TeriXeri

20 figures is certainly probable. while 2015 Chess set's ratio of price/figures won't be reached (20 figures for €55 was crazy good value even then) , recent examples of sets in the €300-350 range had close to 20 or over 20 and were licensed (Cloud City, Mos Eisley, Daily Bugle, exception would be Diagon Alley but that set did have 1500-2000 more parts). Chess set did have duplicate parts as had the more recent Dragon Boat Race (15 figures), so having a bunch of duplicate torsos might help with figures as well. However, 3-in-1 Castle was low on figures for the size, and even had 2 identical torso/legs for those, I think most would agree on that, but I wouldn't use that set was a comparison point. The more recent Chinese Festival sets had 12 and 13 figures and nowhere close to €350-380 rumoured price of this Castle. Ninjago City Gardens is probably a better comparison instead of Diagon Alley etc., still had 5600 pieces as well at €300, and 19-22 figures depending on statues/robot counting etc. Personally I'd like to see 3+ horses, even if it has to remove some generic figures for that.

I agree , in reverse a lot of Star Wars and licensed sets were typically a lot cheaper in US compared to EU (2018 Hoth Medical Chamber $30 vs €50), but EU importing laws are a lot more restrictive, even from neighbour countries like post-brexit UK. ~21% would be added as soon as a product enters EU from outside now. 0-4,7% more of import taxes for toys are added if product is above €150. And then a fixed €10-20 customs fee to the courier like DHL/UPS etc. (seperate from shipping fee) The first bricklink designer program (the one with sets like Lowenstein Castle) , shipped from US, so even with free shipping, those fees didn't make it very attractive as $200 would still be subject to all those fees. In the past, none of those fees would be applied under €22, but that's changed now so even small sales like bricklink parts aren't as cheap and easy as they were from outside EU. Shipping costs in general also went up quite a bit over the years, even before 2020. US somehow has way higher prices for City while it's not licensed, usually prices in Europe get blamed on terms like "license tax" but even there it's very inconsistent between sets and themes in the same waves of sets, some JW sets are higher in Euro compared to Dollar, while others are equal. As for discounts in Europe, LEGO over the past years seems to have more and more "Exclusive" sets here, including smalller sets like City car transporter/horse transporter, so it's certainly not a LEGO-Wide 20-40% discount. So far the Cargo Train, Station appear to be LEGO.com exclusives in Netherlands/Germany.

Looks like an interesting part combo for sure, for stronger compact joints/rotation points. (Source Brothers-Brick Optimus review)

Speaking of the Crab, would love to see some more colors being used instead of the red or orange-yellow, seems they throw in a crab in most beach or underwater scene nowadays, even Friends or Creator 3-in-1 uses them. Tan, Dark Tan, Sandgreen, Darkgreen, Darkblue, Nougat, Dark Orange and more could easily be used for some uncooked variants. Of course a new dual moulded variant would be even better, as crab usually have main 2 tones for the top and bottom, the current mould is 24 years old at this point, but different, especially more natuarl colors would be a simpler change.

Upside down building of those grey 2x1x2 slopes seems very interesting in the A model , seeing how the slopes are then re-used as rocks. It's not the first time 3-in-1 has done upside down building, but it's still nice to see regular slopes or windscreens being turned upside down like here :

The lack of hair pieces bothered me more at the time, especially 80s, as with most faces still using smileys, hairpiece was an important factor. Basicly every time a figure had a hat/cap/helmet there was no hairpiece, thankfully LEGO finally changed that in the last couple years, took a while but they did it. 90s introduced more faces with lipstick or stubble/moustaches, but the majority of figures still had caps/helmets in Town. That said, this was my favorite figure for a while , I never had a paradisa set but seeing this figure in a train set was nice.

Seeing actual photos of the 2 Crystal King sets in actual daylight, makes those crystal pieces look a lot different for sure compared to renders , especially with the newer transparent ABS being a bit cloudy at times, which itself seems to vary a lot between pieces and colors.

True, I'm certainly not against back of box alternates, or anything like it, in fact I loved it, I was mainly thinking how today's world it would work. LEGO tries the whole "build your own" with the Classic theme (which still have some starter instructions), but the models are usually so small, can't really compare to sets. Of course people can build something big (and very colorful) with all the pieces, 3 of the new 2022 sets have 1100, 1600 , 1700 pieces. Mission sets look like an okay start point at least (apart from the whole app thing)

Now of course 3-in-1 exists and Technic does have 2-in-1 smaller sets regularly, however for other sets I have a few concerns. Official Alternate builds on a box would have people "demand" instructions for them (people are a lot more entitled today as well) Is the Alternate build for a set an afterthought or designed alongside the main model if they would re-implement it. Is there really big demand for it? While alternates for 3-in-1, Speed Champion, or Creator Expert vehicles seem numerous on Rebrickable, many sets have none at all, Animals and Cars look like the most popular categories. I don't think LEGO would make official alternates for sets like Speed Champions or Creator Expert due to the set being based around a specific car type , people would complain about the cars not being their own sets, or not being accurate, for City it'd be perfectly fine tho. 3-in-1 sometimes have a 4th, 5th or even 6th downloadable model, maybe LEGO should do that method instead of the old back-of-box thing, and maybe with a link, LEGO already advertises their digital instructions so adding alternates there would be easy as well. Overall it's very nice that sites like Rebrickable exist and I do hope the popularity increases, especially in other set themes and set types.

True, June and August seperation has been a thing for themes between EU and North America for quite a while.

I think they priced the Pirate Ship and Viking ship at €120 now because it's partly with discounts in mind, the Castle is exclusive here and still €100. I'm not trying to defend the price(increase) , it's especially high for a theme like Creator, but if it was simply an overall price increase, I'd expected the Castle to be €120 as well. But I know the Pirate Ship was basicly available at €75 for 1.5 years, and now €85 (29% off) The Castle / Aquarium / Crocodile set being mostly exclusive to LEGO.com here, has different rules set compared to other 3-in-1 sets, I've never seen a big discount on any of those, while other 3-in-1 sets can hit 30-40% off regularly. To me , the most overpriced 3-in-1 set of recent times was 31108: Caravan Family Holiday when the price was set at €90 while having 60% less pieces compared to the Pirate Ship in the same year when Pirate Ship was still €100 , 766 vs 1246 pieces but only €10 difference, even when the pirate ship had a lot of 1x1, but not hundreds.

North America is suffering a lot from container shortages, and the shanghai port lockdowns, I know most NA LEGO is made in mexico but there are certainly lingering transport problems. Both Europe and America also have shortages of Truck drivers. I don't know where LEGO gets it's raw materials like ABS and Coloring from for each factory, or how many parts are made in China itself. But this is more affecting the "Out of Stock" issues rather then Release dates.

71768: Jay's Golden Dragon Motorbike £18 / €20 / $20 71770: Zane's Gold Dragon Jet £25 / €30 / $30 71769: Cole's Dragon Cruiser £40 / €45 / $45 71772: The Crystal King £55 / €60 / $70 71771: The Crystal King Temple £70 / €80 / $80 71773: Kai's Gold Dragon Raider £75 / €85 / $90 71775: Nya's Samurai X Mech £100 / €110 / $120 71774: Lloyd's Golden Ultra Dragon £125 / €140 / $140 Disclaimer , this is all from pictures/descriptions before seeing reviews: As a whole wave , things might look very expensive on paper but individually it's actually not that much more crazy compared to like 5-6 years ago with nexo knights, comparing the kai raider vs Axl tower carrier, at least in Euro that set was €80-90. Previous larger Ninjago vehicles like Ninja DB X , or the 2 Raiders (Ultra Stealth and Ultra Sonic) were a similar price but had more seperate vehicles , this raider does not seem to have a split up function, but comes with 4 crystal colored figs, a winged fig and 2 regular figs. The Dragon seems to be the highest priced overall, no sidebuilds beside a small throne, the bladed wings just don't appeal to me , Lloyds dragon from this year was a bit smaller but not tiny either, but less then half the price, the large amount of figures, multiple moulded dragon heads, basicly a full team of golden ninja + special Lloyd might still be a selling point. However I'd like to see how the actual gold turns out in a review instead of render pictures. The 2019 Ultra Dragon was €95 in comparison, this is basicly pretty much 50% higher somehow, and it's not the piece count, but even 10 year ago, 2012 Ultra Dragon was €120 but had 2 sidebuilds despite similar piece count again, must be something to do with the special head moulds etc. I also compared previous years of ninjago which had quite a number of €40-€50ish buggies/cars, however, this Cole's vehicle doesn't look to have that many features compared to some of those. Crystal Temple is the same price as the Empire Temple of madness, and a bit higher compared to Temple of ressurection, just might look small due to being 2 seperate towers, but does come with a lot of those larger and smaller crystal pieces. The Mech seems a little high compared to Ultra Combo mech but has a whole lot of named characters, a monster build , a snake mould figure, and what looks like impressive articulation. Overall at a total price of €570 for a season is very high this time around but main reason are the large amount of larger sets or large amount of special figures. The price of the theme is usually softened a bit due to usual discounts and this time around a large amount of newer pieces, very detailed/special figures+moulds, and prints, but I don't see a massive "2022 inflation" either. Price per piece hasn't been accurate in a LONG time and it also becomes more obvious that LEGO seems to price sets with discounts in mind as well. (Creator Castle is €100 here, but exclusive, while the Pirate Ship/Viking Ship are €120 now but will be sold by more retailers with discounts) I'm still likely only collecting the 2 Crystal sets as I think those 2 stand out the most to me. I look forward for the future of the theme with those teasers basicly showing very different things compared to the actual sets. and those supposedly new ninja in different colors.

If you call pizza Fast Food , "City Pizza" branding was in multiple sets with a similar logo and green/white font. (City Pizza sticker logos were also in the Xtra sticker pack) Otherwise, I don't think there was repeated branding like that for the Hot Dog , Taco, Burger, Chicken Leg shops.

The creator sub set is fairly good value, €30 / $35 instead of something like €50 , despite 500 parts, makes a decent mech parts pack if anything, and also the dark grey classic space helmet of course. Of course the bubble in pink is interesting as well in the Monkie Kid Dragon set, and other cool parts in that set overall.

Castle is €100 (but exclusive pretty much), Pirate Ship got increased to €120 this year and Viking ship is also €120

Prices are a little bit better then first rumoured. Team van is €100, not like €130. Heavenly Realms is €170. Dragon is €60

Train station ended up at €80 instead of €100, so that's at least some "good" news.

Sets are up on LEGO.com now, surprisingly the octopus set is €30 despite having 522 pieces, so pretty good value.

Sets are up on Lego shop now so more pictures, sadly the farm has almost no interior space upstairs at all, basicly just a bed and nothing under the big roof as it's reinforced under the sloped part.

Very rare Bright Blue lobster do exist indeed, but pretty much all the European/Common Lobster are Darkblue by default as well.

Hidden Side had a shrimp restaurant with a fishing boat at the time, but seeing something like that for City alongside some Marina theme could work. A mission with a fishing boat could be pretty cool too, maybe with a new Tuna, Swordfish or Halibut you can catch with a rod.

I will mainly get the 2 crystal sets €140 before discount, as those other 6 sets would be yet another €430 before discount at current estimated germany RRP and I have less interest in vehicles right now, and with a €350-€380 90th year Castle coming I rather wait to see that. But I'm not a huge ninjago follower, mainly been getting into it after 2018 after Nexo Knight ended (a theme which also had a lot of big vehicles and mechs). I do like the 2022 Dojo+Training center combo, and the Crystal Temple looks great too. Skull Sorcerer Dungeon is still my favorite location set of recent times. My first ninjago sets were the 2019 Monastery + Samurai mech, I did like the skulkin and the way you could get a full team of ninja + wu easily, 2022 Dojo+training center was a similar situation where you get 1 of each ninja + wu + pixal, and the Crystal King sets will get all the regular ninja as well (obviously no Wu or Nya as they are in the big mech set)

That's what I thought too, some black Falcon figs did have red hips or plumes and even 1 case of a red torso, so could be imagined as a different "rank" compared to the more common figs with just black pants, especially in the 2 Castle sets (6073: Knight's Castle and 6074: Black Falcon's Fortress) , the horse riders have red hips, the other figures do not I'd like to imagine at least that knights that could afford a horse, and better armor, and were of some higher nobility/rank compared to a spearmen which could've been a militia or peasant drafted for wartime. This BAM torso is just one of the nicest detailed chainmails regardless of the falcon emblem.

Indeed, looks like the older Dutch intercity (which I always thought had some Boeing 747 jumbo jet hump style, especially when younger when ICM were basicly the main intercity model)