We Build LEGO One Piece: Battle at Arlong Park

We're hyping ourselves up by gathering different of the LEGO One Piece sets. We already built the Going Merry Pirate Ship and the Baratie Floating Restaurant this past August. Today, we're gathering and discussing Battle astatine Arlong Park, which depicts the climactic conflict that capped Season 1.

At 926 pieces, this is not a LEGO acceptable for adults show piece; it is simply a ample playset with mechanical functions that reenforce those play elements. But it's ample capable and elaborate capable to beryllium displayable, and it's not wholly babelike connected its play functions (in the mode that, say, the Super Mario playsets trust connected their play elements) to marque itself interesting.

Before we get started connected the build, we should sermon a LEGO packaging change, which began implicit the summer. The bulk of caller sets – alternatively than utilizing wide integrative bags to signifier their pieces – usage eco-friendly insubstantial bags, with smaller eco-friendly insubstantial bags wrong of those. This is simply a invited change. With the aged integrative bags, pieces had an annoying inclination to get trapped successful the bags' creases erstwhile you dumped them connected the table.

Every LEGO builder knows the vexation of searching for a missing piece, worrying that you mightiness person accidentally tossed it retired with the remainder of the garbage. Anything that mitigates that hazard is simply a win. With the insubstantial bags, the pieces simply descent out, nary shaking required. Plus, the insubstantial is sturdy capable and heavy capable that the pieces don't puncture done it.

You statesman gathering Battle astatine Arlong Park with 4 smaller builds. There's the log that Usopp hides down erstwhile he's trying to flight the clutches of Chu.

There's a formation lounge country with an umbrella and a snail phone. And finally, determination are 2 assemblage benignant amusement parkland games. In the live-action One Piece, Arlong's lair is simply a taxable park. The manga and anime springiness amended discourse and explicate that Arlong Park is modeled aft Sabaody Park, an amusement parkland which discriminated against fish-men and merfolk.

One booth is simply a Shooting Gallery, implicit with 2 hinged targets and a gun/launcher that shoots studs.

The 2nd booth is called Shark Attack, which has been reappropriated arsenic a throne country for Arlong.

Then you physique the main pagoda building, which contains Arlong's representation room. There's a concatenation connected the level – which Nami spent her puerility shackled to portion she drew maps – and East Blue maps connected the walls.

I admit the detailing connected the pagoda. There's lined bricks mixed successful with creaseless bricks, which springiness the quality of weathering and erosion. Jagged holes successful the walls adhd to this perception, arsenic bash the uneven and jagged pagoda roofs.

Playwise, the pagoda is destructible. The 2nd and 3rd levels are each composed of 2 halves that are independently separable from the whole, and the 4th level is halved and hinged successful its middle. When you propulsion down connected the apical of the building, the antithetic levels are gimmicked to descent outwards, which triggers the walls connected the crushed level to collapse. It results successful an immediate, splashy demolition of the full structure.

Because the gathering is intended to travel apart, the LEGO designers did a large occupation of individually reinforcing each portion of the building, and the cleanup to enactment the gathering backmost unneurotic is minimal. The precise apical of the physique is simply a fastener of sorts, which holds the gathering unneurotic erstwhile you're not actively utilizing its play feature.

Battle astatine Arlong Park comes with 5 minifigures: Luffy, Nami, Usopp, Arlong, and Chu. The minifigures are highly well-detailed: Luffy comes with stretched out, bendable arms, Nami has a bandage implicit her near limb (where she chopped disconnected her enslaved tattoo), Usopp has his slingshot, Arlong has a fin connected his back, and Chu is carrying the whiskey vessel that leads to his demise. All of this adds up to immoderate large roleplay scenarios.

Thus, this acceptable overdelivers connected its play elements, adjacent though it somewhat underdelivers connected its show elements. If the designers intended to straddle the enactment betwixt both, they mostly succeeded.

Your kid volition decidedly emotion this set. You might emotion it; it's beauteous chill successful its ain right, but its standard is dwarfed by some the LEGO Baratie Floating Restaurant and the LEGO Going Merry Pirate Ship. But astatine $80, Battle astatine Arlong Park is underpriced for what it is, and it's the champion bargain retired of the 3 large One Piece sets.

LEGO One Piece: Battle astatine Arlong Park, Set #75638, retails for $79.99, and it is composed of 926 pieces. It is disposable present astatine Amazon and LEGO Store.

Kevin Wong is simply a contributing freelancer for IGN, specializing successful LEGO. He's besides been published successful Complex, Engadget, Gamespot, Kotaku, and more. Follow him connected Twitter astatine @kevinjameswong.