I am not a Legend of Zelda fan (never grew up with any of the games) but as soon as I saw that build I immediately wanted it because of the new cape piece, those new moulded Spear head pieces, and the dark green sockets. Based on how small the build looked, I imagined it couldn’t be possibly be more expensive than 30$ at most, right…? RIGHT???
Turns out, this small pathetic little build is part of larger set that retails for 130$, and has over 1000 pieces. I am used to LEGO being ridiculously overpriced and have inflated part counts for small builds, but dang, this takes it to completely another level.
Here’s hoping that those pieces will appear again in other sets in the future, because the fact that this is a one-off expensive licensed set would probably make those pieces even in themselves incredibly costly on Bricklink.
While Znap was absolutely meant to be a K’nex competitor, I wouldn’t really call it a clone.
I can see definitely how the Znap connection is “inspired” by the K’nex “axle-end to connector” connection…
… and both systems have holes for their respective axles to go through, but that’s where the similarities end. Znap and K’nex had very different ways of designing parts with those connections, and K’nex’s connection system had a lot more flexibility built in.
Are you referring to the numbered connectors from #1 to #7, or the bent liftarms?
Both. The two of them require multiple copies to align with the standard System connections.
While that is true of the numbered connectors, the angled liftarms are intentionally designed with the perfect angle to allow for in-System angled connections at the “3-4-5 triangle” angle:
{Takuma voice} back in my day, that set would have been made out of 43 pieces and been like $4.99!
This is the type of set that CCBS was made for.
Edit: oh, there’s a landscape to it as well.
Okay, now it looks like a $50-60 sett.
@Racie02 I just can’t for the life of me understand how a set of that seize could possibly have over 1000 pieces and go for 130$. The price is absolutely insane. I feel like increasingly, the old “price per piece ratio” way of measuring the value of sets is increasingly becoming obsolete, as it seems like now LEGO are just plain greedy and deliberately price their sets so high because they know Adult collectors would pay anything to get rare exclusive minifigures, like those Zelda characters.
Speaking of overpriced sets with Constraction pieces though, the latest (and probably last) wave of Dreamzz has introduced a new transparent claw piece that strongly resembles the transparent CCBS fire piece that was introduced in Brain Attack:
The fact that it comes in those rare trans green and trans pink colors makes it even more desirable. I can see a lot of potential for cool Constraction MOCs with exotic color schemes using those pieces. However, the fact that it comes only in two sets which retail for 50$ and 80$ respectively is going to make getting them quite difficult. Which is a real shame because I would have genuinely been interested in getting the Fox Guardian set if were half the price…
‘nuva hand’
Well, all the nuve use that piece for both hands (except kopaka, he only has one). They’re the first full team to do so (kopaka mata had one hand)
It’s namely because the AFOLs are the ones demanding such sets in the first place. Kinda the same issues Hasbro has rn. Customers demand ever more out of what they’re getting, and some stuff, like visual accuracy and high levels of articulation, clash with demands that you make a specific character at a specific size/price point. For instance, you wouldn’t seriously say that we need to spend more budget on vehicle-specific rims, tires, and windscreen elements for every Speed Champions set, but that’s precisely what a lot of people claim LEGO needs to do to keep people from buying bootlegs.
It’s the customers who are making these demands who are giving companies a reason to increase prices while delivering minimal incremental improvements in the visual accuracy department. You see it with all the licensed themes, people will eat up high-detail Star Wars and sitcom set sets because of a combination of nostalgia, visual accuracy (mainly Easter eggs), and having a display piece they’ll never play with. It’s the same with Hasbro: they’ll make a new show/cartoon/movie-accurate figure, and it’ll with be QC issues out the wazoo or overpriced like a kickstarter scam.
No one actually buys it to play with the toy, it’s just a collectible. And when the average adult with money to burn starts treating toys as merely something to collect (for any number of reasons), it shows companies that there’s a sizable segment of consumers who are very easy to exploit simply by making more stuff you need to collect.
And with Pokémon and LoZ, it’s not as though Nintendo hasn’t been milking both franchises for all they’re worth as well. Pokémon especially has always been both a victim and a cause of the collector trends, as that was its whole gimmick since the cards released. It’s just low-entry-cost gambling based on nostalgia for a video game or show.
The recent waves of Ninjago sets have introduced a new pair of wing pieces that strongly resembles the those used on the dragons from the old Vikings theme, and would be perfect for Makuta MOCs:
I got an incomplete kit of that green dragon, the wings are surprisingly large! Definitely gonna be useful, would highly recommend. Hopefully we get more colors.
Here’s hoping they’ll come in Dark Red so that we can use them for screen-accurate revamps of Teridax as depicted in the Legends of Metru Nui movie. That color would be very useful for Antroz revamps too!
Moving on to other new sets containing pieces useful for Constraction MOCs, most people have probably completely forgotten about Monkie Kid by now because of its limited release outside China, but the final wave of Monkie Kid included two sets, one of which contains a new large black Cape piece:
@TotalMaddness will appreciate these…
unsurprisingly I have been interested in them since they released
Sand blue wings will be good for Cotton Candy and the pink ones would work well on several of the pride bats
I don’t think it was ever “Illegal” per-se, but it’s unconventional enough that I imagine they wouldn’t want to use it outside of an 18+ set.
Well, it seems the LEGO Group thought otherwise. We have confirmation now that it’s an entire new tire, likely developed for this purpose. It’s so wide/thin that it can just plop over the ball joint. No forcing it over like with other tires, it’s more of a proper sleeve.
Fun fact the designer for that set created that one cuusoo zelda project
Talk about a full circle moment
Oh wow, this one is definitely going to be very useful, especiailly for System-Constraction hybrid MOCs. The previous long version of that piece kind of limited its use to larger builds, but this piece I can see it being perfect for Toa Mata revamps made with System.