Review: 71313 Lava Beast
Posted by TheOneVeyronian,
In my last review of the Summer 2016 BIONICLE, I will be taking a look at the final Elemental Beast, Lava Beast. Like the other Elemental Beasts, Lava Beast is one of the beasts that have been summoned from the depths of Okoto by Umarak the Destroyer and has stolen and corrupted Tahu’s Unity mask. Lava Beast is also the only aerial Beast, which explains some of the odd weapon choices on the model.
Measuring at 22cm high and 15cm wide when upright and crystal blades folded in, Lava Beast is a little taller than the other Beasts (ignoring Quake Beast’s shoulder blades) but is still smaller than a typical Unity Toa. Lava Beast retails for £9.99/$14.99 and contains 114 pieces, a good deal especially as it contains a good variety of CCBS pieces. Despite my love of villain BIONICLE figures and typical lava and fire golems, Lava Beast didn’t excite me very much with it’s generic build at first glance, but now with the beast in my hands, did it set my world on fire?
The box
Lava 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 shows Lava Beast rampaging about on a corrupted volcanic landscape and generally looking intimidating, with Tahu’s corrupted Unity mask in one of it’s claws. In the background on the far right, you can spot a maskless 71308 Tahu, one of Lava Beast’s victims. There are no rendering errors on Lava Beast’s box and it is possible to put Lava Beast into it’s box pose.
The back of the box advertises the prominent features of the set, including Lava Beast’s adjustable crystal blade wings, the rotating waist and the mask pop-off function. It also shows that Lava Beast combines with the other Beasts and Umarak the Destroyer to create an “ultimate” Umarak. The comic shows the summoning of Lava Beast and the beast storming out of a cave to go and challenge a united Tahu and Ikir. Like the other box comics, this can set up a play scenario that can be acted out using the set as well as 71308 Tahu and 71303 Ikir.
Parts and build
Lava Beast is composed much more of CCBS than the other Beasts and uses Technic pieces sparingly, thus it is a good CCBS parts pack with a few rare and exclusive black and trans-neon orange pieces, including one piece in a new colour to CCBS: trans-black. The LEGO.com inventory for this set shows all the parts you can expect to get with Lava Beast.
The exclusive and rare parts featured in Lava Beast are as follows:
Parts and recolours exclusive to Lava Beast:
- Trans-black crystalline shell
- Black Super Chest with Lava Beast decoration
- Black/Trans-Neon Orange Corrupted Beast mask
- Red/Trans Neon Green Corrupted Tahu Mask
- Black/Orange crystal blade
Rare parts (appears in 5 sets or less):
- Trans-neon green BIONICLE head (Okoto)
- Titanium Metallic Beast jaw
- Trans-neon orangeorange ribcage torso shell
- Trans-neon orange 5M A bone
- Dark Orange Glatorian neck
Many of the other parts found in Lava Beast are relatively common but are still useful Technic or Constraction parts. Lava Beast as a parts pack may not be as exciting as that of Quake or Storm Beast’s, but there is still plenty of things going for Lava Beast: it contains more exclusive or rare parts than that of 71312 Ekimu and piece-for-piece contains more exclusive or rare pieces than 71316 Umarak the Destroyer.
When Tahu’s Unity mask falls into the possession of Lava Beast, it suffers the same fate as that of Kopaka’s and Onua’s Unity mask in that it becomes corrupted. Corrupted masks like this, which are the Toa’s colour (in this case red) 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. Tahu’s corrupted mask is okay, it shows off the corrupted look well though it is probably the hardest of the 3 corrupted masks to re-use in an MOC given that red and trans-neon green are not a typical colour scheme.
As is the case with all the other Beasts, I do not necessarily like to think the Beast’s faces are masks, however in all material LEGO has published regarding Lava Beast, including the set description, the Beast’s face is considered as a mask and so should be considered as such. Lava Beast’s face mask is easily my favourite of the three, opting for a sinister-looking combination of black and trans-neon orange which fits perfectly with the lava golem look that the set is trying to achieve. The colour combination also makes this the most re-usable of all the Beast masks, givent hat black and trans-neon orange is a popular if over-used colour combo for villainous figures.
One thing I like about the Elemental Beasts is that they each have a different build from both the Toa and from each other. Lava Beast has a more generic Toa-style build than the other beasts and as a result his build is definitely much more generic than that of it’s beastly cousins.
Removing Lava Beast’s CCBS shells leaves this symmetrical skeleton arrangement. It is a rather basic Unity Toa build with relatively little in regards to function. Probably the most interesting part of the build is the neck construction, which enables a shadow trap half to be connected to the neck area and also eradicates an issue that plagues the other two Beasts: neck articulation.
The completed model
Upon finishing the model, the first impressions are generally reasonably good. While it’s waist and lower leg area both lack any sort of bulk, Lava Beast’s short arms help minimise any gaps from the front and give the illusion of bulk. The functions Lava Beast does have are unobtrusive and do not impact on the aesthetics of the model, making Lava Beast perhaps the most aesthetically pleasing of the Beasts in terms of balancing function and aesthetics. The crystalline shell does not look as bad on Lava Beast as it does on Storm or Quake Beast, partly due to it’s use on shorter limb bones in this case. The legs are a little short for the length of the torso but otherwise Lava Beast’s proportions are quite good.
Where Lava Beast does fall down though is the custom lower legs, they are easily the worst of the three custom lower leg designs seen on the Beasts. While they do convey the intended look like the other custom leg solutions do, the result isn’t as aesthetically or structurally good as Storm or Quake Beast’s legs. The dark orange Glatorian necks, while it’s nice to see a rare recolour being re-used, the colour has no place on the model and it stands out. It is also much easier for Lava Beast’s legs to fall apart through rough handling as the two parts of the lower leg are only held together by one Technic axle as opposed to the two Technic axles and two thin liftarms on the other Beasts. I can see why the designers may have chosen this, to try and provide some variety in the Beasts, but I would personally have just gone with Storm Beast’s leg build instead.
Lava Beast’s side view reveals a very large gap in the torso which impacts on an otherwise good side view. The major gap in the torso could easily be filled by using something akin to 71312 Ekimu the Mask Maker’s torso build. The side view also shows just how odd the lower legs look.
Lava Beast probably has the best-looking back view of all the Beasts in that there are not too many gaps and some attempt has been made at cladding the back of the model in this case, a not very common occurrence in CCBS sets of this size. The addition of a 4M shell at the back helps Lava Beast to feel more “complete” than the other Beasts.
Lava Beast has (arguably) two gear-based functions: a rotating waist and deployable crystal blades, though gears in the latter function serve simply to add friction so the crystal blades do not simply flop about. Compared the the innovation in function shown in Quake and Storm Beast, Lava Beast’s functions feel rather underwhelming, more like the functions seen in Ekimu and Umarak the Destroyer.
Perhaps one area which makes up for the lackluster functions is the huge variety of poses that Lava Beast can be put into. While the other Beasts have decent amounts of articulation, Lava Beast features more articulation than the other Beasts, mainly an extra balljoint connection in the neck as well as making use of the Toa’s waist swivel torso. Having two points of articulation in the neck makes Lava Beast’s neck very poseable and having this extra balljoint can really bring Lava Beast’s poses to life. Even the fingers on Lava Beast have 2 points of articulation each, however the thumb on each hand is static. Pretty much the only bit that doesn’t move is the jaw piece, this is static and cannot be easily modded to provide movement. This is a problem with the piece rather than a problem with Lava Beast, as all the Beasts and Umarak The Destroyer share the jaw problem. You can move Lava Beast’s mask into a lower position on the headpiece to “close” the mouth and is quite a sturdy connection, however this is an illegal technique.
The only thing about Lava Beast is that it doesn’t have the corrupted abomination look that the other Beasts achieve and the only hint of corruption on Lava Beast is to be found on the box (note the green slime-like substance dripping from Lava Beast’s arms and claws), description and Tahu’s mask. The other Beasts and Umarak the Destroyer all use trans-neon green as a way to show affiliation in some way, however Lava Beast does not really use any trans-neon green in it’s colour scheme outside of the head area. But the lack of trans-neon green does mean that it is probably easier to re-purpose Lava Beast as a general golem-like creature, outside of BIONICLE.
Conclusion
Despite it’s very generic build and lackluster functions, Lava Beast proves to be a decent model that is fun to pose and is the most coherent of the three Beasts in terms of aesthetics (aside from the questionable lower legs and the gap in the upper torso). At £9.99/$14.99 for 114 pieces, Lava Beast is also a useful source for parts including some rare and exclusive parts, especially if black and trans-neon orange is your thing.
For me, Lava Beast falls right in the middle of the Beast line-up. I still feel that, overall, Storm Beast is the best of the three Beasts due to it’s puppet function and potential as a parts pack, but when taking things into consideration, I would still recommend Lava Beast over Quake Beast. If function is what you’re looking for in a BIONICLE model, leave Lava Beast on the shelf in favour of Quake or Storm Beast, but otherwise Lava Beast is a relatively solid, easy to mod model in spite of it’s first impressions with the generic build.
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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6 comments on this article
Great review, I like this one a lot.
My only Beast set so far. I am really enjoying it! He looks great and villainous. While it's sad the theme came to such an end, this is one of the better villains it produced.
Oooooh, I need that Tahu mask for my M-Tron MOC!!!!
A good review, but I'm really not sold on this. The heads look comically big, and with Lava Beast in particular I'm struggling to understand the knee/ankle area as it is in a release set. That looks really, really poor. Whilst I'm sure the connection is strong (and it probably needs really good friction between the ball joints and the 'cups'), it just looks really weak and messy. I feel like the addition of four parts (two axles and two panels or something of that sort) would really just make it look a lot neater and pleasing.
Great review!
That head is way too big for me to ever consider making a purchase.