Review: 77001 Sonic's Campfire Clash
Posted by SetToBuild,
As the smallest set to feature the ‘pod launcher’ gimmick, 77001 Sonic's Campfire Clash offers kids the lowest-price chance to join in the smashing fun—but has this set gone too far, or not far enough, in stripping back what’s offered alongside it?
Summary
77001 Sonic's Campfire Clash, 177 pieces.
£17.99 / $19.99 / €19.99 | 10.2p/11.3c/11.3c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
The Sonic line’s ‘pod launcher’ gimmick continues at a new low price.
- New facial expression for Sonic
- Small set for kids who just want the shooter action
- Box of large parts feels mostly empty
- Pod launcher dominates set
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Box
It’s likely that the packaging automation process for the several large technic elements here has governed the size of this box, which is much larger than I expected for the price point. Aside from the shipping impact of this, I suspect that LEGO have to carefully balance the potential sales boost (from customers making value decisions based on first impressions of the bigger box size) with the detriment to customer satisfaction when they open a mostly air-filled box.
Minifigures
Sonic, the only figure, is much the same as his usual appearances, with the same head mould and his typical torso and leg prints. As usual, his arms and chest aren’t quite the same colour.
The only difference from past iterations of Sonic is his facial expression, a determined grimace with exposed gritted teeth. This is a bit more like the expressions Shadow and Knuckles have worn recently. The closed-mouth smirk pictured below is more typical of Sonic’s expressions.
Sonic’s ‘speed sphere’ is unchanged, bringing us back the original transparent light blue colour from the first wave of these sets in 2023.
Completed Model
The premise for this set is a little strange: don't you hate it when you are very earnestly toasting a marshmallow and you get harassed by a drone and a walking refrigerator?! Poor Sonic is just chilling at his rather lacklustre campfire, ready to be ambushed.
Sonic’s peaceful outing is disturbed by two G.U.N. Badniks. The first enemy is a simple drone, the G.U.N. Beetle which seems to be entirely automated as there’s no pilot nearby. The clear stand is provided.
The second bot is more accurately built and a little more substantial, but still only really the size of a very small polybag set. Like the other Badniks, this G.U.N. Hunter features a captured Tocky as its unfortunate power source. This little mech reminds me of creations seen in the fan-made strategy board game, Mobile Frame Zero. I like the elbow and knee decorations, despite no actual hinges being present at those joints of course.
The pod launcher’s construction is unchanged from the prior sets, so is nothing special. In fact, this year the launcher design has even forgone the printed ‘button’ (made of one half the pod) for a plain yellow one. Three rings (with clear stands) are provided for you to try and knock down with Sonic as he ‘runs’ toward the enemies.
The extras are standard, with the red 2L bar being the most interesting to me.
Conclusion
I’m a bit conflicted about this set. On the one hand, lowering the price point at which kids can get the pod launcher is a good thing, but on the other, it feels like this set is a £3.50 enemy polybag combined with a £10 Sonic pod launcher, plus a bit of unnecessary grass. That makes the £18 price (and the box size!) hard to justify to me. The enemies are cute, but are too miniature to carry the set. An additional minifigure would have greatly improved the value of this small set.
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13 comments on this article
Could we see a picture of the box in hand/banana for scale or just its dimensions because it's a little hard to figure out how big the box actually is? Regardless, I think this is a pretty nice little £15 set, which makes the price of £18 just a tad bit to high to justify a purchase.
I do like the little GUN robots though, this set looks like a good "desk filler" one where you can just fiddle with the models when you need a break from all the hard work your doing to afford these purchases!
I know I said recently the Lego Sonic range was firing on all cylinders, but I’d forgotten about this set - which as an owner of several other Lego sonic sets is a trifle hard to justify. It’s a tough sell from whatever angle you’re approaching it from, but it’s blessedly the exception rather than the rule.
Not awfully-priced (let's be clear: if it was a Star Wars set we'd be looking at £30 minimum) but not brilliant either. But at least the badnik designs look to be improving. (I guess technically these aren't badniks. I guess also they technically shouldn't have animals either, but chaos drives. Which would be much cheaper to make.)
I really want to put the drone on that little robot.
@Ridgeheart said:
"Sonic seems determined not to share warmth or food with his armour-clad critter-pals. Sonic is a bad friend.
Also, I seem to remember Sonic just flat out ending your run in one of the older games if you stood still for too long. Is that why he looks so annoyed? Is he about to just... jump off-screen, somehow?"
Yep, this happens in Sonic CD. Which might explain why Tails looks so annoyed in the Metal Sonic set?
Canonically, both of the types of robots in this set are fully automated and powered by Chaos Drives. The Gun Hunter having a compartment for an animal is thus something of an inaccuracy, presumably made as a concession to the recurring "knock the robot down to save the animal" play feature, though the execution leaves open the possibility that this robot has just captured a turtle and is transporting it in a backpack.
Incidentally, despite them being operated by an organization called GUN (Guardian Unit of Nations), the Gun Hunter, Gun Beetle, and Gun Wing (from 76999) are named in reference to the actual guns on them--there are other variations with different armaments like the Laser Hunter, Bomb Wing, and Spark Beetle. In fact the two "Wing" types are themselves Beetle variants, which makes it a little interesting to me that the LEGO Gun Beetle and Gun Wing have virtually nothing in common.
At least one more robot should have been included, if not more. Three-to-five would allow kids to set up a little "bowling alley" action that I think would've been very fun. Two just feels insufficient, and like a bit of a ploy to get parents to pick up another set.
Leave Sonic alone! He just wants to camp with some peace and quiet, not be ambushed.
The Gun Beetle is the closest we’ll get to the drones from the Sonic films.
I want an E-102 (though I understand the character was retired) built of LEGO. And a Big BigFig.
Succinct review. Direct. Like it.
This set, and the whole formula for the LEGO Sonic the Hedgehog theme sort of reminds me of JAKKS Pacific's Go Go Racers line for their Sonic the Hedgehog toys, and I'd actually say that this set almost feels like a direct improvement over that.
Basically, for twice the price of a standard JAKKS Pacific Go Go Racers Sonic set, this $20USD LEGO set provides the same play feature, but with a figure that can be articulated, and features solid models of enemies instead of a simple standee.
That said, the biggest problem I have with the LEGO Sonic the Hedgehog sets has to be the cost of entry. The cheapest sets (that aren't $10USD BrickHeadz, or $5USD keychains) are either 77001 or 76995 , both retailed for $20USD each.
For comparison, a JAKKS Pacific 2.5-inch Sonic figure only costs $5USD, a 2.5-inch Sonic playset costs around $22USD, and a 4-inch Sonic figure costs around $10-11USD.
Basically, I kind of hope that The LEGO Group takes a page out of Ninjago for the LEGO Sonic sets by making the play feature accessible in the $10USD range, similar to the Ninjago Spinner gimmick sets, as demonstrated with Ninjago Dragons Rising.
It also would help that if they were to take a page out of the Ninjago Dragons Rising gimmick sets, they can easily vary up the Minifigure selection with alternate costumes, given that the Sonic cast has worn a ton of alternate costumes over the years, with many of those alternate costumes being demonstrated through Sonic Rumble.
@Spectron256 said:
"This set, and the whole formula for the LEGO Sonic the Hedgehog theme sort of reminds me of JAKKS Pacific's Go Go Racers line for their Sonic the Hedgehog toys, and I'd actually say that this set almost feels like a direct improvement over that.
Basically, for twice the price of a standard JAKKS Pacific Go Go Racers Sonic set, this $20USD LEGO set provides the same play feature, but with a figure that can be articulated, and features solid models of enemies instead of a simple standee.
That said, the biggest problem I have with the LEGO Sonic the Hedgehog sets has to be the cost of entry. The cheapest sets (that aren't $10USD BrickHeadz, or $5USD keychains) are either 77001 or 76995 , both retailed for $20USD each.
For comparison, a JAKKS Pacific 2.5-inch Sonic figure only costs $5USD, a 2.5-inch Sonic playset costs around $22USD, and a 4-inch Sonic figure costs around $10-11USD.
Basically, I kind of hope that The LEGO Group takes a page out of Ninjago for the LEGO Sonic sets by making the play feature accessible in the $10USD range, similar to the Ninjago Spinner gimmick sets, as demonstrated with Ninjago Dragons Rising.
It also would help that if they were to take a page out of the Ninjago Dragons Rising gimmick sets, they can easily vary up the Minifigure selection with alternate costumes, given that the Sonic cast has worn a ton of alternate costumes over the years, with many of those alternate costumes being demonstrated through Sonic Rumble."
I just know the set they put Blaze the Cat in will cost me an arm and a leg.
@Ridgeheart said:
"Sonic seems determined not to share warmth or food with his armour-clad critter-pals. Sonic is a bad friend.
Also, I seem to remember Sonic just flat out ending your run in one of the older games if you stood still for too long. Is that why he looks so annoyed? Is he about to just... jump off-screen, somehow?"
at first I just thought the robots didn't know how to roast marshmallows and burned them