Subject:
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4x2ReVu: 2260 Ice Dragon Attack
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.reviews
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Date:
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Mon, 10 Jan 2011 15:37:19 GMT
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The battle against the undead and their unknown master continues. The forces
of good are pushed to extremes with several of the Sons now sent on individual
quests. Shirashi’s quest to seek assistance from the demigod Byakuya has led
him to the snow-peaked mountains of Fubuki. Through blizzards, fatigue and now
pangs of hunger (his food stores lasted until some days ago), only this morning
Shirashi awoke to the sound of ghostly whisperings prompting him up and on,
still higher into the mountain to a shrine of wings and fire he saw in a dream.
. .
The Ninjago sets initially looked like a nice attempt at a return to the old
castle/ninja theme from 1999. Unfortunately, what we’ve got is a mix of two
markets for the theme (competitive play and construction sets). I tried two of
the single figure sets which focus on the competition aspect (2111 Kai and 2114
Chopov) and was completely underwhelmed. The price seemed awfully high at $10
per figure with a minimal offering of figures and weapons.
In my opinion,
the spinning battle figures isn’t too bad of an idea but execution of the
product is poor. Figures are mounted on weighted spinners and players manually
spin the bases with a finger from each hand on each side of the base. If the
two spinning objects happen to touch each other with a certain degree of force,
one or both figures fall/pop out of the base for scoring competition.
Additionally, three or four ‘combat cards’ come with each figure to enhance the
scoring system for rounds of play.
What would really have made the concept work
(and ‘maybe’ gotten closer to worth my ten bucks) would have been to have the
bases shoot and spin from a spring-loaded launcher. As the sets are, the manual
method doesn’t provide much velocity or (more importantly) direction. You’re
going to need a fairly large surface for the battles and some really good skill
on parts of both players to have the spinners actually contact each other.
So the real subject for this review is the 2260 Ice Dragon set (which I picked
up at the same time as the other individual sets). The 2260 set is simply a
dragon construction with a ninja rider and an opposing skeleton figure. There
are no spinner bases or combat cards with this specific set.
The dragon model isn’t too bad and before getting too critical, one should
consider the difficulty in constructing something ‘organic’ from plates and
bricks. The end product here is still ‘uneven’, though, mainly because the head
and claws seem too big for the body. The wing concepts aren’t too bad but they
lend themselves better toward a skeletal dragon (hmmm..that sounds cool, has it
been done before?).
The dragon features chain element reins and a battle banner
(nice oriental touch). It launches a small rubber ball from its jaws (ala 8103
Sky Defender or the various Bionicle sphere launchers). Particularly cool
features include claws on the wing tips and horns along the tops of the wings.
Pictures of the model on the box front panel and instructions show some clear
bricks on the belly of the model which don’t actually appear in the set (parts
of a prototype or for posing? I don’t know).
The two included figures are a white ninja with black gloves and a skeleton.
The ninja sports a great torso/leg print (gold dragon) and comes with a black
katana. The skeleton figures for this theme have some odd features from
previous versions: head prints are more colorful (lips, battle scars, reddened
eyes) and the torsos sport additional studs and notches here and there like
armor bits. The torsos too are painted in some instances (sash/loin cloth) but
the legs feature the most distinct changes: the feet end in ‘blocky’ boots (most
surely to allow them to be more securely attached to the spinning bases). I
gotta say I hate the boots. Anyway, this bad bony guy comes with a goofy red
and blue jester hat and some gold ninja stars (these are cool). On the subject
of the skeleton figures, I should mention that the 2114 Chopov figure came with
a cool bit of chest/shoulder armor that slips over the neck peg.
The only particularly odd/new piece to me was a 1x2 plate with three flared
flanges that allows claws to be added to the wing tips. There were a number of
rubbery bits in this set (as opposed to the regular ABS plastic), these included
the dragon head and jaw, the orange claw tips and the gold ninja stars. There
were no stickers with this set
My ultimate opinion is that the theme has potential to offer some cool
constructions but this particular model didn’t offer enough of a quality main
model or part variety to be worth the twenty dollar price tag.
!!! 4x2ReVu Stats !!!
Rating: Two out of eight studs.
Pros: Cool ninja figure and some interesting skeletal fig
improvements/modifications.
Cons: Not worth the price. With non-menacing
models and the ‘competition’ angle, the theme is obviously directed at a young
age group (6-10 years old) but even 6-10 year olds deserve a quality competitive
play product.
Walletwise: 158 pieces for about $20 (I’d suggest paying 12-15
bucks for this particular set).
Date: 1/19/11
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: 4x2ReVu: 2260 Ice Dragon Attack
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| (...) I haven't tried this a lot, but we tried spinning them several times at each other, and also spinning them at stationary objects. And out of about maybe 20 total spins (on two different bases), I have YET to have a figure pop out of the base. (...) (13 years ago, 10-Jan-11, to lugnet.reviews, FTX)
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