-R8- Posted May 15, 2011 So it was the year 2003, and Bionicle fans worldwide were eagerly awaiting the new Bionicle sets to hit their local toy stores. When the news broke of the first sightings of the sets, the fans stormed the stores to locate the new sets on their shelves. And when they finally got there, they all exclaimed, "More Bohrok???" The Bohrok-Kal weren't exactly the most well-received Bionicle line, but they still remain among my favorite releases in the entire series. Today I'll be taking some time to review the deadly and intimidating Pahrak-Kal! Name: 8577 Pahrak-Kal Theme: Bionicle (Bohrok-Kal) Year: 2003 Pieces: 41 Minifigs: 0 Price: USD 7.99, GBP 4.99 Further References: Brickset.com, Bricklink.com, Peeron.com, flickr, Biosector01 Wiki (storyline information) Along the course of this review, there will be spoiler tags containing tidbit pieces of information about this set within the Bionicle storyline. If you're interested feel free to read, but if you don't care for the storyline, then don't hesitate to skip the contents in the spoiler tags. In fact, try it out below: Pahrak-Kal was the Bohrok-Kal of Plasma. When the Bahrag, the Bohrok Queens, were defeated by the Toa in order to stop the Bohrok swarm, the Bohrok-Kal were awakened to undo this and revive the Bohrok threat once more. More information on the Bohrok War and the Bohrok-Kal Strike in the links provided. Though considerably more expensive to produce than the cardboard box we are all accustomed to, Bionicle canisters are an excellent place for storage of the set itself. The canisters in older sets released in 2004 and before were the best designed in my opinion, after that the storage aspect of the canister seemed to go downhill. But even within that group of sets, I think the Bohrok and Bohrok-Kal series had the most superior canisters of them all. You'll see why towards the end of the review! The back of all the Bohrok and Bohrok-Kal canisters had a giant sticker on it with all the legal information, but the instructions have you remove the sticker (thankfully it doesn't leave a residue!). The canisters were meant to mimic the hibernation cells that the Bohrok and their superior Kal resided in. When summoned, they would emerge from their dormancy to carry out their mission on the island Mata Nui's surface. The instructions feature the set pasted in front of a neat CGI background, with the set's name cleverly integrated into the pattern on the right. On the back, we have the entire series sets listed along side their respective Krana-Kal, which are rubbery elements that were made as collectable products. These mainly served a storyline purpose, apart from collecting. There were forty-eight in total to collect. The Krana-Kal was the superior form of the normal Krana, analogous to how the Bohrok-Kal were the Bohrok's superiors. These powerful Krana-Kal became enhanced when normal Krana were exposed to a mutagen that transformed them, which needless to say, was the same process used to transform members of the normal Bohrok breeds into the elite Bohrok-Kal. Seeing as the Bohrok-Kal were essentially machines, the Krana-Kal served as their "brain" to power them and direct them with their primary objective. Each type of Krana-Kal had special powers that the Bohrok-Kal could use to their advantage, which are all detailed on the link provided above. Sets 8573 Nuhvok-Kal and 8573 Tahnok-Kal could be combined with Pahrak-Kal to create a combiner model, known as the Bohrok-Kal Kaita Za. These combiner models were always an incentive to collect the sets in a particular series. My main reason for liking the Bohrok-Kal line? The silver (or as Bricklink puts it, pearl light grey) elements. I've always liked these metallic elements for MOCing, but I'm not so much a Bionicle builder in the first place. The brown arms are great to have too. In the previous Bohrok series, these elements were released in the 'light shades' of all the colors (save for black and white), but here they were released in their solid, primary shades. Bionicle sets were notoriously referred to as being 'clones' of each other, meaning that all the sets were in essence the same except for the color, weapon, and collectable (Krana, mask, etc) inside. Minus the colors, these elements were basically the only ones that differed from set to set. Picture grabbed from the promotional CD that came with this set (see the end of the review for coverage on that). My set came with the Krana Ca-Kal, nicknamed the Seeker. Its special ability was to be able to telepathically sense and communicate with the Bahrag, the Bohrok Queens. The build is so simple and quick enough to be memorized and recalled even after several years. Speed build competitions of Bionicle sets were (and maybe still are) popular among the fan base. The final set is hulking and menacing in appearance. Which doesn't make sense, because it's short and has stubby legs. Posing Bionicle sets was always so fun to do. They make great subjects for photography. The lever on the back can be pressed down to make the head thrust forward as a method of 'attack.' It's a very simple mechanism, but a very cool feature for a set this size. Its headplate can open up to reveal the Krana-Kal inside. Introduce 8568 Pohatu Nuva into the fray, and you can expect a fight to ensue. Pahrak-Kal attacks first! Its head can lunge pretty far. When the head plate is locked on, its trans-green eyes can be pressed to force the headplate open and launch the Krana out. The Krana can latch itself onto the head of other Bionicle figures like the Toa Nuva series for example. This adds much more interaction and playability between the sets themselves. Being 'infected' with a Krana spelt doom for the Toa and inhabitants of Mata Nui. When a Krana was attached to someone's head, it was able to take over their mind so that the infected user would become servants for the Bohrok. It required an extreme amount of willpower to pull the Krana off and regain normal consciousness. So, why do I love these canisters so much? Because of the ingenious storage system revolving around it and the set design. The Bohrok-Kal itself can be rolled up into a ball as both a play feature and as a quick way to store the set! Both the Bohrok and the Bohrok-Kal could shift into their 'ball mode' as a form of attack. They would then go rolling around destroying everything in sight. A more extreme ability they had when they had the correct Krana type was the ability to fly, which can be seen here in the Bohrok Online Animation titled, Disaster in Ga-Koro! (link leads to an .swf file movie). A clamp within the canister latches onto its rear (ouch! ), where it will hang until brought out again to play with. Did you know that even a promotional CD came packaged with these sets? Some of my sets came with CDs, while others didn't. This is because LEGO had packaged CDs only with the early releases of the Kal. In the line that succeeded the Bohrok-Kal, the Rahkshi, CDs were packaged in early releases of them too. CDs also came along with early European releases of the Toa Metru. After a sinister sounding voice gives the introduction, you are able to click on either of the two figures on the opening screen to learn more about them. We'll do Pahrak-Kal since, well, this is the review for it. Clicking on it takes you to this cool 3D rendering of it. I think at one point this animation was made into a screensaver and downloadable from Bionicle.com. The left buttons will bring up pop-ups like a close-up of its weapons, a listing of all its respective Krana, a view rotator (which I don't get, can't you get a full view of the set if you have it with you?), and finally a short clip with the Bohrok-Kal in action. Here's a quick screen capture of one of the frames in the opening animation. Rolling on an arid desert or on a carpet floor, this set is great fun and a nice little set with a lot of nostalgia in it. Now let's scrutinize it for our ratings! Pieces: 8/10 - This rating is given from the perspective of a Bionicle fan, of course - a purely System builder would find the parts in here to be totally useless for the most part! Build: 6/10 - Nothing to it if it can be remembered after a long period of time. Design: 9/10 - In its own respect, I love the design. The fact that such a small set can roll up into a ball and have a number of play features to go along with that is quite remarkable. That being said, it gets very repetitive when considering that all the other sets in the series are designed with the same formula. Playability: 8/10 - A great amount of playability in a small set like this, and since Bionicle sets are collectable action figures, a ton of more playability right there. Price: 8/10 - I miss the days when Bionicle sets were only 7, 8, 9 dollars, and not the 13 dollar price tag that the series pretty much ended on. I guess rising petrol prices and many other factors left TLG with no choice, though. Overall: 7.8/10 Even though there are some who simply view the Bohrok-Kal as blatant rip-offs from the Bohrok, I still think that the elements in new colors and new weapon molds made this series worthwhile. I actually like this line better than the Bohrok because I find that I use (or used to use) the solid colors far more in MOCs than the lighter shades found in the Bohrok. Plus I cannot ignore those awesome silver pieces. Stay tuned for future Bionicle reviews of sets from the beginning! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jagersmann Posted May 16, 2011 Good old times. Yeah, the review is more than exellent. This set is great, you made a good review taking photos of everything and explaining all. I don't know what to think about the date, but looks like I don't care, for me this is history. Remembering the original legend. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ZORK64 Posted May 17, 2011 While I got all six regular Bohrok, Pahrak-Kal was the only of the Kal-bunch I got back then. Back then, the idea of having 12 sets with an identical build wasn't really appealing to me, but now, I actually regret not buying more of the Bohrok-Kal because of all the neat silver pieces. >_< Anyway, you wrote a very nice review there. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Aanchir Posted May 17, 2011 While I got all six regular Bohrok, Pahrak-Kal was the only of the Kal-bunch I got back then. Back then, the idea of having 12 sets with an identical build wasn't really appealing to me, but now, I actually regret not buying more of the Bohrok-Kal because of all the neat silver pieces. >_< Anyway, you wrote a very nice review there. Might not be worth regretting that. From my experience with Bohrok-Kal parts, some of them are as brittle as or more brittle than the 7M double ball sockets of 2006. Or at least, by 2006 they had experienced enough wear and tear to become that way. The foot joints were the most susceptible to breakage. The joints in particular also are a fairly poor match for silver parts from most other years, despite being color 131 Silver (the same as I believe was standard from 2001-2006 and from 2007-2010). The shield/tool pieces were pretty useful, but other than that there wasn't too much you could do with Bohrok-Kal parts that Bohrok parts couldn't do better. Overall, I was not a huge fan of the Bohrok-Kal. Their powers seemed to be pulled from a superpower grab-bag rather than having the same natural elemental affiliations of the six primary elements (I was not happy when Toa began adopting these elements, either, besides Lightning which I felt was a close enough fit). The story behind them was OK, but in general didn't accomplish much-- the Toa Nuva were pretty much just as reckless and non-unified at the beginning of Mask of Light as they had been shortly after first getting their powers. Few mysteries were explained during this story arc, instead creating new ones that were never answered sufficiently (for instance, what the mutagen was that created the Bohrok-Kal). The only lasting consequence was the "upgrading" of the Matoran. As sets, the Bohrok-Kal were far less impressive than the Bohrok. Their color schemes were less exciting than the Bohrok's, having significantly less contrast, and as with the Rahkshi their collectibles were not even visible when the sets were built. The Krana-Kal were lovely metallic colors, but few of them had been used frequently before 2003 and most had been discontinued by 2006, making them not very useful. The primary-colored leg and arm joints were nice pieces, but they were some of the only useful structural pieces that were different between the six sets. All in all, the Bohrok-Kal were very clearly a sort of "filler" before the movie Mask of Light came out. In the sets, this could be seen in the miserably low number of new pieces-- only the six weapons were new to this wave, possibly in order to make room for the next wave's immense number of new parts. In story, it was made evident in that this was the first time Greg Farshtey was given almost full control of the story. And while I have a great respect for Greg's writing for the BIONICLE story (and he's the reason the Bohrok-Kal story arc wasn't boring), the lack of involvement from the rest of the story team really shows how little importance that particular wave of sets had in the grand scheme of things. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
