This year marks the 35th anniversary of a games console which changed the face of gaming forever. PlayStation, Xbox, Dreamcast, Switch and even the games you play on your phone whilst on the loo, they all owe a great debt to the Nintendo Entertainment System. The NES was Nintendo’s first major global home console release. Originally known as the Famicom in its home country of Japan, it would later get a new name and a new look for the global market. This is what has inspired the latest set to join the 18+ range. If the recently released LEGO® Super Mario playsets aren’t your thing, then the LEGO NES is squarely aimed at AFOLs. Although it’s a set for the older LEGO fan, it still has some fun things to play with. But is it a worthy addition to any LEGO or Nintendo fans collection? Spoiler alert – heck yeah. Read on to find out why.
Product Description
Do you love video games? Did you play Super Mario Bros.™ back in the day? Or do you just enjoy a hands-on, creative activity in your spare time? If so, this nostalgic LEGO® Nintendo Entertainment System™ (71374) model kit is perfect for you.
Authentic and interactive
The brick-built NES is packed with realistic details, including an opening slot for the Game Pak with a locking function and a controller with a connecting cable and plug. The console comes with a buildable retro TV, featuring a flat 8-bit Mario figure on the scrolling screen, plus an action brick to scan with LEGO® Mario™ (figure not included; find in the LEGO® Super Mario™ Starter Course set – 71360) so he reacts to the on-screen enemies, obstacles and power-ups just like in the Super Mario Bros. game.
- Set Name: Nintendo Entertainment System
- Set Number: 71374
- Pieces: 2646
- RRP: £209.99/$229.99/229.99€
- Measurements: TV measures over 8” (22.5cm) high, 9” (23.5cm) wide and 6” (16cm) deep
- Availability: LEGO.com, LEGO Store & Official Nintendo Store UK (General Retail from early 2021)
The Set
I’ve been gaming since the late 80s and have been a Nintendo fan for almost as long. Although I never owned the NES when it was originally released, I’ve added one to my collection since along with the mini NES released a few years ago. The LEGO version sits somewhere between the two in terms of scale. It’s also where you begin the build. As you’ll have seen from all the imagery of the set, it includes an NES console, Controller, Super Mario Bros. game cartridge and a mini CRT retro television. After all, the NES was born of the 80s and this set plays up to that grandly.
The blocky nature of the shell of the NES lends itself well to being recreated in LEGO form. Despite the simple shape, there is a lot going on with the console part of the build. As I was building the inner workings, which include a spring-loaded cartridge hopper, I stumbled upon an amazing Easter Egg. I won’t spoil it here, but will cover it right at the end of the feature should you wish to learn the secret hidden within the NES. Back to the cartridge slot, before you could instantly jump into a game on your phone, even before games were on CDs, we had the humble cartridge. These small slabs of plastic would be fed into the NES and pushed done. To lock the game in place, back in the 80s that was quite the marvel. The LEGO version has the exact same function. Open up the flap on the NES, guide the brick-built cartridge into place and push it down to lock into place.
Is it a necessary feature? Absolutely not, but my goodness I’m happy it was included. The section you build to make this work is a little fiddly but totally worth the payoff. The action of selecting the game you want to play and placing it inside the console is perfectly recreated in LEGO form. It’s a clever touch and shows the eye for detail the LEGO Designers have poured into every aspect of the set. The flap which you lift to load in your game features the classic Nintendo Entertainment System branding and its features on printed elements. As it’s split over a couple of pieces, the alignment is slightly off, but it’s not majorly noticeable. The cartridge artwork is, unfortunately, a sticker, but the surface it’s affixed to makes it nice and easy to apply.
Even the smallest details have been added to the LEGO version of the NES, so around the rear of the console, you’ll find the classic AV connection points, perfectly created by yellow and red studs. The same detail has been applied to the front of the set with two controller ports, yes kids back in the 80s and 90s controllers had wires. And you can play the game without a controller, which is the next thing you get to build.
The controller is almost one-to-one in terms of size to the actual NES controller, which is at odds to the scale used for the console but again it doesn’t look odd and works nicely with the dimensions of various LEGO elements, even though some of these are bigger than the buttons found on the real controllers. Although the buttons aren’t clickable, there are a number of printed prices which help to give more detail. I particularly like the D-pad. It even has a cable which can be connected to the console. This is the same sort of tubing used mainly in Technic sets.
With the console and controller complete, you’re going to need something to play it on and this is the next stage of the build. Before flat-screen TVs with super HD output and the ability to stream countless hours of content, we had CRT TVs. These were huge bits of kit, with a hefty footprint and a now odd wooden or wooden looking outer casing. Gamers of a certain age will be familiar with these sorts of TVs, making them the perfect thing to showcase an impressive companion to the NES.
But this is no ordinary TV, it actually plays a short game of Super Mario Bros. Within the TV is a complex array of elements which combine with a sort of conveyor belt section. This is a laborsome part of the build and starts with two strips of larger Technic tread tracks. To these, a series of 1×18 and 2×18 strips are connected. Protip make sure you have the end connector clips of the treads facing the same way before you add these strips. To these strips, layers of elements are added to build a section of the first Super Mario Bros. game. The colouring of the elements used, along with the layered effect, is a perfect recreation of the game screens. Various uniquely printed 1×1 tiles are dotted about to create Goombas, ‘?’ blocks, shells, a Power Star and coin. Plus you get a few spares of these as an added bonus.
I have to admit this part of the build was a little stressful, mostly thanks to getting all those square 1×1 elements to be aligned straight. You will certainly have to tweak them a lot to get them to sit nicely. Once you’ve built the level it’s time to make it play. The scene you’ve constructed is connected to create a loop, which is then mounted onto the gear-powered runner within the TV. A handle on the right-hand side of the TV can be turned, which makes the scene stroll. But the fun doesn’t end there, a clear arm is also connected to the inside of the TV and sits over the scrolling level. A special 8-bit Mario element is then connected to the end of it. As you turn the handle, the game scrolls and Mario ‘moves’ along. The various raised points of the level help to push Mario to recreate jumping actions. It’s very clever yet a simple action, well simple beyond the mechanism needed to create and move the scene part of it.
Once the insides of the TV are in place, the TV is finished off with the surround of the screen. Although the focus of the TV set is the game found within it, there has been a lot of effort used to add some neat details to the outer casing. These include an extending aerial, single in-built speaker panel and an Easter Egg filled manufacturer label on the back. But my favourite section is the control panel. Here you’ll find a number of printed pieces to denote the stuff like volume control and the larger knob was used to change channels and yes it has that all too familiar clicking action. Just like the cartridge loading action in the NES, the ability to click the dial didn’t need to be added, but it helps to bring the set to life.
LEGO NES x LEGO Mario
With everything you get in the box, once built you have a truly unique LEGO set. But should you also own LEGO Mario, you can also get even more out of the set. As you build the scene track, you notice a series of 2×2 coloured tiles dotted along the top of it. Once placed inside the TV, you can remove the central studded plate to reveal an Action Brick. Tap LEGO Mario on it to activate a rather neat bonus feature. Once LEGO Mario interacts with the Action Brick, his colour sensor then reads those coloured tiles. As the screen scrolls, the tiles pass by the sensor and trigger various sound effects. So you get the iconic Mario theme and the sound effects match the in-game elements shown on screen. It’s a nice way to tie the set into the wider Super Mario theme. Sure once you add the cost of the Starter Course on top of the cost of the NES, it’s quite pricey. But you don’t need LEGO Mario, his addition just provides a nice bonus. Even without him providing musical accompaniment, the set is still pretty impressive.
Overall
The NES is an iconic piece of gaming history and Mario is firmly tied to that era. This makes the LEGO NES a great 18+ set. The build is complex in places, in particular the creation of the segmented scrolling screen belt, but I really enjoyed building the set. There are a few repetitive sections and some slightly fiddly bits, but nothing frustratingly annoying. I heard some people say the scene scrolling can get caught as it moves, but if you make sure all the sections are firmly pressed in place, you won’t have a problem. It’s a shame the legs are connected to the TV, but this is a small price to pay for what is an amazing feat of LEGO engineering. In all honesty, this could have and would have been an incredible set if it was just the NES. The TV set just makes it even more fun to look at and interact with. This could have merely had a stationary screen of the Mario game and would have looked cool, the ability to make it move is impressive. It didn’t need to be compatible with the LEGO Mario figure, but it brings the set to life and makes it even more awesome. There are many things the set didn’t need and it would have been a great set, adding all these fun little touches take it to another level.
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This set was provided to BricksFanz.com by the LEGO Group for purposes of review. The thoughts within this review are that of BricksFanz.com and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group. Providing the set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
Spoiler Alert……
Before you read on, here I detail a cool little Easter Egg found when building the NES section of the set. If you want to discover this for yourself stop reading now a go build the set for yourself.
Still here? Well as mentioned above part way through building the inside of the NES, I was placing elements which I assumed were LEGO recreations of the microchips and other electrical pieces components you’d expect to find inside an NES. But as I placed the final 1×1 green stud, it clicked what these seemingly random elements were. Yes, a miniature recreation of part of a Mario level has been hidden inside the NES. Not only is this a fun Easter Egg to discover, but it’s also an Easter Egg found in the game. Many will know of the secret warp pipe room, which can be accessed by riding the second lift platform and running along the top of the level in world 1:2. If the set wasn’t packed with enough detail, this is just another great addition not the overall experience of the set.
