This is just a little something I was thinking about last night at work. I came to the conclusion that each style has its own strengths in my opinion. Let me know what you think.


Playability:

RAH wins hands down here for me. Especially after they got broken in and the joints became loose. They had the perfect amount of articulation and I could stage a perfect one on one fight or wrestling match with one figure in each hand. Even then I had enough dexterity in my fingers to move all of the articulation points with one hand. The worst that could happen would be a broken thumb or crotch. Neither one affected my playing. Broken crotches meant more flexibility and broken thumbs meant they became drivers.
New Sculpt comes in second here. From Spytroops on up they kept the basic 12 points of articulation but the joints never seem to "break in" and stay stiff. Good for display, bad for playing. And they began adding extra articulation on some and hindering it on others with the waist skirts.
25th is last in this category simply because I believe there is too much movement in the figure. Tried playing with one last night in the same way I played with my RAHs and I ended up with feet twisted backwards, arms not bending as I liked, heads rotated 180 degrees and hands popping off. This was Wraith that I was playing with and his armor kept rising up and his gauntlets spun around and around on his wrist and the guns popped loose.

Customization:

May be a little biased here but I give New Sculpt the win here. The soft plastics really help take customizing to the next step. Anybody with an exacto could attempt major modifications. The different sized pieces give customizers the chance to have characters of differing heights and sizes as well. And with the back screw design meant LBCs were only one little screw away.
RAH gets the second spot because of the vast array of parts and the standardized construction (for the most part). Skintones stayed the same mostly and LBCs have never been simpler. The back screw and o ring design is what brought me to the hobby.
25th loses here because I believe any figure you have to break to customize is not customizer friendly. Hasbro has done an amazing job frankensteining parts and I've seen some outstanding 25th customs. But the torso design and the added joints are too much for me and its a design I don't care to tinker with. Although a back screw would go far towards making this more my style.

Display:

Here is where the 25th design shines and believe its what they were made for. Looking at the figures on my shelf in a static pose they look great. Especially those that hide the mid torso joint. Great details and great painting make the figures pop. And the designs work well enough to hide that they only use about ten different molds.
RAH is second here. Yeah the heads are somewhat bulbous but nothing can compare to seeing a well laid out display of someone's entire US collection with vehicles and all accessories.
New Sculpt loses in this category since the wacky proportions stand out pretty bad against one another. If they were all badly proportioned in the same way then it wouldn't be as obvious but standing Flint near an Alley Viper and Tunnel Rat really makes the flaws stand out.




Of course these are just my opinions.

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wow, I have to say I agree on most every point you've stated. There can be something as "too much articulation" and you're right, playing with these 25th figs takes a whole other skill level. However they really shine when you display them.

The back screw is a really big issue. My customizing skills are next to ziltch, but the back screw did allow me to combine parts here and there - something awefully lacking with the 25th figs. The extend of my customizing with the 25th figs has been hair dryer popping off the hands, forarms, or feet; and because of the leg screws, I'm able to dismantle the legs.

I'm actually very daunted about the fact of cracking open torsos. With the upcoming Cobra and Joe 5-packs, I want to make the perfect Flint and the perfect cartoon Storm Shadow - but that means cracking open 4 torsos in order to make those switches. I'm seriously contemplating comissioning this out.

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I agree with you on most everything except this:



I've seen this said many, many times....and I'm not quite sure where the sentiment comes from. How is softer plastic easier for customs? Softer plastic dosn't take Paint as well as the harder plastics. And It dosn't sand very well at all and makes getting a production level smoothness nigh on impossible without adding a sculpting material. Because it dosn't sand well, it grinds even worse...Trying to dremel out a new sculpt head ends with a big gumball on the bit and not much progress made on the head.

Maybe I'm just biased by my preferred medium...

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This is exactly what I was thinking. Plus, aren't the soft plastics only on the lower legs and arms and on the heads?

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RAH wins hands down on playability. Wow, I couldn't disagree more. Maybe because the 25th style figure you used for comparison is quite possible the worst example you could have chosen. Wraith is horrible when it comes to articulation and movement. He's severely limited due to the gauntlets, wires and armor. You could have chosen just about any other figure and found he's lacking. That would be like choosing a star brigade armor tech figure as the RAH representative.

If you want to know why I think the 25th is slightly better than the other incarnations, pick up just about any Snake Eyes or Storm Shadow. The range of motion for those figures make it so you can put them in all kinds of poses. I've sat there and had those two battle it out. They were able to do stuff I could only imagine RAH and New Sculpt figures doing. I guess I never played one handed. I like to pose one figure. Have him hold that pose while I have the other guy perform an action. Maybe that's just me and we're talking about different play styles rather than figures.

As far as customizing, I tend to agree with Nova and Lance. While an exacto might cut better through the softer plasticy parts, the finish product is never as clean as RAH. I can make those old figures look factory after a modification. Then I will apply paint and mess it all up. With the new sculpt and 25th, if I don't do a modification at a certain point on the figure (torso meets the waist, gloves meet the forearm, etc) than any modifications are pretty obvious. I have to cover up any of the changes I make.

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Playability:
ARAH fits in vehicles better
New Sculpt are tougher for figure play and many have increased articulation Softer plastic keeps it from breaking too.
Winner = New Sculpt


Customizing:
ARAH has Standard Parts much more frequent
ARAH Holds paint better
Winner = ARAH


Display:
No comparison that 25th looks best standing up.
Winner = 25th

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I have no hands on experience with the new sculpt era toys, so I can't comment on them, past what I've seen in pictures. I also think I'm pretty biased towards teh 25th line, but I have my have my reasons.

My problem with ARAH as far as palyability goes is the total lack of ankle joints. Most leg articulation is rendered useless if the feet can't be adjusted to shift the center of gravity. Add in a rubber band in the torso, causing rebound if you move things past a certain point, and ARAH really starts to loose points. The lack of wrist rotation kind of restricts gun poses, too.

ARAH may have more standardized construction, but some parts being held together with rivets, 25th style still offers more opportunities to mix and match parts. That is offset a bit by 25th's glued together torsos. That makes swapping the upper arms more difficult than it needs to be. I haven't had any problems sanding or painting the softer plastic, but some of the joints are made from an engineering plastic that doesn't take paint well, without special automotive plastic primer. At best I'd say that they're even for customization, but the 25th figures spark my imaginiation in ways the ARAH figs don't

I can't even stand the look of the older figures, anymore. ARAH scuplts are just far too soft. And, the New Sculpt figs all had wonky proportions, usually in the form of freakishly wide shoulders. Plus, 25th is the first Joe line to give us female figures that actually look like women. They may be a bit skinny, but at least they aren't manly looking, like in previous lines.

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I got to agree with AVE's point about paint apps with the New sculpt softer plastic winning out. However, I think that it may good to stipulate further on Nova's point in relation to certain types of paint over others.

The reason I say this is that I am a big fan of basecoating with Krylon Fusion spray paints. In my new sculpt tests, KF takes better on the softer plastics than the older figures with harder plastics. That is partly why I sometimes mix new sculpt arms with ARAH parts.

I don't get that paint rub on the joints that I normally do with acrylics.

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Actually the forearms are much easier to change than any other form Simple pop out take the plastic bolt out then pop back with thebicep, while definatly possible with ARAH (As I have witnessed first hand) its ten times easier with New Sculpt (no tools needed ect). I mean if I CAN do it.... Admitidly legs are about the same as ARAH.

Personally I think they all have merits and flaws and as such one is not inherently better than the other in any catagory. That is just me, I really just look and make a judgement and move on.

I pretty much agree with AVE on everything. I am neutral on the customizing part because I never had the skill to do that. But on occasion I did make some LBCs and I liked the ARAH sculpt for that because they used a standard buck and a back screw. I really didn't like anything about the new sculpts.

I especially agree about playability. I have been dusting and moving much of my collection around recently and just got to my 25th figures. What a pain. A lot of accessories fell off and some would just not hold their guns the way I wanted them to. I had to compromise just to get a couple to hold it at all. When it all comes down to it, these are toys. You should be able to handle them without the guns being dropped by picking up the figure much less actually playing with them. And I always feel like I can get a ARAH figure into any position I want. Not so much for the 25th figures because of the lack of o-ring.

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It's interesting to see which style appeals to everyone.

For me, I never got interested in the new sculpt stuff. I picked up some vehicles and figures for custom ideas, but that's it.

The 25th has actually won me over completely to the point I'm thinking about cutting my ARAH collection (such as it was) way back. I still love the originals, but the 25th line looks amazing displayed.

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