First Look: My first opinion when this came out was “meh.” The minifigures are not very special, with only one exclusive. The mech is similar to others, and the white-on-gold looked nice, but only okay. Overall, I interpreted this as something I did not wish to spend $40 on. However, after more research, and with this now in my possession, I have completely changed my mind. This is an excellent, beautiful set rooted in some Japanese tradition and capturing the classic Golden Mech in more majesty than both the TV version and the original rendition.

Build: This set was a very fun build, with my only issue being the unavoidable “x2.” Basically, I got a little bored building the arms, legs, and feet twice each due to the symmetry captured by the designer. Other than that, it was fun seeing how the designer used pieces to make this mech slick and have the perfect white-to-gold ratio. The mech's few stickers have excellent placement and addition to the design. I will point out that the mech is SOLID. It is very strong and built up, with a solid midsection and limbs. The Mech's canopy portion looks very nice, along with flag and blades on the back. The mech's hands work well, and the sword is simple and functional. I love the torso section, especially the golden wing pieces on the mech's chest, and the way the lower stomach is designed.

Playability: The mech has excellent flexibility and rotation; the legs have knees! The legs can splay, bend, and kneel, in a variety of different ways, so movement with them is easy. The arms also move pretty well, although there are no wrists, so the hand cannot turn. In order to make the blade in the hand horizontal, one must rotate the entire shoulder, making sword combat difficult. The flag and blades on the mech's back have plenty of mobility and the canopy can either stay open, revealing the Golden Ninja or enclose him if he leans back enough.

Minifigures: The minifigures in this set are not absolutely amazing, but they are very nice. Let's start with the Golden Ninja -- he is... wow. His designs on the torso, legs, and back are flawless. His face is stunning, and the sword-holder and duel-molded helmet are nice touches. If I had to complain about something, it would be the lack of contrast between the two shades of gold; his design needs to be examined up-close to truly be appreciated. The Legacy Golden Ninja minifigure's downfall is the fact that he could not ever possibly live up to the original Golden Ninja, which out of my hundreds of minifigures is my second favorite, and just the most awesome and commanding Ninjago minifigure of all time. Master Wu looks very nice, and besides his weird eyebrows, I appreciate the similarity between the original and this one. However... the Temple of Light (70505) set had Wu in his white outfit, and I dislike how LEGO was lazy about making different minifigures for the Legacy series; if there's an acceptable Legacy minifigure (and I understand it is supposed to be different) LEGO won't go the extra mile and make an exclusive. The exclusive General Kozu is a mash-up of his two previous renditions, and evidently the star of this set. (Note: I appreciate Zane's elemental blade in this set; I wish the rebooted legacy sets had reused the Techno Blades). The stone warrior is a nice addition, but not particularly special.

Price: The Golden Mech's price-to-part ratio is very nice, at 8.2 cents per piece. This is fairly typical of Ninjago and it's lower demand, but nice for LEGO in general. Four minifigures is nice, and for $40, the amount of stuff here looks great. I'm happy.

Recap: Overall, this is an amazing set, and I have almost no issues with it at all. The minifigures are very nice, but they just fail to live up to the legacy (no pun intended) of the glorious original figures. This is the perfect set for any playful child or nostalgic Ninjago collector, and does an excellent job of improving upon the classic mech.

Summary

Arguably one of the classic early Ninjago sets is set 70505 Temple of Light (released in 2013), with the Golden Mech as one of its primary features. It is therefore not surprising that Lego has decided to use this set as a remake / re-interpretation for one of their Legacy-series Ninjago sets. And just as with many of these remakes, it is not merely a do-over of the previous set, but - on this occasion - one element has been taken and has been redesigned.

Overall, IMHO this is a well done redesign / re-imagining. Good use has been made of the many new elements that have been created since 2013, but the overall mech is still recognizable as the Golden Mech. The four (rather than five) minifigures are nice. The build was fun, and shows how far mech-design has come within Lego over the past couple of years. Overall, if you like Ninjago mechs, this is a classic to get.

Build experience

The build is fun, and not too difficult. Its costruction has a number of similarities with other recent mechs, like Lloyd's Titan Mech (set 70676). A solid body, with many SNOT elements used to allow for the skin to be attached. The legs themselves are big, sturdy and actually flexible at the knees! There is the "normal" use of off-colour pieces, but none seem to be visible when the build is done (apart from the red 2-stud-long axles).

There are a number of stickers, that definitely add to the looks of the mech. None of them is difficult to apply, though one should definitely take care when applying them, as them being lined up incorrectly will be very noticeable.

At first glance, apart from the printed disk for the helmet, there are no spectacular pieces included in this set. However, there are some (fairly) rare pieces included. I think the whole build took me about an hour at a leisurely pace.

The minifigures

Where the Temple of Light included five minifigures, this set includes only four: Master Wu, Golden Ninja Lloyd, Stone Army Scout and General Kozu. The Master Wu minifigure is common (found in 6 sets in total), whereas the other three are so far unique to this set.

Master Wu is - IMHO - a very nice minifigure. The torso and legs are nicely and subtly detailed. The prints are nicely in register.

The Stone Army Scout is OK... the fact that there is a yellow face print on a black head has often resulted in the black bleeding through. It seems to do a little with this minifigure, but I have seen much much worse. The torso and leg prints are very well done, and highly detailed. The metal detail is nice.

General Kozu uses uses the same leg and torso piece as the Stone Army Scout, with the 'top' torso piece being familiar of various Garmadon minifigs.Regrettably this upper torso only has a print on the front, and none on the back. Frankly I cannot see what reason Lego might have to not give this figure a back print. The head print is very nice, with a single facial expression.

Golden Ninja Lloyd is nicely detailed, with the contrast between the pearl gold plastic and the gold detail print being just good enough to work. It is the only minifigure with face prints. Both seem to be quite determined / angry expressions, with one of them having him show his teeth, almost growling.

The build

The Golden Mech is quite good looking, and a fair size. It is a little bigger than the 2013 original, but still much smaller than the likes of Lloyd's Titan Mech... It has also copied the general shape of the 2013 original, though the colour scheme has changed a bit. In general, there is more white, with gold trim / accents. IMHO that works very well. Overall, I think the design of the torso is a big improvement over the original. The legs also look much more sturdy.

Also, some of the lessons Lego has learned in the construction of mechs. The improvement of the hands (the pin), construction of the feet, and hands is all evidence of this. You can also see how pieces developed since 2013 can be used...

Play vs display.

This set can serve as well as a play vs display set. It is a design that is big enough and well done enough in design (on all sides) to serve as a display piece. The moveable knees allow for quite unusual poses (for Lego mechs at least). This same feature makes for quite a bit of play opportunities. The mech is also quite sturdy, so it can be played with. I think kids can have a lot of fun with this mech tackling all kinds of problems and enemies.

The verdict

Overall, this is a nice mech, and a fine addition to the Ninjago mech line-up. It is more of a traditional mech (unlike most mechs from the Ninjago Movie line), and a good re-imagining of the Golden Mech from 2013. It is a nice build, and actually quite easy - so should be fun for kids (also kids younger that the targeted 8+ years olds) to builds. The price, IMHO is fair, at least in price per part. On the other hand, it might feel a little small for the US $40 or 40 euros' asking price. Yet to me it seems to be reasonable. When you come across this set, IMHO it is definitely worth considering picking up.

This is the first set I bought this year, and it highly deserves that title. Ninjago is probably my second favorite theme after Star Wars, but I was unfortunately able to obtain and spend less money at the age of 6 when the original temple of light and other Final Battle sets released.

Now with more freedom to spend money and buy Lego, I knew I had to buy it. The figure selection is near perfect. Even though Golden Lloyd and Wu are not exclusive, they are still great figures and Lloyd is an improvement on the original. The shoulder piece is also a nice bonus even if it is not accurate to the original show. The stone army scout is a good figure and I appreciate the longer legs. General Kozu is the only figure I have a slight problem with. The original figure is most accurate, and that figure is white and red. The elemental sword accessory also doesn't make much sense and a sword like those present on the original figure would have been better.

The build is an excellent experience and uses a few interesting techniques, especially the middle section that folds up. The arms and legs are solid and the mech has KNEES! This is almost unheard of on Lego mechs and became a main selling point for me. Most of the articulation works well except for the elbow joints, which have a bit of a limited range of motion.

Overall, the original set stands no chance against this one. Some may say that a full remake of the temple of light would have been better, but I think that the larger mech was a better choice.

This set has excellent value for the money, at just about 500 bricks and 4 minifigs, that's just a great price. The joints are nice and strong with lots of locking positions. The limbs are light but strong for a mech this size. This makes this set extremely playable.

The overall build was very enjoyable for me, as an adult, but the build book can be a little hard to follow for younger builders. A few spots in the book require you to go back and repeat steps for limbs but is not always obviously to younger builders. There are a lot of single pegs that might cause some issues for younger builders but should be no problem with a little help.

I rate this set pretty high on the overall score. We had a lot of fun with this one and it is a excellent addition to our Ninjago collection.

This set is a very worthy remake of the original Golden Mech. While I still prefer that set slightly more for its design, as it's one of my favorite LEGO mechs of all time, this set has much better poseability and playability. This was one of the first-ever Ninjago mechs of any size to have full knee articulation, and it functions really well. Everything about the legs of the mech is super impressive. There is also pretty good articulation in the arms, and the swords in the back are moveable as well. I really like the design as well. I originally wasn't a huge fan of the color scheme, using so much white as opposed to gold, but I actually really like it now. It makes it feel distinct, while also giving it a clean look (although once again I still do prefer the look of the original). The only problems I have with the mech are some weird color inconsistencies outside fo the white and gold, such as the random bits of red and grey, but otherwise, it's great. I appreciate the inclusion of Kozu with the elemental blade as well.