Review: 72166 Cubone and Gengar's Spooky Showdown
Posted by SetToBuild,
Fan favourite Gengar is finally here in the brick, as the star of this graveyard battle! My poor favourite, Haunter, barely ever gets any love, so I make do with the next best thing by joining the ranks of Gengar fans, Haunter’s final evolutionary form. Cubone is here too!
Please note, this set does not contain a SMART Brick.
Summary
72166 Cubone and Gengar's Spooky Showdown, 782 pieces.
£79.99 / $89.99 / €89.99 | 10.2p, 11.5c, 11.5c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
Face off against a mischievous ghost in this engaging cemetery battle
- Both Pokémon look great
- Fun to play with
- Other than harping on about the sounds, none!
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Box & Contents
The backdrop to the box art is brilliant: twisted trees, haunting moonlight, and spooky shadows definitely illustrate the right vibe. It's only somewhat offset by the large yellow ‘SMART Brick compatible’ side strip.
The box contains 7 paper bags, and a paper envelope holding 4 books, a folded electronic waste leaflet, and no sticker sheets.
As usual, the rear of the box focuses primarily on the physical action features, but dedicates a black-bordered strip at the bottom to the opportunities for SMART-enabled play if SMART bricks are added to the two creatures.
Completed Model
The large and dominant Gengar further towers over small Cubone with the assistance of a built-up stone platform that resembles a mausoleum or similar for this spooky setting.
Don’t look too far into where Cubone’s skull comes from… Not all cute Pokémon have cute backstories, unfortunately.
When first revealed, I thought Gengar looked a bit strange, but after seeing the design language used across the theme, being a giant brick makes more sense. This aesthetic looks great even for this much larger Pokémon.
The monster’s construction is a straight forward brick and plate layering with some Technic axles and 2x4 bricks to stick the back on.
From the launch images, Gengar looked like a very heavy mass. In person, this is definitely true, and the bulky appearance is even more apparent from this angle. However, this heft isn’t really a bad thing, aside from the fact that as a ghost perhaps you don’t expect much weight!
Moving this switch side to side moves Gengar’s tongue. The mechanism is really simple, which makes it foolproof and effective. The Technic ball piece in this new blue violet colour is only in two other sets.
A smattering of slopes and cones make up Gengar’s spiny texture. These have come out really well and the joints between them are remarkably seamless.
Cubone is the only one of the new-form Pokémon that has hand clips attached to the ends of these new arm pieces. This allows the handheld bone club to be attached in a sensible way and posed at various angles.
The key difference from many of the other smaller Pokémon is the wider leg stance, which is very successfully achieved without compromising the SMART Brick integration. Printed 1x1 cheese slopes are not new but are still quite rare, so the toe details feel a bit special to complete the look.
A newish arch piece fits over printed curve pieces for the eyes, forming the skull’s eye-holes. Cubone’s rear spikes are a bit odd-looking, not necessarily because of the LEGO design, but potentially more because they are quite rarely seen from the rear in most media, so it's easy to forget they are there.
The bone club design is brick-built instead of using the existing long bone piece.
The stone carved mausoleum is a geometrically simple yet decorative build with several Poké Ball targets.
The two back targets are connected to the less decorated rear columns. These bare unconnected supports fall back when they’re hit.
The Ultra Ball follows the same format as the other balls at this scale. This one uses printed yellow 1x3 curved slopes for the side details. The deep black printing is rich, so no yellow is peeking through.
It is still quite alarming to receive the 6L bars as extras. An extra printed Cubone claw is probably the rarest part, with the 1x1 45° double slope being exclusive in purple but more likely to show up again in future.
Play Experience
Gengar’s smooth underside is interrupted by the new 2x2 plate with round cutouts. Use this gap to pry off the above brick assembly to place the SMART Brick.
Gengar’s filler piece includes some lower teeth and a sliver of dark red mouth flesh—it feels somehow much more wrong to remove this slice than the other Pokémon’s! The printed SMART Tag is brilliant, capturing Gengar’s iconic evil grin.
Inside of the SMART Brick, an accelerometer and gyroscope react to your movements when Gengar is picked up and moved around. Similar to Mew and Mewtwo, a low-toned hovering sound is emitted. I find this sound far more tolerable than Charizard’s flapping and Garchomp’s jet engine sounds. The sleep action sound effect features a similar snore to Charizard’s.
Cubone’s filler piece follows the same style as the other four-wide cuboid Pokemon, despite the wider leg stance. Inside, the printed SMART Tag tile matches the earthy colours.
Cubone sounds great, with a scrappy little voice to match its appearance. This was oddly one of the only Pokémon I could get to reliably do the walking sound. For some reason, this was easy to do with Jigglypuff as well, but much harder with others.
The attack sounds gritty, which is suitable with it being a ground-type creature.
The SMART Brick’s proximity sensor lets it detect other bricks and tags that are nearby. I love how they seem to tell jokes and giggle at each other. They sound like a couple of 90s cartoon teenagers snickering at some toilet humour.
Since there isn’t a screen, it’s somewhat difficult to know how many hit points a Pokémon has. To illustrate this, a traffic light kind of system that goes from green to amber to red shows health levels.
Two SMART Tags are present in the graveyard scene. The top is for the boss battle event and the bottom is for training a Pokémon to level up their attack.
Throwing the Poké Balls at these targets will knock Gengar off the pedestal and send the Pokémon crashing down. Sadly, gravity does affect LEGO Gengar and it will violently tumble down. Since it is basically a heavy brick, for the boss battle, I cushioned its fall. Otherwise, the spines would have surely punctured my backdrop!
When Gengar is defeated, a box of treasure with a few pearl gold studs and a shimmering purple crystal appears to loot!
The music is actually pretty catchy, spooky, and sounds very 8-bit, but it’s no Lavender Town theme! After Gengar falls, and the dizzy sound plays, I wish there was one more chime to say that the battle was done like in 72164 Training House with Pikachu.
Conclusion
The boss battle mechanic is fun and well done, making the parts invested in the base structure and scenery feel much more worthwhile than some others in this wave—which was a relief. The mechanism is a bit rough for poor Gengar to come tumbling down, but is dramatic and a cool idea; it feels like the team have been developing the classic LEGO platform drop mechanic across the video game themes of late.
I was worried the £80 price tag on a set without the SMART Bricks would be absurd. It is by no means cheap, but after building it and seeing the density of the parts involved, I definitely felt better about the value. The bigger issue is that until they become available separately, to get two SMART Bricks you need to spend £109.99 on 72167 Charizard vs. Jolteon Ultimate Battle, or turn to the secondary market. What if you don’t want those two Pokémon? It essentially doubles the cost of the set, just to SMART-ify Gengar and Cubone.
I would love to see Gengar’s previous form, my favourite Pokémon, Haunter, get the LEGO treatment, but merchandise featuring it is as rare as hen’s teeth apart from the occasional plush or badge. Cubone was a great choice and surprisingly well-executed for such a complex creature. Maybe we’ll get a set containing Farfetch’d some day. Now, don’t go looking for any LEGO leeks!
56 likes
14 comments on this article
I really like the smart brick pokemon collection. It suits the theme and brings the characters to life. I liked Cubone before I started building. Gengar not so much. But the smart brick honestly changed my mind. This is great
The Star Wars smart theme sucked!
I actually hope they continue the theme.
@Copper999 said:
"I really like the smart brick pokemon collection. It suits the theme and brings the characters to life. I liked Cubone before I started building. Gengar not so much. But the smart brick honestly changed my mind. This is great
The Star Wars smart theme sucked!
I actually hope they continue the theme."
Smart Bricks definitely had a rough start, but Pokémon is proving to have more potential!
Very thorough review and gives a much-appreciated in-depth look at the build itself as well as the SMART Brick interactions. Although i wasn't too sure about the scale and overall look of some Pokémon, it's good that your attention to detail in its playability does make for rethinking and addresses other doubts and niggles. I'm still on the fence with the SMART Play but i now see much better how it works. Also I've loved Cubone (since the GB Blue days) so I'm very happy how he's turned out here!
The builds themselves look pretty good...but as long as they're "smart play", I won't touch them.
I find the entire concept an awful idea and I won't support it financially.
I like how they’ve done the music for the Pokemon sets. I don’t need everything to be copies of themes I know so long as it feels in keeping, and the music they’ve written feels perfectly in keeping. New Pokemon music isn’t a bad thing.
The SMART bricks make sense with the Pokemon theme
Cubone is one of my favorite Pokemon so I'll be getting this set just for the little guy.
Gengar looks great too.
Cubone looks rather cute wearing his dead mother's skull.
I think the stylisation really shines with these two characters honestly.
@djcbs said:
"I find the entire concept an awful idea and I won't support it financially."
You've spent over 2k this year alone on Legos dude...
@Nuclearxpotato said:
"I think the stylisation really shines with these two characters honestly.
@djcbs said:
"I find the entire concept an awful idea and I won't support it financially."
You've spent over 2k this year alone on Legos dude..."
2K is base-level AFOL.
Calling it "Legos" well...
@Kre_O said:
"2K is base-level AFOL.
Calling it "Legos" well..."
Sometimes I just can't give a crap about the corporate guidelines a brand expect from you, lmao.
But someone can't have the capitalist entitled customer mentality of "I'm not supporting this financially" when they spend an insane amount on plastic toys.
Not to mention they're perfectly fine with supporting JK Rowling financially, but a kid-focused gizmo is crossing the line.
Total crap this theme! The whole franchise if you ask me and by the way.. why does TLG has this license anyway? There are sets from MEGA! There is no need to polute the globe further with this S% t!
No wonder that LEGO original themes will always flop... kids need to get past several shelfs of Licensed Display slop sets to even see the original themes like dreamzzz.. Dreamzzz is wonderful but kids dumbed down buy now. A!l they want is Star Wars, Marvel or Pokemon! Shocking future ahead! With AI our future of creativity is even more lost. I might call it the end of creativity. And TLG sits in the same boat! Very smart play, just mainstream anything!
@Nuclearxpotato said:
"I think the stylisation really shines with these two characters honestly.
@djcbs said:
"I find the entire concept an awful idea and I won't support it financially."
You've spent over 2k this year alone on Legos dude..."
And that includes some Pokémon sets…
@Kynareth said:
" @Nuclearxpotato said:
"I think the stylisation really shines with these two characters honestly.
@djcbs said:
"I find the entire concept an awful idea and I won't support it financially."
You've spent over 2k this year alone on Legos dude..."
And that includes some Pokémon sets…"
The concept of "smart play". I know it's probably hard for you to do it, but try to use your brain.
@Nuclearxpotato said:
"I think the stylisation really shines with these two characters honestly.
@djcbs said:
"I find the entire concept an awful idea and I won't support it financially."
You've spent over 2k this year alone on Legos dude..."
And I guess it makes you jealous that I have a job and you don't? Is that it?
Or is the concept of "I don't want to support the concept of smart play" the thing that makes it harder to understand? 'cause I was pretty explicit.
If you bothered to go look at how much I've spent on LEGO this year - something even I haven't done, so thanks for the info, creep - you SHOULD have also noticed that ZERO EUROS of that spending went to "smart play" sets...then you could have added 2+2...but I'm going to assume that's hard for you.
Also, just FYI, I wholeheartedly support capitalism. And even more I support J. K. Rowling where her fight to protect women's rights is concerned. You can cope and seethe with that knowledge.