ZORK64

Hey folks, I got one of the Legendary Beasts for christmas (the Lion) and I was wondering if you want a review for the set.

Thanks for correcting me Aanchir. Out of curiosity, is there actually a colour like trans-neon green existing in the LEGO range?

Your review kinda changed my opinion on Evo Walker. I wasn't that much interested in him at first, but now his design starts to grow at me. The walker looks unique, and the set contains some nice and useful parts as well.

I'm on the fence about Furno's Jet Machine. I like the dynamic of its design, and the new built is also something that I want to build myself, but his arms... it's not only because they look awfully thin with nothing but the Furno blades, it's also by just looking at this guy I get Furno XL/Frost Beast flashbacks and the awkward placement of their shoulders.

I'm not the greatest fan of Rocka, but his Stealth Machine really appeals to me somehow. Must be the shoulders and the design of his weapons. Also, Trans-neon green works wonderful with all this black. I agree with you on the colours of his right arm. While I could live with the gold, the silver shell does stands out.

I think Splitter Beast is my favourite set of this line. The Large Beast has a cool design, and his Small Buddy adds to it in a nice way.

I actually like Stormer's mech the most of the hero sets. Maybe because it's Stormer, but also because he really captures this strong and sturdy mech feel - the legs with all that armour and the beefy feet, plus the sturdy arms with rather heavy looking weapons. Should I consider buying one of the mechs too, it's most likely this one.

Again, avery nice review VBBN. Your pics are great, same goes for the writing. As much as I like the mech-like aesthetics of Evo's XL Machine, the limited poseability of this set is kind of a deal breaker for me. I might pick him up once he goes on sales, but otherwise, no.

I'm actually surprised how well yellow and azure work together. I dunno, but I haven't thought of that combination yet. Flyer Beast looks pretty sweet, and I'm totally hyped for azure bones. Breez is also nice, but I don't care all that much for her by now tbh.

So, I finally got the time to start reading the new reviews... While I'm right now far more interested into the Legends Beast from Chima and their new joints, I'm still sure I'll at least pick up the beasts. Jaw Beast appeals to me thanks to his colours, those neat fins and his price. Also, Minifig Stormer is awesome.

Thanks for the links, Aanchir. Since I got the Wolf (and an christmas I'll get the Lion) I'm already thinking about all the kind of things I could build using the new joints, and learning that they are even more compatible than I'd expected them to be makes them even more awesome.

Okay, when I was hunting down christmas presents yesterday, I spotted the new Hero Factory sets here and there and thought "Hey cool, I should head to the LEGO store (to get VIP points) and pick one of the smaller ones up.", but just when I was about to head to the checkout when I stumbled across the Legend Beasts. I was totally stoked because of the new joints, so I put my HF set back to the shelf to get one of these. Christmas will be good this year.

My issue regarding Dragon Bolt's size stems mostly from his legs too (and his tail), which is also why I thought he might've looked better if he'd been a bit larger. Other than that, I was pretty satisfied with him though. Oh, and thanks for all the feedback!

That doesn't make the Varia Suit design non-canon. Other M is part of the Metroid story line, so it's canon. Also, I'm not sure if that is Team Ninja's fault. Most of the things Other M get criticized for are actually the fault of Nintendo. Besides, I have to admit that I liked the design of the Varia Suit in Other M (and the design of most of the Super Metroid enemies in Other M as well), although I preferred her design in Brawl. And on that note, I don't like how small her shoulder pads are in the new Smash Bros., they look even compared to Other M rather small. Samus' Zero Suit on the other hand made me facepalm once I noticed she got heels in Other M. I really hope Zero Suit Samus won't have those in Smash.

Metroid Other M is actually more canon than Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Which is unfortunate, if you ask me.

I wouldn't mind a Bionicle reboot, but I think it's unlikely, and I ultimately don't care what the new theme is as long as the pieces are cool and it adds to the building experience.

Judging from her feet (which seem to have heels), this design reminds me more of Other M rather than Brawl. Anyway, this figure looks pretty neat, even if the face is a bit odd, but I don't know how to make human faces with LEGO either, so yeah...

(I'm terribly sorry for the huge delay of this review. I was just either lacking the time or the muse to write it until now. Luckily, Brickthing got us already covered with a review earlier. Also, it's somewhat ironic that I start to write this review now after we already got reviews of the new wave - which I initially wanted to avoid.) Dragons. I think we all agree on the well-known fact that dragons are easily among the most awesome creatures of the fantasy genre. They are somewhere between sleek lizards, giant dinosaurs and hungry crocodiles. And very often, they can fly and even spit stuff like fire at their prey. Yeah, dragons are awesome. But even if Dragon Bolt wouldn't have been a thunder-themed dragon, but a different creature, he would have gotten my attention anyway for the mere fact of being a blue coloured set. Alongside with the wonderful new version of Stormer and the very great Frost Beast and Surge, Dragon Bolt and his glorious amount of blue is yet another reason why I can happily declare this wave the best wave ever in my eyes. I guess that intro is long enough now - time to find out if Dragon Bolt does justice to the reputation of dragons being awesome! Set name: Dragon Bolt Set Number: 44009 Price: 24.99 Euro Pieces: 149 Year of release: Summer 2013 Size class: Titan set The bag Even the largest bag isn't large enough to show the mighty Dragon Bolt in his whole majesty, as his wings disappear at the edges. The brain slug in the lower right corner (which is unfortunately not really visible) features also one of those glows in the dark-symbols. Dragon Bolt (or Sárkányvillám, to pick his name in some other language) doesn't bother himself with showcasing his combi model with Surge. His bag instead highlights his flapping wing feature, his dragon head and the brain slug. And, of course, the 1000 game points he comes with. Inside the bag - the parts Sweet Quaza power core, dudes. Dragon Bolt comes with plenty of very cool and useful pieces. For starters, there's a truckload of those small lightning things, and three of those ball joint things and 4 friction joints and blue shells and trans-yellow shells and yellow NINJAGO katanas and a small torso and a large torso and... In more comprehensible words: Dragon Bolt is a great parts pack if you have a serious lack of blue and yellow in your collection, and he also comes with a very healthy dose of TECHNIC pieces. Let us take a look at Dragon Bolt's fancy Brain Slug first. The slug's body is an odd (and certainly unique - your slug may look somewhat different) mixture of yellow, green and blue, giving it a very slimy look. The eyes of the slug are white since the solid eye plastic is actually the part that glows in the dark. In other words, most of the slug doesn't glow. I'm 100% positive the horns aren't new, but I just took a picture to show that the horns I got with my Dragon Bolt are not all identical, as some have the small hole on the left, others on the right, but these two variants are evenly numbered, so I guess it's because of the creation process for these that they are asymmetrical. Dragon Bolt's head piece got lots of details aside from the obvious horns and teeth. It looks really cool and beastlike. The cross axle on it points downward, which might make it difficult to use it with most Bionicle heads though. Oh my, I'm so in love with those katana swords, they look just so awesome, and they are so ridiculously large. It still bugs me that they are not on Pick-a-Brick in any more blade-like colour, but only in rather expensive NINJAGO sets, which I just don't want to buy only for those (best example is the Rattlecopter, mostly because if I would've bought it, I would have ended up with yet more lime green - and since Breez never ceases to get cool sets, I'll get enough lime anyway). Since I'm one of the few around here who actually passed on Voltix and Speeda Demon, I get these little parts for the first time with Dragon Bolt now. And he comes with a fair share of them, which is pretty neat. A few pics from the instructions The cover is of course pretty much identical to the art on the bag, only with less advertisements. I think it's kinda odd that Surge is shown flying, while Dragon Bolt actually stands in his picture. Dragon Bolt's instructions have a rather large mini-comic at the beginning, which is kinda nice, even if it mostly shows sets from the winter wave. Building the set If you remember the first building step in my previous reviews for this wave, you might expect that Dragon Bolt's built starts with adding something to his back, and this picture also looks like that - except that it's not his back... ...but his underside! You might wonder why there's a single connector first, but it does serve an important purpose - more on that later. Then Dragon Bolt's torso get turned around and we start building the basis for his back (or his wing joints, to be more specific), the neck and his front legs. Then Dragon Bolt gets already his legs, which is quite convenient for the rest of his built. His legs get also already shells. But he doesn't look very dragonlike yet, so let's move on. Next limb on our to-do-list is the tail. The build for it is rather simple, but effective. Then the tail gets already attached, and after that... ...he gets already shells on it. Note there's also a spikey plate on the shell at the beginning of the tail to cover the construction there. Now we continue with the neck and the head. This is also the place where the small torso (a really cool piece) comes into play. This grey balljoint will eventually become the neck joint, but it's first time to give Dragon Bolt some more shells. Yeah, now he already starts to look dragonlike, doesn't he? The built of the head starts with his jaw, which is actually a 2.0 Hero foot. The foot gets turned around then, and now it's time for a fair share of TECHNIC assembly. The Hero head piece functions as the connection between the lower jaw and the upper part of his head (it's practically the center). Don't worry about the hollowness of the foot or the lack of teeth, as both gets fixed. Where are almost done with the lower jaw. It just needs some lightning, and then... ...voilà! The lower part of the head gets attached. Now it's time to put some parts on Dragon Bolt's upper side again. We start with some shells on his neck. Then the Brain Slug gets attached on the head piece, the same way it's done with the other villains. Of course, that means the head needs another piece to be attached. The Brain Slug's tail gets attached. As you know, I'm not too keen on this, but at least this connection is far more stable. Oh, I actually forgot to take a picture of adding the upper part of the head. Oh well, let's move on to building the last section of Dragon Bolt... the wings! The wing assembly is dominated by classic TECHNIC building, which is a nice change from the rest of the built. You know, it's really hard to remember what I wanted to comment to all these pictures, since I took them maaany months back then in summer. It also feels somewhat redundant to commenting every picture by stating the obvious, which is also the reason why I decided to ramble here a bit instead of just saying something like "Well, we add some more TECHNIC pieces (whose names I don't know right now), slowly building the mechanism for the wings.", because I'm sure most of you can tell that just by looking at the picture, right? XD Every mechanism needs a button to trigger it, so it's the next thing we build. It's a red button... is it safe to press red buttons? Well, technically, punching a dragon in his back by pressing this button, and I guess punching dragons isn't very smart, so yeah... Now we put all of this together for a nice little mechanism. Isn't it beautiful? Of course, a wing-flapping mechanism needs wings to make sense. You can also already see the rubber band here. Before Dragon Bolt reaches his entire wingspan we add some additional greebles to the wing bones. The assembly for both wings is identical, but mirrored, so I won't show the assembly for both wings, and I won't talk much about it, as the pictures explain it rather well. Anyway, here we go: There we have the wing construction, and if we add this to Dragon Bolt's back, we get... The finished set! Behold! The fearsome Dragon Bolt is about to attack us! All dragons have a treasure, Dragon Bolt's spare parts are a good starting point for his I think. Design and playability Once built, Dragon Bolt looks very impressive. He is very large, mostly because of his long neck, the tail and the wings though, as his legs are somewhat short. But even without long powerful legs, Dragon Bolt is still a very convincing dragon. A side view. He looks also pretty cool from the top view. The red button stands out a bit, but it's easy to fix if it really bugs you. (And yes, I assembled one of his wings wrong, it's supposed to face in the other direction) His jaw can be opened quite far, so he can shoot lightning bolts at those pesky heroes or attempt to bite their limbs off. Here's a nice demonstration of how poseable his tail his. Dragon Bolt is overall very poseable, and he can hold most poses up very well. But enough about poseability, it's time to try his fun features! Because if you push down the button on his back... Dragon Bolt's wings move downward, so if you push the button repeatedly, his wings flap up and down like he's flying. While I've preferred if the wings were down (and not up) in his neutral (not-pushing pose), I can understand why it's not, since it would have required a different mechanism. Anyway, it's a pretty neat feature! Swoooosh! Yeah, Dragon Bolt is very swooshable. He's comfortable to hold, and the button can be also easily reached. Oh hey, remember the little connector from the very beginning of the built? Well, it's there to hold the armour on Dragon Bolt's underside in place even while you're holding him. It's simple, but genius! Dragon Bolt vs. Surge! As I said earlier, Dragon Bolt is stable enough to stand on his hind legs, though I'm using his tail as an additional stand here. Size comparison time! On this picture, Dragon Bolt looks rather small... ...once we lie Surge down, the size difference between the two sets becomes very obvious. Even Furno XL looks rather short when he's lying next to Dragon Bolt. Of course, if we stand him next to the dragon, Furno is still the taller of the two. Final thoughts Dragon Bolt is overall a pretty cool set... and yes, he does justice to the whole "Dragons are awesome"-thing. However, I can't shake off the feeling that Dragon Bolt would have worked a tiny bit better if he'd been the largest set of the wave instead of Jet Rocka, simply because I wished that he'd be a bit bigger. But even now, he's a very impressive set with an unique built and great parts, so I can recommend him. Also, in case you haven't noticed yet... he's a freakin' dragon.

Sorry that I have to go off-topic here, but... While I can't speak for the quality of the ratchet joints used in the Galidor figures, I made rather positive experiences with ratchet joints in poseable figures. Some of the Voyager class Transformers use them, and I also happen to own a few Revoltech figures (and the revolver joints are somewhat similiar to ratchet joints).

As a completed, official set in its own merits, my favourite is definitely Furno XL. I overall liked his design. Rocka XL comes a close second in that department. But as far as parts for MOCing are concerned, Dragon Bolt takes the cake for a plethora of useful parts. Witch Doctor is also pretty awesome in that department, especially if you also mix constraction with TECHNIC. Scorpio is also a wonderful parts pack for his price.

I think that's also one of the problems I have with these guys. They are a completely different scale than previous lines. I might be wrong on this, but I'm getting a very strong Furno XL/Frost Beast vibe from Furno JM's shoulders. Most likely yes. In the meantime, I'll start writing those darn reviews for Dragon Bolt and Evo. It really bugs me that I postponed the former's review so often, since I'm now rather short on time. Aw man, that's a total bummer. Well, some things might never change...

Yay, finalized pics! I'm still one of the few people here (if not the only one) who is not totally stoked for the mech theme of the new HF wave. I guess it's just I prefer actual, sentient robots over mechs. Nonetheless, some of the builds and many of the new parts appeal to the MOCist in me. Aside from Flyer Beast and Splitter Beast, I'm also pondering about getting my hands on Evo XL, and perhaps Stormer just for the virtue of being Stormer (and I kinda collect Stormers by now). The other Hero mechs don't appeal to me all that much though. Also, even if I don't care much for the mech theme, I still applaud LEGO for the courage to evolve Hero Factory (and constraction in general) in a new direction. Also, if I'm totally honest, I'd try to build one of these mechs inscale with the larger HF-scale, if I had all the pieces that I would need to pull that off. EDIT: Also, I really, really appreciate the number of parts printed on the packaging. Makes counting those a lot easier (it's easily the one thing I don't enjoy while writing set reviews).

Well, Furno XL was already sent out to fight the rather small Pyrox. And for tiny heroes fighting giant monsters... there are plenty of examples that show it's only unfair for the monster.

I'm surprised to see that TLG apparently planned to give all the Breakout heroes new heads (and Speeda Demon and Voltix too). XT4 looks very freakish with all those unique prototype parts. I'm also surprised that Stormer XL hadn't the Hulk torso armour back then, but instead arms with two elbows.

Finally, pictures! To be honest, I wasn't really in the mood to read all the descriptions of the sets beforehand (partly because I was lazy, partly because descriptions of certain pieces are still somewhat abstract to me if I don't have a visual on it). I only got the overall theme of the upcoming wave - minifigure-sized heroes fighting regular-sized monsters. And let me start my post with sharing my thoughts on that particular concept. I'm still somewhat critical about it, simply because I enjoy the constraction sets for building robotic characters rather than mechs. While mechs are with no doubt pretty cool, I'm honestly a bit sad about this new direction - but only from a very personal view, because on the other hand, the mech idea opens up a whole slew of new possibilites for the constraction system. But still, I'm right now not completely convinced on Invasion from below, and those prototype prelims aren't enough to change that yet. The minifigure heroes are nice, though only time will tell how much I really will love these little guys. The headcrab thingies however don't appeal to me so far - unless it turns out they can be pegged on armour shells, because I think they would make great armour for constraction figures. Now to the sets themselves: Evo Walker - It's a three-legged robot, right? Anyway, I don't like it's lack of feet. Evo XL Machine - Hmmm... there are many things that remind me of similiar sets of the past (Gorzan's Gorilla set comes to mind). It looks interesting, to say the least. Flyer Beast vs Breez - That head looks promising. Also, possibly new feet? Furno Jet Machine - Basically a mech-version of Breakout Furno. It looks to blocky for a "Jet" machine, I don't like it. Jaw Beast vs. Stormer - What are those claws? What's Jaw Beast's head like? Anyway, AZURE PARTS YES! Rocka Stealth Machine - Somewhere between the two versions of Evo. Okay-ish, I think. Splitter Beast vs. Furno and Evo - Two-headed monster with funky colours, two hero figures, a hilarious packaging art where the heroes span a chain so the big bad monster trips... all these things make this set the most interesting to me so far. Stormer Freeze Machine - I don't know yet. I can't really tell what's going on on this picture. The giant thing on the right shoulder looks cool (pun not intended). All in all, I'm looking forward to many of the new pieces and recolours that are shown here. The mech-theme doesn't appeal to me, but the parts do, and that's always the most important thing for me anyway.