Time continue with my Power Miners reviews, this time with the flagship set of the first wave: the Crystal Sweeper!
Let’s start with the figures.
Hmm, some familiar faces here. This is the first regular Power Miners set to give us repeated figures, with Brains and both rock monsters making their second appearance here. Brains has a slight difference from his previous outing in the Mine Mech - he’s wearing some goggles on his helmet now. The only new figure is the dude on the left, who is unnamed. From his torso print we can infer that he’s a demolitions expert, and his head features a very unique metal plate bolted to his forehead.
Nameless guy’s alternate face is amazing, as usual.
Before we get into the Crystal Sweeper itself, let’s take a look at the side build.
To give the rock monsters a chance against the Crystal Sweeper, they have been given this interesting rock catapult. It’s fairly standard-looking, aside from the eye catching melded boulder halves and the crystal growths sprouting from the base. When you hit the Technic axle, the monsters will fly pretty far, though trying to aim with this thing is practically impossible.
That’s pretty much it for the catapult, so let’s get into the Crystal Sweeper.
The vehicle itself isn’t much bigger than the Thunder Driller, but it’s far more detailed. It has a very unique design, with a central cabin, plenty of room on two large side platforms and of course the giant sweeping turbine in the front. When rolled along, the turbine spins, collecting any crystals in its path.
From my experience, this function works alright, but it’s easily the least reliable of all the geared functions in the entire theme. Crystals tend to get caught on the ramp leading to the bucket. That said, it’s still a cool function, and when it does work, it works well.
From the side, we can see more of the vehicle’s interesting shaping, along with a moderately sized crane operated by Brains.
The crane can be rotated around and has plenty of articulation, allowing for the drill bit to reach all the way to the ground to mine for crystals.
The rear of the vehicle is dedicated entirely to a massive plastic bucket piece where any collected minerals are sent - the set includes six loose crystals in various colours in addition to the two found on the catapult.
Once the rear flap is lifted, the bucket can hinge upwards to dump its contents.
The opposite side of the vehicle has less space for passengers than the other, being entirely dedicated to a small accessory storage. A shovel and handheld drill are mounted on clips at the side, while an orange dirt bike is secured in the middle.
The ladder piece can be hinged downwards to deploy the bike, although the descent from the stowing area to the ground is ridiculously steep.
Two crates behind the bike storage contain even more accessories, with a stickered laptop and banana to keep the crew fed.
The driver operates the machine from inside the compact cabin, adorned with warning lights and two large floodlights. Dynamite sticks are attached to either side of the cabin for small-scale mining operations.
Despite appearing fairly moderately sized from the exterior, the interior of the cabin is actually incredibly cramped, with the driver not even being able to see properly out of the windscreen. It’s reasonably well-detailed, at least, with a large steering wheel and two levers.
So that’s it for the set itself, let’s get into pricing.
This set retailed for £41.99, which I feel is a reasonable price considering the set’s piece count and size. Now I don’t usually take the American price into account with these reviews, as the two prices are usually quite similar, but this is an exception - why on earth was this set $69.99? That is insanely expensive for a mere 474 pieces, especially when most of them aren’t even that big! Why is there such a big discrepancy between the US and UK prices when all of the other sets were really close?
On the aftermarket, this set is currently valued at £67, which is the equivalent of about $80, meaning this set is even more bizarrely expensive than it was to begin with. The Crystal Sweeper is a fun set, but it doesn’t work perfectly and the figure selection is very disappointing for the largest set of the wave. It’s current price is tolerable, but certainly not ideal.
I’d certainly recommend it, as it’s still a very iconic and entertaining set, but I definitely wouldn’t choose it over Thunder Driller. I like it, but it’s definitely flawed.
7/10.
Next time we won’t be looking at the Boulder Blaster, I’ll instead be taking the opportunity to check out the combination builds for the first six sets, starting with the Cave Cutter.