Danska: Shadow Master

I checked out my local toy store the other day to see if they had any interesting new LEGO sets. I was surprised to find that over half the Bionicle sets on display were from last year, both winter and summer waves, and that they were at the bottom of the shelf with little prominence. Assuming this is at all indicative of things elsewhere, I can't say this news comes as too much of a surprise.

I've not enjoyed Gen 2 nearly as much as Gen 1 mostly due to what was, in my opinion, a thin and disappointing story. I was also less than impressed with this years sets. Saying that, I really enjoyed the Journey to One episodes, and wish there had been more story to go with them (four episodes in a year with nothing in between or after leaves a lot of dry spells). I also really liked last year's sets, and had very much hoped for at least a third year for the line.

While I may not have liked this gen so much, I shall still be sad that Bionicle is one again gone from store shelves. Perhaps they'll try again in another five years.

I'm not a fan of 3D at the best of times, even less so for animated films. It adds nothing of any real value to a film, and is often more distracting than anything else.

I'd like to think my avatar is fairly recognisable! It's the golden sleepy one himself. As to it's purpose? I must confess to using it as advertising for my kit.

I'd honestly forgotten I had Ekimu as my avatar when I came into this topic. I thought it was a penguin.

Having been a fan of Slizers and Roboriders, I got very excited when I first saw Bionicle in the LEGO magazine. They were more human looking, had awesome weapons and cool masks/elemental powers/personalities. As soon as story details started coming out (again in the LEGO Magazine and in the first comic) I thought it was amazing! It was one of those stories that absolutely felt epic. Plus there were collectable masks, and that's too much temptation right there. I'm sure I'd have so much more money if not for Bionicle, but you know what? I regret nothing!

I wonder how you would manage skopio?

Now that's a very good question, and one I doubt I'll be able to answer anytime so-

Now where did that come from? Well, this is a most strange and fortuitous occurrence. And I suppose the buildable sprite may well have turned up in the kit, too. Wouldn't that be a crazy random happenstance?

Behold, the slicers of skulls, with limbs and claws and all sorts of things designed entirely to make my life difficult!

And with that, may I present a Brand New Kit!

LoSS and Skull Scorpio are still to go, but I figured I've been hanging onto that long enough. It is at last released into the wild!

I hope so! I'm working on Skull Slicer and all his annoying flailing limbs right now, then I may attempt Skull Scorpio and LoSS. After that, I want to try and put together a Toa Edition type thing for CCBS. It'll likely be missing a lot of HF stuff (particularly weapons and helmets), but it should make it possible to put together most basic figures, at least!

Progress is rather slow, but the plan is there. All hail the plan!

 

 

Phantoka and Mistika were great... why would they be guilty pleasures?

BECAUSE THEY HAVE GRAY AND THE MASKS AREN'T THE SAME !!!!1!!1111

 

To be fair, two of the Mistika Toa had backwards Piraka torsos, and That's Terrible.

 

But yeah considering that the original Nuva were garbage, the fact that the 2008 Toa don't look anything like them seems to me to be their strongest point. But eh. Opinions.

 

WHAT?? Sir, how dare you!

Personally, I really liked the Avtoran/Agori/Stars. Absurdly simple builds, yes, but easy and fun to play with. Though the sets with the right-angled limbs were a bit annoying.

I also loved the Glatorian (the Legends, not quite so much). Yes, it was the fourth year in a row of Inika builds, but I think the Glatorian did a great job with them. Just look at Strakk! Even the more traditional ones, Gresh and Tarix, were things of beauty. I think a lot of it may be down to them finally injecting some colour into the sets, but I like the whole bunch.

Matatu. I've always wanted telekinesis! I could be so lazy it would be amazing!

Vakama: What's this 'Keetongu' you keep going on about?

Norik: I don't know, but I Hordikan help

I doubt I'll be saying anything surprising by going for the Kardas Dragon. Ultimate Dume is pretty good, mind, and I'll always have a soft spot for the original Toa Kaita. I can still remember how to build them by heart.

All the 2009 sets (including Toa Mata Nui). I think I had the entire Winter wave, but I'm sure I missed some of the Summer ones and all the large sets.

The Codrex, like everybody is saying. I'd also venture to say that possibly the uninhabited islands from the MU's southern areas (Mata Nui's legs). If they were just rocky islands, then there really isn't anything to really destroy, is there?. As for what we know is certainly destroyed, Metru Nui. Metru Nui is beyond a doubt, gone. 

They were also basically ignored by most of the inhabitants. I doubt they'd expend much effort exploring places they considered insignificant at best, terrifyingly dangerous at worst, on the off chance they contained important things to salvage when there's so much else to take.

Actually, I bet someone thought it sounded like a great adventure.

*checks set* *checks sprite* You are quite correct! Thanks for pointing that out. It should be fixed now. Glad you like the kits.

New content indeed! And I think we can agree it's about time!

Another slight addition - I've added Skull Scorpio's mask and solid gold versions of all the masks.

I'm currently working on the summer sets, as my avatar and the image (edit: images) below will show.

Well it makes a change from animals, which is what most of Gen 1's villains were themed around. They even managed to give the '08 Makuta animal themes!

Of course we still have Skull Spiders (and their Lord and master), and Skull Scorpio, but they're also undead which is completely different, right?

I'm wondering if skeletons/undead things might become a recurring theme in Gen 2, like animal-inspired villains were, or whether they'll mix it up more.

Picked up Mask Maker vs Skull Grinder a few days back. It finally seems to be appearing in shops (though I've yet to see any of the other Skull villains, oddly). Mask of Creation! =D

A heads-up to anyone paying attention, I've finally updated the 2015 kit! I've fixed a few errors, updated all the limbs and added Ekimu, the Mask of Creation and whatever mask it is Skull Grinder wears. Oh, I've also added corrupted and trans versions of all the Toa's masks.

Enjoy!

2002. The Bohrok remain some of my favourite sets, the Exo-Toa was magnificent and I found the story really interesting. Still simple, but adding increasing depth to everything we knew (or thought we knew). It was also interesting seeing the desperate measures people resorted to in order to stop the Bohrok rampaging through their homes.

What vexes me is that I think I had a vague sense of them being half organic, half robotic back in 2002 when I first got into the line, but for the life of me I cannot think of what source of information would lead me to think that.  Just the fact that they needed to breathe in the comics or that they acted like humans in MNOLG1?

 

Obviously the nature of their biology wasn't something the early storyline delved into, but it was still clear pretty early on that they weren't quite robots.

I think at some point, the Bohrok were described as being "not truly alive", and it was definitely known that they were fully mechanical (hence no cries of Zomg murdurz!11! when they were torn apart to make the Boxor). At the time this was definitely meant to be in contrast to the inhabitants, so we could deduce from this that the island's inhabitants were, at the very least, not fully mechanical.

I was going to use the example of the Matoran rebuilding themselves in '03 to show that we knew they were at least party mechanical, but then I remembered the Toa were doing that right back in '01 both when they landed and to become the Toa Kaita.

So while it may have taken a while for things to be set in stone, we seemed to know from at least as early as '02, possibly from the very start, that they were biomechanical in nature. I'd like to say I can remember for certain knowing they were biomechanical back then (and I am fairly certain), but alas my memory is not as reliable as I would like. *staggers off complaining about "you young'uns" and all that*

Always liked Lewa's old Air Katanas, even if they did get quite overused. I guess that's inevitable with such a simple, elegant piece though.

Does anyone know when sets are supposed to start appearing in UK stores? They've been online for a while, but I'd like to know when I'll be able to wander into a shop and just pick one out. I've checked a few places and nowhere seems to have them yet.

Takanuva 08 for me, definitely. One of the largest, sturdiest and most well built Bionicle sets out there that also looks great!

Runners up would be Maxilos & Spinax, and the Exo-Toa.

Seeing as Lewa's my favourite Toa, that's not much of a contest. Good old unfortunate, slightly clumsy Lewa, with his tendency to get mind controlled by whatever happens to be in the neighbourhood that day.

Favourite: 2002. Call me nostalgic, but I thought that year was great. The year expanded on everything that made 2001 great - the setting, the mystery, the Toa, and we got to see a brand new, dangerous enemy rampaging around as the Toa desperately try to stop them. The comics were great, and I really enjoyed the web animations and online updates. Plus, the Bohrok were amazing sets. So fun to play with, and an easy storage method for when you need to put them away! It was also the year of the Exo-Toa, so many bonus points there.

Least favourite: 2006. After the enormous, varied and fascinating setting of Mata Nui and the sprawling metropolis of Metru Nui, we got...a barren island that was almost exclusively used as a battleground, a trait that sadly continued until the series ended. The characters, I felt, were very weak this year, again serving the main purpose of getting into fights. The Piraka were an attempt at Bionicle gangsters? Really? And the over dramatic advertising was laughable. While I'd say the story was rather lackluster, the sets did introduce us to the world of full articulation, although the gimmicky use of light-up elements and weird rubber faces was...odd. I also think the enormous width and lack of depth of the Piraka/Inika torsos looks really odd and silly, but they still made for good sets.