I’ve gotten a few new sets recently, and since I’m not up to writing full front page reviews, I’ll provide a couple of short ones in my blog here.

Let’s start with 41097 Heartlake Hot Air Balloon from the 2015 Lego Friends line. This is cool because we haven’t seen a hot air balloon since the days of the Adventurers line, and this one gets some new pieces to help pull off the look. While the balloon pieces are obviously designed for one purpose, they offer enough connection points that I could see them being used elsewhere, and look forward to what creative uses people will come up with. (I currently don’t have any ideas off the top of my head, I think I’ll just keep it as a balloon.) You also get two of the inverted done pieces in lime (used as the weights on the balloon) which is currently exclusive to this set. While there’s a fair amount of good pieces in tan, green, medium azure, brown, and such, there aren’t really any other new molds or unique colors here. Looks like all the new piece allotment for this set went into the balloon itself. And can’t really complain about that.

The mini-dolls included here are Andrea, one of the core cast of characters, and her friend Noah, who is one of the rarer male mini-dolls (oh, they do have a slightly different torso mold) and is exclusive to this set. There’s nothing really remarkable about him except that he comes with Kai’s hairpiece, which is fairly uncommon. The balloon itself has a nice basket that can fit multiple characters, even if it’s a bit snug. Granted, it is way too large for the balloon (or rather the balloon is too small for the basket) to realistically float, but I can ignore the realism for the otherwise great design. The set also comes with a little landscape bit, which I think is just filler to add to the piece count and boost up the set’s price. This includes a little hill with a stream, a picnic area, and a campfire complete with marshmallows to roast. I guess it’s fairly substantial for an outdoor landscape piece, but it just looks lackluster next to the balloon. Still, it offers a destination for the balloon, and adds to the play value.

The set is 254 pieces at $29.99 USD. Not exactly a great value, but the balloon totally makes up for it, so I think it’s fair. It definitely stood out to me as the Friends set to get in the winter 2015 wave, and it’s not too pricey either. Now I want to see if I can fit the entire cast of Friends characters in that balloon; it could squeeze in four without a problem, I think, but five might be pushing it. Somebody might have to hang on the outside!