Review: 72038 Wario & King Boo
Posted by SetToBuild,
Whether you faced him in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, played along with him and his zany friends in the many WarioWare titles, or chose him to pummel your opponents in Super Smash Bros, Wario is a favourite among the fans and is a welcome addition to the Mario line, not having appeared as an enemy in any earlier Mario course packs. King Boo is a repeat, but we still love him, especially since he’s another face you can hear!
Summary
72038 Wario & King Boo, 512 pieces.
£44.99 / $49.99 / €49.99 | 8.8p / 9.8c / 9.8c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
In this race, there is one clear winner: WARIO #1! WAHAHA!
- Wario‘s debut
- Unique, bold glider
- Two types of kart
- Disparity between karts
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Box
The box contains five paper bags, and follows the recent Mario Kart branding. On the rear, we’re encouraged to mix and match characters and karts, and to give Mario a ride on the back!
Two sticker sheets are included, one for each kart. With the number of times we’ve seen these yellow wheel stickers, and with how difficult it is to apply them neatly, it still astounds me that they aren’t printed.
The huge soft plastic piece for the glider is fantastic with its striking decoration, and really completes the Wario Kart look.
Characters
LEGO could have chosen to make a new electronic figure for Wario; instead, one of Mario’s many arch-nemeses got the full brick-built treatment. From his pointed ears to his tiny feet, this character was clearly crafted with appreciation. While the bread loaves and slices are the perfect picks to depict Wario’s hair, sadly, the mould marks on the tiles are an unfortunate blemish on his otherwise perfect do.
Wario’s arms are a new mould as well. I’m curious to see who or what else could benefit from these specialised guns. The use of two 1x1 round tiles for his chin is an excellent detail.
Another specialised mould to complete Wario’s look is the single part for his legs and feet. This provides a very sturdy and unusually-sized 3x5 base, so I’m looking forward to using it in non-character builds too.
Several fantastic prints, a recolour of interactive Mario’s hat, and a brand new nose+moustache combination mould bring this brick-built foe a face worth loving. Even the buttons on his overalls have a custom print.
The new moustache element lets us make existing models even better by Wario-ifying anything with one or two exposed studs. Once I realised this, I had a lot of fun choosing models around the house to get the Wario nose treatment!
We’d best give Wario his nose and moustache back, because he looks a bit cursed without them.
There we go! Wait, something is off.
After all this effort was put into Wario, in contrast, the second driver is just a repeat of a quite simple model. King Boo is almost the same as he was in 71436 King Boo's Haunted Mansion, except this one’s barcode is on his back instead of underneath. As far as Mario Kart is concerned, a scan of this barcode doesn’t do anything special; it simply behaves as a boss character needing a few repeated hits to defeat and gain some coins.
It’s still very strange to see King Boo as a cube, as I think of him more like a round, floaty bubble.
Completed Model
The set contains two karts, a glider, traffic cones, shells, and shooters. It’s clear which of the two karts was the primary focus of this set.
Despite them being quite similar, Wario’s Car, which was first seen in Wario Land 4 on the Game Boy Advance, is not the same vehicle as the 1950s muscle car Badwagon that debuted in Mario Kart 8. This model looks much more like the latter, which makes sense for the Mario Kart subtheme. It’s a shame that the ‘W’ decal is on a large pink sticker rather than a removable white tile, so we can’t easily swap the logo for another driver’s.
The added barcode on the back of the Badwagon allows an interactive character to ride along with Wario Double Dash style. Scanning the ‘W’ barcode will add Wario’s ‘commentary’ to your journey. He’ll exclaim when jumping into the air and when spinning or drifting. It does get awkward to keep both Mario and Wario attached to the car when driving it around.
Excellent shaping at the front uses various curved slopes to simulate a ’W’ or a moustache as the front fender. The colour matching of the dark pink on the sticker versus the bonnet was notably better than usual. The taillights are made using Nexo Knights spearheads in a Speed Champions style, adding an extra dimension of detail.
King Boo’s Teddy Buggy seems to have had all of the attention put into the Bear’s head while the rest of the kart is lacking. The in-game vehicle has a saddle and more plump, stuffed legs, causing the LEGO version to appear deflated. The Technic cam element is a good shape for the legs, and sure, it’s probably more structurally sound, but it just looks flat.
Interestingly, a dedicated printed 1x1 tile is included to show King Boo’s logo on the side of this cart, unlike the other sticker compromises we’ve seen so far. The barcode is the same type as the Biddybuggy from 72034 Baby Mario vs. Baby Luigi.
Since the gliders are interchangeable between the two karts, just like in the game, Wario’s huge face can be attached to the Teddy Buggy instead.
Wario’s Badwagon is the longest of the new lineup, with the P-Wing in close second.
The notable extra parts include King Boo’s smile, a teddy bear eye, and a spearhead. While the 1/2 Technic bushing in blue has been made available in other sets, it’s still great to see more Technic elements getting the recolour treatment.
Conclusion
The majority of the parts and decorations budget for this set has clearly gone into perfecting Wario, while King Boo’s kart is simpler and he is a repeat character.
However, for the £45 price tag, the maths on value for money doesn’t quite add up to me. If we take 72045 Shy Guy & P-Wing with a small character, brick-built glider and large kart at £18 as our baseline, it’s fair to say that the heavily detailed Wario and his Kart and glider are worth more—say £25-30 to account for the new parts created for Wario. However, it’s a hard sell that King Boo and the teddy buggy are even equivalent to Shy Guy and the P-Wing, never mind worth the remaining £15-20 budget within this set. Another glider, barriers or other assemblies to flesh out a course would have been welcome.
Wario’s debut and all the new parts and colours that went into his excellent representation will probably still make this set decently successful. Surely LEGO must be working on a brick-built Waluigi with his own custom nose and moustache next!
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20 comments on this article
Every one of these Mario Kart reviews makes me more tempted to start collecting them. These vehicles (unfortunately besides the teddy buggy) seen to really well capture their in-game likenesses. It's really easy to write off the Lego Mario theme as an AFoL, but these sets definitely shouldn't be overlooked!
Nice review!
I love the Wario fig in this—he's just so round and has great shaping and detail. The arm pieces feel like they could be useful for all sorts of things, especially since the "shoulder" is a basic 2x2 circle. The legs are much more specialized, but I understand why they'd want to have a solid base for the figure—if his legs were individually built and attached they'd be more likely to come apart when you attach or remove him from a vehicle or base. And the moustache, as you demonstrate here, is fun to attach to all sorts of characters!
King Boo isn't new but I personally love the block-shaped boos in this game. The way they've gone so square for the Lego medium reminds me a bit of other Mario games where they've been adapted to the medium, like the wireframe Boos from Yoshi's Woolly World or the papercraft Boos from Mario & Luigi Paper Jam.
As for the karts, I'm also happy with these ones. The Teddy Buggy was my favorite kart in Mario Kart 8, so it's great to have in Lego. And the Badwagon is a great choice for Wario that slightly evokes his car from games like Wario Land 4.
I dunno. For the most, Wario looks as good as Wario can ever look, I suppose - but that nose and those legs do feel like cheating. At that point, he might as well have been a complete specialised character.
I appreciate his butt-chin, but it's not enough to save the build.
@Crux said:
"I dunno. For the most, Wario looks as good as Wario can ever look, I suppose - but that nose and those legs do feel like cheating. At that point, he might as well have been a complete specialised character.
I appreciate his butt-chin, but it's not enough to save the build."
I was thinking the same thing. Surely it would've been possible to approximate Wario's typical shapes with existing LEGO parts. Overall it looks good, though, but apart from the 'gimmick' of this being made out of LEGO bricks, you might as well collect Mario Kart action figures and karts from other brands, which look far more accurate to the videogames and are more affordable.
But I also appreciate Wario's butt-chin.
For an instant second there, Wario without his nose and moustache, I saw Moe from the Simpsons!
Great review too. Maybe add Yoshi's Bike to that line-up of karts?
Fond memories of WarioWorld on Gamecube!
The ability to Wario-ify existing Lego models was truly a vital update to receive.
The nose and moustache piece is almost worth the price of admission alone.
Some brilliant pictures of it attached to other sets. Thanks for those!
Wario is my favorite of the buildable characters in this theme. Not only do I hope they make an accompanying Waluigi, but I’d also love to see buildable versions of Mario, Luigi and Peach in a similar style. Though I’m sure there aren’t any plans for that while the Starter Kit sets exist.
I love that they included room on the back for a second character to ride along. This kart resembles the Wario Car present in Double Dash, so this pairs excellent with the Donkey Kong Barrel Kart set that’s specific to that game.
I’m also a fan of how King Boo is represented as a large block rather than his typical round self. The Lego aesthetic taking over and making characters’ rounded features blocky has such a charming touch we don’t see in most themes. I especially love it on the Toads.
This is easily the most tempted I've been to get a non-18+ Mario set. That Wario + Badwagon is incredible. (And King Boo is there too I guess.)
That image with the Wario-fied sets reminds me of Wario's finale stages in the Warioware games, where often you'd have previous games with Wario mustaches attached to all of the characters lol
The Wario figure is such an impressive design. They needed to make a buildable character that stylistically fit with both the electronic Mario figures and the buildable enemy characters, and they managed to do both whilst also making Wario the best-looking character to come out of this theme to date (giant D2C sets excluded). A great effort on the part of the designer.
I hope 'Wario-ifying' finds its way into many future Brickset reviews.
@iamkevinwill said:
"I hope 'Wario-ifying' finds its way into many future Brickset reviews."
I'd love to see it become @SetToBuild 's version of Huw's goats lol
Okay, you were having too much fun with those nose pieces. Thanks for the laugh!
@Robot99 said:
" @iamkevinwill said:
"I hope 'Wario-ifying' finds its way into many future Brickset reviews."
I'd love to see it become @SetToBuild 's version of Huw's goats lol"
Or MeganL's sloths
@Username28 said:
"Or MeganL's sloths"
I was gonna mention that too but couldn't remember what she used. We need to have our trifecta here lol
The Wario-ifying had me laughing my head off. My partner thinks the rabbit was the best one, but I must admit I’m partial to the badnik.
I’ve never played Mario Kart (or any Mario/Mario-adjacent game) but if I had the flat legs on the Teddy Buggy would really bother me. You lose so much of the charm. I gotta say though if I wasn’t fairly reluctant to buy kits for an IP with which I’m almost totally unfamiliar beyond unavoidable cultural osmosis, I’d be seriously tempted by the karts as a whole - it’s a lovely release line-up.
I loved the kite print. I'm a Wario fan since I got the first Wairoland game for my gameboy. Great review.
I'm not the only one who wants to see an AT-AT Worio-fied?A certain recent reveal and thinking about Disguise Mode from the Lego Star Wars games just might have put that idea in my head...
@TheOtherMike said:
"I'm not the only one who wants to see an AT-AT Worio-fied?A certain recent reveal and thinking about Disguise Mode from the Lego Star Wars games just might have put that idea in my head..."
Star Wario?