Watch the Bionicle 2016 Livestream

[Hapori Tohu]

We've just kicked off our Bionicle 2016 livestream where we'll be showing off next year's first wave of sets. You can read on to watch or check it out on YouTube

. If you'd like to ask us any questions, you can comment on the stream or tweet at @BZP_Tweets using the hashtag #Bionicle2016. I look forward to talking with you all!

 

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[Iruini Nuva]

Enjoyed the stream. Thanks for covering my question!

[VBBN]

That was the perfect time for my internet to go civil war against me, apologies for the extreme lag I had throughout most of it.

 

With that said it was a fun stream and while it was quite negative overall opinion wise on the Toa, I do look forward to working on making Kaita and whatnot with these sets.

 

As a TL;DW to the video, my basic opinion of the sets is that Umarak is an improvement over 2015's villains, the creatures are better than protectors, and Toa are less stellar than the previous incarnations.

Edited December 13, 2015 by VBBN

[Rooster Nui]

Regardless, thanks VBBN. To me, your opinion matters more than the internet connection. You and the others entertained and taught me a lot regarding the new aesthetics for Bionicle's new sets. 

 

I had a great time and am grateful that the questions I asked via Twitter were answered.

[Nescent]

Thanks for the stream, and for answering both my questions. Sorry you had some connection troubles, VBBN, but I'll be watching out for your reviews over on Eurobricks.

[hiddenderek]

I'm surprised at how much they don't like the sets. While the new chest piece is not very good at all for mocs, I think it looks great and brings back that old 'bionicle' feel. Yeah there's a bunch of detail, maybe too much, but most of old bionicle was like that lol. Also the more technic custom building seems really really cool and seems like it will make the builds a lot more interesting even if they don't affect the design as much as they could have. I do think they help with small touches though, like the bohrok eye pieces on Tahu's torso giving him a little more shape. Overall the sets look pretty awesome in my opinion (outside of a few questionable color scheme problems like silver on the masks and kopaka's gold shin armor) and I'm pretty hyped.

Edited December 13, 2015 by hiddenderek

[Aanchir]

I think the new chest plate looks alright, especially with the new decorations. But it's definitely way more specialized than this year's chest pieces, and while I'm fine with pistons, 20 of them might be overkill. Piling more and more pistons onto a piece makes them feel less like classic Bionicle in my eyes, not more.

 

Many of the best G1 Bionicle parts in my opinion were the ones that used pistons in sensible ways where they actually seemed to perform a useful function, not ones that just used them as meaningless decoration. More like the armor from the Protectors' and creatures' torsos than like the new shells on the Toa's torsos.

 

Overall, while there are some of the new sets I really like (particularly Lewa, Gali, and their creatures), I can't disagree with many of the criticisms leveled at the new Toa in general. They do feel less diverse, coherent, and purposeful on many levels than the 2015 Toa.

Edited December 13, 2015 by Aanchir

[hiddenderek]

I can understand the diversity complaints, which doesn't really bother me since I'm not going to get a lot of the sets this year due to budget issues, but I'm not really understanding the coherent or purposeful complaints. I think Tahu 2016 looks way better than 2015, if anything his 2015 incarnation was way less coherent with the ugly exposed ball joints, gappy use of torso shells as shin armor (not a fan of that), and how the majority of his parts were reused CCBS stuff which I found really boring and made him lack character. Also you could see his gear box from the front view which looked pretty bad.  All the new parts  and use of technic pieces like bohrok eyes to fill out his silhouette really look great and give him a more coherent "robotic fire guy" look that fits in with the bionicle line better to me.

Edited December 13, 2015 by hiddenderek

[Ta-metru_defender]

...and while I'm fine with pistons, 20 of them might be overkill....

Twenty-one.

[NickonAquaMagna]

Boy, this is surreal. I guess I've been dealing with so many CCBS haters outside of BZP who constantly whine that these sets "NEED MORE DETAIL!!!" that hearing people INSIDE the BZP community say these sets have TOO much detail, too many pistons an' whatnot, using phrasing like "hyper detailed" really throws me for a loop. Like, "Whoa, where am I?"

[Tarvaxx]

I like the detailing, although the torso is a bit much. It's like they think that the only details BIONICLE ever had were pistons. XD

"Oh we need to think of a design to make the torso more eye catching."

"Well... pistons are good, right?"

"Yeah! they used those all the time!"

"Well, then let's just take a whole bunch of pistons, and put them everywhere." 

 

Things like that are great in moderation, but It would have worked better if there had been no more than 5 on the Torso piece. Oh well, I still like it and I think the sets look good. Everyone has this 2015 ecstasy, but I don't think those sets were as good as people think. They were good, but not perfect. Same with these. Everyone's complaints seem to be more subjective than objective. I suppose that's just how it goes though. 

[Aanchir]

I can understand the diversity complaints, which doesn't really bother me since I'm not going to get a lot of the sets this year due to budget issues, but I'm not really understanding the coherent or purposeful complaints. I think Tahu 2016 looks way better than 2015, if anything his 2015 incarnation was way less coherent with the ugly exposed ball joints, gappy use of torso shells as shin armor (not a fan of that), and how the majority of his parts were reused CCBS stuff which I found really boring and made him lack character. Also you could see his gear box from the front view which looked pretty bad.  All the new parts  and use of technic pieces like bohrok eyes to fill out his silhouette really look great and give him a more coherent "robotic fire guy" look that fits in with the bionicle line better to me.

You definitely don't seem to understand what I mean by "coherent". The definition of "coherent" is "unified, sticking together" or "orderly, logical, and consistent". The 2015 Tahu wasn't flawless in my book (in fact, he might've been my least favorite of the 2015 Toa), but he was definitely more coherent than the 2016 version. He used consistent textures, colors, and motifs which were spread out effectively throughout his design. By contrast, the 2016 Tahu has a different texture on pretty much every part of his body. The texture on his thighs is different than the texture on his lower legs, which is different than the texture on his shoulders, which is different than the texture on his forearms (the last of which is the only thing that really stayed consistent from 2015 to 2016 versions, aside from him being taller than all the other Toa).

 

Color-wise, the new Tahu uses only three Bright Red pieces — the mask and the shells on his shins. His hands, feet, and head are all entirely different colors, not the same silver color like they were in this year's version, which I felt reinforced the robot look way more than a bunch of extraneous textures do. Because real robots aren't cluttered with useless detail — just look at Robonaut or Asimo.

 

What's more, 2015 Tahu felt very purposeful to me. The flared armor on his shoulders and legs, while it did make the back of his legs gappy, resulted in a loose, angular look that contrasted with the tightly bundled-up look seen on Kopaka, mirroring the contrast in their environments. He wasn't just using a bunch of different greeble parts because they were available, but rather using parts selectively because they fed into a look that was a lot more specific than just "robotic fire guy".

 

Things like the exposed ball joints on the sides of the torso really have nothing to do with how coherent a model is. And personally, those didn't even bother me that much, because unlike on the Creature of Fire where the exposed ball joints stick out, the exposed ball joints on Tahu didn't stick out markedly further than his chest plate. Instead, they actually helped fill the space between his chest plate and shoulders that would have otherwise been empty. The 2016 Tahu attempts to use Bohrok eyes to perform a similar function, but from what I've seen it's possibly even less effective. Unlike the ball joints, these Bohrok eyes DO stick out awkwardly from the sides of the chest, and don't even fully close up the gap between his chest and shoulders from front view.

 

In my opinion, the new Lewa and Gali are the epitome of the 2016 Toa designs, with tastefully organized color schemes, fairly consistent textures, and a number of creative design flourishes that actually help them stand out. Conversely, Tahu really exemplifies a lot of what I dislike about the 2016 Toa. Though, to his credit, he does have those Dark Azur accents that look really nice — I wish Lewa had more Bright Yellow in his color scheme so he'd have a nice contrasting color like that.

[hiddenderek]

Ah, that makes a lot more sense. I get what you mean by coherency now and see where you're coming from.  To me, the textures on his thigh, shin, and shoulders match fine and work together. They don't have to be exactly the same to match, they just have to have similar visual cues like pistons and ridges, and they do. The shoulder pieces don't have pistons, but the spikeyness of them accents the shin armor in a way. Its a lot better than his 2015 counterpart, that practically had no textures on him at all outside of his swords and armor add ons.  That was really boring and kind of made Tahu feel sort of cheap.  That's not to say other 2015 Toa felt that way, I really liked the shoulder pads on Onua 2015 as those really helped bring out some interesting textures on him. I think its the particular chest armor on tahu 2015 that does, since its so smooth and re used three times. The silver one on kopaka 2015 was a lot better.   Tahu's color scheme is much better than his 2015 counterpart too. I'm glad theres no silver on his hands and feet because the silver and gold kind of clashed on his 2015 counterpart. The lack of bright red isn't really a problem in my  opinion, as trans red kind of helps highlight the 'fire' feel to him.

 

I know real robots can be more smooth, but that's because they're designed to be cute and appealing so they're not scary or unsettling to people. This is a little bit of a different situation. They're action robots that are supposed to look cool, and to me adding a bunch of pistons and gears, even if they're nonsensically placed, just helps reinforce that.  They don't have to be placed realistically to look good, going for a more abstract angle is fine to me. I like how they all are pointing towards the print on his abdomen. Whatever that is it looks like its important robot stuff. I can understand not liking them because they're too busy though, we all have different preferences. As far as purposeful, that's just so subjective that I can't really comment much outside of that's a cool viewpoint about the angular thing, and I didn't really notice that. I think his shoulder armor is pretty angular which helps, but yeah his legs are basically two ovals. Not a huge problem for me though.  The bohrok eyes on his sides  form a shape for his whole torso, that flows into the trans red shoulder pieces. It gives the impression that his waist is very thin and stylized. Yeah they're a little gappy but they're a lot more purposeful than the exposed ball joints to me. Also, I disagree that things like exposed ball joints and gappyness aren't relevant when it comes to coherency. They can ruin the overall flow of the model, and anything that disrupts the design disrupts its consistency.

 

Overall I do agree that the 2015 Toa are better than 2016, mainly because I dislike Gail and Onua and Pohatu so much in 2016 in comparison to their 2015 designs. Although I do that Tahu and Lewa are awesome, Umarak is much better as a villain than LoSS, and the Creatures blow the protectors out of the water to the point that it isn't even funny so in the end for me the 2016 and 2015 winter waves are about even.

 

I know its silly to debate this stuff since its so based on preference but I just felt like stating why I like Tahu 2016 a lot and disagree lol, only thing bad about him for me is the silver on his mask.

Edited December 14, 2015 by hiddenderek

[fishers64]

Tahu 2016 is a gold nugget. Tahu's flame orange from 2015 wasn't much better. Lego, Tahu is red. Get him right. 

[Lyichir]

Tahu 2016 is a gold nugget. Tahu's flame orange from 2015 wasn't much better. Lego, Tahu is red. Get him right. 

 

Tahu was originally red and orange, actually—and the 2015 version had loads of red, between the three large torso shells some other, smaller shells.

To be honest, I don't mind the abundance of gold—I just hate the textures on it, as well as the fact that it's replaced mostly his red parts instead of his Trans. Fluor. Reddish Orange parts.