Resident Evil Action Figures Toy Biz 1998

The Original Resident Evil Action Figures Released by ToyBiz 1998

Series One- Designed to tie into the first Resident Evil game


Who thought Capcom’s flagship survival horror franchise (an actual scary one) could have such an awesome action figure toy line?

I found out about these Toy Biz figures when I was looking into the NECA line of Resident Evil figures. In all respects, the NECA figures capture that gruesome, gory appearance of the creatures and the zombies. But in 1998, Toy Biz were bringing their Resident Evil figures to kids everywhere. Complete with action features, switches and projectiles.

Love Resident Evil? Some of the games got very creative. See what Resident Evil Gaiden for the Game Boy is all about.



Toy Biz released 5 different action figure packs to tie-in with the first game, a total of 9 figures. Chris and Jill, both came with a smaller enemy figure and a larger projectile weapon. Chris was packaged with the Cerberus Zombie dog. Jill with the Web spinner Spider.
 
Jill & Web Spinner Toy Biz Resident Evil


 

Chris and Jill

Both Chris and Jill are well armed, like every good kids toy should be, with levers on the back to make them… flinch? It’s not a fantastic action-feature. From a collector’s perspective, the levers are ugly.  but it sums up that need for an action figure to have an action feature, even if it’s lame.

 

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For what they are, I was surprised at the amount of articulation with joints in the ankles and ball-socket shoulders. You can get some cool poses and they hold their weapons well.

 

Chris & Cerberus Toy Biz 1998
 


 

Cereberus

After Chris and Jill, the rest of this wave were just enemies and monsters. The Cerberus that came packaged with Chris does have an awesome sculpt and some of the gorier details in this line. The figure has been designed to fall apart, revealing the rotting meat and muscles still clinging to the Cerberus’ skeleton. Even though the action feature hasn’t held up great and the Cerberus fails to stay together, I thought it was ambitious.

 

Cerberus from Toy Biz (1998)


 

Web Spinner

Web Spinner Toy Biz Resident Evil
 
Jill came with the Web Spinner; Brightly coloured and well sculpted. Pushing it’s body down unleashes the action feature, causing it to launch two strings of baby spiders. Another cool idea let down by a design flaw, in this case, the soft plastic strings of baby spiders are just too unpredictable and often get caught on the Web spinner or under the launcher.

 

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Chimera

We got the well established Hunter enemy packed in with the Chimera, an enemy that was only seen briefly in the first Resident Evil towards the end. There’s not a great deal of information on the enemy itself, but it certainly makes a creepy, grotesque figure.

 

Hunter & Chimera Toy Biz Resident Evil

 

The Chimera is a mix between man and fly (even though it looks like a spider), with a head that ‘shoots off’. For a projectile, the missile portion is far too short to be effective and the string is ugly and awkward.

 

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The Chimera figure is about half the size of the Hunter, but the sculpt is really well done, particularly on the back of the figure.


 

Hunter

The hunter has a powerful sculpt and a very squat, fierce, with brain goo still clinging to his claws. Overall, I do find this figure hard to pose due to the action stance and the upper body bulk but Toy Biz handled the reptilian sculpting really well.

 

Hunter Toy Biz Resident Evil

 

Due to the age of this figure, his shoulders are loose but they can still hold an intimidating position. The Hunter does have a subtle action feature (unusual for a Toy Biz Resident Evil figure) where his torso has a swivel attack function.


 

Lab Coat Zombie

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Naturally, we also got a few zombies from Toy Biz. The Lab Coat zombie looks great, gory and rotting with holes in the lab coat, exposing the flesh and bone underneath. The Lab Coat zombie is incredibly tedious to pose and is the most ‘bare bones’ figure in the entire first wave. No action features, small amount of articulation but there’s some great detail here.

 

Lab coat Zombie Toy Biz


 

Forest Speyer Zombie

The pack in figure is the Forest Speyer Zombie. Forest Speyer is actually the characters name, a deceased member of STARS squad, once considered Chris’ rival. The action feature is in the base that allows him to rise from the dead. Thankfully, you can remove Forest Speyer but he lacks any articulation in the legs.

 

Forest Speyer Toy Biz Resident Evil Action Figure
 
The feature works well and there’s some details sculpted on it like the dead crows which tie into his death from the game. It’s the small details that make the Resident Evil Toy Biz line feel genuine and fun instead of trying to create lifelike collector figures.

 

Zombie Forest Speyer Base Toy Biz


 

Tyrant

And finally, the big daddy boss of the game was the Tyrant. Dwarfing the rest of the line, he’s an imposing figure with some cool sculpted details and I really dig his corpse like skin colour and there’s just something so creepy about this, essentially naked figure. When I think of the Tyrant, I can’t help but think of those bare feet on a cold, hard laboratory floor.

 

Tyrant Toy Biz Resident Evil
 
This is the only figure in the line who came packaged alone and without any accessories, but he’s a very distinctive and massive figure for the series.

 

Tyrant Toy Biz resident Evil Action Figure
 
Just because he was a solitary figure, doesn’t mean he didn’t get an action-feature. Similar to the human characters, he has a button on the back, this time it’s used to pump blood through his heart. Sounds cool but it dried up a long time ago. Similar to the Hunter, the Tyrant also has the swivel waist.

 

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So we’ve got a line of some very cool characters and enemies, taking us back to the original Resident Evil. It’s hard to recommend picking these guys up due to the failing action features, but  it’s still a great, fun line of toys attached to a really loved franchise.

This is just the first series of Resident Evil action figures. Toy Biz’s second series based off Resident Evil 2 has certainly piqued a lot more collector interest and the figures tend to sell for a lot more but reviewers like Pixel Dan have already got great videos covering the Toy Biz Resident Evil figures.

 


 

Resident Evil Toy Biz Action Figures


Overall, Toy Biz managed to capture a lot of detail in their 4″ Resident Evil action figures and in their prime, when all the action features and projectiles were new and pristine these would have been a lot of fun. If you’re more of a collector, the NECA line is amazing and the attention to detail and quality is undeniable but for me, even though they’re getting older now, the Toy Biz line is the real winner.

If you love the Resident Evil games, you might get a kick seeing how bad they could be. Check out my video review of the PS2 game Survivor 2 Code Veronica here.

 


 

See more gory Resident Evil action figure photos

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