Although most of your time in Animal Crossing is spent pottering around your new village, getting there has varied over the different games. For Animal Crossing New Horizons, you get to your island via Dodo Airlines, the local plane service operated by Wilbur and Orville. The aviation aficionados help players travel to other islands and welcome visitors. This well-known location is the inspiration for one of the recently released LEGO Animal Crossing sets. After an unexpected shipping delay, here’s a closer look at the Fly with Dodo Airlines set.
Product Details
Set Name: Fly with Dodo Airlines | Set Number: 77051 | Pieces: 292 | Theme: Animal Crossing
Number of Bags: Bags x 3 (plastic) | Instructions: Paper booklet + Builder App | Stickers: N/A | Characters: Wilbur & Tangy | Insiders QR: Yes
RRP: £31.99/$37.99/37.99€/CAD49.99/AUD59.99/NZD64.99
Availability: LEGO Stores, LEGO Online & General Retail
In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the airport acts as your entry point to your new island home. It’s also the digital gateway to visit other players’ islands, take a mystery tour or take a trip to Harv’s Island and the Paradise Planning team. It also replaces the Post Office from previous games by allowing players to send digital postcards. It’s a location which is the same on every player’s island, making it highly recognisable. The set features the airport building and the little seaplane it operates.
Dodo Airlines operates a small seaplane, which is similar to other aeroplanes but can land and take off from the water. The version featured in the set is similar in design but lacks a roof. There’s space in the place to seat two minifigures, if a roof was included in the build, the plane would need to be as big as the airport is, so I understand and don’t mind this tweak in design compared to the source material.
The Animal Crossing games have changed their visual style over the years, but the fixed front-on viewpoint has been featured in all the titles. This fixed point means most buildings in the game are facing the camera, meaning you only really see the front of them. In LEGO form this means you get the front facade of the airport and an open back. This does make the build seem a little basic. In all honesty, it’s not too bad, maybe it could have added a third bit of wall with a doorway to the right side of the airport, which leads to the decking.
Similar to other Animal Crossing sets, much of it is built on island plates so the airport can easily be connected to other Animal Crossing builds and it can be configured in different ways. The island flag flying at the airport can so be changed, with two 4×4 plates allowing you to change the design. Another bonus is the printed pieces with the airport sign, equipment inside the airport and the signs of the plane all using unique printed elements.
The set features two minifigures based on characters found in the games. Unsurprisingly, one of them is an employee of DAL. Wilbur is a dodo bird pilot who flies the airline’s seaplane. To capture the character’s appearance, Wilbur uses a unique head element which includes his comms device. He appears to be a fan of Top Gun as he’s wearing shades, which does make him look a lot cooler. His torso features his DAL uniform with the use of dual moulded arms completing the look. I guess the wing arms used on some minifigures could have been better than standard arms but I think they’d look too big for the character. Unlike some of the other Animal Crossing characters, Wilbur’s tail is featured as print detail on the back of the torso in place of a tail element.
Wilbur is joined by Tangy, a fruit-themed cat. Tangy has appeared in all versions of the game. In more recent outings, she has been featured in a green dress. Similar to previous Animal Crossing characters who wear similar outfits, this doesn’t come off well in minifigure form. A rigid skirt element would have been a better option than just expecting the torso print to replicate a dress. As Tangy is a cat, the head element used for Rosie in the first of the Animal Crossing sets is reused for Tangy. Although it’s difficult to see, her orange peel-like skin has been recreated with faint print detail. If this were any darker, it would look odd, but I would say the leaf on her forehead needed to be a little bigger.
It’s nice to see familiar locations from the games become sets especially as they allow you to create your own LEGO version of your in-game worlds. Admittedly, it’s not a very detailed take on the airport but I don’t think it needed to be. It has the basic features of the building and compliments other sets. One thing that disappoints is the lack of Wilbur’s fellow DAL employee, Orville. They are basically the same character model in-game with the headsets being the biggest difference. If the inclusion of Orville caused the set to carry a slightly higher price point or replaced Tangy, I’d rather that, to be honest. However, it’s another fun little LEGO set and more of something based on Nintendo games is always a good thing.
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This set was provided to BricksFanz by the LEGO Group for this review. The thoughts within this review are those of BricksFanz and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group or Nintendo. Providing a set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
