Review: 44009 Dragon Bolt

[ZORK64]

(I'm terribly sorry for the huge delay of this review. I was just either lacking the time or the muse to write it until now. Luckily, Brickthing got us already covered with a review earlier. Also, it's somewhat ironic that I start to write this review now after we already got reviews of the new wave - which I initially wanted to avoid.)

Dragons. I think we all agree on the well-known fact that dragons are easily among the most awesome creatures of the fantasy genre. They are somewhere between sleek lizards, giant dinosaurs and hungry crocodiles. And very often, they can fly and even spit stuff like fire at their prey. Yeah, dragons are awesome.

But even if Dragon Bolt wouldn't have been a thunder-themed dragon, but a different creature, he would have gotten my attention anyway for the mere fact of being a blue coloured set. Alongside with the wonderful new version of Stormer and the very great Frost Beast and Surge, Dragon Bolt and his glorious amount of blue is yet another reason why I can happily declare this wave the best wave ever in my eyes.

I guess that intro is long enough now - time to find out if Dragon Bolt does justice to the reputation of dragons being awesome!

Set name: Dragon Bolt

Set Number: 44009

Price: 24.99 Euro

Pieces: 149

Year of release: Summer 2013

Size class: Titan set

The bag

Even the largest bag isn't large enough to show the mighty Dragon Bolt in his whole majesty, as his wings disappear at the edges. The brain slug in the lower right corner (which is unfortunately not really visible) features also one of those glows in the dark-symbols.

Dragon Bolt (or Sárkányvillám, to pick his name in some other language) doesn't bother himself with showcasing his combi model with Surge. His bag instead highlights his flapping wing feature, his dragon head and the brain slug. And, of course, the 1000 game points he comes with.

Inside the bag - the parts

Sweet Quaza power core, dudes.

Dragon Bolt comes with plenty of very cool and useful pieces. For starters, there's a truckload of those small lightning things, and three of those ball joint things and 4 friction joints and blue shells and trans-yellow shells and yellow NINJAGO katanas and a small torso and a large torso and... In more comprehensible words: Dragon Bolt is a great parts pack if you have a serious lack of blue and yellow in your collection, and he also comes with a very healthy dose of TECHNIC pieces.

Let us take a look at Dragon Bolt's fancy Brain Slug first. The slug's body is an odd (and certainly unique - your slug may look somewhat different) mixture of yellow, green and blue, giving it a very slimy look.

The eyes of the slug are white since the solid eye plastic is actually the part that glows in the dark. In other words, most of the slug doesn't glow.

I'm 100% positive the horns aren't new, but I just took a picture to show that the horns I got with my Dragon Bolt are not all identical, as some have the small hole on the left, others on the right, but these two variants are evenly numbered, so I guess it's because of the creation process for these that they are asymmetrical.

Dragon Bolt's head piece got lots of details aside from the obvious horns and teeth. It looks really cool and beastlike.

The cross axle on it points downward, which might make it difficult to use it with most Bionicle heads though.

Oh my, I'm so in love with those katana swords, they look just so awesome, and they are so ridiculously large. It still bugs me that they are not on Pick-a-Brick in any more blade-like colour, but only in rather expensive NINJAGO sets, which I just don't want to buy only for those (best example is the Rattlecopter, mostly because if I would've bought it, I would have ended up with yet more lime green - and since Breez never ceases to get cool sets, I'll get enough lime anyway).

Since I'm one of the few around here who actually passed on Voltix and Speeda Demon, I get these little parts for the first time with Dragon Bolt now. And he comes with a fair share of them, which is pretty neat.

A few pics from the instructions

The cover is of course pretty much identical to the art on the bag, only with less advertisements. I think it's kinda odd that Surge is shown flying, while Dragon Bolt actually stands in his picture.

Dragon Bolt's instructions have a rather large mini-comic at the beginning, which is kinda nice, even if it mostly shows sets from the winter wave.

Building the set

If you remember the first building step in my previous reviews for this wave, you might expect that Dragon Bolt's built starts with adding something to his back, and this picture also looks like that - except that it's not his back...

...but his underside! You might wonder why there's a single connector first, but it does serve an important purpose - more on that later.

Then Dragon Bolt's torso get turned around and we start building the basis for his back (or his wing joints, to be more specific), the neck and his front legs.

Then Dragon Bolt gets already his legs, which is quite convenient for the rest of his built.

His legs get also already shells. But he doesn't look very dragonlike yet, so let's move on.

Next limb on our to-do-list is the tail. The build for it is rather simple, but effective.

Then the tail gets already attached, and after that...

...he gets already shells on it. Note there's also a spikey plate on the shell at the beginning of the tail to cover the construction there.

Now we continue with the neck and the head. This is also the place where the small torso (a really cool piece) comes into play.

This grey balljoint will eventually become the neck joint, but it's first time to give Dragon Bolt some more shells.

Yeah, now he already starts to look dragonlike, doesn't he?

The built of the head starts with his jaw, which is actually a 2.0 Hero foot.

The foot gets turned around then, and now it's time for a fair share of TECHNIC assembly. The Hero head piece functions as the connection between the lower jaw and the upper part of his head (it's practically the center).

Don't worry about the hollowness of the foot or the lack of teeth, as both gets fixed.

Where are almost done with the lower jaw.

It just needs some lightning, and then...

...voilà! The lower part of the head gets attached.

Now it's time to put some parts on Dragon Bolt's upper side again. We start with some shells on his neck.

Then the Brain Slug gets attached on the head piece, the same way it's done with the other villains.

Of course, that means the head needs another piece to be attached.

The Brain Slug's tail gets attached. As you know, I'm not too keen on this, but at least this connection is far more stable.

Oh, I actually forgot to take a picture of adding the upper part of the head. Oh well, let's move on to building the last section of Dragon Bolt... the wings!

The wing assembly is dominated by classic TECHNIC building, which is a nice change from the rest of the built.

You know, it's really hard to remember what I wanted to comment to all these pictures, since I took them maaany months back then in summer. It also feels somewhat redundant to commenting every picture by stating the obvious, which is also the reason why I decided to ramble here a bit instead of just saying something like "Well, we add some more TECHNIC pieces (whose names I don't know right now), slowly building the mechanism for the wings.", because I'm sure most of you can tell that just by looking at the picture, right? XD

Every mechanism needs a button to trigger it, so it's the next thing we build.

It's a red button... is it safe to press red buttons? Well, technically, punching a dragon in his back by pressing this button, and I guess punching dragons isn't very smart, so yeah...

Now we put all of this together for a nice little mechanism. Isn't it beautiful?

Of course, a wing-flapping mechanism needs wings to make sense. You can also already see the rubber band here.

Before Dragon Bolt reaches his entire wingspan we add some additional greebles to the wing bones.

The assembly for both wings is identical, but mirrored, so I won't show the assembly for both wings, and I won't talk much about it, as the pictures explain it rather well.

Anyway, here we go:

There we have the wing construction, and if we add this to Dragon Bolt's back, we get...

The finished set!

Behold! The fearsome Dragon Bolt is about to attack us!

All dragons have a treasure, Dragon Bolt's spare parts are a good starting point for his I think.

Design and playability

Once built, Dragon Bolt looks very impressive.

He is very large, mostly because of his long neck, the tail and the wings though, as his legs are somewhat short. But even without long powerful legs, Dragon Bolt is still a very convincing dragon.

A side view.

He looks also pretty cool from the top view. The red button stands out a bit, but it's easy to fix if it really bugs you.

(And yes, I assembled one of his wings wrong, it's supposed to face in the other direction)

His jaw can be opened quite far, so he can shoot lightning bolts at those pesky heroes or attempt to bite their limbs off.

Here's a nice demonstration of how poseable his tail his. Dragon Bolt is overall very poseable, and he can hold most poses up very well.

But enough about poseability, it's time to try his fun features! Because if you push down the button on his back...

Dragon Bolt's wings move downward, so if you push the button repeatedly, his wings flap up and down like he's flying. While I've preferred if the wings were down (and not up) in his neutral (not-pushing pose), I can understand why it's not, since it would have required a different mechanism. Anyway, it's a pretty neat feature!

Swoooosh!

Yeah, Dragon Bolt is very swooshable. He's comfortable to hold, and the button can be also easily reached.

Oh hey, remember the little connector from the very beginning of the built? Well, it's there to hold the armour on Dragon Bolt's underside in place even while you're holding him. It's simple, but genius!

Dragon Bolt vs. Surge! As I said earlier, Dragon Bolt is stable enough to stand on his hind legs, though I'm using his tail as an additional stand here.

Size comparison time! On this picture, Dragon Bolt looks rather small...

...once we lie Surge down, the size difference between the two sets becomes very obvious.

Even Furno XL looks rather short when he's lying next to Dragon Bolt. Of course, if we stand him next to the dragon, Furno is still the taller of the two.

Final thoughts

Dragon Bolt is overall a pretty cool set... and yes, he does justice to the whole "Dragons are awesome"-thing. However, I can't shake off the feeling that Dragon Bolt would have worked a tiny bit better if he'd been the largest set of the wave instead of Jet Rocka, simply because I wished that he'd be a bit bigger.

But even now, he's a very impressive set with an unique built and great parts, so I can recommend him.

Also, in case you haven't noticed yet... he's a freakin' dragon.

[Mesonak]

Good review! This is my personal favorite set for the entire Brain Attack line; the sheer amount of ingenuity, complexity, and functionality they managed to achieve with a $20 price point is commendable. I do agree that it would've worked better had it been more expensive (around the $30-$35 price range, I'd say), but I'm happy with what we got. There are a couple of things that bug me, like the black lower jaw and the incredibly small tail, but thankfully those are easily fixable.

11/10 would buy again etc. etc.

[Aanchir]

Great review. Dragon Bolt impressed me from the moment I first saw pics of it from the Toy Fair in Nuremberg, and I knew it would be a must-buy. I built the set at Brickfair Virginia and had a great time swooshing it around the exhibition hall after public hours had ended. Seriously, there are a lot of Hero Factory sets I really like, but Dragon Bolt probably tops them all when it comes to how fun it is to play with. It is easily the most swooshable constraction set I've ever played with. Nui-Rama, the Gukko, and the 2008 vehicle sets all tried, but they just don't feel nearly as dynamic when you swoosh them around.

I know some people dislike Technic functions that come at the expense of articulation, but really, I've never seen fully-articulated wings in BIONICLE or Hero Factory that I've been quite satisfied with, and I think anything short of wings that could be folded back or spread out like those of a real creature was a worthwhile sacrifice for a function that enhances the build so remarkably.

I can see how the longer tail in the TV episode spoiled a lot of people, but overall I don't think Dragon Bolt really needed to be bumped up in price. He's plenty impressive as-is, and in my opinion if you CAN achieve something like this at a lower price point, there's no reason to design it for a higher price point.

There are a couple of things that bug me, like the black lower jaw and the incredibly small tail, but thankfully those are easily fixable.

I don't mind the black lower jaw myself because really, his entire underbelly is black, and it's nice that the jaw matches that.

[Dorek]

It's things like Dragon Bolt that show the set designers really do understand the medium they're working with and how to make the best of it. The technic pin that prevents the underbelly torso armor from moving so you can press the wing button is nothing short of amazing.

I was a little skeptical of DB at first (not that I wasn't going to get the set, but none of the media I saw really conveyed what the set could be) but it's easily my favorite from 2013.

[buhegetmdb]

He's plenty impressive as-is, and in my opinion if you CAN achieve something like this at a lower price point, there's no reason to design it for a higher price point.

Edited December 17, 2013 by buhegetmdb

[Csacsa234]

It really is an impressive set, although I'm planning to buy another one and make a DB that is perfect (fo my taste). I think it's legs are too short and the neck-head section is too big compared to the tail. it's still the best that can be built at this price ratio and I'm very satisfied with it, it's a very fun set.

[ZORK64]

My issue regarding Dragon Bolt's size stems mostly from his legs too (and his tail), which is also why I thought he might've looked better if he'd been a bit larger. Other than that, I was pretty satisfied with him though.

Oh, and thanks for all the feedback!

Edited December 18, 2013 by ZORK64