Unfortunately the distribution kerfuffle for the regular LEGO Friends magazine I laid out in my last review of the LEGO Friends – Best Friends magazine persists. It’s really frustrating to know that the mag is still being published like before, just not available in my region due to the distributor having messed up. It’s not that I expect anything marvelous, it’s just that odd feeling of missing out and having a hole in my blogging schedule. Anyway, before I fall into another rant let’s move on and work with what we have.
The April 2024 edition follows the same pattern as the previous one. Regrettably there is zero improvement on the quality of the comic, that is it’s colors. Something is seriously wrong with the methodology employed by Blue Ocean to convert the 3D rendered RGB colors to print separations and it all looks murky as hell while other colors like the Coral in the diner scene (see the Heartlake Downtown Diner [41728] review for reference) are completely blown out and look like a very bright, but flat red. I mean I can admit that I’m doing my photos the lazy way with a not so great camera and under plain daylight and spend way too much time fixing my own mess with color corrections, but I’d still claim that most of my pictures don’t look half as terrible. It’s a paid product and as someone who knows the craft I would expect a professional conversion and clean results.
The posters are okay-ish with the front one depicting Paisley strumming her guitar and the back side showing a cut out photo of a cat. Funny enough this even reinforces the misery/ tragedy of the regular Friends magazine being MIA. It, too has a similar combination and the posters would complement each other nicely. I bet if you have access to both you couldn’t avoid getting both, especially with your kids nagging you about it.
The extra has the “posh” cat that was introduced in last years very elusive Cat Hotel (41742) and also coincidentally was the on hiding under the corner of the roof in Olly’s House. So for me it’s not a new version, but since it so far has only been in a handful of sets it may be for many. Either way, not the worst choice. Interestingly, the extra also offers some good value with the other parts. The 1 x 1 x 2 SNOT brick used for the “speakers” has only been introduced in Medium Azure earlier this year (though given how excessively LEGO use this color one would have thought it has existed for years) and the other highlight are the 2 x 2 tiles with the round cut-outs. They’re still relatively rare and thus expensive. At the time of writing those four tiles would be worth 1 Euro alone and therefore just buying the mag could be considered a good investment.
My inner self is still burning with a sense of dissatisfaction over the other Friends mag being AWOL and as I was writing this short review thoughts about it kept creeping into my mind. This would have made a perfect combination this month and I would probably have been a lot happier. As it is, this one on its own is serviceable, but not great. It is once more saved by the extra, but of course I say that all the time. The rest is okay, even if it’s clear that a lot more polish is needed to make this really nice and consistent.
Mylenium's Brick Corner 