NINJAGO City Review

• 19th Feb 2019

NINJAGO City

Pieces: 4634

Ages: 16+

Mini Figures: 19

Price: £259.99

What’s inside

1 x Base plate

Multiple numbered bags of Lego bricks

3 x Instruction booklet

2 x Sticker sheets

Background

Ninjago followed swiftly on the heels of The LEGO Movie and The LEGO Batman Movie with its own film.  The brand had been around long enough to propel it to the big screen.

Design

If you are going to be paying 260 pounds for a LEGO set you had better get two things out of it.  Instant enjoyment and longevity. There is a risk of perhaps a licensed set not living up to this mantra. But clear as day, of often more colourful, The Ninjago City set delivers.  Every street corner has a new pleasure, and there is level upon level upon level of enjoyment here to be had for the LEGIO enthusiast.

There are two large white boxes within the main box that contain several of the many building bags. A large grey baseplate is the starting ground for this venture and the only way is up.

There are the foundations of the land to be built, but also the waterways underneath and around the building. It’s very therapeutic laying down clear blue tiles.

Despite it being a modern set fantasy, there are heavy inclusions of what one might expect from a pirate set, but also a nice combination of what is supposed to be different material surfaces (Metal meets wood meets brick all clashing, as well as the very human meets very robotic and industrial side of humanity. A wooden jetty passes onto a stone based land which is just across the water from an electronic elevator. The elevator in question is probably the closes the set gets to repetition in the building structure.  Every shop or room included is of its own unique design with its own unique contents from selling fish, to cooking crap, to selling comics and memorabilia, to serving tea. The contents of each room are often beautifully designed with just the right amount of added charm and often a different colour scheme to the others. But the exteriors also get much attention in the form of sliding doors, cascading roof tops and even signs and posters, and a multitude of advertisements around and lanterns to spruce the design up.  It quite simply is a visual feast. Let’s not also forget the foliage around the water, and the random frogs too!

Of course when you get to the top they go for all out glory with a very fancy looking sushi bar with its own giant, green sign to grab attention.

For our own visual guide of the steps we went through see this collection of snaps here:

Ninjago City – The Visual Guide

Finished product

Can it stand on display and draw eyes to it!  YES! This is a sure fire winner among the king of all LEGO sets.  Yes money is now where the mouth is and the Ninjago City stands shoulder to shoulder with the likes of the Star Wars Death Star and the Ghostbusters Fire Station.  This set gets greater points for vibrancy and colour, as well as the lack of repetition. Every corner is a new adventure and a different build from the last.  The only thing that comes close to loses the sets points is simply that it isn’t as recognisable or known as the two other sets just mentioned.  But Ninjago hasn’t been around long enough to endure as Star Wars or Ghostbusters has, so there is no familiarity.

That all said, this city set could be one hell of a big building brick (stepping stone) towards its own infamy though. Perhaps it was let down by the lacklustre box office performance, but that itself could be blamed on the uncertainly of brand name at the time (Maybe the pushed Ninjago into the limelight a little too soon). Either way, for all its losses noted, Ninjago is a more well-known brand now as a result, so if LEGO keep at it then it can endure for some time to come – especially of sets are going to be as gloriously well detailed as this one!