Jump to content

J.A.F. Team

A blog by xccj

  • entries
    1,631
  • comments
    5,572
  • views
    551,789

About this blog

Just a lesser evil, born unequal

Entries in this blog

Review: 76200 Bro Thors New Asgard

Review: 76200 Bro Thors New Asgard

So this is the end of my slog of prepared reviews to post.  I got a plethora of new sets from the Summer release, so I’ll probably look into reviewing those in the coming days, but there’ll be more time needed so it won’t be like I’m spamming the blogs too much.  Not that I think anybody’s really noticed or worried about that, anyway; it is kind of interesting that I used to gripe about all sorts of stuff here and now I mainly just stop by to post set reviews.  I do miss the days when there was
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 75312 Boba Fett’s Starship

Review: 75312 Boba Fett’s Starship

593 pieces, $49.99 More Instagram photos here!! I don’t mind that this is not called the Slave 1, but I do have to admit that this ship has been recreated so many times that it’s fairly ridiculous.  Heck, I even made a custom Bionicle build of this ship already.  And yet, I don’t have any copies of the actual model, so when I found this for sale at Costco I just impulsively bought it.  Now I can at least add another classic Star Wars ship to my display. The two figs are Mando and
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 71746 Jungle Dragon

Review: 71746 Jungle Dragon

506 pieces, $39.99 More photos on Instagram. Ninjago always has to do dragons, and I’ve appreciated how they’ve continued to crank out various fun designs over the years.  The Jungle Dragon brings on a slightly revamped design but with a lot of teal, so what’s not to love?  Also featuring the new Island / Jungle theme, so a new round of characters! You get four figs: Jungle Lloyd, Jungle Zane, PoulErik, and Thunder Keeper.  The two islanders share the same torso design, with grass
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 40477 Scrooge McDuck, Huey, Dewey, & Louie

Review: 40477 Scrooge McDuck, Huey, Dewey, & Louie

340 pieces, $24.99 More photos on Instagram. Ah, BrickHeadz, they’re still around and still remaking licensed characters.  I generally don’t pick these up for the characters anymore and mainly get them for the pieces.  But my roommate is a fan of the series so I got it as a birthday gift.  But as I’ve discovered, while he likes displaying Lego, he doesn’t actually build with it, so buying him a new set just means he stashes the box away untouched.  So I prebuilt these, and decided to t
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 75299 Trouble on Tatooine

Review: 75299 Trouble on Tatooine

276 pieces, $29.99 More pictures on Instagram Remember when the only Mandalorian set was the super expensive ship with baby Yoda that sold out in presales?  Or something like that; basically, it was costly to get.  Welp, now Mando and The Child appear in a small affordable set which represents everybody’s favorite sandy planet from the series.  It’s an interesting choice but it works. The figs alone are probably worth the cost of the set.  Mando has a lot of his fancy Mandalorian
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 71735 Tournament of Elements

Review: 71735 Tournament of Elements

283 pieces, $29.99 More photos on Instagram The Tournament of Elements season was one of my favorite of the Ninjago show, so it’s cool to see a legacy set recreating scenes from it.  Of course, the actual building isn’t super impressive; it’s a similar angled interior design that we’ve seen in other cheap Ninjago sets before, with the benefit of being two levels to allow for some vertical action.  There’s fun placement of the various jade blades (including some hidden inside the white
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 60287 Tractor

Review: 60287 Tractor

So back in January this year, I was getting into the groove to start doing mini blog set reviews again.  I had figured out the best way to deal with the pictures; cover shots saved on BZP, the rest linked to on Instagram, ext.  Whole deal figured out, just needed to build, photograph (with mixed results, to be honest), and write.  But then, my computer of 7 years crashed.  After two months of trying to fix it with mixed results, I got a brand-new computer, and then I was busy setting up stuff on
xccj

xccj

1
Review: Ninjago Master of the Mountain

Review: Ninjago Master of the Mountain

Yeah, so this isn't quite a standard review, but rather a discussion about the theme and the TV series. I actually fell behind on the Ninjago TV series and recently caught up with it on Netflix.  The shorter episodes were a bit off-putting, but they still tell a decent story, with the occasional break to focus purely on side characters.  (And the fact that sometimes they switch to a more anime-like animation style was neat too.)  The fact that the last season heavily focused on Cole was bit
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 71722 Skull Sorcerer's Dungeons

Review: 71722 Skull Sorcerer's Dungeons

And now to move onto the biggest set of the themes... More photos on Instagram: The build process Set highlights and action features The minifigures 71722 Skull Sorcerer's Dungeons is $99.99 and has 1171 pieces.  And it is good. Ninjago has done a bunch of big based before, but something about this one feels like more of the adventurer big sets from the late 90s... y'know, the ones I never was able to buy but admired a lot in the magazines.  Part of this has to do with
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 71721 Skull Sorcerer's Dragon

Review: 71721 Skull Sorcerer's Dragon

So I've been forced to relearn how to deal with images in BZP blogs.  (Yeah, this isn't the highest traffic place around anymore, but how else am I supposed to scream my thoughts out into the void??)  Flickr restructured and became unusable for a large quantity of images, and Brickshelf is another older platform that I just don't use that much anymore.  I was trying to go for the Instagram route for photos of sets to do quick reviews on, but then embedding broke on BZP (I don't know which side i
xccj

xccj

0
Review: Spinjitzu Burst Packs

Review: Spinjitzu Burst Packs

I got a handful of Ninjago sets this last month, so I'll start out the new year by looking at some of the Ninjago "Master of the Mountain" sets from last year! First up: The Spinjitzu Burst spinner packs. More photos and videos on Instagram In case it wasn't obvious, I'm a sucker for exclusive Ninjago figs, and the various spinner packs are always enticing for their new figs, even if they are generally lackluster in the builds.  This batch is another spinner you set off by s
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 70436 Phantom Fire Truck 3000

Review: 70436 Phantom Fire Truck 3000

More photos on Instagram. The first wave of Hidden Side was pretty great, but the second wave was lackluster.  Designs improved again in the third wave, and I think the highlight is the Phantom Fire Truck.  It goes for $59.99 and has 760 pieces, including some newer elements.  Not bad. This reminds me of the upgraded school bus from last year.  The front of the fire truck is well done and lots of nice details.  In particular, I like the wheel guard designs they came up with here, very
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 71717 Journey to the Skull Dungeons

Review: 71717 Journey to the Skull Dungeons

More photos on Instagram. I'm a sucker for Ninjago sets, and the new Skull Dungeons theme looks pretty crazy.  I want some of the larger sets but don't currently have the budget for them, so I picked up the cheaper one earlier this year to get the figs and get into the theme.  It's 401 pieces for $29.99, so not a bad value. So this small set doesn't appear to be any major location, but mostly builds a rock ledge with some steps leading up to it.  That premise is actually kind of boring
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 75939 Dr. Wu's Lab - Baby Dinosaurs Breakout

Review: 75939 Dr. Wu's Lab - Baby Dinosaurs Breakout

More photos on Instagram. Okay, Jurassic World continues to push out lackluster sets that I want just for the dinos.  (The big one this year with the Ankylosaurs is pretty bland, but I want it for the Ankylosaurs!)  This set is cheaper but it definitely shows.  All the same, you get two baby dinos here; a small baby Ankylosaurs and a slightly larger baby Triceratops.  The set is almost worth it for the two dinos alone; and if you're not interested in them, then don't bother, as the rest of
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 60202 People Pack - Outdoor Adventures

Review: 60202 People Pack - Outdoor Adventures

More photos on Instagram. This is actually one of the minifigure collections released last year, but I only just got around to opening it recently.  It's $39.99 for 164 pieces, which is a lousy value.  But it has 14 figs and a few other exclusive parts, so the price is somewhat reasonable for a fig pack. I believe a few of the fig torsos may be unique, but I'm too lazy to go do the research.  As it is, none of them really stand out as must-haves, but they are also all generic enough to
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 75250 Pasaana Speeder Chase

Review: 75250 Pasaana Speeder Chase

Yep, more stuff on Instagram. Opinions of Rise of Skywalker were mixed.  Some people hated it.  I assume others didn’t?  I walked out of the theater somewhat satisfied, but there were certainly some problems with the storytelling, and I did not have the same desire to rewatch it compared to some of the other movies.  And on top of that, most of the sets from the movie weren’t super interesting either.  (I mean, okay, they’re not bad designs per say, but they’re repeating vehicle designs aga
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 71709 Jay and Lloyd’s Velocity Racers

Review: 71709 Jay and Lloyd’s Velocity Racers

The video game style Prime Empire wave of Ninjago sets is interesting.  On one hand, I love the aesthetic they have going with the white and trans lime highlights, and the figs are all great.  On the other hand, some of the builds were... less than desirable.  Not so much that they were bad, but they didn’t stand out too much from the builds of previous Ninjago vehicles and dragons.  And I have sampled a lot of Ninjago sets over the years, so it's really easy to get bored with repeated designs. 
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 70427 Welcome to the Hidden Side

Review: 70427 Welcome to the Hidden Side

I’ll be out of it for a while at the end of the month, and I have some of these mini set reviews prepped, so I figure it’s about time to start getting them posted before I have to leave.  Without further ado... More photos on Instagram So this is from the second wave of Hidden Side sets from last winter, retailing at $19.99 with 189 pieces.  Except I got it for free as part of the BricksCascade Dirty Brickster game.  (If I recall correctly, I put in a Creator set from last year,
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 71361 Mario Character Packs

Review: 71361 Mario Character Packs

So, Lego Super Mario.  Honestly, I’m not seeing the appeal, but then again I didn’t grow up on platform video games so I definitely don’t have that nostalgic connection.  And the not-minifig scale of the sets is a little off putting.  But I have to admit that the character packs are intriguing for the low price and interesting pieces, even if I don’t necessarily care too much about the character designs themselves.  Luckily for me, my roommate happened to come across a few of these packs at Targ
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 71027 Collectible Minifigures Series 20

Review: 71027 Collectible Minifigures Series 20

More picts on Instagram So obviously I am a big fan of the Collectible Minifigures to the point where I obsessively try to get a complete collection of all the standard series.  But my method has always been to wait until they show up in stores and then feel out the bags I want.  Well, Covid-19 has greatly complicated that process.  Luckily, Chocolate Frogs was able to hook me up with a full set, and because I obsess over these too much, here’s a quick review of them individually. Dron
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 80104 Lion Dance

Review: 80104 Lion Dance

So now for my favorite set of the year so far... More picts on Instagram After Lego released really awesome Chinese New Year sets last year but only in, like, the area around China, it was really cool that they came up with another wave that got a worldwide release.  I gotta be honest; I'm not super familiar with the traditions depicted here, but the builds were a lot of fun and the piece selection is great, so I had to go all in for this set. You get a stellar 8 minifigs in
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 71708 Gamer's Market

Review: 71708 Gamer's Market

Oh hey I think I'll actually review a set I've picked up from this year... More picts on Instagram Okay, this is one of Ninjago's more substantial figs packs.  9 figs for $29.99?  Not bad!  Well, okay, the builds are bad, polybag level IMO.  But the weapons and accessories more than make up for it.  We've got katana in gold, silver, azure, pale green, red, and orange all in one set.  And the new gamepad weapon hilts are super fun!  Not to mention that pink sword that does fit loo
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 75973 D.Va & Reinhardt

Review: 75973 D.Va & Reinhardt

More photos on Instagram So I am not an Overwatch fan by any regards.  Never played the game, was only barely aware of the characters before the Lego sets were announced.  I'll admit that some of the figs have been mildly appealing, but most of the models didn't look that great to me.  Well, except this one; the two Mechs look awesome, and having one in pink is another major draw, because I think that'll be a first for an official Lego set.  (Why haven't we seen a Friends subtheme with past
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 41378 Dolphins Rescue Mission

Review: 41378 Dolphins Rescue Mission

Photos on Instagram I've honestly not purchased a lot of Friends sets in recent years.  First I started collecting from the theme because of the new pastel colors, but the novelty kinda wore off after a while (and I started focusing on the Elves theme instead) so I haven't picked up any.  But this set had a few fun pieces that I was interested to get.  And besides, I've always been tempted by submarine sets. The figs are... honestly I don't care, which is kinda unusual for me.  The des
xccj

xccj

0
Review: 70678 Castle of the Forsaken Emperor

Review: 70678 Castle of the Forsaken Emperor

So I'm still too lazy to do proper front page reviews with custom pictures, write-ups, and massively edited video... and also we've stopped doing Youtube Livestreams.  But I still have a backlog of sets I want to build (and talk about) so I'll be posting a few more brief blog reviews with images via Instagram!  (Since Flickr has it's whole image count thing).  So without further ado... Ninjago's 70678 Castle of the Forsaken Emperor More Instagram photos and videos Gotta be h
xccj

xccj

0
×
×
  • Create New...