Toy Review: Snail Shell G.N. Project 001 Wolf Armor (Regular & Uncoded Editions)

Snail Shell’s 2nd release of a line that has the potential to be legendary.

Producer: Snail Shell

Price: Approx. $75 USD for the regular and $91 for the Uncoded variant

Release Date: Dec. 2020

Item Height: approx. 6.7″

Item Weight: N/A

Batteries: N/A

WHERE TO BUY: BigBadToyStore

Back in 2019 a smaller toy company named Snail Shell released a “Mecha Girl” toy as part of their new toyline called the G.N. Project. This figure was labed GN-001 “Wolf.” What seemed to be a pretty cool, standard anime-type female figure turned out to be the beginning of a full on toyline dedicated to this single character with different variants of her that can all interchange parts and additional accessory upgrades. What’s being reviewed here is the second release of this line which is the 2020 GN-001 Wolf “Ver. Armored” as well as the Black, “Uncoded” variant which was a Wonderfest 2020 exclusive.

Presentation: The box for the regular variant of the Wolf Ver. Armor is pretty standard for higher end toys of this scale with the clear front showing the figure and it’s contents with pictures showing off the figure and its contents on the sides and back. The “Uncoded” variant however is a primarily black box with only the G.N. Project Wolf logo and some text on the front. Both boxes have a good feel to the cardboard and all of the contents are well packed inside of the plastic clamshells. I’d like to use this article to say that I’d like for them to begin including some sort of artwork that gives insight to whatever storyline is behind this character as their are blatant changes to the figure and its anatomy in between variants (like the original being mostly human in appearance while this is full on cyborg) with no lore to explain what has happened.

Build: This is a primarily plastic piece with some diecast on the feet. The engineering of it is really cool considering that the majority of this figure can be disassembled and the parts interchanged with other figures in the line. It also comes with female ports on its back to attach stands that most people use like Figma and Tamashii ones. The paint and tampo application is magnificent as well.

My one complaint is that the joints on this product are extremely loose on both variants and I’ve confirmed with enough other owners of the product to consider it a universal issue. Joint Fix does take care of this easily but it’s not something that should have to be dealt with at all, especially considering the price of these.

Accessories: Here’s a list of the accessories taken from the product listing;

-Main figure x1
-Removable visor x1
-Face part x2 (Standard expression, Angry expression)
-Alternative eye parts to change the direction it is looking x3 (forward, left squinting, right squinting)
-Side skirt x2 (left/right)
-Handgun (w/Storage unit) x2 (Left foot, Right foot)
-Backpack x1
-Tail part (Standard, molded)
-Alternative hand parts x10
-Wolf claw unit x2 (left/right)
-Rifle x1
-Front hair part for the head without headgear

**The Uncoded variant also comes with the exclusive Zan blade**

The accessories are plentiful without feeling overbearing. I love that the handguns have the holsters that attach to the sides of her legs. Although I love the options you have with the eyes that face different directions that are interchangeable with each face, it’s a lot to change in and out at times and I’m looking forward to seeing what their 2021 Wolf Ver. Swimsuit brings to the table with its movable eyes.

It’s also neat how I can look at the original 2019 release and see how it came with alternate forearms to attach the wolf claw units from this release. The pre planning shown on this line is just magnificent.

Articulation: The articulation on these things is stellar with a good amouint of meaningful articulation points. Her legs are significantly long compared to the proportions of the rest of her body so it’s neat to see that this product can still hit a ton of advanced poses like the superhero landing and whatnot with that being a factor.

Overall Score: 7.0/10 – Snail Shell is onto something pretty good with this line. The general designs are great and the modular parts add a lot of fun. My biggest and pretty much only gripe with these two releases are the loose joints which are fixable via Kiki’s loose joint product, but for the price it’s definitely not something that should be a problem on 100% of them. It’s a singular complaint but unfortunately a big deal for me because it doesn’t matter how good a figure looks or what gimmicks it has if it’s a floppy mess. Once you get past that though, there’s quite a bit of fun to be had with these.