Lord LOLrus

Geez. I'm gone for just a month or two, and this is what I find when I get back? What is the world coming to? By which of course I mean: ...of COURSE Ameribricks is a great name! The only problem is that the banner is missing tanks, jet fighters, and rampant cultural imperialism. I imagine that if those were made a part of the new look, you would have a lot fewer complaints! America: the only country that truly matters, and Ameribricks: the only LEGO community worth belonging to. Now we just need to work out what precious natural resource(s) Classic-Castle is sitting on, what with its laughably outdated military.

Wow. Those are amazing, and the choice of minifigs on Abydos is great too - Pharaoh's Quest and Chima work really well. The MALP is probably my favorite detail.

Agreed. Certainly, at least, for a small vignette such as this. It's hilarious that McHammer knocked down a piece of the wall, and in the shape of himself.

Totally agree. That detail is probably my favorite part of the whole thing (not that the rest isn't also awesome). One question: what's the skull flag from?

The set 375 Castle ("Yellow" Castle) came out in 1978, so that's 35 years. Still seems like something LEGO might want to celebrate (they probably would if it was Star Wars), so good catch.

Oh wow. That is really cool. I especially like the way you incorporated much of the official set into your MOC, and that archway is gorgeous. However, I feel like the floor looks to much like dark grey wood panelling and not enough like stone tiling; perhaps 2x2 tiles would have worked better, or just not off-setting the long tiles. Still, I think it looks very good.

This is a good point to make, although I'm gonna bet that TLG would have preferred "a similar project" sometime farther into the "future" than just a month and a half after shooting down the last one. Still, it means we shouldn't lose hope.

Hoping this trend continues: Since the D2C sets seem to appear around the time a theme ends (MMV, Imperial Flagship, Royal Joust, etc.), perhaps it means that TLG intends to keep this Castle theme going for another year or two...so I'd say it's probably a good thing that we don't see any signs of a D2C set, and would be a bad thing if we did see one so early in theme's life!

Wow. That was fast; I guess that Zelda fans are more committed to getting a LEGO set than I thought. Not that I'm not thrilled - I most certainly support any LEGO Zelda project, but I just see no reason that this will turn out any differently from MINGLES' project. I imagine that LEGO would prefer a more well-defined project such as the King of Red Lions from Wind Waker.

You're welcome! I'm glad you found it helpful. As I said in the review, if it's gold pieces you're after, this set is very good. Probably not as good as the Temple of Light, but a lot less expensive.

I entirely agree. Looking back, I feel that it was irresponsible of me to post an incomplete review prematurely. I sincerely apologize. I feel this set is a bit of a hit-or-miss, and while I like it, I can't really justify that from an objective viewpoint. Eep. As I look back I realize I didn't put nearly as much opinion or thought into this review as I should have. While I like the set, I can't really give it my approval. Sorry I didn't convey this initially. If someone else wishes to offer a second viewpoint/opinion, I think that would be great, especially if they can articulate this set's merits better than I did. Post it here or somewhere else; actually, I would very much appreciate another opinion, either to validate or refute my analysis. Thanks, and again, I apologize for posting a review only half-complete. I think I learned a valuable lesson, but I would have preferred to have not needed to learn it in the first place. Oh well.

I'm crushed . Seriously though, I agree that it's not my best; I'll be updating it more in the afternoon. Thank you. This has been fixed. Ha. I've got the opposite problem: my younger brother got three of the first four, and I've got some mild dragon envy.

This is my fifth review here (or anywhere, actually). I was waiting for someone else to post some Ninjago reviews, but no one has stepped forward, so I’ll be doing this one. This will be my last Ninjago review, for multiple reasons: 1) I am not made of money. Specifically, I just saw the new Castle picture, and my wallet is hurting already. 2) The pace of school is picking back up, so I’ll have less time to spend building, or reviewing (although I don’t really post anything I build. I’ll get around to that eventually). 3) I’m approaching my Flickr image limit, and am unsure of whether or not to “go Pro”. I do have a question to anyone who is knowledgable about this - if I deep link an image, but am over my image limit, is it still visible? Anyways, what I’m trying to say is, other people should think about doing reviews of Ninjago as well. I only just started, and it’s not particularly difficult. Enough preaching. Now for the review: Set Number: 70503 Name: The Golden Dragon Piece Count: 252 Minifigures: 3 (Golden Ninja (Lloyd), a Scout, and a Warrior) Price: $29.99 USD I'll start with the box: Front: Wow! It includes the Golden Ninja! I never would have guessed... Back: Here we can see all the play features. There’s a catapult, the shooting Zamor Sphere, and adjustable wings and tail. One note about the box - correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that previous boxes have not had text describing play features (there is such text for the catapult). Top: The Golden Ninja, and his friends. Oh wait, they’re not, huh... Contents: Inside the box are three numbered bags, the bag containing the head, a weirdly creased instruction booklet and… no stickers! Very few printed parts, however. Standard instructions. The parts list: A random step: The Parts: Bag #1: This bag is for the Minifigs, catapult, and main body. Smaller Pieces: Bag #2: This is the legs, tail, and head. Smaller Pieces: Bag #3: Smaller Pieces: New/Interesting Pieces: Not much of note. No new colors (except for gold, I’ll get to that, and there’s some nice Dark Green as well). Gold Pieces! There is a lot of Pearl Gold (or is it Warm Gold? Not sure…). Wow. Also, I wanted to do a comparison of the blades. For some reason, I left out the Fire Dragon Sword. Oops. One thing I noticed was that the large blades (used in the wings) were all bent a bit - all in the same direction, so one wing has an upward bend, and the other bends downwards. It’s not too hard to correct, though. The Minifigs: The Figs - Front: Lloyd and the Warrior are very impressive. For some reason, I’m getting a bit of a Bane vibe from the warrior’s mask (from The Dark Knight Rises). Lloyd is wearing his bathrobe and his armor, which is different. He is also entirely gold, including his head. I wonder what the in-universe explanation for that is. I’m thinking “Goldfinger.” Without headgear and weapons: The bad guys (I can’t seem to find what they’re called, as an organization) are perpetually angry. Everyone who has normal legs has leg printing. Back: All three have nice back printing, but none have a double-sided head. That’s not a huge problem. Lloyd doesn’t mess around with some sissy elemental-power mumbo-jumbo. He’ll just have his dragon eat you. At least, I assume this is what the symbol on his back is trying to convey… The Warrior’s Armor Very cool. Simple, but cool. You’ll notice that the mask piece has some silver painted details; nothing fancy, but it adds something, IMO. Now for the set itself: The Build: Bag #1 The catapult is pretty simple. I sort of forgot to test how well it fires, so I’ll update this later, if I can remember. This is the main body. You can see how the sides attach. Nothing new, but it adds some nice depth. The completed body, which (obviously) acts as a hub for everything else. I like the saddle - it’s simple, but looks pretty nice, and stands out well. You can see the attachment points for the head and tail (at either end, the ball joints) the legs (clicky joints) and the wings (angled axle connectors). Bag #2 The legs. I think the way the feet (first seen used for Bionicle’s Piraka, I believe) attach to the legs is kind of neat - very sturdy. However, this means the feet do not move independently from the legs. The tail. Again, simple, but nice. This uses the Bionicle-style ball joints, and is thicker than the tail of some of the other Ninjago dragons (off the top of my head, certainly the Fire Dragon, but probably some others as well). The swallowtail blades are pretty neat. The head. The connection and build is pretty standard. One thing I did notice is that the top part is a different mold than previous Ninjago dragons (I’m not sure about the four-headed one, though), and both pieces are hard rubber. Completed Bag #2. The saddle got a bit more added (a plate, and flags). Bag #3 These connect the wings to the body. This is how the wings are built. Again, nothing much changed from its predecessors. Completed wings. Obviously they don’t have anything between the blades, but that’s nothing different. And the completed dragon: Raaaaaarrrrr! Finished Product: Front view: It looks kind of weird from this angle (and from a bird’s eye view as well, actually). Everything together: Extra Parts: Very few for a set of this size, I think. Extra play feature! Scissor-tail! This is why the Warrior wears neck armor. …and the Gold Ninja, atop some of my other gold (not included in the set): Scoring: I really don’t feel like doing any scoring right now. Maybe later, maybe not. Sorry. EDIT: Design: 6.5/10 Not nearly as good as previous dragons. The wings don't spread well, and always look rather awkward, no matter how I position them; they also don't rotate. The feet don't move independently of the legs. The tail is nice, but is nothing special. This model displays well, but that's about it, and even then it's not nearly as good as the only other dragon I can currently compare it to, the Fire Dragon. The claws look kind of strange as well. The catapult seems kind of thrown together. Features: 7/10 Okay. The head shoots a Zamor Sphere, and the various appendages move, but not as well as I would like. The catapult is pretty weak as well; it shoots the scout a maximum of 2.5 feet, if you're lucky, and will barely get 4 inches off the ground. Parts: 6/10 252 pieces, few of them particularly useful. There's a lot of pearl gold, and some dark green, but really, pearl gold is only useful for so many things, so it's really down to whether you decide that's what you want. Minifigures: 8/10 The figs are quite nice, and I really like the Warrior, but a Golden Ninja is valuable mostly for the novelty, IMO. This is the cheapest set he's available in, though. The scout is kind of average. Both the warrior and scout are available in other sets, which I believe have a better selection of pieces. Price: 5/10 252 Pieces for $30 is pretty bad, especially when the pieces included are not the most versatile of parts. The upside is the amount of pearl gold, but you may not be very interested in that. Total: 32.5/50 65%. That's rather awful. I don't feel that it's quite that bad, but I certainly wouldn't strongly recommend it unless you already like the look of it - it looks no better in person than it does on the box. Unless you really want the Gold Ninja and don't feel like getting the larger set he appears in, or you really like what you see, I can't recommend this set very highly at all. ...While I personally like this set more than these numbers let on, I don't feel like I can express it objectively. This set will probably be hit-or-miss for most. Sorry for the delay, I don't really have any good excuse. I feel kind of bad leaving this as my final review for the next while, but I don't really have time for this anymore, as I have found out the hard way. Again, I apologize, and hope I haven't inconvenienced anyone too badly.

Wow. I am loving these figs. The dragon emblem could use some (or a lot) of improvement, but the overall design is great. I'm rather wondering whether, if I replaced the shields, I could use the Lions as elite Crownies; I think the answer is probably yes - we'll see. Either way, I'm probably getting all but the Castle (hopefully).

There are so many great entries, I had a hard time choosing. Anyways, here are my picks, in no particular order (well, fine, I was working from the bottom of the page upwards): 37. rEvolution - zane_houston - 1 point This is great. The little details (the shoulders, toes) are neat, and the entire thing gives off a very ‘muscular’ vibe. 30. Triceratron - Steebles1908 - 1 point This is just cool. I mean, a cyborg triceratops? Cool. 24. BannanaTank - alex54 - 1 point This is hilarious, and it looks like something that the monkeys would build. Y’know, if they could… or can they? Also, I can’t believe the you don’t build space more; this is great. 17. Attack of the Fish - cmaddison - 1 point I liked the presentation on this; the round frame is, IMO, more interesting than a baseplate. Also, I think fish could really get a lot of use out of one of these. 7. Alienator - LFCMessi - 1 point Because it looks like something out of Galaga. And using the alien pet is awesome.