Graveyard Double Shift – Graveyard Mystery (70420) and The Rise of Voldemort (75965)

With Halloween imminent, I figured it might be a good idea to focus on reviewing some spooky-themed sets by ways of being built around graveyards – or sections of them at least. This includes the Graveyard Mystery (70420) from Hidden Side and The Rise of Voldemort (75965) from the Harry Potter line of LEGO sets.

As you know, I’m quite a fan of Hidden Side – the sets are done well enough and to boot also very affordable because LEGO are pushing them so aggressively and there are discounts at every corner. This makes it easy enough to add them to the menu even if you are on a budget. The Graveyard Mystery can be had for as little as 20 Euro, which to me seems just about the right price. The full 30 Euro feels a bit out of proportion for what amounts to a rather slim model, on the other hand, and I’m not sure if I had picked it up then.

The set comes with the standard Parker and Jack figures along with Spencer, the ghostly dog. On the other side of the spectrum there’s a skeleton and the groundskeeper/ gardener, the latter of which is essentially the only really interesting bit in that department as with his overalls and all he could also be interesting for other uses e.g. in a City play scene.

Being designed with the Augmented Reality app intended to be used with these sets in mind, the graveyard/ cemetery is kind of a panoramic arrangement, so that most parts are visible all the time and the camera can capture the entire scene. The layout in and of itself however is more or less a towel strip walkway with a linear progression. You enter through the gate, pass by a bunch of graves and then arrive at the angry tree with the keeper’s little storage shed underneath.

Since I don’t have the app, I can’t enlighten you about the specific meanings of the colors in the game, but there sure are a lot once you open up the respective areas and expose the insides and undersides of some elements. In fact I believe even the big green slope on the central grave may have some bearing even with the lids still down. The problem is of course that without the fancies of a mobile device the play options are ultimately limited. You can barely hide a minifigure in the central grave and even placing someone inside the little shed is finnicky. Doing a hide & seek  and guessing in which grave someone is hiding would not pose much of a challenge.

A stand-out piece is naturally the angry tree with its “face” and “arms” being clearly recognizable. From what I’ve seen of the game it doesn’t seem to do much, though, and is merely whipping around. That is presumably not really useful. the same could be said for the mechanism on the real model in a sense. While I can appreciate the facial expression changing and the arms going up it still feels gimmicky. This is once more a case where a static, more detailed and more refined tree would have been preferable over such a very limited action feature IMO.

On the bright side, the set is full of pieces in very usable “natural” colors ranging from the various browns and grays to Olive Green. Nice to see that LEGO still can do such sensible stuff without them going bonkers or some higher-up instructing a designer to include bricks in crazy colors only to clear out the left-overs from previous production runs of other sets. There are no particularly unique or rare parts in this set, however. Thus there would be little point in getting this set for anything but buildings or indeed landscaping and cemetery building.

A small shortcoming, if you want to call it that, is the unattractive back side. Even with the emphasis on the panoramic effect it wouldn’t have hurt to have a few details here or at least the floor plates extend beyond the graves’ rear edges. To me it really feels like they chopped it off a bit too harshly.

After my experiences with the Hidden Side side I kept having this weird idea running in my head that perhaps one day I might want to build a larger custom graveyard, perhaps with a small chapel and crypt, so naturally I stumbled upon The Rise of Voldemort from the Harry Potter movies.

The point is not so much that I would be a particular fan of the series – quite opposite, as now 15 years later I look at these films and wonder how I could ever have been so foolish to buy the DVDs – but regardless, they are not without merit in terms of production design and at least some of the less WTF?-ish story elements. I know, I seriously need to read the books one day for a fair comparison.

Anyway, on of the key things that also made me consider this set is that when doing churches, graveyards and similar you have a need for some specific extras, that being large numbers of grey minifigure elements and decorative bits and bobs for the slabs/ grave stones. Lo and behold, this set comes with a fully formed angelic figure in Dark Bluish Grey, which of course is twisted into representing the Grim Reaper and there’s also a frog in that same color.

What also made the decision to buy this set easier is the consistent color usage compared to the first set. This means that you can easily mix & match and expand the ground thanks to the Dark Tan being used in conjunction with the same contrast colors for other elements. Or in simple words: You can buy multiple sets of both models and need not worry that intermingling parts would result in odd color combinations.

The set represents that scene where Harry Potter gets accidentally transported to an alternate place during the Trimagic Tournament in The Goblet of Fire, to witness the resurrection of He who must not be named, so there are all the figures relevant present. Personally I don’t care that much for them and for my taste in the context of the set there are simply way too many minifigures. In a sense it feels overcrowded due to the smallness of the available play are vs. the number of figures. That’s in my view also the biggest shortcoming of this set.

One of the side-effects of this lack of space is that it doesn’t really capture the mood of the scene. There is no sense of dread and feeling lost because everything is crammed together. This also isn’t helped by the simple construction with only a central part in the middle and the small side extensions clipped on with hinges. This inevitably limits the options for disguising some gaps and open areas, which painfully becomes obvious with the insides of the grave. It just looks extremely shallow and indeed a figure doesn’t even fit into it without the lid remaining ajar.

At the end of the day both sets have their flaws and issues, with the Hidden Side Graveyard Mystery at least offering a better value for money, however, due to being larger to begin with. I guess the ultimate test would really come once you actually start combining things, possibly based on multiple such sets, to build a more elaborate cemetery. The irony is of course once more that basically all the ingredients are already there, but LEGO trimmed away to many things in the interest of being “economical” to make either of the sets genuinely great. As a consolation, both sets are very affordable at least, so it would not be impossible to grab a bunch of them and make your dream project a reality, assuming you, too, have a thing for graveyards…

Halloween Double – Brickheadz Scarecrow (40352) and Ghost (40351)

Halloween isn’t that far off, so it seems fitting we should have a look at LEGO‘s seasonal Brickheadz sets on that subject for this year, those being the Scarecrow (40352) and the Ghost (40351), numbered as the 84th and 83rd entries in the series overall, respectively. Let me begin with the scarecrow.

Born from the myth that birds would get scared off by anything that looks remotely like a human inevitably the clichée of them being imbued with human characteristics or even getting re-animated had become a popular trope in books and movies, but rarely ever in my life have I actually genuinely seen such a puppet anywhere. On the assumption that this is probably true for most people, the subject leaves lots of room for interpretation and one of those classics is the Mid-Western US version with its blue jeans overalls and oversized felt hat. This is captured in the LEGO model.

By now the Brickheadz clearly have surpassed their prime, so almost everyone of them follows the same building pattern more or less, with only minor deviations and tweaks done every now and then to accommodate some more specific requirements of a given figure. Here a novelty is presented with the arms actually being spread out from the body in a T-pose instead of being incorporated into the surface contours. This is achieved by some plates going through the body across the upper chest. On its own this would look kinda weird, but to some degree this is mitigated by the golden claws used to represent straw sticking out extending the range further. This is further backed up by some crossbar being hinted at.

Somewhat surprisingly the little dude has a rather elaborate hairdo which in itself accounts for a good chunk of parts. In an odd way it even contradicts the rest of the model because it’s almost too realistic. Most people wouldn’t put up with the effort to make it look that real unless they are set dressers on movies. 😉 I guess, like me, they couldn’t think of a simple and efficient way to approximate a simple straw wig and decided to go the full mile. At least off hand I can’t quite think of a part from LEGO‘s portfolio that could be easily stacked in large arrays to form something with separately recognizable stems/ stalks similar to the claws used for the hands. Figuring into this, and by all means only a small complaint on my part is the absence of shoes then. You know, with something that human-like, I would imagine it could jump of its perch and stomp around in secret when nobody is looking.

The small ancillary tabs sure add parts value and help to contextualize the model, but overall don’t feel essential. They’re okay, but I wouldn’t have missed them. It would have been a cool idea if they had decked this out with those three-fingered leaf elements, but in autumn-ish colors like Dark Orange, Yellow and Dark Red. I also sort of miss a big black bird like a raven, stereotypical as this may sound. In fact even a hoard of sparrows making fun of little scarecrow and sitting all over him would have added a bit of a fun twist to what otherwise amounts to a mostly mundane figure. It’s not bad, but nothing to go particularly crazy over, either. I had a completely different feeling about the next one, the Ghost.

Chasing for this set was actually a bit of a pain, as it was in short supply even in the LEGO online store. It was in fact released even earlier than the Scarecrow some time in September, but didn’t really show up in stores. that’s why I consider myself pretty lucky having been able to obtain it on that magical Friday when I picked up both these sets, after all. I really wanted this one right after I saw the first photos because they completely triggered my “Aww, how cute!” senses. The reason for that is of course that this is far from a genuinely scary ghost but rather a very stylized version such as you would find it in Pac Man or a spectre ripped from an illustrated children’s book. It’s all too obvious where the inspiration came from. 😉

In terms of construction this follows a similar novel approach with a long plate going through the body to represent the arms. It wouldn’t have been necessary as the arms could be just as well represented with their drooping “sleeves” simply attached to the main body, but I guess this is just the designer thinking his idea is super cool and re-using it on multiple models. The rest of the model is kind of pretty simple with the emphasis on making it look sort of rotund/ round-ish and the edges of the imaginary cloth draping in a nice regular wave/ fringe pattern. As a result, the model is hugely symmetric both in the Left | Right plane as well as Front | Back. this is helpful when building (but also a bit tedious) since you only need to build the elements twice and then it doesn’t matter where you attach them. Apparently the face would be the exception here, which BTW you could get creative with by placing the eye elements differently or even using black round tiles from your spares box to good effect. There’s several possible facial expressions.

I also found the extras extremely useful. The Jack-O-Lantern minifigure head element might come in handy for anything Halloween-related, of course, I didn’t have any of the long bones and there’s a bat and a spider. Even the barrel in Dark Bluish Grey will be useful as a jet exhaust one day. Lots to love here. The one thing I didn’t quite like is the somewhat odd coloring choices. On a good day Dark Blue and Sand Green are of course nice colors and one can never have enough pieces, but, and I guess that’s the point here, they don’t mix too well with Olive Green and Dark Green, at least not when it’s meant to be some mossy/ moldy/ swampy thing. I would have preferred a more consistent coloring.

In summary both sets are okay, but I’d always prioritize the Ghost if I had only the money for one of the Brickheadz. The Scarecrow just doesn’t bring much new to the table and simply feels repetitive. It’s just the same ideas from different other figures combined and flavored a little with some minute new stuff. It sure does the trick if you’re only looking for a decorative item or indeed are a collector that has to own them all, but it doesn’t particularly tingle my nerves as a LEGO builder. The ghost on the other hand is just lots of fun on every level and adorable to look at, so I would recommend it every time…

When I’m on my Downeaster Alexa – Wrecked Shrimp Boat (70419)

Borrowing that famous line from Billy Joel‘s song, it’s time we have a look at what is indeed a fishing boat – of sorts – the Wrecked Shrimp Boat (70419) from LEGO‘s new Hidden Side series.

I have no specific relation or affiliation to fishing other than enjoying being near the sea and in particular remembering those small fishing boats during my rehab at the Baltic Sea a few years ago. I’m totally intolerant/ allergic to seafood even and could throw up at the mere thought of the smell, but as you well know, I like oceanic creatures and some of the things relating to it. That’s why this set pushed a few buttons with me in a good way and I just had to get it eventually.

I also liked that the set represents a fresh idea overall, not just specifically to Hidden Side, but also in the broader sense in the overall LEGO portfolio. There have been any number of “fishing boats” over the years, but most of them were bigger trawlers or yachts. Getting a small cutter therefore seems like a missing piece of the puzzle is finally filled.

The minifigures are pretty much your standard fare (within Hidden Side) with Jack Davids and Parker L. Jackson making an appearance again as well as Spencer, the ghostly dog. The emphasis therefore has to be on Captain Jonas and Jonas Jr. and what can I say? They are some of the most interesting figures I’ve seen included in a set in a while. It’s not so much that they are super-special, but they are nicely done and have a generic appeal for anything to do with ships or the goings-on in a harbor or ship yard.

The key to this is of course the Bright Light Orange color representing the oilskin/ vinyl clothing or as we call it here in Germany “Friesennerz” as an in-joke to this being a fisherman’s finest everyday Sunday gown. The figures also come with the typical hat with the large rolled up rim hat and the knit wool cap, respectively, so in my world this counts as capturing the essence of these brave seafarers to the point, if in a stereotypical way. My only regret is the lack of opacity on Jonas Jr.‘s printed flap, which kinda ruins the illusion of the bib overalls.

Captain Jonas can be built in both a possessed and a regular form. Once possessed he turns into some sort of pirate ghost with tentacles coming out of his back and a glowing green sword. It doesn’t really add much for me, given that you can’t really do much with the boat itself to transform it accordingly. more on that further down. I suppose it’s okay, though.

Interestingly, the set comes with an albino crocodile. For a high seas them that is a bit of an odd choice even if in the play fiction the boat is thrown ashore/ stranded on a reef. The alligator would have kinda made more sense in the Riverside Houseboat (31093) from earlier this year. Still, nice to have one, regardless, given that there haven’t been that many crocodiles/ gators using this mold in recent years no matter the color.

Rather than relying on dedicated ship hull parts, the boat is built from more generalized standard pieces. This makes it easier to re-use them in other projects. You can of course argue endlessly whether using a large airplane underside part for the ship’s bow is really that much different, but in my opinion for such a shell in Dark Blue it’s easier to find alternate uses than say for a Coral colored large hull piece like on the LEGO Friends Rescue Mission Boat (41381). Your mileage may vary, naturally.

It’s particularly noteworthy that, while it is part of a series aimed at kids and teenagers, the color choices are very restrained and even conservative. No wacky Orange or Dark Pink, it’s all in subdued natural colors like Reddish Brown, Dark  Brown and so on, nicely complemented by some bits in White, Black and Sand Green. The latter is always good to have and maybe one day even that bonnet piece used for the roof might come in handy.

People have said that this model would be perfect to go with the Old Fishing Store (21310) in the LEGO Ideas series from a few years ago. I well remember how I wished this set actually had a boat and would have rejoiced at the inclusion of what we have here, but the fact of the matter is that it’s not that easy, though not impossible, either. The truth is that in terms of scale even this relatively small boat would still be too large next to the building. There are comparison photos on the web that confirm this, should you care to look yourself. You will have to put in some work to make it more suitable, most notably cutting down the height of the wheel house at the cost of no longer being able to fit a minifigure in there.

Overall, though, the boat holds up nicely and includes everything you would expect with the exception of a hoist. That would really be more only serious concern, as even those small boats usually have some sort of crane to assist with reeling in the fishing nets or help with offloading the cargo at the port. Also notice the blank white discs. They are of course meant to be live saver rings where I just didn’t use the stickers. Thinking about it, if you don’t use those, it would be probably better to just leave them off entirely and replace the bricks with sideways studs they are attached to with smooth ones.

Since it is meant to be a wrecked/ stranded boat there inevitably has to be something it actually crashes on and to that end the set contains parts to build a bit of rock face with some greenery tacked on. Once again I’m pleased by the color choices with lot’s of Dark Brown, Dark Green and Olive elements in addition to the ones in grey tones.

Now for a bit of a disappointment: Eagle-eyed viewers (or even your myopic granny) will clearly notice some pink/ magenta tentacles emanating from the waters surrounding the rocky island, which I interpret as some sort of octopus tentacles ripping the boat in half. You guessed it – they are nowhere to be found or even hinted at in the actual set. Respect to the graphics artist’s imagination going wild, but in this particular case it really feels like cheating and embellishing the packaging a bit too much. True, nowhere does it actually show those tentacles even on the photos on the back side of the box, but I was still hoping. It would have been quite cool and added another level of gameplay possibilities outside of the AR app.

On the whole there is a lot to like and since it’s basically sold around 20 Euro everywhere (despite an MSRP of 30 Euro) there is little reason to hold back on a purchase. Even if you don’t particularly like the subject, you can make good use of some of the parts and get at least one or two nice minifigures out of it plus with a little bit of effort it could still become a nice model on the shelf next to that Old Fishing Store…

Hidden Side, Hidden Gems? – J.B.’s Ghost Lab (70418) and Newbury Juice Bar (40336)

Just like in the fashion industry there are sort of recurring cycles in the LEGO world as well and so it’s not really that much of a surprise that we get similar sets within a series every few years or for that matter new series featuring similar subject matter. Not a bad thing, though, as long as it helps to rejuvenate the overall portfolio and keeps things fresh, be that taking a new approach to building techniques or for that matter re-evaluating an entire genre with a renewed perspective.

With Monster Fighters now being several years in the past, in fact before I even started to get into LEGO, a theme around, ghosts, monsters, zombies and the like isn’t that far fetched and Hidden Side so far seems to fill that gap nicely. At least the first wave got me quite excited for a number of reasons. Might naturally be a different story when the next line of sets is released next year and things may begin to feel a bit repetitive or redundant, but we have to see. It’s still early in the series life and as they say, it could “have legs”. Before I delve into the sets themselves, a few thoughts on the digital integration/ gaming stuff.

Crippled Reality?

One of the key marketing points is of course the Augmented Reality integration, meaning you can interact in a virtual world that’s lined up with the real one. In this case once you’ve the assembled the models they act as gateways to this alternate dimension or Hidden Side. See what they did there? Cheap word play aside, this idea is not without merit, but… And yes, there are a number of big “buts” here.

First, I can freely admit that I’m a skeptic when it comes to things like Virtual Reality and by extension Augmented Reality. The irony is that I can see the value of some of that if it’s done right, but working in the media industry for more than 20 years I have seen all those bold promises that these companies made completely crumble more than once and despite what those same people keep saying we’re still not there yet. A lot of this stuff is still prohibitively expensive and the technical requirements are steep. In my view in fact the commercial aspect is perhaps the biggest hinderance here as it excludes a good chunk of users from the get-go simply because they can’t afford it.

How is this relevant to Hidden Side you may ask? Well, your mobile device may simply be not contemporary enough or powerful enough to run the app. With Apple and Google only having implemented relevant functions into iOS and Android respectively in recent versions, you are going to need a smartphone or tablet that isn’t too old and has been updated consequently to those later versions of the operating systems. The official list on the LEGO site isn’t that long and even then there may be a chance it still doesn’t work reliably even if you have a spankin’ new iPhone. That is to say you should definitely verify the specs and test the app before actually getting into any active play.

The other thing that I was afraid of was endless commercialization of the actual gameplay via micro-transactions and similar. Luckily so far there are no traces of it to be seen, but I choose to remain just those five percent skeptical on that matter. You never know what happens and how companies desperate for cash might find creative ways to exploit their customers, to put it cautiously.

Of course you may take my ponderings with a grain of salt as I may be basically talking out of my behind, as they say. Because I don’t have a compatible device at the moment, I can only judge the actual gameplay from watching videos from other people. My conclusion here is that it barely seems worth the time, at least not as an adult. The core activities seem to be centered around chasing the “Gloom” by activating certain items to collect points and battling ghosts, or if you are playing on the opposite side, as a spectre or possessed entity to avoid being scanned by an imaginary other ghost chaser with a mobile device.

The presentation and detail of the world seems well enough, but truth be told, this more or less feels like pretty much any other free to play game of a similar ilk with the high technical requirements and the over 1 GB gigabyte app package size (due to apparently containing a lot of complex 3D assets and textures) representing an extra challenge. If your phone is full with other apps, photos, videos and other games, getting the app even installed could be tricky. In any case, to me it appears like something that could keep kids up to a certain age busy for ten minutes, but even if you buy all sets and try out all play modes this will quickly lose its attraction.

The good thing, though, is that the sets themselves are not dependent on the AR gimmick and have been designed well enough to be worthwhile on their own merits, so let’s have a look.

Monster Lab

The first set is J.B.’s Ghost Lab (70418), which is basically the smallest of the sets you can buy in this series currently.

Stylistically the set is built on the stereotypical “monster lab” as you so often see it in old movies in different forms, but always more or less featuring the same recognizable standard features. Most notable is of course the large electrical arch generator with its insulator construct, a trope from a time when electricity was still considered something mysterious and the lightning flashes and sparks would mystify, scare and impress people.

The set comes with a selection of three minifigures and and part of the appeal is that they feel fresh and modern. One of the reasons I never took much interest in minifigs clearly is that most of them just look stuffy and boring as if the world hasn’t changed in the last thirty years or so. There are some good ones in collectible series or e.g. Ninjago, but for the most part the average minifigure still feels like someone from the 1970s to me. Things have been improving with quite a few new accessories and hair pieces having come out, though, and Hidden Side seems to amp this up even further.

There are some recurring characters throughout that are basically included in every set, just with different outfits. One of them is Jack Davids, the guy in the red hoodie sweater. You also get the friendly ghost dog Spencer this way. Other figures are exclusive to each set like J.B. (the lady with the Lavender hair) and Douglas Elton (the green guy). In contrast to what you might have expected there are no dedicated ghostly figures like spectres and zombies. Rather the idea is that some of the protagonists can be possessed by evil spirits. To distinguish and transform them visually you therefore get a separate head and hair piece in different colors, sometimes also some suitable add-ons like ragged cloaks, weapons and so on. For now those are done in Yellowish Green and Transparent Neon Green, but I would expect other colors to be used in the future as well, be it just that overuse of those colors could get a bit tiresome eventually.

 

The first batch of this particular set seems to have a consistent printing error on Douglas‘s head also noted in other reviews. While it’s a dual face head, it only has printed eyebrows on one of them. As you can see in the photos, this looks kind of odd even with the hair piece on. Most of my minifigures rest peacefully in a dark box so it isn’t exactly a critical issue like it would be if I displayed them on a collector’s shelf, but since I wanted everything to be correct and felt a bit entitled to get a flawless product, I requested a replacement part from LEGO, after all. Lo and behold, they seem to be fully aware of the issue and have produced a new badge with complete prints already.

The laboratory itself isn’t much of a complex build and funny enough its construction reflects the movie origins it’s trying to mimic. For all intents and purposes, it’s just a flat wall with everything integrated like it would have been on those old film sets for quick turnarounds, i.e. being able to move things easily when preparing scenes. That would have been even more critical on TV productions shooting several episodes in a row or even live broadcasting them directly from a studio as wasn’t that uncommon in the early days of television due to the technical limitations. But I digress.

The center piece of the model naturally is the arch generator with the transformation/ ghost decontamination chamber underneath it. it doesn’t have any actual (fake) transformative features like a revolving door mechanism to quickly switch between two minifigures or something like that. It’s not essential, but would have at least given one actionable feature in an overall mostly static setting. Spreading out from this center are some gadgets left and right.

The right-hand-side features a selection of vials and other lab vessels all neatly arranged on and around a shelf. It also has a wall-mounted computer screen, but since I never use the stickers, apparently it loses its magic and the functionality doesn’t really come across. Speaking of which – since the stickers are stylistically quite different, it seems odd that they included the rather old 2 x 1 tile for the keyboard.

On the left-hand-side you see the typical color choosing gadget associated with the AR game. The logic here is to select a differently colored element based on what the app tells you and once it verifies this you will be able to clear another sub-set of “Gloom”. In this case it’s disguised as some sort of electrical transformator, but again, since I didn’t use the stickers the voltage gauges are missing and the idea is lost on uninitiated observers.

As you would expect, the back side continues the TV studio theme and doesn’t provide any additional details. In fact the hollowed out panels almost scream “fake paper wall”, so I guess you could call it only consequent and well done. My slight peeve with the non-existing turntable functionality is even re-affirmed with the small stair step at the back of the cylinder – as if someone could wait there to do a quick swap while the studio goes dark and lights flash. The things that could have been…

On a whole this small set is a good way to get your feet moist in Hidden Side, but you should not expect too much – neither with the build nor the interactive play features. Personally I feel it could have been grander, meaning that trivial things like having actual side wall would have rooted it more in reality as a genuine ghost lab rather than playing on the TV show/ movie clichées.

Not all is lost, though, as apparently this set is  structurally simple enough to modify it relatively easily. With the average price now being around 14 Euro buying it twice or three times is an absolutely attainable goal and with some parts from your stock thrown in, you should be able to create something nice without breaking a sweat.

Juicy Extra

The second set of the day is the Newbury Juice Bar (40336). This isn’t a regular Hidden Side set, but rather a promotional “Gift with Purchase”. Here in Germany you could get it when buying stuff above 45 Euro in a LEGO store (or their online shop) and as I’m publishing this article, this two-week promotion in fact just ran out. You may still be able to obtain this set, as naturally not only promotions are different across the globe but also many who picked up the set will sell it second-hand. Anyway, for which set I actually scraped my last pennies together to get this little freebie is a topic for another time, but maybe you will find out soon-ish… 😉

While I generally don’t get too worked up over promotional items, the reason I’m including this set here is because it’s actually quite superb. It’s perhaps not worth the 13 Euro mentioned on the receipt for tax reasons (which immediately are subtracted again, of course), but I’d be totally game if this was one of those 10 Euro sets you can buy via regular channels. Knowing this blog and how critical I’m of those things you can imagine what this means and how impressed I am with this little model. I had this positive gut feeling right after Io saw the first photos and just had to have it.

Why is it so good? To begin with, it contains two full figures, one of them being recurring character Parker L. Jackson, the other Rocky the barkeeper, including his alternate head for once he gets possessed. The other thing that drew me in is the overall appearance. While certainly small, this feels like it could exist as some 1960s style retro-futuristic kiosk made from sheet metal parts or for that matter a converted caravan from that same era. It’s all bullet-y and round, if you get my meaning.

The colors, in particular the Bright Light Orange parts, stand out a bit too much perhaps, but otherwise this could easily fit into a city environment. Ideally of course they would have made it with more Sand Green then right of the bat, but let’s not that this is targeted at kids first and foremost. In contrast to J.B.’s Ghost Lab this is one of the sets where the buildings/ vehicles themselves get possessed, too, so the center section of roof can be opened to expose some grimacing face with staring green eyes and teeth.

Of course for me a good part conversation is always about what pieces are included and their potential for future uses. Say what you will, but getting a bunch of Dark Blue 2 x 3 window frames, Sand Green 1 x 6 bricks and even the quarter cylinders in that same color can never be a bad thing. None of those components are in short supply of course, but you’d have to be crazy pass up on getting them free. I can only re-iterate: This set is damn useful and nice.

If that wasn’t enough, I also thoroughly enjoyed assembling it. With around 120 pieces it equals a small Creator 3in1 set and unlike those 5-minute-jobs with poly bags keeps you busy for a bit longer. When I was finished I immediately regretted that there wasn’t more to do. That’s how much fun I had. There is a tiny little caveat, though: Similar to other such sets that have perhaps been designed a bit too much with cost-awareness in mind, stability is not necessarily the best in places because the evil budget supervisor made no allowance for some extra parts. As you would guess, this especially affects the quarter cylinders before attaching the roof and some protruding parts of the counter. not the end of the world, though.

Overall Hidden Side seems to be shaping up to be a hit series and so far I really like what I see. It remains to see whether LEGO can keep up this level of quality in upcoming sets. I have a few more of the first wave already lined up, so stay tuned for more reviews…