Review: 71485 Mateo and Z-Blob the Knight Battle Mech
Posted by benbacardi,One of the largest sets in this year's wave of DREAMZzz is 71485 Mateo and Z-Blob the Knight Battle Mech. Mechs seem to be increasibly popular nowadays, having made their way into western culture from Japanese origins, and builders of this set are provided with a choice of three to construct.
As with all the DREAMZzz sets, we're invited to join with the Dream Chasers as they enter the dream world and battle the Never Witch and her nightmare creatures to stop them stealing childrens' memories and turning them into nightmares. Let's take a look at how Mateo's comic creation, Z-Blob, can transform into larger-than-life dream machines to take on the dark side.
Summary
71485 Mateo and Z-Blob the Knight Battle Mech, 1,333 pieces.
£114.99 / $129.99 / €129.99 | 8.6p/9.8c/9.8c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
Three large and impressive-looking mechs to choose from, though not without stability issues.
- Good-sized impressive-looking models
- Interesting colour scheme
- Fun to build
- Limited and not particularly useful articulation
- Relatively expensive
- A centaur mech is a little odd!
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Minifigures
The set contains four human minifigures and three creatures. The two "good guys" are the titular Mateo, and his friend Logan. This incarnation of Mateo has appeared in three sets this year, and as I've mentioned in other reviews, is excellently detailed, comprising dual-moulded legs featuring belted cargo trousers and large white sneakers, a white t-shirt with a Z-Blob emblem on it, and a blue gilet.
Similarly, Logan has appeared in numerous sets before, but his headpiece is new—a dual-moulded part consisting of a blue hood pulled up over a yellow cap with the Dream Chasers' hourglass logo printed on the front. This pairs very well with his blue jacket (again with the Dream Chasers' logo on the rear), and the yellow shorts.
As I've come to expect from these sets, both minifigures have dual expressions, and printing on both sides of their torsos (although Mateo's is covered by his gilet). Mateo's large lopsided grin can be swapped for a smaller smirk, and Logan's for an angry grimace, with his eyes turning from yellow to red.
Mateo and Logan are opposed in the dream world by their nightmare doppelganger equivalents, MadTeo and Dogan. There's nothing new about these figures, having already appeared this year in numerous sets, but that doesn't stop them looking fantastic. The bright, happy colours of the protagonists are replaced with greys and blacks, paired with vibrant purples and pinks, to represent the "dark" side. They could all do with brushing their teeth once in a while, too!
Likewise, the printing continues on the rear and two expressions are provided, to add variety to play.
It wouldn't be a battle without weaponry, and in true dreamlike fashion, the weapons are somewhat unusual. Mateo has a chunky handheld gun that appears to fire some kind of vibrant green electricity from a large canister attached to his back. In other sets, Mateo's weapon is formed from his shape-changing sidekick buddy Z-Blob, but his friend is otherwise occupied here. MadTeo's opposing weapon is a long spear with a large pink jewel at one end.
In contrast, Logan appears to only be equipped with a hockey stick to defend against the hammer blows from Dogan! I know which weapon I'd rather be wielding, but Logan doesn't seem to mind.
Finally, three creatures are included. The now-familiar raven, which has once again stolen one of the children's memories in a glass dome, and two small nightmare creatures called Snivel and Sneak. Both are primarily black, with bold yellow, pink, and white printing. Neither have any articulation in their limbs, but Snivel can hold a bar beneath either of its arms.
The Build
Each DREAMZzz set contains three primary builds to choose from, with the instruction booklets diverging after a small common core is built that doesn't change between models. In this case, that core is a little spaceship-like capsule with room inside for a couple of minifigures to sit. Below, you can see a pile of the remaining pieces once the capsule has been built.
Changing from one model to another requires disassembling the entire build until this point, and then building up again. Each model is a different mech of some kind that Z-Blob, Mateo's comic creation, has transformed into within the dream world to help in the fight against the Never Witch and her Nightmare Creatures.
Additionally, a relatively large sticker sheet is included, with around 17 stickers to apply. There are also four additional decorative stickers, with no designated position, to add your own creative flair (on a small scale, at least).
Street Knight Mech
In this set, each of the three builds has its own A4-sized instruction manual. The first is referred to in the set description as a Street Knight Mech, and the name certainly seems apt! The cockpit becomes the central core of the mech, with legs attached below, arms to the side, and a form of wings to the rear. It's size, once built, is quite impressive.
Each of the limbs has limited articulation. The arms can be lifted, and the wrists rotated. There's only really one position that works for the legs, though, assuming you want the mech to remaining standing.
In one hand, the knight is wielding a large sword, and a round shield is grasped in the other. These aren't firmly attached to the model—instead, the fingers can be opened to allow the shield and sword to slide over them to be held loosely in place by a technic pin, and grasped more securely by folding the fingers back into the palm. I appreciated these being easily removable.
A printed mask forms the face of the mech. This can rotate slightly, being attached using a single ball joint. Beneath it, you can see two eye stickers on the cockpit's canopy—these are not actually included on this mech, instead intended for the Street Battle Mech, but once applied you obviously can't remove them! My son chose to build that mech first, which is why all the photos show Z-Blob's eyes on the cockpit, in contrast to official images.
The canopy opens, with the whole head tilting backwards, revealing a roomy but rather sparse interior. Each of the shoulders of the mech is equipped with a rotating stud shooter, holding six studs on either side. I've not come across this part before, introduced last year, but I think it's quite clever—rotating the black outer ring by a notch will fire one stud with quite some power.
Two "wings" extend from the rear of the mech, which are purely decorative—they don't offer any additional weapony or play features beyond being able to be posed slightly. In the photo below, you can also clearly see the hip joints, which allow rotational movement both forwards/backwards and out to the side—though, as noted previously, anything other than the pose shown here and the mech cannot stand upright. The legs have no other points of articulation, with a fixed curve to the knee, and very little movement in the ankle.
Each of the mech's boots are pretty solid, though a little awkward looking with the variety of angles involved. The tyres at the back, presumably added for stability, push the heel up at a strange angle to the base of the boot. Small stickers are applied intending to imitate the feel of sneakers like those worn by Mateo, but they do get lost somewhat against the rather messy side of the foot.
Street Knight Centaur
The next instruction booklet is for the Street Knight Centaur, a rather strange looking mech modelled on the mythical creature that's half man, half horse. It takes quite some time to disassemble almost the entire model and rebuild it, so this is not something I would be doing often!
The capsule remains the chest of the mech, with the same head piece above it and only minor changes to the helmet. The mech has four legs, arranged like a horse, and small hoof-like feet instead of the large boots.
There's no attempt to create hands, here—instead, one arm ends in a large sword and the other in the green transparent shield. The large pieces previously used as shoulder armour cover the forelegs down to the knee, such as it is—there is no articulation whatsoever in either of the mech's front or rear legs.
The rotating stud shooters have been moved to the "wings" attached to the back of the mech, so they now fire over the shoulders—assuming you've got them angled correctly. It's very easy to fire them straight into the back of the mech itself!
Articulation in the arms is limited, too—the elbows don't move at all, only the shoulders, which can be spun to point the arms up or down, with no other movement.
The centaur's body is very skinny, and a rather small tail is attached at the rear. I think the whole design looks rather silly, particularly how the front hooves don't sit flush to the ground, but angled slightly upwards. It's definitely not as impressive as the Street Knight Mech.
Street Battle Mech
Finally, the third mech is called the Street Battle Mech, and is the only one not to use the printed face shield component externally. Instead, stickers provide Z-Blob's eyes on the canopy of the cockpit, that forms both the body and head of the mech. Enormous shoulder armour is attached either side and dominates the top of the mech, with large green fins jutting out behind.
Strangely, the mech's faceplate is placed inside the cockpit, preventing any minifigures from riding inside. I'm a little confused as to why there are two "faces" for this mech—this face, and the eye stickers on the cockpit.
The legs are less bulky than the knight, and the boots look much better in my opinion. They are cleaner, far less busy, and sit flatter against the ground. As before, articulation of the hips is possible both forwards/backwards and outwards, but the mech becomes unbalanced very quickly.
The arms are articulated only at the shoulders, but have a fairly wide range of movement. Instead of hands, they end in the rotating stud shooters, which feels like a natural placement for them—it's easy to point the arm in the direction you want, and fire.
Giant shoulder pads aside, I think this is the best looking of the three mechs—and my son must agree too, as this is the first model he chose to build. In fact, he lost interest in the process of disassembly and rebuilding of the others, so I had to build those alone!
Conclusion
71485 Mateo and Z-Blob the Knight Battle Mech provides three large mechs, which is certainly great if that's the kind of thing you're in to! All three certainly look impressive, but they all feel slightly fragile to move, have limited articulation, and can only really stand upright themselves in one position.
Personally, I feel that the Street Battle Mech is the best of the bunch, but at least you have the freedom of choice! They all leave a handful of parts out, though, so you will want to keep them safe somewhere should you want to rebuild the set into one of the others.
As usual, the minifigures are excellently detailed, although it is a shame the exact prints have been used before in numerous other sets. The set feels rather unbalanced, with only two minifigures and a couple of creatures representing the dark side, so would pair well with a set such as 71483 The Never Witch's Nightmare Creatures to even things out a little.
As one of the largest DREAMZzz sets this wave, it's not the cheapest, but the models are certainly fun to construct and you'll definitely get your value of out the parts if you build and rebuild it multiple times.
71485 Mateo and Z-Blob the Knight Battle Mech is available at LEGO.com for £114.99 / $129.99 / €129.99.
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26 comments on this article
Nice review!
I really liked this set—I felt like the shortcomings in articulation were offset by just how cool it was to have not just two but three really unique and interesting alt-builds.
Incidentally, this version of the six-stud shooter may have debuted last year but it's merely an update of a part that debuted back in the 2015 Bionicle sets (which were almost 10 years ago now... wow).
"Relatively expensive"? Its a hell of alot cheaper then comparitive Disney owned themes like Marvel and Star Wars.
That said, I'm honestly surprised this theme hasn't been more popular. Its got some great designs and fun builds. Just shows its impossible to judge what will or won't be popular these days. Heck, no-one thought Botanicals would take off like it did when it first started.
edit: @Lyichir : I thought that this six shooter was just a slight recolour of previous versions. As you mention, the parts been around since 2015, mostly in Ninjago, Marvel and some Nexo Knight sets.
Wow! The villain names are actually getting better! MadTeo actually kinda works!
A centaur mech may seem odd, but from what I've seen, centaur robot forms are quite powerful. Especially when they're fueled by cola.
This set hurts my eyes.
@TheBrickBulbasaur said:
"A centaur mech may seem odd, but from what I've seen, centaur robot forms are quite powerful. Especially when they're fueled by cola."
The same can be said of Cyborgs and Pirate Ships..
@Ridgeheart said:
"So we're supposed to... add and remove stickers between builds? That's a new low.
I like-not-love this set. I want this theme to succeed, but - put it this way, I bought every set from the initial wave, but the newer waves aren't quite THAT hot. Then again, I do understand why we get retreads of existing/previous sets, which this does kind of feel like, if only for the sake of giving newcomers to the series the ability to also pick up a "Z-Blob Set" or whathaveyou (or whathaveyounot).
Do I like-not-love this set enough to shell out one hundred and thirty of my shiniest Euros for it? Dream on."
This is an interesting take to me because personally I felt sort of the opposite about this wave—I thought this and several of the other sets in this wave (such as Cooper's C-Rex and the Never Witch's Midnight Raven) were some of the theme's best sets yet, whereas I was more so-so on the theme's debut wave (which had some cool sets but felt less interesting to me overall). Just goes to show that it's all sort of a matter of taste what kinds of sets people are drawn to.
I love green slimy beings, so I love this mech. It's transparent green goofiness and goodness.
I like it. But with this and the previous black horse, I can't help wondering if the designer had some Micronauts toys in the 80s...
Looks like something out of the Prime Empire season of Ninjago!
While the execution here may not be the greatest, I can't help but feel that treating it being a centaur mech at all as a negative is misguided. LEGO exploring more ways of depicting mechs beyond the safe bipedal, humanoid shape is worth applauding. And any design issues likely won't improve without trying them again as time goes on, just like LEGO's regular mech designs have improved over time.
Breaking the mech mold is good, especially after this much time!
@Joefish said:
"I like it. But with this and the previous black horse, I can't help wondering if the designer had some Micronauts toys in the 80s..."
I was just thinking—Benbacardi, meet my friend, Baron Karza.
There definitely should've been two trans-bright green cockpits included: one for the stickers, one to leave plain.
Either way, this set is extremely impressive! Well, except that dumb Centaur of course. I plan to get this and the other Z-Blob sets to try combining into my own builds! Creativity is what this entire theme is about, after all.
My son and me like the centaur mech the most, for the reason that it is an uncommon build amidst the plethora of biped mechs from Ninjago and Monkeykid. But it looks better using the arm-shoulders from the street knight.
My issue with the centaur is that legs are quite unstable and it can easily tip over. We plan to mod the legs to include shoulder/hip articulation and make it stand more firmly at the same time.
I too expected two cockpits in the box. Having only one detracts in some way from the ability to freely switch between the three builds. Unless you are comfortable with having a Z Blob mech without eyes or two mechs with two pairs of eyes, none of which make sense considering the eyes and green goo are the trademarks of Z Blob.
We are eagerly waiting for season 3 now. Looks to be cyber cosmos based which brings back Prime Empire memories. Dreamzzz is so far very refreshing and the TV show is a good change from Ninjago.
We would love to put our hands on a ugly X Blob model :D
The fact you can get 3 of those figs in cheaper sets devalues this set so much.
The centaur looks better than the Crystal King build from Ninjago a couple of years back.
And I for one am always glad when Lego doesn’t stick an exclusive character or character variation in a gigantic, expensive set.
@Lyichir said:
" @Ridgeheart said:
"So we're supposed to... add and remove stickers between builds? That's a new low.
I like-not-love this set. I want this theme to succeed, but - put it this way, I bought every set from the initial wave, but the newer waves aren't quite THAT hot. Then again, I do understand why we get retreads of existing/previous sets, which this does kind of feel like, if only for the sake of giving newcomers to the series the ability to also pick up a "Z-Blob Set" or whathaveyou (or whathaveyounot).
Do I like-not-love this set enough to shell out one hundred and thirty of my shiniest Euros for it? Dream on."
This is an interesting take to me because personally I felt sort of the opposite about this wave—I thought this and several of the other sets in this wave (such as Cooper's C-Rex and the Never Witch's Midnight Raven) were some of the theme's best sets yet, whereas I was more so-so on the theme's debut wave (which had some cool sets but felt less interesting to me overall). Just goes to show that it's all sort of a matter of taste what kinds of sets people are drawn to."
I agree with you both. The initial wave had the incredible Shark Ship and Grimkeepers. This wave, as previously stated, has the Raven and T-Rex.
The remaining balance may tilt to the first wave as it also had a fun treehouse. Yet, this wave has the big Escher building. A bit off a toss-up.
Thanks @benbacardi for the nice reviews and the great photos showing us all the pieces we get. However, it would probably be more helpful (and easier for you) if you just did a shot of the remaining pieces left after the primary build. Otherwise, it just looks like a big pile of Lego.
@SearchlightRG said:
"The centaur looks better than the Crystal King build from Ninjago a couple of years back."
Bro I like Dreamzzz way more than Ninjago and even I have to admit that 71772 is LEAGUES better than Centblob or Z-Taur or whatever you wanna call it
They updated the Bionicle six-shooter? Odd. It does look slightly different where the studs are loaded, is it stronger? Unlike the redesigned single shooters, it still puts strain on the part when loaded, so I'm unsure what the purpose of the revision is...
I like the bubble coat jacket pieces. Need.
@chief7575 said:
"This set hurts my eyes."
Well said, mine too...
NPU for the trans green shooters as nipple tassels lol.
"So we're supposed to... add and remove stickers between builds? That's a new low."
I do not see this expressly stated in the article, and I honestly think TLG would never do that. The complaints of damaged / worn stickers would be endless.
It is mentioned that a few additional stickers are included, for personal customization, but TLG has done that several times before.
I like the look of it, but with sets of this size and cost you have to either like the look a LOT or you're better off with something that also has good articulation. Maybe if it was more like that new cole mech...?
But IDK. Maybe if the price is right one day?
@VictorvanSchagen said:
""So we're supposed to... add and remove stickers between builds? That's a new low."
I do not see this expressly stated in the article, and I honestly think TLG would never do that. The complaints of damaged / worn stickers would be endless.
It is mentioned that a few additional stickers are included, for personal customization, but TLG has done that several times before."
The eye stickers are mentioned. THe other models aren't supposed to have them.
For future Dreamzzz sets, would it we possible to get a picture of all the leftover parts for each build? It would be nice to know how many parts aren’t being used in each model.
While the concept is creative, this set (and the Dreams T-rex) visually looks like a mess. I think I'll pass.