Lyichir

Looks very fun. The combination of subjects is zany, feels like a scene out of a pop-up book. And new pigeon! I don't get a ton of City sets but I have gotten most of the recent Space sets so I might wanna get it (especially if the minifigure for the spaceship is new like some of the ones from the other 2025 spaceship were).

I think people here are mixing up cause and effect here. Back when Lego nearly went bankrupt, cutting expenses that were tangential to their main business like in-house game development or management of the Legoland Parks was one of the ways they facilitated bouncing back from that. But that's not to say the video game development was WHY they nearly went bankrupt—the much bigger factor was the decline of that core business of selling toys. It's a completely different situation from now, when their toy sales are stronger than ever and they have the means to fund projects like game development without compromising that.

Oh, for sure, and it's not like that option has gone away. But this provides a nice alternative if you want a modular build of any sort with a continuous axle running between removable sections.

I assume that connector is to allow the central axle to interlock while still having the "floors" that the axle runs through being easily separable. Should be useful for other sorts of builds where you want a component that's mechanically connected to be easily removable—in the Technic theme I could see that being used in some interesting ways (for instance, some sort of custom car set where you can swap out different types of engines).

Almost certainly going to be a line of sets—not only because the license is probably expensive, but also because the Pokémon franchise is all about the variety of creatures, rather than focusing as much on one "main character" like Legend of Zelda. I wouldn't read too much into the teaser as far as what the sets will be like is concerned—I remember the Minions teaser featured a brick-built Minion face that did not end up matching any of the final sets.

Ultimately, it doesn't particularly matter what AFOLs think of 4+ sets because they're not for us. Sometimes they offer things AFOLs like (like printed parts) and sometimes they offer things they're less fond of (like chunky, specialized chassis pieces or prefab wall panels), but in the end that's all tangential to the main purpose of them which is to offer a fun, simple building experience for kids just graduating from Duplo to hopefully make them into lifelong fans. Personally I rarely buy 4+ sets, though I recently bought this year's tractor set for my dad after seeing a review of it on Brickset and thinking he'd like it, and I ordered the printed computer screen from the 4+ City Space set last year on Pick-a-Brick to maybe use in some MOCs.

That custom Peach minifigure looks great, but while characters like Peach and Toad could certainly look good like that, I doubt Nintendo would be as happy about doing characters like Mario, Luigi, and Wario without their distinctive noses (even some live-action Mario ads in the past have used a cartoony prosthetic nose for actors playing Mario). Trying to force Mario's cartoony look into Lego minifigure design standards just feels like trying to force a square peg into a round hole—impossible without losing something in translation.

I feel like a lot of your issues with City sets could be solved by just... waiting a little. Like sometimes City has more vehicles and sometimes it has more buildings, but the City theme isn't exactly going away anytime soon, and things that there haven't been in a while are likely to come back around in due time. By your own admission you were happier with the 2023 sets—that's only two years ago, barely any time at all for a long-running theme like this that often operates on multi-year cycles in terms of what's available at any given time. I also feel like the complaint about 4+ sets is just nitpicking—it's not like the Juniors theme was all that different apart from the word on the box, or that the number of City sets each year has declined thanks to some of them being 4+. If you're getting excited by contextless leaks and then getting let down when they turn out to be 4+, the easy solution is to just stop putting as much stock in leaks and wait to form judgments on things until they're actually announced.

It's a little hard to tell anything about subjects with so little detail... we don't even know whether they'll all be Mario Kart themed, but even if they are, it's hard to tell how much of any given set would be a kart/karts and how much would be scenery/obstacles/other subject matter. As far as my wishlist for karts is concerned, my favorite kart in 8 is the Teddy Buggy, which I think could be a fun build. The Tanooki Kart and Cat Cruiser are great too, and I even have WIPs of them on Stud.io (though their "signature drivers" are digi-figs with discontinued power-up packs rather than new characters who would be easy to include in sets). It would be great to get other bikes and ATVs as well. For characters, Daisy and Wario would be my top options for starter packs with digi-figs (Rosalina and Waluigi are also characters I love but slightly more niche than those two). Many brick-built characters already produced for the theme would work well for kart/bike drivers including Birdo, Koopa Troopa, Toadette, Dry Bones, Funky Kong (who works in four-wide seats like the one in the DK Jumbo thanks to the centered "nail rail" connection on the larger Kong feet), Wendy and Iggy Koopa, and Kamek (Kamek in particular I'd like to get with updated arms, using the Minion arms used by Baby Mario/Luigi so he's not inaccurately sleeveless anymore). Some minifigure characters could pose more of a challenge to have karts, specifically characters who don't have a two- or four-stud footprint that works naturally in the four-wide seats compatible with the digi-figs—this includes characters with a three-stud footprint like Shy Guy, Diddy and Dixie Kong, and Larry and Ludwig Koopa, as well as characters with six-stud footprints like Dry Bowser and Roy and Morton Koopa. And of course, if Daisy or Rosalina get introduced as digi-figs it'd be great to get brick-built baby versions of them as well. For items, the biggest omission so far is of course the iconic Spiny Shell. It also might be cool to have a smaller Bob-omb that could be launched like the shells in this subtheme. A Rainbow Road or Bowser's Castle course (or even Moo Moo Meadows) could be fun but it's kind of hard to say what courses would entail—the only set so far with course features is the Grand Prix set which just has course barricades and a start/finish line, and while those could add flavor if there were themed varieties for different courses, ideally I'd hope for additional course features or obstacles to help set them apart. I'm not sure what would be best for these... there's no shortage of potential obstacles that could be added to a Bowser's Castle course (such as spiky or flaming obstacles that could obstruct paths or be knocked out of the way), but Rainbow Road often features things like ramps that might be a challenge to make in a way that's compatible with all the varied kart wheelbases.

Very neat looking! I've noticed that angular parts like wedges and wedge plates can be somewhat rare in pink (since those types of parts are often more common in themes like City, Speed Champions or Star Wars that use fewer of those sorts of colors). So it's very cool to get a car like this in Speed Champions! That windscreen piece looks pretty cool as well!

Clearly enough people disagree with you to sustain the theme (myself included). The current course builder system has allowed for lots of functional, highly playable sets with tons of cute brick-built characters and enemies. If they'd gone with minifigures it would've been much harder to make as many non-human characters (at least not in any way that looked good) without a ton of functionally limited molds. The smaller scale would make it harder to make as many satisfying physical play features, and most Mario games don't have the kind of detailed 3D location design that minifigure-scaled playsets would pull off better. Plus I'm pretty sure that if they ever do minifigures the way they do it will be no less divisive, since chances are Mario's cartoony likeness would require a single-mold head piece, meaning he wouldn't be a normal minifigure anyway and would not be able to have features like a removable hat. I wouldn't mind minifigures in some sort of set at some point (especially to go with the Animal Crossing and Zelda figs), but I doubt the theme would be able to sustain itself to the degree it has if that were the main focus of the theme. And realistically they're never going to "slip" expensive new minifigure molds into a set where they're not the focus anyway (It's not as trivial as putting a Star Wars figure that already exists in a UCS Star Wars set or putting regular human character figures in a Jurassic World set).

A little disappointed that it was the only set revealed today, but the Mario Kart set looks amazing! The shaping is almost perfect with only two new molds for the nose and moustache. The moustache (a modified plate) even has extra studs on it, practically begging you to use it creatively in MOCs! On the subject of MOCs, I feel like there's a lot of MOC potential for this set, from making items for Mario to hold to making other karts/bikes for him to ride. If this is successful I'd love to see other brick-built characters like Luigi at the same scale!

It'll be curious to see if the summer sets all continue the Mario Kart theme or if some of them are other Mario-related subject matter. IIRC the leaked list of prices for the summer wave suggested that one or two might be $49.99 starter sets... which could certainly be a boon to the Mario Kart theme as well by allowing more digi-fig drivers for kids to race against each other (Wario, Waluigi, Daisy, or Rosalina would all be exciting options for that). In any case I'm not opposed to more Mario Kart sets by any stretch of the imagination! Other karts, bikes, or course features could all be great, and a Mario Kart TV truck would indeed be a good option for a non-kart set or subject in a larger set. Your list of potential drivers that could appear in the future is definitely plausible—I'd suggest Funky Kong and Toadette as some other popular Mario Kart characters who have appeared in Lego before but have yet to get their own karts/bikes. A part of me also hopes for more sets with gliders since despite all of the karts so far being compatible with them, there's only one in sets so far and it's colored and labeled to be specific to Mario himself. I guess we'll see what gets revealed in a couple days!

That could be fun, though of course even if they don't it's prime subject matter for MOCs (especially since you don't need to worry about things like larger windscreen parts in the right colors when you're using smaller figs).

It looks good! Should be good inspiration for MOCs too... an easy one would probably be making an alternate opened hand pose for him to throw brick-built bananas/Bob-ombs/Koopa shells. Slightly harder would be making other scaled characters like Luigi (since this Mario's face relies on a specialized nose/moustache piece as the finishing touch). Looking forward to the full reveal (and hopefully a look at the other summer sets as well) next Monday! I still don't really agree that a minifigure-based Mario Kart line would be that much better... a smaller scale would mean less potential for detail/variety on the karts (and ESPECIALLY on smaller vehicles like bikes).

Transformers, much like superhero characters in Marvel and DC, have had a lot of varied depictions across various media over the years. Sometimes Optimus's color scheme has more white and sometimes more grey, and his look in both robot and vehicle mode varies as well (for instance, Transformers One is adapting some of the early Transformers lore before the Transformers got to Earth, so the vehicle modes are designed to look more sci-fi and less like specific human vehicles). The Lego set is based mainly on Optimus's original look as a toy as well as his appearance in the original 1980s cartoon series, which accounts for aspects like the classic boxy shape and the color scheme.

I think "no excuse" is pushing it a little, since age grade is still a limiting factor (a greater amount of articulation can be preferable for older builders, but for younger builders the stability and simplicity afforded by having some joints fixed can sometimes make that preferable even if more complex articulation was possible at that scale). I expect a large, complex technic joint like this to mainly be used for the very biggest, most premium mechs and creatures. And to be honest, I'm not even sure whether this particular joint will find the most important use for things like knees (since often you would want those to hinge forward and backward with limited rotation along other axes, something that's possible to do robustly by pairing other types of joints)—it might be better suited for things like waist articulation, where both strength and a wide range of movement are important.

The new joint is very exciting. As a fan of themes like Ninjago I'm looking forward to seeing what else it will be used for—Lego mechs/dragons/etc. have been pushing the limits of what existing joints can bear, so a stronger joint like this could create some impressive possibilities.

The variety of subject matter in the Dreamzzz theme means it really depends on what you're interested in, maybe moreso than any other theme. If you like the spookier vibes of the villain characters I can highly recommend sets like the Nightmare Shark Ship and Never Witch's Nightmare Raven. If you're more interested in things like mechs there are plenty of sets associated with characters like Mateo and Cooper. If you like cute animals then sets associated with Izzie are probably more up your alley, and if you prefer fantasy-style locations then there's plenty to choose from as well.

A gear rack can sometimes be harder to align perfectly so that the wheels face forward with the steering wheel in a neutral position (e.g. being one or two gear teeth off from perfect alignment)—a solution like this aligns perfectly every time, which is probably preferable for a small set like this that's more for play than display.

Yup. For that series it was probably largely a factor of how the game it's based on is played—figures based on "player characters" that combined a fantasy race with a character class had two heads for customizability, while non-player characters with one "canon" depiction only had the single head included.

I think there'll probably still be the occasional Classic Space tribute (being the first space theme and one of the first minifigure themes whatsoever isn't small potatoes, so it wouldn't surprise me to see them go back to that well especially to celebrate anniversaries and such), but I don't mind that era getting less focus especially if it means later themes getting their turn in the sun.

Very cute! The rail technique it uses is similar to the minecart tracks from the Minecraft theme.

Curious what a tower set like that will contain—stores, apartments, offices, etc. I don’t expect it to be modular-quality but it still sounds like an interesting set.

This is true and very doable with Animal Crossing—most villager "species" (not including special NPC characters like shopkeepers or holiday visitors) share the same head shapes (with a few minor cosmetic variations, like Julian's unicorn horn setting him apart from other horse villagers). There are certainly plenty of other bear, squirrel, rabbit, deer, wolf, and cat villagers who could use the same head molds as some of the villagers who have already been produced. That said, I hope they don't stick ONLY to existing species for villager characters—there are plenty of other species in the games that haven't got minifigure head molds yet, including some of my personal favorite villagers (like Merengue the rhinoceros or Cephalobot the octopus).