Review: 21122 The Nether Fortress
Posted by CapnRex101,The first wave of minifigure-scale Minecraft sets proved enormously popular with fans and they flew off the shelves during the weeks before Christmas. The four new sets will be released on the 1st of August but we have been sent a couple of them to review courtesy of the CEE Team.
One of few criticisms levelled at the first wave of sets was that they only represented two biomes. The second wave fares far better in that regard, including sets based on the Desert, Ice Plain and Nether regions. The largest of these is 21122 The Nether Fortress which is priced at £69.99 or $79.99 and contains 571-pieces.
The most appealing aspect of the set for me is the inclusion of so many dark red bricks, although the Ghast and Zombie Pigman are excellent too. I think the set is successful in capturing the many key features of the Nether including the portal, lava and abundant natural resources but it feels quite small in relation to the price.
Box and Contents
The box artwork is quite attractive as the red of the Nether contrasts with the green border. The play features are shown off on the back and an alternate build is advertised, instructions for which are included. Inside is a single instruction manual and three numbered bags, but no stickers as we have come to expect from the Minecraft theme.
Minifigures
Steve has appeared in every Minecraft set so far, this time in Diamond Armour. A similar minifigure appeared in 21117 The Ender Dragon last year although on this occasion he just wears a helmet and breastplate rather than full armour on his arms and legs too. I quite like the Minecraft minifigures and they look even better when wearing armour in my opinion so this is my favourite of all the Steve variants released so far. Beneath the armour his head and torso feature the usual printing and he is armed with a diamond pickaxe which is exclusive to this set and 21116 Crafting Box.
When images of the Minecraft sets arrived from the New York Toy Fair back in February the inclusion of Alex in two sets this summer garnered a great deal of excitement. This figure is far more detailed than Steve with pixilated printing on the head and both sides of the torso. Like her male counterpart, she wears a diamond helmet but unlike him she carries a diamond sword for fending off the many dangers that can be found in the Nether.
One such danger is the Zombie Pigman. This is by far the most detailed minifigure released in a Minecraft set so far with head, torso and leg printing. The design is perfectly accurate with bones and flesh visible just like in the video game as well as a sword cast in pearl gold for the first time. A second golden sword is included in a chest hidden inside the Nether fortress. I am sure this minifigure will be one of the most appealing elements of the set but given its exclusivity it might be rather expensive to assemble a group of them.
The Blaze is another enemy commonly encountered in the Nether. The complex shape of Blazes and the fact that they have no solid body must have made them difficult to design in LEGO form but I think the use of a blocky head, Erling bricks and yellow hose nozzles is very effective. This is probably about the best that can be done without creating any new pieces.
Perhaps the most appealing part of the entire set is the Ghast, which is superb. The model is constructed using brackets and tiles in the main, although there is a simple mechanism inside which allows fireballs to be launched from its mouth.
Printed 2x4 tiles form the Ghast's face which looks very accurate. A couple of alternate tiles are included so you change the expression from calm to angry and all eight tentacles are poseable. Ghasts have nine tentacles in the video game so this is slightly inaccurate, although it isn't really noticeable when on display.
The Completed Model
The Nether is an instantly recognisable location in Minecraft and I think this set represents it very well on the whole, perfectly capturing the infernal landscape. A Nether portal is included to access the region from the Overworld and makes use of a 1x6x5 panel, appearing in trans-purple. The same piece is found in 70172 Antimatter's Portal Hideout from the Ultra Agents line.
Beside the Nether Portal is a lava flow which can be dropped onto any unfortunate mob standing underneath by pulling on a Glowstone block mounted on the wall.
Lots more naturally occurring resources are spread around the set including mushrooms, Nether warts and Nether quartz. Each block is mounted on a 2x2 tile with one stud so they can easily be removed and reorganised if you like.
The Nether Fortress itself consists simply of a bridge and a tower, which is a little disappointing as a more elaborate structure would have been preferable. Personally I think the set looks more impressive when it is hinged into an 'L' shape as this gives the impression that there are several walls. The divide leaves jagged edges which look great and a couple of torches are included to break up the dark red colour a bit.
At the end of the bridge is a chest containing a golden sword and two diamonds as well as a pair of Nether warts. The top level is fairly plain but offers a good place to display the Ghast as it fits onto the 2x2 tiles with one stud nicely.
Overall
I am quite pleased with this set overall, more so than I had anticipated in fact. The minifigure selection is outstanding and there are plenty of new elements included, although the price seems high considering the size of the set.
For display I think this is one of the stronger Minecraft sets as the model presents a wide front when fully extended but can be altered to fill a certain space on a shelf if need be. Other than the price, which would be more appropriately set at around £59.99 in my opinion, my only criticisms are very minor. I think a Blaze spawner should have been included like the Zombie spawner in 21119 The Dungeon to increase the play value a little and the standard treasure chest components look slightly out of place to me in the cubic world of Minecraft. Perhaps a new rectangular lid could have been cast which would improve the accuracy a little.
The level of detail is impressive and there are lots of features of the Nether in the game included here which will delight fans I am sure. With a significantly reduced price I think this would be just about the best set in the range to date, but even at £69.99 or $79.99 21122 The Nether Fortress is well worth purchasing if you are a Minecraft fan.
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30 comments on this article
Looks really cool! :D
@Clone - indeed they're the least inspiring sets I've seen in a long, long time. I suppose it doesn't help that I don't play Minecraft, but each set just seems like a blatant attempt to sell what I'm sure are popular figures with the fans at a hugely inflated mark-up.
It is obviously total crap!
Very much overpriced if you take a look at the pieces you get. Just a bunch of standard bricks... If you have some early eighties starter sets you've probably got almost the same bricks for a much cheaper price...
My main issue with this set in particular is that Nether Fortresses are more of a dark color, not exactly black or dark red, but this one strikes me particularly as too light of a color.
Although Minecraft is an arguably enjoyable game, it doesn't translate too well to Lego. It's certainly making them a lot of money though with the markups on the sets (seriously, $80 USD?) and the popularity of the game, especially with younger audiences.
The minifigures are sort of neat, and the idea isn't terrible. Not my sort of thing, but excellent review.
The minecraft sets are great if you've played the game for any length of time. I'm still waiting to pick up last years sets cheaply on amazon.
The other concern I have for this set not mentioned in the review is the colour looks off. The other sets I have a hard time noticing the colour difference from the game but in this set it looks fairly obviously weird. Netherbrick is more of a brown purple, its definitely not red.
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Nether_Brick
http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/File:New_Nether_2.jpg
I'm tempted to recreate this set in minecraft to highlight the differences.
I'm seeing some hate, and I'm not sure if it's fully warranted. Although I haven't purchased any of these Minecraft sets, this one does look pretty nice.
Yes, there are a bunch of standard bricks. The photos in this review don't show it very well, but most of them are in dark red, which isn't a colour you'd get in the eighties. It's definitely a much darker red than it appears in these photos, and I think it's the perfect colour choice to represent the Nether brick.
All the new custom molds are expensive, and I'm sure that affected the pricing.
I like that these sets have alternate builds. It's like a hybrid of Creator and a video game license.
This is an excellent set, anyone who says its crap are obviously stupid to know that its *Minecraft*.
This is a nice set, but I really wish they hadn't made the Ghast shoot. It ruins the look. The Blaze is nice.
This website has pictures of nine of the Series 14 minifigures, and three of them haven't been seen before.
http://idlehands1.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/sweet-suite-2015-lego-minifigures-get.html?m=1
Other, perhaps, than the colors, the set looks pretty accurate to the game. The issue is the price. Even with printed parts, the markup for the number of pieces is pretty rough. My boys wouldn't pay the $70 for the 545 pieces of Darkseid Invasion even though they looooove DC characters. They like Minecraft too, and the LEGO sets of it, but paying $10 more than Darkseid for 30 more bricks is way too much for them.
I will say the set looks messy. But that also makes it a good representation of the source material, so TLG did little wrong here. Honestly the most appalling aspect of the whole set is the price. US $80 for 571 pieces is, in my opinion, not good value.
I play Minecraft for the same reason I do Legos: I build creative things. These don't appeal to me at all, though I did like the creeper mold, but these are horrible. Someone in my family got The First Night this April, and the build fell apart easily. There is hardly any structural support. It's just.....blocks. And randomly placed ones at that.
Aside from all that, I do like the color scheme. The red maroons and oranges are nice.
I wonder if it would have been a more reasonable price if they made the fortress itself black instead of dark red, which also would have been more accurate. It looks like a neat set, but the price is simply unreasonable.
I don't know if it's just me not playing this minecraft game but... Just meh. Fork in a tiny bit more and grab yourself a whooping pirate ship...
Notable exceptions though are the 2 protagonist minifigs and the zombie.
Can't get my head around these sets, as others have previously stated, I pile of standard bricks and a few figures, oh and a hugly marked up price tag.
No thanks....
Personally, I'm not a fan of minecraft, or the square minifig heads. They kinda look out of place on the rounded minifig bodies.
@Clone: The set is called "The Nether Fortress" so call me crazy, but I think it might be supposed to look like a Nether Fortress! http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/minecraft/images/c/c1/Netherfortress.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20111222180451
Quite a good likeness IMO, which makes good use of jumpers. I'm no expert on Minecraft, so I don't know what all the colors represent, but it seems to me like the Dark Brown kind of clashes — Reddish Brown might have "flowed" better with the set's color scheme. The lava flow function is cool!
No interest in this set personally, but I can see why this theme is as popular as it is.
Well, it certainly captures the game well. But I don't really like the game or this LEGO set... it's too expensive, even more blocky-looking than most of the rest, and the blaze looks HORRID.
I do very much like the Ghast though.
I sense it may be the special color (dark red) that had the forced jump from $70 to $80.
Ugh. I take both LEGO and Minecraft very seriously and this set is just another reason why LEGO Minecraft shouldn't exist. It looks terrible. No detail whatsoever, just plain bricks. There's no stone in the nether, so there shouldn't be gray...the closest thing to gray there is gravel, which is hardly a flat gray. The ghast looks fine with its mouth closed but the firing face is awful. Definitely targeted toward younger people who care less about or who have lower standards for set quality and are more concerned about the fact that it's Minecraft IRL.
TLG did good with the microscale sets, the Mine, and a couple others. Everything else is disgusting.
Looks awesome! I like the Glowstone and the dark red bricks used to look like Nether Brick! A great design for a set and I'm sure the $79.99 will be well worth it when I purchase it when it is available in stores near me!
I don't get why the Nether fortress is red when it's supposed to be purple. Other than that it does a decent enough job of representing the game, and I especially like how the Ghast and the portal look.
The price seems a bit too steep for this, so overall i've got pretty mixed feelings about it.
I'm also a bit surprised this "Alex" figure was hyped up considering i'm only vaguely aware of who that is lol
^ Purple???
^I use purple relatively, but It's far from the shade of red this used
I like Minecraft and I think LEGO should do more in recreating the Minecraft blocks into LEGO bricks so that it is easily recognisable. I like this set but I think that its still too small to represent the Nether.
People, not everything has to be overly detailed! This isn't a license like star wars or LOTR, this is Minecraft! Of course you get mostly standard bricks! Most of these colors are hard to get in large quantities in a set, especially 2-wide bricks in dark red.
Also, if you don't know what it is suposed to represent then don't complain about it. That's quite meaningless, as you don't know if it's supposed to look like that in the game or is lego's fault.
I thought LEGO Minecraft was a bad idea from the start, and this is validation. The sets are terrible and inaccurate (I do play the game), and I don't even see reason for this theme to exist. You can't get MORE creative by making LEGO sets of a creative game.
@BrownRiceMafia
You take a toy that is made for kids and has a movie where cop cars shoot bubblegum, and a videogame about picking up blocks and putting them somewhere else seriously?
Some of the piece colors are good. But these do seem to have a hefty mark up to them. And they've been selling..so what does that tell LEGO? They can charge whatever price they want and people will still buy it. No wonder their profits are at an all time high.
I have no interest in playing Minecraft. I just like getting affordable LEGO, but that is difficult.
I'm an avid Minecraft player (but Lego comes first, of course!) and I would dare say that this does not resemble a Nether Fortress well. Nether Fortresses are massive, sprawling structures that are known for their magnitude. Honestly, to best represent a Nether Fortress, Lego would have to release a UCS version. Come to think of it, if I end up throwing some cash and getting this set, I may go the extra mile and make something a little more accurate :P