Toy Fair 2016: New Sonic 25th Anniversary Toys Revealed!

It’s that time of the year again, Toy Fair season is in full swing and with London Toy Fair just coming to a close this week, we here at TSS decided that we would actually go along and see what there was.

Now before we go too far into details with this, we need to lay down a few things. First of all, Tomy’s booth did not have any signs up regarding the prohibition of photography,  nor were we told we could not take photos.

However, usually, you should ask if you can take pictures or if there is a clear sign saying ‘no photos’ you don’t do it. Tomy’s booth had no signs indicating restrictions. We did see professional photographers in there taking pictures who were being monitored by staff. Butt because we were also there for other ‘reasons’ which might get made clearer one day, we decided not to take any photos out of respect to the staff who were kind enough to let us in and take a look, up until last night this article wasn’t going to have photos of the products, we were just going to use images of the already released prototype artists impressions.

That was until, Twitter user Elliot James who is not associated with us in any way did take photos and asked if we would like to use them… so we’re using these under the assumption he got permission so here they are.

Right, now that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the products.

Sonic Boom Big Head Plushies

Some of these have already been released and proved very popular, they sold out in under half an hour at Weston Super Sonic recently, it’s surprise that the range is to expand, and it’s brilliant.

We saw and held most of the new plushies and they are VERY impressive, possibly some of the best plushies since the Sonic Adventure 2 plush line, no really, they look odd and strange, but they work, the design fits the cartoon nature and style of the show and in some cases the plushies work better with this design.

Take Orbot and Cubot, these for me were big surprise stars of the plush range, they seemed to be very well made and the design of the plush line helped them keep their robotic like design yet also be a soft plush toy.

Amy, Shadow and Sticks also look great in this plush line, they’re fantastic plushies and I can’t wait until they get released.

Oh yes, and Metal Sonic, it’s great, big head Metal Sonic looks fantastic miles better than the Jazwares plush we reviewed back in 2014.

8″ Plush Range

Shadow, Metal Sonic & Sticks join the range, lets get the bad out of the way first, we were not impressed with Sticks, she was… ok, but her big head plush was just so much better. Shadow however looked fine, Metal Sonic however looked incredible, the quality was miles ahead of Jazwares and it fitted in with the line well.

Figures

It’s no secret that people have been a little mixed on the figures released so far, whilst many collectors are thankful for an Egg-O-Matic and an Orbot & Cubot figure, the quality has suffered from mass production syndrome.

However, what we saw, utterly blew us away, the new figures are on a totally different level. It’s really hard to describe but the paint jobs on them were stunning. They looked hand painted, they were done to a very high standard and even had a glossy like finish.

Whilst some figures are getting re-released, there are some new figures on the way, the biggest surprise, badniks. Crabmeat, MotoBugs & BuzzBombers (no I will not call them by their Boom names), these were VERY impressive, their paint jobs were stunning and the detail was high.

The strangest one was Eggman who was wearing a dark red jacket, this may have been a prototype colour scheme but I have to admit, it looked REALLY cool!

Also coming out is a new larger play set, Sonic Vs Eggman, it comes with a Sonic figure and an Eggman with a new more aggressive weaponized Egg-O-matic.

Premium Figures

Not sure if this is the correct name for these but unsure what else to call them. There are a range of larger more impressive looking figures on the way, two are already known, Sonic & Knuckles. However, Metal Sonic is also joining the range and we utterly loved it.

Over the last few years, there has been a small explosion in Metal Sonic figures, all of which have had the usual ‘Jazwares’ quality to them… yeah… This figure, the one by Tomy, was as impressive as say a First4Figures statue.

The figure looked menacing, it was dynamic, it looked mean, it looked like a threat, it looked like the Metal Sonic I loved from the Sonic CD era, it looked like a Metal Sonic who took inspiration from The Terminator, it looked like a powerful robot who could potentially defeat Sonic.

Forget the laughable encounter in Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric, Tomy’s Metal Sonic could go toe to toe with 1980’s Terminator and after 3 hours entire cities would be in ruin.

This is a figure I will order on day 1, this is a figure I want in my collection, this is a figure which by far is the most impressive Metal Sonic figure for decades if not all time (if you don’t include the F4F statue).

The 25th Anniversary Merchandise

It was there! It was really there, I got to hold it, it was real! And… It’s really good!

There was a number of things on show, Classic Sonic, Knuckles and Tails mini figures with a collectable coin, a large classic Sonic plush, a small classic Sonic, Tails Knuckles and even Eggman plush!

Ok where to start, let’s start with the small plush lines.

Jazwares tried this back in the 20th anniversary, now Tomy is trying it, Tomy’s are better. Their plushies are better made, better stuffed, look more like characters and don’t have anything which look too stand out. One thing about Jazwares plushies which I always find odd is that the eyes tend to look like they’re stuck on or don’t belong to it, the Tomy plush line looks like it’s apart of the plush, not just stuck/sewn on afterwards.

Now this is where things get a little strange, the plush line reminds me a lot like the old original Japanese plushies, the Eggman is almost exactly like the original Japanese Sonic plush, which is fine, it’s a great plush and Tomy did a great job making their Eggman plush. The other plushies are also very well made and look like their classic counterparts.

The large classic Sonic plush was amazing, the quality of it was high, it felt soft it looked detailed, it was very well made, it’s very impressive and we can’t wait to see it released.

Finally, the small figures. These were great, they looked very similar to the First4Figures mini figures, only again, they were better, the paint jobs were better, they had a gloosy like finish to them… and… they had articulation! You can pose them, not by much, but by some. They also come with some collectable coins to.

Overall

From what we saw, we are VERY impressed with Tomy’s lineup, we hope this will come to the UK because it was very high quality, we just hope that some of the quality doesn’t get lost when it goes into mass production, it would be a huge shame if that happened.

What we saw would look great in any collection, we’ll likely return to these when they get released, but at the moment, we are highly looking forward to these products and cannot wait to see what else Tomy will release in the future.

New Sonic Mascot Costume

This was one of the best mascot costumes we’ve seen for a long time, Sonic was excellent on the day, he even interacted with other characters and kept in character. Give Sonic an extra helping of chili-dogs for his work at the event.

Special Thanks to Elliot James for the photos.

P.S.

“I wanted clues to the next Sonic game!”

There was nothing.

However, think about it, Tomy is ‘The Master Toy Partner’ they had no modern Sonic toys, but Boom toys and Classic Sonic toys, nobody else has as of yet shown anything for 2016 other than Boom and Classic.

Work it out.