Review: 72051 Donkey Kong Arcade
Posted by SetToBuild,
First released in 1981, Nintendo’s Donkey Kong is a hugely successful arcade platforming game at the root of a classic video game franchise family tree. Based on the suspiciously familiar ‘giant monkey kidnaps damsel in distress’ premise, it was originally created by Nintendo to make use of unsold cabinets for the unsuccessful Radar Scope game.
This LEGO model is a celebration of retro gaming history and includes more than one simple, yet satisfying, mechanism. Unlike 10323 PAC-MAN Arcade, you can actually ‘play’ the game—but in return for being able to use the buttons to control the protagonist, there are some unfortunate compromises in other areas.
Let’s get rolling onto the review…
Summary
72051 Donkey Kong Arcade, 1,367 pieces.
£149.99 / $199.99 / €169.99 | 11.0p, 14.6c, 12.4c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
A playable love letter to a retro gaming icon, delivered in a compact cabinet
- Engaging build experience
- Simple, robust mechanism
- Fun to play
- Multiple giant stickers
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Box & Contents
The box art is minimal and on the typical black backdrop. Unlike 10323 PAC-MAN Arcade, the images on the back do not reveal the mechanism, and instead only show the controls in a very simple manner. These diagrams are far subtler than typical toy packaging (especially of that era!) with incredibly over-the-top promotion of any and all action features. This may be to the set’s detriment, as consumers may not expect it to ‘work’ as much as it does.
The box is not just a tray style but has an old school hinged lid, which was a nostalgic treat! Unfortunately I doubt that the windowed panels are going to make a comeback, given the paper bags and automated packaging processes nowadays.
The box has 14 paper bags, and a clear plastic bag containing the large parts. It was an unwelcome surprise to find these two large sticker sheets, and filled me with trepidation at the thought of applying them. Given the track record for Nintendo sets so far, and the price of the set, I would have assumed that these large elements were printed.
The yellow-haired character is ‘Lady’, who unlike Jumpman (Mario) only gained a name (Pauline) in later releases. Pauline has been seen in various titles across Nintendo’s history, however, she is best known as the Mayor of New Donk City in Super Mario Odyssey.
There is a brief introduction in the instructions identifying the subject of the model, but it is fairly superficial. It then goes on to reiterate the box’s subtle explanations of the controls, and share some of the designer’s insights. Honestly, every one of these adult sets should just come with a podcast, like the art theme has had, that goes deep into the set’s development and subject matter.
Notice the reference to Jumpman here, which is what the game’s in-cabinet instructions named the protagonist in English language releases. However, he was already being referred to as Mario in some promotional materials and would soon evolve from ‘The Brave Carpenter’ to our familiar Italian Plumber.
Fun fact: Mario’s original voice actor, Charles Martinet, played the role of Giuseppe in the 2023 Super Mario Bros Movie. Giuseppe bears a peculiar resemblance to Jumpman and is seen in the film playing the fictional arcade game “Help Me Jump Man.”
Reference
This set features a recreation of level one, also known as 25m, the first section of the tower that Donkey Kong climbs. Future levels are much more complex with lifts, conveyor belts and other increasingly tricky manoeuvres.
Source - YouTube - retrogameclips
Build Experience
Bags 1–5 begin the base box where the control systems reside. The first simple mechanism is this seesaw-like assembly in yellow, black and red. It is held on two central pivot points, rotating about the middle ends of the large flat piece which sturdily transfers the rotation from red to yellow without warping. This is later connected to the jump button at the front and a long axle on the rear to raise and lower the assembly Jumpman is attached to.
The joystick pivots to take Jumpman left and right. It can also be moved up and down, but that doesn’t do anything. However, there are rubber elements that hold the stick in place in this direction and provide placebo tactile feedback.
The lever’s tip has a long red cheese slope, forming the perfect edge for its purpose. This will lift barrels from the end of their entry ramp and stack them into a tall chamber from the bottom. The barrels at the top of the stack eventually get released into the game.
It’s interesting how these three control elements go under the ramp and onto the back of the model. The designer clearly has a knack for compact and precise contraptions.
The jump button doesn’t need to be positively connected to the lever system, and simply uses a Technic pin 3L with stop to press down on one side of the seesaw. The weight of the parts behind pushes down the other end, forcing up on this pin to raise the button into its resting position.
The barrel lever also raises this vertical white Technic beam in a one-stud wide channel that guides barrels up into their stack. It feels like it might work without this, but it fills a hole and stops the lever from lifting too high, preventing these potential catch points.
The control panel faceplate sub-assembly rests on top of open studs to be flush with the rest of the surface. Without the LEGO logos on top of normal suds, a tiny difference in level is avoided.
This results in a seamless and smooth play area to control the game.
As we move to the back, the lowest part of the build uses many trans-clear elements like 1x2x5 bricks, which allow players to watch the magic of the interior operations and troubleshoot stuck barrels.
Two of the rear panels can be removed. This first section at the bottom right allows for quick removal of the barrels. It’s also the best way to access any that are getting stuck at the lever assembly.
If any barrels are getting stuck, this second door grants access to the start of the ramp to help move them along. I only experienced them getting stuck here once, when trying to empty the whole machine.
Layer by layer, bags 6 through 9 have you building the middle of the game’s screen. Thankfully, the top of the joystick isn’t added until bag 13, so it stays out of the way while you’re building the rest of the set, though I was eager to get it assembled to see it in action.
There are two exit points for the barrels to fall through when they reach the bottom of the lattice girders, which is true to the game where sometimes they are knocked off the right hand side of the screen. This occasional shortcut allows the order of the barrels to randomise itself when they re-enter the loop underneath.
5x5 L-shaped Technic bricks are the main strength points in the construction, forming the corners of the cabinet even more sturdily than interlocked bonded bricks would.
These new mini ladders pieces fit perfectly over fences and appear here in teal for the first time. The magenta and teal combo is so very 80s/90s, and I love the perfect match in LEGO colours.
Hammer power-ups are floating, secured onto the rear wall of the cabinet with bars. This is much sturdier than a stud connection, which means these otherwise easy targets won’t get knocked off the model and lost under a shelf.
The following layers are fairly repetitive. Eventually, long Technic beam walls will be inserted into the holes at the ends, to form the inner side walls of each chamber.
Bags 10 and 11 build the top of the game, applying large stickers for Donkey Kong and his captive. Usually, I would be the first to defend stickers, since them being optional leaves pieces versatile. However, having to apply a 6x8 sticker of the character whose name is in huge letters at the top of the build seems a bit silly. This is actually the first time we’ve seen a plain 6x8 tile, as it’s always been printed up until now. For example, a light-bluish grey one was decorated with the battery cover clip and serial number label for 72046 Game Boy. Poor Donkey Kong just didn’t make the cut for the same treatment.
Finally, bag 12 contains the stars of this barrel battle pack! While the mould has undergone several changes, until now the brightest colour to be produced was medium blue. This set includes 14 orange wooden barrels and 6 teal metal barrels. Thankfully, the numerous lids are printed.
The teal barrels have a stud and minifig head attached to the underside of the lid, giving them a bit more weight and giving the player a new challenge with the resulting speed differences. I don’t remember them being faster in the arcade, but maybe this is a simple way of making them ‘harder’ in the LEGO version as a nod to the fact they spawned fiery enemies.
The barrels scale quite well with Donkey Kong from 71424 Donkey Kong's Tree House. The Kong family was first introduced in LEGO form within the Expansion Sets for the Super Mario theme, and the two-dimensional enemy in this game is often cited to be Donkey Kong’s grandfather, Cranky Kong.
Bag 13 is dedicated to finishing the workings on the rear of the machine, adding on the printed Jumpman, and building the bezel of the screen. Also, the top of the joystick is finally added here now that the elements behind it are in place. Make sure those sticker skills are sharp because all four of those big round tiles are going to be tricky to decorate identically.
The final bag has you build the brilliant signage at the top of the cabinet. Each letter sits on a separate bar attached to Technic connectors, so you can slightly adjust the spacing and positioning. Time to get kerning!
Completed Model
The model strays away from recreating the arcade cabinet as faithfully as 10323 PAC-MAN Arcade did. It feels more like a toy version of the arcade version scaled down into a moulded plastic shell, which, whether or not such a thing ever existed, I can absolutely picture lining the shelves of 80s toy stores.
The branding draws heavily on the graphics surrounding the screen of the game, with good matches for the primary colours, but a little less accuracy on the shade of blue for the main structure. Otherwise, the biggest noticeable deviation from the arcade cabinet premise is the lack of a coin slot.
The rear of the model is a little on the janky side with the different colours of bricks cutting into the black area, but I like that the back doesn’t seal away the Technic gubbins that make the mechanism work. Leaving this exposed makes it easier to troubleshoot and hopefully less error-prone, and lets the builder show off the brilliant engineering that went into how it all works.
If you look closely, these stacks of a blue plate, light nougat plate, and red 2x3 curved plate that hold this vertical piece look like a minimalistic Mario with the bill of his hat sticking out. We can’t be completely sure if it’s the case, but I’d like to think this was intentional.
Overall, there wasn’t as much Technic as I thought there would be. A few newer large Technic elements eliminate what would have previously been complex assemblies, but may be contributing to the set price.
The barrels are dropped into a neat slot on the right side of the cabinet with their tops facing towards you. Later, we’ll show you where they disappear to!
These fences are the perfect piece to illustrate the broken and bent steel girders, but the exposed mould marks are a bit distracting, and of course are hidden in the render on the box. Annoyingly, there has been an alternate mould of this element that has the mark on the ends of the piece! I figured such a colour would have been plentiful in a theme like Friends, but in actual fact they haven’t existed in any shades of pink since appearing on 6414 Dolphin Point and Freestyle sets in 1995.
The bezel of the screen, colours, and graphics are all spot on with the theming of the original cabinets. Loyal fans might appreciate the 1980s graphics of the character stickers, but it does feel like a missed opportunity to include some whimsical LEGO-fication in the illustrations on these.
The Fireball stickered on a 3x3 tile beside the burning oil barrel spins freely but doesn’t react to barrels moving by.
Jumpman seems to be 2 bricks and 1 plate tall and a smidge under 3 bricks wide, and is well printed with both light and dark colours coming out clearly. As neat as it would be to see this special mould get reused, Mario from 71374 Nintendo Entertainment System was a one off so I don’t expect to see this one again either.
The control panel is incredibly sleek and inviting to play with. Nowadays, it's obvious to us what a joystick or lever might do based on common video game mechanics, but back in these early arcade days these panels were often covered with complex graphics and detailed explanations.
With the variety of slopes available, the blocky text is well-made, and the simple but effective support system to give the jumbled appearance of the lettering was a worthwhile investment, in my view—straight, aligned text would have looked very jarring. The yellow LEGO Movie star piece scales excellently as well, for a much bolder effect than a simple 1x1 stud star which also doesn’t come in the correct shade of yellow.
There aren’t many spare parts, but they follow a very on-brand colour scheme!
Play Experience
Watch our video demonstration of the playable features below:
Once the barrels are loaded, you really need to pull on the lever to get them to drop. They aren’t quite getting stuck, but if you’re not pulling back hard enough, you can feel some resistance and the arm attached to that lever slipping.
As you saw in the video, it takes a while to get the game moving once you’ve loaded all the barrels and started to use the lever. This is a minor consequence of the elegance of the system to raise the barrels back up to the top of the game to allow for infinite play—there are enough barrels to stack on top of each other all the way up the tower, to continuously loop around.
Going from the barrel lever to the jump button and left/right joystick requires somewhat fast coordination, so having a second person releasing the barrels would make this a lot more fun, and also make it more challenging through unpredictability. In the demo on the store listing page, the barrels are flying! That guy either has an elite gaming chair or some other assistance.
The left and right movement isn’t really necessary to achieve the aim of jumping over barrels, and is sometimes kind of difficult to coordinate. The physical mechanism gives the player an advantage over most platformer games, in that they could just hold the jump button indefinitely and let the barrels roll underneath—so these extra nice little touches are really just there for style points!
The barrels continuously loop around so you could play for a long time with no killscreen!
“There's a potential Donkey Kong killscreen, if you wanna watch. Hey Todd!”
The only barrier to infinite play that I’ve experienced so far was a slight mis-loading of the next barrel into the lifting mechanism resolved with another push of the button, not a full blockage.
It’s been great fun to play with over the past few days, and the combination of multiple interactive features with the appealing tactile controls make it attractive for builders to keep coming back to fiddle with. I experienced a twinge of disappointment as my gaming muscle memory jarred against the realisation that the character couldn’t progress up the course, but it doesn’t take much to realise how infeasible that would be in LEGO!
Conclusion
Even though Donkey Kong was one of the legendary Shigeru Miyamoto’s earliest projects, it still quickly became a hit in coin-op arcades around the world. The LEGO set design therefore has a wealth of creative skill to draw on from the subject matter, which it feels like the designer has captured very well in this reimagining.
Other than the Technic elements used to build the mechanism, the pieces in the set don’t seem to be incredibly bespoke or costly, and there are no minifigures, so what’s the justification for the jump in price compared to previous sets like 10323 PAC-MAN Arcade or the more reasonably-priced predecessors in the Nintendo theme? Are new barrel colours really that expensive?!
Unlike complaints that the 71374 Nintendo Entertainment System or 72046 Game Boy cost more than a used console, £150 for this LEGO homage might feel alright to fans who don’t have thousands to drop on a refurbished original machine or hundreds to buy a tabletop replica.
The finished model is at least reasonably dimensioned so is comfortable for adult-sized hands to interact with.
The mechanism feels very robust and foolproof, with each moving section having multiple layers of stabilising features, like the long sliding beams and panels that prevent sliding sections from deviating from their slots. Obviously as it’s only been built for a few days we can’t definitively confirm, but it feels like it will stand the test of wear and tear.
The set was a delight to build and even more so to play with, so while much of LEGO’s audience may not have been around in 1981, my hunch is that this set will have greater appeal and accessibility than the more substantial Pac Man machine.
I can't wait to see this incorporated into a Great Ball Contraption—if Huw asks to borrow it, I’ll know why!
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37 comments on this article
Not really an excuse, but I'm assuming the black pieces are stickered because prints would be too dim...
Box with a lid. How awful!
Please Lego go back to the older boxes where you could cut the tape on both ends and flatten the box easily.
The set actually looks cool. But looks like I have the honor of being the first one to complain about price and stickers this time. Here's the thing, Lego usually hugely inflates piece count to meet ppp (which means nothing anyhow). But now they get bolder and bolder about overpricing sets with no attempt at hiding it.
I wonder if Garrett Bobby Ferguson will buy one.
I want one, but I love Mario, so there’s that.
Were the white gloves in the video part of the test plan, or were you just fully committed to being Mario?
Odds on this getting any kind of discount? I went in half-and-half with my son on Pac-Man, and will maybe do the same with this one. But we're patient--maybe black Friday, or a GWP that might offset it? Assuming it's not exclusive, I would hope somewhere like Walmart will eventually take some percent off that price.
The set looks great and one way or another, I think I'll end up getting it!
"£150 for this LEGO homage might feel alright to fans who don’t have thousands to drop on a refurbished original machine or hundreds to buy a tabletop replica."
As you said in the review, this miniature format never existed IRL in the old days, so there's no such thing as an "original machine." The closest analogue would be something from the Arcade1Up CounterCade series, which you cannot get with only one game, always 4+ games built in and near identical height to this LEGO set. However, those are fully playable with ported original graphics and sounds, and their costs seem to range between competitive and identical (at least in the US market, new), thus I believe preserving the reasonability of considering the comparative value.
The LEGO pinball table costs 2x as much as a similar-sized real one with scoring, lights and sounds, but in addition to the Danish offering providing a few hours of vaunted brick clicking, it is truly playable as a game of simple entertainment, and repeatably so. This DK cabinet honestly looks like it'd get boring if not slightly insulting to "play" for more than a couple minutes with essentially one, single-dimension action (jump, since side to side movement does all but nothing). Its true value looks like it comes almost exclusively from the visual impact (which is great) and the fact that it is LEGO-branded.
I will never accept his name as "Jumpman." That's up there with people calling Michael Meyers "The Shape."
I see animal abuse is no longer limited to Friends-set containing Nova.
Jumpmarioman was not a kind or responsible pet-owner.
I used to play this DK game on a dos computer. U insert the game diskette into the drive, and it will make some awful running noise as it boots up, and so on. I used to play games like Lode Runner as well. This Lego creation, however, doesn’t mean anything to me, as I’ve never seen it before. So it’s a pass. Money better spent elsewhere…
Great review!
I don't have too much nostalgio for Donkey Kong, have played it back in the day but not all that much. I do nevertheless really like this set, probably even more than Pac-Man. And sure, the gameplay is very limited, but tha fact that it works at all, and particularly the endless loop for the barrels, is still quite the feat.
Those stickers though.....there are a few more than I had expected based on the earlier images. And five of them round, four of those also big. So basically the easiest ones to mess up. If only those could have been prints. Or at least include a spare sticker sheet in case you mess up....
(and yes, I would have loved Legofied versions of those faces....)
At first I was kinda okay with the (€) price, but that was me thinking that some of those stickers (particularly those four) would be prints. With that not being the case.....it does feel kinda steep. Still, the set can already be pre-ordered for €137, and with the usual discounts should get below €120, and at that point I probably wouldn't hesitate too long...
Doing the sprites as stickers instead of tiles is really unfortunate. Pixel art works so well in LEGO form, so this is a missed opportunity.
how anyone can call this: "fun to play" is beyond me.
Also, what is up with those white gloves. It's LEGO, not some priceless, ancien, one-off artifact ...
Marvellous throw back to the 80s. Never played in an actuall arcade but had countless Atari VCS, 800 and ST versions. Will get as soon as there's a half decent GWP. (Probably when Mulder and Scully are out of the way!)
Thanks for reviewing. A nice looking set with a nice working gimmick. Didn’t expect the super big stickers though.
After seeing the review i feel a little unsatisfied. Wasn’t on my wishlist and is still so.
@BelgianBricker said:
"how anyone can call this: "fun to play" is beyond me.
Also, what is up with those white gloves. It's LEGO, not some priceless, ancien, one-off artifact ..."
I almost fell off the couch laughing when I saw those gloves. After all I was just watching a crime drama and the cop examining the scene was wearing similar gloves.
But that's how far we've come, when a simple toy is being treated like an art piece or antiquity.
Nice looking dust collector huge pass
@BelgianBricker said:
"how anyone can call this: "fun to play" is beyond me.
Also, what is up with those white gloves. It's LEGO, not some priceless, ancien, one-off artifact ..."
Maybe just for the pictures, to prevent fingerprints all over the thing?
(and particularly the black joystick?)
I must say, the engineering on this one is next level.
... but what does it do though? This is one of those sets that seem marvelous as a design but wouldn't really get you as much interaction as the designwork would warrent. Jumping up and down and slightly to the right isn't exactly an endlessly repeatable interaction loop. I think it's a lot better than a static display though.
And just to be clear: that this does what it does at all is absolutely incredible designwork.
@WizardOfOss said:
" @BelgianBricker said:
"how anyone can call this: "fun to play" is beyond me.
Also, what is up with those white gloves. It's LEGO, not some priceless, ancien, one-off artifact ..."
Maybe just for the pictures, to prevent fingerprints all over the thing?
(and particularly the black joystick?)"
We're also not all Joey Tribbiani hand models...
Sorry, not for me. I mean, first off: five giant stickers, need I say more? This doesn’t really look like Lego, in the end. I think, Pac Man or Arcade or even Super Nintendo run and jump works with bricks. But this? Why such a big one-off jump-man piece instead of, shocker!, a minifigure..? And we get Van Gogh and Klimt built with pieces: You tell me they wouldn’t be able to build a Kong and four corner pictures..? Nope, not for me. (And I really like the Super Mario playsets, btw. Bowser is a master-piece!)
Nice review, I like the enthusiasm. Nothing wrong with the gloves, that’s a valid reason. My main issue is the fact that Jumpman is essentially stuck in place and is incapable of actually climbing up the platforms, as shown in the clip of the actual game. While undoubtedly such a mechanism would surpass the limitations of the Lego system, consequently we are left with a basic play feature that I feel would get a bit stale rather quickly. It would then just be a glorified display piece and unless one is a superfan of the OG, there seems to be better displayable options for that amount of money even within LEGO.
Haven't seen one set announced this month that fills me with any kind of hope for a future with this hobby for me.
Sets are overprized, juniorized, lacking in correct detailing in licensed sets, its just an ongoing avalanche of underwhelming designs.
The only theme that still delivers is the botanic sets, the rest just gives the feeling of Lego being run by an investment fund trying to maximise profit by lowering perceived value and cutting corners.
It was a good run though.
Wow I didn't even notice before that DK himself is a sticker!!! Cmon Lego absolutely ridiculous
Not quite the Donkey Kong I remember as a kid. I had the little hand held version with the palm trees and red balloons I think. I don’t like the 4 big round tiles with the sticker characters on each corner. Might try and put something else there. And if you’re in Australia, BigW has it for preorder $50 cheaper than Lego.
@BelgianBricker said:
"how anyone can call this: "fun to play" is beyond me.
Also, what is up with those white gloves. It's LEGO, not some priceless, ancien, one-off artifact ..."
First off, don't knock it till you try it! (The game, not the gloves)
Second, maybe if you treated your sets like one-off artifacts, you'd appreciate them a bit more! Seriously though, lets focus on the set, not my decisions in hand attire. :)
@yellowcastle said:
" @WizardOfOss said:
" @BelgianBricker said:
"how anyone can call this: "fun to play" is beyond me.
Also, what is up with those white gloves. It's LEGO, not some priceless, ancien, one-off artifact ..."
Maybe just for the pictures, to prevent fingerprints all over the thing?
(and particularly the black joystick?)"
We're also not all Joey Tribbiani hand models..."
Alright, that got a LOL out of me. Well played
Can’t wait to see Billy Mitchell become the first person to cheat on a LEGO set!
Donkey Kong Arcade, X-Files, and Star Trek Bridge are the unholy trinity of $200 sets that should be $150.
At first I thought it was all prints, but then realized everything on the 'screen' were stickers. Fine. But the four huge round pieces are also stickers? With all the stickers, no gwp, and less than 1400 pieces, this is hard to justify at $200. $150 max and even then that's just fair value, not a deal.
Props to the designer/s! I’m always impressed at sets with working mechanisms that result in a fully functioning model.
“The model strays away from recreating the arcade cabinet as faithfully as 10323 PAC-MAN Arcade did.”
To be fair, 10323 doesn’t look much like an original cab either. It’s also very much in homage territory. That makes sense, because full cabs at this scale would be insanely expensive.
As for this set, I think it looks like a nice display piece. I can’t imagine anyone actually playing with it much, though, and some of those stickers feel like insults.
LEGO Nintendo sets used to stand for quality and printed decorations only. Now it's just another retro 18+ display slop with cheap stickers. Good luck with applying those huge round stickers on fixed round tiles straight and centered.
P.S. Those ripped off sprue marks on the magenta fences and white ones on the teal ladders are another testimony to good quality bricks.
I know that you are contractually obliged to complain about stickers but it’s a stretch to say it is two large sticker sheets rather than just 10 stickers.
What a shame to see so many stickers. Nintendo sets used to actually feel like premium collectibles with their abundance of prints. I won’t be buying any more if this is a trend. :(
@SetToBuild
“There's a potential Donkey Kong killscreen, if you wanna watch. Hey Todd!”
I never saw that clip xD Now watched 5 times, hahaha
Man, I was so excited at the first leak, but what a heavy blow those giant stickers are. Also not typical for the display Mario sets—even the $60 GameBoy was filled with new prints!
I do still like it. Just went from a hasty buy to a wait for a *large* discount from Facebook or eBay. Smarter for the wallet anyways.