bidiminished

When it comes to set design, I don't think that Bionicle is receiving much more love than HF. The SW CCBS sets, however show more promise. Bionicle is getting a lot of exclusive things and artwork, though.

For me, the issue is having a title without a character name. It can be okay, such as Witch Doctor or Core Hunter, but the title "Protector of [Element]" is so generic and it makes the character's more forgettable. I won't remember or care about the Protector of Earth as much as Tehutti. "Ekimu vs Kulta" would make me want to find out who the characters are, but "Mask Maker vs Skull Grinder" doesn't spark any interest. I found the names of clone sets from G1 hard to remember as they all sounded very similar, particularly with the Vahki and Visorak. In fact, I can only name one or two of each wave, Non-clone groups with unique-sounding names, such as the Barraki and 2008 Makuta were better. The Skull villains fall between as they aren't clones, but all start with the same prefix and some of the names are generic - any of them could be Skull Warrior or Slicer or Basher. I don't like the specific titles chosen for this year's sets either; Natalie Breez might sound a bit silly, but Tahu, Master of Fire sounds worse. (okay, William Furno is a very cringeworthy name for a terrible character, but all of the other HF names I can remember aren't that bad) Defender of [Element] was better than the final title as well.

I'd like the Type 1 HF foot to return in hard plastic, or at least a different non-clawed foot design.

- A proper titan set, like Witch Doctor or Brutaka - Less metallic and trans parts - Maybe a new gearbox/body design

While it's an impressive build with a great concept, I don't think it looks creepy enough (like Nidhiki) due to the smooth, genericness of the CCBS shells and hands, the general proportions and "safeness" of the limbs; or grand enough (like Brutaka) where I think custom body armouring and small details could lead to a powerful, almost godlike look for your moc. That's just how I interpret the concept, though. The articulation on the limbs must allow for a lot of poses, but they seem like a pain in general because you'd have to adjust so many joints and they have to support what seems like a lot of weight from the body, which along with their length would make him fall over too often. I don't have the moc though, so I wouldn't know

Considering how G2 has unfolded so far, that's probably going to be "unnecessary lore that confuses the target audience". At this stage, I don't really care about it that much and it'd be a bit odd considering how most characters don't have proper names.

By the way, what does the hole in the CCBS ball cup fit?

Wow, I never noticed that! Nevertheless, the method I used works well in this case because the grey piece allows a simple way of storing his swords, and I don't have many glatorian necks.

A mod so that the shoulder armour doesn't rotate with the arms A gearbox friction mod which works for gearboxes that aren't raised. It uses this piece. Altogether:

While CCBS is better for use in various themes due to its smooth, simple shells, isn't the G1 bionicle system better for, you know, bionicle? G1's greebly look did a great job of making the sets look 85% mechanical, while with G2 it just comes down to the new head design, weapons and the new piston add-on. There are only a few pieces that I think have highly incompatible textures, such as those barraki armour pieces. CCBS has a huge advantage with durability as with G1, the soft plastic parts would easily get damaged, and almost all socket pieces had a high tendency to break. Disconnecting and reconnecting a precious 7m double socket is such a nerve-racking experience.

Except you wouldn't need to do that in G1 unless you were really trying for something outside of the box. G1 used ball/sockect joints to connect limbs, and technic pins/axles for armour. CCBS goes a step further by using 3 systems; Technic pins/axles, balljoints, and System bars. This means you'll get more cases of not being able to connect piece A to B because they have a different connection type, and like G1, workarounds can be quite messy. While I don't really get what you mean, I agree that the Inika build is poorly proportioned, with the legs/arms being way too long for the body. While the Inika and Piraka thigh armour is slightly less versatile, the shoulder armour pieces were very versatile. I don't really get how a CCBS shell (or any shoulder armour piece) can be used as a wing, spike, or arm by itself either. Once again, G1 doesn't need balljoints to connect shells/armour like CCBS does. The problem that you're describing seems to affect CCBS as well; want to move a shell one module up? Use one of these, but the shell will be one module forwards as well. The first CCBS set that I brought was Aquagon, so that didn't set a good impression. The Inika builds could be bland and unappealing with some sets (like Tarix), I but don't think they were ever used in a way that would make the set the "worst construction set" ever.

Well, it's the one module protrusion that does more harm in my opinion. I would probably swap them for this piece. On the topic of piece colour justification, why does Lewa have his axes being half gunmetal and half silver? Wouldn't it be better to have the the blade part in silver to both improve the appearance and make it the only colour that the piece comes in to help with cost-cutting?

Because It had a terrible leg-to body length ratio, where the legs were way too long, so the arms would often reach the ankles. It was insanely broad shouldered to the point where the shoulder width is more than the shoulder-to-hip length. The broad shoulders can work for titan builds, but looks odd in my opinion for most toa Lots of people liked gears, which this build has none of. The body often looked very flat and the arms and legs looked rather thin. This design was used up until the Stars. The Inika build does, however, offer possibly the best articulation from G1 bionicle and even beats the G2 toa in my opinion due to having slightly more arm articulation. I guess Tahu Mistika is "hated" because of his "boring" build and abundance of silver (even though very few people hate Gali and Pohatu this year). Also the 2008 toa, especially the Mistika, had very few resemblances to their Mata/Nuva forms.

The worst small sized one IMO was Kazi, who had no head, elbows or legs. The worse titan sized is easily Toa Mata Nui. Overall, I find titan Mata Nui to be the worst because his grand size allows him to get everything wrong to a much larger extent than Kazi. All of the 2015 Skull villains, except the four-armed one, however, seem much worse than the two sets that I listed above. They're not out yet, so I my opinion isn't cemented.

So I brought Lewa and Gali. Lewa's colour scheme works wonderfully and his mask is great, but like the 4 other CCBS sets that I've bought, I didn't even bother assembling his poorly designed weapons as per the instructions. I really like his upper leg design and the 3L technic pin/axle piece is going to be very useful for MOCing. Interestingly, only his green shells have the new edge. 4 problems I have with him: - Weapons: I've never found weapons to be a stong point in action figure sets and Lewa's axes are possibly the worst ones I've seen, halfly due to the mix of silver and gunmetal. I just used the swords without the axe part. - Power up mode: While I would be okay with long arms, the length ratio between the upper and lower arm puts me off along with the technic connection on the back that became redundant due to my weapon modifications, so I used a shorter limb instead. - Head articulation, and his head touches the gears: - An issue with all toa: there isn't half a module of bare axle before the ball for their arm connection, so the articulation is slightly more limited. Also this makes the axle slide outwards a bit and it is annoy to push it back in. I thought that Gali would easily be the best set of the wave, but she has just been a frustrating set for me. Her colour scheme works but it's too dark for my liking. I dislike how her legs are too long for her body; and the shoulder armour hits the body when her arm swings, and its weird how the armour only swings on one arm. I think her lower leg armour is too bulky, making her legs look big rather than feminine. None of my fixes work properly for her so far: - Raising the gearbox by one module still has the shoulders too broad and her friction gears no longer fit. - Narrowing the shoulders has her arms hitting the shoulder balls of the torso frame and her shoulder armour no longer fits. - Sawing off the torso shoulders still has the problem where the only proper way to add friction to her gears makes her body have too much depth. - A custom torso runs into issues with securely connecting the torso shell without messing up the hips or head. - So now my Gali set has no gears, but I still think it looks bad because the torso shells don't match the full-on technic construction behind it that builds the shoulders. While I like how the new gear system is has friction so that the toa can hold poses, and the ball joints take away the need to align the arms like with the toa Metru, I don't think it works well this the torso frame as it pushes back the arms by two modules, which is a lot for "small" sets like the toa. Subsequently, there is a large gap between the chest plate and the arms.I'm okay with the clean, simple shells, even though the toa no longer look nowhere near 85% mechanical. The problem that I have with the shells is that they look rather gappy as they are not flush this the bones like most of the G1 armour was. I still don't like the use of balljoints and and System pins to connect armour, which in my opinion is a lot messier, less secure (not "fixed" like axles or 2 pins) and annoying to work with. The masks are nicely designed, but the head doesn't catch as much light as the Metru one so the eyes are barely visible most of the time.The connection is also less secure than both the Mata and Metru head as the masks wobble a bit. So far, I'm not feeling the hype and would rate the first half wave 5.5/10. Bionicle 2015 doesn't really appeal to me, but I guess that's expected because LEGO is aiming to draw in new (typically younger) fans as they should.