Review: 71315 Quake Beast

Posted by TheOneVeyronian, 22 Jul 2016 16:00

Next up in my reviews of the Summer 2016 BIONICLE sets is Quake Beast, the second of the three Elemental Beasts in this wave. Quake Beast, like the other Elemental Beasts, is one of Umarak’s corrupted summons, called upon to attempt to defeat the Toa. Quake Beast is a crystalline monster who can dig the ground to create ambushes and use his crystal hammer arm to create earthquakes and spread fear throughout Okoto.

Measuring 26cm high and 13cm wide when upright, though the height is exaggerated by its crystal shoulder blades, Quake Beast is still shorter than many of the Toa but my first impressions upon seeing the set were good even if it reminded me of 44005 Bruizer, both in aesthetics and in general concept. Quake Beast retails for £9.99/$14.99 and contains 102-pieces, which is very reasonable especially as it comes with a few rare and exclusive parts. But is Quake Beast more than just a Bruizer rip-off, and did Quake Beast rock my world?

The box

Quake Beast’s box is in the typical G2 BIONICLE hexagonal style and is the size of a typical medium G2 BIONICLE set. The front of the box Quake Beast in a cave-like environment doing what he does best – smashing stuff and causing earthquakes, leaving deposits of a corrupted slime-like substance on everything he touches. In the background on the far right, you can spot a maskless 71309 Onua, who has succumbed to Quake Beast’s attack and thus explaining why Quake Beast has Onua’s mask in its shoulder trap. There are no rendering errors on Quake Beast’s box and it is possible to put Quake Beast into its box pose.

What I really like about Quake Beast’s box in particular is how they have solved the problem of displaying Quake Beast in its entirety, including its long crystal shoulder blades. Instead of cutting them out completely or having the blades conflict with the BIONICLE lettering, instead the graphic designer here has showed Quake Beast’s blades piercing through the top banner, which I really like for its cleverness and allows Quake Beast to occupy more space on the front of the box.

The back of the box advertises the prominent features of the set, including Quake Beast’s punching feature, the shoulder trap and the mask pop-off function. It also shows that Quake Beast combines with the other Beasts and Umarak the Destroyer to create an “ultimate” Umarak. The comic on the back illustrates Quake Beast being summoned and storming out of a cave to confront Onua and Terak. This comic sets the scene presented on the front of the box nicely and helps top set the scene for a wide range of play scenarios, especially if you also have 71309 Onua and 71304 Terak.

Parts and build

Quake Beast, like the other Elemental Beasts, is a mix of CCBS and Technic and if black and trans-purple are your thing, you will almost definitely find Quake Beast of interest as a parts pack as it features plenty of rare trans-purple pieces. The LEGO.com inventory for this set shows all the parts you can expect to get with Quake Beast.

The exclusive and rare parts featured in Quake Beast are as follows:

Parts and re-colours exclusive to Quake Beast:

Rare parts (appears in 5 sets or less):

Many of the parts that are not “rare” are useful Technic and CCBS pieces, most of Quake Beast’s parts are easily re-usable in Technic or CCBS MOCs.

After Quake Beast “steals” Onua’s Mask of Earth, it is corrupted and the result of the corruption can be seen in the most collectible aspect of this set. Corrupted masks like this, which are the Toa’s colour (in this case black) blended with trans-neon green to represent them being corrupted, are the Beast’s equivalent of the Skull Army’s drained golden masks which appeared last year. Onua’s corrupted mask is easily my favourite of the corrupted Toa masks, the black and trans-neon green blend very well and it is by far the easiest of the three corrupted Toa masks to re-use in MOCs, given black is a neutral colour.

As I have said before, I do not necessarily like to think the Beast’s faces are masks, however in all material LEGO has published regarding Quake Beast, including the set description, the Beast’s face is considered as a mask and so should be considered as such. The Beast mask carries on the aesthetic of the jaw piece and has a rocky texture – a perfect fit for Quake Beast. The mask also looks decidedly beast-like. In the case of Quake Beast’s mask, the purple and trans-neon green blend quite well and compliment each other nicely, however the use of solid purple in the mask has implications for the model as a whole, which I will touch upon later.

One thing I like about the Elemental Beasts is that they each have a different build from both the Toa and from each other. Quake Beast is no exception. The body utilises a torso bone first seen in this year’s Star Wars buildable figures, which lacks shoulder ball-joints which eradicates an issue seen in last year’s BIONICLE sets: exposed ball-joints. Quake Beast’s function would not actually fit if it used the classic torso bones as the ball-joints would cause collisions, so I am thankful that this new shoulder-less torso bone exists.

Stripping Quake Beast of his relatively few CCBS shells reveals a deliberately asymmetrical skeletal structure. Normally I would have a problem with asymmetry, but given Quake Beast needs the asymmetry for it’s crystal arm and that Quake Beast is supposed to have a rocky, irregular structure, I am okay with the asymmetry here. It helps give Quake Beast the appearance of a cobbled-together crystalline golem, which I like.

The completed model

Upon first impressions after building the model, Quake Beast lacks some proper bulk, which goes against the general aesthetic that you would expect from a crystalline golem-like creature. The crystal arm reveals most of its gaps and flaws in this standard position and looks quite skinny. Like on Storm Beast, it may have been better to use a combination of shells and this piece on Quake Beast’s crystal arm to bulk it up

Quake Beast’s custom lower legs almost mirror those of Storm beast’s lower legs, except that Quake Beast uses Hordika necks in its legs while Storm Beast uses Glatorian necks. While both custom leg builds share problems, I prefer Storm Beast’s lower legs to Quake Beast’s as Storm Beast’s legs pull off the intended look better. Quake Beast’s legs are however better and sturdier than those of Lava Beast.

Quake Beast’s side view is not bad, in that there are relatively few gaps in the torso build, however it does illustrate how Quake Beast’s function impacts on the aesthetic quality of Quake Beast. The function looks almost tacked-on and from an aesthetic point of view, it does not look good.

From the back, the model is extremely bare. The only thing that covers Quake Beast from behind is the gearbox function, and the resulting asymmetry results in a rather messy-looking back which is not easy to fix or clad with extra shells or Technic panels without completely redesigning the function structure.

This GIF illustrates Quake Beast’s main function. By rotating a crank handle found on Quake Beast’s back, Quake Beast’s arm will move back and forth in a punching motion. While not as innovative as Storm Beast’s “puppet” function, there is some innovation which I like, mainly the use of a gearbox positioned sideways which differentiates Quake Beast’s function from that of a Master Toa, Skull Villain or Ekimu, or indeed any Constraction figure that utilises a gearbox beam. The crank acts like a lever, so when you use Quake Beast’s function it results in quite a powerful swing, you have to make sure you are holding Quake Beast down firmly as it will fall down when the function is used. In terms of function concept, Quake Beast is just second to Storm Beast in this wave, and is certainly effective, though the effectiveness of the function sadly does come at the cost of the model’s aesthetics.

Quake Beast does pull a wide variety of poses off really well despite head poseability being restricted by the way it is mounted on the model. The function has a good amount of friction so Quake Beast’s crystalline arm will not flop about very much whilst attempting to pose it. In fact, getting Quake Beast to pull some threatening poses improves certain aspects of its aesthetics, mainly of the crystalline arm as posing this arm so that the crystalline shells are touching does help to give more of an illusion of bulk and helps cover up gaps in the arm. The jaw piece is static and cannot be easily modified to provide movement though, but this is a problem with the piece rather than a problem with Quake Beast, as all the Beasts and Umarak The Destroyer share the jaw problem.

There are a few aesthetic choices on Quake Beast I do like though. I do like the position of the Shadow Trap on Quake Beast’s left shoulder as it helps fill out that area as well as hint at the corrupted “abomination” that Quake Beast is supposed to be. While its clawed hand is quite simple in build, I do like it for what it is and I always appreciate poseable fingers in sets like this. The hand is also perfectly capable of holding masks and certain objects as well.

Conclusion

Somehow, Quake Beast, while I like the concept and certain areas of the model, the amount of aesthetic flaws the model has makes it fall short of my expectations, which is a shame as I was prepared to really like this model. At £9.99/$14.99 for 102-pieces, many of them either exclusive, rare or useful, it is however good value for money especially in the UK if you are considering Quake Beast as a parts pack.

Out of the three Beasts, I feel that, all things considered, Quake Beast is the worst of them. He is a great parts pack and I love using the function, but it suffers badly from poor aesthetic choices. I would be hesitant to recommend Quake Beast as a model for display, but as a parts pack, you cannot go wrong with getting a Quake Beast. If you are a completist, Quake Beast will round out the Summer wave nicely and if you are a MOC’er with an affinity for purple, Quake Beast will serve you well for parts, If you are not a BIONICLE completist or a MOC’ist, leave Quake Beast on the shelf and go for Storm Beast or Ekimu instead.

A big thanks to The LEGO Group for providing this set for review, so it goes without saying that this review is an expression of my own thoughts and opinions.

11 likes

2 comments on this article

By PicnicBasketSam in United States, 22 Jul 2016 16:42

When pictures first surfaced, this guy was my favorite 2H16 set... because the official pictures are carefully manipulated to not show any gaps whatsoever. But I really don't like him... he just looks so very incomplete, and the function isn't good enough to justify it. Skull Basher did the same job with both arms and looked much, much better.

By Aanchir in Canada, 22 Jul 2016 16:43

I agree with your conclusion. Quake Beast is certainly my least favorite of the three beasts. I like the concept of a lumbering beast with one giant crystal arm, but the function is awkward, the arm feels sort of scrawny, and there are generally a lot of gaps. I actually think Bruizer from Hero Factory pulled off the "rock golem" concept a lot better.

Bruizer was even superior functionally, IMO, because even though the right arm had no articulation, that meant you didn't have to reset the arm every time you used it to bash something, whereas if this guy hits anything, the arm will recoil and you'll have to set it back in a bashing position. To top things off, Quake Beast has an annoying tendency to bash himself in the face with the crystal shell on his shoulder! It's neat that he does a right hook instead of a more usual downward thrust or uppercut, but I don't think it's worth all these disadvantages.

The one place this guy does shine is the color scheme — the yellowish green and purple really go well together, and the pink chest pattern actually looks pretty cool. His short stature is also kind of neat compared to most other Bionicle figures this year, making him look less like a crystal giant and more of a crystal dwarf or troll.

Crystal Beast and all the beasts do look better in The Journey to One, in part due to more crystals being added to fill in their gaps.

Thanks for the review!