If you’ve played a Mario game, at some point you will have come face to face with King Koopa himself, the fearsome Bowser. When he isn’t go-karting, golfing or playing tennis, Bowser can often be found, kidnapping Princesses. To aid his dastardly deeds, he often zooms around the Mushroom Kingdom in his flying fortress, The Airship. Which acts as inspiration for one of the largest of the newly released LEGO® Super Mario sets. So here’s a hands-on look at set 71391: Bowser’s Airship.
Product Description
Kids can build Bowser’s iconic Airship to display and enhance their LEGO® Super Mario™ universe with this Expansion Set (71391). The ship can be arranged in ‘flying mode’ or folded out in ‘course mode’, and players must overcome challenges such as Bowser’s Mecha Hand and a POW Block to pop a Rocky Wrench from its hiding place. (Note: the 71360 or 71387 Starter Course is required for play.)
Iconic enemies
The set includes Kamek, Rocky Wrench and Goomba figures, plus a Cannon Start Pipe – use it to begin a 90-second level. Children can play solo, team up or compete against a friend with their LEGO® Mario™ or LEGO® Luigi™ figure. And look out for the free LEGO Super Mario app, which has building instructions, creative inspiration and more.
- Set Name: Bowser’s Airship Expansion Set
- Set Number: 71391
- Pieces: 1152
- RRP: £89.99/$89.99/89.99€
- Action Bricks: Cannon Start Pipe, Bowser’s Mecha Hand, Bowser Head, POW Block, Ship’s Wheel, Kamek’s Broom, Kamek, Rocky Wrench & Goomba
- Availability: LEGO.com, LEGO Stores & LEGO retailers
The LEGO Super Mario sets have a unique appearance compared to other LEGO sets. Although it features buildable aspects you’d expect from a LEGO product, they are less ‘contained’ compared to most builds. This is because of the customisable nature of the LEGO Super Mario sets and the ability to use them to create your own physical Mario levels. But after building the Airship, it feels more like a traditional LEGO set.
The big focal point of LEGO Super Mario sets are platforms, they act as connection points between various sections of a set or as a way to connect several sets to create a course. These are still featured in the Airship but are integrated into the set instead of being separate to it. The Airship looks fairly compact and is a pretty impressive creation of what’s featured in numerous video games. But the Airship hides a cool feature, it can be opened out to create a larger play area. This dual function makes the set a great addition to a LEGO Super Mario course but also allows the set to be a nice display piece.
When open, the Airship doubles in size and offers expanded play features and various Action Bricks, both in the ship and on enemies. Although Bowser and his Koopa Kids aren’t featured in the set, his insignia can be found printed on a number of 2×2 round tiles. More impressive is the brick-built recreations of Bowser’s ugly mug. I like that muted coloured are used for these as it helps them to blend in with the rest of the ship.
A big part of the LEGO Super Mario sets is the Action Bricks. These are barcode-like pre-applied stickers that act as interactive points for both LEGO Mario and now LEGO Luigi. The two figures can read the Action Bricks to gain power-ups, trip music cues or take out baddies. As a large set, there are a number of Action Bricks dotted around the Airship. One on each of the enemies, a POW block, which flips out the Wrench mole to reveal the ship’s wheel and another Action Brick. There’s only on the mecha hand, one the Bowser masthead on the rear of the ship and on Kamek’s broom. Hitting each will help boost your coin totals.
It’s one of my favourite of the LEGO Super Mario sets, party due to being so contained and more like a traditional set but also thanks to all the fun play features. Opening the ship up is a smooth motion and not made complex. Another member of the Koopa Klan would have been the perfect addition to this set. (Please note Bowser and Boswer Jr are not included in this set)
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This set was provided to BricksFanz.com by LEGO UK PR for purposes of review. The thoughts within this review are that of BricksFanz.com and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group or Nintendo. Providing the set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
