His family serves the Lucian kings as their shield for generations. He's a combat mentor and friend of Noctis. Meet Gladiolus Amicitia, the musclehead and smooth-talker of the "Chocobros" in Final Fantasy XV. I got his Play Arts Kai action figure after looking for it for a long time. This is a 2nd hand figure but it looks, feels and smells like brand new.
"Guard the king with our lives - that's the way it's always been.
I embraced my duty. And I take pride in it."
~ Gladiolus Amicitia ~
PACKAGING
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| Box front |
The front of the box show a large image of Gladio standing and posing in an open highway. I'm starting to see a pattern in the box design of the Chocobros'.
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| Box Back |
The back of the box shows a product shot of Gladio in a normal standing pose and another with an action pose (partially). The preview shots of the other bros are there too.
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| Front cover opened |
You can view the figure and it's accessories on the right hand side if you open the front cover. You can read some info about Gladio and check out the awesome product shot of his figure on the left hand side.
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| The Shield is ready to serve the king. |
Packaging includes:
- Gladiolus figure
- War Sword/War Buster (or Hardedge/Hard Breaker) Greatsword
- L/R gripping hands
- L/R style-posed hands
- Display stand
THE FIGURE
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| Viewing Gladio. |
The figure looks really good and kinda heavy. The body proportion of the action figure is great.
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| Gladio's scarred face. |
The face of this Gladio figure is 95% accurate to its game counterpart. The eyes and lips are nicely printed. The scar is sculpted and painted well The skintone and shadings looks nice but lacks some more bearded ruggedness and blemishes on Gladio's face. Gladio's mullet looks good, but too glossy. The back of the mullet are really soft.
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| Gladio's jacket. |
Gladio is wearing his Crownsguard Fatigues. His fatigues is unique because he doesn't wear any shirt underneath the soft, leathery and very textured jacket. The buttons of the jacket are painted silver.
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| Back of the jacket. |
The back of the jacket shows more details. It features biker-style patches. The center patch looks like a griffon with some plumes on the left and right. The top patch says "Love and Hate". It's hard to read the words in the bottom patch, all I can read is the word "Greed" at the end.
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| Gladio's neclace |
Gladio is wearing a necklace. It kinda resembles a rosary. The necklace is painted nicely with black and some beads are painted gold. You can partially see the beak of the griffon tattoo on Gladio's left chest. If you look underneath the jacket at the back, Gladio's back is covered with tattoo.
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| right arm |
The right arm looks good and beefy. It's covered with tattoo. The sleeves of the jacket have glossy parts. The tattoo are printed well but there are some tiny spots if you look closer.
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| Left arm |
The left arm looks the same. It's also covered with tattoo, The tattoo is cleanly printed here. It also features a uniquely designed fingerless gloves with silver studs circling the wrist area.
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| Gladio's crotch |
Gladio is wearing a black belt with clip-style buckle. The belt is really detailed with holes and stitches. The buckle is black with a very tiny skull on the bottom corner. The pants have a weird off-set zipper on the left leg that doesn't serve a purpose, it's just a fashion design.
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| Belt chain accessory |
Gladio have a chain accessory connected to his belt. It's detailed and painted well but they're sculpted on the pants and crotch piece. I wish this is a separate floating part.
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| Front of Gladio's pants. |
Gladio's pants looks formal and casual. It got glossy linings on the lap and the sides. It also got a rough texture.
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| Back of Gladio's pants |
The back of the pants have embossed skulls on each back pocket.
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| Nice shiny shoes. I want them. |
Gladio's black shoes looks cool and very formal in front and party at the back, just like his mullet. It looks leathery, glossy and the textures make it look like they're made from alligator skin. The back of the shoes have smooth gray parts.
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| Bottom sole of the shoes. |
The bottom of the shoes have red soles. This makes me want to have these shoes more.
ACCESSORIES
Gladio only have five accessories, his greatsword and a total of four extra hands.
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| Gladio's basic stuff. |
It's disappointing that the Gladio figure doesn't have a shield, just his big sword. A King's Shield without his shield... kinda ironic. Well anyway, this figure must have his shield and some little accessories like his book that he reads during their road trip and his flask. And this is a stretch, but they should have added his cup noodles too.
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| War Sword/Hardedge |
This is one of Gladio's equippable greatswords, The War Sword (War Buster) or Hardedge (Hard Breaker). This is one of the best looking swords that I've seen. It looks cool and features a horned skull on both sides of the sword and wings for sword guards. It got gold and silver parts. The tip is flat, I guess this is not an effective stabbing weapon making it more like a combination of a sword and shield. It got a white grip and gold pommel. The grip is removeable so that you can slide the gripping hands on the rip then reattach the grip to the sword. Removing the grip too much will loosen it over time.
These are Gladio's extra hands. The gripping hands are for the sword and the open hands can be used for styled poses and other hand gestures.
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| Display stand. |
This is the (outdated) PAK standard display stand. It's still in it's blister packaging, so I will not use it.
ARTICULATIONS
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| Serious look. |
Gladio is a pretty bulky guy but he wears kinda slim set of clothes. Still, I can see some limitations in articulations based on how this figure is made.
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| Stretching his neck that's probably sore. |
The head is on a double ball-peg. It got great range of motion. It can look/down, look left/right and tilt like a real human. The neck is also on a double ball-peg, it helps the head look and lean more.
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| Check out his rock-hard abs. |
The arms have ball-hinges for articulation. The shoulders can move forward/back and cross the chest well. The arms can raise to the side pretty high too. I thought the arms got bicep swivel because of the jacket's sleeves. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any.
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| Holding the greatsword (Conan, the Barbarian-style) using his two hands. |
The elbows are on a ball-hinge and have nice decent bend. The ball-hinges can also serve as bicep swivel.
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| "Want some?" |
The wrists are also on a ball-hinge and doesn't have any movement problems.
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| Doing a defensive stance. |
It's a little difficult to move the chest because of the jacket. The chest can move a little while doing some ab crunches and while leaning to the back. It can lean side-to-side a little too.
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| "No mercy!" |
The waist have more movement range. It can turn left/right and lean forward, back and to the sides pretty well.
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| "Try this on for size!" |
The legs can move really well. It can go forward 90 degrees high and a little movement backwards. It can raise to the side making Gladio do some nice kicks. The legs can also swivel on the joints.
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| Doing the Cyclone move. |
The double-hinged knees does its job well. The knees have a nice bending range but it looks bad when folded. By the way, he's too heavy for the new PAK display stand to hold still while posing.
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| He's about to overhead drop the big sword for massive damage. |
The feet are on a ball-hinge and have the most restricted movement on the figure. The bottom end of the pants are soft but not soft enough to make the feet move a little better. Both foot can only point up in one click and can't point down even when I force it. They can swivel a little and can pivot.
SCALING
This Gladio figure is pretty tall. Time to see which PAK figures are puny compared to Gladio.
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| The Chocobros are almost complete. The Ignis in this photo is a bizarro version. |
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| Gladio with the ladies of FFXV. |
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| Gladio with tall characters. |
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| Gladio with people wearing clothes with red, white and black colors. |
Gladio is the tallest in this picture with Harley Quinn (Variant), Lightning (Dissidia) and Sora (KH3D).
QUALITY ISSUES
Overall this PAK Gladio figure is pretty solid with no major issues. The paint issues are so few too.
CONCLUSION
The Final Fantasy XV Play Arts Kai action figure of Gladiolus is great. It's almost perfect. This figure looks really good. The only downsides of this figure are the few amount of accessories and a very limited chest and feet movement. I bought this 2nd hand and the price is not that expensive. So I'm happy that I have Gladio PAK figure added to my collection. Only one character is missing in my Chocobro collection, and that's Ignis.
Special thanks to Mr. Bene Carpo of Play Arts Kai Philippines FB group for selling me this figure in a really good and brand new condition.
Cheers and Happy Collecting!
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