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Bionicle 2016 Sets Discussion

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Beasts strangely reminds me of HF Brain Attack villains. With horror from the deep masks.

Ekimu is a must get. Umarak the destroyer though.. hello there, Rocka XL.

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Loving Umarak the Destroyer and Quake beast, but good god do I hope they change a lot of things with the others. Ekimu's mask would be nice to have in tr. blue but will probably be changed. The use of the same head mold across the beasts is nice. I like generic, easy to MOC with heads, and these seem almost as good as the IfB ones. Also, Storm Beast of all things should be capable of flying. Lava Beast's helicopter-claws are atrocious. I have to agree with Bigger Fish, though. A lot of these look to be in the same prototype stage and of the same quality as the prelim Dragon Bolt we saw, and that turned out to be one of the best sets. Really hoping that what look like mace halves are new shell pieces. Annoyed that we didn't get mixes of toa colorschemes for the beasts. And I wish Umarak had stuck with his tr. bright green (or apple green or whatever it's called), rather than defaulting to gold or tr. neon green. Nice huge version of the Mask of Control, and I can kind of forgive them for making the normal version look like an elephant if it was to enable that. Also, if that's supposed to be a mask on that stand next to Umarak, I'm going to officially dub it the Mask of Spiny Caterpillars.

What's with LEGO's obsession with making everything stand on two legs? Quadrupeds are so much more interesting than the same humanoid build over and over. Hell, why can't we have a snake. No legs to stand on there! I also find the new Beast masks to be far more like actual animals than the ones the creatures have, but that comes at the price of looking really adorable. Or is that just me?

And why does Ekimu need to get bigger than the Toa if he's capable of defeating Skull Grinder on his own without the MoCr? He knows there's going to be trouble, and he has the space between two plotlines to build something, and the best he can do is get stilts and armor?

I'd also like to note that the Beasts' lower jaws look very similar to those of the IfB beasts, to the point that I wouldn't be surprised if they reused the part. I'd love to have more IfB compatible heads to work with, and silver or gunmetal would be a reasonable alternative to the more natural-looking bley.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, I'm going to have to mod at least one of them into something Bohrok-esque. Probably Storm Beast, since the closest thing to a Bohrok that exists in real life is a kind of wasp, which would solve my issues with its flightlessness.

Edited by DraikNova

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It was late last night when these leaks hit, and I feel that I was a little to ready to jump on the anti-hype train.

Ignoring the awful lower legs, the beasts really aren't that bad. Quake Beast actually looks really cool with that big crystalline smashing arm. Also, looking at Storm Beast, it appears that there's some from of linkage between his shoulders and his pelvis, which could mean he has a double-action mechanism. As for the reuse of the Skull Creature torso armour, I can't say I'm particularly upset about it, as it's a nice piece.

As for Ekimu, I'm still not that happy about the mask, and hope to god that it's blended in the final version. But, as long as his torso has gold prints, I don't think he'll look *too* bad finalised. Umarak I still have no qualms with, he's awesome.

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Kinda want to mention that there's a chance that, due to the preliminary state of these sets...

.

The finalized Ekimu may have a blended Mask of Creation and a blended torso armour piece.

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Also, looking at Storm Beast, it appears that there's some from of linkage between his shoulders and his pelvis, which could mean he has a double-action mechanism.

Eegh, now that you mention it, I can see exactly what parts are involved there and the result is pretty much an even worse version of what's going on with Kopaka's shoulders.

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The boxart is pretty interesting. You can see the most details on the box of Storm Beast. In the background you can see a mountain shooting a laser in the sky, the sky itself is all green and there is slime everywhere. Looks like Umarak has somehow managed to unleash the apocalypse on Okoto which means the stakes are that much higher compared to last year's story.

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I'm gonna be honest. I don't want the Mask of Creation to be dual injected on the final release.

But then again, I also like the translucent blue chest.

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Huh, upon closer inspection to Umarak's box at the figure in the background on the right that's actually Ekimu kneeling like he is worshipping something, an interesting pose for him to be taking on there.

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Huh, upon closer inspection to Umarak's box at the figure in the background on the right that's actually Ekimu kneeling like he is worshipping something, an interesting pose for him to be taking on there.

More likely he's clenching his gut in pain because Umarak knocked him to the side.

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Umarak is interesting, and while less original than his hunter version he sure is imposing.

Lava Beast is tragicomic, while Quake is promising. Storm looks like straight outta Hero Factory.

Ekimu looks like 99% of Toa Ekimu mocs. Meh.

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Huh, upon closer inspection to Umarak's box at the figure in the background on the right that's actually Ekimu kneeling like he is worshipping something, an interesting pose for him to be taking on there.

Seems like he's just kneeling down in a "knightly" pose.

Ekimu looks like 99% of Toa Ekimu mocs. Meh.

That's my gripe about Ekimu - he's nothing special at all! Of course, given that his Protector-sized form is one of my favourite G2 figures, it's going to be hard for his "Toa" form to impress me.

Edited by Lockon Stratos

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Wait, so the summer sets leak are now began? After I see the leak pictures, here's my opinion on the summer sets:

Umarak the Destroyer: Aside for the menacing claws, the set just looks awful. Pass this set.

Ekimu the Mask Maker: Great Trans-Blue parts, boring build. Once again another pass for me like Umarak.

Storm Beast: What's up with the ugly lower body build!? Pass again for me.

Quake Beast: Looks the best in the bunch, but still very far from perfect.

Lava Beast: Good parts, but hideous and ugly build. Another pass for me.

Overall: Quake beast is good, but the others..... meh.

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About Umarak's lower legs - is that a trans-green bone going between the technic liftarms? If so, that's... an interesting design.

The Mask of Control on Destroyer is also lacking the ram horns it used to have - they've been replaced by Umarak's own antler/horn/things...

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These leaks interest me a lot more from the story perspective than the set one.

Umarak- Pretty sure that's MoCo right there. I don't like the wide torso and thin legs. I hated it with stormer XL, and I wasn't a huge fan of it on Onua as well.

Ekimu- The more I look at him the more I like him. Even his transparent mask.

Beasts- Really look like HF sets. They're not really bad, they're just worse compared to the standard G2 set.

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I don't think I should write a full length review of these since there are obviously some things missing, like the chest prints/stickers, and some things are subject to change (though I hope they won't, more on that below).

First off, just like 2015 it's clear to me that most of the budget went into the Winter wave, with the Summer wave suffering as a result. But it seems even worse here. I count a measly 4 new moulds, half than what we got in Summer 2015:

1)New MoCO

2)Beast upper jaw

3)Beast lower jaw

4)Beast crystal shell

1)MoCr

2)Grinder/Warrior mask

3)Basher/Scorpio mask

4)Skull sword

5)Skull axe

6)Skull ribcage

7)Skull bone bone

8)Skull armour add-on

I hope things pick up again in 2017, because this is actually worrying to me.

But onto the the sets.

Ekimu: overall, fairly imposing figure. Problem is that he's a bit generic like TwistLaw and Lockon have said.

Too much trans light blue, the arms have it especially bad.

I'm surprised he manages to get full length limbs, two weapons and still be decently tall (27M like Onua and Gali, I believe), so good value.

Props to the designers for the subtle homages, like the shield and shoulder armour.

Love the recoloured Hunter mask.

Beasts: eh. They're not terrible but they don't give that wow effect Umarak the Hunter does, though I suppose villains are going to have a hard time doing it as long as they're limited by the 15 Euro price point. The problem is that like the Skulls they don't feel like they could pose a threat to 6 Toa, each of which is taller and more armoured than any of them.

I won't sugarcoat it. The limbs on these are all hilariously bad, Quake's big arm might be the only exception. I can't defend them.

The colour schemes are pretty good overall. Is that black or titanium metallic?

The new mask looks really cool, reminds me of a movie style Kraahkan, though I guess it's going to be much longer to fit the lower jaw.

I liked the corrupted Toa masks, but it's a pity that once again we can't get a full set. If only these guys were 6 instead of 3....

Umarak: I thought he would've been a powered up Umarak, but he looks like a degeneration of him. That would be fine as a plot point, but he looks like a mindless minion rather than a central antagonist. I'm not sure about the trans neon green (it's not yellow, let's not get tricked for the 3rd time)- it looks somehow wrong to me, but I can't understand why.

Nice to see the XL chest again, especially combined with the Uniter torso. I've seen some good Onua revamps that do it, but I want to see the designers' solution.

Seems like he's a fair deeral taller than Umarak the Hunter.

The head area is awkward, the mask, the horns and the lower jaw don't really join together. And I'm not happy to see the Ben 10 horns again. Not at all.

The new Mask of Control is awesome. Looks less old and more fierce, closer to the animated version.

Not really a bad set mind you. But I'll keep the Hunter as his permanent form and reuse this design for something else.

What I want in the finalized sets:

1)No more blended masks. Please. Every time a mask gets the blended treatment its reusability gets reduced, and you know how much we need reusable masks. The corrupted Toa masks are enough.

2)Cool chest/torso decal designs in general. Hoping for more cool runes on Ekimu, and more creepy stuff on the Beasts and UtD, on par with UtH's oh so very wrong chest mouth.

3)Unlikely, but some new moulds. I don't think anybody wants more crystal blades. And frankly, seeing the ribcage shell and Beast feet used in the second team of villains in a row irks me.

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So I guess I can scratch everything I said about how Bionicle is selling nowadays... I went to my local toy store to buy the new sets, but it turned out that the shop didn't have the new Bionicle stuff, and they won't get any, and those sets won't even be released in my country. Sooo I guess that says a lot about the sales and now I'm pretty sure that we will be saying goodbye to Bionicle in 2017... Oh well.

About the new sets... ehh, they're ok, better than the Skull Villains, but nothing groundbreaking. I like Ekimu and that's it. I'll wait for the finalized pics before judging the beasts and Umarak, but for now I don't find them that interesting.

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Just noticed that Umarak's MoC upper jaw piece is assymetrical. Maybe it gets his symbol embossed on it?

Plus, I think Umarak uses a tr. neon green version of the longest kind of bone. Hoping his XL torso also ends up as a recolor. I love that piece.

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It seems kind of pointless to speculate at this point. Remember how unflattering the Summer 2015 sets looked when their first leaks appeared?

While I'm not bothering to share my thoughts until Toyfair, these leaks are in a much higher quality than the Skull-leaks. What you see is what you get.

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It seems kind of pointless to speculate at this point. Remember how unflattering the Summer 2015 sets looked when their first leaks appeared?

And the final products weren't better, at all :r

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It seems kind of pointless to speculate at this point. Remember how unflattering the Summer 2015 sets looked when their first leaks appeared?

After buying the whole line two of them grew in my eyes a little bit. One is OK. Another two are terrible.

Nice perspective for these ones.

Tastes differ, of course.

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The chest decals are still missing, and those add a lot of character. Aside from those, I don't see a lot of changes happening.

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So I guess I can scratch everything I said about how Bionicle is selling nowadays... I went to my local toy store to buy the new sets, but it turned out that the shop didn't have the new Bionicle stuff, and they won't get any, and those sets won't even be released in my country. Sooo I guess that says a lot about the sales and now I'm pretty sure that we will be saying goodbye to Bionicle in 2017... Oh well.

Sounds like terrible news. Where are you from?

Looks like BIONICLE G2 is going to last even less than HF. Oh boy, don't let me think about that, especially since the quality between the two (and I'm talking about G2 of course) is not even comparable.

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Sounds like terrible news. Where are you from?

Looks like BIONICLE G2 is going to last even less than HF. Oh boy, don't let me think about that, especially since the quality between the two (and I'm talking about G2 of course) is not even comparable.

Poland. At first I thought that this might be just some misunderstanding between the supplier and the seller, but other people on Polish Bionicle forum said that they had the exact same situation. And it's not that it's the constraction that sells poorly, because the shop's already had the new SW Ultrabuilds, it's just Bionicle. It makes me sad actually, because it's the first time the Bionicle sets aren't released here, nothing like it ever happened to HF, and we know that it wasn't the best-selling wave. I mainly blame local Lego team's non-existent advertising campaign for Bionicle, there was barely any ads in television, the books and graphic novels weren't released. I was hoping that the Netflix show would raise Bionicle's popularity, but now it seems that we won't even get the show.

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Sounds like terrible news. Where are you from?

Looks like BIONICLE G2 is going to last even less than HF. Oh boy, don't let me think about that, especially since the quality between the two (and I'm talking about G2 of course) is not even comparable.

Yup. HF was a million times better :tongue:. Seriously though, the worst HF did was Scarox. The worst Bionicle has done is Skull Scorpio and the Uniter chestpiece. I think my point is clear.

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