Hasbro: Star Wars Black Series Gaming Greats Deluxe Cal Kestis

Ponchos. Nothing says Star Wars like a poncho. Luke, Jyn, Qui-Gon, Anakin, Jango Fett, Princess Leia, and Rey have all rocked the poncho over the years and Jedi: Fallen Order kicks it up a notch by making poncho collection an actual in game mission. Now I like the original Cal Kestis figure a lot, but I did miss that poncho, so I was happy to see the deluxe figure announced was poncho-tastic. I can’t stop saying Poncho.

Cal comes in the newer style box with a pretty snazzy illustration of him floating a Holocron. It does make me wish again that Cal did come with a force push hand.

Cal comes with a nice assortment of stuff including two sabers with removeable blades, a holocron, two swappable hood pieces and two little buddies.

The two hood options can be slid over the head and the poncho actually looks kinda decent without it, though there is a hole where a stabilizing peg from the hood pieces can be inserted.

The hood looks amazing down, but you do have to fiddle with a bit sometimes and it can come askew while you pose the figure. Hood up is slightly goofy looking because Cal’s hair necessitates a larger hood than the game model, though it’s not too far off from the game look since the hood is a little goofy in the game too. I think I’ll mostly keep the hood down, but I like the options.

The single saber is a re-issue from the original figure and is pretty solid with a nice dark metallic finish. The new saber is double bladed and has a good silver sheen to it. Unfortunately the hilt is made of pretty soft plastic, so it wants to bend when you put the figure in two handed grip poses. The blades can swap between sabers. I kind of wish instead of green, the double blades were yellow because that was what I used in the game, but there are so many customizable options in the game that I don’t expect my exact load out would be represented.

The Holocron is the MacGuffin of the whole game, so it’s great to get it here and I love the effect of the clear green plastic with painted details. I just don’t love that Cal can’t really hold it. His grip hands are too closed and tiny. I almost wish Hasbro took a page from Jazwares Fortnite book and put a hole in the Holocron so you could hook Cal’s thumb in there.

Cal’s companions include a little rodent creature called a Bogling and his droid pal, BD-1. The Bogling can actually be added to the ship in the game, so I was happy to see him. The game is so full of amazing creature designs that would make great toys, but alas we’ll never see them in this day and age, so I’m glad for the little zero-articulation slug figure that I got. He’s a super cute little guy and so extremely Star Wars in design and the toy captures the game design very well. While unarticulated, the paint is fairly nice with a gradient white fur spray on the face and big black glossy eyes.

BD-1 is also in the running for cutest Star Wars thing ever and you can collect variant color schemes as you play through the levels of Jedi: Fallen Order. I don’t remember this particular maroon paint scheme, but since I always had fun customizing my droid in the game, I’m tickled by the option here.

One complaint I had about the original Cal figure was that BD-1 couldn’t ride on his back as he did in the game, but this figure fixes that with a little slot carved in the poncho that BD can hook his little toe into. It works pretty well, so I’m thinking of maybe trying to cut a similar hole into the jacket on the original figure.

The sculpting on Cal is really nice with a ton of great costume detail. It’s the same base figure from the original release except without the short vest/jacket and an additional poncho. The poncho has a nice weight to it with good cloth texture and frayed and damaged edges. Fortunately the plastic is fairly soft and articulation is fairly unhindered, but two-handed saber poses can make it bunch up or ride up on the body.

The nice thing is if you have both figures, you can swap the pieces to make a couple of different looks. You do have to heat the head and pop it off to do this and getting that original figure’s vest off is a little trickier because it is looped around the arm on both sides.

The articulation is what we’ve come to expect from the Black Series with:

• Swivel/hinge shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, and ankles
• Ball and socket neck, head and mid-torso
• Double hinged knees
• Butterfly hinge pecs

I especially like the tilt that the dual ball joints in the neck and head allow.

Paint is good. I like the detail on BD-1 and the Bogling and Cal’s poncho and the face printing is solid. The one change I would make would be to add a brown wash to Cal’s pilot outfit. The orange is a little nuclear hot and is a lot grungier in the game.

Overall, I love this figure. I’m a huge fan of the game and actually really enjoyed collecting the costumes and paint schemes for BD-1, so I’m so happy to see that represented in a figure. I like having all of the game specific accessories and the poncho with spot for BD-1 fixes one of my issues with the original figure. I wish it were a little cheaper of course and I’d rather have new characters from the game like Cere, Greez, Merrin, The Ninth Sister, and Malicos, but I’m hoping continued support of Fallen Order figures will open the door for those guys in the future.