ZORK64

I second what Dorek, Aanchir and Darth Vader (that's awesome, I get to agree with Darth Vader) already said. LEGO doesn't play "over cautious" with Hero Factory. It's a constraction line, and those aren't the bread and butter of LEGO. Plus, I'm totally happy with the pricepoint of the sets. I never liked the absurd prices for the larger Bionicle sets, so I'm totally happy that even large suckers like Fire Lord, Scorpio, Stormer XL or Furno XL don't cost more than a Deluxe Transformer. I can live with sets like Speeda Demon being a bit more expensive, but some of the larger Bionicle sets were insanely expensive, and that doomed them sometimes to become shelfwarmers til their prices were dropped big time (I bought a few of the larger ships from the Mistika line for something around 10-15 € each).

They could easily split the mission (or theme) of the current wave into a longer story arc for a proper TV series. Take a look at Breakout, for example: The villians and the heroes were obviously paired against each other, and it wouldn't be that hard making for each of these fights a single episode, if it were a TV series. But I guess we should shift that into the other topic.

Eh... I doubt that. The thing is, Ninjago is very much comparable to LEGO System, while Hero Factory is not, being a constraction line that is mostly compatible with the Technic line. So I wouldn't expect a noticable increase in sets just because of a TV show. What we could get, though, would be a overall more entertaining story. I just posted my thoughts on this in another topic.

Actually, I think a TV show could work already pretty good. Hero Factory has already everything a fun and entertaining show needs: - A group of nine heroes, all of them with different personalities. - The basic premise (which is easy to understand) of the toyline could also work easily in a TV show - The themes for the past two years (Breakout, Brain Attack) could be easily altered to become the plot for a whole season. - A large and colourful assortment of bad guys. - And last but not least, an easily understandable reason why the heroes can (and must) change/update their appearance and equipment from time to time. With a TV show, we could get a lot more character development, deeper and more interesting story arcs, and of course, much more fun and action than with the short films we get now. And yes, I got most of this stuff by just looking at Transformers Prime as a whole again.

Thank you for your answers Aanchir. Well, learning that there was in fact still room for another storyline, I partly understand the reaction of the fandom towards Hero Factory. It's always a let-down if a series you like gets a rather abrupt ending and get then replaced with something different (regardless of the quality of the replacement). The idea that a possible Bionicle reboot makes occasionally nods to it's past incarnation is surely an idea that would work great (and might helps the series to get accepted by older fans as well). Franchises like Transformers or The Legend of Zelda do this kind of stuff all the time, and LEGO also made already callbacks to older themes as well (like the space villian mini figure). Speaking of this, I'd appreciate some sort of shout-out to the good old Slizers/Throwbots some day. After all, they were LEGO's first Constraction series.

If the sets were already released here in Germany (which they aren't yet), I'd probably already reviewed Stormer, Surge, Dragon Bolt and probably Frosty. But yeah, for whatever reason, they aren't here yet. I cross my fingers they'll hit shelves next week. That special offer sounds also cool. I'm actually more interested into getting the sword rather than the brain slug, but both are cool.

It's an interesting video, but all in all, I can totally agree with Aanchir here. The issue with the die-hard and super-serious Bionicle fandom reminds me of similiar things the older members of the Transformers fandom and the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic bronies went (or still going) through. They need to realize that they are not necessarily the target demographic of said franchises. In a similiar vein, I can say that actually fell into the category of the "casual fans" when it comes to Bionicle (and still Hero Factory, though I might be too old to be still considered part of the target demographic) - I knew there's some sort of story going on that explains why these guys are fighting those other guys (in addition to the "good vs. evil" thing) and who these guys are and so on... but yeah, I didn't care that much, because I'm in for the building experience. Of course, that's also the reason why it doesn't bothered me that much, that Bionicle was succeeded by Hero Factory. Because of that, I'd like to ask a few things regarding the end of Bionicle: - Was the end of the franchise really that sudden? - Is there any information that Bionicle actually would have continued with a new story line if TLG would'nt had ended it? - Had the authors of the franchise enough time left to wrap all ongoing story lines nicely up? Another thing that just pops up in my mind... if TLG decides to bring Bionicle back, I wouldn't be surprised if it would be altered or retooled to make it more attractive for their target audience, which might mean that the story wouldn't be as nearly as complex as it was back then. Alongside with the fact that the toys would most likely differ in some way or other from the older toys, the old fans would most likely complain anyway and might start crying that Bionicle is now ruined FOREVER.

Does anyone knows when they'll come out in Germany? I'm kinda jealous of you folks, because usually they're released here earlier.

I guess the answer on this question also partly depends on what we consider Technic. The LEGO Technic sets are replica of real vehicles, featuring various functions to imitate their real counterparts. Back then, with Slizers/Throwbots, LEGO added clearly fictional to the Technic range. However, Bionicle sets were eventually not labeled as Technic anymore at some point onward, as Aanchir already explained above. So, definition-wise, Hero Factory is not Technic. But if we consider all the parts (and thus, building styles and "rules") that were common for Technic sets as Technic, then we can consider certainly Bionicle, and to some extend Hero Factory as well, as a sub-theme for Technic, since many of its parts are more compatible to Technic than say, LEGO System. On a not so related side-note: I'm more interested in discussion topics than MOC-threads here on EB anyway, since I prefer MOCpages for the latter (though I became kinda inactive over there).

Although I really enjoy making review for the sets, I also buy sets usually just for MOCing. However, I have still my Brain Attack sets and the Chima Builds intact - and the only one of these I actually updated was Chi Cragger. Man, I can't wait till the new HF sets show up in German LEGO stores.

Looks like I should go and check my local LEGO store again...

While I liked the canisters of the Stars and the first three Hero Factory waves (they were great to store parts, but same goes for most canisters anyway), I personally appreciate the bags far over the canisters by now. They look nicer and are easier to store away. I also don't miss the canisters that much since I already own enough canisters to store parts in them anyway. In fact, I still don't need to use the nifty resealable bags to store parts, thanks to all the old canisters and boxes. They had canisters, similiar to these of the Toa Mata, but with flat lids (which were used in a few of the combination models as giant wheels). Oh, I'd also like to mention that some of the old packagings weren't that great either. The Toa Mahri for example came in a packaging which made them useless for storage once you opened them. And the Mistika canisters were insanely hard to open because of their asymmetrical design, which always annoys me to no end. Honestly, I utterly loathe these canisters.

I'm also more of a MOCist than a collector, but I also appreciate well-designed sets. Since I own three of the original heroes (Stormer, Bulk, Surge), I can give you some insight on the issue: The original Hero Factory sets are basically Agori-sized (or Bionicle Stars) figures with a whole bunch of new parts. While they look alright, I wasn't too fond of them due to their limited poseability (especially the leg design, which resulted in limited poseability for their ankle joints). However, I do like their torsi (which is a nice alternative to the Agori torso, it also can be used without the hero-chest armour), and at least Surge and Furno come with nice weapons (same goes probably for Breez, but I don't know for sure since I passed on her 1.0 set). The weapons of Stormer, Bulk and Stringer are crap though, since they are all a single, hollow piece which can be hardly used in any other way. Personally I don't see much appeal to put all six of them on my shelf (mostly because I already designed MOCs based on them). In short, I'd recommend you to get their heads, maybe Furno's and Surge's weapons and maybe the torsi on Bricklink. Otherwise they aren't worth it.

After the beginning of the Metru Nui story line, I lost interest into the story of Bionicle and continued to buy the sets just for the sole purpose of MOCing. To be fair, I still have no idea how much of the Bionicle lore even made it to Germany anyway. There was apparently a comic magazine, and at least one book with information about the Makuta, but aside from that... no idea. The thing is though, all that stuff never interested me all that much in the first place. When Bionicle started (and I was still in the age to buy and collect those sets to actually play with them), me and a friend of mine took the few bits of story we learned from the LEGO catalogues (and some other merch, like promo CDs) and used it as a template for our own universe. We had soon created original characters, both heroes and villains, and as this story progressed, we included only rarely the stuff from the official canon into our fanon. From that point of view, I can totally understand why TLG doesn't want Hero Factory too complex in terms of plot. LEGO is after all a toy about creating and building things, and not only the stuff in the actual sets, but your very own creations as well. And keeping the story loose and open as in Hero Factory makes it much, much easier to add your own personal creations into this universe - because there is a place for them where they can breathe, grow and exist alongside the heroes and villains in the official stories.

The only thing that now prevents me from going after Gorzan is the colour of his chest armour. If it would be black instead of gold, I would already own him. But right now I have no idea what I could do with such a huge piece in a colour I don't use that often for MOCs. But aside from that, he looks really great.

I don't think Hero Factory needs a long, complex story like Bionicle. I'm completely fine with every film having a story of it's own and doesn't require knowledge of the previous films to enjoy it. The thing is just, I miss many of the funny quirks that were present in other media but absent in the film. For example, when Ordeal of Fire was new, there were those animated shorts with Zib and Stormer where they tested out the new tools. That was much more entertaining than Ordeal of Fire itself. Or Evo's funny phrases from the comics ("I'm pleased with these new updates." "Stringer, I require your assistance!"). It's stuff like that, which would greatly help to flesh out the characters (and give them more notable differences aside from colour and voice). So why is that kind of stuff not in the films?

Nice review! I'm surprised you found a unopened Slizer these days. I agree with you on Turbo's (City Slizer in Germany) colours, I like the turquoise too. However, he wasn't my favourite slizer (that spot goes to either the Sub Slizer, the Jungle Slizer or the Ice Slizer). I'm still kicking myself for missing out Torch (Fire Slizer) back then.

Technically, Hero Factory could provide enough material for a series. However, the thing is, the first films didn't even made that much with the few characters they had. At least that's the feeling I get. I tend to compare Hero Factory with Transformers Prime, and HF always feels a bit dull compared to Prime.

I think Cragger would be also made a good villain for the Heroes. So if you get tired of fighting evil robots, the Chima Builds are also a neat alternative. It's solid red, pretty much like the blue used in Eris' and Stormer XL's weapons. Yes, they are silver. Same goes also for the armour plates on Cragger's head. I considered it a bit odd at first, given that most of his armour is gunmetal, but it actually works nicely together..

Thanks for pointing that one out, since I missed it while re-reading the review for typos. Unless the neck used shorter bone pieces in the prelim pics it's possible that I posed Cragger's neck wrong. I wanted to make sure that Cragger doesn't look to hunchbacked, also his relatively large mouth tends to clash with his weapon.

I utterly disagree here, but mostly because I wasn't all too fond of the Metru Nui sets. The Toa Metru had rather crappy arms (similiar to the Rahkshi), the Vahki used the same build (even though it was cool) and the titans weren't mine thing either (except for Toa Lhikan and his epic mount, too bad I passed on it).

It's time to review another Legends of Chima Ultrabuild (which I will now call Chima Builds for the sake of simplicity)! This time, it's Cragger, the evil warlord of the crocodile clan. While I was looking forward to get Eris mostly because of her eagle motif, Cragger got mine attention for the same reasons I got Ogrum: His colours. In addition to dark green (or Metru green, as some of us call it in memory of Toa Matau), Cragger brings yet another green to the constraction line, a dark olive green, somewhere between dark and lime green. But is a new colour the only thing that Cragger offers? Let's find out in this review. Set name: Chi Cragger Set Number: 70203 Price: 14.99 Euro Pieces: 68 Year of release: April 2013 (Europe), apparently August 2013 (USA) The bag While Cragger's bag uses the same blue frame as Eris (and all other Chima Builds), Cragger himself glows red rather than blue, just to make clear that he's evil (and maybe even a Sith Lord? After all, one of his blades glows red as well...). Since the building instructions use the same picture I'll talk about more about it later. The back of the bag. Unsurprisingly, the layout is the same as on Eris' bag: Cragger is standing in a landscape, and you can spot Laval in the background. Funnily enough, to me it looks like Cragger is smiling, while Laval looks seriously pissed off (Apparently he doesn't like happy crocodiles - what a jerk!). Left to this is a picture of the combiner using Cragger and Worriz, and below all this is a little comic showing how Cragger unleashes his powerful Chi form to beat Laval up. Well, maybe Chi Laval looks so angry in the upper picture because he's about to get back at Cragger... Uhm, I think I interpret waaay too much into all this stuff going on there. I guess it's time to open the bag, right? The parts If I didn't made any mistakes while counting the pieces on this picture, Cragger contains 68 parts. That's 2 parts less than Eris, but on the other hand, Cragger comes with quite a few rather large pieces. Being a crocodile-themed charachter, Cragger is mostly dark green, olive green and gunmetal, just like a real-life crocodile (well, aside from the gunmetal of course). Note that Cragger uses the larger torso skeleton. Cragger's head deserves special mention even among the Chima Builds since it's two separate pieces, the skull and the lower jaw. Both pieces look very nice (Cragger even got a scar on across his right eye) and got some printing here and there. The other side of the head reveals the ball socket, which faces backwards just like Eris' did. Cragger's Chi plate. Note that the Chi sphere is located on the left half of it, not the right as it was in Eris' case. And there's the new sword piece Cragger comes with. I think it's been a while since we got a blade that looks so brutish. Unfortunately, the improvement I mentioned within Eris' axe blades doesn't apply to these swords - the blades are slightly bend. Probably due to their size and the fact that they are packed into bags along with plenty other pieces. Pictures of interest from the instructions Ah, the cover. I really like the design of the Chima covers, with all the glowing energy and the lovely backgrounds. Cragger's cover also really inspired my imagination. Can you see all the little green drops? It looks like Cragger just bursted from below the swamp water to attack his clueless enemy - just like a real crocodile! Well, except for the fact that real crocodiles usually don't wield giant halberds. Here's another look at Cragger's combiner. There's also that neat picture of Laval and Cragger duking it out using their Chi Forms (and before you ask - no, there wasn't anything like that in Eris' instructions ). Building the set Cragger's anatomy leads to a few tweaks from the usual formula of building constraction sets. After putting some stuff (a grey connector on the front, and a small bone piece for the tail) on his torso and building the legs, you put some bones on his shoulders. Which get then connected above the ball joint (which is usually reserved as the neck joint). Then he gets his head, which is connected via the other small bone to the three other bones (which eventually resulted in Cragger's long crocodile neck). Next is his tail. I think this picture shows how it is assembled. While this picture shows what it looks like once it's assembled. After the tail, we move up a tiny bit and cover Cragger's back with gunmetal armour. Then we continue with his weapon. First the staff in the center... ...then the tip of the halberd. The lower part consits only the other gunmetal blade, and then we get... The finished set Behold! The evil Cragger has unleashed his powerful Chi form! Oh yeah right, spare parts. Design and playability Thanks to his extended neck and the nicely patterned colour scheme, Cragger clearly rocks the crocodile thing. His poseability, however, is kind of a mix bag. The extended neck and the tail are very poseable (and thus add a great deal to the fun of posing this guy), but on the other hand, the articulation of his arms is severly limited due to his dual-held weapon. That is something that already annoyed me with Vastus back then - a dual-held weapon is only fun if the character has open hands and can alter the grip of the weapon. This way however, is really hard to put Cragger in poses where he can actually use his weapon (or put him in a pose where neither of his hands is bent in an awkward way). Another thing I'd like to mention are the coloured parts. Cragger's lower legs and arms are olive green bones which don't use any additional shells. That actually helps to give Cragger a crocodile-like appearance, since crocodiles have rather sleek limbs compared to their somewhat fat bodies. Besides, coloured bones are always an instant win to me. Also, having a covered back is yet another great plus for his design. Okay, he got a hole between the two shells, only due to his huge crocodile neck. Cragger's head also adds to the joy of posing him thanks to the moveable jaw (a feature that is strangely not highlighted on his bag - after all, Ogrum's packaging even praised the swinging mace as an action feature). The joint itself is ratcheted and can be placed in 4 positions (closed mouth and after that from "slightly open" to "I'll eat you as a whole" open). His extended neck can look a bit awkward from certain angles due to having no shells there though . Since I don't own any other Chima sets than Eris' Eagle Interceptor I don't have a mini figure of Cragger to compare the Chi Form with. But judging from pictures, the only noteworthy differences between the two are the colours of his armour and weapon (Cragger's spear is golden, and his clothing is dark red) and the lack of a cape (which reminds me that someone here on Eurobricks guessed back then that the Chima Builds might reuse Furno XL's cape). But aside from that, Cragger is quite close to his normal form. The size comparison with Eris surprised me, since I expected Cragger to be slightly smaller than Eris. They are however roughly the same size since Eris got longer legs while Cragger got a taller torso and longer neck. (and yes, both their heads have their problems when they try to look around) Bonus pic! I modded Cragger to hold his weapon with only one hand. A rather simple mod which makes posing Cragger easier (and thus, more fun). Final thoughts Cragger. Is. Awesome! He comes with a new colour, nice new parts, a cool head and a quite refreshing building experience, and his only downside is the rather shoddy poseabilty of his arms due to the design of his weapon. All in all, he's a fantastic set, and I honestly recommend you to get him. Be it for the colours, be it for the head, be it for the blades, or all those things together - he's definitely worth your money.

I just noticed that Surge is more silver than blue, but he looks still very cool. However, I'm most excited for Stormer and Frost Beast, especially because of the transparent shells they got. Dragon Bolt looks kinda ugly though. But doesn't matter, I'll most likely get him anyway for parts. Plus, he's blue. I always demanded blue sets since Ordeal of Fire, so I will buy them, now matter how weird they look (besides, many of his parts look cool).

I'll most likely get Cragger one day, but I'm not so sure about the other guys since they don't appeal that much to me.

Translating names is an interesting topic, especially there are also many examples were its actually totally fine to translate names... as long as it is done right. For example, many names in The Lord of the Rings were either translated, changed or altered in the German translation. Samwise Gamgee for example became Samweis Gamdschie (it's basically the same, but it was altered to transport the English pronunciation of the name into German), and the "Shire" is known as the "Auenland" (which could be translated as "Meadow Land") in German. Many names in Asterix comics get also translated (which is understandable, since most of them are puns), and Nintendo is also known for translating their games into the respective language (though the degree of translation depends on the game - in the sci-fi setting of Metroid are English terms more common than in the Zelda games, which are translated in a way similiar to Lord of the Rings).