LEGO Smart Play Pokémon review: A huge step in the right direction
Pokémon is the latest global mega-brand to receive the LEGO Smart Play treatment, following in the footsteps of Star Wars. And I’ve built one of the sets already!
If you missed the Star Wars launch earlier in the year, which served to introduce the concept of Smart Play to people around the globe, allow me to catch you up quickly.
Smart Play sets are LEGO kits that have electronic, interactive elements. By utilising a Smart Brick — which can sense other pieces and react accordingly with sound effects and flashing lights — these sets encourage hands-on play, once the all-important building is finished.
When I reviewed the X-Wing set from the Star Wars Smart Play range earlier in the year, I asked in the headline, "It’s great fun, but who is it for?"
The point I was getting at is that kids don’t need to be encouraged to play, while adults are mainly buying LEGO with an eye to displaying it on a shelf. Do the flashing lights and sound effects really work for either party?
In the time since writing that review, I’ve also come to notice that the Smart Play X-Wing doesn’t look amazing on display. The other kits I’ve made recently — like the mini Millennium Falcon and the Game Boy set — were clearly built with display in mind, complete with stands that help you prop them up at nice angles. But the Smart Play X-Wing looks flat as a pancake on my shelf.
I’ve been meaning to fashion a little stand for the X-Wing myself, using some spare bricks, to jazz it up a bit. But until I get around to that, I can actually barely see the X-Wing on its shelf from my vantage point on the sofa.
Before I get into anything else, allow me to say that the Charizard and Jolteon set that I built, from the Smart Play Pokémon range, is already a vast improvement on the X-Wing in terms of how it looks on the shelf. Can you see what I mean from the image below?
Both of these iconic critters, now in brick form, have a decent amount of height to them, and their posable parts give you plenty of options to position them at an angle that works for you.
Charizard and Jolteon’s limbs and tails are all posable, while you can also move Charizard’s wings and Jolteon’s ears to your heart’s content. They’re also just good-looking sets, bringing a flash of colour to the space that’s sorely lacking in my other bits on display.
Plus, and this is a nice touch, both of these creatures come with spare parts that allow you to fully cover up the gap where their Smart Brick slots should go.
These are a little bit awkward to remove, when you do want to get the Smart Brick in there, but they ensure that your Pokémon collection looks absolutely perfect on display. You wouldn’t know these were from a Smart Play set if you were just sitting there on the sofa looking at them.
View Green Video on the source websiteOn visuals alone, then, I’m very happy to recommend this kit. It’s a huge step forward on the Star Wars sets in terms of how happy it makes me to behold it in my living room.
And, as building projects go, this was right in the sweet spot between 'too much effort' and 'not enough to do'. At 751 pieces, spread across seven bags, it took me a few sittings, but never outstayed its welcome as a project.
Plus, if you were making this set in a household containing more than one LEGO fan, the bags are split in such a way that you could take one Pokémon each and build them entirely separately, only coming together at the end for an epic battle. Actually, speaking of battles…
What about the Smart Play features, I hear you cry? In this set, which is titled SMART Play: Charizard vs. Jolteon Ultimate Battle, most of the Smart Play features are geared around battling.
The actual battling mechanic was one of my only letdowns with this set, sadly. It essentially amounts to charging the Pokémon at one another, which will result in some sound effects occurring if you line up your hits accurately.
Although it’s great to have examples of screen-free play in this day and age, relying on the lighting on the Smart Brick to see which Pokémon has the most health is a pretty clunky mechanic, and I was never really sure if I was actually doing the battling ‘right’.
It’s hard to imagine younger players actually spending much time in this mode playing with it ‘properly’, but they’ll probably enjoy hearing the battle music that plays when you start up a bout. It’s pretty awesome.
The non-battling Smart Play features were a bit more charming. You can use a Potion on your critter of choice to heal them up, or you can even lay down your Pokémon for a snooze and hear them gently snoring. You can also wave Charizard around and hear his wings flapping, which is cool to behold.
As an adult without kids, I’m definitely not the target market for these features, but I enjoyed building this set and love how my Pokémon look on my shelf. I can also imagine myself taking them down from time to time to show any nerdy guests all the bells and whistles.
If that sounds like enough enjoyment, for you, to justify the not-outrageous-for-LEGO price tag of £109.99, I say go for it!
LEGO Smart Play’s Pokémon range is out now, and you can browse the whole collection on the LEGO website.
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