Scratch

I finished building it five hours ago and have played it 3 times since then.


Review:

SKIP TO THE BOTTOM FOR NUMBERED REVIEW

*
Anytime you see an asterisk, refer to this image.

Pieces:
There are some really cool pieces in here.    There a four generic characters you play with, but they even included Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Draco.* Dumbledore and Mrs. Norris are also included for game variations.* Microfigure collectors would love it. There is even a new piece not seen before in other Lego sets, so give it a look. (hard to spot, so there is no asterisk here)

Building:
However amazing Harry Potter Hogwarts is, building is tedious. You start out building the staircase tiles. The generic brown ones. There are three designs for them, 3 staircases covering all but one side.* Ones with two tiles, that are straight across each other* And ones with two that are only one turn away.* By the time you've built four of each, which don't even vary that much, you're ready to move on. Now you're building classrooms. Three classrooms are very similar. The Potions class*, the Care Of Magical Creatures*, and Charms (with the ice cream sandwich things)*, barely differ at all, and is just as tedious as the staircases. The Divination Tower* is varied and on of the most enjoyable parts of the building process. When you build the board for the tiles, everything is repetitive when you have to repeat all the steps for four sides. Now you're done, except for a little Hogwarts entrance door to put Dumbledore or other characters to start at when you play game variations.

Gameplay:
Gameplay is great. If you role a numbered side of the die, you get that amount of shifts. You take one piece out and then slide the other pieces as if it's a slider puzzle for your amount of shifts. This is the roll that really adds some strategic elements and a good amount of thinking to the game. The next one, is a Rotate side, if your roll this you pick one piece to . . . wait for it . . . rotate. This doesn't really add any challenge, but adds some ease to the game. You can use this to give yourself a pathway, or remove others. The last one that you use in regular gameplay is Marauder's Map. With this, you get to find a "secret passage" and go over gaps. This is a great game to play, less people is quicker, but for some great fun, invite your whole family to join. You have to get to all your classes for homework than make it back to the common room. The simple goal is truly challenging, when you add the puzzling elements of the moving staircases, and people constantly betray you an block your path, the game is amazing.

Cleanup:
It doesn't take very long at all. You just need to take the Divination tower off, and the flags on each common room to fit the game back in the box without disassembling it. You might want an extra little baggy to put the loses pieces in so you don't lose them, but other than that, this is the quickest cleanup you will ever get from lego.

Ratings:

Pieces: 8/10 Some really cool stuff. 

Building: 6/10 Tedious, but required.

Gameplay: 10/10 Absolutely AMAZING. Really fun for such simple rules.

Cleanup: 9/10 Really quick, but you still have to knock some stuff off, Divination is especially hard to get back on the board.

Replay Value: 10/10 There are three versions included along with the game itself, and they encourage you to make up your own. (Some of mine in my next post)

Overall: 9/10 Point bumped for tedious building.

Since this post is probably a TL:DR by now, I'll post more in another post.

Come on. I worked HARD on that review. Hopefully at least one other Lego user could give some feedback.

I was kind of planning on more bulk reviews in the future, but if no one finds it helpful or critiques it I won't.

Even some bad criticism telling me what I did wrong would be excepted.

Lucario621 wrote:

Wow! Sounds awesome! I totally want to get it 

Last time I was at Toys R Us, I was choosing between that, and the LEGO Beach House:

http://blog.helenyhou.com/wp-content/up … hhouse.jpg

So I chose the beach house  . Still pretty cool though. I definitely want to get the game.

I really like how unlike other reviews, you reviewed the variation, and added some ideas 

Thanks.

It's definitely worth a buy. I'd buy it over a beach house anyday. 

But I don't have a Lego City so it would be pointless for me. XD

Lucario621 wrote:

Wow! Sounds awesome! I totally want to get it 

Last time I was at Toys R Us, I was choosing between that, and the LEGO Beach House:

http://blog.helenyhou.com/wp-content/up … hhouse.jpg

So I chose the beach house  . Still pretty cool though. I definitely want to get the game.

I really like how unlike other reviews, you reviewed the variation, and added some ideas 

I HAVE GOT BEACH HOUSE!
The only downside is that it's dissembled, and it takes around 600 bricks to make it.

soupoftomato wrote:

coolboy2009 wrote:

Lucario621 wrote:

Wow! Sounds awesome! I totally want to get it 

Last time I was at Toys R Us, I was choosing between that, and the LEGO Beach House:

http://blog.helenyhou.com/wp-content/up … hhouse.jpg

So I chose the beach house  . Still pretty cool though. I definitely want to get the game.

I really like how unlike other reviews, you reviewed the variation, and added some ideas 

I HAVE GOT BEACH HOUSE!
The only downside is that it's dissembled, and it takes around 600 bricks to make it.

Shouldn't most LEGOs be disassembled wen they're bought?

Or did you disassemble after you have already built it?

(I'll probably be reviewing some older LEGO sets I have, and I will hopefully get more boardgames soon.)

I could say it smashed into pieces, (That's common.) it's that, or i dissassembled it.

Lucario621 wrote:

Guys check this out; a video of LEGO Digital Designer 4.0!

http://www.scratch.mit.edu/ext/youtube/?v=Prk5MBaLHcg

You can see the new interface at 0:37, and at 1:05 you can see how you can see the spaces between the bricks  . By that, I mean you can see how one brick is not attached to another; so you can tell if it's two 2x2 bricks next two each other, or if it's 1 2x4 brick.

Here's another video, but with the LDD 3.0 interface for some reason.

http://www.scratch.mit.edu/ext/youtube/?v=9ZIcjii0WYU

Awesome!

Okay, I have to say one thing. Mrs. Norris never even AFFECTED us. The square on the die is too rare, and you only get to move her once when you do role it. Nobody will likely cross her path so that it affects them, unless they stink at the game.  Both variations don't really work due to scarcity of the role, and the time it takes to get there. If you wanted to buy this game for the three modes like me, buy it for one knowing the regular version is even COOLER and has even BETTER powers on it's die, like the Maurader's Map.

Lucario621 wrote:

soupoftomato wrote:

Okay, I have to say one thing. Mrs. Norris never even AFFECTED us. The square on the die is too rare, and you only get to move her once when you do role it. Nobody will likely cross her path so that it affects them, unless they stink at the game.  Both variations don't really work due to scarcity of the role, and the time it takes to get there. If you wanted to buy this game for the three modes like me, buy it for one knowing the regular version is even COOLER and has even BETTER powers on it's die, like the Maurader's Map.

That's good to know 

Thanks. 

Lucario621 wrote:

Now that a good amount of people have hopefully seen the LEGO Scratch Cat (here), tell me; how much do you think it costs? 

25 to 30 bucks.

Lucario621 wrote:

soupoftomato wrote:

Lucario621 wrote:

Now that a good amount of people have hopefully seen the LEGO Scratch Cat (here), tell me; how much do you think it costs? 

25 to 30 bucks.

I wish 

Think higher 

40 to 50

Lucario621 wrote:

soupoftomato wrote:

Lucario621 wrote:

I wish 

Think higher 

40 to 50

Yep pretty much 

USD 46.59

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!?!?!?

adriangl wrote:

http://i702.photobucket.com/albums/ww28 … p2_001.jpg
This is my robot building builder. It helped me make the empire state building, well, right after it destroyed it 

Bump...Just some more info, it builds by seeing the bricks, and when they stop, it moves these to "arms" that place a brick, and climbs on top to push it down. I just made some improvements, so now it now builds really fast.

soupoftomato wrote:

Lol, I just searched up Lego Minotaurus Reviews amd saw this one forum talking about it, and every one was like

LOL. We're adults, our taste in games is sophisticated. no of that kiddy ****. This stuff is stupid because you can't make a LEGO with board games. LEGOs take no thinking, but boardgames require excellent precision and excellent smarticles. LOLOL children are so stupid these days. All they buy is brands, we better than that, we stick to the sophisticated stuff cause we awesome.

I wanted to make an account just to yell at them for being narrowminded [removed by me]'s and not giving anything a try. They said kids weren't smart enough for the analytics of boardgames.

Anyway, could someone maybe post a review of Minotauraus for me?

Here's a nice video review    http://www.scratch.mit.edu/ext/youtube/?v=5tNkPuYveXw

Last edited by Lucario621 (2010-08-31 17:25:27)