REVIEW: 44013 Aquagon

[ZORK64]

Man, why am I so lazy when it comes to these reviews? We almost have August, and I only wrote 3 of the 6 reviews I wanted to do (and the first was just for a tiny polybag special which isn't even a real set). I'm sorry if anyone waits impatiently for my reviews.

Well yeah, I guess it's by now pretty much known that I totally love robots, white things, blue things and wings (I also like axes, but swords are cool too), so it's no surprise that I call the current Hero Factory wave the best wave ever because it contains all these wonderful things.

But even with all these things that TLG obviously designed with me in mind, I still happen to buy the other sets as well, be it for interesting parts or their design. And that's the case for Aquagon, which I'll review now before I head to the blue sets as some sort of interlude.

(Also, Aquagon got limb pieces in another colour - that's also something I totally love, so TLG might made him with me in mind too)

Set name: Aquagon

Set Number: 44013

Price: 9.99 Euro

Pieces: 38 (+3 spare parts)

Year of release: Summer 2013

Size class: Scout set

The bag

Being an aquatic monster (as his name gives away) Aquagon runs through some puddles towards anyone who dares to buy him. Let's hope he doesn't slip on the slug that's swimming there too.

The back of his bag is pretty much standard by now. I'd like to mention that scanning the bags for this batch was a bit harder than for my two Chima Ultrabuilds, which almost made me regret the decision to scan them (since they don't show that much fascinating stuff anyway). I guess it's because the bags have a somewhat dark green background. Or because my scanner became angry at me for not using him in such a long time, who knows.

Interestingly enough, Aquagon's name gets no translations.

Inside the bag - the parts

Aquagon is a small set, so he comes with only 41 parts. He got some yellow (mostly yellow bones), some blue (including the head piece in the that wonderful dark trans-blue, awesome!) and also some black, silver and gunmetal.

Aside from the yellow bones, I mostly bought Aquagon for the blue swords (the only other sets with these is currently CHI Laval, but I'm not all too keen on getting more gold), but I'm also happy about his black fists, which are versatile. You see, Aquagon is to me mostly a parts pack (but given my nature as a MOCist, all sets are this to me - some just more than others).

I'm sure Aquagon's horns aren't a new piece. They look like they were already used in various other sets as something like dragon horns. But maybe I'm wrong here.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the first one who notices this, but Aquagon's head bears a very striking resemblance to that of Hordak, the main villain of She-Ra - Warrior Princess (though I only know him from that movie that was a crossover of She-Ra and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe). I tell you, once I've figured a solid-looking head for this mask out, I'll make a Hordak MOC, because Hordak was badass.

A few pics from the instructions

What? The instructions are too small to get Aquagon's full body shot on their cover?! Rip-off!

Just kidding, but I was slightly disappointed about that nonetheless.

The Evo/Aquagon combiner (I almost said "Nex/Aquagon" - yeah, I still tend to mess these two up) looks pretty decent, although it has a major case of gorilla arms.

Building the set

Aquagon's build doesn't differ much from that of the fellow Brain Attack sets. The most notable difference between him and the Deluxe sets is the lack of any TECHNIC assembly we got with Stormer's backpack, Frost Beast's shoulders or Surge's wings (don't worry, Surge will get his review next).

Surprise! We start with placing something on his back!

Next up are his legs (just as in my previous reviews, both legs get armour this pic just serves as a comparison between "naked leg" and "finished leg").

We then continue with his arms (and the lower section of his swords - noticing a pattern here?).

With the limbs almost done, next up is his torso, the head and the brain slug.

Then it's time to give him his face and shoulders (completely with spikes to make him 20% more evil).

Then, he gets a connector on the lower part of the sword hilt, the sword blades themselves and we got...

The finished set!

Armed with his dangerous swords, Aquagon is ready to terrorize your bathtub!

Make sure to store his spare parts away before doing so though.

Design and playability

Aquagon's sleek design allows for a great deal of poses, as seen above (where I tried to give him a "swimming pose").

Design-wise, he doesn't really look much like a water-themed villain to me (he looks more like some sort of goblin-like creature - which is fitting, since we got with Ogrum an orc earlier this year), but his blue/yellow colour scheme gives him the proper nautic feel. The gunmetal on his torso and legs also make a great contrast to his more vibrant primary colours.

I also like that he rotates a the knee joint, though I still don't understand why TLG doesn't do that with the elbows. It would allow for much better posing in their sets.

Oddly enough, Aquagon does come with some sort of additional play feature: He can combine his swords at their hilts to form a large spear-like weapon, similiar to Cragger's dual blades. However, Aquagon's double sword is still very poseable thanks to the flexible hilt pieces, which makes posing that thing a lot easier.

Of course, Aquagon lacks any form of back armour because he's not only a Scout-sized set, but also because of his brain slug. I'm not too happy about that.

Size comparison time! Aquagon is unsurprisingly shorter than Frost Beast or Stormer, which is of course not much of a surprise since both are at a higher price point than our yellow gremlin here. It wouldn't had hurt if I'd also had put Breez in that group shot, but I forgot to do so for some weird reason. Oh well.

Final thoughts

Aquagon is for his size a surprisingly good set. I mostly bought him for his useful parts, but I also really like his design and poseability. He may be more simplistic than Frost Beast (or of course Dragon Bolt), but he's nonetheless a nice set, mostly because of his very good poseability.

He's also a cheaper alternative for Chi Laval if you want to have these neat-looking blue swords.

All in all, I can recommend him, but he's not as much of an instant-buy in my eyes as Stormer or Dragon Bolt are (he ties with Frost Beast though, mostly because Frost Beast's poseability could've been better).

Edited August 3, 2013 by ZORK64

[Leewan]

Thanks for the review, zork ! I didn't like this set at the beginning, but your review made me change my mind, now I rather like it, and I might buy it. :D

[Takanuinuva]

I like the Aquagon set though he has one thing in sets that always bugs me. Using both Gunmetal and Silver pieces. Its ok on a figure like Bulk since his primary color is Silver. But using both as accent colors just doesn't look right. I own the Aquagon set and I have replaced the gunmetal armor with yellow armor. It looks much better IMO. Technically you could also swap the silver parts with there black counterparts but I thought Aquagon needed more yellow.

[Dorek]

Amen on the elbow thing. I've been doing that since 2011 with any spare joints I can find, including Aquagon.

I liked Aquagon as a set. Small, but to the point, and the face mask is legit, so I got everything I wanted from him.

[Takanuinuva]

Amen on the elbow thing. I've been doing that since 2011 with any spare joints I can find, including Aquagon.

I liked Aquagon as a set. Small, but to the point, and the face mask is legit, so I got everything I wanted from him.

I do the elbow thing for all my revamps and Hero Factory sets. Unless the set only has legs. Then I just use the standard design. Though I am working on Revamps on all the Breakout Hero sets and they will all have the standard elbow design since I'm designing them to be what Lego should have done but still be in there price ranges.

[ZORK64]

I do the same thing with my MOCs elbows, but for the knees, I keep the regular design, since I don't care about knee rotation all that much (while I appreciate it in Transformers toys, LEGO's constraction figures are even without poseable enough thanks to their ankle joints).

But I have a hard time imagining that the elbow issue has something to do with the price point. The respective limb pieces are nigh-identical, after all. I guess it has more something to do with stability.

I like the Aquagon set though he has one thing in sets that always bugs me. Using both Gunmetal and Silver pieces. Its ok on a figure like Bulk since his primary color is Silver. But using both as accent colors just doesn't look right. I own the Aquagon set and I have replaced the gunmetal armor with yellow armor. It looks much better IMO. Technically you could also swap the silver parts with there black counterparts but I thought Aquagon needed more yellow.

Given that Aquagon's limbs and face are already yellow, I'd give him blue armour instead - well, actually, I'd replaced the silver bits with gunmetal or black if the silver would bug me that much, since I like his overall colour scheme.

But yeah, as I already said: This guy won't last too long because of Hordak.

Edited August 26, 2013 by ZORK64