An Underwhelming Set
Chiki — 2 out of 5 stars
After waiting for more than a month, I built this Pokémon collaboration set as soon as I received it. To be honest, I’m a little disappointed. A huge number of pieces are spent on the base, while Rayquaza itself feels surprisingly underwhelming. If I judged this purely as a LEGO set, I would call it mediocre and honestly rather boring. But this is Pokémon, and more importantly, this is Rayquaza—one of the most popular Legendary Pokémon ever. I know many people will automatically give it a high rating, and some will probably dislike this review simply because criticism of something they love is disappointing to hear. That popularity is exactly why I think the design should have been better. Rayquaza would sell extremely well almost regardless of what LEGO did with it, which makes the lack of ambition here even more frustrating. If you look at the recent Shenron model from Dragon Ball, the amount of detail and visual complexity is far beyond what we get with this green dragon. The minifigure’s hairstyle also looks quite bad and doesn’t resemble the original character very well, although that is a relatively minor complaint. I really hope future LEGO Pokémon sets receive more thoughtful and ambitious designs. Pokémon deserves better than simply relying on the popularity of its characters.