LEGO Ninjago: Zane's Power Up Mech EVO review
when an adult builds a Ninjago set
Date: 2024-03-30
Contrary to popular believe, adult people can still enjoy ninjas and mechs, and dragons. That's why I was looking around some of the more affordable Ninjago sets, and when I saw it in a local shop (which really is more about electronic things than Lego), I decided to buy it.
This set is the "Zane's Power Up Mech EVO", a white-blue-gold themed mech. It is a 6+ set. Not really small in size. It comes with 2 minifigures. Zane - obviously - is the driver of the mech, and "Cobra Mechanic", which seems to me a unique alien design, with long neck, and orange body. Zane has a blue sword, while the cobra guy has a useable pistol.
It is not hard to build, the manual is going step by step, easy to follow for children. It is a different kind of fun.
What made me choose this - other than its price, it was about 6 euros - is the striking white-blue-gold colorscheme. The whole mech is 13 cm tall, with the flag it is 18 cm.
The mech is not really flexible, there are no knees and elbows to make more complex poses. But for this size, and because of the building age, I don't think anyone expects more from it. But it looks really nice on the desk right now.
As for weapons, it has a giant blue spinner on its left arm, and a blue sword - that Zane can use as a ninja as well - in its left arm. However the sword is too small for the mech imo, and I think they should just included a bigger one for it. The weapons are interchangable, very easily. The villain has a pistol, which you can use to really shoot the mech, and prepare yourself to look for the lost bricks.
What I also like are the golden shoulder pads, and tigh covers, because you can build things on it, although I have no way to test the stability of the mech. The golden pads are looking amazing to be honest, very nice color choice.
There are no stickers in a 6+ set obviously, the chest plate and the flag are printed elements.
Overall, this is a fun, colorful build for mech lovers. Not a hard build, or a complex mech, but still looks nice on the shelf or desk, and of course can be a good gift for kids as well.
If you are interested to make this mech something more robust, check out Chubbybots' two videos about two different versions of his mod. Looks really impressive and fun! (video 1 | video 2)
Edit: one more thing. This set is not compatible the newly released mechs like the 71817 (Lloyd's Elemental Mech) or Cole’s Elemental Earth Mech (71806) or Sora’s Elemental Tech Mech (71807) and Kai’s Elemental Fire Mech (71808). Those mechs have modular build make it interchangable legs and arms, which is pretty cool. They are also bigger, and looks a little bit more detailed. They also fixed my small sword issue, including some nicely sized swords. Really cool!
