Inika Builds?

[Nato G]

When I first started joining conversations in this community, I came across a lot of people complaining about how much they disliked the so-called Inika Builds. At the time, I thought they were referring to the Toa Inika. I personally didn't much like the Toa Inika, and after seeing some of the sets that my friends owned, I decided not to buy any myself. 

 

But, as I engaged more in conversations, I came to realise that people were referring to everything post-2006 as "the Inika builds" and accusing Lego of "reusing the same designs". I'm sorry, what? I didn't see these complaints after the Toa Mata became the Toa Nuva, even though their body designs were nearly identical. Every year leading up to 2006 used the same designs as every other set in each year, but 2006 was the last year that happened. 

 

Look at the Barraki, or the Mahri. None of them were even remotely similar. They were all different, and unique, and the same goes for every set that came in later years. Look at the Phantoka, or the Mistika (especially the Makuta sets). And the Glatorian only carried on with the tradition of creative and innovative new designs. I really don't understand why there's so much hate, or why people seem to think everything after 2006 used the same builds. 2007 onwards were my favourite years for sets (excluding the Stars in 2010). 

 

Does anyone else feel the same way I do? Or am I the minority here?

[Click]

With the Mata and Nuva, they had interesting (if bulky) torso designs that included functions, and were only used for a few years. The Metru and Hordika bodies were the same. Perhaps we were spoiled by Lego's new designs every few years, but after the same builds were used over and over again with rearranged armor (with the occasional Barraki build), it got a bit old.

 

There's also the facts that the Inika torso does not include functions, has really odd proportions (thin with huge shoulders), and were massive and hard to use (though, to be honest, were the most flexible torso designs). It would have been nice to have something with more realistic proportions in 2008 at least.

[believe victims]

Looking at the Phantoka as you said, I notice that Lewa and Kopaka have near-identical builds excluding their personal flight equipment, so I'm not sure what you're getting at as far as diversity. Sure, they were more diverse than, say, the Toa Metru, but that can hardly be attributed to the Inika build. Any previous canister set build could have done the same diversifying techniques, which were usually just using different limb, foot, and armor pieces. In fact, I am of the opinion that the Hordika torso piece could have been just as versatile as the Toa Inika torso piece. Arguably moreso, as it would have allowed greater freedom with the shoulder joints.

 

I'm not saying they should have used the Hordika torso piece over and over and over again instead. I'm just making the point that the Inika torso piece was hardly the holy grail of torso pieces, and after a while, it just felt like a cop-out on coming up with something new. I don't mean necessarily new molds, just something using different pieces than the same big, blocky torso block, or its counterpart, the even worse Piraka torso. After the Barraki, though, canister sets never reached that same amount of diversity, instead preferring to just use the Inika torso block as many times as possible. 11 out of 12 of the 2009 canister sets used the Inika torso, with eight of them using it straight pegged to the hip piece exactly as the Inika did. Two of them even had the exact torso build of the Inika, bar changes in pins, which isn't helped by those two not doing much to separate themselves from the Inika anywhere else in their build. I feel it encouraged laziness in character design that way.

 

It's not an awful build; it certainly does its job of making many humanoids with the same exact torso proportions. It just overtook the line in a way I thought was unsatisfactory.

[Voxumo]

When I first started joining conversations in this community, I came across a lot of people complaining about how much they disliked the so-called Inika Builds. At the time, I thought they were referring to the Toa Inika. I personally didn't much like the Toa Inika, and after seeing some of the sets that my friends owned, I decided not to buy any myself. 

 

But, as I engaged more in conversations, I came to realise that people were referring to everything post-2006 as "the Inika builds" and accusing Lego of "reusing the same designs". I'm sorry, what? I didn't see these complaints after the Toa Mata became the Toa Nuva, even though their body designs were nearly identical. Every year leading up to 2006 used the same designs as every other set in each year, but 2006 was the last year that happened. 

 

Look at the Barraki, or the Mahri. None of them were even remotely similar. They were all different, and unique, and the same goes for every set that came in later years. Look at the Phantoka, or the Mistika (especially the Makuta sets). And the Glatorian only carried on with the tradition of creative and innovative new designs. I really don't understand why there's so much hate, or why people seem to think everything after 2006 used the same builds. 2007 onwards were my favourite years for sets (excluding the Stars in 2010). 

 

Does anyone else feel the same way I do? Or am I the minority here?

Oh my god, someone else who sees this... I completely agree that despite the inika, every year after had somewhat different builds instead of the generic build all around. The toa mahri are a perfect example. And whiile as octodad says kopaka and lewa phantoka had similar designs, compare them with the vastly different design of pohatu phantoka... but alas everyone has there preference. So no you are not the only one who shares that view that sets after 2006 did have diversity.

[randomreviewerbros]

Personally I collected a ton of sets with the Inika (or as i think the Piraka builds as they came out first) builds, almost all of them I would say, and there were a ton of variations with these builds from 2007 onwards, they were innovative and different with every set, no two sets were alike after the Barraki came out, the Barraki themselves were phenomenal sets to me and probably one of my favorites because of how different and cool each of them were, the Toa Mahri and Nuva of 2008 were also fantastic as they were a huge leap up from the striking similarities they had with eachother in 2001-02, so personally i was a fan of this build as it also provided extra height for the figures and no tow figures were really the same size

Edited August 24, 2014 by randomreviewerbros

[Kaxix]

I think the biggest problem is due to the continuous use of the Inika torso. People generally see the build as repetitive mainly because of that piece and the structure that comes from it.

Almost every new wave of sets used to bring a new torso piece for the heroes and a new design for the villans. They had sets that seemed clones, yes, but normally they were quite different from the previous ones (of course, excluding the Bohrok-kal and the Toa Nuva).

After the Barraki, we generally had sets that cointained less new pieces (compare only a single set with the old ones, not the whole wave) and a humanoid design which is fine for a toa, but could also be something else for the villains.

Personally I think some of the 2009 sets were the best of the whole serie, but they didn't bring with them any little "revolution" in terms of building or design as was more common in the early years (Bohrok, Rahkshi, Vahki, Visorak, Hordika).

Edited August 24, 2014 by Kaxix

[Archon~]

I love the Inika/Piraka build.

 

They open door to simple creativity and attention to detail that previous sets did not have due to simple lack of articulation points and small size.

 

Yes, gears were cool, and would be kind of interesting if they were incorporated into the build, but as they were more of a technic thing, and Lego wanted to make Bionicle unique, I understand the choice to stay away from them.

 

The 2006 and onward style of building sticked around because it worked and was easy to make interesting sets that sold. These sets opened up Bionicle's ability to diversify, provided more room for various colors, and helped develop interesting new functionalities other than gears.

 

Inika body piece, I salute you.

[Axilus Prime]

I agree. Of course I would have liked more diversity, who wouldn't?

 

But the older years were even less diverse. The Toa Mata and Nuva's only differences were their arms, weapons, masks, and Onua and Pohatu's builds. The Bohrok's only differences were their shields. The Bohrok-Kal went ahead and exemplified that issue. The Rahkshi varied only in staff endings and spines, the Toa Metru, only in masks and weapons, and the Vahki only in weapons. On goes the line of clones all the way to the Piraka.

 

Then the Inika come along and, while all similar, do have more variety than the previously mentioned waves. Every wave since, Stars excepted, has had the same level of, if not more, variety than the first six Inika.

[Chro]

I personally didn't care what designs the sets used. My complaints about Inikabuilds are solely related to MOCing. (And even then, they can be done well, though it's not as easy as some people think.)

[Banana Gunz]

The Inika build did allow for tons of diversity among different characters, but it was tedious seeing it over and over again. They were simply too big, ape-like, and body segments that were very difficult to use. It was a fine build, and there are some things that I feel are really good too, like color customizability (as nice as the new HF build style is, you always have to use black as the base color for the base, or at least most of it). My least favorite part about them was how big they were. They just felt so awkward trying to pose properly or hold in your hands. But customizability improved with the inika build, and that's somethingI have to give props to LEGO for.

[Axilus Prime]

My least favorite part about them was how big they were. They just felt so awkward trying to pose properly or hold in your hands. 

Hmm. Interesting. I liked their size. I was actually a little shocked the first time I saw an Onua set because of how tiny he was.

[Aanchir]

I liked the Toa Inika torso beam. I thought it and the Piraka torso beam were probably the only torso designs that deserved to be used as widely as they were — after all, they were a really efficient shape that could be used easily for sets and MOCs of various sizes and shapes. They had plenty of connection points, not too many awkward parts sticking out of the front or back (unlike the Toa Hordika torso), no chunky shape from having to include a specialized gearbox, and generally a nice aesthetic.

 

As for the Toa Inika builds, they had some flaws that were not all directly related to the torso beam (which is oddly what most people seem to complain about when they refer to the "Inika Builds", as if the torso is the only meaningful part of a build). The default Inika chest plates were fairly specialized, the legs and arms were generally too long for the torso, and the shoulders were unnaturally wide (which wasn't always a problem, since the torso had roughly the same proportions as the torso of a fully-assembled Toa Metru, but seemed egregious on certain characters). Ever since the 2011 Hero Factory sets basically reset characters' proportions to the same as the Toa Mata (but with more freedom to change up those proportions), I have a much harder time not cringing at models with typical Toa Inika proportions.

 

Still, I think lots of unique– and expressive-looking BIONICLE characters used the Toa Inika or Piraka torso beams particularly well, including Malum, Strakk, Gresh, Skrall, Axonn, Brutaka, Carapar, and the 2008 Takanuva. Meanwhile, other sets from that time period introduced interesting torso designs that worked well without it, like Nocturn, Toa Mahri Kongu, Takadox, Ehlek, and Kiina. I don't mind seeing creative torso designs that use either existing molds or versatile new molds. But I think retiring a torso design that was still plenty serviceable just for variety's sake would have been simply wasteful. The Inika torso was finally retired in 2011 when simpler torso designs were finally introduced to tie in with the new, more versatile Character and Creature Building System. I think it had a good run and definitely justified its many years of use, just as the torso designs that ultimately replaced it are now doing.

Edited August 24, 2014 by Aanchir

[Zidonaro]

I didn't see these complaints after the Toa Mata became the Toa Nuva, even though their body designs were nearly identical

 

There's a huge difference in repeating a build for one year and repeating a build for 3 consecutive years.

Edited August 25, 2014 by HoloTheWise