Clone OPatra

I count 8, same as Series 21. Marvel only has 10, for what it's worth. Looney Tunes had more of course, with 15. I do wonder if the Minifigures theme gets a budget per year rather than a budget per series. The amount of new moulds and other more expensive things like dual moulded arms or legs is not evenly distributed across the series in any given year. Instead, some series have way more dual moulded parts or more new moulds than others.

Much like Series 21, my first glance impression is one of being underwhelmed. At a closer glance, I can find more to like in some of the figures, since CMF to me are generally of interest for cool parts to use for other things at a fairly accessible price. I could write tedious thoughts on each figure, but instead I feel more like some overall pros and cons. Pros: some useful new moulds, fewer standard City figures that feel like they'd be in a regular set, some useful recolours (pink shoulder bag, dark red beanie, blonde hair, blue forestman cap with dark pink feather), mid legs, figures have a good amount of accessories. Cons: some figures noticeably lacking prints (mid legs for example), reused accessories with nothing new about them, kiddie-looking facial expressions with no stand-out qualities especially among the humans. My top three would be the lute player and the two with animals. Good new accessories and useful parts all around, though I wish they'd taken the opportunity to do a print on the mid-legs since those have only come with one universally useful print thus far (Pigsy). Next would be the three down the right, ok parts but they have some drawbacks. Moon Knight and purple alien very mild interest, and the remaining four pretty much none whatsoever, though the blonde hair is good. @Robert8 what you call j.u.n.i.o.r.i.z.e.d I'd call kiddie, especially in the faces, though that's not new with this series. Series 21 and Marvel both had a lot of smiling happy expressions even when they weren't warranted. The graphic style doesn't look simplified to me for the most part, though it is simpler than the Marvel series, which is kind of always the case because they go crazier with detail when they're matching some on-screen reference.

Personally I got the Hogsmeade set, which is a different but still very good outfit, and bought the hat-hair combo on Bricks & Pieces. This wouldn't work for everyone, but satisfied me over Bricklinking another whole McGonagall or buying the book set. I'd say as far as incentivizing the purchase of a set through minifigures, exclusive variants is the most consumer-friendly way to go. LEGO wouldn't want to add nothing exclusive to these sets, but exclusive variants are far better than exclusive characters because they are easier to skip.

Strange they were so delayed in NZ. In Oz they had been pushed back to 1 October, but they started to roll out shortly thereafter and I was able to find them in store almost as soon as Sydney's lockdown was lifted. Have to be quick here, as they usually turn up in physical stores for about 1-2 weeks before disappearing forever.

Did nothing? They painted the teeth gold... Personally I loved that old Goblin figure. Besides the outdated yellow face print, it still looks good to me now.

Not usually, though Batman's one-hole cape from The Batman is listed with a price (currently out of stock). People have had luck calling up for capes at various times. Part of the reason may be that all capes in a set are packed in a single packet and can't be separated, so while the inventory knows the capes are separate parts, in actuality they are bundled together and the system can't handle that. That's just a theory. There are new female brown and nougat heads in the UCS AT-AT! I hope these become available. Have people seen any available Minifigure parts from the Nov 1 releases? The unique parts I saw were Kevin's sweater from Home Alone and Batman's drifter outfit legs, but that's it. The new door with animal flap from Home Alone is also available.

Good review of a fun, if random, GWP. That's what a GWP should be - not something anyone is clamouring over or will be too sad to miss out on, but simply a nice bonus if you're buying stuff already. As an American myself, I wonder how perplexed Americans will be at the espresso machine and sign showing the various coffee-water-milk configurations. That would've been foreign to me before living outside of America!

Thanks! LEGO has been using stickers for time immemorial, so they must have determined that kids from about age 6 on can use them. I say that because the 4+ range exclusively uses prints. I can remember putting stickers on from an early age myself, or kids hopefully have an adult they can go to for help. Agreed! This set certainly gives me Scorpion Palace vibes, empty space and all. What a footprint that set had for $50. Thanks Oky. Your comments have made me even more intrigued to watch the film, which I definitely intend to do soon. I'm also glad I stuck to my intuition that I should review the set first, since so often one can get mired completely in comparing a set to the source material that it detracts from actually reviewing the LEGO. We've had so many Beast's Castles already, it's really time for something more substantial from Aladdin! I'd been eyeing it for a while before I got this chance to review it, and I am planning to probably get the Encanto house, so maybe reviewing this is pushing me in the direction of actually buying more Disney. It's a good point. Personally I've never felt confident enough in a MOC to apply stickers to it, not that I MOC much anyway, but I've seen other people use stickers in MOCs and it can be really great.

As part of Revember, I'm taking a look at a set from a line that hardly anyone seems to talk and/or care about here on Eurobricks (this one's obviously not for the stats). Some people somewhere must care about these sets though, since LEGO is in the money-making business, not the "niche products nobody wants" business. Join me as I dive into... SET INFORMATION Number: 43181 Name: Raya and the Heart Palace Theme: Disney Released: 2021 Part Count: 610 Minifiguresdolls: 2 Set Price (RRP): 79.99 - 89.99 EUR / 74.99 GBP / 119.99 AUD / 79.99 USD / 99.99 CAD Links: Brickset, Bricklink INTRODUCTION As I mentioned up top, the Disney Minidoll line (and most Minidoll sets, honestly) go oft-overlooked in our slice of the internet AFOL community, though I don't see a tremendous amount of coverage or discussion of them on the other AFOL sites I read either. But for me, a lover of eye-catching, colourful designs and unique parts, the Disney sets based on recent films provide some of the most displayable and special location-based playsets that LEGO puts out. All that makes it sound like I'm a voracious purchaser of LEGO Disney, but to be totally honest this is only the second set from the line that I own - the first being the previous time I requested to review one, 41068 Arendelle Castle Celebration way back in 2015. That's partially because the playsets they make that are NOT based on new films haven't been all that impressive to me, nothing in the intervening years based on Moana or Frozen II truly caught my eye, and my LEGO budget is still more concentrated on Harry Potter, Star Wars, and buying parts and minifigures. Still, I requested to review this set for the same reason as I requested the Frozen one six years ago: a unique, impressive-looking location set, cool parts, and bright colours. THE FILM At the time of writing this review, I have not seen Raya and the Last Dragon, nor watched any trailers, so I really know next to nothing about the story, location, or characters presented in this set. Through that lens, I will see if the details make sense or if there's anything I feel like I'm obviously missing, which might provide some fun. It also means I'll be judging the set just as a set, and not against the source material. I intend to watch the film after writing this review, and make a follow-up section or post on how the set achieves whatever it's going for. THE BOX The box doesn't let an uninitiated consumer like me in on any plot secrets. Namaari seems to be waving some swords, while looking at her (magical?) purple pet fox, as Raya arrives to the Heart Palace on a giant slug-armadillo - let's call it a slugadillo, coining it now. The back provides a tour through the set's moveable parts, features and hiding spaces. I especially appreciate the LEGO-fication of the same Raya picture as the front of the box. THE PARTS & THE BUILD Five colour-filled numbered bags greet us out of the box, along with an un-numbered bag containing the big parts used on the dome, the slugadillo, and the grey disc part which is no bigger than some of the parts that do come in the numbered bags. The instructions and sticker sheet come nicely packed in their own bag to avoid crumpleage (coining that word now too). This set has the fewest black or grey parts I can recall seeing in a set of this size - just five black and one grey - and it shows here. Pretty much every single patterned detail, besides the dome and randomly one 2x3 tile, uses a sticker. There's no use crying about it. There IS use crying about the sticker that goes on the 8x8 round tile though. I was used to that part being printed when it has a pattern, but Bricklink proves me wrong. I'm still annoyed that's not a print anyway, but at least it isn't four independent stickers applied to the one part. 1996 was a weird time. BAG 1 The first bag contains a lot of basic bricks and plates to kick off the base of the palace, plus the parts to make the saddle for Raya's slugadillo. In contrast to the trend of sprinkling figures throughout the build in minifigure sets, both minidolls come in this bag, along with the purple fox. The basic bricks in medium azure turn out to be a lot more common than I thought they would be, but the hinge parts are exclusive to this set in that colour. They remind me of Alien Conquest, though only the minifigures in that theme used medium azure. Upon completion, we get a long base hinged into multiple section plus the figures which I'll look at closely later. BAG 2 Bag 2 brings a lot more large parts, including the 4x5 panels with window exclusively in blue, and the cylinders with handle in teal that come in just three sets. You can also see the printed tile, which again I'll talk more about later. The palace now has some rooms and an elaborate throne, but is still looking more like a wall than a palace. Note the low number of leftover parts. BAG 3 More medium azure and teal here, including those 4x4 dishes that were created for the Vidiyo Beat Boxes. RIP. Our wall has some minarets now! I noticed the window sandwiched by double-cheese slopes is the same build used in the recent Chamber of Secrets, though the Vidiyo dish caps it off much more nicely than the weird thing with clips that the Chamber designer went for. They have different looks trying to be achieved though, of course. BAG 4 Woah, this is different! Suddenly lots more colours, and lots of tiny parts. One of those big Mario plates has crept out of the Mario theme for the second time (a reddish brown example did it first last year), which is nice to see, plus we get the classic Adventurers crate in dark red for only the second time. You could call this bag the detailing bag, because it has put a lot of life into the palace by way of small details. Look how many spare parts there are! BAG 5 Bag 5 feels much lighter, with parts to finish things off on the front of the palace. Notable parts include the 4x4 Mario plate in white that's been in just four sets, and the opalescent fishbowl helmet, also in four sets currently. Voila, our palace is complete - annoying sticker on 8x8 tile and all (minus one pearl gold spike I must have knocked off). I should note that those four lanterns are an intriguing build - I haven't seen an official build before requiring plates stacked at a particular angle from each other. THE MINIDOLLS Much like fleshies, stickers, the changes to the greys and brown, etc. etc., minidolls are here to stay, so there's no use raging about them if you don't like them. I'm happy to complain about the quantity of them included in sets, though. Now again I haven't seen the film, so I can't say for sure if the Heart Palace is a lively, thriving place, or a desolate palace in a remote location that only Raya and Namaari visit, but just two figures feels like not enough for an $80 USD set. From LEGO's perspective, I get it - minidolls have a lot of work put into them, and are surely more expensive to produce than minifigures, but from the consumer side it's more fun to have more figures and we don't necessarily "feel" LEGO's costs. Let's talk about how deluxe these figures are, though. Both have unique headgear designed for them, extremely fine detail, and a fair bit of personality, especially Namaari (the one without the hat, if you didn't know). Raya's face looks a bit more bland. Both figures use the same pants part, but it looks totally different given Namaari's "hips" being a different colour and her having silver boots painted on. Her foxy friend looks a bit strange though, with all that gold and tusks. Is the fox actually a boar in disguise, or vice versa? I've removed the headgear and cape for a better look at the details. Namaari has asymmetrically printed shaved hair on her head, to work in conjunction with her hair piece. Raya's torso looks exceptionally good, and this is the only set where she wears a cape and brown shoes. She's got bare feet in the other sets, for some reason. Perhaps her booting up to get serious is a big sequence in the film, I don't know. More excellent detail from the back. While Raya's hat/hair includes a pin hole for accessorizing as is standard with minidoll hairpieces, it's thankfully inobtrusive. Unlike most minidoll sets which eschew direct conflict, this set contains a few *gasp* weapons! Raya's unique sword looks nice in shaping, but is reminiscent of those creepy old Ewoks and Gungans and original Dobby that lacked painted detail and desperately needed them. Look at the front of the box and you'll see that only the handle should be green, while the blade should be metallic. It's odd because the sword already seems dual-moulded, with a solid handle and more flexible blade, so they could've at least gone with a sand green handle and flat silver blade, if not printing for the inlaid gem as well. They almost got there, but stopped short. In case you're wondering, the hairpieces work perfectly well on minifigures. I've seen plenty of people using Namaari's hair for Cara Dune from The Mandalorian, although I don't know where all those people are getting the hair piece, because I haven't seen it on Bricks & Pieces and it hasn't been very available on Bricklink (though somebody sold 93 in one go, what the heck!). And if you ever wanted to see a whole lot of Raya's cone hat on minifigures, check out Megbricks' picture. Good stuff. THE SLUGADILLO The Raya sets really include a lot of unique moulded elements. I have counted nine in total across the three sets (two hairpieces, three Ongi monkey things, this slugadillo, Raya's sword, and two parts for the Sisu dragon's head and mouth), which strikes me as a lot for a line of three sets. This guy is no small fry either. It's moulded with lots of excellent detail, while not being too detailed to the point of feeling out of place with LEGO. The face printing and little toes are exceptionally cute. All in all it bodes well for a LEGO Appa, if they ever get another shot at Avatar: The Last Airbender (please, LEGO!). The little build for Raya's saddle also looks quite cute, with perhaps a sort of rolled up blanket and a sack of food. The parts down the side represent a bridle, I suppose? And just for the heck of it, one more picture of everything in the set besides the palace itself. These are some truly fun things to play around with, and all done to a very high level of quality besides the somewhat lacking sword. THE PALACE OVERVIEW With the side dishes out of the way, let's move on to the main course: the eponymous Heart Palace. At a glance, it looks stunning. The various blues, white and gold coalesce into a model with a lot of shelf appeal. The bulbous dome stands out (the second use of that part, after Trolls World Tour), towering over the rest of the set. You can also glimpse a click hinge at the front, underneath the stickered dish. That's for adding an entranceway, included in 43184 Raya and the Sisu Dragon. Does that mean that this courtyard is technically inside the Heart Palace, and enclosed all around? Not sure, but as it is without that set the whole palace feels light and airy with no true exterior to enclose it. Like we saw in the build, the "interior" side also has a fair bit of detail and looks good as well. Let's take a tour... THE GRAND TOUR We begin in the central courtyard. I whinged about this being a sticker, but regardless it looks great. I also appreciate any set that takes up a larger footprint than its physical LEGO parts, because more space feels like more value for play and display than a densely packed but smaller model. Before I take you "inside" around the semicircle, we'll look at the sections most visible from the outside. In the centre we have an exquisite throne, which you might think is only playable from the courtyard side but in fact folds down into a relaxing daybed. What luxury. Moving over we have a section with a revolving platform, that includes the2x3 tile with a printed map that resembles the Sisu Dragon with a bunch of yellow labels. So is the Heart Palace where Raya goes for a map to find the Last Dragon? Honestly, I have no idea why this part is printed. I guess LEGO has a habit of printing maps. One last stop before the "internal" rooms: the front most rounded panels open up for spots to store Namaari and Raya's weapons while they're grabbing a bite to eat in the banquet hall. Now working our way around from left to right, the first room contains just enough space for the decorative crate, which contains a whole lot of diamonds. I'm getting more Adventurers vibes from those. Next is the banquet hall, which contains some fun micro builds like those wooden cups of water and built up food. It all looks very healthy. A couple of slight problems with this room bug me, but probably wouldn't bug a kid playing with it. For one, given the table's construction and minidoll proportions, the figures sit so low that the table winds up at chest height and the stuff on the table towers above them. Second, since minidoll feet take up more space than just two studs and can't separate, they can only be placed abutting with the table. All in all a great looking room that doesn't interact with figures as well as I'd like. Flipping past the throne room we come to the other larger room, which contains the rotating platform and some kind of zen tree with a tea-preparation station? The tree cleverly makes use of the new-ish coral piece in the coral colour. That looks fantastical, but then again the whole set looks like fantasy. Usable floor space becomes an issue once again in this room: you actually can't place minidolls ANYWHERE if you want the platform to turn. It looks like there should be plenty of space for figures, but I tried, and no dice. If you leave the platform static it's fine, but you'd assume you could both pose figures and turn the platform without issue. The final room has what looks like an apothecary, and only has studs for figures to stand on one side of the table. It's... fine. We have the dome section left to explore, containing a very spacious bedroom making great use of the Mario plate as a base. There's loads of space on the bed, a cute little reading lamp and one more of those decorative three-toned paper lanterns hanging above. Cute stickered portraits adorn the walls, though they intriguingly look like actual cartoon characters and aren't LEGO-fied. One shows the three Ongi from 43185 Boun's (Extremely Overpriced) Boat with a character I don't recognise, while the other shows Boun himself with Slugadillo. So, who lives here? Are these Raya's pictures, showing past adventures? To show just how much space there is on the bed, I've positioned Namaari and her fox-boar friend comfortably, with Raya climbing up by way of those bar pieces that serve no other purpose. The whole dome spins loosely, which can be taken as a play feature. If you wanted to see what the Heart Palace looks like with the bedroom facing out, here you go. For display this doesn't make much sense, but could be fun for a kid playing around. Show up to the Heart Palace and jump straight into the bedroom, why not. SUMMARY & CONCLUSION As a disclaimer upon disclaimers, though I requested to review this set because it looked cool to me, and there's the suspected subconscious bias that receiving a set for free will colour one's opinions, I really would've had no qualms lambasting it had I found it extremely lacking. Just look at my review of 76387 Hogwarts: Fluffy Encounter - I received that set for free to review and thoroughly walloped it. If you've managed to read through my whole review, you'll be able to tell that I feel pretty warmly towards this set. It looks great, it takes up a good amount of space once built because it has plenty of larger panels and creates empty space within itself, and it has lots to offer in the way of unique or rare colours of parts, including the slugadillo which is unlikely to ever be seen again. The design isn't perfect: most of the interior rooms are limited, including the larger ones, and even without having seen the film it's kind of obvious that the Heart Palace has been miniaturized, given the unusable windows especially. Still, for kids I think it would be a fun set to play with, and for adults it's either a unique model to display or a good parts pack. Bring on an Agrabah Palace done to this level, I say! SCORE How do I rate this set? 8 MINIDOLLS The two included are fantastic, some of the best I've ever seen, but there should have been at least one more for a set this size. 10 PIECES Amazing selection and lots of exclusive or rare parts. 9 DESIGN The Heart Palace looks great, with a good mixture of big parts to build it up and small ones for fine detail. Only the interior rooms have some design faults, which are not detrimental. 8 PLAYABILITY Overall there's a fair amount of space for play, and a couple of built-in features like the spinning platform and dome. Less figures make for less playability though, and the problems in the banquet hall and rotating platform room could annoy some other people. 7 PRICE Given there are only 610 pieces for $80 USD, the set doesn't feel as overpriced as one might expect. The palace is relatively large thanks to the larger pieces used and the shape employing empty space in the courtyard, and our friend slugadillo adds value. Still, ten units of currency less wherever you are would sit better. 8.4 OVERALL - An excellent set with a few flaws, and an easy buy at a slight discount. Until next time...

The blue sweater is expensive because of the arm printing. LEGO still treats that as premium. Torsos without arm printing should be ok.

What's special about the orange fish? It's the second most common colour for the part.

People keep talking about this orange fish, but orange isn't even a rare colour for the fish. It didn't seem to me to be worth mentioning at all!

Oh I think you're right! I was wondering why it looked different, and I couldn't see a stud on its back either.

I don't see quite as many new desirable parts in this year's Lunar New Year sets, but I do hope that at least the red cauldron (second ever cour for that part?), trans-blue penguin and redone Ice Planet-like torsos appear on B&P. Also, I think the winter hat is in orange? That too, if so.

Who has a penguin Patronus? New trans-blue (potentially opalescent) penguin included in a Chinese New Year Festival set.

Ok, so clearly I forgot some examples, but for the most part they still have not created new moulded animals to pair with their costumes counterparts. I was so confused as well when I moved to Australia. Why would it be called a Ladybird when it's a bug? And why are all squashes called pumpkins? But I digress. Not that English makes sense a lot of the time, though...

We're straying further and further from LEGO, but the HBP attack was in lieu of a full-blown battle at Hogwarts, which also makes total sense to cut because they wanted to save that for the finale of the series. It also set up Bellatrix as even more of a threat. Personally I like that scene and HBP is my favourite of the films. The Horntail scene was just stupid and nonsensical, and GoF happens to be my least favourite of the films. I still think a CMF would be the most likely place to get later-film Quidditch outfits, but then we wouldn't get all of them.

I wish they'd started that a long time ago. I think the only one that came close was the Panda guy with a Panda teddy bear? And the Elephant girl with a mouse, which was a cute reference to the trope. Alas, it doesn't seem like they'll ever make it a thing of including the animal with the costume.

I don't know the full ins and outs of LEGO's budgeting for a wave or line, but if the Disney line gets one new parts budget for the year, I feel like a lot of it went into the Raya sets, leaving Encanto short. Those three Raya sets have at least nine new parts plus some plastic-y film and a new cut of cape, and those new parts include four individual creatures plus the dragon head and mouth, while Encanto has just three - two hair pieces and the watering can which might not have even been developed for Encanto specifically. It is indeed weak calling the hamster a capybara.

Doubt it. The two minifigures in the Gunship were perfectly in keeping with the amount included in other non-Minifigure-scale UCS sets. The Minifigure-Scale UCS sets have always had a variable amount of minifigures, to suit the ship/scene. They've gone with a full interior here, so they've opted to include a bunch of snowies for it - and then we consumers can supplement them with the Snowtrooper set coming out. Just be mature and ignore people you want to ignore. That said, I don't see why this has escalated. You said you're impressed by it but not won over by the interior, while Scredeye countered that the interior perfectly matches the official cross section in his opinion. What's wrong with that?

REVEMBER: 2021 in Review This November, Eurobricks is excited to bring you a wide look back at what LEGO has released throughout the year. Covering action themes, licensed themes, Creator, Architecture and more; Minifigure sets, Minidoll sets, big-Mario sets; playsets and display sets - we've cast a wide net of LEGO's 2021 offerings, which we'll be reviewing throughout November. Look out for a new review every few days throughout the month, which will also be linked below as they're posted. Let us know what you think of this initiative, and leave a comment on the reviews with your thoughts on the sets in hindsight. A big thanks to the LEGO CEE team for providing us with all of these sets for review. All opinions are our own! REVEMBER Reviews Technic: 42127 The Batman - Batmobile by Jim Creator: 31120 Medieval Castle by Ecclesiastes Architecture: 21054 The White House by JackJonespaw Disney: 43181 Raya and the Heart Palace by Clone OPatra Ideas: 21326 Winnie the Pooh by Oky Monkie Kid: 80028 The Bone Demon by VBBN Star Wars: 75315 Imperial Light Cruiser by MKJoshA Minifigures: 71031 LEGO Minifigures - Marvel Studios Series 1 by WhiteFang Ninjago: 71755 Temple of the Endless Sea by Bob De Quatre Super Mario: 71391 Bowser's Airship Expansion Set by Darkdragon

I can't recall seeing any on B&P, and unfortunately by nature of being somewhat limited and desirable, they are still mostly pricey on BL. When it comes to adding non-light nougat or yellow female heads to your collection, you have to just keep a lookout for cheap or desirable opportunities. Monica Rambeau is a good current example, not the most interesting for the Marvel fans but a good hair piece and head for minifigure people. The Women of NASA was a great minifigure parts pack when it was available. Even look into different themes you might not normally buy, and see if there are any sets with enough else going for them to make them worthwhile to you.

Fantastic review Ecc, pointing out some of the best details and also giving warranted criticism. Personally I wasn't keen at first when LEGO started to take Creator in a very Minifigure-oriented direction. At that time, the majority of LEGO's sets and lines were Minifigure ones, while Creator was about showing how creative LEGO could be without Minifigures! But with sets like this, plus more and more non-Minifigure sets now, the concept has grown on me. If they don't think a whole line of Castle/Vikings/Pirates or whatever can sell, they can at least do something in Creator, and show that even specific models can be rebuilt into other things as well. I'd love to read an actual designer's take on this, but I don't think it's their point in the 3-in-1 to even try and use all of the pieces. The different models provide different experiences, especially in amount of time needed. Have less time, build the smallest one, have more time, the bigger one and so on. Plus, the leftover pieces can then serve as inspiration - the instructions have told you what to do with some of the parts, now try and use the rest by yourself. In any case, what with the Viking Ship rumoured it seems this set was a preview of things to come. I hope they cover even more historic themes, like Western.

No discussion of the Encanto sets yet? The house set looks very colourful and inviting to me. I love those new hairpieces, and the new watering can piece. The book sets are cute, like they always are, but since the house includes the new parts, that's where I'd focus my attention.

I think it's the quality and angle of the photo, coupled with there being printing in the ears this time, that makes the piece deceptively look different. It's exactly what I expected from the description, and not one I'm interested in personally.