Review: Super Mario Character Packs series 2
Posted by Huw,
The first series of Super Mario Character Packs were fun, attractive and full of new and useful parts. Even if you had no plans to actually play the game with them, they were a worthwhile purchase.
The second series looks to deliver more of the same, so let's open the bags and take a look...
As before, there are ten in the series, and they are packed in boxes of 20 which contain two complete sets. They are packed in two rows of ten which each contains a set. So, if you want to buy one set and are able to find an unopened box in the shop, grab all 10 packs from one of the rows.
Throughout this review I will add links to the Super Mario Wiki, from where I did my research, and where you'll find more information about the characters.
71386 Huckit Crab
Huckit Crabs are a species of crab with one claw that they use to throw rocks at Mario and his allies. It's defeated with one scan of its barcode.
Spiny Cheep Cheep
Spiny Cheep Cheeps are fish with spikes along their backs. It's defeated with one scan of its barcode.
Ninji
Ninji are star-shaped black devil-like creatures and this variant is modelled on the version that appeared in Super Mario Run, having red buttons rather than teeth and claws. It's defeated with one scan.
Like many of the cubic characters it's constructed using two Brick 1X2X1 2/3, W/ 8 Knobs which is a new and useful part.
Foo
Foos are cloud-like enemies that produce fog to obscure the player's view. This one seems to be hiding among some Cacti.
Like all the creatures so far, it's defeated with a single scan of its barcode.
Parachute Goomba
Goombas are small brown fungi and this one joins six other variants that appeared in Super Mario sets in 2020.
It has a new facial expression and perhaps the most interesting thing about it is the white three-pronged flower stem which is new in this set.
This is one of two characters in the pack that come with purple 'swamp' bases, which is a new biome introduced in the 2021 sets.
It's defeated with a single scan.
Para-Beetle
Para-Beetles are flying Buzzy Beetles, of which a dark blue one featured in series one of the character packs.
The shell is a new mould, though, with two holes on the sides for the wings. It takes two scans to defeat this hard-shelled foe.
Poison Mushroom
In terms of influence on the game, this is the most interesting character in the pack.
Poison Mushrooms have the opposite effect to Super Mushrooms. When scanned, rather than acting as a power-up, it causes Mario to go into a daze, indicated by a purple mushroom appearing on his screen. He has to be shaken out of it in order to proceed, at which point one coin is gained. So, best avoided, then!
Update: Richard at The Rambling Brick has told me that you can also wash the poison off on a blue plate and you'll be gifted with between 3 and 7 coins.
Thwimp
Thwimp is a tough little character who takes three scans to defeat.
Fly Guy
Fly Guy is a variant of Shy Guy, who appeared in 71366 Boomer Bill Barrage, but with a propeller on his head.
He can be defeated with a single scan.
This new plate has been used in its body instead of 2x2 corners and 1x2s which seems to be a bit unnecessary in this instance but perhaps it was designed for more useful application elsewhere.
Bone Goomba
Bone Goomba is a Gooba wearing a skull for a helmet. Despite the armour it's defeated with a single scan.
Note the teeth, which are printed on the side of a teal 1x3 plate with two studs, the 'double jumper'.
Verdict
Once again, this is a colourful and attractive selection of characters. They are fun to collect and offer a good variety of new and recoloured parts.
They display surprisingly well, too, on their miniature landscapes on 4x4 rounded-corner plates, which I've connected together by colour for this purpose.
In terms of their influence on gameplay, only the poison mushroom offers something new and interesting. The others are simply more enemies to defeat.
At the same price as collectable minifigures, I think they offer good value for money.
They will be available at LEGO.com from 1st January.
Thanks to LEGO for providing these sets for review. All opinions expressed are my own.
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32 comments on this article
I had no idea those little clouds were called foos.
definetly a nice addition to my Nintendo collection.
Hmm, I feel like some of these could've easily been made more interestingly, effect-wise. Why are Thwimps and Parabuzzies killable? Why does the Spiny Cheep Cheep function like a regular enemy? Just some thoughts.
I wish they had waited a little more before releasing these, I still haven’t been able to get the first series and my local Lego stores won’t let you touch the bags so that’s real disappointing.Anyways it looks like a great series.
I like that there’s 2 from each biome. Nice review!
I'm still trying to figure out how to display them behind my IKEA frames... LOL.
@nick3c said:
"I wish they had waited a little more before releasing these, I still haven’t been able to get the first series and my local Lego stores won’t let you touch the bags so that’s real disappointing.Anyways it looks like a great series."
The one in London asked me which one's I needed and they got it for me! I'll be happy when I can get in the stores again!
No intention to use them in the game, but they are definitely better value for money than the totally overpriced CMFs.
@Be_hapi said:
"I had no idea those little clouds were called foos."
Mr T wasn’t very fond of them.
Stellar photography!
I thought the poison mushroom would be lame, you can just avoid it. But instead, they made a challenge where you can wash it off to try and get coins! A worth successor to the first series. I do wish they used some of that new snow biome(?) from the penguin suit
The Foo Fighters protect our society from the Foos daily.
@Veyniac said:
"Stellar photography!
"
Thank you. The grey background and camera set to 'vivid' certainly help.
My favorite by far is the poison mushroom.
Showed these to my brother who is an avid Mario fan and he loves em all!
@namekuji said:
" @Be_hapi said:
"I had no idea those little clouds were called foos."
Mr T wasn’t very fond of them."
Well, he may or may not have liked them... but he definitely pitied them.
The first series had all great and very well-known characters. This series, the foes of Mario are becoming more and more b-characters. That’s ok of course, but i think they should have given us more challenging and nice looking landscape builds to make them more desirable.
To me, Flyguy, Para-Goomba and Thwimp are the ones i would like to get the most.
The Thwimp looks like it was fun for a cat to scratch against.
And the 2x2 w/ one stud is the double-jumper, because it "jumps" in two directions. The 1x3 w/ 2 studs is the long jumper. I'm not sure what the 2x4 w/ 2 studs would be called, except maybe a double-double-jumper.
@nick3c said:
"I wish they had waited a little more before releasing these, I still haven’t been able to get the first series and my local Lego stores won’t let you touch the bags so that’s real disappointing.Anyways it looks like a great series."
Try Target or Walmart.
These are really well done, and the little dioramas just take them to the next level. Kudos to the designer(s)!
So I have a question for those who actually play the game. Three of these have codes on top, so you just stomp on them to defeat them. Two more have hinted bases, so they can be “knocked over” in a controlled manner, and the code on their backs will now be on top. For the other five, are you supposed to knock them over and then stomp on them, or just tilt sideways and stomp horizontally on their backs?
Still no Albatoss, eh.
@Snazzy_Bricks said:
"I'm going to hoard Shy Guys"
And all the girlies say I'm pretty shy for a fly guy…
I certainly see the value of these from a collector’s point of view. I can also see buying one of these for a little gift. However, from a game play point of view, is there any reason why I should buy several of these instead of just getting a set for the same price? Does anyone whose kids play with this see value in these sets?
@alfred_the_buttler:
From what I understand, each enemy comes with a different code tile if it comes in another set. So if you buy two different sets with Goombas, you can use both in the same game. If you buy two copies of the same set, they count as the same enemy. This is an easy way to boost your enemy count without buying all the big sets.
@PurpleDave said:
" @alfred_the_buttler:
From what I understand, each enemy comes with a different code tile if it comes in another set. So if you buy two different sets with Goombas, you can use both in the same game. If you buy two copies of the same set, they count as the same enemy. This is an easy way to boost your enemy count without buying all the big sets."
Actually, it doesn't even matter how distinct the codes are. If all you have is the Starter Course, you can literally farm coins off the single Goomba by mashing on it repeatedly. (Bowser Jr. counts uniquely and cannot be defeated more than once per game, however.) Annoyingly, even the app doesn't distinguish between enemy types — it simply groups enemies with like codes into categories in the results screen.
@LegoSonicBoy:
I know I read a review somewhere that noted the use of distinct codes for multiple instances of the same enemy was necessary, as you could not just copy/paste the same enemy into multiple points on your game layout. Maybe your Goomba example is possible, but can you map that same Goomba to more than one point, or is it limited to one location?
@PurpleDave:
If I understand your question correctly, as a matter of fact, you can. Due to the nature of codes being simple colored sequences, and all basic Goombas (plus the Paragoomba IIRC) sharing the same code, Mario can't actually tell if he's scanned a specific instance of a Goomba more than once during a game, let alone where he scanned it, so whether or not you move it around during gameplay doesn't matter. As far as Mario is concerned, 1 Goomba scanned = 1 coin.
One of the layout ideas shown in the app suggests placing the Goomba on the rotating platform — attacking it twice while rotating the platform likewise registers as two 1-hit enemies and therefore two coins. In theory you could have a course consisting of a Goomba that you move or "teleport" by hand each time Mario attacks it, creating your own minigame or puzzle with it using your own rules to get Mario to the goal with a set number of coins, or a set path of attack patterns. It does, however, depend entirely on your imagination what you want that effect to mean (a Goomba that spawns other Goombas, a boss with an arbitrary health pool and a 1:1 HP/coin ratio, etc), whereas the app always represents it as simply the number of coins you earned from attacking 1-hit enemies.
There's also a video by Playfool demonstrating the trivial act of printing the same code multiple times in arbitrary shapes and Mario scoring off of those copies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K69r-DTAlRg
@PurpleDave:
Further testing with Bowser Jr. shows that after you initially defeat him with 5 hits, obtaining 10 coins, each subsequent attack during the game yields a single coin associated with Bowser Jr. So defeating him once, then attacking him twice more yields a total of 12 Bowser Jr. coins in the app.
@LegoSonicBoy:
Weird. Then there's zero point in giving identical enemies different codes. And yet they do it.
@PurpleDave:
They usually don't. Paragoomba, Fuzzy, Bullet Bill and all Goombas share the same code for example. The only differences are the corner icons and the physical tiles the stickers are applied to. Blooper, Urchin, and all Cheep Cheep variants share the same code that's slightly different from the former so Mario plays a water splash sound when stomping them. The two Koopa Troopas in the first wave have mostly identical codes with the exception of a single column that identifies the set they belong to, so scanning one unlocks 71362 Guarded Fortress in the app, and the other 71365 Piranha Plant Power Slide.
@LegoSonicBoy:
Ok, I think I know what happened. You said the icon is different, but the code is not. Maybe the reviews I've read mistakenly stated that the code was different when the only actual difference was an image in the corner. If the base tiles are different colors, maybe they did that only to make it easier for sorting purposes, since you wouldn't want to find that you'd received a yellow tile when red is called for.