Aanchir

I haven't seen the "6 new colors" advertised anywhere. The press release here describes three new brick colors. This article describes six new colors, though, so that's one example. The six new "Friends" colors introduced to LEGO between 2011 and 2012 are Dark Azure (debuted in Alien Conquest and Spongebob Squarepants just before Friends), Medium Azure (new to Friends) Aqua (Bricklink's Light Aqua; debuted in Cars before Friends), Medium Lavender (debuted in Friends and some LEGO watches and clocks), Lavender (debuted in Minifigures Series 5 for the fitness instructor's boom box before appearing in Friends), and Spring Yellowish Green (has not yet been seen in any sets in brick form, but has been used as a print color in Ninjago and possibly other themes).

Something to keep in mind about the suggestion of "add more female figures to regular themes" or "give female characters more significant roles in action themes"-- while these ideas would promote gender neutrality, would they really be good business? Part of the reason the gender ratios are how they are is because young boys would be less likely to buy sets with lots of female figures. BIONICLE is a shining example, because, being an action figure theme, the figures are the sets. And the gender ratios in that theme have always been preposterous: each year, for the most part, one girl to every five boys. Hero Factory is no better in this regard. There's no reason TLG was unable to put more female characters in the theme, except that female action figures in general sell poorly compared to male ones. Some action figure manufacturers "shortpack" female figures for this reason, producing fewer of them and sending fewer of them per shipment of action figures to retailers. TLG, at least, has not utilized this tactic. So by asking TLG to even out their gender ratios, you're basically asking them if they're willing to gamble away their success with one audience on the possibility of appealing to a different audience that they have never been able to secure the same success with-- even with themes like Paradisa and Belville that were designed for girls and reversed the typical gender ratios. Needless to say, I think it's astoundingly brave that they're even adjusting the gender ratios so much in this year's City sets. TLG isn't a stupid company, and the cheapest possible solution to the gender gap in their customers is without a doubt the option they would have considered first. But the fact that the gender gap is so significant, whether in story-driven themes or in more dedicated "building themes" like Technic and Creator, should make it obvious that the characters and figures in LEGO themes aren't the only factor causing this gender gap, even if they are a major one. The things girls want to play with are just in many cases different than the things boys want to play with, and creating "middle of the road" toys that might appeal to neither gender is not the wisest solution.

Not "from the first x-wing". The very first X-Wing set (the only one I've owned) had no mechanism at all, and the wings were operated via click hinges. X-Wing sets have come a long way since then. I think it's a bit silly to assume that TLG deliberately puts imperfections in sets just so that they can "improve" on them in the future. It's more likely from my perspective that they make the sets as good as they possibly can, hence why "improvements" from iteration to iteration are so minimal. Some might argue that no X-Wing set has been as good as possible, but usually examples provided of "better" X-Wings are MOCs that are concerned only with looks and (sometimes) functionality, but rarely with other important considerations TLG designers have to work with such as cost, ease of building for kids within the target age range, and play value.

I believe the reason the small, $6 sets have no minifigure callout on the front of the box is just because the boxes are smaller and so they want to use the available space on the front to advertise the set itself, not the figures. They wouldn't include the figures on the box at all if they weren't included, at least not without a big and obvious "FIGURE NOT INCLUDED" disclaimer somewhere on the box. Besides, Eurobricks has had a Stephanie's Outdoor Bakery review, and it shows the set with figure, so I think that confirms there's no issue of TLG cutting corners in that price range.

Yes, but I was referring to how there's a clearly rigid mechanical texture even in the organic-shaped spherical shell detail pieces. It bothers me when the story says something like this is purely organic and you're expected to imagine that the character looks vastly different than he or she actually does in the set. In BIONICLE, it was quite different for the most part, with most of the body covered by armor so you wouldn't necessarily be able to see the organic portions anyway. So what I'm saying is that for me, it's easiest to imagine Splitface as not a half-and-half organic vs. mechanical split, but rather as one half purely mechanical and the other half organic with mechanical bones and a bit of mechanical armor. The red 6M shells can easily be organic or mechanical because of their smooth, plain texture. It's only the spherical shell detail pieces that I can't bring myself to visualize as 100% organic. Perhaps organic with mechanical "implants" to explain the vents and so forth, but not completely devoid of mechanical surface details. EDIT: No, Hero Factory FM is still up and functioning; there simply aren't any links to it from the main part of the site. It can be found here. I'd like to point out that this is the case with most "removed" content-- it can still be found with a simple Google search, but is no longer linked from the main site. The exceptions are the removed bios and the removed gadgets and weapons; those are gone for good except on cached versions of the site.

The Friends figs do have actual depth to their chest, which ties in with the greater realism of the figs in general compared to the classic boxy minifigure. But that aspect is one reason I actually think the Friends figs promote a healthier body image than classic minifigures. In classic LEGO, the way female figs are identified usually involves a printed hourglass figure and printed chest. The figures for the Friends theme have more modest and reasonable physiques, even if they're stylistically thin compared to the chunkier classic minifigures.

I'm kind of iffy about that myself... stylistically, yes, one side of him uses organic shapes and one uses geometric shapes with mechanical textures. But it kind of bothers me when something is simply described as "organic" with no qualifiers expressing that there's a mechanical component, just because some of the armor pieces like the spherical portions have rigid-looking mechanical details. Of course, it's possible that in the Hero Factory universe anything organic is just assumed to be techno-organic. In the case of Splitface's bio it just says "part-organic", not "half-organic", so I reckon we can assume there are mechanical parts visible on the surface of his red half, possibly to hold things together as in BIONICLE. The hero core in Splitface's animation is probably just sloppiness on the part of the animators. One thing I do like is that there is a special oxidizing compound on Jawblade's home planet. This helps explain what I had previously considered a bit of a plothole, which is that Furno has rust stains in some of the videos after his mission on Z'chaya, which didn't seem to make sense since he was equipped for a water mission and so should have had rust-resistant armor. On a side note, since Breez is being sent against the most animal-like of the villains (and Thornraxx is said to be trying to recruit others from his hive planet to assist him), I wonder if her special connection to nature will be brought up again. It's a lot to hope for, but if it is that could be kinda cool.

Well, the new website updates are pretty cool. I'm happy that the Gadgets & Weapons page is back to highlighting most of the characters' weapons, as opposed to summer 2011 when the only new "gadget" mentioned was the Skull Staff. As always, some of the descriptions are a bit tongue-in-cheek, although few seem as laughable as the description given for Von Nebula's Black Hole Orb Staff. The exception is the little bit of potty humor in Black Phantom's Arachnix Drone's description, which might not suit everyone but which I find hilarious for some reason. Splitface is confirmed to be schizophrenic, and some of the gadget descriptions are a bit surprising-- for instance, the Laser Cutters wielded by Toxic Reapa are identified as his arm weapons, when I was anticipating them being the blaster thingies on his face. Additionally, Jawblades weapons don't just resemble Furno's weapons-- they are Furno's weapons, stolen on a previous mission and modified for underwater use. The electricity shooter's description is very similar to that of Surge's original weapon, suggesting it might also be the same weapon with slight modifications. Unfortunately, all pre-2012 gadgets and weapons have been removed from the page entirely. The same applies for bios of pre-2012 Heroes, which is odd because we know many of them will be returning (and because the Savage Planet villains were not themselves removed). Perhaps most embarrassingly, Evo's bio is STILL switched with Nex's. Product page animations are a mixed bag. Some are a bit jerky, especially the villains. The hero animations are mostly good, though, as is the animation for Thornraxx. Can't check the combi model building instructions at the time being since I'm still avoiding PDFs, but hopefully soon I can check those out. There are lots of nice downloads including two posters and five wallpapers. Unfortunately, while the wallpapers are well thought-out enough to have the corresponding heroes and villains on their respective backgrounds, they neglect to make the characters to scale with one another. Only Furno's and Jawblade's ends up looking quite good, with the shark looming ominously behind Furno-- meanwhile, Evo's/Toxic Reapa's looks exceedingly static and all the others make it seem as though the characters are firing their weapons at each other and missing by a longshot. For some reason, with all the other removed content, none of the older downloads have been removed, which some people might appreciate. So overall there's a mixed bag-- some good and some bad. It seems, sadly, I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up for a huge amount of meaningful web content this year-- but hopefully Hero Recon Team will update soon and ease that pain a bit.

Light Royal Blue isn't all that new-- it was introduced in 2004 along with the other "Royal Blue" colors (such as plain Royal Blue, the one I'm most familiar with, which was widely used in the first two years of Knights' Kingdom II). However, it has mostly been used in themes like Belville and Duplo. It has also had appearances more recently in Minifigures Series 4 and the Ben 10: Alien Force constraction sets. No problem not recognizing it-- I don't actually own any parts in this color besides the figure skater from Minifigures Series 4, and so I might not even recognize it in real life if it weren't for exposure to it through LEGO Digital Designer and the color palettes LEGO has so kindly released to the AFOL community in the past few years (speaking of which, I hope they release one this year as well).

Great review! I really like this set as well. It definitely shows that TLG wasn't just painting a boys' set pink and hoping girls would buy it, but rather designing a set with many details girls would like-- and in some cases, details they might not have been able to afford or get away with in a conventional "boy-oriented" set, such as the level of interior detail that might for a young boy be just "filler" that drives up the cost of the set. Naturally we, as AFOLs, have had a chance to develop an appreciation for these sorts of details no matter what our gender! I'm very fond of this color scheme. Magenta (124 Bright Reddish Violet, the color of this set's roof) is a lovely color that I feel is terribly underused, with sets often opting for the bolder Dark Purple (268 Medium Lilac) or the brighter Dark Pink (221 Bright Purple). It's nice to see it in this set as the principal "girly" color, accenting the lovely tan walls and vibrant green grass! The lime accents are also very nice IMO-- unlike many AFOLs, I'm a big fan of lime. The figures are cute-looking. I interpreted the mismatch of Peter's beard and hair as his beard not having grown in all the way. Perhaps this would have been better depicted if there were a "stubble" texture in his regular hair color rather than a lighter, intermediate tone between his skin and hair colors. The pockets on his pants are a great detail! And his hair, while not a new piece, is new in Reddish Brown. It's also worth noting that his arms seem to be unique compared to all of the female figs' arms. All three figs are stylish, but I feel he earns the most attention in this set since he is as of yet the only male fig in the Friends sets. The cat is adorable and remains my favorite animal from this new theme. I am a bit confused as to why you didn't apply the mirror stickers to this set? Unlike many of the stickers here, they are very plain and have no "girly" or theme-specific details. And as of yet, stickers are the only way a mirror can be done in LEGO-- there have not been any chrome 1x2x3 or 1x4x3 panel pieces yet, unfortunately. Of course, I fully understand if you perhaps wanted to reserve them in case one day you need a mirrored surface on a piece other than those for which the stickers were intended in this set. I'm quite surprised that the stickers are all on one sheet-- in the past, I've been more used to metallic stickers being on a separate sheet from other stickers that don't need any chrome surfaces. But I guess it was more economical to do it this way, especially as it allowed some small mirrored areas on the trophy sticker, the bath rack sticker, etc. I'm also amused that the copyright/production information is printed in magenta rather than black-- since there is black on this sticker sheet, this must have been purely a stylistic decision. Anyway, thanks so much for this review! This is definitely the "flagship set" of the first Friends wave, and it's certainly much more impressive than any dollhouse released in Belville or Paradisa (in fact, the only set resembling a dollhouse in Paradisa was Poolside Paradise, unless my memory is failing me). Since my mom came from a family of three girls, I grew up familiar with Playmobil dollhouses, and this is the closest a LEGO set has come to that level of play and realism.

Bricklink actually says this is Bright Light Blue (212 Light Royal Blue), and from your pics that seems to be the case. Medium Azure has a more greenish tint. But of course, you have the parts in front of you and I don't, so you'd be better equipped to make that comparison. I love these parts too, and they're much more versatile than the "Fashion"-themed accessories, which tend to have heart patterns on them all over the place. I wish these came in a less vibrant color, though, like 315 Silver Metallic (Flat silver/the current pearl silver color). That's a bit disappointing. I was expecting a connection more like the glasses in this same pic, if not with an actual stud inside the cupcake! Still, I'm wondering what uses there might be for this cupcake piece besides as food items. I can picture them crowning a 1x1x6 cylindrical column somewhat nicely! This is a very nice sticker! The fact that it avoids pastel colors is nice, since it'd be so versatile for a building with pretty much any type of color scheme. The other stickers, particularly those with ice cream on them, remind me a lot of Paradisa, although thankfully the pastel shades are used sparingly so the end result isn't so diabetes-inducing. Not sure the same could be said about the sweets themselves! The same thing I said about the stickered parts applies even moreso for these printed parts. No overdose of pastel colors here! In fact, I fully expect the cash register to show up in City sets before long. It's very nicely designed-- not overloaded with detail, but not simplified beyond recognition or realism either. I'm very impressed with this aspect of the design. It's a pity there are no baked goods designed to fit so snugly inside the pan itself! I'm sure most people buying this for a town layout will create a roof for it, but it's easy to see the point of leaving it without a roof. First of all, it makes play easier, and second, it brightens up the place. I recall some of my family's Paradisa sets were very cramped and dark inside. Interior details certainly weren't glossed over in this theme. I like the seating area and table. Very stylish! Reminds me of the attempt my brother and I made to give Market Street an interior on LEGO Digital Designer. Anyway, great review. It's no surprise that this set is one of the ones that Town/City fans find most unique and appealing. And it comes with all types of useful stickers and accessories. There are (as of yet) no Friends sets on my wishlist, and with this year's Hero Factory and Ninjago offerings (How stereotypically boyish, am I right?) I don't expect the Friends sets to make their way into my collection any more than the City and Star Wars sets I also admire so greatly. Still, I hope and pray that this theme proves successful, perhaps even successful enough that TLG can push the envelope and make the theme even less stereotypically girly, while keeping its positive outlook and stylish charm.

Bright Light Blue isn't actually all that new new. That color (officially called 212 Light Royal Blue) has been in sets for several years, although mostly in Belville and Duplo (more recently, it's had some walk-on appearances in Minifigures Series 4 and the Ben 10: Alien Force constraction sets). I don't understand all the hate for the kitten; I think it looks adorable, and could function in System rather well due to its simple shape (less intricate than the Belville equivalent). Of course, I wouldn't likely use any of the Friends animals alongside regular minifigures unless they had simpler face prints, so if TLG decides to use any in regular minifigure sets in the future let's hope they redesign the faces as it is very much within their power to do. I hope the horse, when it appears in a future set, will come with a saddle so that the Friends figs look less absurd riding it! Anyway, it's a shame it's not more posable, but it's still a nice design, though I naturally prefer the more basic minifigure horse for use with classic minifigures-- both because of the prints and the overall shape better matching the classic minifigure's blocky, simplified design. Anyway, great review! This particular set is a great concept, although it doesn't excite me too much due to the stylistic incompatibility of many of the animals with System. It does, however, show great potential for the Friends theme. Regarding the accessories all being counted as one part, it's not entirely new. Consider the building instructions for the BIONICLE playset Barraki Deepsea Patrol, which group all of the weapon pieces together. Of course, that set has no step explicitly telling you to attach the weapons, much less a step telling you to apply only a few and reserve the others for a later step! The Batcave from 2006 is another good example, but that set lacks step-by-step piece call-outs entirely.

Well, Olivia's most like me personality-wise, at least from what I can gather from the website (haven't taken the quiz thingy). In terms of figure design I'm also fond of Mia and Andrea. Aesthetically, Andrea with the green top and pants might be my favorite fig (of those pictured here). But in terms of personality I'm probably gonna stick with the crowd and say Olivia.

I really, really like many of the changes of the Turbo Shredder. They make it appear all the more stylish and creepy! However, I'm not a fan of the changes to Kai's Blade Cycle. It ends up feeling boxy and overloaded with red parts, while the new parts that aren't red (like the transparent cheese wedges) feel a little bit tacked-on. The gaps that haven't been filled in, which looked pretty much fine on the actual set, look inconsistent with all of the modded sections of the bike, which are almost tanklike in their bulkiness. Gone is the sleek mechanical look of the original model, replaced with a somewhat clunky war-machine look. Sorry if my opinions on the bike are a bit scathing. One of the reasons I liked the original set was that in spite of its massive size and heavy stylization it still looked and felt like a motorcycle. And it feels like a lot of that has been lost due to the heavy modding.

True, but BIONICLE lasted for nine years, and some BIONICLE fans even felt that there were lots of ideas that hadn't yet been used by the time its success finally petered out. Ninjago is a lot like BIONICLE in several ways, and some of the product descriptions for the Ninjago books suggest that this is by design rather than by coincidence. Heavily story-driven themes like BIONICLE and Knights' Kingdom II have, historically, had a lot of advance planning before their release. This includes brainstorming plot elements that can be turned to at a later time if the theme turns out to be successful. I have no doubt that TLG, in the very least, has plenty of stories planned that they can continue telling for as long as the theme remains successful. If the theme starts to show less ingenuity I'm confident it will be the effect of a decline in sales, not the cause of one.

I don't know what to expect in terms of longevity. The fact that it's so successful now is no guarantee that it will be able to maintain that success for as long as BIONICLE did. However, I have high hopes for the theme. It has the same rich multimedia component as BIONICLE had, but with a more lighthearted story that seems to fit LEGO's spirit of play and imagination a bit better. Also unlike BIONICLE, it does not try to distance itself from the LEGO brand. As for what could happen in Ninjago's future, that's still up in the air. As long as the theme continues I'm sure we can expect many more costumes for the ninja, many more crazy-looking vehicles, and of course the continuation of the spinner sets. Unfortunately, this year of Ninjago seems to be far lighter on architectural sets, even those like Skeleton Bowling that could function as spinner arenas. That's a real shame since I was so fond of the Fire Temple set, even though thankfully there's still plenty of artistry in the designs of this year's sets. I sincerely hope next year we might see more sets that follow in the tradition of the Fire Temple, Mountain Shrine, Blacksmith Shop, and Spinjitzu Dojo.

Just wanted to share that service.LEGO.com has been updated with building instructions for most 2012 sets released so far, including Hero Factory sets. There are both US and EU versions for most building instructions except Breez and Thornraxx, which only have the EU ones (reflecting those sets' delayed release over here). The images in the building instructions are remarkably high-quality. The sets have also been added to the replacement parts server at service.LEGO.com, but as of yet there are no shiny, beautiful renders for any of the new parts.

Amazing blend of Hero Factory and System! One of the things I really like about Hero Factory parts is that their smooth aesthetic is a lot easier to use with System than the detailed, intricate designs of many BIONICLE parts. The greebling on the reverse side of the legs is also incredible. That tail is also nicely designed. Great work overall!

I actually liked Furno 2.0's asymmetry, because his armor was still balanced on both sides. Arguably Breez's is too, but from front view having one armor piece at a 90 degree angle from the other makes one leg look less armored than the other. Bulk 3.0 did the same thing, but in his case perhaps it wasn't as bothersome to me because the legs didn't have so much extra length. Incidentally, how does Breez look with traditional 2.0- or 3.0-sized arms and legs? In other words, either all 5M bones or one 5M and one 6M bone for the legs. That's something I'm very curious about (I greatly prefer the smaller Heroes in terms of proportions).

Nope. The collectible minifigures don't "signify" anything about the future. All they signify is that in the present, the designers want to make these types of figs and think fans will want to buy them. I'm pretty sure LEGO will steer clear of Halo, just because they don't want to have the reputation of trying to market kids' toys based on M-rated games. Even if Halo wouldn't violate their war and violence policies any more than Star Wars, the fact remains that they are games for adults and most LEGO sets are designed for kids. It would be like TLG releasing a theme based on an R-rated movie series. (Apologies for using American rating systems; they're all I'm really familiar with.)

I still notice that problem on rare occasions, but I've never seen it as bad as it was in this set. I think that set basically numbed me to color quality issues since I have never, ever had such obvious issues with color quality in any set since-- not even in the collectible minifigures.

"Epic Dragon Battle", huh? Way to tell it like it is, LEGO! Lasha's Bite Cycle is one we have yet to see leaked images for. It's nice to see some snake vehicles still to come.

Thanks for the review! I also think this is one of the most creative, least gender-role-defined sets in the new theme. I hope this set sells effectively enough that we see more sets like it in future waves! And of course that is coupled with my hope that the Friends theme in general sells effectively and sends out a global message that girls are a viable market for building toys. (And no, that's not just because I think My Little Pony Kre-O would be an interesting product)

Incidentally, could you show a picture of these animals next to a classic minifigure, or next to more traditional LEGO animals like the new police dog or the Belville kitten? I want to have a good idea what size they are. I think the kitten piece could very easily be used in other themes if it were given a simpler, more "minifig-like" face print with black dot eyes with white sparkles. The bird might be a bit large for most applications, however. Personally, I think with its simpler design the new cat is arguably more "minifig-like" than the Belville one, which has loads more detail than other minifigure animals like the police dog, horse, and cow. Admittedly, though, the new cat is much more rounded than any of these minifigure animals, but so is the Belville kitten. One wonders what a dedicated LEGO System kitten would look like if one were ever to appear. Anyway, great review! This is a very nice set design. The number of flowers, bugs, and other ornaments is a bit overwhelming when they have to be spread across a set so small, though. I look forward to more Friends reviews-- it's possibly the best girl-oriented theme in my lifetime (and yes, that includes Paradisa, which was often awfully sparse and <insert that tiresome argument> compared to other sets of the early- to mid-90s).

This argument is one I've seen a couple places, and to be honest it doesn't make the most sense to me. After all, it's not like all regular figs are boys or all Friends figs are girls. There is a male Friends fig in the dollhouse with a similarly-thin build. Meanwhile, I think it's absurd to say that the squarish, chunky minifigure promotes a healthier body image than the Friends figs. While the Friends figs are perhaps a bit stylized with their thinnish bodies (and, as with the classic fig, all equally so), the main change they make from the traditional minifigure is to be more realistic in many respects It should also be noted that female minifigures tend to be distinguished from male minifigures by an hourglass figure and a fuller bust printed on the torso. In comparison, the gender differences for the Friends figs are more subdued and realistic. So it's a bit absurd to suggest that traditional female minifigures, just by being disproportionately shorter and wider than the Friends figs, actually promote a healthy body image for girls. Now, there are things I think the Friends theme could be doing to promote healthier attitudes and behaviors in their customers. I'd love to see a Friends set of a gym with treadmills, cycling machines, etc. There are few Friends sets that involve any kind of athletic activity, except of course the horseback riding sets we are expecting in the summer. And I feel that's perhaps a vacuum in the cast's diverse hobbies and interests that needs to be filled.