When it comes to Lego, I tend to skew more towards the show pieces, the sets that once assembled, look great and can sit on a shelf, it has been years since I have bought any other style of Lego. But with the Super Mario series, I was tempted from the day it was announced and now it is here, and I have had time to play around wit it, I find myself enjoying it a little more than I thought I would.

The Lego Super Mario set is broken down into two parts, the first being the Mario figure, the second being the pieces and that is an important distinction, because without the Mario figure, the rest of the Lego is just that, other Lego, but Mario needs the Lego to work. Let’s talk about the Mario figure first though, in a smart decision, they went ahead and did a colour sensor for him, meaning that he reads colours and if you put him on any red Lego, he will react as if you put him in lava, so that Lightning McQueen Duplo car works just as well as Spider-man’s car. The colour sensor also uses less power than a RFID reader, which is something I saw most people thinking it would be, so it also means better battery life. Though it is a weird choice for Mario to need actual batteries, rather than being rechargeable, given the space available, a decision for each could have been made.

The figure itself is actually packed with a host of little features that make it something special, the front of him is of course the standout as it contains the screen, which help provide feedback when playing without the app. The screen, and it is one big screen, is divided by the Lego shell, giving you a sense of four smaller screens and while you can see between them if you get the angle right, the dividing sectors are good enough that they hide it from normal view. The two main screens you will look at, are the eyes (which are technically two) and the one on the overalls, the eyes show things like Mario being dizzy or dead, where as the screen on the overalls will show when you get coins, land on new terrain and such. You can enjoy playing with the figure without the app, but the app is required for other things, more on that in a bit, if you choose to play sans app, then the little speaker will help you identify things as well, stomping on enemies, collecting coins and that all important music.

As I said, the app is required, not for playing, but for building as none of the Lego sets come with paper instruction manuals, they are all done digitally. While I grew up with the paper ones, so I have a connection there, the digital ones are far better, given you can rotate the pieces to see all angles, making sure you have the piece exactly where it needs to be. If you are not building and choose to use the app, it can actually record your scores, so for the level you have built, you can upload a photo of it and then challenge others to get more coins than you, should you want to. It also acts as a collection library, showing what you have and what is missing, if you are someone who aims to get them all. As mentioned before, the app is also used for sharing designs of courses, or downloading layouts that other people have made, so there is extra value in opening it up.

Now though, we have to talk about the Lego itself, because there are some issues with it, specifically around the lack of Mario interactive elements. As mentioned earlier, you can use random Lego from your collection you have had since mid-90’s or at any point in your life, to expand out the courses, this can be by creating larger amounts of things to jump over, or obstacles to clear, there is really no restriction. Due to the sensors within the Mario figure, he understands when you make him jump or walk, so you can still earn coins, but as enemies and item blocks require special blocks, that contain specialised barcodes, which are made from strips of colour to register. This is where things break, as included in the Starter Kit, which you have to get before anything else, you only get seven interactive elements and two of those are the start and end pieces. In terms of enemies, you get two, a Goomba and Bowser Jr, two movement pieces and one question block, essentially turning World 1-1 into a level with one enemy at the start and then a bland run to the end.

In order for your stage to fill out more, you either have to buy additional kits, which in turn gives you more elements, but still keeps the number of specialised elements down. While being able to use any green pieces to make a course for Mario to run along is fine, having there be nothing on that path, without spending more money is not and this is the problem that you are getting into, if you want one, you have to buy at least one more.

As someone who is well passed the age of messing around with Lego, I had some younger members of my family play with the Mario figure and they loved it. They had fun re-arranging the pieces to create new paths, then they would run the figure through and try to get the most coins, even putting together a few of the blind bags was fun for them. Building the larger sets proved a bit of a challenge, but they still had smiles on their face, the problem with all of it though, is that I don’t think Mario had much to do with it and more that they were playing with Lego. Even once done, taking the figure and running it through their newly constructed course, provided smiles, but they soon wanted to build something else.

There is no denying the amazing tech that is the Lego Mario figure, batteries being required aside, but I just wish there were more he could interact with included in each pack. Having toad houses or Bowser’s castle is great, but the figure should make music or noises to indicate they are on each and it doesn’t and while they might fix that with an update, but the currently limited options make it a hard sell. Given the number of sets already, you could easily see more being made available and with feedback they might increase the number of interactive tiles, but for now, either die hard Nintendo fans or people that just want what is new are going to be the ones going wahoo for this.