Review: 71314 Storm Beast
Posted by TheOneVeyronian,
My reviews of the Summer BIONICLE 2016 sets continues with the first of three Elemental Beasts reviews, beginning with Storm Beast. Unleashed from the deep Okotoan oceans, Storm Beast is one of the Elemental Beasts summoned by Umarak to fight the Toa and has command over lightning and thunderstorms. He also possesses Kopaka’s Mask of Ice.
Measuring at 20cm high and 14cm wide when upright, Storm Beast is definitely on the small side, but what initially drew me to Storm Beast over the other Beasts upon first images was his colour scheme and function, and especially the presence of dark blue CCBS shells, so naturally my expectations for the set were high. Storm Beast retails for £9.99/$14.99 and contains 109 pieces which is a good deal, especially when you discover the amount of exclusive, rare and useful parts in the set. But is there more to this model than just the coveted dark blue CCBS shells that clad it’s legs?
The box
Storm Beast’s box is in the typical G2 BIONICLE hexagonal style and is the size of a typical medium G2 BIONICLE set. The front of the box features a rather menacingly posed Storm Beast prowling around in an icy glacier setting, leaving trails of a corrupted slime-like substance wherever it treads in keeping with the general “corruption” theme of this wave. In the background on the far right, you can spot a maskless 71311 Kopaka, a victim of Storm Beast’s attack and explains why Storm Beast has Kopaka’s mask in it’s trap tail. There are no rendering errors on Storm Beast’s box and it is possible to put Storm Beast into it’s box pose.
The back of the box advertises the prominent features of the set, including the “puppet” function, the trap tail and the mask pop-off function. It also shows that Storm Beast combines with the other Beasts and Umarak the Destroyer to create an “ultimate” Umarak. The comic on the back illustrates Storm Beast rising from the waves and Kopaka and Melum confronting him, like a prologue to the events you see on the front of Storm Beast’s box and sets the scene for play possibilities nicely.
Parts and build
Storm Beast is a varied Technic and CCBS parts pack and in my opinon it is the best Summer 2016 BIONICLE set for parts especially if you are into blue or have been wishing for dark blue to enter the CCBS palette ever since the system’s first release in 2011. The LEGO.com inventory for this set shows all the parts you can expect to get with Storm Beast.
The exclusive and rare parts featured in Storm Beast are as follows:
Parts and recolours exclusive to Storm Beast:
- Dark Blue 4M shell
- Black Super Chest with Storm Beast decoration
- Dark Blue/Trans-Neon Green Corrupted Beast mask
- White/Trans Neon Green Corrupted Kopaka Mask
Rare parts (appears in 5 sets or less):
- Trans-light blue crystalline shell
- Trans-neon green BIONICLE head (Okoto)
- Trans-neon green Skull Spider leg
- Trans-light blue ribcage torso shell
- Titanium Metallic Beast jaw
- Black Lower Torso beam
Most of the other parts not designated as “rare” are useful Technic or CCBS pieces, such as the 3M cross axle with stop or the pneumatic T-bar with axle hole.
After Storm Beast “steals” Kopaka’s Mask of Ice, it is corrupted and the result of the corruption can be seen in the most collectible aspect of this set. Corrupted masks like this, which are the Toa’s colour (in this case white) blended with trans-neon green to represent them being corrupted, are the Beast’s equivalent of the Skull Army’s drained golden masks which appeared last year. Kopaka’s corrupted mask is almost certainly my least favourite of the corrupted masks, trans-neon green and white does not generally blend well together which results in a sort of pale, sickly-looking semi-opaque section of the mask where the trans-neon green meets the white. However, while it is my least favourite, the mask does pull off the corrupted look the best.
While I do not really consider the Beast’s faces to be masks in terms of the model they come attached to, LEGO’s inventory and the way they are attached signifies them as masks in their own right. I do like the Beast mask mould very much, it’s irregularity in the texture gives the piece an organic scale or perhaps even a rock-like appearance and matches the texture of the jaw piece. The mask also looks decidedly beast-like. In the case of Storm Beast’s mask, while generally blue and green should not work together, the unconventional combination of trans-neon green and dark blue actually looks quite nice and eye-catching.
Though Storm Beast is a relatively small set, when you start building it is immediately apparent that it is going to be a different building experience to the Toa. The body utilises a torso bone first seen in this year’s Star Wars buildable figures, which lacks shoulder balljoints. This piece helps to solve an issue that plagued practically all the medium and large BIONICLE sets last year: exposed balljoints. While most of the build is relatively straightforward, construction involving the function can be quite fiddly and frustrating given that the half-assembled function tends to flop around a lot.
Stripping Storm Beast of his relatively few CCBS shells reveals his skeletal structure, which is symmetrical. Here you can also see how the function works and the pivot points of the tail and the arms. One thing you will notice here is the lack of wrists – I will touch on what implications this has later in the review.
The completed model
On first impessions, Storm Beast is quite a scrawny looking thing, however his colours and proportions are pretty solid for a bipedal bestial creature. A presumably unintended consequence of Storm Beast’s function is that the Technic links that control the function position themselves as such that they give the illusion of fill and bulk, which makes Storm Beast’s torso feel more filled out than the torsos of the other Beasts. However, this shot reveals how much the crystal shells stick out from the bone they are attached to, thus they look more tacked on to me than feel like they are part of the Beast’s arm. In this case, I would have put Dark Blue shells on the arms and then used this piece to give a similar aesthetic.
All the Beasts utilise custom lower legs, however I feel that, while none of them particularly work well and the lack of CCBS cladding makes the leg feel skinny and unfinished, I can see the effect the designer was going for (what I can only describe as giving the Beasts the back legs of a quadruped, which is a typical design choice for a mythical bipedal beast, a well-known example in LEGO being the Faun). Storm Beast has the best of the three custom leg designs found on the Beasts in my opinion as they are proportionally spot-on and stable.
From the side, Storm Beast has surprisingly few gaps in it’s torso, once again the Technic links helping to fill out Storm Beast’s silhouette. The gaps that are there could have been easily filled out with a couple of these however.
As is true for the majority of BIONICLE figures, Storm Beast’s back is not it’s best angle. While it is reasonably tidy, a 4M shell mounted on this beam could have been added here to complete the back of this model quite easily and would not necessarily have got in the way of the model’s function.
This GIF illustrates Storm Beast’s main function. By moving it’s tail from side to side, it’s arms will swing in opposite directions. By moving it’s tail up and down, it’s arms will swing in unison. You can see why it’s function has been called a “puppet” function. It’s surprisingly simple in construction yet it’s wonderfully innovative and unique and great fun to mess around with as it offers a very fluid and wide range of motion.
Despite the lack of wrists, Storm Beast is actually a very poseable model, aside from the head which has somewhat limited motion due to the way it is mounted. The function does not interfere with trying to get Storm Beast to hold poses as much as you would originally think, which is a good thing. Storm Beast will stay in a wide variety of poses such as in the examples above relatively easily. While the lack of wrists does hinder Storm Beast’s arm poseability a little, having the elbow built around an A type CCBS bone as opposed to a B type CCBS bone means that the lack of wrists does not hinder poseability as much as it would if, say, this bone was used in Storm Beast’s upper arms. The Shadow Trap on Storm Beast’s tail is openable, however since it is purely hinged open by pins, there is not a lot of friction so it is hard for it to grip masks as illustrated on the box.
My main real gripes with Storm Beast all stem from an aesthetic point of view. As well as the skinny legs, the unfinished back and the “tacked on” appearance of the crystal shells on the arms, Storm Beast’s hands are built using the small Beast foot as a base. While I am pleased to see this foot piece be used as a hand in a set for the first time (however the foot piece was used by MOCist’s as a hand, including myself, well before this set), the way it has been implemented has resulted in quite an obtrusive empty ballcup which looks quite unsightly and could have easily been used instead of the current solution by ditching this piece and replacing it with an A type CCBS bone like this. I would also give mention to the jaw piece in that I don’t like how it is unposeable and cannot be modded easily, however this is a complaint that I share with all the Beasts and Umarak the Destroyer.
Conclusion
While not the best set in the summer 2016 BIONICLE wave for me, I feel like it is the best of the Beasts in spite of all it’s aesthetic flaws, as the uniqueness and sheer fun that the function provides just about edges out the model’s drawbacks. Apart from the jaw, most of the flaws in the set can be ironed out quite easily if you’re prepared to do a little modding. At £9.99/$14.99 for 109 mostly useful pieces, plus a fair smattering of rare and exclusive pieces, it’s pretty reasonable value for money as well.
I would definitely recommend getting a copy of Storm Beast if you want to get just one Beast from this wave, or want an innovative and fun figure to mess about with, and even if the main model isn’t your cup of corrupted slime-like substance, Storm Beast is also an excellent parts pack for constraction MOC’ers, partly thanks to the presence of long-awaited dark blue shells. However, if you are looking to only buy one set from this wave and you want a solid, displayable model that looks good from all angles, I’d leave Storm Beast on the shelf and get Ekimu the Mask Maker instead. A couple of additions and fixes would have made Storm Beast a serious contender for best set of the summer wave, but sadly as it is it falls short.
A big thanks to The LEGO Group for providing this set for review, so it goes without saying that this review is an expression of my own thoughts and opinions.
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9 comments on this article
Thanks for the review!
Does anyone have any info on the status of Bionicle? Here in the US all previous releases are being clearanced by stores, there is no more Bionicle shelf space, and even the LEGO Store has only a few old sets. The new wave seems to be only available at Shop-at-Home and has been introduced with little fanfare. Is this the last Bionicle wave?
^Aparraently this Bionicle Wave is a Toys R Us exclusive. No official announcement has been made suggesting this is Bionicle's last year, but speculation is rampant.
Anyways; I love the function and parts of Storm Beast; but he is ugly looking! If I have money to buy any of these beasts it will be the more conventional Lava Beast first, since I like the way he looks more.
With all due respect, I don't see what is so special about Bionicle and don't understand the hype. It is messy, not good looking at all, and the color scheme is very questionable.
"Storm? Ha! That's not even an element!"
"So says the master of Lightning"
But in all seriousness, I'm not a fan of this model :P
Good review! I agree with your assessment of Storm Beast as the best of the three beasts. I do not mind his arm/hand construction — the exposed ball cups do not bother me, and if they did the solution I would use would be to fill them with ball joints and use those ball joints to attach additional detail pieces such as http://brickset.com/parts/6126496 or http://brickset.com/parts/6105637, not to change the entire arm construction.
The lack of separate elbow and wrist posability isn't a big issue for me since a) the finger posability helps make up for it in terms of the sheer number of poses you can put him in, and b) poses that make him look appropriately monstrous don't depend strictly on him having all the joints he should, as opposed to a more human-shaped character like a Toa who I'd expect to have a more human-like range of motion.
His back is a little empty-looking, though the mechanism helps with that. The mechanism might have been less obtrusive if more of the parts that are Medium Stone Grey on the set were Dark Stone Grey or Black like the various joints, instead. You make a good point that another 4M shell on the back could be an improvement.
The gangly look of the upper arms doesn't entirely bother me because it adds to the whole unnatural look that really defines these beasts, although if the crystal armor could be made to look a little less tacked-on I certainly wouldn't mind. The color scheme, despite using two transparent colors, is maybe the most coherent of any of the beasts.
The function is where this set really shines. It's such a brilliant concept, and much more complex than anything we ever saw on a Toa-sized figure back in G1. It's more reminiscent of the functions of Rahi or vehicle sets than anything else, but even then it's still wholly unlike anything we've previously seen. So much like how Skull Basher was the standout set of last year's second wave in terms of functionality, Storm Beast is functionally this wave's heavy hitter.
Thanks for the review! I wasn't totally sure if Brickset would be reviewing any of the sets besides Ekimu and Umarak. My brother and I have been hard at work on some LEGO set reviews ourselves, so hopefully we can finish those up soonish.
@flipus74: The online LEGO Shop will continue to stock Bionicle, apparently, but Toys 'R' Us is now going to be the exclusive brick-and-mortar location for Bionicle in the United States, at least for this wave. Furthermore, I have heard that LEGO Brand Retail stores will also not be stocking other store-exclusive sets for this summer, such as http://brickset.com/sets/76056-1/Batman-Rescue-from-Ra-s-al-Ghul or many of the summer LEGO Friends sets, which makes me think that the LEGO Group's other retail partners got mad at them for stocking supposedly "exclusive" sets in other retail stores.
This is in line with what I've heard in the past about LEGO Brand Retail having a testy relationship with other retailers. In fact, the LEGO VIP program basically exists because just having regular "sales" on new sets tends to bring LEGO under fire for undercutting the prices of other retailers, and thus pulling business away from them.
As for other concerns about the state of the Bionicle line, I don't really know anything really specific. But Bionicle now being a Toys 'R' Us exclusive is the reason you're no longer seeing new sets at other stores.
I keep commenting on your reviews and I forget to tell you how good the actual reviews are! You do a wonderful job highlighting the functions, aesthetic choices, and possibility of the figures. Not to mention the photographs you take are lovely, the transparent colors and the poses you put them in really shine. I can't wait to see your reviews for Lava and Quake Beast!
Another great bionacle review
@aanchir, @xboxtravis7992 : Thanks both for your perspective. I went and looked at TRU.com today and lo-and-behold, the new Bionicles were there. Even better: Lava Beast was $4 off ($10.99 vs $14.99 RRP) and Quake Beast was FREE (with a $40 LEGO purchase). Awesome!
This guy looks epic, but a bit to brawly for my taste. What he doesn't have in first glances,though, he makes up for in parts.thank you once again TheOneVeyronian.