Review: 31175 Unicorn Castle
Posted by benbacardi,
Two castles were released as part of the current wave of Creator 3-in-1 sets, both of very different designs. We previously reviewed 31168 Medieval Horse Knight Castle, and now it's time to head up into the clouds to the mythical land with unicorns and winged horses, and brightly-coloured fairytale castles hidden in the sky, with 31175 Unicorn Castle.
The set certainly drew my eye when I first saw it, and I knew that my daughter would love the characters, colours, and design of at least the main castle build. It didn't take long to build each of the models, with only 390 parts in the entire set and far fewer used in the secondary models—not quite the smallest of the August releases, beaten by 31174 Retro Telephone by just seven pieces.
Summary
31175 Unicorn Castle, 390 pieces.
£34.99 / $44.99 / €39.99 | 9.0p / 11.5c / 10.3c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
A lovely little castle emerging from the clouds, but the set is let down by its poor alternate builds.
- Lovely castle in the clouds
- Pleasing colour scheme
- New horses and a unicorn!
- Poor alternate builds
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Unicorns and Winged Horses
The set includes no minifigures, but the castle is instead populated by three equine creatures—two winged horses and a unicorn. All three are delightful pastel colours, a theme that is carried throughout the entire set. The unicorn, I believe, is a new mould—a white body with a lilac mane that flows down one side of the neck, a smooth lilac tail, and a hole in the hair just forward of the ears that can take a unicorn horn or other accessory. It stands with its left foreleg slightly forward, the opposite of the previous horse mould. Round black eyes are printed either side of the head.
The two winged horses are shades of yellow and pink respectively, colours that haven't appeared in the small horse mould before, and their printed eyes include eyelashes. Surprisingly, the prints are different—the pink horse has two eyelashes per eye, the yellow only one.
Unicorn Castle
The main build of the set is a small castle nestled in the clouds. With fewer than 400 pieces, the model was never going to be large, but the designers have managed to create a pretty nice design with six turrets, each in a different pastel colour and with a slightly different feel. I love the overall look, and the brick-built clouds upon which the castle sits. Curved pastel steps lead up through the clouds to the entranceway, a curved archway in pale blue with gold accents.
There's very little detail inside the castle. It's open from the back, but that doesn't provide much access to anything. There's room for a unicorn or horse to stand inside the entranceway, and a golden carrot stands proud at the rear.
The tallest turret, centred in the castle, is made of shades of yellow and orange and topped with a crown. Inside, a single red gem sits beneath gold latticed windows that face forwards, and a pair of jumper tiles provide a connection point for one of the horses. Next to it sits the smallest tower as part of the main castle, in shades of green and topped with a golden unicorn horn, but empty.
The next tallest tower is shades of pink, again topped with a golden unicorn horn. This is the most detailed of the turrets, with a golden telescope poking out. Unfortunately, there's nowhere for the unicorn or horses to stand to make use of it.
Finally, a lone purple tower stands proud above a cloud independent of the main castle, accessed via a white bridge. A small yellow bird perches on a golden ledge outside the tower's tiny room.
Unicorn Ship
The second build is much smaller than the castle, and builds a "unicorn ship". It's definitely the weakest of the three, in my opinion. Many of the lovely pastel colours aren't used, and the hull of the ship has a very blocky design. The curved tiles used as the steps up to the castle are repurposed as a design on a thick white sail that hangs from the mast. A platform projects out the front of the boat where the figurehead and bowsprit should be, providing a place for one of the horses or unicorn to stand.
The back of the ship is built up like it would be on a large galleon, with purple and pink lamps hanging off the stern beneath a golden crown. A jewel also sits at the stern, outside the windows. A circular pink jumper tile represents the ship's wheel, just in front of another space available for one of the horses.
There's only room for two aboard, the ship—presumably the third must fly alongside. There's not many angles where this particular build looks very good, in my opinion—a very blocky hull, thick mast and sail, and overall odd shape.
Forest Cabin
The third and final model builds a small cabin nestled in the forest amongst multicoloured trees. The roof of the cabin is very ornate, and a small bird perches on the peak next to a little golden chimney. Outside, beside a small patch of green, a table is laid with the gold carrot, and two gems, one in a goblet.
The cabin encloses a very small space, and there are little to no details inside. There's just room for the unicorn to stand in the entrance, but it is not wide enough for the winged horses.
A small waterfall cascades from beneath the blue and pink tree. It's a pretty and cute little diorama, mostly down to the choice of pastel colours, but it doesn't quite hold up when you look closer. Are the mythical creatures eating the gems? What is the golden carrot? Is the cabin the abode of the unicorn, and the winged horses just visitors?
Verdict
As a small display model, I love the look of the castle emerging from the clouds, with its rising spires and mix of pastel colours. It's great to get a new unicorn mould, and the yellow and pink horses with their matching wings. There's not much room for play, but my daughter just wants the set to sit on her shelf alongside her other keepsakes, and I can see it fitting in well with many childrens' rooms.
However, the two alternative builds were disappointing; the ship particularly so. I appreciate the challenge the designers face with 3-in-1 sets, but I would have liked to have seen a more refined ship design and more to the cabin than provided.
The main draw of the set is definitely the primary castle build, and I suspect it will live in that form for most people who buy it—perhaps drawn in by the box art that really showcases the wonderful colours.
31175 Unicorn Castle is available at LEGO.com for £34.99 / $44.99 / €39.99.
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48 comments on this article
It immediately made me think of the alluded to (but never shown) land of Anthropomorphia from The Lego Movie 2. Definitely on the buy list.
Only LEGO is able to charge over 10 cents/piece for a non-licensed wannabe MLP set. And the part usage and colors mean that kids won't even be able to use the bricks to build something cool from it. Because apart from feeding the carrot and looking through the telescope, play value is non-existent. There are exactly 3 predefined spots to place all 3 pony's on and that's it. B and C alt builds are mediocre at best.
This is the type of set that LEGO is lately increasingly focused on, mainly display dust collectors for spoiled rich kids.
I loved My Little Pony as a kid so this is right up my alley. Very cute, very charming, love the colours. Shame the alt-builds don’t add much - one of the weakest recent 3-in-1s in that regard - but the A build and those wonderful horses are good enough by themselves.
I think it needed to be larger if they wanted to accommodate baby horses instead of minifigures. Maybe if this was twice the size and $50 it might have worked better.
I hope this unicorn foal teases an adult unicorn mold in the future!
Lego: "Foolish Hasbro. Just because you're willing to do Transformers collabs with us, you think we won't go after your MLP fanbase?"
@Mister_Jonny said:
"It immediately made me think of the alluded to (but never shown) land of Anthropomorphia from The Lego Movie 2. Definitely on the buy list."
I immediately thought of 70803. You know, from the *first* Lego Movie.
Those one-stud wing pieces will be great for minifigures. I bet we'll see them used in the next wave of collectable minifigs.
@brickwich said:
"Those one-stud wing pieces will be great for minifigures. I bet we'll see them used in the next wave of collectable minifigs."
Well, Cupid already got them, so the ponies aren’t the forebears.
Hm… now to ponder if the $45 MLP Battle Pack is a better value than the 327th Battle Pack. Interesting….
Sure, obviously, old-school MLP-vibes. But also, massive Carebears-vibes, that ship especially. Maybe we can repurpose some of the antropomorphic Vidiyo-characters into something less terrifying, or indeed, build out the Chimabuland Cinematic Crossingverse to include aerial strike-forces. Via airship. Because why not.
@TheOtherMike said:
"Lego: "Foolish Hasbro. Just because you're willing to do Transformers collabs with us, you think we won't go after your MLP fanbase?"
@Mister_Jonny said:
"It immediately made me think of the alluded to (but never shown) land of Anthropomorphia from The Lego Movie 2. Definitely on the buy list."
I immediately thought of 70803. You know, from the *first* Lego Movie."
Why not both?
@Wallace_Brick_Designs said:
" @brickwich said:
"Those one-stud wing pieces will be great for minifigures. I bet we'll see them used in the next wave of collectable minifigs."
Well, Cupid already got them, so the ponies aren’t the forebears."
I was about to say, "Um, I have news that you may or may not like..."
Very cute. Will probably pick it up sometime, but the price seems a bit much as it is.
Decent set, but an awful _Creator_ set. Good luck making anything coherent with those colors, and although the pony moulds are nice I personally feel it's just not in the spirit of Creator to put those. Even at 40 euro this feels too much like a one-off they forced into Creator instead of something that fits the theme's 3-in-1 brick built identity. Yes, it's brick-built. But it was clearly designed as a single model.
I feel the same about the recent castle, haunted house and the viking ship from earlier btw. Lego has no confidence in just making new nonlicensed themes, so it just gets smushed into the moulds of City, Ninjago or Creator now. At least Friends gets to be its own coherent thing... just don't expect anything like Elves again...
Twenty or thirty years ago, it could have been pretty big with 400 pieces!
Seeing some negative comments here and I can't exactly say they're WRONG, exactly... but I want this set and the price point isn't prohibitive, so LEGO's succeeded with me.
The odd thing though is that I'm a 38 year old male, whose LEGO fixation is fig-centric and who's never had any interest in unicorns or seen an episode of MLP. So I don't know WHY.
For a castle of the same price and more parts I think I prefer the slightly less garish 40720!
It looks nice but the price makes me lose interest
Very, very cute. Reminds me of 41196 and its color coded wings. When is the last time Lego released a set this size with minifigure animals, but no minifgures? I find it super charming. Space inside is pretty limited, and the pony molds don’t attach to jumper plates super tight, but I think the intended playability here is to fly the ponies around the house before they reconvene and brawl over the last carrot… Maybe that’s just my play style.
The Quest fof the Golden Carrot
This is not where the unicorn & pegasi live, this is where the great treasure of the golden carrot is kept.
The animals must find the chosen one in their humble cottage in the woods, get them to board ship & go on an adventure
Who said there's no play value in this?
I suspect this set will be very popular among the girls in the Friends age group and a bit younger.
@sjr60 said:
"For a castle of the same price and more parts I think I prefer the slightly less garish 40720!"
¿Por qué no los dos? I'm sorry but I have the Spanish animated feature UNICORN WARS (spoiler alert: totally not for kids) in my head ever since I started reading this article.
Some of these comments make me feel like a lot of builders haven't experienced how kids play in a long time. Figures not having many places to stand is more of a problem for display than for play—when kids are actively playing with figures they're often hopping/"swooshing" them around by hand instead of putting them in a fixed position, which a set like this looks fine for. Similarly, having a ton of varied colors is rarely an issue for kids rebuilding sets (just look at pretty much any Classic brick box and how it gets played with), especially when they're largely harmonious with one another like the candy-colored pastels in this set (which would rarely look offputting even if you were to put them together with no regard for color blocking). I think this looks like a charming little set that kids would have an awesome time with.
Candy Mountain Charlie! Candy mountain!
@AgentKallus said:
"Candy Mountain Charlie! Candy mountain!"
Unfortunately the brick-built magical liopleurodon is sold separately.
The monochrome, two-tone towers on the A build look great. The B and C look pretty muddled by comparison.
@Mister_Jonny said:
"It immediately made me think of the alluded to (but never shown) land of Anthropomorphia from The Lego Movie 2. Definitely on the buy list."
Huh. I would have expected that to be more like Fabuland or Chima, but Queen Whatever was shaped like a normal horse to fit in there. I guess an animal doesn't have to be humanoid to be anthropomorphic.
Feels kind of unfair for this 3-in-1 castle to have moulded horses. And any other colours beyond grey/gray.
What faction is this? Cool new idea to make a Castle set that is a castle in the clouds. It needs some knights though
@RogueWhistler said:
"The monochrome, two-tone towers on the A build look great. The B and C look pretty muddled by comparison.
@Mister_Jonny said:
"It immediately made me think of the alluded to (but never shown) land of Anthropomorphia from The Lego Movie 2. Definitely on the buy list."
Huh. I would have expected that to be more like Fabuland or Chima, but Queen Whatever was shaped like a normal horse to fit in there. I guess an animal doesn't have to be humanoid to be anthropomorphic."
Yeah, the definition of anthropomorphic is a pretty flexible one; Thomas the Tank Engine is anthropomorphic, but not exactly humanoid.
@Mister_Jonny said:
" @RogueWhistler said:
"The monochrome, two-tone towers on the A build look great. The B and C look pretty muddled by comparison.
@Mister_Jonny said:
"It immediately made me think of the alluded to (but never shown) land of Anthropomorphia from The Lego Movie 2. Definitely on the buy list."
Huh. I would have expected that to be more like Fabuland or Chima, but Queen Whatever was shaped like a normal horse to fit in there. I guess an animal doesn't have to be humanoid to be anthropomorphic."
Yeah, the definition of anthropomorphic is a pretty flexible one; Thomas the Tank Engine is anthropomorphic, but not exactly humanoid.
"
There are varying degrees of anthropomorphism-I think there’s even a scale. Thomas is on the lower end, as a talking train with a face.
Why there aint brickbuilt horses ?
@R0Sch said:
"Only LEGO is able to charge over 10 cents/piece for a non-licensed wannabe MLP set. And the part usage and colors mean that kids won't even be able to use the bricks to build something cool from it. Because apart from feeding the carrot and looking through the telescope, play value is non-existent. There are exactly 3 predefined spots to place all 3 pony's on and that's it. B and C alt builds are mediocre at best.
This is the type of set that LEGO is lately increasingly focused on, mainly display dust collectors for spoiled rich kids."
Blah blah blah blah. Get a life.
@Toc13 said:
"The Quest fof the Golden Carrot
This is not where the unicorn & pegasi live, this is where the great treasure of the golden carrot is kept.
The animals must find the chosen one in their humble cottage in the woods, get them to board ship & go on an adventure
Who said there's no play value in this?"
They meet an old mare in the cottage in Scene 24, then after confounding her questions three, they cross the Gorge of Eternal Peril and sail on the longship, to reach Castle Aaaargh...their quest is at an end...except...
"Fetchez la cheval!"
I never liked Creator's refusal to use molded animals because brick-built animals at minifigure scale never look good to me, but I can at least respect the spirit of it by saying "you can make animals from pieces if you want to!" I wonder what motivated the break in form here. Was the model with the molded magic ponies just not classifiable under anything but the Creator theme?
@8BrickMario said:
"I never liked Creator's refusal to use molded animals because brick-built animals at minifigure scale never look good to me, but I can at least respect the spirit of it by saying "you can make animals from pieces if you want to!" I wonder what motivated the break in form here. Was the model with the molded magic ponies just not classifiable under anything but the Creator theme?"
I’ve been working under the assumption that for this kit they essentially function as minifigs, which have frequently appeared in Creator.
@brickwich said:
"Those one-stud wing pieces will be great for minifigures. I bet we'll see them used in the next wave of collectable minifigs."
http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/PurpleDave/Humor/cupillithid.jpg
They looked good on Cupillithid.
I purchased this day 1! My kind of set, unicorn & pegasus in the prettiest of the color palette all combined with a castle to boot. (No gray!!!). This will go great with so many sets in my collection, Elves, Disney & Friends, TLM & even TLM2. Can't wait to "play" with it. I remember making a pegasus with wings from Chima sets for my Cloud City, these are way better.
I don't think the alternate models are poor, just not the greatest.
I might even get two, and use the cones for some candy versions of 6861.
@Binnekamp said:
" (…) At least Friends gets to be its own coherent thing... just don't expect anything like Elves again..."
My 15yo daughter (who would rather die than set foot in a Lego store with me) was waxing nostalgic about Elves sets/ show recently
Beautiful! And should be easy to find with a discount.
@monkyby87 said:
" @R0Sch said:
"Only LEGO is able to charge over 10 cents/piece for a non-licensed wannabe MLP set. And the part usage and colors mean that kids won't even be able to use the bricks to build something cool from it. Because apart from feeding the carrot and looking through the telescope, play value is non-existent. There are exactly 3 predefined spots to place all 3 pony's on and that's it. B and C alt builds are mediocre at best.
This is the type of set that LEGO is lately increasingly focused on, mainly display dust collectors for spoiled rich kids."
Blah blah blah blah. Get a life. "
I find it sad that anyone found this comment commendable .
@yellowcastle said:
" @monkyby87 said:
" @R0Sch said:
"Only LEGO is able to charge over 10 cents/piece for a non-licensed wannabe MLP set. And the part usage and colors mean that kids won't even be able to use the bricks to build something cool from it. Because apart from feeding the carrot and looking through the telescope, play value is non-existent. There are exactly 3 predefined spots to place all 3 pony's on and that's it. B and C alt builds are mediocre at best.
This is the type of set that LEGO is lately increasingly focused on, mainly display dust collectors for spoiled rich kids."
Blah blah blah blah. Get a life. "
I find it sad that anyone found this comment commendable ."
Well, I found it sad that many people found the original post commendable. All he, and his other German buddy who thinks movies with boorish and childishly sexist and cliché jokes about a sex-obsessed British spy are funny, love to do here is complain and complain that LEGO does not give kids or themselves what they want and what they need. Insufferable knowitalls who somehow think they always know things better.
I can't belive that this is a Creator set. I honestly thought this was some kind of friends/elves/gabby's dollhouse set. But, nonetheless, it looks great! But the price...
@R0Sch said:
"Only LEGO is able to charge over 10 cents/piece for a non-licensed wannabe MLP set. And the part usage and colors mean that kids won't even be able to use the bricks to build something cool from it. Because apart from feeding the carrot and looking through the telescope, play value is non-existent. There are exactly 3 predefined spots to place all 3 pony's on and that's it. B and C alt builds are mediocre at best.
This is the type of set that LEGO is lately increasingly focused on, mainly display dust collectors for spoiled rich kids."
This is how youy identify:
1. An afol
2. A person that forgot their childhood
This set is like a fever dream of Tina Belcher. As much as I love that show, I think I'll pass on this set
@GoZachPariseWild said:
"This set is like a fever dream of Tina Belcher. As much as I love that show, I think I'll pass on this set"
Not enough butts.
@MrBedhead said:
" @yellowcastle said:
" @monkyby87 said:
" @R0Sch said:
"Only LEGO is able to charge over 10 cents/piece for a non-licensed wannabe MLP set. And the part usage and colors mean that kids won't even be able to use the bricks to build something cool from it. Because apart from feeding the carrot and looking through the telescope, play value is non-existent. There are exactly 3 predefined spots to place all 3 pony's on and that's it. B and C alt builds are mediocre at best.
This is the type of set that LEGO is lately increasingly focused on, mainly display dust collectors for spoiled rich kids."
Blah blah blah blah. Get a life. "
I find it sad that anyone found this comment commendable ."
Well, I found it sad that many people found the original post commendable. All he, and his other German buddy who thinks movies with boorish and childishly sexist and cliché jokes about a sex-obsessed British spy are funny, love to do here is complain and complain that LEGO does not give kids or themselves what they want and what they need. Insufferable knowitalls who somehow think they always know things better."
Brickset now offers a “block function” if we find some commenters too much to take. I don’t partake in it and I hope few have leveraged it for me but I would think it’s better for the community than public belligerence.
@yellowcastle said:
" @MrBedhead said:
" @yellowcastle said:
" @monkyby87 said:
" @R0Sch said:
"Only LEGO is able to charge over 10 cents/piece for a non-licensed wannabe MLP set. And the part usage and colors mean that kids won't even be able to use the bricks to build something cool from it. Because apart from feeding the carrot and looking through the telescope, play value is non-existent. There are exactly 3 predefined spots to place all 3 pony's on and that's it. B and C alt builds are mediocre at best.
This is the type of set that LEGO is lately increasingly focused on, mainly display dust collectors for spoiled rich kids."
Blah blah blah blah. Get a life. "
I find it sad that anyone found this comment commendable ."
Well, I found it sad that many people found the original post commendable. All he, and his other German buddy who thinks movies with boorish and childishly sexist and cliché jokes about a sex-obsessed British spy are funny, love to do here is complain and complain that LEGO does not give kids or themselves what they want and what they need. Insufferable knowitalls who somehow think they always know things better."
Brickset now offers a “block function” if we find some commenters too much to take. I don’t partake in it and I hope few have leveraged it for me but I would think it’s better for the community than public belligerence."
Then feel free to block people.
@Hiratha said:
" @8BrickMario said:
"I never liked Creator's refusal to use molded animals because brick-built animals at minifigure scale never look good to me, but I can at least respect the spirit of it by saying "you can make animals from pieces if you want to!" I wonder what motivated the break in form here. Was the model with the molded magic ponies just not classifiable under anything but the Creator theme?"
I’ve been working under the assumption that for this kit they essentially function as minifigs, which have frequently appeared in Creator."
The bird somewhat discredits this theory.
@Norikins said:
" @Hiratha said:
" @8BrickMario said:
"I never liked Creator's refusal to use molded animals because brick-built animals at minifigure scale never look good to me, but I can at least respect the spirit of it by saying "you can make animals from pieces if you want to!" I wonder what motivated the break in form here. Was the model with the molded magic ponies just not classifiable under anything but the Creator theme?"
I’ve been working under the assumption that for this kit they essentially function as minifigs, which have frequently appeared in Creator."
The bird somewhat discredits this theory."
That’s the Lego equivalent of Spike, obviously.