hagridshut

Thanks for the review. This set looks great, and my favorite piece is easily the Hermione cat head!

All space sets are now listed under a single category, with no way to filter by theme (Classic Space, Futuron, Blacktron, etc.). Users can still filter by year. Really?

Photos have surfaced showing the interior of the 3-in-1 Castle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjKLZyVPTCE There's a an office/sitting room, blacksmith/armory area, kitchen, and jail. The level of detail is moderate, but I think that allows for a lot of creativity and future modification. For Castle enthusiasts, this is a seriously good collection of pieces. Also of note, there are FIVE brick-built birds and a brick-built mouse! There are all kinds of exciting possibilities here. I am almost tempted to buy several of these castles and build an "alternate universe" Hogwarts MOC! The video also has some details on the fish tank and other sets, which look very cool.

I like both. Molded animals look more detailed and match the minifigure aesthetic better, but I appreciate the cleverness of the brick built animals. Brick built birds, for example, are interesting in that they are so simple, yet very recognizable.

The chief limitation I see with the 2021 Great Hall is that it lacks depth. There's only enough depth for 1 row of tables, so it's difficult to have a table for each House, like the 2018 Great Hall. I understand why LEGO did this. If they made the entire model deeper, it would be more difficult to see, access and play with items on the lower level. In my own experience building MOCs as a child, I was continually frustrated by the tradeoff between having depth and accessibility in multi-level structures. The Expert modulars solve this by having easily removable floors, but the piece count/cost would be too high for sets intended mostly for children. I see that the 2021 Great Hall is designed to rest on the rock structures much like a Modular level. My strategy for expanding the Great Hall would be to build a rock base that is 2x as deep (but maintaining the same overall length), and then extend the Hall accordingly. I think I'd need 2 Chamber of Secrets sets to get the level of detail that I want, though I'm not sure I'm willing to spend the $ for that. The new Creator 3-in-1 Castle that was just leaked is tough competition for my budget!

Thanks for posting that image! In that context, the yellow walls make a lot more sense. I didn't own much Castle stuff in the 80's, because Space was my theme, but I always enjoyed looking at the Castle sets in the product catalogs. This new 3-in-1 castle interests me very much. It looks like it could be a small city, since it has a water wheel to generate power and some brick-built chickens, indicating an agriculture operation. I really want to see the interior.

My recommendation is to check Bricklink for current market value: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/main.page If any of the sets are very valuable, and you don't want to keep them, you could potentially make a profit and use the proceeds to buy a lot of LEGO that you do want. I tend to keep all my sets, no matter how old. LEGO really is timeless. I have a lot of stuff from the 80's and 90's that kids in the 2010's found amazing and fun to build with.

This is a great design! So simple, yet recognizable to Harry Potter fans.

Impressive! I like the view into the bridge/control center through the large windows.

The existence of the instructions debate puzzles me. I've never had issues with either the old style or newer type of instructions booklets. People who are offended by the new instructions being too easy, can get their mental exercise through designing and building MOCs.

Haha, nice work! I miss the original Blacktron.

I'm glad that LEGO Group is moving to recyclable paper bags. I hope that they make the boxes smaller too. I know that the packaging is also to get attention on store shelves, but I've often felt that many of the boxes were just too big for the amount of pieces in the set.

Wow, there's a lot to go through here. My first impressions are that this release has some fun designs with nice play features. Are these modules compatible with the 2018-2020 sets? The color scheme seems to match the Astronomy Tower. I can't wait to see what kind of modifications and MOCs people come up with!

Thanks for sharing this build! The expression on the face of the green spaceman getting a parking ticket is very funny

I think it was a generic box of classic bricks, but I am not entirely sure. I have a few incomplete Classic Space sets, which I remember receiving as gifts after I owned classic stuff and maybe a LEGO city car or two.