 Figures card holders are available to display them.
I also got another neat-o holographic “Day One” sticker with my Silver Statue. I haven’t actually stuck any of these stickers from my statues onto anything yet, but I really dig them nonetheless.
The base for Silver the Hedgehog is almost shockingly light! I was expecting it to be like a brick (a la Wind Waker Ganondorf’s), but it’s actually extraordinarily light. I hear this is to accommodate the lighting effects, and that’s fine by me—a lighter base just made it easier for me to haul my Silver F4F statue around for all my review photos.
The stonework design on the base is downright beautiful.
Ultra-detailed and realistic-looking, and an excellent foil to the cartoony design of Silver himself.
The outer rim of the base even has some nice-looking bricks and foliage on it. This is one nice-looking base.
Clearly based off of official artwork of the character, Silver has his palms outward in order to “bend” the steel pillars on his base as part of a display of his psychic abilities.
An outstanding job was done with the design and paint deco on the steel posts—they’re incredibly lifelike and genuinely look like real metal. If these looked bad it would hugely damage the aesthetic as a whole, so I’m grateful First4Figures nailed these.
Silver himself… well, he’s fabulous.
The proportions, the colors, the sculpting detail, the paint apps… virtually everything about the First4Figures Silver the Hedgehog Statue is brilliantly executed.
But my favorite part of the statue is a special feature that only the exclusive edition gets. As a character with psychic powers that glow when in use, Silver is a perfect match for one of First 4 Figures’ specialties: built-in electronic light-up features.
Silver’s base, hands and boots are all illuminated with psychic energy on the exclusive version when the button is pushed to activate them, and they look absolutely stunning. I really appreciate the animated nature of the lighting on the base, as the moving lights give the piece extra life and excitement. Love this!
The lights are actually bright enough that you can still see them lit even in broad daylight, as you might notice from the lights being on during several of my outdoors photos.
The Wrong:
I abhor sounding like an F4F sycophant, so I always put a little extra pressure on myself to make sure I point out anything that bothers me about something that I purchase from them. That’s oftentimes pretty difficult, but there’s actually two things in this instance.
While the paint applications on my Silver the Hedgehog statue are as neat and tidy as I’ve become accustomed to from F4F, I don’t like the way that the blue “circle” areas on his hands aren’t colored in all the way to the circular outlines on his palms. It looks really strange to me that the colored portions of these circles end so far before their outlines do.
In addition, I’m not sure if it’s all Silvers or just mine, but on mine, the “seam gap” where Silver’s Head is attached is very visible on the right-hand side of Silver’s head, but sits basically flush on the left-hand side of his head.
I actually don’t have a big issue with seams/gaps existing on statues (they’ve gotta be assembled somehow, right?), but I don’t like how Silver only has a gap under half of his head and not the other half. A small thing, but it nags me.
Overall: Let’s be realistic here: the chances of another company making a high-end Silver the Hedgehog statue are next to zero—and the chances of another one better than this being made are even slimmer. I’ve got my couple nitpicks about a couple aspects of this statue, but by and large, it’s another winner for First4Figures.
Incredible light-up features, luscious packaging, a dead-on sculpt, a beautiful base… this piece may not be perfection itself, but it’s pretty dang close. If you’re a fan of this character and haven’t already, you owe it to yourself to hop on the Wait List for your own F4F Silver Exclusive Statue. There’s simply never going to be a better representation of this character in collectible form.