hiddenderek

I'm satisfied with the sets i got. I have like 20 gen 2 sets so i wont get bored of them anytime soon. 

Im  mostly just worried about the community quickly dying off over the course of the next year and not seeing any more cool MOCS. How inactive was this place in 2013?

dangit, all I wanted was a titan makuta set and i would have been satisfied with this generation. Oh well, the story sucked but the sets we got were cool. 

The ones I got will have a spot on my shelf for a long time

Yeah we dont need a confrontational title like that, and this topic has already been discussed to death really. 

That being said I'll have my two cents

I like gen 2 better for the sets so far, gen 1 had too many clone sets and i wasnt a fan of the over use of dark, muted colors in the later sets. Also the building system wasn't as coherent as CCBS. Gen 2 has a much more sophisticated building system thats more in the spirit of Lego due to the modular nature of it. Gen 1's building system was more specialized, due to things like dedicated limb and torso pieces. CCBS has those as well in the form of armor shells, but due to the non specialized nature of them they can be used for just about anything and placed anywhere. In my opinion the brighter color schemes and use of transparent parts are far more interesting (although some sets use too much gold or silver but its better than too much metru red or blue to me).  Also the set designs themselves have more variety than most of the gen 1 waves while still having a clear visual theme that unites them all unlike, say, the phantoka Toa. And they integrate functions far better than any of the gen 1 toa sets really. The plastic quality is much better for gen 2 as well. No more rubbery or scratched up pieces. 

When it comes to story though gen 1 is much better, gen 2 is your typical toy line tie in story really. But we're only 1.5 years in, that could easily change if it goes on for another 3 or 4 years. Who knows. 

I really don't like them. Gen 2 is so much better about this. Anachir hit the nail on the head on my feelings of them. As a kid i didn't care though cause i could only afford to get 2 or 3 of each wave but as an adult its so boring and repetitive. Waves like the Toa metru seem so boring and drab compared to 2015 or even 2016. The over use of dull colors like dark red and blue in later years just added to the drabness and sameyness. CCBS does a great job adding variety to different figures while not needing a bunch of new molds since you can put armor add on pieces anywhere and rotate the CCBS shells in 8 different orientations on a single connection. And its compatible with gen 1 parts so you can get cool custom limb builds using older parts if you want to, as seen with this year.  So basically its the best of both worlds.I think for the most part the 2016 did a good job but it wasn't quite as good as 2015 due some articulation issues. If anything the main thing holding them back is having to be compatible with all the creatures and thus limiting their height and shape. Next year I'd imagine we'll go back to more variety for the Toa, assuming they dont do the uniting gimmick again. But still as it stands, even though the 2016 toa have less variety than the 2015 ones, they're still miles better to me as a whole than the first 5  or 6 years of gen 1. 

 

I need visual help for 2016 Lewa, im considering getting him but i cant find any images that can show how much elbow limitation he has. I have Lego Digital Designer installed on my laptop and can build it according to the 2016 manual for lewa i got online but LDD is not the best for testing arm poseability on his build.

 

So is what i ask is simple, can anyone rearrange a lewa arm in the configuration shown in my image(like the one on the right without vorox armor on) and show me how much the "elbow area piece" can move even with limitations and vorox armor reattached?

 

Image

Lewa's arm posability is actually quite good, but to understand it, it's best not to think of it like other arm builds. LDD is also not good for visualization (since the Vorox armor is much more rigid in LDD than in real life and most poses involve angling his arms along multiple axes at once), so if you have any Vorox armor from G1 it can be helpful to build a physical mock-up.

 

In particular, the Vorox armor should not actually be facing straight to the sides in all poses. Rather, it ends up angled back (the extent of this varies depending on the pose, but it rarely faces a full 90° to the side). With the upper arms positioned as such, the lower arms can bend forward and back fairly freely, since the lowest point of the Vorox armor essentially ends up behind the joint. The lower arm shells similarly should be angled back—the crystal add-ons work best as elbow pads rather than covering the sides of his arms. This is something that surprised me when I got the set, since I had intended to rotate the lower arm shells to give his arms more motion but realized that the way the set has them built gives him some arm protection that is well-suited to his dual-sided weapons. Also, because of how his arms are built, his arms can't be raised from his sides to a vertical angle like you can on most figures—rather, you have to swing his arms forward as you raise them. Believe it or not, that's actually slightly more realistic in terms of motion—try raising your own arms with them angled straight from your sides and you'll find that it's very difficult to get them much farther than a horizontal 90° angle!

 

Thing is, even at a 90 degree angle they still look very odd. The shoulders just look terrible when he's not pointing his arms downwards due to them jutting upwards as a result of the irregular shoulder connection. So yeah the articulation is generally okay but due to the way the shoulders are connected it can look very strange and awkward at times. 

Judging this on the new Brick Show video of the summers sets:

Lava beast's head looks so awkward gappy and weird. Only thing good about him is his hands. Storm beasts articulation is absolutely terrible (seriously, no elbows?), only one thats grown on me is quake beast, he's not very gappy, and has an interesting build (Sideways gearbox? Whaaat?) but he still looks super messy compared to the rest. Can't really say for sure that I'll get any of the beast. Can't say much for umarak since he's posed like ######, ekimu still looks okay but has way too much trans blue.

 

Anyone have a good mod of lewa's shoulders that keeps his look the same but fixes the terrible articulation? I tried rotating them 90 degrees to be more like Gali and pohatu's construction but it doesn't look quite as good.

To be honest, the articulation isn't terrible. I'm currently messing around with him next to a standard HF skeleton build and there's hardly a single pose that the latter can pull off and the former can't—and the few that exist are mostly unrealistic ones I can't even achieve with my own arms. I had a lot of mods in mind for Lewa before I got him, and when he did finally arrive I found that not only did some of them fail to improve him, but all of them were unnecessary in the first place. I had even planned to rotate the lower arm armor, only to discover that the way he's built in the instructions makes the crystal shell details into elbow pads that work extremely well with his double-bladed weapons. All in all he's quite a limber figure despite his shoulder build being unprecedented.

 

Thing is, in order to get a basic pose with his arms down you have to angle the shoulders way back due to the axel the shoulder ball joint is attached to getting in the way. And don't get me started on any pose where his arms are lifted up, a simple T pose looks terrible since his shoulders are way up. Basically you have to have his upper arms down and  angled back in order to get any decent poses, and you can, but you basically have to fight the articulation to get something good.

Buy any of the sets that I like. So far i have all of the 2015 toa, one protector, Skull Basher, Skull Warrior, MM vs SG, Tahu, Onua, Lewa (Uniters), and Ikir. 

so i guess im not really collecting, since collecting implies you're buying them for completion sake or something. 

Anyone have a good mod of lewa's shoulders that keeps his look the same but fixes the terrible articulation? I tried rotating them 90 degrees to be more like Gali and pohatu's construction but it doesn't look quite as good. 

What's your favorite gen 2 mask? I'd have to give it to the mask of creation. Its just so detailed and well designed. May be my favorite mask ever. Second would probably be Tahu 2016, it just screams Tahu. Looks a lot nicer than his 2015 one, since there's no heavy jaw line. Some may  miss that but i wasn't a fan. Third might be Kopaka 2015, although that may be because its the closest to his original mask out of all the 2015 toa. 

They handled it much better than the movies did in my opinion. Keeping the look the toys have while slightly updating them to be more appealing and expressive, instead of radically redesigning them with a weird asthetic and giving them mouths.

Aanchir, on 26 Jan 2016 - 1:01 PM, said:

I actually quite like the interplay between the detailed character designs and the more expressive backgrounds and effects. The backgrounds are reminiscent of the ones from last year's webisodes, which adds a nice feeling of consistency from year to year, but now with more dimension to them so the 3D Toa don't feel totally out of place.

I definitely like that the Toa are set-like, but just stylized enough to feel more lifelike. For instance, Tahu's Bright Red and Tr. Flu. Reddish Orange parts are basically treated as the same color in the animated version, and his hips and thighs are a lot less bony. It is a bit frustrating though that subtler details like the runes on the Toa's masks aren't as noticeable in this style.

I do kind of wonder whether the Toa's masks will be able to convey emotion as well as the more stylized 2D designs used in last year's webisodes. So far we've mostly just seen action scenes that don't really do a good job showing that, but if we see the Toa having an actual conversation, I would want to be able to see what they're feeling.

Cheaper? If anything the new bionicle is much more high quality. The plastic was all over the place in gen 1, some pieces were great, others were rubbery, and others felt really hollow and weird (like all the weapons that had a lighter silver color). In gen 2, just about every piece has rock solid plastic quality. I really appreciate that. Also, the builds are much more interesting. Lots of gen 1 waves had the same builds throughout with little variation outside of recolors and different weapons, now you have much more technic parts and varied builds. Yeah the masks are the same for the smaller sets, but just look at all the creatures. Each one has a very different build and a different function, and in my opinion that more than makes up for the lack of unique masks. I do wish we would get a proper 'titan' set soon, seems like we could with Umarak the Destroyer though. 

I do agree the story so far is terrible though and doesn't compare to the originals, but maybe that might change with the netflix series. In terms of the sets though, i think these are the best yet. Even the 2016 Toa, which in my opinion arent as consistent as the 2015 ones (only Onua and Lewa look good to me by themselves), visually look better than most gen 1 waves. Although maybe thats because i just don't like the technic pinhole  induced gappyness and muted "metru" colors that came with all the later sets. 

Hmm deciding between Onua and Umarak. Umaraks cool, but something about him just seems boring to me. Can't place my finger on it. Maybe its that Skull Warrior already had a bow and Skull Basher already did the horned thing. And the gappy shoulders and legs are a little weird. But his color scheme is great and I like how big he is.  Onua looks really cool though and I like the giant drill. Not much I see wrong with him.  Hmm....

Honestly? Just when it comes to what you get out of the box and completely removing the time periods and nostalgia, all of the Toa Nuva and then following is the 2001 toa. Both of these waves had terrible articulation, a very boring build, a huge, clunky torso piece that is extremely specialized, and a function that doesn't work well and makes the articulation even worse (not enough friction on the gears so the arms just fall down.) The Nuva are worse than the 2001 sets in my opinion cause they're barely even an upgrade, the sets are basically the same with some silver armor tacked on and ugly masks (besides Kopaka). While many later sets were  much uglier than the 2001 sets (I actually think the 2001 sets particularly Onua and Kopaka look great)  at least they had faaar better articulation and builds and you could actually move their arms without them flopping around.

Now, if we're just purley going by looks though and nothing else, I'd say they aren't close to being on the top 10 though. 

So my top 10 (or 12 I guess ) worst sets would be something like

1. Pohatu Nuva

2. Onua Nuva

3. Tahu Nuva

4. Lewa Nuva

5. Gali Nuva 

6. Kopaka Nuva (easily the best mask of the wave)

7. Pohatu Mata

8. Gali Mata

9. Lewa Mata

10. Kopaka Mata

 

Not to beat a dead horse, but I must give my overall gripe with the Toa torso shell for this year: It does absolutely nothing. If the piston greebles contributed to posability, I would have loved it, but overall the piece seems useless. They used a traditional torso shell combo on Umarak, but why not on the Toa? We may never know the answer...

The shell extends one module further than a regular shell, which allows for you to fit more technic stuff in the torso. Also in my opinion it just looks more interesting, even if its too busy. For some reason that upper torso add on piece just looks way too big to me and messes up the proportions of the 2015 sets. I like how the new piece slimmed down the upper section of the torso so its less exaggerated. 

I adjusted the shoulder connection point on lewa so that theres more room for articulation and looks less awkward, instead of pointing towards his back they're pointing outwards now, Also I rotated his forearms so that you can bend them further. 

Anyone else having a hard time going back to the 2015 toa after getting used to the 2016 ones? 

I know this sounds weird, but after getting used to the new sets the old ones look really awkward to me. The angular, super smooth look of the 2015 sets combined with things like the gear box pushing the arms back and the upper chest piece looking too large makes them not look as good as I remembered. I know 2016 has a lot of problems, but after getting used to some of the new sets I think they've done a lot of things right and looking back really feel like an evolution of the line.

The silver looks good when it matches the sets color scheme, like on lewa. On tahu its terrible. For MOCs id perfer solid colors since you arent as limited color scheme wise. 

Tahu's my favorite. His united form helps fix some of his proportion problems (like the head being too small) and gives him the visual flair he desperately needed. Tahu goes from mediocre to great with his united form. Lewa's united form is good too, but he was already a good set so he 'only' goes from good to great.

 

One thing I like about Uniter Tahu is he has very few main pieces that have more than two of each. I really like that.

See, that's one of the things I really dislike about him. In terms of part selection, of course, it's a boon. But it takes a heavy toll on his look. Part of why I'd consider the new Lewa to be one of the best designs is that his repetition of the Vorox armor (in addition to that armor's naturally smooth, versatile aesthetic) helps him to look like a cohesive whole. Tahu doesn't have that—the new shell detail, torso shell, and piece of unification work together okay (as they were designed to do), but the boxier look and bulkier pistons of the 2015 piston shell detail don't quite jive with those other textures, nor do the art deco lines and ragged edges of the skeleton shell detail. And they're all gold[/url]. Systematically varying the colors of a model can help even a model with contrasting textures flow together by visually separating and layering parts with differing levels and styles of detail. Tahu doesn't even get that, since the heavy use of gold forces all of those contrasting textures to compete for the viewer's attention as the outermost armor layer. Altogether he ends up looking more like he's patched together from multiple figures instead of his parts looking like they belong together.

 

I think it works fine, the 2015 piston shell works well together with the torso and the uniter piece for me, despite it being  larger. And its a nice callback to his 2015 design. The shin pieces work well  with the new sword pieces, and the texture on his shoulder armor blends with the torso piece due to all the ridges they both have. If anything the only thing that doesn't fit in my opinion is the red and yellow fire piece since they have a more angular and cartoony quality than the piston-y and ridgey quality that all the armor pieces share. And having them all be a gold color kind of helps make them blend to me more than if they were a different color, ###### i'd be fine with his shin armor being solid gold since the trans orange makes the crystal pieces stand out too much. Also, for some reason i can't pin down, most of the awkward proportion and coherency problems with him vanish when he's united with Ikir. When he's by himself he's mediocre for me, but when he's united with Ikir he looks like the best thing about all of gen 2. 

A little off  topic, but I actually really like Tahu being a gold Toa now with trans orange underneath him. It makes him feel like an armored hero thats MADE of fire, instead of a robot thats simply red. For me, transparent parts really bring out the 'fire' vibe a LOT more than red does. 

 

Just bought the new Tahu at the Barnes and Noble in Springfield, MO for any in that area wanting some sets early. They were out of Umarak, but had every other set. Well now they're out of Tahu, because I bought the last one, so every other set that isn't Tahu and Umarak.

 

Now, here are my thoughts on the set after having it in-hand:

He's... not the BEST G2 set in the world, his proportions are wonky, but they ARE more likable to me than 2015 Tahu's wonky proportions. He feels like an overall improvement, but there are things that hinder him from being my absolute favorite. That said, he is a GOOD set, in fact I feel like his character shines through better than it did in 2015. You can feel the anger of his scowl, and the firey rage seems to flow through his body. I think the set really shows off Tahu's personality. He just sadly isn't AS good proportionally or cohesively as sets like Gali Master or Umarak.

 

I should get the rest of the sets by next Friday, so expect my opinions on those as well. 

 

Edit: He's already REALLY starting to grow on me. He's extremely fun to play with (I just had him surprise skewer Kulta with his extendable fire swords), and I like to imagine that his swords are "sheathed" in their neutral position, and that when they're extended fire just shoots out. His weapons seem really brutal, and I love him for that. I also really like his leg design. I know a lot of people don't, but they really hit me in the nostalgia. Something about them just feels... right despite being weird and a no-no.

 

You should get Ikir and combine him with Tahu. It dramatically helps with his overall look and makes him look really great in my opinion. When he's united, i think he's visually the best thing about the 2016 wave.

I have to say, while Uniter Tahu isn't nearly as good as Master Tahu, in his united form he's really awesome and blows 2015 tahu away. Easily the best united form for me, and maybe one of my favorite things to come out of the reboot. Something about adding Ikir to Tahu gets rid of all the proportions and clashing texture problems for me while simultaneously giving him the visual flair and identity he desperately lacked. So good. 

I have to say, while Tahu is pretty mediocre by himself, when he's in his United form he's one of my favorite things about all of gen 2. So awesome. Yeah he's a little over designed but i kind of like that. Only think I'd like is for the creature head to 'clip' onto tahus mask so it doesn't flop around. 

I have been checking Brickseek for Target, and calling local ToysRUs stores to look for the sets. No luck yet. If anyone finds them online earlier than January first, send me a message.

Where did you find the DCPI number?