Review: 80025 Sandy's Power Loader Mech
Posted by Huw,Following the theme's introduction last spring, LEGO continues to release Monkie Kid sets primarily for the Asian market, and the three that'll be released on July 1st will be the fourth batch of them, so presumably they are selling there.
The 520-piece 80025 Sandy's Power Loader Mech is the smallest, but perhaps the most appealing.
The set contains quite a few stickers for its size but on this occasion I elected not to apply them.
Minifigures
Unusually, it does not contain the titular hero which, given that collectors of the theme will have dozens of Kid minifigures already, is not necessarily a bad thing. Instead, one of his team members and his pet are provided to tackle the spider queen's henchmen alone.
Syntax and Huntsman, the antagonists in the set, were introduced earlier in the year, and they are unchanged from their previous appearances
Huntsman is armed with a chainsaw blaster and a grappling hook on a chain.
Syntax is unarmed but has a neck bracket with four studs on the back that I was unfamiliar with until now which enables him to be attached to a small 6-limbed mech equipped with all manner of gadgets, including a spider poison rocket launcher.
Bigfig Sandy, former soldier and loyal member of Monkie Kid's team also remains unchanged and this is the fourth set to contain him.
Mo, Sandy's cat, bears an uncanny resemblance to the giant, with matching fur and orange Mohican.
The completed model
Sandy is a big muscular guy, so it's only fitting that his mech looks that way too. Many of his vehicles are equipped with a prominent sound system and this one is no different: clearly he likes his music. Or does he use it to deafen his opponents?
Mo is perched between the speakers with a control panel in front of him. I don't know whether he's operating weapons or spinning the tunes...
As is often the case with mechs, the back has not been given a lot of attention. There is, however, what I assume is a propulsion unit in the middle which can be folded down into the body when not in use.
The limbs are connected using the large click-hinge system which enables them to be posed and held in a variety of positions. However, as he has no knees and the ankle joints allow only sideways movement, a realistic walking stance is not possible.
The giant fist on his right arm can be pushed forwards to hit out at opponents, while the clamp on the left holding his crescent staff can be rotated using a knob at the back.
Overall, it stands about 18cm tall.
Verdict
This is one of the more appealing Monkie Kid sets: after all, who doesn't like a mech? It's sturdy, fairly poseable, attractively coloured and is just how you'd expect a mech piloted by Sandy to be.
LEGO calls it a power loader mech which conjurers up images of the one Ripley dons in Aliens. However, this one looks to be equipped more for battle than moving pallets around, so Sandy should have no trouble seeing off the set's adversaries.
It doesn't look like a £40 set, though, and certainly not a $55 one! It's extremely unusual for LEGO to use the real exchange rate when pricing sets rather than 1:1 or worse. So, while it is a decent set you'll find more bang for your buck elsewhere.
The three new Monkie Kid sets will be available at LEGO.com from 1st July, and in fact almost every one released this year and last are still available there too, so I wonder just how well they are actually selling in the west...
Thanks to LEGO for providing the set for review. All opinions expressed are my own.
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20 comments on this article
They regularly go on sale at Toysrus here so im doubtful they're even selling well in the Asian markets although the pricing is fairer than other themes here. I always see shelves full of them and personally am not a huge fan of the theme. I wish they did more location based sets rather than giant monsters and mech and whatnot
That backplate for Huntsman makes for a very nice small mech & I really like the loader mech (although I'd look to kit it out as per Aliens). The UK price doesn't look outrageous, either.
I still don't understand why the Monkie Kid sets are so over-priced. We accept that the licensed brand sets (like SW or DC or Marvel or Harry Potter) involve some extra costs, but why is it necessary for Monkie Kid (or Unikitty, a while back, which was similarly absurdly-overpriced)? Don't Lego own these ones outright?
I like the top half of the mech, but the bottom half just looks wrong. I get that they were trying to emulate the form of Sandy, but the top of the hips look much too square for my liking.
@Zordboy said:
"I still don't understand why the Monkie Kid sets are so over-priced. We accept that the licensed brand sets (like SW or DC or Marvel or Harry Potter) involve some extra costs, but why is it necessary for Monkie Kid (or Unikitty, a while back, which was similarly absurdly-overpriced)? Don't Lego own these ones outright?"
All true but I was very pleased to buy a couple of Monkie Kid sets at 40% off from, of all places, a Lego store, a few months ago. I'm not saying the range is *too* expensive, because they are great designs. But they are indeed feel expensive because there seem to be no medium and small sets in the range. They can do it for Ninjago and Star Wars, why not Monkie Kid?
That 4 stud neck bracket is mighty useful.
Edit: that much could serve for a construction yard, but I just want that part.
Have we had a mech for bigfigs before? Some one here will know the answer…
@Bison_Bricks said:
"Have we had a mech for bigfigs before? Some one here will know the answer…"
Not a mech for big figs per se but 72004 : Tech Wizard Showdown Had Clay minifigure inside a Battle suit, inside the bigger Mech.
Product pictures don't really show it but it's basicly a golden version of 70362 : Battle Suit Clay inside the Mech.
"Tech Wizard Showdown" was, I think, my favourite Nexo Knights set out of all of them. A dude, piloting a mech, that itself was piloting another mech. And the big mecha was basically a tank with legs, I loved every bit of it. The fact that the battle decorations on the big mecha provided a sword, shield and jetpack for the smaller mecha was just so perfectly designed, I loved that one.
Wait, you guys call Mohawk haircuts “Mohicans”? Very interesting that the hairstyle got named after two completely different tribes from New York.
Good review!
Personally, for me, this is the least appealing of this small wave, less because it's not a good build and more because it offers the least that's genuinely new (the new print on Mo the cat makes him the only genuinely new fig). That said, I might still end up getting it. I do genuinely like the design of the mech, and from my experience even a less impressive Monkie Kid set still appeals to me more than most sets in other themes. Still, the goofier Noodle Tank and the jaw-dropping Bone Demon are higher priorities for me.
As a fan of the show, I feel like this set would be more appealing if instead of Syntax and Huntsman (who have both already appeared in several of the previous wave's sets), this set included the bigfig "Strong Spider" as an antagonist for Sandy in this huge mech. That would make the two sides in this set's conflict feel more evenly matched and offer more novelty for hardcore collectors. Sadly, Strong Spider is looking more and more like an invention for the show alone, and is probably unlikely to appear in any sets at this point now that they are moving on to the Lady Bone Demon as the primary antagonist instead of the Spider Queen and her minions.
I still don't understand why people think Monkie Kid is overpriced. Yes, they are expensive, but just because they're expensive doesn't mean they have bad value. While some sets ARE overpriced, this set is not one of them. It's very big for the price, it has a bigfig, and has a decent price-per-piece. It's probably my least favorite set of the wave due to the chunky size and mediocore minifigures, but it's not bad by any means.
@Vladtheb said:
"Wait, you guys call Mohawk haircuts “Mohicans”? Very interesting that the hairstyle got named after two completely different tribes from New York."
…and neither is particularly known for having sported that hairstyle. It would be more historically accurate to call it a Pawnee after the Central Plains tribe that did often have their hair that way. A case of neither British nor American English being right! Still, I’m not advocating renaming the hairstyle however incorrect it is.
@Lyichir , thanks for pointing out about Mo having a new print. I didn't notice, because he is not counted as a minifigure by BrickLink so doesn't appear in our listings, so was not easily compared with earlier ones.
@Zordboy said:
"I still don't understand why the Monkie Kid sets are so over-priced. We accept that the licensed brand sets (like SW or DC or Marvel or Harry Potter) involve some extra costs, but why is it necessary for Monkie Kid (or Unikitty, a while back, which was similarly absurdly-overpriced)? Don't Lego own these ones outright?"
The weird part to me is that while the smaller sets tend to have pretty unimpressive PPP (with the exception of I think one or two sets from the first wave of 2021), basically every larger set has a normal or even above average PPP. If anything you'd think Lego would do the opposite to try and get people into the theme, but personally I don't mind because I find the bigger sets to be a lot more interesting for the most part.
@Meadius said:
" @Zordboy said:
"I still don't understand why the Monkie Kid sets are so over-priced. We accept that the licensed brand sets (like SW or DC or Marvel or Harry Potter) involve some extra costs, but why is it necessary for Monkie Kid (or Unikitty, a while back, which was similarly absurdly-overpriced)? Don't Lego own these ones outright?"
The weird part to me is that while the smaller sets tend to have pretty unimpressive PPP (with the exception of I think one or two sets from the first wave of 2021), basically every larger set has a normal or even above average PPP. If anything you'd think Lego would do the opposite to try and get people into the theme, but personally I don't mind because I find the bigger sets to be a lot more interesting for the most part."
Well, in the case of this set (and many others in this theme) the inclusion of a bigfig is probably a major contributing factor to the high price per piece.. The same was true of sets like 7038, 70144, and 70604 compared to other Castle, Legends of Chima and Ninjago sets from their respective waves.
Much like large molded LEGO creatures like, bigfigs are practically a "perfect storm" of the factors that tend to bump up a LEGO element's price compared to basic bricks. Sandy's torso/head in particular is large, pre-assembled from multiple character- and theme-specific components, molded in four different colors, and printed on three sides (his face and the stripes on his sweatpants). The only major cost-inflating factor it DOESN'T have is electronics!
Moreover, larger sets often tend to have a better price-per-piece than smaller ones regardless of theme, since they tend to have a higher proportion of low-priced basic building elements compared to higher-priced specialized ones like minifig and creature components.
And in fact, a lot of the time, the prices of licensed sets seem to have more to do with how many expensive parts (such as character- and theme-specific figure/creature components) they include than royalties or licensing fees. For example, 76078 had a tremendously high price-per-piece, whereas 76077 from same wave of the same theme had an even better price-per-piece than many Ninjago sets!
That said, Monkie Kid sets do often seem to be higher in price (both in terms of their individual price-per-piece and the range of price points they cover) than, say, Ninjago or Nexo Knights sets, for reasons I don't entirely understand. But in the case of this SPECIFIC set, it's not all that far from what I'd expect for its contents, regardless of theme.
I'm a huge fan of this theme. Hopefully they are selling alright enough to bring us another year of sets. As for this one, I am less hyped for it now than I was upon initially seeing it. I'll definitely be picking up The Bone Demon on July 1st, and probably Pigsy's tank sometime after that, but I'll probably skip on this one.
Really like the MK theme, but can’t justify the expense. I’m trying to grab too much right now. That and the sets can be hard to take at the prices. I did pick up one, the Pigsy truck. It was really cool. Just wish these weren’t just at LEGO. Could use some of that Amazonian discounting…:D
At some point I'd love Brickset to do a retrospective on the evolution of Lego 'mechs. I feel like the Mixel line had a huge influence on the smaller mechs, with a premium on articulation and emotive poseability.
As I noted in my review of the huge Monkie Kid mech, I feel the large mechs are over engineered and don't have the same flavor or, frankly, fun of the smaller models.
@Padmewan said:
"At some point I'd love Brickset to do a retrospective on the evolution of Lego 'mechs. I feel like the Mixel line had a huge influence on the smaller mechs, with a premium on articulation and emotive poseability.
As I noted in my review of the huge Monkie Kid mech, I feel the large mechs are over engineered and don't have the same flavor or, frankly, fun of the smaller models."
To a certain extent, larger mech builds have to be "over-engineered" compared to their smaller cousins due to having to support more weight in an upright, typically bipedal position. That generally requires sturdy, high-friction joints (including the omission of knee joints in many cases, which on larger builds can easily buckle under the weight they support) and elaborate locking techniques to ensure that those joints can be easily positioned without the parts in between coming apart from the same forces necessary to do so (this is more of a challenge than you'd think given that traditional System and even Technic connections are generally designed to come apart with minimal effort on the part of the builder). Personally I feel like those larger mechs have been improving over time as well in terms of scale, shaping, and level of detail.
An article on the history of those sorts of mechs would be really interesting. From the barely-articulated "Roboforce" space theme (arguably the first "mech theme") to Exo-Force to the bigger, more robust mechs in the Lego Ninjago Movie and beyond, Lego mechs have certainly come quite a long way.