tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-276033407505619194.post928888824293723586..comments2024-03-27T08:37:54.894+00:00Comments on New Elementary: LEGO® parts, sets and techniques: LEGO® Super Mario review: 71380 Master Your Adventure Maker SetAdminhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188856208086872634noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-276033407505619194.post-80223499324942674262021-01-28T15:01:37.773+00:002021-01-28T15:01:37.773+00:00Thanks, some interesting thoughts. You nearly wrot...Thanks, some interesting thoughts. You nearly wrote as much as me :)<br />Tim Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08905917136247541945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-276033407505619194.post-64858672780468248242021-01-27T15:55:58.685+00:002021-01-27T15:55:58.685+00:00Good review! I got this one for Christmas and it&#...Good review! I got this one for Christmas and it's great for if you're into the game, as well as offering a bunch of great parts.<br /><br />The new "half base" has loads of potential for larger, more interesting "modules" for this theme. It's already used to great effect in the Wiggler's Poison Swamp expansion, where it is used to adapt a vast lake of poison (formed with 8x16 tiles, among other parts) to connect easily and attractively to other parts. But I imagine that if we were to get a large set like Peach's Castle, it would also help to facilitate that.<br /><br />The new bracket's usefulness speaks for itself.<br /><br />This is the first set to include one of the "Koopalings", high-ranking minions of Bowser who often act as the bosses for individual worlds in the 2D platforming games. I'm eager to see some of the others show up. Larry here is one of the more "conventional" ones in terms of appearance (as reflected here by his build being only slightly adapted from last year's Bowser Jr.), but the other six have a wide range of appearances from the bulky Roy and Morton to the tall and lanky Iggy to the tiny Lemmy. If they do appear, each of them will be likely to have the spiny shell piece in a new color: black, dark pink, lime, dark purple, orange, and blue. I hope that one or more of them comes in an "airship" set, reflecting their main mode of transport in games like Super Mario Bros. 3!<br /><br />Speaking of Larry here, I almost made the mistake when building this of mistaking the 1x1 brick with a blue star pattern for one of the other bright green 1x1 bricks! It's a subtle little detail but is authentic to his in-game appearance.<br /><br />The yellow pipe is another good recolor. I'm curious whether any more will be released in the future. If they continue to function as start pipes with different rules, perhaps we could get a blue pipe with a more lax timer (90 seconds or two minutes, perhaps) and a red pipe with an extra-tight timer (15 seconds). Then again, for the other two colors they could just as easily opt for completely different rulesets, such as a level with "clear conditions" that require scanning a certain object or series of objects before the "goal" can be scanned successfully.<br /><br />The white bars with clip are a fantastic recolor but I'm not too satisfied with their use in this set. Here they're used to change the angle of the wings for the Koopa Paratroopa, but they stick off the shell awfully far and are frustratingly loose. I sort of wish the "winged shell" piece used for that figure and the Parabeetle from the blind-bags had had hollow studs in place of the bar attachment they opted for, so that "vertical" wings like on this figure could be attached more tightly and securely with 1x1 tiles with clip.<br /><br />The plethora of bases and 2x plates in this set make it a great option for people who have picked up several of the other expansions. The starter set alone can be good for the first few, but once you have a lot it can be tricky to have enough "neutral" base parts for connecting the sets together coherently.Andrew Barnickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11723179808721244651noreply@blogger.com