LEGO Super Mario 72051 Donkey Kong Arcade revealed!
Posted by CapnRex101,
10323 PAC-MAN Arcade was released to a strong reception in 2023 and another beloved arcade game follows this year, featuring Donkey Kong and Jumpman, later to become Super Mario! The press release follows:
72051 Donkey Kong Arcade
1,367 pieces, rated 18+
$199.99 / £149.99 / €169.99
Available at LEGO.com from 1st August
Recreate the barrel-launching and leaping action of the classic arcade game with this LEGO Donkey Kong Arcade (72051) building set for adults. The model pays homage to the original arcade cabinet game and makes playful retro decor for your entertainment room or home office.
It features Jumpman, Donkey Kong and Lady, plus iconic scaffold, ladder and hammer details. Pull the lever to release a barrel at a time, as if thrown by Donkey Kong. Then move Jumpman with the joystick and press the button to make him leap over the barrels. This collectable set makes a great gamer gift idea for adult fans of video games and retro arcade game cabinets.
What do you think of the Donkey Kong Arcade? Let us know in the comments and via our poll.
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59 comments on this article
Has anyone seen the "King of Kong" documentary? It's very good
Around 1300 parts for $200 and they're still using stickers. Seriously? That being said, I'm very curious to see how the gameplay functions. I could justify paying $150 if it works as well as the NES. Nice set, not nice price. That's to be expected these days, though.
Insane price per piece, with stickers.
That's a brutal price. I'll get it, but definitely on sale, some day. Whoof.
Lotta reveals recently but this is one of my favorites—both gorgeous and mechanically interesting. I recently got the Pac-Man set when it was on sale for Insiders days and this seems like it'll be just as cool a build.
In the past five days, LEGO has revealed five sets costing over $200... ouch.
Here's to hoping for some waves with small, cheap sets lol
Saw the leaked video of it running, those barrels come FLYING!
I can imagine dust gathering at the back, and it will be the perfect hiding place for cockroaches, lizards and spiders. Haha! Why not seal it up?
@lotographia said:
"Has anyone seen the "King of Kong" documentary? It's very good"
You mean the one about infamous cheater Billy Mitchell?
@ACubeInABox said:
"In the past five days, LEGO has revealed five sets costing over $200... ouch.
Here's to hoping for some waves with small, cheap sets lol "
To be fair, there's also a lot of cheaper sets coming out on the exact same date (August 1st), especially in the U.S.—the regular releases in themes like Friends, City, Creator, and Ninjago (as well as licensed themes like Pokémon, Sonic the Hedgehog, Jurassic World, and One Piece). It's just that Lego held back longer on revealing these big Direct to Consumer sets than they did for those sets that will be available more widely.
@jBXavier said:
"I can imagine dust gathering at the back, and it will be the perfect hiding place for cockroaches, lizards and spiders. Haha! Why not seal it up? "
Never once in my 19 years of collecting had any issues with bugs and LEGO. Depends on how well you actually look after your space you store your collection. Ofc I have the dust issue but that just comes with collecting.
Very nice set, but agreed with others PPP not that great, even with the few larger elements. £110 / £120 wouldve been better.
Video of it working here. The mechanism is very impressive
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Da-rm51v53d/
Hello everyone, could we discuss about breaking Lego street dates PLEASE?
A particularly bad case.... Donkey Kong Arcade Game 72051:
It's crazy that this set has only been officially revealed by Lego a few hours ago. But many people have already bought it from some 3rd party retailers which have broken street dates, since like mid July. (and bragging on Reddit and other social media)
In my opinion, Lego really needs to enforce street dates. Stores which are breaking street dates should be frowned upon and heavily penalized.
We serious Lego fans need an even playing field. The same release date for everyone.
So does the Lego retail market. It needs an even playing field. Every Lego retailer should follow the same street date to start selling Lego new sets.
Fans who have been pre-ordering those sets online or fans queuing at Lego stores on the 1st should be the ones who get to experience these new sets first. Not someone who's breaking the rules. Even Lego Ambassadors have to stick to embargo dates to release early reviews. They would be suspended otherwise. Any sales in any stores before release date should be strictly prohibited.
Is this breaking street date situation only happening in North America? Does it happen in EU/UK? It doesn't happen in Oceania.
Thank you very much, everyone.
Shrek, Star Trek, this... Lego sold it's soul to the redditor (man) children of the 70s and 80s who reached middle age and realized they had money to burn. It's grotesque.
Lego is no longer about building or creativity, it is just corporate slop shelled out at cheaper quality than ever all in the name of a large profit, the same things the target demographic above claims to hate.
I can't sell off my collection fast enough, I'm almost ashamed to own anything from this company now
So, mostly around 0.15 per piece and stickers?
Good grief
Barrel piece battlepack.
Outrageously expensive. A shame, since it's otherwise a very nice design.
I'd like a DK bigfig, but hopefully we'll get that in the Mario minifig sets instead. (A DK Island set with King K. Rool and Void Kong would be nice, if they want to promote recent games!)
I guess we went from "you can make anything with LEGO" to "you can make anything with stickers" :/
I love Donkey Kong. I have both double screen and Jr. version of original Game & Watch handhelds. And they still work. I played with them so much . The set look great, with play functions and everything, but I don't feel the need to get it.
Special shout out to Kohl's for not giving a f*** about street dates.
Terrible price for only 1300 pieces. If they wanted to charge $200 they could have at least finished the back of the model. But the fact it's somewhat functional, to a better extent than the PAC-MAN one was, is neat.
Not sure why people are complaining about stickers here, though. There's only 6 stickers in the set. The 4 6x6 round tiles in the corners, the barrel-tops, and the not-Mario special mold are all printed. Everything else is brick-built. And I wouldn't want 5 of those 6 stickers to be prints anyways: we all know how awful LEGO is at printing on dark-colored surfaces. They'd all be as desaturated and faint as the not-Mario print. If you want to complain about stickers, go over to the Star Trek article.
when will lego make a perfectly working replica of a toilet?
@Sandinista said:
"Shrek, Star Trek, this... Lego sold it's soul to the redditor (man) children of the 70s and 80s who reached middle age and realized they had money to burn. It's grotesque.
Lego is no longer about building or creativity, it is just corporate slop shelled out at cheaper quality than ever all in the name of a large profit, the same things the target demographic above claims to hate.
I can't sell off my collection fast enough, I'm almost ashamed to own anything from this company now"
I can understand you.
Though I am reacting a bit differently. I am selling off rather current sets while slowly completing my collection of classic sets I missed out on during my childhood. The most recent addition having been 6950.
Sets like this new one or the Pacman one before look cool and will probably be fun to build, but they are just not subjects I personally need out of LEGO.
Then again, I do appreciate the effort they put into it, particularly the mechanics. I used to be a Technic guy after all.
@Sandinista said:
"Shrek, Star Trek, this... Lego sold it's soul to the redditor (man) children of the 70s and 80s who reached middle age and realized they had money to burn. It's grotesque.
Lego is no longer about building or creativity, it is just corporate slop shelled out at cheaper quality than ever all in the name of a large profit, the same things the target demographic above claims to hate.
I can't sell off my collection fast enough, I'm almost ashamed to own anything from this company now"
Thanks for letting us all know. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
@hawkeye7269 said:
" @Sandinista said:
"Shrek, Star Trek, this... Lego sold it's soul to the redditor (man) children of the 70s and 80s who reached middle age and realized they had money to burn. It's grotesque.
Lego is no longer about building or creativity, it is just corporate slop shelled out at cheaper quality than ever all in the name of a large profit, the same things the target demographic above claims to hate.
I can't sell off my collection fast enough, I'm almost ashamed to own anything from this company now"
Thanks for letting us all know. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. "
Seething because you feel called out, huh?
@Sandinista said:
"Lego is no longer about building or creativity, it is just corporate slop shelled out at cheaper quality than ever all in the name of a large profit, the same things the target demographic above claims to hate. "
This appears to have a very complex mechanism to make it actually work, much like the pinball machine.
You can moan that its expensive, or licences or has stickers, but I think the technical complexity of so many mainstream Lego sets now is way ahead of the past.
so, you can jump, but can you move all the way up and down the scaffolding? If not, then what is the point?
@KingShark9500 said:
"Outrageously expensive. A shame, since it's otherwise a very nice design.
I'd like a DK bigfig, but hopefully we'll get that in the Mario minifig sets instead. (A DK Island set with King K. Rool and Void Kong would be nice, if they want to promote recent games!)"
It seems a missed opportunity not to have Mario and Peach minifigs, a bigfig or brick built DK
I like the lettering on the top and the playability looks likely to be impressive.
Unfortunately the closest I get to caring about Nintendo anything is Pokemon, so not for me, but I hope fans enjoy it.
Pretty cool! I think I like this more than the Pac-Man arcade machine! The one nitpick I have is that I think I would have preferred those faces on the four tiles to have been Legofied instead. Or in case those are stickers (though I don't think so), give both options.
As for the price.....looking at the €-price I wouldn't say it looks that terrible. Not a great PPP obviously, but for once the "price per volume of stuff" seems quite okay. The use of stickers is disappointing though, particularly in a Nintendo set.
One thing though: Why no better video of the "gameplay"? Yes, there is a bit of a lifestyle video on the Lego website, but it just shows just tiiny fragments. And I'd say this not just being a static display model is a major selling point.
A must buy for all those arcade and game consoles series collectors. This will be a great addition. Nice colours too. In the eighties i think i’ve tried making computer games likes this with cardboard and lego and other stuff. Because those little handheld consoles were pretty expensive back then. So it’s a pleasure to see that there are even some working mechanics in it.
I don’t have the money to buy all those pricey sets, but i can imagine a cabinet in a gamers room full with all those lego gaming stuff in it.
A nice eye-catcher. Well done, Lego
Brilliant. My favourite Atari 800 game was Miner 2049er which was obviously heavily influenced by Donkey Kong. This has a lot of animation and, at £150, is quite reasonably priced. Will go very nicely with 10323. A few tricky choices to make on August 1st! Just hoping for alternatives to X-Files GWPs
@jBXavier said:
"I can imagine dust gathering at the back, and it will be the perfect hiding place for cockroaches, lizards and spiders. Haha! Why not seal it up? "
Cool, i never thought about it, but in other countries and parts of the worlds there are also more creepy crawlers in one’s houses that might visit your lego collection. I think they don’t realise that in Denmark either.
@R0Sch said:
"Special shout out to Kohl's for not giving a f*** about street dates."
**** street dates.
I really like the set, it looks good, it's faithfull to the source material and they added a play feature that looks both fun and well made.
That being said it makes an expensive set for a play feature that will be fun for 5 min and that's all. Why not make a nice basic display set for a decent price ?
@Sandinista said:
"Shrek, Star Trek, this... Lego sold it's soul to the redditor (man) children of the 70s and 80s who reached middle age and realized they had money to burn. It's grotesque.
Lego is no longer about building or creativity, it is just corporate slop shelled out at cheaper quality than ever all in the name of a large profit, the same things the target demographic above claims to hate.
I can't sell off my collection fast enough, I'm almost ashamed to own anything from this company now"
Have you tried Creator? They are quite good for people that like building non-licensed, or of course City and Friends, and Ninjago and Dreamzzzz, for those that prefer the modern equivalents of the sets from decades ago. I don't mind large licensed sets, and I occasionally buy one where I am interested in it. I enjoy what I like rather than complain about what I don't like. LEGO is for everyone so it makes sense that only some of it should be of interest to me. I certainly wouldn't sell what I like because I'm not interested in some of their products.
Jumpman? Isn't that Mario?
@ACubeInABox said:
"In the past five days, LEGO has revealed five sets costing over $200... ouch.
Here's to hoping for some waves with small, cheap sets lol "
Sets that should have been $150 to the max
@Snowy_Tabbert said:
"Hello everyone, could we discuss about breaking Lego street dates PLEASE?"
No, because I am sure 99.9% of Lego buyers don't care about this small and meaningless issue.
When are we getting Manic Miner or Jet Set Willy?
170 Euros? I could hire a real gorilla to kidnap my girlfriend for that amount of money.
@Crux said:
"170 Euros? I could hire a real gorilla to kidnap my girlfriend for that amount of money."
But is she a princess?
@Yooha said:
"Jumpman? Isn't that Mario?"
In the OG DK game, it was just some random dude jumping, not yet Mario
@Hiratha said:
"Unfortunately the closest I get to caring about Nintendo anything is Pokemon, so not for me, but I hope fans enjoy it."
You should try Animal Crossing. And Star Fox!
@Sandinista said:
" @hawkeye7269 said:
" @Sandinista said:
"Shrek, Star Trek, this... Lego sold it's soul to the redditor (man) children of the 70s and 80s who reached middle age and realized they had money to burn. It's grotesque.
Lego is no longer about building or creativity, it is just corporate slop shelled out at cheaper quality than ever all in the name of a large profit, the same things the target demographic above claims to hate.
I can't sell off my collection fast enough, I'm almost ashamed to own anything from this company now"
Thanks for letting us all know. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. "
Seething because you feel called out, huh? "
If you want to get mad about "redditor (man) children" you should try to act less like one.
We sure have a lot of you "I don't like this and that makes me morally superior to you all" types around here these days.
I don't like it as much as Pacman but it's still a cool set for display
I would agree on price if everything was printed and it was finished on the back.
@Andrusi said:
" @Sandinista said:
" @hawkeye7269 said:
" @Sandinista said:
"Shrek, Star Trek, this... Lego sold it's soul to the redditor (man) children of the 70s and 80s who reached middle age and realized they had money to burn. It's grotesque.
Lego is no longer about building or creativity, it is just corporate slop shelled out at cheaper quality than ever all in the name of a large profit, the same things the target demographic above claims to hate.
I can't sell off my collection fast enough, I'm almost ashamed to own anything from this company now"
Thanks for letting us all know. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. "
Seething because you feel called out, huh? "
If you want to get mad about "redditor (man) children" you should try to act less like one.
We sure have a lot of you "I don't like this and that makes me morally superior to you all" types around here these days."
I quite like a 'toys out the pram' reaction to what is effectively a toy.
The amount of stickers is surprising. The original photos looked to be all prints, which is how all the 18+ Mario sets have been, with the exception of stickers the subject matter would have had.
@Luka_Lobe said:
"when will lego make a perfectly working replica of a toilet?
"
There was an Ideas submission of it, only it did not get far.
Hopefully this will have an Amazon Black Friday sale next year like Pac-Man had. Won't buy this without the 30% off.
But would enjoy having it. Very nice set.
Wow the price difference from € to $ is finally making sense :-)
Go tarifs, go!!
Wow, this is a great retro package.
@merman said:
" @Crux said:
"170 Euros? I could hire a real gorilla to kidnap my girlfriend for that amount of money."
But is she a princess?
"
This is Pauline, who would later go on to become the Mayor of New Donk City.
I'm sorry, Merman. Your princess is in another game.
“ It features Jumpman, Donkey Kong and Lady.”
Pretty sure her name is Pauline.
@derekthetree said:
" @Yooha said:
"Jumpman? Isn't that Mario?"
In the OG DK game, it was just some random dude jumping, not yet Mario"
He was indeed Mario.
https://www.thrillingtalesofoldvideogames.com/blog/mario-101-history (under section 2)
Here, treat yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssVT38kWv78
@Yooha said:
"Jumpman? Isn't that Mario?"
Jumpman
@EtudeTheBadger said:
" @Hiratha said:
"Unfortunately the closest I get to caring about Nintendo anything is Pokemon, so not for me, but I hope fans enjoy it."
You should try Animal Crossing. And Star Fox!"
My partner thinks I’d like Animal Crossing, and they’re probably right, but I have yet to get around to it.