This cute little set was a gift with purchase at brand stores and the online shop when the Lego Super Mario theme was first released. Luckily, since then it has been available at retail stores as a normal polybag purchase, so if you missed out on the GWP, you should still be able to grab several of them at your preferred local retailer.

The Parts

Obviously, the big attractions for this set are the mushroom and the mystery block. The new mushroom cap piece and the build for the mushroom perfectly capture the look of the mushroom power-ups from the video game. The mushroom's eyes and white spots are printed, and the action tile on the top features a factory-applied sticker.

Likewise, the Mystery block features a printed question mark and an action tile on top for Lego Mario to interact with. The use of the transparent pole to make the Mystery Block “float” above the ground is ingenious, and again nicely captures the video game look.

The Build

As with most of the Lego Super Mario sets, the build is exceedingly simple. . . but for a $5 polybag, that is typical, and not really disappointing. Plus, the simple build is appropriate for the pixelated look of the Mario video games.

The Final Verdict

The mushroom power-up is one of the most common and most recognizable aspects of the Mario video games, so it's a little surprising that it doesn't appear in more of the Mario expansion sets. For that reason alone, I can't recommend grabbing this set enough. Grab two or three of these guys to add the super mushrooms into your courses. . . and just because they're a cute, fun little design.

I've owned the Lego Super Mario starter set for about six months now, and I've been meaning to review it for a while now. Currently, buying this set is the only way to get your hands on the Lego Mario “minifigure”, and is thus required to use all the other expansion sets that have been released.

Long story short, I am a huge fan of this set and the whole Super Mario Theme. TLG designers have done an amazing job translating the look of Mario into Lego bricks, and of capturing the fun of Super Mario video games in a way that still feels true to Lego. And the bonus: my kids are OBSESSED with this new theme, so it has provided a fun new way for our family to enjoy spending time together.

The Super Mario “Minifigure”

The Super Mario minifigure is the centrepiece of this set and of the entire theme. I know that a lot of folks were (and still are) disappointed that TLG didn't create a traditional minifigure of Mario, but I have loved the design of this guy right from the beginning. I think the “blocky” style does an excellent job of representing Mario in all of his iterations, his cubic look harking back to the pixelated NES version, while the detailing clearly takes inspiration from the modern Wii and Switch versions.

After playing with three different Mario figures for nearly half a year, I can say that the electronic functions work really well. The accelerometer is very sensitive to most motions (like making Mario jump or fly), although it sometimes has trouble sensing small movements (like "walking" Mario or tipping him to "throw" fireballs). Mario is powered by two normal AAA batteries, and these can be drained fairly quickly if you're playing with your Mario a lot, so you should be aware that you'll be purchasing batteries fairly often. The only real annoyance I've experienced are the regular updates that are installed when you pair Mario with the smartphone app, sometimes they take quite a while to instal (~10 minutes or so) so plan accordingly.

The actual construction of the Mario figure is pretty good, although I have noticed a few small issues. The connection between Mario's arms and body isn't as strong or tight as in a normal minifigure, and we actually lost one arm fairly early on. I think this is because the socket head on Mario's arm isn't as large as a normal minifigure arm. I assume this is because the designers had to preserve room inside Mario for the batteries and electronics. Most of the time this isn't an issue, but you should probably be wary of letting very small children fiddle with Mario's arms too much. I've also noticed that the plastic of Mario's body around the arm hole can crack fairly easily. This seems to be because the plastic there is unusually thin for a Lego piece. Again, this is undoubtedly due to the design challenge of cramming all the electronics inside Mario. The only other thing I've noticed is that the "clutch" between Mario's hats and the four studs on his head seems to be a little less than is normal for regular bricks. Not a big deal, but something to be aware of. These minor issues aside, Mario is surprisingly robust, and can handle pretty rigorous play in the hands of a small child.

Mario's expressions and sound effects are delightful, and really capture the charm of the original character. My kids will play for hours with Mario, setting up courses, or even just making him walk and jump around. Lego really knocked it out the park with this character.

The Other Characters

In addition to the electronic Mario figure, the starter course includes two brick built characters: Bowser Jr. and a Goomba.

These brick-built characters are delightful, and for an AFOL like me, one of the key attractions of this set, and the entire Super Mario Theme. All the character details (eyes, mouths, etc.) are printed, which is awesome. The designs do an excellent job of capturing the characters in brick form. They include several new pieces, including the Bowser Jr.'s 2x3 yellow feet, the Goomba's 2x2 reddish brown feet, and Bowser Jr.'s shell.

Both the characters make use of the new action bricks, which Mario can scan. The action bricks feature factory-applied bar codes that are unique to each character. Mario interacts with each character and/or action brick differently. The Goomba requires 1 “bounce” to defeat, while Bowser Jr. requires five. Mario earns coins by defeating these enemies and by interacting with the other action bricks, which include:

The Start Brick:

The Mystery Block Brick:

“Spinner” Brick:

Cloud Brick:

Goal Brick:

By stepping on the Start Brick, Mario begins a course run, and has 60 seconds to complete it by stepping on the Goal Brick. During those 60 seconds, Mario earns coins by defeating enemies and interacting with other action bricks like the “spinner”, mystery block brick, and cloud bricks shown above. With just this starter set, there are a finite number of coins you can earn during one run of the course. However, as you add in more expansion sets, power up packs, and character packs, the courses become more complex and Mario is able to earn more and more coins.

The Build

Compared to a normal Lego set of comparable price, the builds in this set (and every Super Mario set) are relatively simple. For some, this might be a turn-off; however, as a AFOL who has never really built any kinetic models, I found that building the simple mechanisms that the Mario minifigure interacts with (for example, the launcher that is designed to catapult Bowser Jr. off his tower) were not only fun, but inspired me to try building my own interactive course pieces. The colors used in the set are bright and perfectly capture the fun, cute feeling of the levels in the Mario video games. And again, keep in mind that the complexity of the builds increases exponentially as you add more and more expansion sets and character packs. Final thought on the build: I found it really refreshing and fun to build in a new non-minifigure scale. Now, I know I could have built at different scales at any time, but this set provided me with the perfect excuse to begin doing so.

The Final Verdict

The Super Mario starter set is the required entry point into the new Mario theme . . . luckily, it's a great set and in my opinion, the Mario minifigure makes the steep price per piece easy to swallow. The other brick-built figures are fantastic, and this set alone provides for hours of play, even without the other expansion packs. The Super Mario theme is definitely the most exciting new development that Lego has seen in at least the past 10 years, making this starter set a must-buy. Get it while you can!

The 2019 Space sub-theme looks fantastic, and I've been excited to start collecting them. This polybag was a great start. First, the front of the packaging for the entire sub-theme includes a small photo describing the actual NASA vehicles/missions that inspired the particular set, and I was excited to see that this polybag is no exception--even, if the inspiration is some-what generic "NASA spacewalks". I think this small nod to actual NASA science and missions is really fun, and a great way to get both young and old fans of LEGO interested in current space exploration efforts.

The satellite is a fun build that incorporates some simple SNOT techniques to construct the small control panel. I was excited to see that both the 1x1 keypad tile and the 1x4 solar panel tiles were printed . . . they should make great pieces to incorporate into other city or (in my case) Jurassic Park sets.

I have only one complaint about the set . . . and this is really a shortcoming of the entire sub-theme, and not just this one set. While the visor part is fantastic, the helmet part leaves a lot to be desired. The part was first released for the 2011 space subtheme. Sadly, it bears almost no resemblance to either modern NASA space suits, or to the older (and probably more famous) Apollo lunar space suits. It seems to me that the release of the new 2019 space sets would have been the perfect opportunity to introduce a new, more accurate helmet part . . . especially since this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Ok . . . rant over. Besides that one flaw, this is a great little set and a fantastic source for space-themed parts. I definitely recommend picking one up if you spot it in stores.

The 2018 Jurassic World line introduced the new baby velociraptor part, which comes in two different color schemes: a blue/green version that represents the velociraptor character Blue as a baby, and a brown/orange version that is supposed to a generic version of the velociraptors. At the moment, aside from this foil bag the brown/orange baby velociraptor only comes in two other relatively expensive sets, so if you can get your hands on it, this foil bag is a relatively inexpensive way of adding the little guy to your dino collection. However, if you're a Yank like me, actually getting this set requires a Bricklink purchase, since it was only available in Europe. It was released as a promo gift along with the first issue of the Lego Jurassic World Magazine, which I was unfortunately not able to get. That being said, this little set was definitely worth the purchase.

In addition to the adorable baby raptor, this set also includes some other pieces I was excited to acquire: the relatively new egg piece (first introduce in 2016), the green 1X1 round plate with three leaves, and this stem piece. The inclusion of these pieces and the baby raptor were the main draw for me, and is why I'd give this set a 5 out of 5, even though obtaining the set on the aftermarket was relatively expensive and the build itself is nothing special.

Having never purchased a foil pack before, I was surprised to find that there are no included instructions . . . you just base your build off the photo on the front of the pack. Luckily this wasn't hard (the set only has ~22 pieces).

Aftermarket price aside, this set was everything I was hoping for. The raptor baby makes a great addition to my dinosaur collection, and the eggs and plant pieces will help flesh out any dinosaur jungle scene. If you're a Jurassic World or dinosaur collector hoping to get a hold of the brown/orange raptor, I would highly recommend grabbing this set as it will cost you far less than the other options.

As soon as I saw this minifig I knew it was a must-have addition to my Castle/LOTR collection. Not only is the fig exceptionally well designed, but the accessories are a great addition as well. As visible in the image, the printing is excellent, though surprisingly for a minifig that features dual-toned legs, the torso is only printed on the front. The design conveys a bedraggled, down-on-his-luck goblin who just scored a big steal.

Honestly, I picked up this guy to increased the number of unique orc/goblin faces I could field in an army. The up-side is the tone of this goblin's green ears perfectly matches the green of the Moria Orcs from set 9473-1. That means the goblin's hat and the Moria Orcs' hair/ears piece are interchangeable, so you can mix up the look of a gang of orcs a bit more. The down-side is that the design of the goblin's face is quite a bit simpler than any of the LOTR/Hobbit orc designs, so it doesn't fit in them 100%. However, all in all I'm very satisfied with this purchase.

If you're a Castle or LOTR MOC-er, I'd definitely recommend picking this guy up, he'll make a great addition to any evil army!