TSS REVIEW: Official Sonic the Hedgehog Tails Countdown Calendar

Ho ho ho! Christmas is round the corner, isn't that exciting!? And what better way to get hype for the festive season than to spend each day painstakingly opening doors of a cardboard box and munching on delicious chocolate. Nah, who can be doing with that? Tasty treats, who needs 'em?

Well, if you're looking for something a little more interesting to do, Numskull is hoping they have you covered with this official Sonic-themed build-a-figure Countdown Calendar.

Now, this isn't exactly a new concept - Numskull launched one of these last year featuring Sonic the Hedgehog having fun on a snowboard - but the concept must have been really quite successful because the merch company is doing it again in 2023 with a statue focused on Sonic's trusty sidekick, Tails, instead.

The character might be different, but the idea behind it is very much the same - inside the rather hefty 'calendar' box are 24 individual little boxes, each containing a small piece of a figure puzzle that you put together over the course of the holidays. Each piece is organised to that everything you unwrap connects to the existing work-in-progress statue, so you're not just sitting around for a whole day with a rogue piece with nothing to stick it to.

That's all well and good, but it also means that, due to the logistics of the thing, you are going to have periods where you're unboxing nothing but boring-looking (out of context - it all looks rather good when put together) pillars or parts of a star-post. Things start to get exciting towards the end of the run, where you have bigger pieces to connect and it all feels a little more worthwhile.

Having said that, when you do finish putting it all together you end up with a cool-looking figure that looks like this:

The build quality of the finished article, in general, is pretty good! It was a little fiddle to put together at first, but thankfully there are helpful instructions on the back of each box to let you know exactly where each piece is supposed to go (which is useful because some of the objects double up and you want to make sure you're putting the right gem on top of the right pillar, for example).

I did also have a little trouble with one particular part of the statue - the star post didn't seem to want to connect fully, and I'm not entirely sure if there's a means to 'click' or 'lock' it into place, or if it's meant to be sort of 'spongy' when connected to the post base. I've managed to wobble the star post pole off its base a couple times because of this, but I figure as long as I'm careful with it (what else am I going to do with a statue besides have it sit idly on a shelf?) it shouldn't be too much of an issue from hereon out.

I might have just had a wonky sample in that case, but it's something to be aware of. Anyway, here's a little montage video of me setting it all up - you're obviously supposed to open one box a day, but for the purposes of this review I cheated, didn't I?

At the end of it all, it was a pretty painless experience, beyond the trouble with the star post. And I get to keep a cool mini-statue that really does look rather cool - I love the action pose of Tails here, and the base is quite inspired (even if it is Ice Cap again from last year - although I do like to pretend that it could be Robotnik Winter instead sometimes).

I won't lie though, the asking price of £79.99 may be a little steep for those looking for an advent calendar, so you have to know exactly what you're getting here before putting your money down. Especially seeings as a similar Sonic character model was released last year at a much cheaper price point.

BUT, considering that you get a pretty decent figure out of it - that you can stand on your shelf forever and ever - AND considering the price of some of the other hi-spec statues and figures out there, relatively speaking, I wouldn't say this is super outrageous. It all depends on whether your love for Miles Prower burns so brightly that you're willing to lovingly and masochistically build each part of him, bit by bit... day by day... I hope Tails isn't self-aware on the days he has to sit there without a head!

If you're the kind of Tails fan that would get a kick out of a novel new way to obtain an otherwise-quite-rare statue of him, then you can't go far wrong than the Official Tails Countdown Calendar.

• You can purchase the Official Tails Countdown Calendar from SEGA Shop UK or Europe here [affiliate link].