'Bout time I do a review of this guy. Anyway, Fire Lord. When this set was first released there was a lot of hate toward him. When I got him, I was actually quite fond of the set.

Box/Instructions

The box features Fire Lord in a menacing pose in front of a big plume of fire. I find it funny how they posed him just right to hide his bare upper legs (almost like Lego realized the problem).

The instructions are as usual: a clear, step by step building process.

Parts

Since this set is from the first wave of the new building style, he comes with lots of the new cladding pieces. Some of these pieces that are interesting are the 'molten' pieces that are printed (yes, printed) to look like the top is cracked and the inside is molten lava. He also comes with the small cladding pieces in silver, and some large, gunmetal cladding pieces.

Other pieces include the extended limbs and body piece (like the Heroes', only bigger and orange), the silver hands, and the helmet. The helmet is double sided, sharing Drilldozer's face on the back. But, due to how it's designed, it really isn't noticable.

Minifigures

none

The build

The build was... interesting. It not only had aspects of the 2.0 building style, but also mixed in some Technic parts. I found this an interesting blend and it just shows you the potential for MoCing.

The completed model

The completed model is wonderful, but it does have some flaws which I'll point out later. Overall, he's much taller than I was expecting. I don't have anything to measure with, but I do have Surge 2.0 with me, and Fire Lord is about one and a half Heroes tall. Pretty good if you ask me. He's also very sturdy and will stand almost no matter what pose he's in.

The weapon is also pretty cool. I like the use of parts and the simplistic design which pulls off an awesome weapon. Yes, it is just Furno 1.0's Dual Fire Shooter mounted to a shield, but it works.

The poseability is... So-so. The legs are great and have a full range of motion. The elbows allow him to move his arms up and down, and in and out. And his neck is on two ball joints. So why do I say so-so? It's his shoulders. He has arm supports. But unlike most cases, these do nothing except hinder the movement. He absolutely cannot move his arms back. Most people said the worst part of Fire Lord was his lack of leg armor (which isn't that bad in person, trust me), but for me, it's these unnecessary arm supports.

MODIFICATIONS:

Luckily, there's a way to fix both his shoulder problem, and his lack of upper leg armor. I came up with this design, and it requires no extra parts as I took the arm supports to make leg armor. Granted, it's not the best, but here's the link:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=460580

Summary

Overall, originally, Fire Lord would get a four out of five. He was good for the most part, but those arm supports... (also why I marked the playablity down to four). The legs I could look past, so they didn't really effect much.

However, if you do the modification I did, Fire Lord's ratings skyrocket. Once I was done with the fix, I couldn't get over how much better he was.

So, do I recommend him? Yes, but only if you do the fix. Otherwise, I'd say wait a little. He's still a cool set, but other figures out-rank him. So if you're on the fence about him, and you think the Fix will help, then pick him up.

With fix: Highly Recommended.

Without fix: Mildly to Decently Recommened

Not a good set. Badly designed. I guess he's okay, but he's just a mess of many pieces. Actualy, only 135 pieces, just big ones. It's a godd picture, but not a very good guy. The only good part is his weapon, which is actually very nice. I do not reccommend this to you. Get Drilldozer instead.

Just to be weird today, i'm going to put the bottom line first.

The bottom line: I really like this set. It has nice parts, a good solid build, way fun to play with. The price is pushing it a little though. I mean $20 for 125 parts!? Really? Just saying.

BOX: the box is pretty standard. Shows the Fire Lord standing in the middle of a massive explosion. Nifty. On the side are Fire Lord's french and spanish names, which is just kind of fun to say. The back has a picture of Fire Lord duking it out with a couple heros. The box this time is thinner than Nebula's and Rotor's. thats nice because then it doesn't take up so much space.

PARTS: There is a nice mix of parts new and old and recolored here. There is also the new "stick figure" body, but an elongated version. I really like the jetpacks. those are nice and detailed. They also double as over the shoulder cannons.

BUILD: Nice, solid, and sturdy. Just the way it should be The bottom half of the legs are spiffy, with all that doubley goodness. The top half of the legs arereally quite lame. they have almost zero armor. It's like the designer went on lunch break and forgot the armor segments. LAAAME.

PLAYABILITY: Nice and fun to mess around with, swoosh around and all that good stuff

Big, fun and awersome. To put it simply... go get it.

i got the fire lord yesterday, and it is a GOOD set, but not a great set.

Pros

• lots of new parts in various colors
• points of flexibility

Cons

the annoying new 'money saving' double mask

the ugly shoulders limit some points of flexibility

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well, my work here is done.

I saw a picture of this set WAY before it was released and I was extremely fascinated by it.  Of course, at that time, there was only a picture of Fire Lord's head.  I bought this set and I don't like it, and I'll tell you why.  Let's start with my building experience.  You start by building his torso, which was the most entertaining part of the build, I will say.  But then we started building his legs.  Now, I've had some pretty boring building experiences in the past, but this one topped all of those.  I know LEGO's just getting started with these new pieces and that these Hero Factory sets should equal to the first wave of BIONICLE (the Happy Meal robots); but these guys are PROFESSIONALS, and they should do a MUCH better job designing these legs.  One of the main problems I have with his legs are that they are very wide.  You have two parallel ball and socket connectors on the bottom leg; which I would have been fine with if they kept the same width on the thighs.  If you haven't noticed by now, your thighs are bigger than your shanks.  Now, I know that these Hero Factory sets are supposed to be robots and not really look that much like humans, but LEGO could have AT LEAST made them look good.  His thighs are VERY thin.  I felt like I was holding a stick person.  And I was.  So we have HUGE legs and then we get these tiny little feet.  His feet are made of armor pieces.  LEGO didn't even make new foot pieces for Fire Lord.  I am disappointed.  The final thing I dislike about the legs are how exposed the Technic pins and axles are.  LEGO didn't even bother to cover up the pins and axles with their new armor pieces.  I would have liked to see them do that.  So now we have the torso: like I said, the build for the torso was somewhat entertaining compared to everything else.  But I would have liked to see either a bigger torso, or smaller legs.  Right now I kind of would have liked a bigger torso and better designed legs.  But anyway, that's pretty much all I can say for the torso.  Now on to the arms: for those BIONICLE fans out there, you'll know from the Titan sets how LEGO uses extra ball and socket connectors to give the arms and legs more support.  Well, they did that for Fire Lord.  However, the support designs are extreme failures.  Yes, they do the job of keeping his arms supported; as if he actually NEEDED arm support. There are just WAY too many Technic pieces in the arm supports and not enough BIONICLE pieces.  Even Von Nebula had better arm support.  The biceps are very bad.  I do not like how LEGO put the armor on his biceps facing forward.  It makes it look like he's flexing his arms in a very dorky way.  I would have put the armor pieces facing to the side, but guess what was in the way?  The awful arm supports I was talking about.  These arm supports take up WAY too much space.  But I won't attack those things again.  Let's get on to his forearms:  His forearms are OKAY; they're not the best I've seen from LEGO.  The fists are pretty much the only thing I like about this set.  In one hand he holds a sphere shooter, and in the other he holds William Furno's original weapon attached to a shield.  The shield is pretty cool, but I would have liked to see a more original weapon for Fire Lord.  Another thing that isn't worth mentioning is his jet packs.  They're pretty much the same as Jetbug's, except with less articulation.  Now his head: his head, I will admit, gives him TONS of personality.  Of course, I do say the same thing about kids with down syndrome.  The head is awfully designed; as if the mold wasn't bad enough, the designer threw in those red spikes on the sides to make it look like his brains are spewing out of his head.  Finally, the only plus side about this set is the pieces.  You'll notice I rated the parts 5 bricks.  That's because I LOVE these pieces.  I am a sucker for these new armor pieces and redesigned ball and socket connectors.   I guess it works out that the set is so awful, because then you are motivated to take it apart and build your own thing.  That's what I did.  Believe it or not, but, yes I do recommend this set if you plan on opening the box, throwing out the instruction booklet and building your own thing.  Of course, it would be better if you got it on discount.