Equestria Girls is currently available in Australia for $19 for the basic line, or $30 for the deluxe dolls and Molded pony/Doll sets. I am approaching this review from the perspective of an Australian consumer.
[[MORE]]First off, the packaging. It's a simple rectangular box with a clear window so you can clearly view the product and the items she comes with. In today's doll market of over glitzing their stuff *coughMGAcough*, I really do appreciate a good doll packaging.
As someone who has bought many MLP products, I really do like the art used isn't just a recolour or vector image, but rather original art used for this. It isn't very close to the movie, but I really like how clean and uncluttered it is, but still rather eye catching.
I especially like the retro vibe they have going for here with Rarity's face.
Removing her from the box simply required a couple snips of tape holding the backing cardboard, but again, I really like the simplistic feel of the packaging in comparison to other dolls like MGA dolls.
Freeing Rarity was a breeze since she was only tied down with elastics and a bit of white twine. Out of the box she free stands due to her thick boots, which is a neat thing.
There is some quality control issues right off the bat, with her glitter being misaligned and her clothing top has a bit of smudged paint near the edge. Also of note, her arms are a slightly different colour to her other bits, but since it's a different material I can understand why.
Something of a surprise, she has swivel arm joints that can swing out. For a lack of articulation, it's always a pleasant surprise to find arms that can swing outwards as well.
Her skirt has velcro and a ribbon panty thing to stop it sliding up her torso. It's a very cheap piece of material that is unhemmed. It's very dollar store quality and not something I'd expect from a $19 doll.
Her rat tail has a very different shape to the rest of the hair, and it seems to be plugged in as an afterthought. Also at this point, her hair was simply awful to deal with (much like all of hasbro's MLP brushable mane ponies out of pack) so I decided to run her hair under some hot water to tame it, since Nylon is very receptive to heat, and it's a standard thing I do to all dolls I buy new.
As a side note, her hair kept shedding really badly, so I hope that if her hair was combed out, it wouldn't pull out as much.
When I wet her hair though, it let off this really chemical smell I could only associate with acetone or superglue, which makes me worried. Also when it was wet, it really clings together to show how thinly rooted it is.
This is a quick comparison of a Monster High Operetta, and a knock off $5 doll called Midnight Magic, both who have similar hairstyles yet still have much fuller heads of hair. Dance Class Operetta is also $19 in Australia, so I expected the bare minimum amount of hair would be more than a knock off doll, especially when Rarity is the same price as Operetta.
Also I noticed that Rarity's hip joints do NOT let her sit upright. They feel really loose and wobbly. Even with the cheapest of dolls, I do expect them to maintain a sitting upright pose, but Rarity struggles to even do that.
Here is Rarity with two dolls in the same price range as her, a $23 La Dee Da doll and a $19 Dance Class Operetta. I don't want to trash Rarity just because Monster High has set the bar incredibly high for dolls, but it's such a shame to see how much Hasbro has cheaped out on this doll but still has the gall to ask the same price as their competitors.
La Dee Da is well made doll, lacking a lot of articulation, but still manages to push out a unique doll, with a FULL outfit and shoes, a thickly rooted hairstyle and a couple of accessories and a stand.
In comparison, Operetta offers a unique doll with articulation, a full outfit, accessories to compliment her character and a fully rooted head of hair.
Rarity however, only offers a simple unhemmed skirt, chunky boots and a really poorly rooted head of hair.
There isn't many clothing options available to Rarity but she manages to squeeze into a La Dee Da outfit, and her feet swap with both Bratz and Bratz Kidz dolls.
Final Thoughts:
Honestly, this has been one of the most disappointing dolls to have come out from a large company like hasbro in a long time.
While there are some really good points about this doll, including her environmentally friendly and lovely packaging, and the quality of nylon used on her, there have been far too many short cuts taken for this doll at her price point.
Also, unless you're a HUGE fan of Friendship is Magic and feel emotionally invested in the characters, these dolls are NOT really comparable to any other doll on the market and I would not recommend them to any doll fans since I feel it's a huge waste of money on a subpar product.
I feel like Hasbro has dropped the ball on this, as I believe that with a huge cult following that FiM has, Hasbro could have made some really quality doll items to tempt collectors of Monster High to buy these too, as well as appealing to the Brony fanbase, and the parents of children to buy them.
But I guess since they have a well made show they don't need to focus on producing a quality toy for the right price.
Product Rating: 3/10
And for anyone who wants to customize one, you can't, the face up has stained the doll itself:
