The LEGO Pokémon Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise, which is available exclusively at the LEGO Store, is not the only LEGO Pokémon set hitting shelves; there is also a LEGO Pikachu and an adorable LEGO Eevee. But this Kanto Starter set is the biggest one (both in price and piece count) as well as the most ambitious.
The set comes in three separate boxes. Each contains one of the three Kanto Starters, plus its native environment. Venusaur poses in a jungle. Blastoise poses on a beach. And Charizard poses on an active volcano.
With this set, the LEGO designers have outdone themselves.“
It might be hard to tell from the photos, but the Venusaur model is significantly larger than the other two, even before you add the plant elements onto its back. The designers hid the size contrast by how they positioned the Pokémon relative to one another. Venusaur's body hugs close to the low ground, Blastoise rides a mid-sized wave, and Charizard flies overhead. In Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, the Imagineers designed Cinderella's Castle with an optical illusion; the bottom floors of the castle are taller than the top floors of the castle, which had the cumulative effect of making the castle appear bigger, rather than making the floors seem disproportionate. The same basic principle of forced perspective applies here.
This build is varied and engaging. The environments use basic building principles we've seen many times before, but because you're building them in alternation with the Pokémon, the process never feels redundant or tedious. The decorative elements, like the flowers in the jungle and the eddies in the beach water, are a nice, varied touch.
The three Pokémon are a joy to build. There's a mounting excitement to building the torso and the limbs of these creatures, seeing familiar silhouettes begin to take shape. And finally, when you build the head of each Pokémon, you feel the unmistakable twinge of childish glee and recognition. This is exactly what you imagined a three-dimensional, physical Pokémon would look like, and it's amazing.
This set contains zero stickers; every graphic is printed directly onto the bricks themselves (or in Charizard's case, onto the cloth elements attached to his wings). It's a small concession, but for the amount we pay for sets of this magnitude and scope, it's a reasonable one.
There's a cool Easter egg buried inside each Pokémon's chest cavity; a symbol of their respective type. Charizard, for instance, has a little flame in his chest, and Squirtle has a water droplet. It reminds me of Build-a-Bear, which also imbues each of its animals with a sentimental heart.
While building this set, I appreciated how the designers' prior gems have paved the way for this one. The plating on Blastoise's shell is the same as the plating on The Mighty Bowser's shell, and the chunky limbs of all three Pokémon also recall LEGO Bowser's design. The cresting water elements are similar to the waterfalls in LEGO Rivendell. Even the rock formations have precedence; the fur on LEGO Chewbacca used a multi-color layering technique to create the illusion of depth, just as Charizard's environment differentiates between hot lava, cooling lava, and newly formed rock.
Once it's complete, you can pose the individual Pokémon separately – each mounted in its respective biome – or you can merge the biomes together to create an eye-popping centerpiece.
Six-hundred-fifty dollars is a lot to pay. But the time-honored "10 cents per brick" rule means a set like this would typically go for $700, and possibly as high as $750. LEGO kept the price proportionally low, even with a third-party partnership. It's surprising, but hopefully a harbinger of things to come.
In short, LEGO Pokémon Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise is a phenomenal set – one of the finest the company has designed. This is a hard-earned result; LEGO has always excelled in its design of buildings, spaceships, and living spaces, but less so with non-architectural builds, dominated by rounded surfaces and gentle curves. But no longer. With this set, the LEGO designers have outdone themselves, bringing all their recent innovations to bear on a single, incredible outcome.
LEGO Pokémon Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise, Set #72153, retails for $649.99, and it is composed of 6838 pieces. It is available exclusively at the LEGO Store.
Kevin Wong is a contributing freelancer for IGN, specializing in LEGO. He's also been published in Complex, Engadget, Gamespot, Kotaku, and more. Follow him on Twitter at @kevinjameswong.