This set doesn't look too bad. I couldn't buy it though, because I was born 9 years later... a bit too late.

I had literally every single one of the original Aquasharks, Aquanauts, and most of the first Aquaraiders, but never bought a single one of these later Aquazone (Hydronauts?) or the Stingrays. Not sure why, they never really appealed to me. I actually just rebuilt almost all of the old sets in the past few months for my kids to play with. Brings back so many memories. They were all so cool and we would play with them in the swimming pool as kids.

I have ALL of the Aquazone sets. It was an awesome theme! 6198 Stingray Stormer is my favorite.

I loved all the Aquanauts, Aquasharks, and Hydronauts sets. The Stingrays sets were OK (I actually had quite a few of them) but the Aquasharks were a cooler design, IMO. I loved how chunky the Hydronauts sets designs were. Even this small set felt like a significant vehicle, and the large ones always had multiple cockpits and things (kind of like the larger classic Space sets).

I really liked the new Hydronaut and Stingray factions introduced to Aquazone in 1998. However, my LEGO attention was really split that year between Aquazone, Xtreme Team, RES-Q, Insectoids, Adventurers, and Cyber Slam. It was crazy how no one theme dominated my wishlists, but there was for sure at least one or two must-have sets from each theme. I guess, at that stage in my LEGO mania, four years into serious set collecting, I was experimenting with how I could get the most bang for my buck and "sampling" the best each theme had to offer without giving into the lure of getting every set from one theme (as I did with Aquazone in 1995). Because of this, I missed out on a lot of smaller sets from each theme that were still pretty good. This one, the Crystal Detector, I felt was one such victim. And I didn't get it until a few years later as part of a yard sale haul wherein the set was sold "as-is" and fully built.

Perhaps it was having the pleasure of building the set deprived from me that colored heavily my impression of the set. Now, seeing it for the first time as a somewhat dusty, barely-hanging together assembly, I was not impressed. Over the next few years, I used photographs to fix it up slowly to its original form, but even then, I wasn't fussed enough to display it with my other sets. So much time had passed that I realized it would just look weird on limited shelves currently dominated by BIONICLE and Star Wars. So I left it, still fully assembled, in a bucket of other spare parts.

Flash forward almost two decades, and the set is still in that condition. After moving to my house, I brought over the bucket to my new LEGO room and inspected the contents. Sure enough, the ol' Crystal Detector was still in there, looking none the worse for wear. The flexible arm sections haven't cracked and the chrome pieces still look good. The only thing missing is the flexible tube for the suction cup arm (a small downgrade from the power of MAGNETS! that Aquazone used to triumph with). Without a box or instructions, I am ashamed to say it just might be disassembled into the spare parts bin forever, unable to join its other two Hydronaut subs in repelling attacks from the Stingray Stormer. I guess that isn't an ignoble end for a set that entered my life rather ignobly.

And if you're wondering why I didn't mention "1998" and "NINJA" in the same sentence, there's a good reason for that. My parents in the late 90s were in full-swing, non-violent toys and entertainment mode, and ninjas vs. samurai definitely fit their bill as "too violent" for me, alongside my beloved copy of "Mechwarrior 2". So sadly, I missed out on the Ninja theme for the entirety of the 1998 release year.

Colors are too jumbled and the design is too busy for my taste. And, wait a minute, is that arm not properly connected to the 2x4 grey brick?

Trans Dark Green and Yellow is quite an unique color scheme!

Some of these 90s Aquazone sets I love, others not so much. The two sets I have, 6180 Hydro Search Sub and 6195 Neptune Discovery Lab, are already lovely sets and aggregate the beauty of this theme.

This, however, isn't very pleasing to the eye, though as mentioned some of the parts are gorgeous.

I want to like it, but somehow it's not appealing to me

Yeah I was never sold on hydronauts either. I think stingrays fared better because having another villain faction is always good.

Ah this set! Never released in the UK as far as I know, but appeared in one of the Lego catalogues! Teasing us all!

It looks like something 7-year old me would do.